All They Need(90)

It seemed impossible to her that he wouldn’t say something. She’d seen the look on his face, seen the intensity of his feeling. It was undeniable.



He didn’t say anything during the drive home, however, and she grew more and more tense with every passing moment, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I might swing by the supermarket and grab some bread for lunch,” he said. “The cupboard’s pretty much bare at home.”

Inside her head, she wanted to scream. She wanted to grab him by the shirt and shake him until he said what needed to be said. She wanted the impasse to be acknowledged, she wanted the disaster to arrive, she wanted to confront it head-on so she could start to deal with the enormous hole he would leave in her life.

She sat stiff and cold beside him as he pulled into a parking spot at the local shops.

“I’ll only be a moment. You can wait in the car if you like,” he said.

She didn’t say anything as he got out. She watched him stride toward the entrance, confident and assured and beautiful, and something inside her snapped. She wrenched herself from the car and went after him.

“Flynn.”

He turned toward her, eyebrows raised, waiting for her to catch up. She stopped in front of him, feeling breathless even though she’d only jogged a few steps.

“You should just say it,” she told him starkly. “Whatever you need to say. Get it over and done with.”

His brow wrinkled into a frown. “Sorry?”

“That moment with your parents… I know what you want from me, Flynn. I know you love me. But nothing’s changed. I’m still me.” She choked on her final words, strangled by her own misery and brokenness.

His blue eyes looked into hers and she knew, absolutely, that he understood what she was saying. But instead of agreeing and showing his hand and drawing his line in the sand and forcing her to draw hers in turn, he leaned close and kissed the corner of her mouth.

“I was thinking we should grab a quiche instead of making sandwiches, maybe have it with a salad. What do you think?”

He didn’t wait for her to respond, simply gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before turning and entering the supermarket. She took one, two, three steps after him, following him through the automatic doors before stopping in her tracks.

She watched as he walked into the fresh produce section and started inspecting the lettuces and suddenly she understood not only that he wasn’t going to say anything today, but he was also never going to say anything.

Ever.

There would be no demand from Flynn. No line in the sand. No ultimatum. He would never force her into a corner or ask more from her than she was able to give. He would never do that to her.

He loved her.

He wanted her to be happy. And he was prepared to sacrifice his own happiness, his own dreams, in order to make that happen.

His love was generous and mature and all-encompassing—but most of all it was selfless, in the truest meaning of the word. He gave, but he didn’t demand in return.

The realization rolled over her like a wave, inexorable, undeniable. It was like staring into bright sunlight, painful and purifying at the same time.

This man. This amazing, incredible man…

Tears burned the back of her eyes and slipped down her face as she thought about the way he’d already walked away from his landscape design business for his parents and the long hours he worked to preserve the family legacy and the way he dropped everything when his loved ones needed him. He gave and he gave and he gave. And he never asked.

A wave of heat burned its way up through her belly and into her chest and throat and into her face. It took her a moment to recognize it as pride. Fierce, bone-deep pride in him. Flynn Randall was a man in a million. He was a man who a woman could trust with anything—her heart, her mind, her pride, her passion.

He was a man who deserved a love that was as generous and self-sacrificing and openhanded. A love that wasn’t afraid or self-protective or narrow or scared.

He deserved all of her. Everything she had to give.

If she had the courage to give it.

There was only one answer in her heart. There had always been only one answer in her heart. She just hadn’t been ready to see it.

Her hands trembling, she reached into her pocket. Her fingers closed around her car keys. She pulled them out and blinked away tears as she tried to find a particular key on her ring. She slipped her thumbnail into the split and worked the key free. Then she clenched her hand around it and lifted her head.