“Come on. I’ll walk back with you.”
She stepped beside him. “Tell me the truth—I look like a guy with my baggy hoodie and short hair, don’t I?”
He looked at her, and even in the darkness, the way he scanned her body made electricity shoot through her system.
“You look beautiful.”
Butterflies—they took off in her belly. Hundreds of them.
The nerves suddenly sped up her heart, making her tongue-tied and her head feel heavy and completely empty of any smart or witty comebacks.
Her gaze moved to the street party, then to Holden again.
Now, the voice whispered in her head.Tell him now.
“Wait. Before we go back…” She touched his arm. He stopped. And the second his entire focus hit her, those dang nerves crawled around inside her, making her throat feel too tight to squeeze words out.
This man had supported her through chemo as much as her brothers. A million calls and texts checking in. Using all his leave to visit her between missions.
What if she told him and she lost him for it?
It’s worth the risk.The voice inside her was loud and so sure.
Holden tilted his head. “Clara. You can tell me anything. We’re family.”
“That’s actually the thing. Youarefamily, but you’re also not.”
He frowned.
And she shook her head. “That isn’t what I meant. I mean…I care about you.”
“I care about you too.”
“No. This is different. I…” One big breath. “I love you.”
Silence. It hung in the air—thick, almost suffocating.
Holden’s frown deepened.
“And not like a brother,” Clara hurried to add. “I love you like count-down-the-days-until-you’re-back-in-town kind of love. Get-nervous-when-you’re-around kind of love.” She glanced at his lips and lowered her voice. “Want-to-kiss-you-whenever-I-see-you kind of love.”
There. She’d said it. The truth was out there in the world, and it was up to Holden to decide what to do with it.
Clara’s wordshit Holden Forbes like a physical blow. They stole his breath and tipped him off-balance, as if the world had shifted beneath his feet.
“Clara…”
She inched closer, her soft palms pressing to his chest. “You don’t have to say anything. I just needed you to know.”
She needed him to know that she loved him…love. She said it like it was the easiest thing in the world. But it wasn’t. Nothing about love was easy. It was messy and complicated and could bring a man to his knees.
Not much scared Holden, but love…it terrified him.
How was he supposed to vocalize all of that to Clara when she looked at him with those big indigo eyes though? Eyes he’d been hopelessly chained to for so damn long.
His chest rose and fell faster, and before he could stop himself, words were slipping from his lips into the air. “You’d be so easy to love, Clara.”
So easy that he could lose himself. And then what? What happened if she got hurt and sick or decided she just didn’t love him anymore? Would his world be ripped from beneath his feet for the second time in his life?
