Page 51 of Hot Set

Thoughts crash through my head like a rockslide.Who knows? Who doesn’t know? Who can we trust?I can’t think. I’ve been here before. I need to be alone and sort this out in my head. With Jack, it’ll be Treat all over again. I’ll be adored and not loved, because Jack can’t love me. Not out loud. Every kiss will be a risk. Our time together taboo. I won’t survive because every moment with him brings us closer. I refuse to sublimate something so precious to the spaces between words. If we can’t put a public face on the way we feel about one another, it will wither.

“I’ve got to go.” I hold up a hand to stop him when he tries to follow me. “Take Streaker back.”

“Don’t pull away from me, Gilly. I’m sorry I told Moose. I won’t open my mouth to anyone else.”

“It’s not about Moose. I’m messed up, Jack. Confused. Scared. Please. I just need to…” Words catch in my throat and all I can do is point toward the studio in the distance.

Despite my warning to stay back, he takes both my hands in his. “Please don’t give us a beginning and then take it away from me.”

I drop my head against his chest. “You’re wonderful.” I meet his eyes. “How can I endure not shouting to the skies that I’ve found someone who makes me see colors in the world I didn’t know existed?”

Those arms of pure muscle wrap around me. “Then let’s shout it. Bugger the scenario Meg and her bosses at True Time want to strap on my back. We won’t hide our relationship, and damn the fallout.”

His words set my insides aflame. This lovely person is willing to tell the world he’s mine. That means more to me than a thousand kisses.

I draw him down until our lips barely touch. “You know we can’t do that.” He slumps against me. “Think of what this looks like to them. At best, mutual infatuation. At worst, me being starstruck and you taking advantage.”

He tenses. “We’ll set them straight.”

I shake my head. “No, we won’t. Meg will go ballistic, and she’d have every right to.” My face heats. “If I wreck your perfectly planned image, Bobby could regret he took a risk on me.”

At the mention of Bobby’s name, Jack’s eyes narrow and darken. He’s jealous. Well, there’s another layer of crap to coat this whole awful situation.

“Jack, you said it yourself that first day in the stable.The Chieftain’s Sonis what you’ve been working for. You can’t jeopardize it. We’d have no choice but to steal time together.” His faces coils, objections ready to spring, but I touch his lips with my fingertip. “The stress, the pressure of lying, will eventually ruin this.” I run my hands up his chest. “Please don’t fight me. I know what I’m talking about. We can still step back before sweet turns sour.”

Laying one hand on his chest, I stare up at him, waiting for him to agree. He closes his eyes for a long time. When he opens them, dull resignation clouds their brightness.

“If this is what you want.”

I gently grab two fistfuls of his shining hair and pull his face to mine. “Never think it’s what I want. It’s what’s has to be.” I kiss him quickly before I turn my back and make my way down the slope.

I am surprised he doesn’t follow. He’s all about getting what he wants, but it doesn’t matter if I’m what he wants. This show is the threshold to his future. Despite his proclamation to tell the world about us, he can’t. Every step rips me apart more than the last. Did I lose my mind to believe Jack O’Leary dropped from the sky to possibly be the love of my life?

I kick a rock that proves to be bigger than I thought and stub my toe through Maureen’s shoe. Toe, heart, mind…everything hurts. I glance back at the hill, but the angle prevents me from being able to see if Jack’s still there.

I take a stuttering breath. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever known before, with his love of books, family, and even golf. He could have been the creative partner I’ve always yearned for. The few facets and nuances I’ve learned about him only make me want to discover more, but the price is too high. The demands of being Donal Cam, the Chieftain’s Son, are inhuman. Not just the professional aspect, but Meg will parade him around until she’s built a stack of swooning females that reaches the clouds.

I can’t stand the thought of Jack being less to me than he has already become. I have to do more than take a step back to prevent these golden memories from tarnishing. I have to leave him.

Navigating the rocky caps that seem to grow from the land gets trickier as I pick my way down toward the front doors of The Clan. I’ll go to my office and call Patrick to take me to Waterville. I need tea and bed.

A week without Jack will allow me to get my head on straight. It’s better to end on a high note, before we’re discovered and suffer God knows what kind of fallout. God may not know, but I do. It’ll be my head on the platter. My new life wiped away before it has a chance to begin.

I reach down the front of my sweater for the lanyard that holds my key fob to get into the studio. It comes out in one long cord, the buckle undone.

“Are you kidding me?”

There’s no mystery how it came unfastened. I’m forced to retrace every hard-earned step. I trudge across rocky ground and back up the slope, grateful angry-looking clouds keep their distance while the moon brightens the night.

The figure next to the faerie tree stops me. He’s a vision as grand as any brushstroke by a master. Long bright hair dances in the breeze, shining like moon glow. The body is all warrior, Celtic royalty, untouchable by any, save a god. It’s the sadness, the pain in his voice that drives a blade through my heart.

He faces the faerie tree, oblivious he’s no longer alone. Streaker doesn’t give me away as she munches on a patch of grass. A strip of golden fabric catches the light as Jack raises it to a branch. My heart nearly bursts when I see it’s threaded through my key fob. As solemnly as if he’s performing a ritual, Jack ties my fob to the hawthorn tree. He touches it with one finger.

“God, help me, this woman has gone straight to my heart. I know our timing is damned. I respect my duty to the show. It’s not fair of me to expect Gilly to put her dreams on the line just because the wish in my soul is to be with her.”

Jack gives the tree a shake. “We’ve only met the morning once in each other’s arms, but it’s single moments that change a person’s life forever. And, oh God, mine is changed.”

He drops his head. When he speaks again, his voice is strained and so full of sorrow it takes crazy self-control not to run into his arms and comfort him.

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