It was daft for his heart to climb into his throat at the sight of Mia sitting on her luggage to zip the baggage closed. They were back at the cabin for the very purpose of getting all their belongings out before Victoria and Callan came in. They'd cleaned, he'd put things back exactly where he'd found them. He didn't have much to pack away. Most of his things were in his brother's flat. He didn't want to get them. The reason was even more pitiful than the lump in his throat. If he took her to London, she'd move on. She couldn't move on if he didn't take her.

Fucking daft. Mia could catch the train or take the tips she'd made from the Baird and book an airline ticket. If she wanted to leave, there would be no stopping her.

He leaned against the door jamb. She bounced on the bag and pulled the zipper fast.

“Did you forget anything?” he asked.

“Actually, no. The problem is all the things I've bought. It's souvenir city in this thing. I'd pull things out to ship them home, but now I'm determined to get the bag closed.”

He wanted to laugh, but he was still trying to figure out how to ask Mia to uproot her life based on a whirlwind affair. Asking bordered on daft. Hadn't she told him men seemed incredible when she dropped in on their lives until she stayed and the fantasy crumbled? He wanted to believe he was different, they were different together.

His gaze fixed on the luggage, and he hoped it never zipped. No, he prayed the zipper broke. They'd go back to his place as planned and eventually...

With thoughts like that he was indeed turning into a fucking Jessie.

He crooked his finger urging her to come to him. The tension lessened in his shoulders when she did. He closed his arms around her, leaving not an inch between them. Kincaid bent his head to just hold his mouth along hers for a moment before kissing her.

When he finally pulled away, he rested his forehead on hers. “Am I cooking supper, or are you?”

He watched as her gaze filled with a silent question. She could point out the elephant or they could ignore it until he was taking her to a train or a plane.

Then what? He’d be someone she’d drop in on if she found herself in his neck of the woods. He'd be a fucking traveling companion. He couldn't survive in the silence, the doubts, the unanswered questions, not after they'd spent the day before sexing up every corner of his new home.

He loosened his hold and said the words that were burning a hole in his gut. “Mia, stay.”

Pain flashed in her eyes. “’Caid.”

Fuck. Fuck. “Don’t.” He closed his eyes, his arms dropping from around her. “Don’t call me that right before you kick me in the teeth.”

“You’re asking me something really big right now.”

He'd known better and still the words had left his mouth. Some part of him had hoped her answer would be yes. She must have felt the shift between them. For weeks they'd lived in each other's skin. “Is this no?” Those words wrenched something inside him. “You don’t need a reason. Your no is good enough.”

“It’s too soon,” she whispered. “You have to know that.”

He tilted his head back but opened his eyes to meet her gaze. “What I know is I told myself I was fighting for my country for many years, but that’s a faceless ideal. It’s noble, in the scheme of things. Yet the men fighting at my side had family. They were fighting for Joseph, Eileen, Rory. Wife, mother, son. I had everyone and no one, because I ran the first chance I could get away, because I didn’t want to be responsible for individuals anymore. The weight was too great.”

“And me?”

“You...” He was losing her. Or maybe he'd never had her. What a fucking way to find out, but it wouldn't change the truth. “I can’t love you until I know if you're running from me or to me. I won’t do that, lass. I won’t play second fiddle to an ideal. That’s pride. I’m not sorry for it. I learned that in the desert. Either you’re living or pretending. I’m done pretending to not care about the people around me. I want my life messy, unpredictable. I want to fight for that.”

“My staying does what? What happens if things don’t work out? I won’t have a home to go back to lick my wounds.”

She should have just kicked him in the balls. “Why are you already counting us out?”

“Because it’s the truth, Kincaid. We may not make it.” Her voice wavered when she yelled, “Then what?”

“Then we lived,” he yelled back and pulled away. “We loved with our all. We didn’t take a moment of our life for granted. Isn’t that what you believe, or is it all bollocks?”

She turned away from him. The sour pit in his gut wanted to call her a fraud. Still her silence dug in, leaving parts of him hollow again.

“Do you want me to go?” her voice low again.

Digging her fingers into his chest and ripping out his heart would have hurt less. “What I want...” He swallowed, and...fuck it. Just fuck it. She was leaving him no matter what he said. “I want you here, beside me. In my bed. In my heart. I’ve been scared to say the last because I know you’d jump on the first plane—fuck, camel if you could find one. But it’s not about what I want. Never has been. You want to go, lass, that's the fucked-up part about it all. So, leave, like you want.”

He could see the moment she accepted this as the end between them. Her first thought wasn’t to argue or to kiss him quiet. Mia just sucked in air and backed away until she could plot down on her luggage. Proving him right.

They sat in that morass of unspoken words until she murmured, “I should go.”

He huffed and the sound was filled with disappointment. “Aye, right. Do you want a ride?”

“'Caid—”

“You don't get to call me that anymore. Now...do you want a ride?”

It was stubborn pride that allowed him to accept her head shake as answer enough. Fucking anger that forced him to push away from the door jamb and walk out of the front door. Hope that the ache in his chest would lessen as he started the car and drove away from her.

It didn't.