Maizy the Bear Charmer(Diving Creek Ranch 16)(94)

Cody slid off the table and tugged at her hand. “Come on, baby. Let us show you the lake view road. It’s pretty at sunset.” While he held her hand, he pressed his lips to the top of it. Instead of smiling, she looked ready to burst into tears.

She swallowed audibly as she climbed down from the table and let them draw her back to the bikes. After fixing her hair herself, she got on the bike behind Spencer and gave him a thumbs-up once her helmet was on. The ride was beautiful, the glorious colors of sunset reflected on the water in rays of pink, orange, and red.

They stopped in a little hole-in-the-wall town and ate at a lakeside restaurant that had a Friday night fish fry during the summer months. They sat off to the side at a secluded table and she fed them bites of catfish from her fingers and giggled when they kissed her fingertips.

Despite the sweetness of the moment, the pain was awful. He couldn’t see any way around it and saw no way to make it easier on her.

They’d just reached the bikes in a corner of the parking lot when she said, “Tell me what’s going through your mind, Cody.” She put her hands on his cheeks and gazed at him. He could see the anxiety in her eyes and feel it in her trembling hands. “Tell me.”

Heath and Spencer drew near, closing her in with their bodies, and Cody said, “We won’t make you choose between the career that you were born to have, and us. It’s not fair to you.”

She sat up and looked up at him pleadingly. Shock was clear in her eyes as it dawned on her what he was saying. He knew then she’d been ready to sacrifice the job she loved in order to be with them. “No. No, no, no. Please, Cody. Don’t—” Tears overflowed her eyes and his heart felt like it was pumping battery acid. “We don’t know what will happen. This could all work out.”

Cody shook his head. “No, baby. If we continue, we’d be sneaking around, trying to protect you, worrying all the time, and probably wind up getting caught anyway. It’s better that we end it before we’re in too deep.”

“It’s already too late for that, Cody. I love you,” she whispered in a husky voice, chin trembling and big tears rolling down her cheeks as she looked up at him. He nearly broke and gave in. The sight of the woman he loved in pain made him feel powerless and out of control. It was the worst sensation he’d ever experienced.

Heath stroked her arms and drew her attention to him. He wasn’t doing much better, judging by the way his jaw was clenching and his pained stare. “Baby, don’t. Can’t you see how hard this is for Cody, for us? We never should’ve pursued you once we found out you were a kindergarten teacher. This is all our fault.”

“No. It’s their fault,” she said, obviously referring to the powers that be at her school. She looked from one to the other of them and then slumped against Cody. It was impossible to not hold her as she quietly cried. “And it’s my fault. I never should’ve let you hold me, or kiss me, or make love to me. I’m addicted to you…all of you. I had illusions all week that somehow it’d work out…but it can’t, can it?”

“I wish it could, angel,” he said as he squeezed her, his heart aching at the way she trembled. “We should take you home now.”

She nodded and went to Spencer’s bike like an automaton. This time Heath just lifted her onto the bike and then helped her with her hair and the helmet while she sat mutely, defeated.

Cody hated feeling like a cruel bastard. Heath and Spencer had followed his lead since they were kids. He almost wished they’d fight him on this but even they knew it was wrong to expect her to sacrifice her job for them. He should’ve known there was no way to avoid it. The pain she felt was his fault. The pain his brothers felt was his fault, too.

The drive home in the dark was agonizing. Occasionally, he watched Maizy and Spencer, noting how tightly she clung to him, as if she was hanging off a ledge. He wracked his brain trying to think of ways around the issue, even considered contacting Ace Webster and Kemp Whittier for their help. They might be able to find some leverage. But every possible solution he could think of also had the possibility of backfiring. He wondered at the source of the information Maizy’s father and Mrs. Dumphrey had received that had precipitated those confrontations.

Instead of the usual relaxation that a bike ride gave him, he felt tense and his chest ached as they arrived at home again. They hadn’t even had a chance to show her the deck that was nearly finished. Maybe that was for the best. The house was going to seem awfully quiet and empty without her.

She picked up her purse when she walked in the house and turned to the door, but not before he saw her bloodshot eyes and the tearstains on her cheeks. Her rosy lips and nose were a little swollen, too. “I think I’d better go.” She slowly looked around the house, and then at the three of them, and her eyes pooled with tears again.