Grace Under Fire (Buchanan-Renard 14)

TEN

The following morning Michael broke up with her, which she thought was extremely odd since they hadn’t even been dating. Honest to Pete, he took her aside right after breakfast to tell her they needed to go their separate ways.

Her reaction wasn’t what Michael expected. She told him she thought he was out of his ever-loving mind. Then she laughed, which he didn’t appreciate.

They went for a walk—his suggestion, not hers—so they could have some privacy for the scene he was sure she was going to make. But, as it turned out, he was the one who made the scene, not her.

They strolled along the shoreline in silence for a few minutes, and then he stopped to face her.

“I need to stay away from you,” he said, his declaration sounding more like a reprimand.

“Then stay away,” she said. “And the problem is solved.”

When she smiled up at him with those big beautiful eyes, Michael clasped his hands behind his back to keep from taking her into his arms. He didn’t dare look at her sweet mouth, or he’d lose the battle he’d been fighting since he’d kissed her last night.

“And you need to stay away from me.”

“Okay.”

“Isabel, I’m serious.”

She didn’t argue. She simply shrugged nonchalantly and said, “I know you are.”

He felt he should explain his reasons, but at the moment, standing so close to her, he couldn’t come up with any. Damn, she smelled good.

“This is lust between us, not love, and I worry you won’t be able to tell the difference. I don’t want you to get hurt.” He pulled his gaze away from her face, looking past her shoulder at the waves hitting the rocks. “It would never work.”

Isabel was reeling from his lust-not-love comment. Did he think she was an idiot? That she wouldn’t know the difference between love and lust? Fortunately, she wasn’t afflicted with either. Still, she wasn’t a robot. She had feelings, and it hurt knowing he didn’t want to have anything to do with her.

“I want you to understand—” he began.

She interrupted. “Are you going to list all the reasons we should go our separate ways, or would you like me to?” she asked.

“Go ahead.”

She wasn’t smiling now. “You have all sorts of degrees. You graduated from university at the top of your class, and you graduated from law school at the top. Then you took the bar and, according to your father, who told Kate who told me, you got the highest score. All of this suggests that you’re very smart, Michael. I, on the other hand, took four and a half years...” She paused, took a breath, and then said, “Actually, it was five years because of all the extra classes I took. Yes, five to graduate from college, and I assure you I wasn’t at the top of my class. I was somewhere in the middle, which would suggest that I’m pretty average.”

She put her hand up when he looked as though he was going to interrupt. “All right, then,” she continued. “So the first reason is that you’re smart and I’m not.” She turned and walked ahead of him as she continued. “You’re also sophisticated, and you believe I’m naive. You’ve been all over the world, speak several languages, and have had all sorts of experiences, good and bad. I speak a little French and a little Spanish, but not well, and I haven’t been anywhere.”

“Are you finished?” he asked.

“Not quite,” she said. “You’re cynical, and I’m too trusting. I look for the good in others, or at least I try to, and you have been trained to look for the bad.”

She was walking faster now, heading back to the house. “Oh, one last and probably least important reason. I assume you’ve had sex with a lot of women. You have, haven’t you?”

He almost laughed. Man, had this conversation gotten away from him. “Yes, I’ve had sex with a few women.”

She stopped to face him, waiting for him to ask her about her sex life. He remained silent. It obviously wasn’t important to him. She was about to point out that he was experienced and she wasn’t, then changed her mind. Turning back, she continued on her way to the house with him by her side. “And those, Michael, are just a few of the reasons we would never work.”

Isabel didn’t wait around to hear his rebuttal. When they reached the steps to the porch, she hurried inside, letting the screen door swing shut behind her.

Noah was walking past the dining room just as she was racing through. He spotted her and asked, “What’s wrong?”

She forced a smile. “Nothing’s wrong.”

He didn’t believe her but didn’t pry. “Alec and I are going sailing. You want to come along?”

“Just the two of you in that big boat?”