Chapter 6
The slam of the screen door closing startled Victoria out of the daze she’d fallen into. She got up to follow Seamus, who had Shannon by the arm in the yard.
“Wait,” she cried. “Stop. Just stop!” She forced her way between the cousins and took hold of Shannon’s arm. “Walk away. Right now.” She marched him toward the path that led from the yard to the rugged coastline.
Jackson and Kyle stood off to the side, watching them go by with big eyes.
Victoria felt bad for bringing their drama to Seamus and Carolina’s home.
“What’re you doing here?” Shannon asked when they had left the yard behind.
“About two seconds after you left, I figured out who you fought with at work, and I came to check on him.”
“You’re awfully cozy with my cousin all of a sudden.”
Victoria gave him a hard shove that he didn’t see coming, making him stumble on the dirt path. “Shut up. I am not cozy with him. I am friends with him through you, as you well know.”
When he turned to face her, she was taken aback by the stormy expression on his face. In all their time together, she’d never seen that particular look on him before. “I don’t know who you think you are, poking your nose into stuff that’s none of your business.”
“None of my business? How do you figure it’s none of my business when you’re living in my house and sleeping in my bed?”
“Both of which can be easily rectified.”
Stunned by the hostile rebuke, Victoria reeled from the meaning behind his words. “So that’s how you’re going to play this? You’re going to run away because I wanted to know why we’re stuck in the same place we were a year ago?”
“That’s what you think? That we’re in the same place we were a year ago?” He shook his head in disbelief.
“We’re exactly where we were then. We haven’t taken a single step forward from the day you moved in.”
“That is not true,” he said softly.
She couldn’t miss the hint of sadness in his tone. “Shannon—”
He held up a hand to stop her. “I can’t do this.”
A shockingly painful bolt of fear jolted her. “What can’t you do?”
“This. Any of it. I never should’ve… I can’t.” He brushed by her and started back up the path toward the yard.
“Shannon, wait! You can’t just walk away from me after everything we’ve shared.”
He whirled around. “According to you, we haven’t shared anything.”
“I never said that!”
“Didn’t you?”
When he started walking again, she chased after him, grabbing his shirt and forcing him to stop.
“I never said that.”
“What did you say, then, Vic? Explain it to me.”
She swallowed the huge lump in her throat and tried to ignore the roar in her ears and the relentless beat of her heart so she could focus on him. “I said we are stuck in the same place we started. That’s all.”
“I don’t know how you can say that.” He raised his hands to his head and ran his fingers roughly through his hair, leaving it standing on end.
She had to resist the urge to straighten it the way she would have only yesterday, before she ruined everything by digging into his past.
“If you think that,” he said, “you don’t know me at all.”
“I want to know you. Why do you think I went to Seamus in the first place? It’s because I want that so badly.”
“So badly that you couldn’t ask me what you wanted to know?”
He had her there. “I was afraid to.”
Seeming stunned, he stared at her. “You were afraid to talk to me? What the hell, Victoria?”
“I don’t know why I felt that way. I guess I figured if you were ever going to tell me what was holding you back from fully committing to me, you would’ve by now.”
“Fully committing,” he said with a huff of incredulous laughter. “I live with you. I sleep with you. I have sex with you almost every day, sometimes twice a day. How do you define fully committed?”
Victoria had to fight the need to squirm under his intense green-eyed gaze. “Is that it? Is that going to be our life? Living together, sleeping together, having sex?”
“I thought you liked our life.”
“I do!”
“Then what in the name of God is the problem, Victoria?”
“I…” She took a deep breath and forced herself to meet his gaze. “I want more.”
Again she saw sadness and weary resignation in his expressive eyes. “I’m not capable of more.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, Victoria, I’m really not. I like what we have. It works for me. If it’s not working for you, all you have to do is say so.”
“It does work for me, but—”
“No buts. It either works for you or it doesn’t. Which is it?”
She once again swallowed a lump in her throat as a hundred scenarios flashed through her mind in the span of a second.
One thing became crystal clear—if they weren’t together, they’d never be able to move forward.
Right here, right now, preserving the relationship they already had was her top priority.
“Vic? What’s it going to be?”
“It works for me.”
“No more poking around in my past, you got me?”
