Page 58 of Beside Golden Irish Fields
“That’s no surprise, considering.”
“Best advertisement ever. We might add three more, in fact. I’m going to be busy with classes, which simplifies everything, I’ve decided. I can focus on Bets’ burgeoning arts center for the next month and be with you. This attraction between us can run its course, and then I’ll have time to work through some more of my issues. It’s the best way to go about it.”
The logic was sound, and yet his jaw clenched. He didn’t like talking about getting it out of the way, as if it were some bit or bob to discard. Not something that had his body burning and his guts tight.
She glanced toward the cottage again. “Ineedto put myself first. Do some things that I want for a change. I’m going into this with my eyes open. I won’t let my old habits with men rise up. It’s not like you want or need anyone to take care of you, and you wouldn’t try and change me.”
My God, what kind of men had she been with? Arseholes clearly. Still, desire and unease wrapped around each other in his belly, their dance discomfiting. “I want to say yes, Angie.”
The wind rushed over them again, and he turned his body to protect her from it. He made sure Ollie was okay, but the boy was laughing, petting his sheep.
She put her hand on his chest. “Then say it.”
Why was he hesitating? Because he’d watched her last night. Saw her every morning when she struggled to paint. It wasn’t only that she was Bets’ relation. Sure, it might complicate things, but they were adults. They could handle this in kind.
Yet, if he took her invitation, he was afraid she was going to stay as stricken on the inside as she’d been last night in the pub. And Bets’ allusion to her sister had bothered him fiercely. He didn’t want to be another person holding Angie back. “I can’t. You’re here to find yourself and paint again. You told me I would be in the way. No matter how much we want each other, I don’t think that’s changed.”
He kissed the top of her head and let go of her hands. Stepping away from her took more strength than crossing the fields when the wind was battling him back. He reached for that strength. Felt it come into his heart.
As he walked away from her, he knew he’d turned her down because he cared about her.
Deeply.
And wasn’t that what he’d been trying to avoid all along?
Chapter Seventeen
He was the first man to ever turn her down.
Not that she’d thrown out tons of sexual invitations, but somehow this moment seemed different. As she watched Carrick walk away and tell her nephew goodbye with a sweet ruffling of his hair, a sudden warm rain fell upon them. The sun was still shining, and the golden light being showered upon the land along with the rain took her breath away. Yellow shimmered within the crystal diamond showers, and the green fields turned a bright chartreuse.
Wonder stole over her.
A ripple of movement in her chest had her pausing, and she could almost touch an atrophied piece of her heart coming alive. Under her feet, the earth pulsed. Her heartbeat synched to it. Her entire body throbbed in time with everything around her. She’d never experienced such oneness with herself or nature.
Lifting her hands and face to the sky, she welcomed the gentle sprinkle and imagined being cleansed by it.
No questions rose in her mind. In fact, her mind was blessedly quiet. Ollie’s laughter reached her, and she looked over as the rain ceased. The wind in the trees made the branches come alive as if waving at her. Her nephew had his hand out to a sheep namedSweetnesswho looked to be nibbling his fingers.
Her eyes tracked to where Carrick had paused beside the gate to the pasture. Even across the wide expanse, she could feel his eyes on her. The strong set of his body communicated his desire, and perhaps it was the communion she felt between her body and the ground beneath her, but it traveled to her. With a slow inhale, she took it into herself. Oh, how she wished they might have made love. But the wanting was so real and powerful, it would have to be enough. A smile touched her lips as the desire stole through her blood and bones, settling in deep. Oh, to be so desired but not to be taken. There was a freedom here she’d never known.
He’d wanted her.
He still did.
But he’d put her first.
No one had ever done that. And it had happened moments after she’d put herself and her needs first, letting go of her self-judgments and Megan’s needs. The congruity wasn’t lost on her.
He lifted his hand, a hand she had now touched and caressed. A hand that had touched and caressed her. She knew its strength and its toughness as much as she’d experienced its gentleness and passion.
She could deny it no more.
She was going to paint those hands.
She waved to him, and then she was running back to her pad, cresting over the fence with an ease she hadn’t experienced in her body in some time. She was weightless. The rain had wet her painting supplies, but she didn’t care. Throwing open the pad to a dry sheet, she drew out yellow ochre and titanium white along with two brushes and went to town.
The picture of his hands was so clear that she didn’t have to will the scene to stay alive in her mind—it was there, imprinted. As she painted the outline of his fingers and wrists and then started to fill in the details of the nailbeds and knuckles, she could feel his heartbeat in his hands, the pulse at his wrist throbbing with life.
