“Then why are you here? Why don’t you stay away from me?”
She licked her lips, staring at the way his brows had slanted over his eyes, in confusion or anger, she wasn’t certain.
“I wish I could tell you,” she said somewhat helplessly. “But what I know I should do and what I want to do just aren’t lining up.”
“What are we supposed to do about that?”
“I don’t have much answer for you,” she said. “Besides to take a chance and see what happens.”
“You can’t stand me.”
“Oftentimes, I can’t,” she said, before it was her turn to furrow her brow. “Why are you trying to talk me out of this?” Her stomach rolled slightly. “Did I read this wrong?”
“It’s not that,” he said, looking over to the side for a moment. “It’s that I know how this is going to end. You’re going to end up marrying Carter even if you don’t want to, and I’m going to look like the idiot who went after you and was left behind for another.”
That hurt her more than she’d like. For one, that he would think she would do something she didn’t want to, and second, that he would care more about how it looked than how they felt.
“So, what others think matters that much to you?”
“That’s not what matters.”
“Then what does?”
He shrugged.
Ada placed her hands on her hips, frustrated that he always seemed to prefer to keep his words to himself. What was it that he didn’t want to admit? She tried to put herself in his place and realized that if a man chose another over – and after – her, she would feel the exact same. She hadn’t thought someone like Jonny would care so much.
“I cannot tell you the future,” she said, answering as though he had told her how he felt instead of just shrugging those broad and very masculine shoulders of his. “I can just tell you that, right now, I am refusing marriage to David Carter and choosing what I want. And what I want is you.”
“I’m not going to run off and marry you like Tommy did for Minnie,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
That was a bit of a blow, but then, everyone knew that Tommy had always been in love with Minnie. Jonny had said no such thing to Ada. Sometimes she wondered if he even liked her.
“Didn’t ask you to,” she said, not letting him see that his words had affected her in any way.
“So, what do you want?”
“I don’t know what my future holds,” she said. “All I know is that I want to choose for myself. I want to know what it’s like to do something for me, to follow my instincts to something that feels right. I want to be excited about the present, about what’s right in front of me.”
She looked at him straight in the eye.
“And what’s in front of me is you. Wherever I go. Whatever I do. I keep coming back to you.”
She stepped closer, tilting her face up so that she was looking at him.
“No one has ever kissed me like you do,” she said, her voice coming out breathier as she reached up, tracing his brow with her index finger, as she had been longing to since the day he had caught her in that tavern. “Tell me that you don’t want me. Because I don’t see how that could be true from the way you kissed me. Tell me.”
His eyes flicked from one of her eyes to the other, and even though he said nothing, she knew what he was thinking. He couldn’t tell her. Because despite his tough words, that exterior he wore, he did want her. He enjoyed those kisses. They told the truth of what he was feeling.
“That’s what I thought,” she whispered, just moments before they both moved together.
She couldn’t have said which one of them kissed the other, rather that, in silent understanding, their lips met, fusing together as though that was where they were meant to be.
And, as she melted into his arms, she knew that there was no denying this. Whether it was just physical or not, she couldn’t step away from him.
Engagement or not, this was the man she was promised to.
For now, at least.
