“What did Ethan say to you?” Boone asked as Emily joined him.
“He told me to go easy on you,” she said. “Any idea what he meant?”
“He meant that I’ve had it in mind all day that you’ve shown up with bad news.” He scanned her face. “Have you?”
Unfortunately she didn’t immediately deny it. Instead, she stood on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to his lips before taking a step back. “You may see it that way,” she admitted. “But I hope you won’t.”
This time the feeling of dread didn’t settle in Boone’s stomach. It stole through his heart.
* * *
Though Emily suggested they wait until after dinner to talk, she was so fidgety through the meal, Boone had to wonder why he’d even bothered cooking. She’d shredded the chicken on her plate but hadn’t touched a bite. He’d automatically shoveled the food in, but it had been tasteless.
“Obviously putting this off was a bad idea,” he said, as he took everything inside. He left the dishes piled in the sink, poured them each another glass of wine and gestured toward the living room.
“Inside or out?”
“Let’s sit in here. It’s starting to get chilly outside,” she said. “Maybe the weather’s finally turning. It is December, after all.”
She wanted to talk about the weather, he thought impatiently. No way. They needed to get this over with. Boone waited until she chose a place on the sofa before dropping down beside her. He set his wineglass on the coffee table.
“Okay, let’s dive right in. Are you calling it quits?” he asked, then held his breath as he awaited her reply.
She looked genuinely startled by the direct question. “What? No. Absolutely not.”
Boone released a sigh of relief. Anything short of breaking up couldn’t possibly be so bad. “Then fill me in. What’s going on?”
He listened closely as she described the opportunity being offered to her in Los Angeles and knew at once it would demand her presence on the West Coast pretty close to full-time.
“And you’re going to accept the offer, aren’t you?” he said, resigned.
“How can I not? It’s the most meaningful work I’ve ever had.” She regarded him earnestly. “Boone, I wish I could make you understand what it was like working on this safe house and then seeing those women and children when they saw it for the first time. If you’d been there, you’d know how I felt.”
Much as he regretted it, he was forced to admit that he did understand. And as desperately as he wanted her to be here, with him and B.J., he also knew she’d resent him if he insisted that she give up this opportunity. He wondered what she’d do if he even dared to utter such a selfish ultimatum. She’d probably throw it back in his face and walk out. Her career was something she could hang on to. Their love was untested.
It was already clear to him that her mind was made up. This whole conversation was little more than a polite exercise. He had several choices, all of them flawed. He could walk away and live the rest of his life with regrets. He could fight her and wind up losing in the long run when she came to resent him. Or he could man up and try to work through this.
When he looked into her eyes, he saw the shadows of worry there. She was obviously scared that he was going to react badly. That look made him desperately want to find the right words. He just had no idea what those words might be.
He reached over and touched her cheek, felt the dampness of a tear that had escaped. “I know you want my blessing, Em.”
She nodded. “I do, more than anything.”
“And if I say no, that a long separation just isn’t going to work for me, what happens then?”
Another tear leaked out. “I don’t know,” she whispered miserably. “I see your point. I know this will be hard.” She looked into his eyes. “But will it be harder than never seeing each other again, not being in each other’s lives?”
When she put it that way, it shook Boone. He’d been without her for years. And despite having a loving wife and son during that time, a part of his soul had been missing. He didn’t see things being a whole lot better if he lost her again, especially after they’d come so close to getting it right this time.
“Boone, say something,” she pleaded. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking that no matter what I say, it’s going to be wrong. If I tell you to turn this down, that our relationship needs to be your first priority and it simply won’t work with such a long separation, then I’m being selfish and unreasonable.”
“No, you wouldn’t be,” she insisted. “Believe me, there’s a part of me that totally gets that what I’m asking of you is too huge.”
“But you want this job,” he said. “It’s given you something you felt was missing. How can I deny you that and still claim to love you?”
Now her tears flowed unchecked. “This whole thing stinks, doesn’t it?”
He smiled, dabbing at her tears with a napkin. “I think I can safely say that if we were talking about a lousy idea that truly stank, we wouldn’t be having this problem. You wouldn’t be torn up over whether to take this job, and I wouldn’t be torn up over letting you go.”
Alarm immediately filled her eyes. “Letting me go? That’s your solution?”
He needed to feel his way through this, try to get it right. “Em, you need to be free to do this. With B.J. and me in the picture, even with my blessing, I know you’re going to feel torn every minute. You’ll be sure you’re shortchanging the job or us, no matter what you do. Can you deny that?”
Though she clearly hated making the admission, she shook her head. “No.”
“Then you need to do this without worrying about me. You need
