The way he delivered the word friend made a mockery of it. Still, he allowed the words to hang in the air until she finally sighed, pretty much acknowledging that he’d gotten it right. Darn the man for being so intuitive. Under other circumstances, it was a trait she’d appreciate.
“Do you want me to go?” he asked.
“I suppose not, especially since you’ve brought coffee,” she said, sounding more like a petulant child than a grateful woman. And truthfully, she was grateful. She’d been caffeine deprived for days now. The weak, if convenient, coffee she’d been begging from Shanna just didn’t compare to Sally’s strong brew.
Filled with reluctance, she sat next to him. All three dogs flopped down in the sunshine, though Archie’s spot was once again as close as possible to Aidan. Liz got it. Despite her very strong resolve, she wanted to throw herself straight into his arms. She had a feeling all that solid muscle and masculine heat would prove irresistibly comforting, and right this second, she was in desperate need of reassurance. Unfortunately, though, he was the last man she ought to be getting that from.
They sat in silence for a while, sipping coffee. She had to give him credit. He apparently wasn’t going to push for answers, even if he claimed to have come here to get them. She appreciated that more than she could say.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked eventually.
She immediately stiffened. So much for not prying. “Talk about what?”
“Whatever happened that made you so determined to keep men in general, or me in particular, at arm’s length.”
“Do you really need to dissect the whole thing?” she asked. “I thought most men hated that sort of discussion.”
“I’m not most men,” he said. “And despite these walls you want to keep up between us, I do care about you.”
She studied him curiously. “Hasn’t anyone ever turned you down before?”
The question seemed to amuse him. “More times than you can probably imagine. I can take rejection, Liz. It’s not about that.”
“Then what is it about?”
“I made you cry,” he said simply.
“I did not cry,” she said fiercely.
“Close enough,” he said. “I saw the tears in your eyes, even as you were saying no to us spending more time together.”
“You’re imagining things,” she said, a note of desperation in her voice.
He held her gaze, then said quietly, “I don’t think so.”
“Why can’t you just take what I said at face value and leave it alone?”
“Because that kiss was amazing. I don’t know about you, but that kind of chemistry doesn’t come along every day for me. I felt it the first time I saw you. It seems like a shame not to see where it could take us. Believe me, I have a whole slew of reservations about it, too. The timing is lousy for one thing. I have a lot to prove in this town. Still, I can’t help thinking that some things are worth the risk.”
She gave him a long look. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Aidan. There are plenty of risks not worth taking.”
He frowned. “What happened to you, Liz? You’re not a cynical person. In fact, you may be the most positive person I’ve ever known. Anyone who knows you would say the same thing.”
She could tell that he intended to keep pestering her until he got some answer that satisfied him, no matter how much she was hurt by having to reveal things she wanted to leave buried.
“I got my heart broken, that’s what,” she blurted before she could question the wisdom of responding at all. “Not just broken, shattered. I came here to put it back together, not to risk it being broken all over again.” She leveled a look into his eyes. “I won’t allow that to happen, Aidan. Do you get it now? I will not allow it!”
And with that, she got up, went into the house with the dogs racing in after her. She slammed the door emphatically behind her, hoping to finally convey the message she’d tried to send all along—that she wanted him to stay away.
* * *
Aidan sat where he was after Liz had gone inside, too stunned at first to move. Instinct told him to go after her, to try to get to the bottom of her heartache. That’s what a real friend would do. A true friend wouldn’t leave someone in the sort of pain she was obviously in.
Unfortunately, he was the source of at least some of that pain. His determined prodding had forced her into revealing something she’d clearly kept private from everyone in Chesapeake Shores. He knew if she’d revealed her secrets to any of her friends, someone would have alerted him, maybe not to the details, but to the fact that he needed to treat her with extra care. Instead, the whole town thought of her the same way he did, as a strong, perpetually cheerful woman who was 100 percent contented with her life.
Though a part of him thought it cowardly, he forced himself to go back into town in search of someone better suited to help Liz through this crisis. Observation suggested she was closest to Bree, but Aidan couldn’t seem to find her anywhere. Shanna, however, was in the bookstore, the closed sign still on the door. He tapped to get her attention.
Frowning, she came to the door and unlocked it. “Everything okay?”
“Not really,” he said. “Do you have a minute before you open?”
“I have an hour. I just came in early to reshelve some books that were scattered around by customers yesterday. Coffee’s on, if you want some.”
“Thanks.”
She poured him a cup, then gestured toward one of the comfortable upholstered chairs that had been strategically placed to encourage customers to relax and read. She pulled over a nearby straight chair from one of the tables set up in the tiny coffee area.
“Shouldn’t you be sitting here?” Aidan asked worriedly. “That chair doesn’t look very comfortable.”
She grinned. “It’s not, but I
