porch step. He was attracted to Megan Briggs and he’d conveniently forgotten all the reasons why he should stay away. He hadn’t been able to help himself from taking her in his arms, kissing her. It was the damnedest thing. What shook him right to the bottom of his shoes was that it felt so right.
It had felt like everything was clicking into place until the moment she’d frozen in his arms. In a way he was glad she’d put on the brakes. The last thing Clay wanted was to play games with Meg, and what else could it possibly be? He wasn’t interested in anything serious, and it was impossible to be anything else with Meg. He knew her too well. They’d shared too many secrets as friends. That type of connection wasn’t something he could be careless with.
As he looked at her now, he knew it was more than just their friendship on the line, too. Meg was scared. For all her protests to the contrary, Meg was still scared to death and pushing her into something based on hormones and attraction would only hurt them both. He had to tread very, very carefully so that nothing was broken irreparably.
“I could never pretend it didn’t happen.” She folded her hands on the table. “The experience is a part of who I am now. The trouble starts when people think that’s all I am.”
“You had cancer, Meg. You could have died.” She hadn’t, but the spectre was always there. “People worry about you. I worry about you, okay? I don’t want to lose another person I …”
Her head came up and her gaze pierced his. “You what?”
“I care about,” he finished. He wanted to think that what she’d revealed tonight didn’t matter. That he didn’t care about scars, that he was a bigger man. But in his head he kept seeing the surgeon’s knife and it made him feel light in the stomach. She was right. It was better that they stop things right where they were. She might think it was about her scars but for Clay it was so much more. He had his own scars to deal with, the kind that didn’t leave physical proof. And now those scars were somehow tied to the one person he was coming to realize he’d always counted on. Her.
Tonight he’d nearly ruined everything by getting carried away. If it meant letting her believe he was repulsed by her appearance, he’d take the hit to his character. It was difficult enough being her friend, but it was nothing compared to being her lover. Friends … lovers … two very, very different things carrying vastly different risks. Love changed things. Love was like taking your heart out of your body and putting it in someone else’s keeping. It required a faith he didn’t possess.
“I understand,” he said quietly. “If you’re okay, I should go.”
“Of course I’m fine.”
Of course she was. Meg would never admit any differently, would she? He pushed away from the table and the chair legs grated against the floor, unusually loud in the awkward silence. He went to the door and she followed him, picking up her coat and hanging it on a hook while he paused with a hand on the doorknob.
“I’m sorry, Meg.” He was sorry for a lot of things and he hoped she’d let it go at that and not ask him to elaborate. He made himself meet her eyes. She was watching him with such soft understanding he felt about two inches tall. A coward.
“It’s okay,” she answered. “It’s a lot to handle. I knew it and I let things get out of hand.”
She was blaming herself? He stepped forward. “Not your fault. Not even a little bit, understand?”
Her cheeks blossomed prettily and Clay’s gaze dropped to her lips. But her breath had quickened and he saw the rise and fall of her chest. No, they had to leave things as they were. They had to stay friends for everyone’s sake. “Let’s just forget about it,” he murmured, opening the door.
“Good idea,” she answered.
He leaned forward and gave her a light peck on the cheek. “Good night, Meg.”
But she didn’t answer as she shut the door behind him and he collected his tux jacket from the railing. Night had fallen completely and April stars were gleaming in a cold sky.
Maybe he should have stayed. He wasn’t proud of himself and he couldn’t help but think of his mother as he started the truck. She hadn’t been able to handle his father’s illness and had left them both. He’d always considered her weak and unfeeling. He’d always been so very determined not to be like her.
Now Meg undoubtedly thought he was, and he was surprised to find that it hurt. Her opinion mattered to him. For the first time in his life he realized that the real motivations behind his parents’ split were possibly different than he’d always thought. After holding Meg in his arms, he found it possible to believe that his mother had loved his father but hadn’t had the strength to handle watching him die.
It was no excuse, but Clay understood it. And he hated himself for it.
Meg rubbed Calico’s neck as she let the mare walk to cool down. A year of inconsistent exercise had both of them out of shape, and she was toying with the idea of doing one more season before hanging up her rodeo hat for good. She had to have something other than the day-to-day running of the ranch. Maybe she just needed to do this one step at a time. Save what she could and build piece by piece.
She sat tall in the saddle, looking at the barrels. Trouble was, as good as she was at racing, she’d never felt like the rodeo royalty type and another year of the circuit sounded exhausting. Somewhere along the way she’d lost her competitive edge. Or perhaps she’d spent so much energy fighting her cancer that she simply didn’t want to compete anymore. The last few days she’d been listless, unsettled. She told herself it had nothing to do with Clay but it did.
He’d disappointed her.
She had wanted him to proclaim that it didn’t matter. That her scars meant nothing. Not that it would have changed anything, but she’d wanted to hear him say it anyway. He hadn’t. She had been so right about stopping things before they truly got started. Now she just wished they could go back to the way things were before.
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