Stay (Healing Springs, Book 2)

by Amanda Torrey

  The food was delicious, but all she really wanted was him.

  “And what is our next activity?”

  Her knees weakened, because she knew. Oh, she knew.

  Her nervous belly threatened to bring up the delectable meal she had just consumed if she didn’t find a way to relax.

  So she tricked her mind. She imagined what life would be like with Cole. Would he cook for her every night? Open all the doors for her? Gaze at her with love in his eyes while he nurtured their children?

  She didn’t realize she had dug her heels in until he stopped short while pulling her along.

  “What’s the matter? Do you not want to join me?”

  Sincerity showed in his eyes and the lines in his forehead.

  She had to stop getting so far ahead of herself.

  She couldn’t speak—she had allowed herself to venture too far into a fantasy world to retreat so easily.

  She let her body do the talking. He didn’t seem to mind.

  He practically carried her as he stumbled backwards. She allowed herself to be swept away. She had no choice, anyway. Her body would throw a tantrum if she didn’t give in to her impulses.

  Cole’s hands drifted over her body, caressing, nipping, loving every inch of her. Before she knew it, she was standing at the edge of his dining room clad only in her bra and panties with her dress pooled at her feet. She kicked the silly garment out of her way as she tried to get Cole into a similar state of undress.

  Cole shrugged out of his black shirt, pulling it over his head and casting it aside. His shoes and pants came off next. His lips belonged to her.

  At the doorway to what she guessed was his room, Cole hesitated. She took the opportunity to run her hands over his chest, then down to his bulging erection.

  A gasp escaped as he lifted her in his arms. She savored the sensation of her freshly shaved legs against his rougher arms. His hair tickled her sensitive skin, but in a good way. He kicked open the partially ajar door and led her into his room.

  He lowered her onto the bed. She squealed at the coldness of the crisp comforter on her heated skin. He immediately covered her with his body, warming her quicker than any electric blanket ever could.

  He hovered over her, daring her to make the next move.

  She parted her lips in preparation for his kiss, but her plan was interrupted with an uninvited insecurity.

  “How many women have been in this bed, Cole?”

  She bit her tongue. Too late. The words had escaped.

  She closed her eyes and willed herself to disappear. What was it about being around him that made her filter disappear?

  “You really want to know?”

  “No.” Her voice was a mere squeak. Sure, some horrible beast inside her demanded answers, but the rational woman in her didn’t want details. Or visuals. She wanted to pretend there had never been another woman with him. Ever.

  But she wasn’t a complete idiot. Of course he had been with other women. Of course he had brought them to his bed. Of course she couldn’t hold that against him.

  His hands held the sides of her head.

  “My home is my sanctuary.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have asked.”

  She reached up to kiss him. She needed to erase this awkward moment from both of their memories.

  He moved his head so she couldn’t reach him.

  “You’re the first woman I’ve ever brought here.”

  “What?” She had to have heard him wrong.

  “You. Only you. Never anyone else. Not here.”

  Tears stung her eyes. The loyalty and commitment in his words spoke volumes more than anything else he had ever said or done.

  What made her so special that he would bring her here when he had never carried another woman to this bed?

  Could he possibly…

  Love her?

  Something changed in him as she processed that thought. He was still very much present with her physically, but his mind had begun to drift away.

  Did he regret bringing her here?

  Did he wish he had waited to bring someone he loved?

  The silence and tension was worse than a knife slicing her gut open from one side to the other.

  He had to speak eventually.

  Right?

  She summoned her pride and her self-protective nature, shoved all the sensitivity and soft emotion behind her ribs, and waited for him to tear her heart out.

  She could live without it.

  He couldn’t hurt her. She was strong.

  She knew he wanted her. The proof pressed against her thigh.

  So what was the problem? Why was he looking at the wall over her head?

  “Cole?”

  His muscles tightened when she said her name, and not in a good way. He still wouldn’t look her in the eye.

  She reached up and grabbed his face, forcing him to look down at her. She had never felt so exposed, so vulnerable. It felt like a horror story Karly had told her once about having a guy break up with her in the middle of oral sex.

  There was nothing to break up here, though. Only a bunch of misguided daydreams.

  “Cole. Talk to me.”

  Her throat began closing in on her, and the candlelight from the dining room cast freaky shadows on the wall, taunting her for being such a fool.

  He was a heartbreaker. A jerk. A beast.

  But how could a man who framed his niece’s artwork and displayed it in his bachelor pad be so bad?

  She knew she was seconds away from passing out from lack of oxygen for holding her breath while awaiting his response.

  He sent a rush of life back to her when he blurted out the two words she least expected to hear.

  “I’m leaving.”

  Chapter Ten

  Ava had been hit by a bulldozer. No, take that back. She had been run over, mutilated, and tossed in the field by a truck. Her heart had been ravaged and her breath taken away.

  Yeah, she sensed a change in him before he dropped the bomb. She certainly hadn’t expected the proclamation he delivered!

