He was beginning to feel defensive. He drew his jacket more closely around him. “You knew where to contact me, if you’d wanted to.”
“For all I knew, you were spending all your time with Lizzie! How was I to know differently?”
“You could have trusted me,” he snapped back. “For all I knew, you thought I had killed your brother.”
“So why didn’t you tell me you didn’t?”
“I shouldn’t have had to tell you. You should have known me better.”
“As it happens, I did,” she answered quietly. “I never for one moment thought you had anything to do with Roger’s death.”
She’d told him that before. He wasn’t sure he’d fully believed it—until now.
“Rachel...”
She jabbed a finger into his chest. Painfully. “You ran. You decided I’d judged you, just like the rest of the town, and instead of staying to convince me differently, you took off. You asked me to marry you, Lucas! And I said yes. I asked if we could wait until I finished college, and you said that wasn’t a problem, that you needed time to find a better job than that one you had then. You said you would wait. But you left.”
Her finger was nearly digging a hole in his chest. Lucas reached up to catch her hand, holding it firmly, but carefully.
“I was doing you a favor, damn it. Even if you didn’t think I was a killer, the rest of your family sure as hell did. More than half the town did. We couldn’t have kept seeing each other without someone else finding out. I couldn’t stay here with everyone believing what they did about me, my father refusing to have anything to do with me, my sister being penalized just for being related to me. I had to leave. I couldn’t take you with me, even if you’d wanted to go. I had no job, no home, nothing. You were too young to be put into that position. You deserved more.”
He wasn’t in a habit of explaining himself in so much detail. His associates in California had learned not to ask questions, just to accept whatever he chose to share with them.
Rachel wasn’t going to be so easily satisfied.
She jerked her hand away from his and jabbed him with her finger again. “And what are you protecting me from this time?”
“Everything happened so fast this past week. I was giving you time to think. Time to decide if you want this to go any farther. I was leaving you my number,” he reminded her.
“In other words, you decided again what was best for me, just as you did fifteen years ago. Well, let me tell you, Lucas McBride, I didn’t need you making decisions for me then, and I certainly don’t now.”
“I...”
She gave him no chance to speak. “If you want to leave because you aren’t interested in a serious relationship with me, then go. I survived before, I will again. But I don’t think that’s what you want at all. I think you want to be with me. I think you want to be here to see your sister married. I think you’re just too damned scared of real, honest, overwhelming emotion. I think you’ve stopped believing in lifetime commitment, because it’s not something you’ve experienced before. Your mother died, your stepmother ran off, your father withdrew, the town turned against you... and I hung up on you. And those hurts have left you an emotional coward.”
“Rachel...” His voice was husky. He felt as if he were bleeding from a dozen small wounds, all inflicted by words that rang painfully true.
“I’m sorry for hurting you, Lucas. I’m sorry I was too young and naive and overwhelmed by events to trust you as I should have. You hurt me, too, but I’ve gotten past it. I’m ready to go on from here. But this time, you’re going to have to take a risk. You’re going to have to tell me how you feel and what you want. You’re going to have to swallow some of that McBride stubbornness and pride and...”
As fascinating as he’d found her tirade, as beautiful as she looked with fire in her dark eyes and a flush of determination on her face, he knew it was his turn to speak. “I love you, Rachel.”
She closed her mouth and stared at him narrowly. “What did you say?”
“I love you. I have since I was a stupid, hot-tempered kid. I’ve never stopped. Never.”
It was as close to baring his soul as Lucas knew how to do.
She closed her eyes for a moment, as if in relief. He noticed her hand was trembling when she reached beneath her collar and drew out a thin gold chain. A gold heart-shaped charm dangled from her hand. “You made me a promise when you gave me this,” she said. “Do you remember what it was?”
The sight of the charm made him swallow hard. Oh, yes, he remembered giving it to her. He remembered the look on her face when she’d opened it. The love in her eyes.
If he’d known Lizzie had been going around saying he’d given her one, too, he’d have...
But he couldn’t think about what he should have done. Or start second-guessing the choices he had made. He could drive himself crazy that way. “I remember.”
“You said we would be married when I finished college and you had a secure income from a stable job. Well, I finished college eleven years ago. And rumor has it you’ve got a good job. Are you a man who reneges on his promises, Lucas McBride?” she challenged him, her cheeks flushed, her gaze level.
Something tight and painful eased inside him. He was still a bit worried that things were happening too fast, that Rachel would change her mind once she’d had time to think—but he would be the world’s biggest fool to walk away from her again when she had done everything but order him to stay. Her courage humbled him—and showed him how right she’d been when she’d called him an emotional coward.