He couldn’t let her go like this.
But what choice did he have? He still had no idea himself what was going on between himself and May. Only that something was. And it was a ‘something’ he didn’t want in his life.
Which left them precisely where?
Nowhere, he realised heavily.
But he didn’t want to be ‘nowhere’ with May, wanted— What did he want? Until he knew that, until he completely understood his own feelings of wanting her but at the same time needing to push her away from him, he had no choice but to let May go.
Even if that meant that her barriers against him would be so much higher the next time the two of them met?
Even then, he told himself firmly. Maybe it would even be better, for both of them, if her barriers were so high he didn’t stand a chance of crossing them. Ever.
‘I?
?ll walk you back to your car,’ she told him stiltedly as she walked towards the door.
His mouth twisted grimly. ‘Making sure I’ve left the premises this time?’
May shrugged. ‘I doubt anyone could make you do anything you didn’t want to do!’
This woman could, Jude realised with shocking clarity. Even now he wanted to draw her back into his arms, to kiss her until they were both senseless.
Again…
‘No, they couldn’t,’ he confirmed abruptly at the same time as he inwardly acknowledged his reluctance to go, to leave this woman.
Which was exactly the reason he had to go. Now!
‘Would you tell Max that I’ll call him tomorrow?’ he said abruptly.
May nodded distantly. ‘I’ll tell him.’
‘Thanks,’ he accepted tersely before getting back inside the car to start the engine, raise a hand in brief farewell and drive away.
Don’t look back, Jude, he told himself firmly. This woman meant trouble for him. With a capital T.
Don’t look back!
His glance moved to the driving mirror as if drawn by a magnet, May still standing in the farmyard exactly where he had left her, moonlight showing her in stark relief, her face white against the darkness of her hair.
His Nemesis…?
All his adult life he had gone where he wanted, done what he wanted, enjoying brief, meaningless relationships with women if they happened to present themselves.
Now the thought of not being with May, the possibility of not seeing her again, had shattered into a million pieces all his carefully constructed life of no ties, no commitments.
The question was: what was he going to do about it?
If anything…
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘THAT was Jude,’ Max informed May as he strolled back into the barn where she was placing eggs in trays.
‘Oh?’ May kept her voice deliberately light, at the same time as her heart began to beat more rapidly in her chest.
May had assumed, when March had called over to Max as he’d helped her with the egg-collecting that he had a telephone call, that it might be Jude; it was still too early in the day for anyone but a close friend to have rung.