by Jillian Hart
A muscle twitched in his tensed jaw. It worried her. “I can catch a ride back with one of my sisters. I don’t want you to be hurt by too many memories here.”
“That’s not it. Not solely.” The tendons in his neck tightened. When he turned his focus on her, he could have been a stranger. His defenses had gone up and the shields around his heart. “I’m sorry about the kiss. I shouldn’t have done it. I had no business—”
He fell silent, and in that silence shock washed through her like ice water. Had she heard him right? “You’re sorry that you kissed me. You’re sorry.”
“You have no idea how much.” William looked tortured. “It’s my fault. I was overwhelmed, and I don’t know what came over me.”
He didn’t know what had come over him? He didn’t want to kiss her? Aubrey took a step back, too shocked to react or feel. One thing came through the shock clearly. He didn’t love her. All this time, when she’d been falling in love with him, he had not been falling in love with her.
The first swipe of pain sliced through her heart.
He kept talking. “This is one thing you probably won’t understand. What I did wasn’t sensible. It wasn’t planned out. I just wasn’t prepared for how much your friendship means to me. How can we be friends after this?”
Friends. There was that word again. The one that slit open her unsuspecting heart like a serrated knife. The one word that she’d never known could hurt so much.
“I know this isn’t the time or place to discuss this.” He winced. He was clearly hurting, too. “But I can’t let this go on. I’ll wait for you outside. I’ll take you home when you’re ready. You should be with your family right now.”
“Yes, sure.” Too numb to move a muscle, she stood there, probably looking as foolish as her heart had been. She’d known all along that William wanted friendship. He apparently hadn’t guessed her true feelings, which was a saving grace. She didn’t want him to figure it out now. She gulped in air and took a shaky breath. “I think you should go home, William. I’ll probably be here a long time, and I don’t want you to wait. Not when it’s in the high nineties outside.”
“But I—”
“Goodbye, William.”
For the first time in her life she didn’t feel sensible. She pressed a hand over her heart, amazed that a part of her could hurt so much when there was nothing physically wrong.
Before the dam of feelings could break loose and he could see it, she turned on her heels and walked away. Leaving him standing there, alone.
The way he wanted to be.
Chapter Thirteen
The moment she stepped through the hospital’s main doors with Katherine and into the oppressive heat, she knew he was waiting for her. No matter how much she was hurting, her heart seemed to turn toward him like flowers to the sun. She looked and, sure enough, there he was, leaning against a bench in the shade. Waiting to talk about friendship with her.
No thanks. Not right now.
Katherine leaned close to speak low, so her voice wouldn’t carry. “See what a fine man he is? How much he loves you? He’s been waiting in the heat for two hours.”
“Lucky me.” The last thing she wanted to do was face him. But she’d never been a coward. “Kath, why don’t you go on without me.”
“Sure, I understand. William wants to drive you. Don’t forget we’re meeting tonight at the dress shop. The wedding is on for sure.” She was beaming as she moved away and called out hello to William.
William answered back, but he looked unreachable.
She’d lost him for good. She didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that. She’d crossed the line in their friendship; he’d crossed that line for some unknown reason, and now they were left with goodbyes to say. She hated goodbyes.
He paced toward her, giving her the hint of a smile, instead of the full one. Even then, the impact of his half smile made her want to dream. It took all her strength to fight the wish for those dreams and impact of his nearness. But could she stop the love in her heart for him?
No. Even when there was no hope for the kind of relationship she wanted with William, she still loved him. She couldn’t even keep control of her feelings. How sad was that? Since she couldn’t stop her feelings, she had to at least cover them up. Keep things light and on the surface. Friendly. Maybe then this goodbye between them wouldn’t hurt so much. Because she’d already decided. This had to be goodbye.
She would not settle for friendship and secretly hope for him to change his mind. This was a good theory, but in practice, she couldn’t pretend. It was one thing when she hoped he might feel this way, too. But another when kissing her had filled him with regret. He saw it as something to apologize for.
