'Could you talk to him about how you felt about me?'
She'd almost had it this time. Almost, but it was slipping through her fingers like sand.
'Deep down the pit of your stomach where it gets tight at just the thought of being with me.' He stalked backacross the room and stopped just inches from her. 'Did you tell him that?'
'No, but he knew.' She looked up into his face, at the passion and bitterness in his green eyes. At the samepassion and bitterness she'd seen the first night she'd seen him. 'Being with Steven wasn't at all like being with you. It was different. It was...
'What?'
'Calm. It wasn't scaly. It didn't hurt. I could breathe around him. I didn't feel like if I didn't touch him, I woulddie. Like a part of something inside of me belonged to someone else.'
'Isn't that the way it's supposed to feel? Isn't it supposed to feel like I want to smash you against my chest sohard I can still feel you after you leave?' He grabbed her shoulders and slid his hands to the sides of her face.
'Breathe the same breath. Feel the same heartbeat as you melt inside of me?'
Tears stung her eyes and she didn't even try to stop them. Her heart was breaking and her dreams had justslipped through her fingers. Again. 'It's not enough. It wasn't enough last time. And it isn't enough this timeeither.'
'What does it take, then? I love you. I've never loved any woman the way I love you.'
She believed him. 'Forgiveness,' she said as the first tears spilled from her eyes. 'You have to forgive me, Jack.
You have to forgive me and you have to forgive Steven, too.'
He dropped his hands from her and took a step back. 'That's asking a lot, Daisy.'
'Too much?'
'Where Steven is concerned, yes.'
'And me?'
He looked at her and his silence was her answer.
'How can we be together if you can't forgive me of the past?'
'We won't think about it.' He grabbed his boots and shoved his feet inside.
'For how long? For how long won't we think about it before it comes up again? Tomorrow? A week from now?
Next year? Do you really think we can live with that between us?'
'I love you, Daisy,' he said without looking at her. 'It's enough.'
'You also hate me.'
'No.' He shook his head and his gaze met hers. 'No, I hate what you did. How could I not hate that you keptmy son from me?'
'What I did was wrong.' She wiped her tears from her face. 'I admit that. I should have told you about Nathan.
I was scared and a coward. One day turned into one year. One year into two, and the longer I put it off, theharder it got. There is no excuse.' She held out her hand to him, then dropped it to her side. 'You have tounderstand. Steven -'
'Oh, I understand Steven,' he interrupted. 'I understood him the night y'all stood in my front yard and told meyou were married. I understood that he loved you as much as I did and when he saw an opportunity to take youfrom me, he took it. He took my son too. And what you have to understand is, I can't just forget something likethat.'
'I'm not asking you to forget, but if you and I are to have a future, you have to get past it.'
'You say it like it's easy.'
'It's the only way.'
'I don't know if I can. Especially where Steven is concerned.'
'Then we can't be together. It would never work.'
'Just like that? You get to decide?' He pointed a finger at her and slashed his hand through the air. 'You get tosay 'get over it' or get out of my life? You get to tell me how to feel?'
She shook her head and gazed at him through the blur of her tears. She breathed past the searing pain in herchest. She knew Jack felt it too. It was there in his raw gaze, and just like the last time, there was no way to stopit. 'No. I'm telling you that you have a right to your anger. You have a right to it for the rest of your life. But itseems to me very lonely company when you can have so much more if you could somehow let it go.'
Chapter Twenty
On the drive to Daisy's, neither of them spoke. The deep purr of the Shelby's engine was the only sound withinthe dark interior of the Mustang. Jack pulled the car next to the curb, and Daisy looked at him through the inkydarkness one last time. Giving him one last chance to change things that he could not change. To say the wordsthat he could not say.
How could she ask him to forget and forgive? As if it were that easy. As if it hadn't eaten a permanent hole inhis gut. As if it wasn't always there, right below the surface.
So he watched her walk away. Into her mother's house, and he slid the Shelby in gear and drove home. Hehadn't tried to stop her this time. There would be no fight. No one to hit.
But the pain was just as bad as it had been fifteen years ago. No, he thought as he walked back into his house. Itwas worse now. Now that he knew what could have been. Now that he'd had a taste of that life.
The chair he'd sat in while he'd made love to Daisy was still pushed away from the table. The table where she'dlain while he'd taken her into his mouth. He stared at it as the hole in his gut burned hotter. Burned up into hischest and throat-he about choked on it.
He picked up the chair, carried it out the back door and tossed it into the pitch-black yard. Then he turned andstared at the heavy wooden table that had belonged to his mother. Where they'd eaten family meals.
Where he'd eaten Daisy.
In his present mood, he probably could have picked up the whole damn table and chucked it outside with thechair, but it wouldn't fit out the door. He went to the shed and grabbed his power tools. When he returned, heflipped the table with one hand. It hit the floor with a loud satisfying crash. He popped a beer, fired up his Black&Decker, and got busy.
By the time he was finished, the table was in pieces and lying about the yard along with the chair. He'd gonethrough a six pack and started on a bottle of Johnny Walker. Jack had never been a big drinker. Never thought itsolved a damn thing. Tonight he just wanted to dull the pain.
With glass in hand, he moved from the dining room, passed his open bedroom door. Passed the lamplightshining on his messed up sheets that he was sure still held the scent of her skin. He walked into the living roomand drained his glass. He didn't bother turning on the light. He sat on his black leather sofa. In the dark. Alone.
Light from the kitchen spilled out into the hail and almost reached the toe of his boot. He was tired and beat upfrom the football game and from Daisy, but he knew he wouldn't sleep. He'd told her he loved her and she'd saidit wasn't enough. She wanted more.
He closed his eyes and the room spun. He felt the pitch and roll of his stomach. He'd flicked up. He'd let herinto his life. He'd known better. He'd known she'd carve him up again like he had a big X on his chest. He'd heldhis arms wide and given her a good shot, too.
I'm telling you that you have a right to your anger. Youhave a right to it for the rest of your life. She'd told him.
But it seems to me very lonely company when you can have so much more if you could somehow let it go.
Jack was a man who was used to fixing things. Of working until it was as close to perfect as possible. But heknew his limitations. He knew the impossible when it faced him.
What Daisy asked of him was impossible.
Jack didn't even realize he'd fallen asleep on the couch until Billy's voice woke him up.
'What the hell?'
