I knew the answer even as my mind formed the question. I loved him, and here he was walking away from me. I put a hand to my mouth, but it didn’t stop the word from coming out. “Wait!”
He stopped, but didn’t turn around.
“I—I know I’m being unreasonable.”
He slowly turned toward me.
“I’m sorry.” I rushed down the steps and into his arms. The solidness of his chest, the strength of his arms around me—it felt so good, so comforting, so terribly, awfully...temporary.Tears welled in my eyes.
His hand tangled in my hair. “It’s okay.”
I nodded against his chest.
He pulled back and looked down at me. “You’re crying. Are you still angry at me?”
“I don’t know what I am,” I confessed. “Confused, I guess. This is a lot to process.”
He smoothed my hair back from my face. “Yeah, it must be.”
“Part of me wants to stay mad at you.”
“Why?”
“It’ll make it easier to leave.”
“So don’t.”
Fresh frustration welled up in me. “Matt, art majors wait their entire lives for something like this to open up. This inheritance is a lot of money, yes, but it’s not enough to live on the rest of my life.”
He blew out a sigh. “Yeah, I know.”
“Besides, you and me—this is just temporary. Our way of getting over the hump and back into dating.”
“I kind of thought we’d moved beyond that.”
My heart gave an irrational jump of joy, only to feel like it had plunged off a cliff. “Matt—we both know a long-distance relationship isn’t going to work. Your schedule is so packed you can barely carve out a full evening for a date, much less weekends away. And my new job is going to be really time intensive.”
A nerve worked in his jaw. “Let’s talk about this later. I don’t want to spoil the time we have left.”
I didn’t, either. I reached up, looped my arms around his neck, and pulled him down for a kiss, only to see a figure standing behind an open curtain next door.
“We’re being watched,” I whispered.
He turned and waved to Mrs. Ivy. The curtain immediately dropped back into place.
Our laughter broke the tension. He kept his arm around me. “Listen—Peggy and Griff want to take the girls to the beach as a beginning-of-summer treat. They’re planning on leaving the morning after Miss Addie’s going-away party.”
Leaving. Going away. Each phrase cut me like a razor. “Sounds nice.”
“So I was wondering if you’d go away with me for a long weekend in New Orleans.”
“That’s the weekend I’m leaving.”
He lifted his shoulders. “It can be a send-off celebration. We’ll get a room in the French Quarter and spend Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night.”
Three days of bliss in his arms. “Oh, that sounds wonderful!” I murmured before I had a chance to censor myself.
“Okay, then. We have something to look forward to.”
