Shit. Had he said that out loud?
The way she stilled in his arms suggested yes. And worse, a reckless part of him wasn’t even sorry.
Her fingers resumed sifting through his hair. “Stay, like, in the bed, or in Atlanta?”
“The bed, definitely, but…” You opened this door. Man up and walk through. “Let’s say Atlanta for the sake of argument.”
“How would that work?” He heard no demand in her voice, just caution.
“Like it does now. But if you’re determined to pack your stuff, we could see if there are any larger units available in Camden Gardens.” Fuck it. Move in with me sounded weak. Glaringly short of Be my everything, and deafeningly silent about little things like marriage and children. Things she wanted. Things she deserved. Things he didn’t have in him anymore. He closed his eyes and lowered his forehead to hers. “Sorry. This is coming out wrong. I don’t mean to be glib. I care about you.”
You care about her? Do you mean to be an asshole?
Incredibly, instead of slapping his face, she blinked fast, as if fighting tears. “It’s the most unexpected offer I’ve received all week.”
“Yeah, well”—he started to roll off her—“it needed to be said.”
She tightened her hold on him. “This needs to be said, too.” Soft lips quivered into a fragile ghost of his favorite smile. “I love you.”
Those three little words should have scared the shit out of him, but they didn’t. The only scary part was the strength of his urge to say them back to her, but those self-protective instincts he’d paid too dear a price to learn tamped it down with a ruthless warning.
Don’t.
Loving her put him on a slippery slope right back into the rabbit hole, and he refused to risk a second visit. Even knowing this, a greedy impulse filled him, to accept what she offered no matter how unfair of him so long as it convinced her to stick around. Some vestige of conscience forced him to be up-front.
“Savannah, I-I’m honored.”
Any hint of a smile disappeared from her face.
Honored? She’s not the Nobel Prize nominating committee, for Christ’s sake. Don’t tell her you’re honored.
“Delete that. What I should have said is—hell—you have to know I feel more for you than I planned to feel for anyone, ever again, but I have limits. They exist. I can’t pretend they don’t, and I can’t change them. Not even for you. I can’t give you pledges and a bunch of promises about a future I know damn well I don’t control. I’m not that guy.”
Can’t. Can’t. Can’t. That’s all she’s hearing. All you’re giving her. What can you do?
“I don’t make promises I’m not one hundred percent sure I can keep. That said, I promise you this: if you take me on, I’m yours—all there is of me—for as long as you’ll have me.”
Okay. There. That’s something.
“I’m not asking for promises. I didn’t tell you I loved you to challenge your limits, or coerce something out of you you’re not prepared to give.” Her soft lips brushed over his, calming him, dammit, when he ought to be throwing himself at her feet. “Consider it a gift.”
“Best gift I’ve received all week,” he assured her, striving to lighten the mood. The corner of her mouth lifted. Then, before he could censor his inner asshole, he added, “Does that mean you’ll stay?”
Her smile wobbled. “I think we both ambushed each other just now, Beau. Why don’t we give ourselves some time to recover, and see how we feel once we’re not camped out in your parents’ basement?”
“I know how I feel, Savannah. I know what I want.”
“Well, you’re a step ahead of me, Beauregard. I know how I feel, but I don’t know what I want.”
Chapter Eighteen
“So we agreed to hold off on any decisions until after this visit. As if a few more days will suddenly give me clarity,” Savannah added under her breath. She dumped another scoop of red, white, and green candies into a cut-glass bowl serving as a centerpiece. Was this the third or fourth scoop? She couldn’t remember.
“Could ‘I care about you, let’s live together’ be enough for you?” Sinclair added a toss of holiday glitter over the tablecloth, and they moved on to the next table. The Daughters of Magnolia Grove Christmas Eve Dinner Decoration Committee expected a certain level of productivity from its volunteers, and the stink-eye the committee chairwoman sent them suggested they needed to pick up the pace.
When the chairwoman’s gaze wandered to the ladies draping boughs of greenery along the tops of the large windows gracing the banquet room at the historic Oglethorpe Inn, Savannah dropped her scoop into her candy bag and plopped down in a chair. Her stomach had been trying to turn itself inside out all morning, her energy level hovered around zero, and Sinclair had asked her the question she’d been asking herself nonstop since yesterday afternoon. She still didn’t have an answer.
“I don’t know. All I know right now is, fate’s got a sick sense of humor. I wanted to find Mr. Right so badly I talked myself into believing that Mitch’s easy I-love-yous meant something. But when I finally stumble into the real thing, I fall for a man who’s afraid to love. He’s convinced he’s got limits, and frankly, he wants limits. ‘I care for you, let’s live together’ may be as far out on the emotional limb as he’s ever willing to go.”