  “What are you talking about?” She struggled into a sitting position. No easy feat considering he was still on top of her.

  Her body burned. She knew she looked like a lobster stranded on the sandy beach, but she didn’t care.

  Cole gathered her in his arms, drawing her head to his chest. He kissed the top of her head, and just as she felt her traitorous body beginning to relax in his embrace, her mind reminded her of the situation.

  Ava pushed against his midsection, desperate for air and space and a damned good explanation.

  Her shove must have caught him off-guard, because he nearly toppled off the bed.

  Served him right.

  “What did you mean, Cole? What kind of stupid thing is that to say? If you want to get rid of me, just say the words and I’ll be gone.”

  “No. I don’t want you gone.”

  “Well if anyone is leaving, it would certainly be me. This is your house.”

  “I didn’t mean now. Jesus.”

  He fell to the side, knocking a pillow to the floor. He buried his hands in his hair as his face betrayed his irritation. Or was it regret?

  Darned if she knew.

  “You’d better explain to me. Because right now it sure feels like I did something wrong.”

  She blinked rapidly, desperate to drive the tears away. She would not cry over this man. Not one single tear. Not one single second. She was all done with that.

  “You did nothing wrong. You’re perfect, Ava.”

  “Then why are you—why am I, I should say—leaving?”

  “I didn’t mean to say it like that. I’ve made a mess of it.” He sat up. “I have to tell you something that I’d rather not have to say.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re gay.”

  “What? No!”

  His reaction was priceless. He even puffed up his chest a bit. But the look he sent her was lethal.


  “You need to ask that?”

  He didn’t have to sound so offended. She knew he had friends who were gay. Then again, the gay people she knew would be equally offended if someone questioned their sexuality, so she guessed it came down to male pride.

  “I’m sorry.” She held her hands up to ward off the daggers he sent her way. “Just checking.”

  He started to say something, but stopped. Under other circumstances, she would have found his guppy impersonation endearing. With the storm clouds he forced into the room, however, she couldn’t consider anything about his current state of annoyance to be anything but, well, annoying.

  Her brain told her to get out of bed and leave before he had to force her out. Her body refused to cooperate, feeling eight hundred pounds and filled with concrete.

  “Ava, come here.”

  “Explain what you meant.”

  “I will. But I want you next to me.”

  “Talk.”

  He shoved his hand through his hair and exhaled forcefully.

  “The reason Ben called yesterday was because I had a job offer. I accepted.”

  Ava stared at the space between his eyes, unwilling to search for answers she didn’t need.

  Work. It always came down to work.

  Just like his father, Cole was a workaholic. Heck, even on his downtime, he volunteered to build houses. He couldn’t help himself. It was in his blood.

  She shouldn’t have allowed herself to think—even for a second—that she could fit into his life.

  He had turned down her offer to follow him four years ago. She wouldn’t lower herself to offer the same again.

  Besides, she’d never uproot her life for a man again.

  He moved closer, slinging one leg off the bed and leaning toward her.

  “Ava. Please hear me. I don’t want to leave you.” He grabbed her hand. “You have to know how much I’d rather be with you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I don’t consider our relationship a debt.”

  “What relationship?”

  He sat back as if she had slapped him.

  “Come on, Cole. What we have is a physical thing. Nothing more. You don’t have to let me down easy. You don’t have to offer me excuses. I can handle living without you, believe it or not.”

  Taking a deep breath, she managed to straighten her shoulders and stand on her own two feet. She’d never show him how much he hurt her with the simple words he had allowed to slip.

  “Ava, come on. Don’t be like this.”

  She tuned out the squeak of the bed as he stood. She didn’t want to feel him following behind her. She didn’t want to be tempted to cry, to beg him to stay. She wanted to pick up her clothes and her pride and go back to the life she had carefully built for herself.

  “I submitted the proposal months ago. Way before I even came back here. It was a long shot. But I can’t let my company fail. Ava. I can’t let down the crew. They need jobs.”

  He was right, of course. But it didn’t ease the sting.

  She yanked her dress up over her body, struggling to reach the zipper. He seemed to be looking past her.

  She paused and studied him. He looked like a lost little boy in the well-built body of a man. She shook her head in an effort to rid herself of the urge to comfort him.

  He most certainly didn’t need her comfort.

  But she did need answers.

  She didn’t want to spend the next however-many-years filling in the blanks. Not again.

  “Where’s the job?” She tried to pull off a nonchalant tone, but failed miserably when her voice squeaked worse than the bed springs in a cheap motel.

  He hesitated. She wasn’t making that up in her head—she could see him tiptoeing around his own mind, trying to find a way to tell her that he was going to another planet and would never return. That this experiment with her had failed and all data would be dumped. Along with her.

  After what seemed like hours, he made eye contact. Pain etched his face. He seemed so genuinely down about the whole thing.

