Love, Come to Me(113)

“I was angry for a long time. And then I began to understand why you did it—why you married Clay, why you didn’t want me there after the war—”

“But I wanted you! I did!” The hard note of desperation entered her voice. “For so long I’ve wanted to take back that day and live it all over again. I’d take back everything I said—I didn’t mean any of it. I wouldn’t have hurt you. I never meant to hurt you, but I already had too much to think about without having to worry about your feelings as well. We all had to be selfish . . . you were selfish, too!”

“I was selfish, too,” Heath repeated softly.

“Then you do understand—”

“I understood and forgave you a long time ago.”

“Then what’s stopping us from being together now?” she asked, bewildered.

“To begin with, I’m married.”

“I’m not asking you to break up your marriage. I’m not after a wedding ring . . . I just want you. I’ll stay here, and welcome you whenever you need me. My arms will always be open—”

“I don’t need them. After I let go of all the anger, I stopped wanting you.” Heath paused, disliking the necessity of being blunt and callous. But Raine had left him no alternative. “I stopped thinking about you.”

“I won’t believe that.”

“I doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you leave Boston within the next twenty-four hours.”

“But if you don’t care whether I leave or not—”

“My wife does, and that’s all that matters. If I have to personally load you onto the next ship that sails out of the harbor or the next train that pulls out of the station, then I will. You have the rest of the world to live in . . . anywhere but Massachusetts.”

“What about you? Lucinda won’t always be able to keep you happy. Soon you’re going to want someone who understands you, someone from the place where you were brought up, someone who can talk about the old days with you. You don’t have a past with her. You have a past with me.”

There were a hundred different ways Heath could have answered her. There were so many things he could have tried to make her understand—how little the old days meant to him, how well Lucy understood him, and how easy it was for her to make him happy. He could have told her how much his life up here pleased him, and about the sense of purpose and fulfillment it brought him, but there was only one thing truly necessary for Raine to understand, and only one way he knew how to say it.

“I love her, Raine.”

“Once you loved me.”

“I was attracted to you. I cared for you. But that wasn’t love. It wasn’t real.”

“Nothing else has ever been as real for me.”

“Then I’m sorry for you. And I hope that one day you’ll find someone. But there’s no hope for you and me. Raine . . . I’ve been looking for her all my life. Now that I have her, no one else could ever be anything but second-best.”

“S-second-best? To her?”

“Yes. Don’t ever doubt that.”

“Heath . . . Heath, I don’t understand.” Her stubbornness began to falter, and her heavy lashes fluttered with confusion. “What do you see in her? What has she done to trap you? Is she . . .” Raine floundered vainly for words. “Is she prettier than I am? Is that what you think? Is it that she likes to talk about that newspaper with you?”

The pity in his eyes was genuine as he looked at her. “I don’t know if I can explain something to you that you can’t see, or touch, or feel. You wouldn’t understand. It’s nothing that she’s done or said . . . it’s not the way she looks—though God knows I couldn’t find fault with that. Sometimes people don’t have to do anything to make you love them . . . you just do, and there’s no help for it.”

She looked down at the tablecloth, refusing to answer. But he read her silence accurately, and he knew that tomorrow morning she would be leaving Boston.

The hack made it to the Parker House just as Lucy’s carriage did. Damon leapt onto the curb and was at the door of the carriage in the blink of an eye.

“Lucy, let me in there—let me talk to you for just a minute. Please.”

At Lucy’s reluctant assent, the disapproving coachman opened the door for Damon, who slid inside immediately. Closed in the dark quietness of the carriage, Damon sat next to her and rapidly sorted through his options. What could he say to her?

“Don’t go in there,” he said finally, feeling like a tongue-tied idiot as he read the deep misery in her eyes.

“I don’t want to,” she replied, her voice cracking. “I’m afraid that I’ll see Heath and Raine together, and then I won’t have any choice but—”

“They are in there together . . . take my word for it. So there’s no need to go in there and make a scene.”

“Damon . . . why is he with her?” she whispered. “Why didn’t he tell me? I don’t know what to do.” She searched clumsily in her handbag for a handkerchief as she started to cry. Her tears were too much for him. After pulling out a handkerchief from his pocket and handing it to her, Damon listened to her muffled weeping for a few seconds, feeling more helpless than he had in years. Carefully he took her into his arms, in a loose, brotherly embrace that communicated no hint of passion. As her weeping continued, his hand moved over the back of her head in a light, protective caress, and his eyes closed for a split second as he gave in to the painful luxury of pretending.