Her eyes widened, warming the color to the exact shade of brandy. Her mouth slowly curved into a smile. “Honest?”
“That’s the truth, Anna Louise.” Richard gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white. It was the only way he could keep from reaching for her. “But sweetheart, getting carried away by passion is the easiest thing in the world. Believe me, I know. But making a decision that is right, making a choice for all the right reasons, that takes something more. It takes something you deserve to have—unconditional love.”
She sighed softly. Tears glistened in her eyes. “And you don’t love me,” she said flatly, trying her darnedest to sound brave.
Richard raked a hand through his hair. Now he’d done it. He’d gotten into something he’d never intended. He absolutely could not tell her that he did indeed love her and then follow that up by saying that when the time came he would leave, anyway.
“I care about you,” he said cautiously. “Enough not to do anything you’d wind up regretting.”
Anna Louise turned her head away.
“Look at me,” he insisted. “Please.”
Slowly she turned back. Tears were tracking down her cheeks. The sight of them made his heart ache. He reached over and brushed away the tears with the tips of his fingers. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. Please don’t cry.”
“Richard Walton, if you weren’t just about the nicest, most honorable man in the entire universe, I think I’d slug you,” she said, her voice choked.
A sigh shuddered through Richard then. She would be okay, he reassured himself. Anna Louise might be a preacher, but she was also a hellion. Nothing would get her down for long, not even watching him walk out of her life.
Too bad he couldn’t hold out the same high hopes for himself. He had a feeling that leaving Anna Louise behind, no matter how firmly he believed that it was the right thing—the only thing—to do, was going to cost him dearly. In fact, he wondered if he’d ever find a way to recover from the loss.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“What kept you two?” Maisey demanded the minute Anna Louise and Richard walked into the intensive care unit. She was still being monitored by a lot of equipment, but she was sitting up and looking considerably more chipper than she had when she’d been admitted.
Before either of them could respond, she peered more closely at Anna Louise. “You’ve been crying.” She scowled at Richard. “What did you do to her?”
“It’s nothing,” Anna Louise said hurriedly before Richard’s conscience demanded that he make a full confession on the spot. She wasn’t ready to talk about her feelings for Richard or his lack of feelings for her just yet, not even with the one person on the face of the earth who would understand how complex the situation was.
Trying to redirect Maisey’s attention, Anna Louise asked cheerfully, “How are you today? You look much better.”
“That’s because they’re pumping me full of drugs,” Maisey said dryly. “Puts a nice fuzzy glow around everything.” Her expression sobered. “I don’t like it. How’s a person supposed to know how she really feels? I told Doc Benson they’ve given me my last shot of this stuff. I’d rather have a little pain every now and again.”
“And what did he say?” Anna Louise asked, envisioning that particular confrontation with some amusement.
“He told me he was the one with the medical degree and I’d do what he said,” Maisey said, practically shaking with indignation. “Can you imagine the nerve of that young man?”
Richard grinned. “I think I’m liking this doctor better and better.”
“Don’t go getting any ideas based on the way he treats me,” Maisey warned him. “He might be able to pull rank, but you can’t. In fact, I think you and I need to have a little talk.”
“When you’re out of here,” he said agreeably.
“I don’t think so. Now. Anna Louise, will you excuse us for a minute?”
“No,” she said, and pulled up a chair to emphasize the point.
Maisey looked startled by her open rebellion. “Why not?”
“Because you’re supposed to be recuperating, not meddling.”
“I’d rest a lot easier if I knew things between you two were on track. I might be a little fuzzy-headed this morning, but I’m not blind. Something’s wrong.”
Anna Louise felt tears welling up in her eyes again. If this kept up she was going to start blubbering for the second time in a single morning. “Richard and I are adults, Maisey. We are capable of handling our own lives.”
“That’s right,” Richard echoed.
“Fiddle-faddle. If you were, you’d have a wedding date set by now.”
At that, Anna Louise’s tears began to flow again in earnest. She ran out of the room. As the door closed behind her, she heard Richard say, “Now look what you’ve done.”
To which Maisey replied, “Sounds to me like the pot calling the kettle black. No woman cries at the mention of a wedding, unless some man has recently disappointed her. When are you going to wake up and smell the coffee? If you wait till you’re even half my age, you’ll have lost the best woman you’re ever likely to meet.”
Anna Louise didn’t hear what Richard said to that. She headed for a ladies’ room, where she could finish up her cry in peace, then repair the damage to her makeup before going back to face Maisey and her exasperating, noble grandson.
Locking herself in one of the stalls, she allowed the tears to fall for another couple of minutes before determinedly drying her eyes. If the man couldn’t admit that he loved her, if he couldn’t make the kind of commitment it took to make a marriage work, then it was his loss. She felt sorry for him. She would pray that someday he would find the courage to build a life with someone who loved him half as much as she did, someone who would lift him out of the depressions his work generated.
In the meantime
