Shattered Mirror (Eve Duncan #23)(88)

Eve nodded. “We’ll find him.”

*

The summerhouse was just ahead. Its soft white stucco walls and beveled-glass windows gleamed in the moonlight, but the interior was dark. Cara had thought Jock was too often in the dark, she remembered as she stopped before the front door. But that didn’t matter now. If he wanted to stay in the dark, it was his choice.

She knocked on the door. “Open the door, Jock. I need to talk to you.” She didn’t wait for an answer but opened the door herself and walked into the living room. Empty. She could vaguely see a gray brocade couch and chairs in the dimness. “Jock?”

“I’m here. I’m just throwing on some clothes. I wasn’t expecting you.” He was coming out of the bedroom pulling on his shirt. “And you’d better have a good reason for coming down here in the middle of the night,” he said roughly. “If one of Kaskov’s men had decided to knock you down and rape you, I might not have even heard you.”

“I had a good reason.” She turned on a lamp beside the couch, and she could see his tousled fair hair, his naked chest beneath the open white shirt, and the coldness of those silver-gray eyes. Even in this moment she felt the impulse to do anything to rid him of any coldness toward her. Block it. It was a habit instilled by all those years with him. It was the past, not the present. “My reason was that I’ve been lying there in bed thinking since Eve told me about your being hurt.” She lifted her chin. “I was shaken but not really surprised that you didn’t come and tell me yourself. But it did serve to bring everything together for me. It defined what I’ll always be to you.” She sat down in a chair and looked at him. “And I didn’t think I could bear to let it go another hour without telling you. I’ve waited too long as it is.”

“I wasn’t really hurt,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want you getting upset. You seem to be constantly on the edge these days. I know it’s Michael, but I thought I could spare you worrying about me.”

“Yes, it’s Michael. I think about him all the time.” She paused. “And it’s you. I’m going to lose you, Jock. I could see it coming, and I was fighting so hard against it. But tonight I decided that I was losing more than you by trying to give you what you wanted from me.”

“That’s bullshit,” he said roughly. “No one is losing anybody. Nothing’s changed.”

“Everything’s changed.” She forced a smile. “Not your fault, Jock. Probably not mine either. It just kind of snuck up on me. You’re used to feeling this kind of thing, but it caught me off guard.”

“You’re not making sense. What kind of thing, dammit?”

“Sex,” she said simply. She turned her hands over and looked down at her palms. “I want to touch you all the time these days. I want you to touch me.”

“Oh, shit.”

She looked up at his face. Shock, anger, intensity, and something else she couldn’t define. “I thought that’s what you’d say. Do me a favor and don’t feel sorry for me? I’ve always known that would never be my role in your life. I still know it. You have other women for that. I was best friend, a kid to protect. This just kind of happened but I know it ruins everything.”

“No it doesn’t. Sorry for you?” His eyes were blazing in his taut face. “I’m mad as hell. Why did you even bring this up? You’re only eighteen, and you don’t know what you want. Next month it will have gone away.”

“You’d like to think so. I know better. I’ve been living with this for a while. It might go away, but I’m not going to change back to what you want me to be. Somewhere along the way, I grew up, Jock.” She had to go on, say the words. “Even though I know it’s probably going to be the end of what we were together. I’m tired of pretending that nothing has changed and that I’ll always be the young girl you met and saved all those years ago. It’s too hard, and it makes me feel like a liar. We’ve never lied to each other.”

“Haven’t we?” he asked hoarsely.

“I didn’t think so.” She had to end this quickly. She got to her feet and moved toward the door. “So I think that it would be better if we didn’t see each other for a while. I know it would be awkward for you, and it would just confuse me more than I am right now. I’m so used to wanting to please you, and I have to get over that.” Her lips twisted. “I might find myself falling back into that same pattern. I won’t do that. I’m going forward, Jock.”

“Without me.”

She flinched. “I think it has to be that way. Though Darcy would probably think I’m stupid. She thinks it’s so simple. I should just jump you and let the cards fly where they might. But nothing is that simple where we’re concerned. We’ve known each other too long. We’ve been too close.” She looked him in the eye. “And there’s no way that you’d want that to happen.”

“You’re damn right I wouldn’t.” He was across the room in seconds. His silver-gray eyes were glittering down at her, and a muscle was jerking in his left cheek. “Not after all I’ve done to keep it from happening.” His hands grasped her shoulders and he shook her. “Forget it. Get over it, dammit.”

“I will.” She stared at him in bewilderment. She had never seen him like this. “I told you what I thought I had to do. Why are you being so—”