wanting a few creature comforts after a while,’ she ventured. ‘If you brought her to a place like this…’
‘Munyering’s not like this,’ Riley said harshly. ‘And she knew…’ He stopped, as if thinking better of what he’d started to say. ‘This is nothing to do with us. With you. It’s been years.’
‘But not long enough for you to trust a woman again?’
‘Until you came I swore I’d never touch another woman.’
‘And now you’ve touched me. Excellent.’ She reached forward, took his face between her hands and kissed him again, hard and deep, searching for the break in his defences. ‘So now your vow’s broken-what are you going to do with me?’ she whispered. ‘Send me to the dungeon for tempting a man?’
‘It’d be a waste to put you in any dungeon.’ His hands gripped her waist, but, instead of gathering her to him again as she so desperately wanted, he set her back from him again. ‘No. Jenna, you’re enough to make any man break any vow. If Karli wasn’t here, and if you hadn’t said you loved me, then maybe I’d take you to my bed and we’d have great sex and we’d remember this interlude with pleasure for the rest of our lives.’ His gaze was suddenly uncertain. Wistful? As if he was speaking of something that could never be.
‘But you have said you love me,’ he told her. ‘I don’t believe it, but I can’t think… I can’t hurt you. Whatever it means, it can’t be allowed to progress any further than it already has. It’s not your life you’re playing with here, but Karli’s.’
Huh? ‘Are you saying I’m risking Karli?’ Jenna’s aching desire was suddenly overtaken by confusion. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Your responsibility is to Karli.’
Confusion became anger-just like that. ‘And I’m risking that by falling in love with you?’
‘You don’t really love me. You just want-’
‘You know nothing about what I want,’ she snapped. ‘You know nothing about me at all if you think I’d risk Karli in any way. I have no idea why I’m feeling like I’m feeling about you. I only know that I am. So now I’ve told you. I’m honest. Not like you, Riley Jackson, who can’t even admit to himself what he’s feeling.’
‘I don’t-’
‘You do,’ she snapped. ‘I can feel what you feel. I’m not some teenage twit with a crush. I have no idea what’s between us, but I do know that I’ve never experienced it before and it’s special and it’s brilliant and you’re not brave enough to even take the first step to trying to figure out where this could take us.’
‘I don’t want-’
‘To take risks,’ she flashed.
‘And you do?’ Anger was meeting anger. ‘Of course you do. You’re a born risk-taker. Getting off a train in the middle of nowhere even if it means risking your sister’s life.’
What was he saying? She couldn’t believe it. Her hand came back to slap the accusation from his harsh, unyielding face.
She caught herself. No.
She wanted to slap him. More than anything else she wanted to pierce that accusing harshness. And if she did…
Maybe it could work. Maybe. But Karli was on the other side of the dam. To resort to physical aggression was never appropriate, but how much more inappropriate now.
‘Fine,’ she said grimly and turned away to trudge out of the dam. ‘If that’s the way you want to think of me, then it’s okay by me. Karli and I are getting out of here as soon as possible, and you’ll never see us again.’
‘Do you want to catch the train tomorrow instead of flying out with me?’
That made her pause. The train.
Yes. She did want to catch the train. She desperately wanted to walk away. Her humiliation was threatening to overwhelm her and she could cope with a few reporters if the alternative was more humiliation.
But then her eyes flew to Karli.
Karli was starting to be happy again. The little girl had faced so much. How much more could she stand?
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I…please.’ She’d risked too much. She’d risked Karli’s well-being just by being attracted to him. She’d forgotten how dependent they were on this man.
There was a moment’s loaded silence. She met his look and held it and something of what she was feeling must have come through. She saw his expression turn to rueful, as if he too was remembering what else she was facing.
‘I won’t put you on the train.’ His gaze shifted to Karli and there was suddenly a real remorse in his tone. ‘Hell. I’m sorry that I implied you’d put Karli at risk. It was a stupid thing to say and I had no right to say it.’ He hesitated. ‘But I need to put you away from me, Jenna. I don’t do relationships. I’m on my own. You’re with Karli and I’m here. There’s no meeting place. Not in a million years.’
Not in a million years.
Jenna nodded. Bleakly. Maybe Riley was right. He didn’t want her in his world and she had no right to ask to be included.
But it was so hard.
What she was feeling was love. She knew it. She’d never felt like this before, but now the sensation threatened to overwhelm her. Her love might be transient, she thought bleakly. It might be based on present need, but her heart swelled with pain at what he was saying.
She could do no more. She’d thrown her pride to the wind. She’d thrown herself at him and exposed herself to pain and to rejection as she’d done to no one in her life. There was nothing more she could do.
‘Thank you for our swim,’ she said dully. ‘We loved it. Maybe you’re right, though. Maybe it’s time to go back to the house.’
‘I’m sorry, Jenna.’
She looked at him then-really looked at him-and her chin tilted upward.
‘I’m not a coward. I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘You don’t want to be hurt yourself.’
‘Maybe.’ His face closed. ‘Whatever. You’re right. It’s time we went home.’
He turned and strode out of the water, up the bank and across to where Karli was offering mud-pie sandwiches to cows.
‘Are you ready to go home?’ he asked her and she raised her face to his and smiled.
‘Okay. Have you finished kissing Jenna?’
‘Yes, I’ve finished kissing Jenna.’
‘Good, ’cos it looked pretty yucky to me.’
‘Yep.’ He glanced across at Jenna and his face closed even further. ‘We never should have done it.’
CHAPTER NINE
THEY hardly saw him then until late the next afternoon. Riley drove them back to the house, grabbed his swag and a few supplies, and he was gone.
They were left to fend for themselves.
As they’d always fended for themselves.
‘Did you guys have a fight?’ Karli asked, and Jenna shook her head. She was making them dinner, fighting back tears; trying to make herself angry instead of desolate.
‘What makes you think we had a fight?’
‘Riley stopped smiling. You stopped smiling.’
‘Maybe it’s because we’re leaving tomorrow. It’s making us sad.’
‘Do you think we’ll ever see Riley again after tomorrow?’
‘Probably not.’
‘That’s really sad.’ Karli looked down at her precious rock. ‘I’d rather have Riley even more than my rock.’
Jenna tried to pull herself together. She sniffed and tried for a mature, adult approach to what was happening.
