Wiping furiously at her eyes as if she could hide the fact she was bawling, B.J. sounded defensive as she said, “What’re you doing here?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Taking a
moment to rearrange his thoughts, he finally sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets, purposely keeping a few feet of distance between them because he knew he’d reach for her if he moved too close.
“A few months ago, I took a trip to Houston,” he said. “And when I was there, I went to dinner with a woman who forced me to take a look at my life. She even followed me back to my hotel room, she was so determined to help me stop running from my
feelings.” With a small smile and self-conscious 230
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shrug, he finished, “I’m just here to repay the favor.”
She snorted. “Well, you’re dead wrong if you think I’m running away from my feelings, Slim. I said exactly what I wanted to say at the office.”
Grady gave a nod of agreement but added, “Yet you were too scared to stick around and wait for my response.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Scared? Of your response?
From what I saw, all you did was stand there and gape at me.”
“You’d just finished throwing half the office at me,” he defended. “It knocked me off track for a second. No one’s thrown anything at me since Jo Ellen was fourteen and I told her I didn’t like her haircut. She hurled a shoe at me and busted open my lip.” He paused to touch his long-healed mouth.
“Why do girls always throw stuff when they’re mad?”
“I don’t—” B.J. broke off abruptly and paused with a thoughtful frown. “Do we really?”
He grinned, charmed by her shock. She might be a tomboy through and through, but she was still one hundred percent female.
He loved watching her realize that fact.
When their gazes met, his smile dropped, and emotions swamped him. “I love you too, you know.”
Her eyes went wide. Shaking her head, she took a step in reverse. “Don’t,” she begged, holding up a hand to block him. “Just stop.”
He stepped forward and grasped her fingers,
kissing them. “As I recall, that’s exactly what I said to you in Houston. But you didn’t stop. So, I can’t either.”
She shook her head, and more tears gushed
down her cheeks. “But I can’t...I don’t...what do you want from me?”
He smiled softly. “Only everything.”
She shook her head again. “No. I can’t...I’ll never be anything like Amy.”
231
Not catching her meaning, Grady frowned.
“What does she have to do with any of this?”
B.J. lifted one shoulder. “Nothing. Everything.”
His shoulders slumped. “Listen to us,” he said softly. “Talking in riddles and too afraid to just come right out and say what we really feel. Well, I don’t want to hide anymore. You taught me that hiding my feelings doesn’t do anyone any good.”
Pulling her bodily against him, he ignored how she went stiff in his arms and held her close. “Yes, I pushed for this marriage because of the baby. But then...everything changed. I was so determined not to grow any feelings for you. I thought...I thought I could lose myself in your body and not lose myself in you. But you’re so…”
He shook his head, unable to describe it. “When I saw that deed on my father’s desk and thought you were only with me because of your airplane, it felt like someone had ripped my heart out of my chest.
Here you’d just taught me it was okay to open myself up again, to risk love one more time, and you didn’t even feel the same way about me as I felt for you. It hurt.”
“I didn’t marry you because of what your dad—”
“Yeah, I realize that.” He grinned and kissed her temple. “If it wasn’t the flying briefcase that convinced me, it was the stapler and the calculator and the dictionary.”
Her muscles began to go lax against him. He let out a breath of relief. Smoothing her hair out of his way and kissing her cheek, he caught sight of the gravestone next to them. When he read the name Amy Rawlings and didn’t feel like everything inside him was going to burst, he tightened his grip on B.J.
gratefully. She’d somehow taken the pain away and filled him with life.
“Now, about this issue you’re making with
Amy,” he said. “Just...don’t. Okay? We both cared for 232
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her. Hell, I always will. She taught me how to love a woman. But she’s my past, B.J. You’re the rest of my life, and I love you with everything I have. Baby or no baby, deed to your plane or no deed, I love you.