Shine Not Burn(70)

He wrapped his arms around me held me in his strong arms. He shuddered several times, breathing heavily in my ear, sounding like an angry bull or a freight train. I let the emotion take me away, hearing only the sounds of his breathing and nothing else. It was comforting. Dangerously alluring.

What seemed like a long time later, when he’d finally stopped moving and my body had stopped betraying me, my cries of passion faded into whimpers and then dissolved into tears.

He took a deep breath and lifted his teeth from my skin, resting his forehead in my neck as he sighed heavily. “I love you,” he said simply, his breath tickling my ear.

My heart spasmed painfully in my chest. “Please don’t say that,” I whispered, tears threatening.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice rough with emotion, “I get it.” He pulled his softening length out of me and turned around, his hand already on the door.

“Where are you going?” I asked, my voice revealing sorrow and confusion. I sagged back against the mirror.

“Away. I’ll talk to you tomorrow at nine.”

And then he was gone. The door shut behind him, leaving me alone in the passion-torn bathroom. For a long time I just sat there, finally realizing what a broken heart really feels like. I’d thought before that I’d known. When Luke broke up with me by text message, when other people had let me down as a child, it had hurt. A lot. But I’d been wrong about those painful moments. They had bruised my heart, yes. But this right here? This was real pain. This was true heartache.

I knew without a doubt that I was watching the only man who could ever make me feel this way walk out the door to go sign our divorce papers, and it was true sorrow like no other. I would look back on this trip to Baker City, Oregon and know that Gavin MacKenzie was the man who cracked my heart into a thousand pieces. And I was just going to let him do it. I had no other choice.

I got down off the sink and moved slowly over to the shower to put the curtain back up, my heart going numb with pain. I rinsed off, jumping when my fingers touched the now overly-sensitive parts between my legs. Everything was thick and swollen down there still, and I realized for the first time as I tried to wash everything away that we’d had sex without protection.

Oh, Jesus, how stupid can I possibly be? I stared at the ceiling as the tears dripped down and filled my ears. What am I going to do now?





Chapter Twenty-Six





I DON’T KNOW HOW I slept. Maybe it was the leftover sun exhaustion or the buckets of tears I cried, but my eyes didn’t drag themselves open until well after nine. I jumped out of bed and shimmied back into my dirty clothes. Running down the stairs after only a cursory glance in the mirror, I went from room to room looking for Mack. Last night was a mistake. I had to just tell him that. I had to tell him that we had to let go of unreasonable expectations and live the lives we’d been born to. His was here and mine was across the country. We were completely incompatible.

“Well, good morning, sunshine,” said Angus, leaning against the counter and drinking what looked like a cup of coffee. He pointed to a machine next to the sink. “Help yourself. Mug’s are in the cabinet above.”

I shuffled over and got out a cup. “Is Mack around?” I asked, pouring myself a cup of dark coffee. Today I’d be skipping the cream and sugar; I needed straight-up harsh caffeine going right into my veins.

“Nope. He went into town.”

I spun around. “But … we had an appointment.”

Angus chuckled. “We don’t generally do appointments out here.”

“Okay, well we had an agreement to meet at nine so we could talk.”

“About your genealogy business?”

I nodded, taking a sip of my coffee. According to my sleepy brain, nodding wasn’t exactly lying.

“You can ask me questions if you want. I’m available for the next half hour, and I’m a MacKenzie.”

“Don’t you have cows to de-testicle?”

He laughed again. “Nope, not yet. I need Mack for that and he had to go.”

“Where did he go? Do you know when he’ll be back?”

Angus looked into his mug, frowning a little. “I’m not exactly sure.”

I could tell Angus was lying, but it was probably true that none of it was my business. I was just the girl trying to detach myself from Mack’s animal magnetism and get back to my real life.

“Is there any chance I could get a lift back to town so I could get my phone numbers and charger and things?”

“Actually, all your things are in the front hall. Boog brought them over early this morning.”

I put my cup down without saying a word and walked out of the kitchen towards the front door. My jaw dropped open at the sight of all my things sitting there on the floor. How in the hell…?