It had been her first kiss. A disastrous first kiss.
Remember, keep it friendly, Aubrey. No matter how tough that is to do.
The sun was in her eyes when they met in the middle of the lush green lawn fronting the hospital. William towered above her, silhouetted against the sky in all his broad-shouldered glory like a legend of old. She stood in his shadow and felt plain and very sensible. “You didn’t have to stay, William.”
“I had to. I feel terrible. Your friendship is the best blessing—the only blessing—I’ve had in a long while. And I just messed it up. I have to know if you can forgive me. If we can go back to things being the way they were.”
Oh, if only it were possible. She knew it wasn’t because right here and now, standing in his presence, there was only turmoil and an unsettled feeling of hurt inside that she could not still or quiet by force or willpower. There was no longer the peaceful, safe harbor they’d found together.
No, this raw-edged ache in her heart came from being with him. This had gone well beyond simple friendship for her, and she could not turn back the clock or change the truth in her heart. It hurt too much. She knew it always would.
She steadied her voice before she answered him. “Now it’s my turn to be sorry. No, I don’t think we can go back to the way things were between us.”
“Maybe if we give it a little time?”
“I wish it were that simple.”
“Me, too.” William hung his head. He knew she was right, but he’d been hoping there was a way to salvage things. Neither of them had moved a hairbreadth closer, but he was intensely aware of her. How could he not notice the cute slope of her perfect nose? Or the porcelain-fine cut of her dear face? How she moved his spirit without saying a word?
He didn’t want to be moved by her. He wanted to be Mount Everest, remote and cold and unreachable. But despair moved through him, pulling at him like a lead weight, taking him down, keeping him under. Like a drowning man, he gulped for air, but there was none. The brightness faded from the day, the light from the sky.
This was over, just like that? He squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to look at her. So she would stop having this overwhelming, unstoppable effect on him.
Be strong, William. Whatever happened, he had to keep distance between them. He had to stop his heart from this terrible thaw. He could walk away now and save himself more pain. So, why did his feet refuse to move?
“If you ever change your mind, or think you can forgive me,” he found himself saying. “If you miss the company of having a riding companion—”
“I know what you’re saying, and I won’t change my mind. This is goodbye, William.”
Don’t go, he wanted to say. He needed her friendship. He needed—he didn’t know what he needed or why he felt the way he did. And to tell her all of this would be too honest. Make him too vulnerable. He wanted to be glacier cold, but instead he was as warm as the sun-baked earth.
Good going, William. If he kept going like this, he was going to lose all control completely. Every last shield would be down, and then where would he be?
“I’m sure Danielle and Jonas will be in touch,” she said as she moved away. “Don’t forget the auction next Saturday.”
“Will you be there?”
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br /> “No.” She’d be helping with the paperwork before and after, but the gallery owner would handle the actual bidding. But explaining all that was more than she wanted to say to William. More than she could say.
What she had to do was to keep her dignity, to hold it all inside. She steeled her spine and tried to make her face as placid as possible, so that William had no hint of how she really felt. No hint at what was truly inside.
Tucking away her hopes, she gathered enough courage to do the right thing—walk away. After all, she’d known from the start that he wasn’t looking for love. He probably never would be.
Walking away was the hardest thing she’d ever done. She was leaving forever the only man she’d ever loved. With every step across the grass she felt it more. The crash of those new, shining wishes for true love. The shatter of those dreams of loving William through a lifetime. Forever gone.
She could feel his gaze on her back as surely as the relentless beat of the sun, but the connection she’d felt with him, or maybe the tie she imagined, was no longer there. The sidewalk blurred ahead of her. She walked faster. The sooner she left William behind, the better. She didn’t want him to ever guess how far she’d fallen for him. She never wanted him to know about the tears running down her cheeks, the first wave of the heartbreak to come.
