He let her go as if his fingers had been burned. “This isn’t about love.”
“And that’s my point.”
He pushed his hand through his hair, then scrubbed that hand across the back of his neck. Finally, when he’d eased the tension in his own chest, he looked at her and said softly, “We weren’t in love when we made that child. Why do we need to be in love to raise it?”
She pulled in a slow, deep breath then let it slide from her lungs. “What we shared, neither of us thought to be a permanent thing. It was heat and passion and want. Raising a child is more than that, Jefferson, as well you know.”
“There was more to that night than simple desire and you know that.”
A long minute slipped past before she nodded. “I do, yes. There was caring between us, I admit that. But affection isn’t love.”
He couldn’t give her what she wanted. He’d done love once before and when it ended, he’d sworn off. Love wasn’t in his future plans. Wasn’t even on his horizon. Yes, he felt something for Maura, but it wasn’t love. He’d been in love before and what was now crowded in his chest, squeezing his heart, was nothing like he’d felt back then.
“There’s nothing wrong with affection, Maura. Plenty of marriages have started with less.”
“Mine won’t,” she said simply. Then she squared her shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. “You’ve done your duty, Jefferson King. You can go back to your life knowing you tried to do the right thing. But I tell you here and now, I won’t be marrying you.”
Chapter Eight
Two days later, Maura felt like a caged animal. Oh, she had the run of the farm, but she remained under the watchful eye of Jefferson King. He was everywhere she turned. She hadn’t had a moment to herself since he’d arrived during the last storm. If she stepped outside the house, there he was. If she was feeding the lambs, he turned up to help. If she walked into the village, he went with her.
She’d reached the point now where she was looking for him, expecting him. Blast the man, that had most likely been his plan all along.
Though she’d set the village to rights and her friends and neighbors had once again opened their businesses to the film crew, Jefferson remained in the trailer parked outside her home. He didn’t go back to the inn. Didn’t move to a comfortable hotel. Oh, no. He stayed in that too-small trailer so that he could badger Maura and tell her what their future was going to be, like it or not.
“What kind of world is it when a woman has to sneak out of her own house?” she murmured to herself as she quietly closed the back door, wincing at the click of the door shutting. All she wanted was some time alone. To think. To feel sorry for herself. To do a little damn whining in private. Was that too much to ask?
Being around Jefferson was wearing on her. Love for him was caught up in her chest and strangling her with the effort to express itself. But how could she profess her love for a man who thought “affection” was enough to build a life on?
She snapped her fingers for King and the dog came running. He sprinted past her, out into the fields behind the farmhouse, chasing his own imagination and the rabbits he continually hoped to find. Maura only smiled. She’d made it. Gotten clean away and so she took a deep breath of the chill spring air. It was a fine day, and no sign of another storm yet, though she knew the good weather wouldn’t last. But while it did, she wanted to be outside, with the sunshine spilling down on her and the soft wind blowing through her hair.
And as she walked, she asked herself if she could really have given up this life. Her gaze followed the sweep and roll of the green hills and fields. Stone fences and trees twisted by wind and storm stood as monuments to the only life she’d ever known. Could she have walked away?
If Jefferson had actually meant that proposal. If there had been love rather than duty prompting it. Could she have sold her farm, moved thousands of miles away and given up the cool, clear beauty of the fields for the tangled crush of people?
The answer, of course, was yes. For love, she would have tried it. She might not have sold the farm, but she could have leased the land to a nearby farmer. She could have come back to visit, though the thought of leaving tore at her heart enough to make her stagger a bit. Yes. For love she would have made the effort.
For affection, she would not.
“Are you all right?” a too-familiar deep voice called out from behind her.
She sighed. So she hadn’t escaped after all.
Maura didn’t turn, didn’t slow down, just shouted, “I’m fine, Jefferson, just as I was the last time you asked that question an hour ago.”
He caught up with her in a moment’s time, her much-shorter legs no match for his long strides. Falling into step beside her, he tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans and lifted his face to the sun. “Feels good to actually see sunlight for a change.”
“Spring’s a stormy season,” she muttered and told her jittery stomach to calm down. Much to her own chagrin, it wasn’t just his constant presence that was making her feel trapped. It was her body’s, her heart’s reaction to him that was eating away at her.
Even now, her heartbeat was quickening. Being near Jefferson set her blood to boiling and her nerves dancing. His scent. His voice. His nearness. All combined to make her want with an ache she knew would never really leave her.
And to have him always close by was nothing less than torture.
“Where are you off to?”
“Just a walk,” she told him with a wave. “Up to the ruins and back.”
“That’s at least a mile,” he pointed out.
“At least.” She glanced up at him and smiled at the concerned frown she saw on his face. “I’m used to the exercise, Jefferson. And I don’t need a bodyguard here on my own land.”
He grinned suddenly. “But I enjoy guarding your body.”
She flushed as he’d meant her to and the nerves already scampering through her system went on a rampage. It was probably hormones, she thought. She’d always heard that pregnant women were needier than usual. So it wasn’t entirely her fault that at the moment she wanted nothing more than to feel his arms come around her. To have him roll the two of them to the sweet-smelling grass and bury himself inside her.
She took a shallow breath. No. Not her fault at all.
“Shouldn’t you be working with your people?” she asked, hoping against hope to convince him to stay at the farm.