He couldn’t help smiling. “I don’t want your goat anyway. But yeah, so?”
“She was cheated on, dumped, and now the jerk comes to town wanting her back. Instead of being understanding, which was what she needed, you got jealous. Instead of giving her time you told her to forget it.”
“How the hell was I supposed to react? Besides, the only other woman I’ve loved fell in love with my best friend. Revisiting that feeling wasn’t high on my list.”
“Oh, I had no idea.”
“Not many people do.” His brothers knew the whole story and Ryan knew he’d been in love with her, but that was it.
“Have you told her about what happened back then?”
“No.” He sure as shit didn’t want to either. But he should tell Sierra. Maybe she’d understand where he was coming from then.
“Do you want her back? Even if she isn’t ready to commit like you want her to?”
Absolutely. “Yeah. But I don’t know what else I can do now but wait for her to change her mind. What if she doesn’t?”
“Ask her to talk to you and tell her the truth about your past. And you tell her you understand she needs time and you’ll wait as long as it takes.”
Good idea. Except he’d already told her he wasn’t waiting around. Man, he’d screwed up three ways from Sunday.
“I’d better go. I told Paul I wouldn’t be long and I’ve already been gone two hours.” She stood and so did Connor. She stepped into his arms naturally and he held her tight. “I’ll be rooting for you,” she said, and kissed his cheek.
He let her go and looked at the café door. Sierra stood in it, stock-still and clearly pissed. His entire conversation with Holly faded and all he could think was Sierra had no right to be mad, especially since they’d broken up because she ‘needed time.’
They stared at each other for at least a minute. Then he walked past her with no more than a nod, as if they barely knew each other, instead of having once been passionate lovers.
Obviously, those days were gone.
*
Why in thehell am I surprised?Sierra asked herself. He didn’t wait long to see other women but wasn’t that par for the course with Connor? It pissed her off royally that she couldn’t even blame him. They weren’t together anymore, which was mostly her fault. She knew he’d have tried to work it out if she hadn’t been so insistent that she needed time alone. Time to think.
Thinking was overrated. That’s all she’d been doing when she wasn’t working. Trying to think about what had gone wrong and what to do about it. She hadn’t wanted to break up but clearly Connor either hadn’t understood or was fed up.
Thank God that at least during working hours she could think about her patients. But the minute she had free time she could only think about Connor.
Damn it, she missed him. Missed his smile, missed his humor. Missed talking to him about medicine or movies or just about anything. And the sex. Oh, my God, the sex. She wanted his mouth on hers, his arms around her, his body next to hers, wanted to lie beside him in bed, boneless from making love.
She realized that everyone in the Java Café was looking at her with varying degrees of empathy or satisfaction, depending on who they were. She raised her chin and stalked to the counter, ordered her regular: a nonfat latte.
The barista, who Sierra had seen but didn’t know, gave her the drink and said, “I guess it’s true.”
“What’s true?”
“You and Connor are through. That’s going to make a lot of women happy.”
“Including you?”
She shook her head. “No. I have a boyfriend. But I like Connor and he seemed really happy until lately. I hate to see that.”
“So do I,” she said, and took her drink with her as she marched out the door.
It was April and still chilly but she took her coffee and sat on one of the benches outside of Sage’s Chocolates. She sat brooding until she heard a woman say, “Hi, Sierra. Did you just come from the chocolate shop? I didn’t see you in there.”
Val McFarland stood before her holding a bag from the shop.
“Hi, Val,” Sierra said, glad for some company other than her morose thoughts. “No, I haven’t made it in there yet. I just came from the coffee shop. Have a seat.”
