Chapter Twenty-Three
His ears rang.
Blood pounded in his head.
This wasn’t possible. There was no way she could have just said that.
Those were words he’d never heard before. They were words he didn’t want to hear. They didn’t fit his plan. They didn’t adhere to the rules he lived by. They threw him out of whack, like a washing machine tossed into an unbalanced spin cycle.
Up was down. Left was right. The room spun wildly out of control.
He said the first words that came to his head. “You don’t mean that.”
She narrowed her eyes and shot him a strange look. “I do mean it. Why else would I say it? Do you think I just go around saying things I don’t mean?”
He shook his head, and his skull felt heavy, like there was water in his brain, slogging around. The melody from the pop song played in the background. He barely even recognized it as the tune they’d been dancing to seconds ago. The words seemed to be sung from a distant planet.
Hell, he felt like he was on Jupiter right now. Nothing made sense. From the way his heart had jumped around in his chest when he first saw her tonight, to how much he’d enjoyed the simple and easy way they’d spent their evenings—cooking and talking and christening new surfaces in and out of their homes—even to how he’d felt in her bed the other night. None of those made a lick of sense either.
But maybe… Were they part and parcel of why she thought she was in love with him? Were all those topsy-turvy, kaleidoscopic feelings that knotted up his chest some sort of sign that he’d fallen, too?
No.
No way.
He dismissed the ridiculous notion of love as quickly as it had arrived. If he put stock in such crazy ideas, he’d be in big trouble. Especially because his stupid heart was trying to talk him out of what he was about to say.
But this wasn’t a moment for the heart. The head had to stay in control.
“No, I just didn’t think that’s what this was about,” he said softly, gesturing from her to him and back. As if reminding her of the deal could erase what she’d just said. “You didn’t want anything more from me. You made it clear that day in the park that I could never be the man for you. Hell, you said it at my house too when you proposed this whole dog training and sex idea. I thought we were supposed to stick to the plan.”
She breathed in hard, as if she were trying to suck in all the air through a straw. “You’re right. That’s what we planned. But things changed for me. I thought they changed for you, too?”
They had. Oh hell, they had. But he couldn’t let himself be guided by something as risky as emotions. Emotions were dangerous. Especially since they were already affecting her.
Her voice rose at the end of her question, quavering, and he fought every instinct to gather her in his arms and comfort her. He wouldn’t give in, though, because he had to make her see where she’d gone off track. She might think she’d be content kicking their fling up a notch or two. But her happiness with that kind of relationship would soon fade. This woman deserved the world. She deserved a man who could truly give her all her dreams, not merely satisfy her compromises.
“Sure, things changed, but Cara, you deserve more than a guy like me. You might think you’re in love, but—” he stopped to gesture wildly to the scene around them—all the dancing and the drinking and the laughing. “You’re just saying that because of the wedding, because the sex is great, because you had a glass of champagne.”
“Oh. Is that it?” she asked, her voice hard now.
“Of course. Weddings do that to people. They work their voodoo magic, their smoke and mirrors,” he said, layering on reason on top of reason to prove his point, to protect her from this risk she wanted to take. Hell, she reminded him of Hunter now, swinging for the fences, falling in love with the pot, not the hand. He had to treat her the same way as a client going off the deep end. He didn’t let Hunter deviate from the roadmap; he had to protect Cara from too many emotions, too. He would not let the strange, funny, foreign things he’d been feeling when he was with her derail him. He’d had a plan since he was a kid. He’d seen how love and the loss of it could tunnel a hole in a family. He’d spent the last twenty years since his father’s death learning how to manage risks, studying, analyzing, and figuring out precisely when, how, and where to take them and how to avoid them. Nowhere in that plan was there room for a woman falling in love with him, and certainly there wasn’t room for him falling in love with her either.
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re saying I feel this way because of a wedding?”
He swallowed dryly. He hated to say the next words, but he had to do this for her sake. She was better off not being in love with a man who couldn’t return the sentiment. Regret washed over him, but he knew that as hard as these words were to say, he had to give voice to them. He had to let her go so she could have the life she craved. That life was not ever going to be with him. “We were just having a good time. We had a good time tonight, and on Miner’s Road, and here at the reception. The whole thing. It was a good time.”
“Yeah. A good time,” she said, repeating him, but the words came out like a bite and he practically felt the teeth marks in his skin. She stepped away from him and crossed her arms. “You’re right, Travis. It’s just the champagne, it’s just the sex, it’s just the wedding. It couldn’t possibly be anything else. Because I couldn’t possibly fall in love with someone who would belittle my feelings like you just did. I hope you have a good night now. Excuse me. I’m going to the ladies room.”
She turned on her heel and cut through the sea of friends and family dancing with each other, old couples swaying to the music, young couples rocking it out, Smith and Jamie laughing and kissing, the gray-haired woman who owned the coffee shop shaking her hips with her equally-silver-haired husband, even his fellow firefighter Jackson dancing with the town’s librarian, Kelly. Everyone was together, and he wasn’t even truly here.
He could barely figure out how to move his feet, how to take a step, what to do next.
All he knew was that risks like this didn’t add up. They didn’t pan out.
Even though the evidence all around on the dance floor proved the opposite. But he put on his blinders, not wanting to see what was in front of him.
A few minutes later, he headed out of the reception room, across the hallway, and to the ladies’ room door. The least he could do was apologize for making her feel so bad. He said her name softly. He didn’t hear anything. He pushed open the door. “Cara?”
But her name simply echoed across the tiles. He looked down, to see if he could spot her shoes underneath the stalls. No one was there.
He turned around and nearly bumped into Becker, who’d just come in from outside. “Have you seen Cara?”
Becker nodded, and his eyes looked sad. Wait. That was wrong. It wasn’t sadness Travis saw in them. It was disappointment.
He’d seen it from his mentor, from his mother, and even from his dad when he was younger and had messed up. “She’s leaving,” Becker said, pointing his thumb to the door. “We just put her in the limo and the driver is going to take her home.”
Something in his heart cratered, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
Then he took off for the door, pushed it open, and ran across the gravel in hot pursuit of the limo. The sleek black car was trudging slowly across the lot. He caught up in seconds; his volunteer gig as a fireman had its perks—a quick burst of speed. He banged on the black tinted window several times.
The car stopped, and he breathed out heavily. Then, the window lowered, but as it did, he realized he had no fucking clue what to say.
Cara’s face appeared in the open window. Her lips were a tight line, but her blue eyes couldn’t hide the hope she must be feeling.
The way he’d felt inside the reception was nothing compared to the complete and utter awareness of what an asshole he was about to be.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered.
She shook her head. “Good-bye, Travis,” she said, and raised the window.