"I'll walk you back to the house now," he said gently. She didn't take the hand he extended to her, but fell into step beside him as they moved from the stable to the house. As soon as they entered, she said, "It won't take me long to pack." Before he could stop her, she ran upstairs.
He wished his mother allowed liquor in the house. If he'd ever needed a whiskey, it was now. The longest ten minutes of his life was spent roaming the rooms of the house, knowing that Devon was upstairs, preparing to walk out of his life forever.
She had reached the bottom stair before he heard her tread and rushed to confront her there. At her side, she was carrying her packed suitcase.
"Devon—"
"Good-bye, Lucky. I'm glad everything worked out well for you. Of course, there was never any doubt in my mind that you would be cleared of the charges. Thank your mother for her hospitality, and say my good-byes to everyone. They're all so kind, so…" When her voice cracked, she side-stepped him and headed for the front door.
He caught her arm and spun her around. "You can't just leave like this."
"I have to."
"But you don't want to, Devon. Dammit, I know you don't."
"I'm married."
"To a guy you don't love."
"How do you know?"
He took a step closer. It was time to play hard-ball. Their futures were at stake.
"Because if you did, you wouldn't have let me make love to you that first time. You weren't that sleepy. And you wouldn't have let what just happened, when you were wide awake, go so far.
"Know what else? I don't think he loves you either. If he did, he wouldn't have acted like he did when you went to explain things. He'd be gut-sick, or outraged, or determined to castrate and kill me, but he wouldn't act like a kid whose favorite toy had been damaged."
Her momentary defiance evaporated, and she lowered her head. "Whatever Greg says or does isn't the issue. It's what we do that counts. I'm leaving, Lucky. Talking about it won't change my mind."
"I can't let you just go."
"You don't have a choice. Neither do I."
Again she maneuvered around him. He delayed her again. "If you did have a choice—"
"But I don't."
"If you did," he repeated stubbornly, "would you want to stay with me?" She did something then that she had avoided doing since coming downstairs—she looked at him directly.
The yearning in her eyes mirrored his own. He exulted in it. Raising his hand, he stroked her cheek. "If you had a choice, would you let me love you like I want to?" he asked in a stirring voice.
The physical and emotional tug-of-war between them was almost palpable. Her eyes cried, yes, yes! But aloud she said nothing. Instead, she turned toward the door. "Good-bye, Lucky."
Abysmally dejected, he dropped down onto the bottom stair and listened to her light footsteps cross the porch and crunch in the gravel driveway. He heard her car door being opened, then closed, and the growl of the engine as she turned it on. He sat there long after the motor could no longer be heard and she had had time to put miles between them.
He listened very closely to something else—his own being. He lusted after this woman's body more than all the other bodies he'd ever known put together. His single sexual experience with her stood out above all the rest. He'd had many that were lustier, crazier, faster, slower, but none as heart-piercingly sweet, none that still haunted his mind.
His heart was saying that his craving for her wasn't entirely physical, however. He could no longer even imagine a life without Devon in it. There would be nothing to look forward to. Days would be dreaded rather than anticipated. Years. Decades.
His head was telling him that the situation was hopeless and that he'd known that from the time she had informed him she was married. Their worst enemy wasn't Greg Shelby; it was their own consciences. Neither could engage in an unscrupulous affair, and if they could, they wouldn't be attracted. They would be two different people. What a brutal irony, that the morals they respected in each other made their being together impossible.
But James Lawrence Tyler wasn't only lucky, he was eternally optimistic.
Nothing was impossible. He simply wouldn't accept this situation. Fate couldn't play a bad joke on him like this and get away with it. It couldn't end this way, with Devon just quitting his life and both of them being miserable about it. No way. He wouldn't allow it.
Hell no.
* * *