He shut his eyes, his face contorted with what looked like pain.
“Please…your injuries…At least sit down.”
“Hell, I’m okay.” His grimace had more to do with the shocking culmination of his most cherished dream than his physical wounds, but he complied, sinking onto the mattress. Refusing to let Summer go, he drew her down with him, keeping his good left arm tightly around her.
She didn’t protest, but laid her head on his bare shoulder, cherishing the closeness, the warmth, the way his lips were buried in her hair.
“I was so afraid…” she said after a moment. “Afraid I had lost you.”
“I didn’t think I ever had you to lose,” Lance said quietly.
Summer drew back and reached up to tenderly touch his bruised jaw with its faint shadow of stubble. “You do have me. I think you’ve always owned a little piece of my heart. I was just too blind to see it.”
His eyes searched hers, dark and intense, as if still not totally convinced of her sincerity, and yet desperate to believe.
She smiled, tentatively, wishing she could smooth away that crease between his brows, wishing she could take away his hurt, wishing he would ease hers. His somber silence was not at all the response she’d yearned for. She’d offered her heart to Lance, and his lack of a reply left her feeling suddenly shy and in need of reassurance.
“Lance…” Summer faltered, finding herself in the awkward position of not knowing what to do or say next, or how to handle this crucial, intimate moment. With any other man, she might have wheedled a reciprocal admission of love from him. But Lance was not simply any man. All her feminine wiles were less than useless; indeed, they were as welcome as poison. Any attempt at manipulation on her part, she knew, would only arouse suspicion and doubt on his. No, if Lance was to trust her, she had to be totally honest. And the same was true of him. Summer found herself wanting, needing, the truth from him—even if it confirmed her worst fears.
“You aren’t…really going to leave, are you?”
“No.” He knew he could no more walk away from her now than he could cut out his heart. Not if she really loved him.
“I had always hoped…to have a husband who loved me in return,” Summer murmured hesitantly.
“Love?” He scowled suddenly and looked away. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“I think you do, Lance.” She waited hopefully, but he remained silent.
Watching the way his jaw clenched, she thought she understood his struggle. Looking deep, beyond the grown man he was now, she saw the defiant young boy inside, the one who’d always guarded himself so fiercely against rejection that he’d never allowed himself to love—or to believe that anyone could love him. That certainty, that no one wanted him, had been ingrained in his soul. It would take far more than a single confession of love to erase all the scars, to make Lance forget all the years of pain. She would have to fight for every inch of progress, perhaps for the rest of their lives. But it was a battle worth fighting.
“You once called me kamakuna. Short Dress said it was the Comanche word for ‘beloved.’ Did you mean it, Lance?”
“Maybe,” he replied gruffly.
His refusal to commit himself should have worried her, but it only confirmed what she should have known all along. Deep down, her fierce, invincible warrior had his own fears. Lance was afraid—to feel, to hope, to love. To acknowledge his own loneliness or need.
“Is it so hard to say?”
His eyes turned to glower at her. “Are you fishing, princess?”
“Well, yes…I suppose I am. I’m not the heartless flirt I once was, Lance. My heart can be broken, too. But only by you. I need to know that you love me. Unless you really don’t? Do you, Lance? Do you love me…at least a little?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Okay, dammit, I love you! Are you satisfied?”
“Truly? You love me?”
“I’ve always loved you,” he said harshly, his confession barely audible. “Ever since you were old enough to bat those long eyelashes of yours at me—and you damn well know it.”
Summer shook her head. “When you proposed our bargain, you said it was because you wanted a wife who could help you become a respected member of the community.”
A muscle in his jaw clenched tightly. “I don’t give a damn about respectability or community, not as long as I have you.” He stopped, suddenly looking hesitant. “I know those things are important to you, though—”
“No…they aren’t. I once thought they were, but I was wrong. They don’t matter, as long as you love me. It’s only that…acceptance would make it easier for our children.”