His friends. More than friends, they’d been brothers—the only real family Nathan had known after his parents’ death. And he’d let them all slip mostly away from him.
When Hunter died, the rest of the group had splintered, as if its heart had been removed and there was no way to keep the rest of the whole together. Nathan reached out and touched the glass covering a photo of the Seven Samurai and he realized just how much he missed them all. How he missed what they had been back then!
And he wondered what kind of man he might have been if things had been different.
Would he have known how to accept Keira’s love? Would he have believed her when she said she wanted nothing from him? Shaking his head, he stepped back from the images of his past and walked on, into the master bedroom.
No. How could he believe her? Everyone wanted something from him, he thought as he laid down, fully clothed across the bed. Why should she be any different?
One day bled into the next and that one into another until a week had crawled past.
And Nathan hadn’t gotten a damn thing done.
No lists. No memos. No e-mails to hotel managers setting up meetings. Instead, he was restless. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t keep his mind from turning to thoughts of Keira, damn it.
She was everywhere in the lodge. He couldn’t take a step without remembering something she had said. He couldn’t lay in bed without recalling the feel of her body pressed to his. He couldn’t walk into the kitchen without seeing her na**d on the counter. He stepped outside and was whisked back to the night of their snowball fight. He went for firewood and remembered her locking him outside and shouting at him through the glass.
He walked down the stairs and remembered catching her as she fell—and, damn it, he was worried about who was going to catch her when he wasn’t around.
“Not my problem,” he grumbled into the silence. “If the damn woman is too busy to watch where she’s going, she’ll just have to fall. Probably break her damn neck one of these days.”
The quiet mocked him as his own voice faded into the stillness crouched in the big, empty lodge. One week to go and then he could leave. He had to stick it out now; he’d promised Keira, and a Barrister never went back on his word. No matter the temptation.
Scowling, he told himself that Keira was probably worried that he was going to leave anyway. Probably hadn’t believed him when he’d promised. Well, he could just go into town and assure her that he would be right where he said he would be. That he was staying until the end of the month and then he was going to leave this town and her behind him as fast as he was able.
But, even as he thought that, something else occurred to him. Something he hadn’t considered before and, frankly, at the moment, he couldn’t figure out why not. It made sense. It fit the situation and would give both he and Keira what they wanted.
Damned if he wasn’t a genius.
A week with no word from Nathan, and Keira was forced to admit that he just wasn’t interested in what she felt for him. Of course, she hadn’t really expected him to do an about-face, shout I love you, too! and carry her off to his castle—er, favorite hotel.
“But damn it, he doesn’t have to completely ignore me, either.” She kicked her living room couch and limped into the kitchen for yet another cup of coffee. “It’s my own fault,” she muttered before taking a sip. “I knew who he was and how he felt, and I went ahead and fell in love with him anyway.”
If she could have figured out exactly how to do it, she would have kicked her own ass.
“Idiot.” She cupped both hands around her coffee mug and hoped that the heat would wipe away the chill sweeping through her. But it didn’t help. Nothing would and she knew it. She was going to carry this icy loneliness around with her for the rest of her life. All because of one stubborn, miserable, selfish son of a bitch who didn’t have the decency to accept an offer of love freely given.
“There. That’s better,” she whispered. “Be mad, not sad.”
But the sad went too deep and the mad wasn’t nearly enough to bury it.
When the doorbell rang, she set her coffee down and went to answer it. With any luck, there was some town crisis she could lose herself in. She threw the door open and stared up at Nathan, way too shocked to think of anything to say.
He smiled, and Keira swallowed hard. “What’re you doing here?”
Stepping past her, he walked into her house, looked around, then turned to look at her, a wide smile brightening his features. “I have a surprise for you.”
Intrigued and, damn it all, a little hopeful, Keira closed the door, shoved her hands into her jeans pockets and said, “A surprise?”
“Yes.” He looked so pleased with himself, Keira didn’t know what to think. “I took care of everything this morning. You don’t have to do a thing.”
Worry began to nibble at her. He was taking care of everything? Taking care of what, exactly? “What is this great surprise then?”
He walked toward her, took hold of her shoulders and held on as he looked down into her eyes. “You know I’m leaving for Barbados at the end of the month.”
“Yeah…” That sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach simply refused to go away.
“You’re going with me.”
Keira staggered and probably would have fallen down if his grip on her shoulders hadn’t tightened perceptibly. “I’m what?”
He grinned, apparently taking her shock for pleasure. “I talked to your deputy mayor—Hambleton?”
“Bill, yes.” She was struggling for air. Her chest felt tight and her whole body was tingling with nerves that were pushing her to do something.
“Right,” he said. He released her, then walked into the living room and spun around, folding his arms across his chest, looking like a king who had finally figured out how to please the peasants. “I told Bill you’d be leaving with me and we didn’t know how long we’d be gone. He’s fine with it. He can handle whatever happens here—” He shrugged. “Town this size, running it can’t be too difficult anyway.”
“Is that right?” Cold. She felt cold all the way through. How weird. For the last week, she’d alternated between fury and grief, and now all she could feel was this body-numbing iciness.
“I called the hotel in Barbados,” he was saying. “Told them I would have a companion accompanying me and arranged for a personal shopper for you the moment we land. You don’t even have to pack for the trip. While I’m working, you’ll have the run of the shops—unlimited expense account, of course—and we’ll have every night to ourselves.”