She leaned against his chest, went up on tiptoe, and pressed her lips to his to stop the flow of words.
He met her with a fierce tenderness that stole her breath and made her weak all over again. But he held her close, his strong hands spanning her waist. His steady strength was exactly what she needed.
She clung to him. A woman who never wanted to depend on anyone else. She should have stepped away. She absolutely shouldn’t have encouraged the emotions that had already built between them.
But the press of his lips, the sweep of his tongue, the touch of his nose against her cheek. All of it conspired to make her dizzy and wanting and falling...
He broke the kiss, but not his hold on her. If anything, he tucked her closer as they panted for breath. Her chin pressed into his shoulder, and she stared blindly at the landscape behind him.
"I can't," she whispered into the material of his vest. Whether he heard her, she didn't know.
I can't. Return to Philadelphia. Be his wife. Face those people.
Adam thought her someone brave, even courageous, but she wasn't.
She wasn't enough to be his wife, and now they both knew it.
12
The next morning dawned rainy and dreary. This wasn't the cool drizzle they'd endured during the early days of the race, but a downpour that made it difficult to see more than a few yards ahead.
Yesterday afternoon, Breanna had been quiet and pensive. Adam didn't know and hadn't asked whether her episode had exhausted her. He suspected it had. Not only physically, but emotionally as well.
She'd told him her last secret, and her refusal to travel home with him had made a sick kind of sense. No wonder she didn't want to return to Philadelphia after being so soundly rejected. Rejected by the ones who were supposed to love her the most.
Breanna had carried this all her life. He couldn't expect her to overcome it in the span of a few days or with a few reassuring words from him.
Couldher fears and hurt be overcome?
She trusted and deeply loved her adoptive family. Jonas and Penny had earned that trust and given Breanna a sense of security, but they'd had years of being there for her. Of proving themselves.
He had maybe thirty-six hours left with her before he needed to board an east-bound train.
If only he had more time.
He grimaced as his stallion splashed through a rolling creek. The cold water from below barely registered against his soaked pants.
As he walked beside her across yet another rolling plain, he considered the issue. Time was the one thing Breanna needed, and the one thing he didn't have. If he stayed on in Wyoming, it would buy him time to woo her properly, even celebrate a country wedding.
But at the cost of his father's health? If Father went back to work at the paper, the long hours and stress could kill him. Guilt would eat Adam alive, and then where would Reggie be? Abandoned and alone in Father's huge estate?
Adam loved Breanna.
But he also loved his father. He had a duty to his family.
There were no clear answers.
And though Breanna had kissed him good-night in the stable before they'd bedded down with their horses, it had felt like a goodbye.
He wasn't ready for good-bye. He'd only just found her, the independent, amazing, sometimes crazy-reckless woman who’d entirely captured his heart. How could he walk away?
Breanna drew up in front of him, and he reined in beside her, looking down the slight incline.
The rain had swollen what might've once been a creek or small tributary into a swiftly-flowing river overflowing its banks. The muddy current carried branches and other debris.
"Should we scout downstream?” he asked. “See if it widens to a better crossing?"
"No time," Breanna answered. "The rain's already cost us hours. It can't be that deep." She shot him a wry look. "It isn't as if we can get any wetter."