  And she knew she had managed to brainwash herself into believing her own lies.

  “Japan.”

  Yup, might as well have been Jupiter.

  “Japan.” She didn’t ask. She restated. She began to laugh. “Japan. Of course, Japan.”

  He must have heard her heart bounce against her rib cage, threatening to shatter every bit of her into a million pieces. How could he not? The sound blared so loudly in her ears—the woosh-woosh of blood jumping ship, seeking refuge anywhere but the damaged organ.

  One word. One location. One cold ending to shatter the dreams she knew not to build. Dreams she had tricked herself into thinking she wasn’t building.

  She couldn’t look at him again. She focused on finding her shoes. Safety came in being fully clothed and ready to run.

  “Ava, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you like this.”

  “How did you want to tell me? Send me a card from the airport? It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “I wanted more time. With you.”

  “Really? Do you think that’s supposed to make me feel better?” A fire lit inside her. As she slipped on her panties, she had planned to thank him for being up front, for telling her his plans early enough in the evening that she wouldn’t feel used. But as she opened her mouth to speak, something in her snapped. Like an unfortunate twig on a long-forgotten trail, she was trampled as he hiked right over her.

  “I thought—”

  “What was this all about, Cole? Bored because you had to return to this little town you’ve never loved? See if naïve little Ava will hop back into your bed like before? Boy, I sure made it easy for you, didn’t I?” She clutched the sides of her head, desperate to block the screams resonating within.

  “You know that’s not what it was to me.” He reached to grab her, but the electricity that flowed between them alerted her to his impending touch. She managed to jump away in time. “I had no idea that I’d come here to help my father and end up falling for you.”

  He caught her off-guard and managed to grab her. She tried to pull away—she thought she did, anyway. Either her strength was no match for his, or her will to pull away had been zapped.

  Damn electrical storms.

  After what felt like forever standing in his arms, and a growing awareness of his nakedness, she gathered all the courage she possessed and raised her eyes to meet his.

  “Ava.”

  She melted.

  Why did he have to sound so regretful? So sad?

  Why did desire have to leap out at her through his eyes?

  Why couldn’t he act like a jerk? She could easily repel him if he were mean.

  She struggled to recall what he had just said. Through the thick fog of her mind, she seemed to have heard him saying something about falling for her.

  Falling in love?

  Falling in lust?

  Falling and hitting his head so he didn’t know better when he pursued her?

  Falling how?

  As she studied his face, she watched as a door closed behind his eyes. The intensity of whatever emotion he had allowed her to glimpse dimmed.

  Could she have been imagining the emotion?

  The regret? The promise?

  His hands dropped to his sides. He was letting her go. Just like four years ago. Without a fight.

  She had clearly imagined all of it.

  If he cared about her at all, he’d fight for their fledgling relationship. He’d fight for her.

  So be it. She had lived without him before. She’d do it again. Only this time there’d be no rebound affairs for her. It may have taken a second time around to learn her lessons when it came to Cole, but Kevin’s lesson would never be unlearned.

  Cole didn’t move a muscle when she stepped away from him and collected the rest of her clothes.

  If she saw even the slightest bit of something, she might believe—hell, she had no idea what she was capa
ble of believing anymore.

  She called out to him against her will. She hated that he looked like he was hurting as much as she was. He didn’t deserve to hurt—he was responsible for the pain.

  When he did look at her again, the fire in his eyes burned her. Irreversible damage. That would be the official diagnosis.

  “Thank you for a wonderful meal. You really did too much.”

  “Ava, I’m—”

  She didn’t wait for him to finish. She ran down the stairs to the Main Street entrance, carrying her bra and shawl in her hands.

  “Ava, wait! We need to talk.” His tone was frantic, urgent. “Wait.”

  Her legs threatened to give out, but her body was fully in the “flight” stage of self-protection.

  “Dammit, Ava!” The unmistakable thud of his fist on the doorway followed. His voice became a murmur, and she didn’t dare guess what he was saying.

  She fastened her seat belt and started the car. Before she backed out of her spot, the full impact of what she had done hit her. She pulled forward and rested her head on the steering wheel.

  She heard his pleas. She felt his regret.

  Yes, he was bailing on her.

  But for good reason.

  He had made no promises. He had never said he was sticking around. She couldn’t hold him accountable for her own overactive imagination.

  He was right—he had people depending on him. Families who needed to eat.

  He hadn’t lied to her. He hadn’t misrepresented himself.

  He had single-handedly brought her back from the dead. He had shown her there was nothing wrong with her—sexually, at least—and she’d be forever grateful.

  She had to have one last moment of passion. She owed it to herself, really. She didn’t want to leave things like this. She cared about him too much to let him go to the other side of the world on these terms.

  There didn’t have to be any words between them. She didn’t want to know any details of his leaving. She only wanted to be with him.

  She marched back up the stairs to his front door, prepared to ask no questions, make no demands, and leave with absolutely no regrets.