Page 51 of Spurred On

“Sidney.” He tried again. “I don’t want this to end.” That was the crux of it, wasn’t it?

“We both knew it would.”

“But it doesn’t have to.”

“Yes. It does.” Was it his imagination, or was that the shimmer of tears in her eyes?

“Why? Why can’t we make this work? Is it the distance? I’m more than happy to drive to Dallas to see you. As often as you like.”

“You know it’s not that.”

“Then what?” What could it be?

She sighed heavily and turned away from him to stare out at the night. The sounds of crickets and croaking bullfrogs tangled with the scent of mown hay wafting around them.

“Do you know what you did to me?”

Annoyance rippled through him. “I know damn well what I did to you. But honestly. Can’t you forgive me for that one date with Tibby?” One lousy date. Granted, it had been an exceptionally poor choice and even worse timing, but that had been so long ago. Surely she didn’t need to harbor such an old grudge.

She whipped around and stared at him. “Oh my God. You don’t get it, do you?”

Apparently not.

She shook her head and struggled to find the words. Her throat worked. Finally she whispered, “That was my first time, Cody.”

He gulped. His pulse pinged. Something rippled at his nape. “What?”

“That night was my first time. You took my virginity and then dumped me the very next day. For Tibby Pucey.”

Shit.Shit, shit shit. He hadn’t known. Not that she was a virgin.

If he had, he would have been . . . what? Gentler? He’d been a randy kid in the backseat of a hot car with a hotter woman. One he’d secretly lusted after, and assumed he could never have.

But he did have a reason for asking Tibby out the next day. It wasn’t a very good reason, but he had one. “Don’t you want to know why?”

She glared at him. “No. No I don’t.”

“But—”

“I don’t care, Cody. Can you get that through your thick skull? I don’t care what your justifications were. You hurt me so badly I wasn’t sure I would ever get over it. But I did.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. I got over it, and I got over you.”

“You didn’t seem over me this weekend.” He wasn’t sure why he blurted that, except for the panic snarling through him. He was losing her. He felt it. Losing her for good.

A pity it was the exact wrong thing to say.

So often the case with her.

Her features tightened until her lips went white. “This weekend was a mistake,” she said in a hard, clipped tone. “And it’s over. O-V-E-R. And frankly, I don’t want to see you or speak to you ever again.”

And with that, Sidney Stevens—the one woman he could never forget, the one woman his soul yearned for—turned around and walked away from him, leaving him alone and cold, staring at the vastness of the Texas night sky.