His head jerked back, and he winced. “She’s just a friend, and I don’t feel bad asking her to do things because she’s healthy and willing.”
“She’s something, all right,” Tilly muttered. She brushed her hand across the bedspread. “Her motives aren’t pure, Brayden.” She copied his patronizing tone.
“And yours are?”
“Excuse me?”
His eyes turned dark, like demons swirled in his head, planting dark thoughts and smothering the love that usually filled his soul. “You’re only here because you feel guilty.”
“You can’t believe that,” she scoffed.
“Tell me you don’t feel any guilt for this.” He jerked his finger towards his neck.
“I … Of course I feel guilty. I was there. I was the experienced climber. I should have kept you safe.”
He wagged his finger. “I lost my focus,” he rasped.
Her mouth opened and closed several times. “How?” She didn’t understand how that was possible. When she climbed, her whole mind and body were focused on the task. Her life depended on it. That was part of the draw of climbing.
He looked away. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“Um … it does to me.”
“I’m telling you it doesn’t. I release you of all responsibility for the accident, Tilly. It wasn’t your fault. Please let it go.”
She blinked against the moisture gathering on her lashes.
He reached up and swiped a tear from her cheek. “My dad’s going to stay for a while. He’ll be able to drive me to work and help out here.”
“O-kay.” She leaned into his touch. His hand was gone all too soon.
“So you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”
“Brayden, I’ll always worry about you, because I love you. That’s what couples do.” She smiled up at him. There was a big relief that came from saying those words. She hadn’t realized they were missing from her vocabulary until just now. The fall must have knocked them right out of her or something.
He hesitated, then seemed to square his shoulders. She’d seen him do that many times on the mound, and her heart sank. He was gathering his resolve. “That’s what I’m talking about. I don’t think we should be a couple anymore.”
“You … what?” Her eyebrows came together. Her brain slowly chewed on his words as her blood turned cold. “You’re breaking up with me?”
He swallowed heavily and nodded.
She pulled her hands into her chest. “But you just said you don’t blame me for the accident.”
“I don’t. But you deserve more than a crippled boyfriend, Tilly. I promised you the stars, and I can’t deliver. I’m at a loss as to how to move forward with you, and I can’t ask you to stand here while I pull my crap together.”
“You don’t have to ask, Brayden. Not when someone loves you. Love doesn’t have to ask.”
He remained silent, the doors clicking shut in his heart even as she sat there and watched it happen. He’d locked her out.
She shivered and hunched forward. Breaking up? That was … inconceivable. She and Brayden went together like a pair of shoes. Without each other, there was no point to the one.
She reached for him, and he pulled away—like her touch would scald him.
The rejection was too much to bear. With strength she didn’t know she possessed, she rose to her feet so she could look down on him. He was so tall that the advantage wasn’t much, but she’d take it. Her eyes swept over his broad shoulders, hugged nicely by the Redrocks workout shirt; his strong jaw; the scar at the base of his neck from the surgery; and finally landed on his beautiful brown eyes. Every inch of him belonged with her. She knew it as surely as she knew her heart was breaking.
She couldn’t stay there and listen to him give her flimsy excuses or made-up reasons. She couldn’t stand there at all—to be near him and not touch him was wrong. It was just wrong. She pressed her hand over her mouth to hold back her cry and sprinted for the front door.
Maverik looked up from where he was folding clothes on the couch with Natalie. “Baby girl?”