She broke into an all-out run the instant she was in the parking garage, hoping to be in the privacy of Dorrie’s car before the first sobs broke.
By the time William made it home, the sun was low in the sky, shining down on the proud profile of the Rockies, painting them luminescent rose and purple. The color streaked like tracer missiles across the sky. He escaped the echoing emptiness of his house, but the painful lonesomeness of it followed him out onto the back step and also, regretfully, Aubrey’s words. Aubrey’s pain. No, I don’t think we can go back to the way things were between us. I wish it were that simple.
He scrubbed his face with his hands, unable to escape the image of her looking so forlorn, her face schooled to hide her emotions, unaware that it did no good. To him, she was as transparent as glass. He’d learned to read the subtle changes in her eyes and face, revealing her heart.
It hurt too much. All he could see was her hesitating before she ran away. Waiting for him to call her back. To say what she wanted to hear. To be what she needed him to be. To say the words he could not allow into his mind, his heart or his soul.
I cannot love her. Even as he willed the words to be true, he knew that they weren’t. He’d done everything he could, raised every shield and used his every defense so this wouldn’t happen. So he wouldn’t be here right now feeling as if he’d had his chest ripped open, bleeding from the inside out. But what good did it do?
He could hold on to that truth as hard as he wanted to, but it would make no difference. It would not make the pain inside him go away. It would not make the raw, open spaces in his heart close up and heal.
Because it was no longer the truth. The one thing he’d held on to so tightly with all his white-knuckled strength had become a falsehood and, even knowing that, he could not let go of it. Could not face what the truth had become.
He did love her. What could he do about that? He could sit here and try to hold back and change the tides of his heart.
Or he could simply wait and over time, these strong feelings for her would fade into nothing at all.
I will not love her.
He held on to that wish with all his inner strength and steely willpower. Although he feared it would do no good. He suspected that it was too late.
It had been a tough afternoon to get through, but she’d done it. She had her car back, her calm back and if her heart was still in a million pieces, nobody had to know. Aubrey pulled her sensible beige Toyota into the bridal shop’s parking lot and recognized most of the parked cars—most of the family had beaten her here. Ava was just climbing out of her SUV.
“Hey, Aub? Are you okay?”
Aubrey startled. Her brain was foggy, but apparently she wasn’t hiding her heartbreak well enough. Some things were too private to share. At least, right now. She shut her car door and studied her twin, who had strawberry icing streaked across the front of her bright yellow T-shirt. “Yeah, I’ll survive.”
“You don’t look like it.”
“It’s been a long day.” It was her story and she was sticking to it. She followed her twin toward the shop’s front door. Everything felt like a mess—mind, body and soul. She gulped in a breath of hot, dry July air.
Pull it together, Aubrey. Somehow, she had to act as if nothing had happened, and how impossible was that? She wasn’t all right. With so much of her heart missing, how could she ever be okay again?
But finally, there was so much to celebrate—and without worry or tragedy. This was Katherine’s final fitting for her wedding. There was so much to look forward to. Their grandmother’s upcoming visit. Ava’s engagement. Jonas’s improvement. So much to be grateful for. She would concentrate on that.
Sounded like a good plan, right? Aubrey felt a crack of pain in her soul and she sealed up her feelings. Somehow, she had to put on a smile for her family. For herself. For her dignity.
Katherine must have seen them coming because she opened the door. She looked radiant; how could she not be? She’d found the love of her life. No one deserved a good man the way Katherine did.
“Ava, you’re hardly late. This is like a major miracle. A once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.” Katherine held the door wider.
“A total shocker,” Aubrey found herself saying, as if the day hadn’t happened. As if she had a whole heart beating within her chest.
Ava sparkled as she marched to the front door of the wedding boutique. “Hey, it’s not as if I’m never on time.”
“Just almost never on time,” Katherine teased. She looked beautiful, as always, in a navy knit summer top and tasteful navy shorts. Her matching flats didn’t seem to actually touch the ground. She looked so happy she seemed to float.
