That was an easy question. “Because I’m leaving.”
“Leaving?”
“Yes. It was not my intent to stay. I came only to tell you that we need to let go.”
She tilted her head to look at him. Confused. “Let go?”
“Yes. You know the type of man I am, Eden. But since meeting you, I haven’t been able to return to my old ways. I want to go back to them. Ineedto go back to them.”
“Why do you think that, Drew?”
He moved from the window to stand by the bed. He stared down at her, his hands shoved in his pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to reach for her and draw her into his arms. “Because I am a man who loves women and will never settle down with just one. Yet, for the past seven months, that’s what I’ve been doing, and I can’t keep it up. The last thing I want is for you to assume I will change, or that you will be enough for me. I only came here to tell you that you won’t be.”
She glared at him. “I’m naked in this bed, Drew, so undoubtedly that’s not the only reason you came here.”
“You were a temptation I couldn’t resist, Eden. I haven’t slept with another woman since I’ve been with you. I haven’t had a desire to do so.”
She lifted her chin. “Maybe that ought to tell you something.”
Taking his hands from his pockets, he placed them palms down on the bed and leaned over toward her. “It tells me the madness needs to stop. You deserve more than to be used by methe way you were tonight. I will never be able to give you what you want. Therefore, I won’t be coming back or calling you, and I prefer you not call me. We had a great time together, but it’s over. I need to move on, and so do you.”
He straightened. “Goodbye, Eden. I wish you the best.”
Then he turned and walked out the door, without looking back.
CHAPTER 18
Four months later
“Are you sure you’re alright, Drew?”
Drew stared up at the ceiling in his condo as he held the phone to his ear. “I’m fine, Harold. I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“Evidently. I hear you’re not the womanizer you used to be. Not that I’m complaining. I see that as a good thing. What happened?”
Drew released another deep breath. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time to hear it. Claire has a class tonight.”
He rubbed his hand down his face. He did need to talk to someone, and for years it had always been Harold, Lester, or his dad. “Do you recall that time around the holiday last year when I picked up a woman’s scent in my truck?”
“Yes, I remember. You never mentioned what happened with that. Was it a lot-lizard like I thought?”
“No. It was a runaway. A twenty-one-year-old runaway.”
“Who was a twenty-one-year-old woman running away from?” Harold asked. “An abusive boyfriend or husband?”
“She was running away from her father.”
Harold didn’t say anything for a minute and then asked, “Her father? How about starting from the beginning?”
Drew rolled his eyes. “I did start from the beginning. It started when I found her in my rig.”
“Then how about telling me why she was running away from her father?”
It took Drew a full thirty minutes to tell Harold everything…except the personal parts, but he was certain his cousin figured things out on his own.
“I should have known you weren’t at that lodge alone.”
