Page 28 of Taking The Shot

Keith’s eyes widened slightly as he gulped, staring at her.

Her breath hitched as Keith spoke, his voice raw with emotion. She could hear the strain in it, the hesitation, the fear laced through his every word. He wasn’t just rejecting her—he was recoiling, retreating from something she thought they both wanted. The weight of his words pressed against her chest, making it hard to breathe.

"Constance," he began hoarsely as if forcing himself to say her name aloud made this conversation more real. His golden eyes flickered with something unreadable—pain, apprehension, doubt. "Look, I’m very interested in what you are suggesting—very—but I’ve already messed up once in my life by rushing intosomething I thought I was ready for, only for it to explode in my face, harming my future."

The sting of rejection settled deep in her chest, sharp and unexpected. She parted her lips to protest, to tell him that she wasn’t his past mistake, that this—they—were different, but before she could find the words, he shook his head. His hands closed over hers, warm and steady, but his touch wasn’t reassuring. It felt like an anchor, holding her in place while he prepared to push her away.

His gaze locked onto hers, pleading. Searching. "I want everything you are mentioning more than you can imagine, but I won’t risk our future when we aren’t ready. Does that make sense?"

No. It didn’t. Not when she was sitting here, vulnerable and hopeful, only to feel like she was grasping at something that kept slipping through her fingers. The house he promised felt like a sandcastle. The future, disappearing between her fingers, and she was terrified it was about to be washed away in the tide, never to return, and she would be left holding a pail, with nothing - again.

Keith swallowed hard, his voice dropping to a whisper. "You lost a husband and married a stranger who was desperate to hang onto a job. What does that say about me?"

The words cut her open, exposing the messy, complicated truth of their situation. He sounded nervous and uncertain, as if he was bracing for her to turn on him, to throw his own insecurities back in his face. But all she felt was raw, aching hurt.

Shehadlost a husband. Shehadmarried a man she barely knew. But none of that changed the way she had started to feel about him. The way she wanted more. The way she wantedhim. He was kind, attractive, and gentle – and she was beyond lonely for attention.

"You don’t know me, and I barely know you," Keith continued, his grip on her hands tightening like he was afraid she’d pull away. "Let’s focus on discovering who we are and how we work together before we introduce something so personal… because if I ruin this for you—or you hate me afterward—I don’t know that I have it in me to stand strong against all the emotions that come with it."

His voice broke, and she felt it like a slap. He was afraid not just of messing up—but of driving her away by rushing things or losing her.

"It hurt…" he whispered, eyes dropping to their joined hands as if looking at her was suddenly too much to bear. "It hurt. I was humiliated. I felt rejected, and…"

The words trailed off, unfinished, but Constance could hear everything he wasn’t saying. The past still haunted him, left him wary, and made him second-guess everything. And now, here they were—newly married, yet already standing on fragile, uncertain ground.

Tears burned the back of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She wanted to tell him that he wasn’t alone in this, that she wasn’t going anywhere, that theycouldfigure this out together. It might not be perfect, but they could fumble their way along if they were together. He was leaving, and it was scary because there was zero connection between them except a sheet of paper and a promise.

“Let me take you home. We’ll work out a few things, and then I’ve got to catch my flight.”

Speechless, she simply nodded, unable to argue with anything he’d said because the decisions were already made – without her. Because no matter how much she wanted to fight for them, wanted to try to figure this out – right, wrong, or otherwise - she couldn’t shake the awful, gnawing fear that maybe he had already decided not to fight at all.

8

BOUCHER

A terroron the ice and terrified of the bedroom – I’m a wimp,Keith thought with wide-eyed knowledge as he sat in his seat on the airplane that would be landing soon. This was not how he wanted his marriage to begin or how he wanted their morning to go after saying ‘I Do’… but he couldn’t rush into this.

“Because I don’t know what I’m doing,” he muttered under his breath, rubbing his face, completely stressed out. His wife obviously wanted to have a little fun before he left, but he couldn’t do that to her.

He wouldn’t.

Marrying someone, sleep with them, and then leave? No. Never. He might be a dunce when it came to women, but he knew that was a line that should never be crossed. He’d never even slept with a woman – oh sure, he got close, but then being arrested had a way of traumatizing a guy. He sure didn’t want their first time to be awful and then leave.

That was nightmare fuel for any red-blooded man.

To say that his stress level was through the roof was the understatement of the decade – maybe two of them. The job, the money, a new wife, a new location, a new family – one ofwhich would rather spit on him than talk to him, and the other was only safe because Kayla was so young. Yeah, he was having a tough time not cracking under the pressure.

He needed a breather, as shameful as that felt to admit because he was desperately afraid to cause irreparable harm emotionally to any of the three of them. No, he needed to handle the things he could control, setting the stage for success for his marriage, and he mentally went down his checklist for the millionth time.

Get the house.

Get furniture coming.

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