Her Cowboy Distraction(34)

He nodded, his eyes holding no emotion at all. "Then I guess I'll walk you out."

They said nothing as they reached the front door, where he picked up her  two suitcases as she carried her purse and her cosmetic bag out of the  house.

When they reached her car she popped the trunk lid, placed the two  suitcases and the makeup bag inside and then closed the lid. When he  looked at her again, his eyes brimmed with emotion. Love and sorrow  mingled with despair.

He walked with her to her driver door. "I just want to say one last  thing," he said before she opened the door to slide into the car.

Please don't, her heart begged. She couldn't take anymore. Her heart was  already breaking. She was already torn in half, unsure that the  decision she'd made to go was the right one.

"What's that?" she asked with a weary resignation.

"I love you, Lizzy, and I believe we could have something wonderful here  together. But, even if you decided to stay, I couldn't make promises to  you that we'd never have problems or that I wouldn't sometimes let you  down or disappoint you. Of course, I'd do everything in my power not to  do those things, but I need you to know that I'm not like your father."

He reached out and softly touched her cheek. "I would never be that man  in your life. I would never leave you sitting all alone on a stoop  waiting for me, whether you were my wife or my child."

At that moment his heart was so open, so vulnerable to her, that it was  painful to see and know that she was going to turn her back and run from  Grady Gulch, from him and from love.

Right man, wrong time, she told herself as she murmured a quick, choked  goodbye. Reluctantly he stepped away from her door and she started the  engine.

She pulled away from his house without looking back in her mirror. She  didn't want to catch one last glimpse of him. She didn't want the last  look she had of him to be in her rearview mirror as she drove away from  what he was offering her.

She just wanted to be on the road, footloose and fancy-free as she'd intended when she'd first arrived in Grady Gulch.                       
       
           



       

She emptied her mind, numb as minutes later she drove past the Cowboy  Café and all the people she'd come to love who worked there.

She didn't stop. Her heart couldn't stand another goodbye. She just  wanted to drive with the window down and the breeze blowing every  thought of Grady Gulch and Daniel Jefferson out of her mind.

The numbness lasted until she was about forty miles away from Grady  Gulch, and then the emotions she'd tried so hard to control exploded  wildly. She pulled the car to the side of the road as tears blinded her  vision.

Dropping her head to the steering wheel, she wept because she really  didn't want to go forward, but she was too afraid to go back.

* * *

It had been almost three hours since Lizzy had left, and Daniel's heart  had never felt heavier, the house had never seemed so empty.

He'd done what he could to make her stay. He'd filleted his heart on a  stone before her, but she'd chosen her bucket list over him. There had  been nothing more he could do.

She'd been a temporary gift in his life, an awakening that he'd  desperately needed, and now she was gone and his heartache was almost  unbearable.

But, instead of the weight of guilt and heartache that had kept him  housebound and isolated before Lizzy came to town, he felt the need to  surround himself with people and noise.

He grabbed his hat and car keys and headed for his truck and the Cowboy  Café, where he knew he'd find food and noise and good friends and  neighbors.

As deeply as his heart ached with the loss of Lizzy, he no longer  believed he was a man who was meant to be alone, who deserved to be  alone and miserable.

Eventually he would find his life partner, the soul mate who would help  him fill his big house with children, who would stand beside him through  the hard times and celebrate with him the good ones.

He'd wanted that woman to be Lizzy. He'd believed her to be Lizzy, and  right now he couldn't imagine the woman in his life being anyone else  but Lizzy.

He pulled into the café parking lot. As usual it was a fairly full  house, and he suspected he and Sam and the drama last night with Lizzy  was probably the hottest topic of conversation.

He entered the café, and as he hung his hat on one of the hooks, he  glanced toward the counter. A piercing ache resounded in him as he saw  Mary, not Lizzy, standing there. He made his way to a stool and sat.

"Where's your better half?" Mary asked.

"She left town a couple of hours ago."

"Without saying goodbye?" Mary asked with obvious disappointment.

"I think saying goodbye would have been too hard on her." Daniel heard the hollow ring in his voice.

"I'm so sorry, Daniel," Mary said as if she knew his heartache.

"Yeah, so am I." He drew a deep sigh. "She never lied about her plans.  From the very first she met me, she told me that this was just a  temporary stop along her way. We all just borrowed her for a little  while, but she was never really ours to keep." The words shot another  layer of pain through his heart.

He felt a small edge of relief as the conversation turned to the events  of the night before. It still felt like a strange dream … the cabin and  Sam and Lizzy.

He'd never forget that moment when Sam's knife had pricked the tender  skin on Lizzy's neck and blood had appeared. If he hadn't been afraid of  hitting Lizzy, Daniel would have shot Sam then and there, and he  wouldn't have aimed for his leg.

It would have hurt him, to shoot a man who had been his friend since  childhood, but Adam was right when he'd said that man in the cabin the  night before hadn't been the real Sam. The real Sam had been lost to  grief when his sister died.

The night of that accident, grief and guilt had transformed Daniel into  an isolated, self-punishing man, and apparently that same accident had  turned Sam into a seething monster wanting revenge. As long as Daniel  had remained a miserable soul, the monster had been satisfied. But when  Lizzy had entered Daniel's life and transformed it, Sam's seething need  for revenge, his desire to see Daniel miserable forever, had exploded.

He gave Mary his dinner order and then found himself inundated with  people stopping by his stool to find out all the details of what had  happened the night before and to offer their support.

He realized how much people cared about Lizzy and about him, and he was  reminded once again about the things he loved about Grady Gulch. This  was his home and, even though he knew it would take months before the  loss of Lizzy stopped piercing his heart, at least he had friends and  the Cowboy Café to ease some of that pain.

He was halfway through his meal when he smelled her, that slightly  exotic fragrance that always tightened his muscles with desire. For a  moment he thought he was fantasizing it, that his grief over the loss of  her was playing games with his senses. Then she was there, standing  next to him, that bright, beautiful smile curving her lips. His heart  nearly jumped out of his chest.                       
       
           



       

"Mind if I sit here, cowboy?" she asked as she slid onto the stool next to his.

"Don't mind a bit," he replied and scooted the small plate with a slice of apple pie on it that he had ordered in front of her.

She gasped in surprise. "You were expecting me?"

His heart had accelerated in pace the moment he'd smelled the scent of  her, the moment he'd turned to see her standing next to him. "Not  exactly expecting you. I just couldn't let go of a little bit of hope.  So, tell me, Elizabeth Wiles but everybody calls you Lizzy, how you  happen to be in Grady Gulch eating my piece of apple pie?"

"A funny thing happened on the way to my bucket list." She picked up a  fork and took a bite of the pie and then continued. "I got an hour out  of town, and with each mile that passed I kept thinking about everything  you'd said to me and all that I was leaving behind."

She set the fork down and turned in the stool as he did the same, her  knees coming to stop between his. "You were right about everything,  Daniel. I was afraid. I was willing to climb a mountain all by myself,  to wander the streets of New York City alone, but I was absolutely  terrified to reach out and grab on to the love you offered me."

All the clatter of the diners in the café fell away, all the talking and  noise completely disappeared as Daniel focused solely on the woman in  front of him. At that moment it was as if the two of them were  completely alone. All that mattered was her.

"Anyway, I finally pulled to the side of the road and started to cry."  Those beautiful whiskey-colored eyes of hers held his gaze intently. "I  thought about the bucket list and I thought about you, and then I  thought about my mother and what she would have wanted for me."