Page 32 of The Promise Of Rain

And I was a woman who required softness.

“We can’t go back, Deacon,” I replied quietly.Thinking of everything that lay in wait to trip us up between yesterday and tomorrow, I declared, “I don’t want to.”

He winced, a crack in the mask.

Finally.

He dipped his chin and lowered his voice.“I need you to give us a chance.”

Grief ripped through my chest.What I wouldn’t have given to hear those words when everything turned to dust?

Back then, I hoped we could get through anything.Now, I knew better.Panic quickened my breath at the thought of everything that could go wrong.

“I can’t dredge up the past and all the pain that goes with it,” I stated firmly, yet my foolish, romantic heart flew at the bars of the prison I caged it in, desperate to fall into this man’s hands, and fully willing to batter herself in the process.

But I was not.

“I don’t want you to hurt anymore,” he murmured, holding out his large hand for mine.

I swallowed past the lump in my throat, my fingers tingling with the desire to nestle into his large palm.

But I barely survived him leaving.

If he gave up on us again, he would break me beyond repair.

My heart ached because Baxter’s monster of a father had hurt Deacon, too.

Back then, my pain numbed me to his.It was only after I’d begun to heal that I thought about what Deacon went through, believing I could do that to him.

Seeing me with Baxter, my clothes on the floor.

It pierced my heart like so many knives.

It still did.

And I no longer had the luxury of that numbness.Looking up into his starkly handsome face, I grieved what had been stolen from us.

Seeing his outstretched hand patiently waiting for mine killed me.

The boy I used to love was the most beautiful thing to ever happen to me.What we had was real.

Even if it wasn’t meant to be forever.

I clasped my hands together at my waist.“You’re offering me everything I always wanted,” I confessed softly, my heart thudding in my throat at my dangerous admission.“I loved you with everything I had.It wasn’t much, but it was yours and only yours.I need you to know that I loved you, wholly and completely, but we’re different people now.”

“Maybe not so different,” he murmured.

I shook my head.

Half of me screamed for him to leave, the other half threatened to wrap around his leg like a child and refuse to let go.

The sane half won.“I can’t take that risk.”

“Life is a risk,” he countered, his gaze softening.

I shook my head.“I can’t.”

He nodded and let the hand he offered drop along with his eyes.