“Were you ever going to tell me about it?”
“No.”
“Just no? That’s it?”
“Just no. That’s it.” As he said those words, she saw more passion and fire in his eyes than she had ever seen before—and all of it for a woman who had died.
Something inside her died at realizing she couldn’t compete with that woman. She couldn’t—and wouldn’t—compete with her. “I… I’m sorry. It turns out that this isn’t going to work for me after all.”
“What’re you saying?”
Since she might not get another chance, Victoria decided it was time to lay it all on the line.
“I love you, Shannon. I’m in love with you.
I want a life with you. I want us to have so much more than a shared address, a shared bed and the best sex I’ve ever had.
I want a family. I want kids and a husband and a commitment from a man who loves me and only me. I want the fairy tale.”
“I’m not capable of fairy tales.”
“Yes, you are!” She closed the distance between them, placing her hands on his chest and sliding them up to encircle his neck. “You’re so capable. You’re everything I want and need. All you have to do is be willing to accept what I want to give you and then give it back to me.”
“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry. If I was going to have that with anyone, it would be you.”
“Shannon, please. All I’m asking you to do is try.”
“I have tried. I’ve tried my best for a year, and you’re telling me that my best isn’t enough for you.”
“Talk to me about her. Tell me what happened. Let me share your burden.”
He pulled free of her. “I don’t talk about her. I hate that you even know about her.”
“Why don’t you want me to know? What do you think I’ll do with that information besides love you more than I already do?”
Shaking his head, he said, “Don’t love me, Vic. I’m not worth it.”
“It’s far, far too late to tell me that.
” After taking a moment to summon the courage she needed, she looked him in the eye and lowered her voice in case little ears were nearby.
“I know how to turn you on and just how to touch you to make you shout when you come. I know what makes you tremble and what makes you sigh with pleasure, but I didn’t know about the most important person in your life until someone else told me about her.
I don’t know what you hope for, what you dream about, what you want for yourself.
All I’m asking for is the chance to know you, Shannon, not just what turns you on. ”
He broke the intense eye contact and looked down at the ground.
After a long moment, he finally returned his gaze to her, seeming devastated by what she’d said.
“I’m sorry to have disappointed you this way.
I never intended for that to happen. Jesus, I never intended for any of this to happen.
” He caressed her face, his touch electrifying her as it always did.
Then he kissed her forehead. “Give me an hour, and I’ll be out of the house. I’m so sorry, love.”
Riveted by the sight of him walking away from her, Victoria stood there until long after he’d disappeared around a bend in the path.
Tears rolled unchecked down her face as she tried to process what’d just happened.
He’d ended it with her rather than share himself, his past, his pain or his love with her.
Her chest tightened, the ache centered in her heart, which had been shattered in the scope of a few minutes. Blinded by tears, she bent at the waist, trying to force air into lungs that felt compressed by the magnitude of the pain. Nothing had ever hurt like this did.
Victoria had no idea how long she was there before she heard Seamus say her name.
“Come with me,” he said, helping her to stand upright and guiding her toward his home with his arm around her shoulders.
Victoria pressed her face against his chest and let him lead the way for her.
She was incapable of even the simplest things at the moment.
He settled her on the sofa in their sitting room.
Even though it was summer and hot outside, she shivered uncontrollably.
Seamus pulled a blanket over her and then sat on the edge of the sofa.
“There now,” he said in that hauntingly beautiful accent. “It’s going to be okay.”
Victoria shook her head. She had a hard time believing anything was ever going to be okay again.
“There’s an old saying… I can’t remember who said it, but it went something like this. If you love someone, set them free. If they come back to you, they’re yours. If they don’t, they never were.”
A sob hiccupped through her, and tears fell in a steady stream. She already knew that Shannon wouldn’t come back. He’d never been hers. She just hadn’t understood that before now. “I… I should go. You don’t need this here. The boys—”
“Are fine, and you’re welcome here for as long as you’d like to stay.” He pulled the blanket up farther. “Close your eyes and try to rest for a bit. You’re in no condition to drive.”
Victoria knew she ought to get up and go home to her own house to mourn in private, but she couldn’t seem to make her body heed the call to move. So she stayed put on Seamus and Carolina’s sofa and cried herself to sleep.