Saying yes would strip the necessary distance away. She would be with him day in and day out. Her nights would be his, all of them. And she had no doubt that those nights would be glorious.
And the days?
Full of purpose and plans. They would count on each other, support each other even more fully than they did now. Until she could not imagine her life without him beside her.
Until she counted on him absolutely. Until he owned her heart.
No. She just couldn’t go there, couldn’t take the chance that she would surrender completely to her love for him, that she would weave her life with his. And then lose him in some cruel and terrible way. As she had lost her mom and then her dad. And then TJ, too.
She let herself breathe then—carefully, slowly. “I can’t, Josh. I love you more than ever for offering. But no. I just can’t.”
Chapter Seven
Josh stared into those shining blue eyes of hers and knew there would be no convincing her. She was not going to marry him.
And that hurt. A lot. Mostly because he hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted her to say yes, not until this moment when she was turning him down.
They stared at each other. The silence between them was a knife to the heart.
He couldn’t take it. “I’m going to go.”
Now she looked stricken. But she nodded. “I get it. Of course.”
He swept to his feet, dodged around the coffee table and headed for the door. Roger jumped up and followed. Riley did, too. Josh glanced over and saw her standing several feet away as he put on his coat and shoved his hat on his head.
“I’ll, uh, be in touch,” he said.
“Josh, I—”
“Don’t,” he flatly commanded. “Not now.”
“Um, okay. But when?”
No way could he answer that at this moment. “Riley, I don’t know. Just let it be, okay? When I’m ready, I’ll call you.”
She gulped and nodded. “All right, then. I’ll wait for your call.”
A moment later, Roger at his heels, he was out the door and headed down the steps to his truck. When he got there, he pulled open the passenger door. “Roger, let’s go.”
The dog understood. He jumped into the cab. Josh marched around the front of the truck, climbed in behind the wheel and got the hell out of there.
* * *
Riley had the weekend off from the hotel. She used the free time to be with her son. They ran errands on Saturday morning. That afternoon, they visited Macy at her house on the Double-K Ranch.
It was just Riley, Dillon, Macy and her two kids. Macy’s stepdaughter, Camryn, was with her mother that day. As for Joe, he’d gone into town to work at the hardware store, which he and Macy owned and ran together.
Eight-year-old Ana took charge of Dillon. The two of them hung out in the living room playing UNO and Crazy Eights with the family dogs and Ana’s cat, Voodoo, close by. When card games got old, Ana brought out the crayons and construction paper.
In the kitchen, as Macy’s nine-month-old, Justin, played with his toys on the floor, Riley drank decaf and told Macy everything—that Annette had urged Josh to suggest marriage. And that Josh had proposed the night before.
“And…?” asked Macy.
“I said no.”
Macy made a sad little sound. “Oh, Rile…”
“Don’tyoustart in on me. You know how I feel. I’m not marrying anyone.”
