“Fine with me.” He never once took his gaze off the road.
She leaned back and shut her eyes.
He cued up some music and they listened to soft rock and power pop the rest of the way. At the cove, he parked his pickup in the side garage of the main house.
“Thank you for taking me to the ranch,” she said. “I had a great time.” And she got out and left through the wide-open garage door, her heart aching with each beat. Really, it was kind of amazing how fast everything had gone to crap.
But then she heard the garage door go down and his footsteps behind her. Her pulse pounded faster. Maybe he was planning for them to actually talk about what had just happened—about their feelings for each other and how they were getting closer and she wanted them to get closer still. It would be good to talk honestly about all this, right?
Oh, but it didn’t feel good. She almost whirled on him and said something provoking.
But she remembered last night, the sounds of Karin and Liam arguing outside, having no idea how far their voices carried.
Better not to go there until they were indoors, at least.
She led the way up the steps to the front door of the cottage, unlocked it and went in. He was right behind her. Dropping her purse on the narrow entry table, she kept going to the great room, where she flipped on a couple of lamps and then went and stood at the slider, staring out at the sliver of moon hanging high above the ocean.
“Madison, come on.”
She turned and faced him, though it hurt to look at him right now. Why did he have to be so gorgeous? Why did it seem like he just kept getting better-looking every time she saw him? She knew it was her heart doing that, seeing the beauty of him ever more clearly as she grew to love him.
And no, she’d never been in love before. And she really hadn’t known him very long. She was pushing too fast, she got that. But she recognized it already, this love she had for him. She accepted it as real and right and true. In the space of two weeks, she’d come to love Sten Larson.
Too bad he didn’t love her.
He put up both hands and then dropped them. “We just need to be realistic, okay? As I said in the truck, I’m gone on you. You’re like no other woman I’ve ever met before. And this feeling I have for you, it’s strong. But you really need to look inside yourself, deep down, to who you really are, to all you’ve accomplished so far in your life. You’ve got to know that you’re not going to give up being America’s Darling to settle down on the Oregon coast with a house-flipping shipbuilder any more than I’m going move to LA to live with a movie star.”
She wanted to haul off and smack him a good one. “That’s just your fears talking, Sten.”
“No, it’s...”
She whipped up a hand. “I’m not finished.”
He glared, but he gave it up. “Go ahead.”
“Thank you, I will,” she said with quiet fury. “You’re wrong. All wrong. And just to be clear, I would never ask you to leave your family and the home that you love, so don’t get yourself all worked up on that score. On the other hand, if I were to move here, that would bemychoice, not yours. If I were to move here permanently, it would be because that was whatIwanted, what worked for me. And it wouldn’t just be as a home base, a place to come back to between movies. I’m talking about quitting acting, Sten, I really am.”
He stared at her so bleakly. “You say all that now.”
“Because it’s true.”
“And just what would youdo, if you quit acting?”
“I have no idea. Yet. But I would find something that suits me. And I have great money managers. Frankly, if I don’t want to work, I never have to work again—and you and me? We could totally happen. But not if you won’tletus happen. Not if you close your mind and your heart to all that could be.”
For a moment, he just stared at her. She almost started to hope he would say something positive. But no. “I just don’t get it.”
She knew she shouldn’t ask. “What don’t you get?”
“How can you possibly be so naive?”
That capped it. “Okay, look. I should never have mentioned the wordlove. We’re not there yet.”Well, you’re not there, anyway. “And we may never be there. Right now, I don’t know what to say to you except that whatever that woman who hurt you did to you, I am not her. No way, no how—Oh. And one more thing. Good night, Sten.”
Chapter Seven
Karin dropped into the deck chair beside Sten.
She tapped his shoulder with a tall cold one. Sten took it, had a long sip and stared at the new moon, thinking how lucky he was to have such a great sister.
