CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HAYLEY HAD JUST settled back onto her couch for more quality sitting and weeping when she heard a knock at her door.
She stood up, brushing potato chip crumbs off her pajamas and grimacing. Maybe it was Cassie, bringing up baked goods. The other woman had done that earlier; maybe now she was bringing more. Hayley could only hope.
She had a gaping wound in her chest that could be only temporarily soothed by butter.
Without bothering to fix her hair—which was on top of her head in a messy knot—she jerked the door open.
And there he was. Dark eyes glittering, gorgeous mouth pressed into a thin line. His dark hair tied back low on his neck, the way she was accustomed to seeing him during the day.
Her heart lurched up into her throat, trying to make a break for it.
She hadn’t been expecting him, but she imagined expecting him wouldn’t have helped. Jonathan Bear wasn’t someone you could anticipate.
“What are you doing here?”
He looked around. “I came here to talk to you. Were you...expecting someone else?”
“Yes. A French male prostitute.” He lifted his brows. “Well, you told me to find another man to tick my boxes.”
“I think you mean a gigolo.”
“I don’t know what they’re called,” she said, exasperated.
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Well, I promise to be quick. I won’t interrupt your sex date.”
She stepped to the side, ignoring the way her whole body hurt as she did. “I don’t have a sex date.” She cleared her throat. “Just so you know.”
“Somehow, I didn’t think you did.”
“You don’t know me,” she grumbled, turning away from him, pressing her hand to her chest to see if her heart was beating as hard and fast as she felt like it was.
It was.
“I do, Hayley. I know you pretty damn well. Maybe better than I know myself. And...I think you might know me better than I know myself, too.” He sounded different. Sad. Tired.
She turned around to face him, and with his expression more fully illuminated by the light, she saw weariness written there. Exhaustion.
“For all the good it did me,” she said, crossing her arms tightly in a bid to protect herself. Really, though, it was too late. There wasn’t anything left to protect. He had shattered her irrevocably.
“Yeah, well. It did me a hell of a lot of good. At least, I hope it’s going to. I hope I’m not too late.”
“Too late for what? To stick the knife in again or...?”
“To tell you I love you,” he said.
Everything froze inside her. Absolutely everything. The air in her lungs, her heart, the blood in her veins.
“You...you just said... Don’t tease me, Jonathan. Don’t play with me. I know I’m younger than you. I know that I’m innocent. But if you came back here to lie to me, to say what you think I need to hear so you can...keep having me in your bed, or whatever—”
Suddenly, she found herself being hauled forward into his arms, against his chest. “I do want you in my bed,” he said, “make no mistake about that. But sex is just sex, Hayley, even when it’s good. And what we have is good.
“But here’s something you don’t know, because you don’t have experience with it. Sex isn’t love. And it doesn’t feel like this. I feel...like everything in me is broken and stronger at the same time, and I don’t know how in the hell that can be true. And when you told me you loved me... I knew I could either let go of everything in the past or hold on to it harder to protect myself.” He shook his head. “I protected myself.”
“Yeah, well. What about protecting me?”
“I thought maybe I was protecting you, too. But it’s all tangled up in this big lie that I’ve been telling myself for years. I told you I didn’t love people, that I love things. But I said that only because I’ve had way too much experience with people I love leaving. A house can’t walk away, Hayley. A mountain can’t up and abandon you. But you could.
“One day, you could wake up and regret that you tied your future to me. When you could have done better... When you could have had a man who wasn’t so damn broken.” He cupped her cheek, bent down and kissed her lips. “What did I do to earn the love of someone like you? Someone so beautiful...so soft. You’re everything I’m not, Hayley Thompson, and all the reasons I love you make perfect sense to me. But why do you love me? That’s what I can’t quite figure out.”
Hayley looked into his eyes, so full of pain, so deeply wounded. She would have never thought a man like him would need reassurance from anyone, least of all a woman like her.
“I know I don’t have a lot of experience, Jonathan. Well, any experience apart from you. I know that I haven’t seen the whole world. I haven’t even seen the whole state. But I’ve seen your heart. The kind of man you are. The change that knowing you, loving you, created in me. And I know...perfect love casts out all fear.
“I can’t say I haven’t been afraid these past couple of days. Afraid I couldn’t be with you. That things might not work out with us. But when I stood on Main Street... I knew fear couldn’t be allowed to win. It was your love that brought me to that conclusion. Your love was bigger than the fear inside me. I don’t need experience to understand that. I don’t need to travel the world or date other men for the sake of experience. I need you. Because whether or not you’re perfect, you’re perfect for me.”
“You’re perfect,” he said, his voice rough. “So damned perfect. I want...to take you to Canada.”
She blinked. “Well. That’s not exactly an offer to run off to Vegas.”
“You want to use your passport. Why wait? Let’s go now. Your boss will let you off. I’m sure of it.”
Something giddy bubbled up in her chest. Something wonderful. “Right now? Really?”
“Right the hell now.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, let’s go to Canada.”
“It’s not the Eiffel Tower,” he said, “but I will take you there someday. I promise you that.”
“The only thing I need is you,” she said. “The rest is negotiable.”
His lips crashed down on hers, his kiss desperate and intense, saying the deep, poetic things she doubted her stoic cowboy would ever say out loud. But that was okay. The kiss said plenty all on its own.