“Ooh, look at that dress!” Ava was immediately distracted by a shop crammed full of wedding gowns. “How am I ever going to decide for my wedding? This is torture. Who knew getting married was so agonizing? Which dress? Which bridesmaids’ dresses? Where, when, how, and then trying to fit everything on my poor credit card.”
Aubrey hung back, letting the door close behind her, trying to put her plan in place. She swallowed hard. Just because she was surrounded by beautiful, exquisite wedding dresses simply waiting to be worn, she didn’t have to be reminded that she’d dared to secretly pick out her own gown long ago.
It was still there, a princess-style satin with hand-sewn pearls. She’d never dared to let herself think of wearing it before. She’d fallen in love with it long before she’d ever met William. But now, she realized it was one of those secret dreams she’d never let herself actually picture. But it was there, still, in the pieces of her heart.
Don’t think about what you lost, Aubrey.
She turned her back on the dress. On the dream. On the wish. If only she could turn her back and deny how much she’d loved him. Still hopelessly loved him.
“This way, girls!” Dorrie squeezed between rows of white satin and tulle and popped into sight. “The dresses are laid out and ready. My, they’re so beautiful. Aubrey, dear, are you all right?”
She suspected her stepmom had figured things out. She swallowed hard as Dorrie headed straight for her with that penetrating, motherly radar. There was no way she could hold it together if everyone knew. No, these feelings had to stay hidden for now, even if she felt so alone, without her sisters’ comfort.
Aubrey forced what she hoped was a smile on her face. “I can’t wait to try on my bridesmaid’s dress.”
“Aubrey’s just had another date with William,” Ava volunteered, looking even happier. “So you know she’s got to be happy. William likes her.”
Those words were like a knife twisting in her heart. Aubrey gasped from the pain. “N-no. You have that wr
ong. We’re not a couple.”
“Yet.” Ava piped in. “You’re just in the denial stage. I know. I was there a long time.”
“I’m not in denial.”
“Ha! That sounds like denial to me.” Ava grinned. “What do you think, Katherine?”
“I think it’s official.”
How did she make them understand? “Oh no, you have it all wrong.”
“Oh, sure we do.” Ava wasn’t believing a word of it.
“He’s such a nice man.” Katherine smiled her approval. “See? What did I tell you? Good things happen to good people.”
She couldn’t take it anymore. Aubrey opened her mouth to tell them the truth, but all her pain stuck in the middle of her throat. Only a squeak came out. How did she get them to change the subject? It was killing her to hear his name and to stand in this shop with happiness and the promise of wishes coming true all around her. Her heart cracked all the way down to her soul.
“You girls, look what you’ve done.” Dorrie’s scolding was loving and sympathetic as she took Aubrey by the shoulder. “Poor Aubrey is speechless. Come along and let’s get these dresses on. Where is Rebecca? Is that her, driving up?”
Aubrey didn’t think she’d ever been so grateful for her stepmom. Somehow, she managed to head toward the back where the dressing rooms were. She heard Ava call out, “No, that’s not Becca. It’s the teenager.”
“How’s she working out at the bakery?” Dorrie asked Ava as Aubrey ducked behind a long rack of exquisite silk dresses.
“Great,” Ava said.
Aubrey spotted a chair and plopped into it. She smiled at the store worker who was prepping the changing rooms with bridesmaid’s dresses in varying tones of soft pinks.
She’d never felt so alone.
Chapter Fourteen
Aubrey couldn’t remember such a bleak night. Of course, her mood might have something to do with it. She’d successfully got through the dress fitting intact. Now, she had one more errand and then she could call her day done. The first thing she was going to do was head home to her apartment, draw a bath and try to soothe away all this horrible grief. Somehow she had to figure out a way to put herself back together. Who knew love—and losing it—could hurt so much?