“We’re a good fit.”

He just stated it, as if it were a fact. His gaze never left hers. He acted so certain.

“You make no sense, Zale. You’re a highly intelligent man. Other than that, I don’t know the first thing about you and you don’t know the first thing about me. You’re talking as if that month and a half we had together is the same as the two years Sam and Stella had. It isn’t. They had time to get to know one another. A lot of time. We spent most of our time having sex.”

“I made love to you. I might not have known that was what I was doing every single time, but that was it. I knew it was different, and you had to have known it as well. Every time I touched you, it felt different. Sometimes, Vienna, I couldn’t sleep. I would just lie awake and watch you sleep, breathing you in, terrified of what I was feeling for you.”

“And yet you left without a single word.”

He nodded slowly, thoughtfully, his expression never changing. But his eyes did. She was watching closely, and the color deepened, turned a dark chocolate, almost a velvet. She pressed a hand to her stomach to keep away the sensation of rolling. The roller coaster again. She couldn’t afford to live her life on a ride at a theme park.

“I didn’t know how to protect you. Or give you a promise. I had to think things through. I had to know for certain that I wasn’t going to ruin your life if I inserted myself into it permanently. Men like me don’t do that easily, Vienna. We have to know we can protect the people we choose to have in our world. I had to know if I could even be in a relationship and make it work. I wasn’t going to insist I could and then back out later.”

“You can’t know that about yourself.”

“I’m good at looking at my weaknesses and strengths. In my line of work, I have to be. The one thing I don’t ever do is bullshit myself. I can make a life with you. I’m loyal, Vienna. That’s one trait I have. And I’m capable of loving the right person. That’s you. Stop shaking your head.”

She might consider keeping him just for his foot massages. The entire time he’d been presenting his case, he’d never stopped rubbing her feet and calves. That felt so good. She should have been tense, but his hands kept her relaxed and mellow.

“Snowflake, you didn’t date anyone else. According to Sam, you didn’t look at anyone else. It wasn’t like you haven’t had chances. I didn’t look at anyone else. We fit.”

“Do you have any idea how annoying you are?” A ghost of a smile lit his dark eyes for a moment, catching at her heart. “You didn’t answer me, Zale. How long are you going to stay working?”

“At least another year.” He didn’t so much as hesitate. He didn’t look away from her either.

She put her head back and looked up at the ceiling. “If I had a job where you couldn’t contact me or know where I was or even if I was alive, would you be all right with that, Zale?”

“Absolutely not.”

He had that weird purr in his voice that sent a chill down her spine. She brought her head down to look at him again. Narrowing her gaze, she glared at him. “Why are you giving me attitude? You’re the one with the high-risk job, not me.”

“Is that so? I believe you’re the one hanging off cliffs or wading through chest-deep snow to retrieve bodies. I’ve seen some of the videos of the rescues you’ve done. They’re heart-stopping. The one where you rappelled down the canyon to that kid with the water rushing below you, treating him on that narrow ledge that looked like it was going to crumble any minute, terrified me. I wouldn’t say what I do is half as dangerous as what you do. I can control my situations. You can’t control nature, Vienna.”

His expression remained the same, but his voice betrayed him. It was the first time she’d ever heard his voice shake. His eyes went diamond hard. Almost black obsidian. He looked a force of nature and every bit as scary.

“No, I can’t,” she agreed. “But I plan carefully. I don’t leave anything to chance. I know the things that can go wrong, and I plan for those.”

“While I’m away on a job, I’ll have to worry, knowing what you’re doing and knowing I can’t get to you if something does go wrong,” he said. “Just as you’ll have to worry about me. I’ll send you messages through Sam when I can.”

Was she going to be okay with that? What was the alternative? Not having Zale in her life? She could pass up her chance of being with him because she didn’t want to be home waiting for his return. It wasn’t as if she was having hot date nights every night, nor would she if she turned him away. There was only Zale. Once she’d met him, she’d known no one else was going to measure up.

“You’re sighing.”

“Because you’re annoying.”

He laughed. “I’m annoying because you missed me and you don’t want to admit it.”

“I’ll admit it. I don’t want to take the chance that you’re going to break my heart all over again, Zale. I’d say we need to go slow, but there’s never time for us to go slow, is there? How long will you stay after Sam’s wedding?”

“I have another three weeks after his wedding.”

“I don’t know if I can take time off. I can get friends to cover part of it for me.” What was she thinking? Was she really going to start all over again with him? The idea was both exhilarating and scary—just like the proverbial roller coaster.

“Start asking them now,” Zale suggested. “We need as much time as we can get.”

“Are we really going to do this?”

He nodded. “We are. You aren’t a woman to go through life afraid, Vienna. There’s not one thing about you that says you do that.”

She laughed. “Zale, how could you possibly know what I’m really like? I’m living in a town called Knightly, up in the Sierras. I ran away from an argument with my mother and avoided talking with her because I was afraid of what she might say. I didn’t want us to make things worse. That’s real fear right there, Zale. I don’t think I can be called courageous at all.”

“She’s your mother, Vienna. That’s a different beast altogether. If I had a mother and had grown up as close to her as you had, I would be very careful not to do anything to make things worse between us.”

“I didn’t do much to try to repair the damage,” she admitted. “I called her and talked, but we both were so awkward when we spoke to one another, I think we just felt hurt when we hung up. She wouldn’t visit me in Knightly. I always made certain to invite Ellen to come with her, so she’d know I accepted her relationship, but it didn’t help. After a while, I just didn’t know what to do, so it was easier not to do anything.”

His hands wrapped around her feet, thumbs sliding up and into the soles. Vienna gasped at the way the massage felt. He never used too much pressure on her, it was always just the right amount.

“You never give yourself a break, Vienna. Has it occurred to you that your mother could have made an effort as well? The two of you could have talked things over and gotten the hurt out of the way. We’re not doing that. If I hurt your feelings, Snowflake, you’re going to tell me immediately and we’re talking it out. I’m bound to make a few mistakes. It’s not like I have a clue about family relationships.”

“Who raised you, Zale?”

“I don’t remember my parents. I’m not sure if I was ever with either one of them. My earliest memory was being cold. Really cold. I found this place in the dark where it was warm, a little hole I could squeeze into. The pipe was hot, and as long as I didn’t touch it, I didn’t get burned and I’d stay warm.”

“How old were you?”

“I don’t know, but I was in diapers.”

Tags: Christine Feehan Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net