Page 141 of A Soldier's Return

He was a good man. A wonderful man. If she didn’t reach for the priceless gift he had offered her, she suddenly knew she would spend every moment of the rest of her life regretting it.

She wanted desperately to tell him but knew she could say nothing in front of Chloe. As if reading her mind, Conan, bless him, suddenly barked and took off after a gull down the beach.

“Hey! Get back here,” Chloe giggled, running after him.

“I’m sorry,” Eben finally said when the two of them were alone. He sat on a rock and started slipping his shoes back on. “I assumed with the late night and...everything...that you and Conan probably wouldn’t be running this morning. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable by forcing you to have to see us again.”

She shook her head. “I’m not uncomfortable.”

“No?” He rose from the rock. “Well, that makes one of us.”

How difficult must it be for him to meet up with the woman who had coldly rejected him the night before?

“Don’t be uncomfortable. Please.”

“Sorry. I haven’t had a lot of experience with this. I’m not exactly sure the correct protocol here. How does a man act smooth and urbane around the woman in front of whom he’s made a complete ass of himself?”

She closed her eyes, hating the echo of hurt in his voice. She couldn’t do this. She had to tell him the truth, no matter how painful.

“I lied, okay?” she finally blurted out. “I lied.”

A dead silence met her pronouncement, with no sound at all but the waves and the gulls overhead.

“You...lied about what?”

She went to him and reached for his hand, wishing she wasn’t disheveled and sweaty for this. He seemed to always see her at her worst.

Yet he loved her anyway.

“I lied when I told you you weren’t the kind of man I want, that I didn’t love you. I’ve never told such a shocking untruth.”

He suddenly looked as astonished as if she had just knocked him into the cold waves.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.” She squeezed his fingers. “I love you, Eben. I have from the beginning.”

“Sage—”

She didn’t give him time to say anything, just blurted out the rest. “I’m such a coward. I never realized that about myself until last night. I always thought I had everything figured out, that I was so in control of my world. I thought I had worked through all the stuff of my past and become a capable, well-adjusted adult.”

“You are.”

She shook her head, fighting tears. “No. Inside I’m eight years old again, watching my father walk away without a backward look. I was so afraid to admit my feelings, a-afraid to give you that same kind of power to hurt me. Instead, I decided I would be the one doing the walking.”

He said nothing, just continued to watch her, as if he didn’t quite know what to believe.

She drew in a breath and reached for his other hand. “I love you, Eben. I’m sorry if I...hurt you by lying and saying I didn’t.”

He gazed at her for one stunned moment and then he gave a little, disbelieving laugh and tugged her into his arms. As his hard mouth covered hers, Sage wrapped her arms around his waist and held on for dear life. The tight ache inside her eased and she could finally breathe again, for the first time in hours.

This was right. This was exactly where she belonged, right here in his arms.

“It was ripping my heart out to leave you,” he murmured against her mouth. “I came down to the beach with Chloe one more time because I wanted one last connection to you. I felt closer to you here by the ocean than anywhere.”

She kissed him again and the tenderness in his touch brought tears to her eyes.

“Don’t cry,” Eben murmured, kissing her cheeks where a few tears trickled down.

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