“Fine,” she said. “I don’t want him. I know that I don’t. I absolutely one hundred percent know that I don’t. I do not want that man. And sorting out that I want you... Hunter, I don’t know how to reconcile the change between us. I don’t know what it means.”
Seeing Elsie so uncertain, he wanted to reassure her. He wanted to be the one who could do that because he was the one who’d unsettled her, and he just wanted to fix it.
“I was thinking about that this morning,” he said. “Just a few weeks ago I had never noticed the way that your nose curves like a ski slope. And that you have about five freckles scattered on your face. That your lips are the color of cherry blossoms, and your eyes are like amber more than brown. I hadn’t noticed any of that. It was right in front of me the whole time. And I didn’t see it. I guess it could feel wrong to know it all now. I guess I could be upset about it, but I’m not. I’m just...thankful for the beauty. How can you be upset that you see more than you did before?”
His heart was pounding. He felt like... In some ways, he felt like the virgin. It was weird. But he had meant every word. He felt like there were aspects of the world around him that were new, all because of her. All because her eyes were more amber than brown. All because of those freckles. Like each and every one was a revelation, that had brought with it world-changing knowledge.
Lord have mercy.
She looked away. “Oh. I—I don’t know. I...”
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
She shifted and looked up at him, her eyes glassy now. “How?”
“Do you need me to tell you about your freckles again?”
“No. It’s just, I feel very ordinary, Hunter.”
“You are far from ordinary, Elsie.”
She looked at him sort of shyly, and he could see that this wasn’t just Elsie speaking her mind. This was Elsie digging deep and speaking her heart, and it was different.
They were different.
“I’ve been here my whole life, around people who have known me my whole life. And I—I don’t feel special. I don’t feel special at all. My mother walked away from me when I was a baby, and I don’t think my dad ever held me. How can I be special enough for you to think I’m pretty? It’s not that I think I’m ugly or anything like that, but I know you’ve been with, like, a hundred women.”
“Well, damn. You make me sound like I’m disgusting.”
“I don’t mean it that way,” she said.
Because she was Elsie, he believed her.
“Right.”
“Just... Look, it wouldn’t have made me feel special that Travis wanted to sleep with me. It didn’t. Last night when I was having a drink with him, and realizing that it could happen... It didn’t mean anything to me. It really didn’t. It just... I didn’t want him. And I knew that he wanted me, but it wasn’t about me. It was just about the fact that he’s a man and he’s perfectly happy to have what’s available to him. I never expected him to tell me that I was beautiful. I never expected him to make me feel good about myself. But you doing it... When I know that you could have any woman, especially one who actually knows what she’s doing, and not one who had never been kissed... I don’t know. It means something to me, and I... It makes my chest hurt, Hunter.”
His own ached in response. “Elsie—”
“My own mother didn’t want me. My dad was there and he never even held me. But knowing that you want me, that you are choosing this, even though Sawyer and Wolf—”
“You might be giving me too much credit. I’m not sure that I chose this. It’s something bigger than me. This isn’t me wanting to teach you something, this is me surrendering. I don’t know how to see you any different now.” He had never the hell talked about his feelings for this long before with anybody.
This was all different than knowing each other’s history. They were talking about how that history shaped them. Made them feel. Talking about what they meant to each other.
He had never put this much thought into anything. It just mattered. And he couldn’t make it not matter. That was the thing. That was the thing.
And he suddenly wanted to give Elsie the whole world. But it wasn’t his to give, and he felt like it was inadequate at best.
And he could feel it all building between them, and he didn’t know if he wanted to take a step back from the edge of the cliff, or grab hold of her and leap off.
Like she’d done with him down at the river.
He felt stronger and somehow weaker than he ever had.
“This changes things,” she whispered.
“I think things changed a while ago.” It was too late for them to protect themselves from it, and in that moment, he was sure they both realized it.
That whatever was going to happen...
It was too late to stop it.
But they could ignore it all for now.
He could feel her put a wall up. And he was ashamed to admit, even to himself, that he was glad for it.
“Enough talking,” she said. “We have work to do.”
“Sure do,” he said.
And it was a relief. The interruption. Because she was right. While they were here they had work to do. And when they were in Vancouver... Well, that was a different story altogether.
For some reason, being away made it seem manageable.
Because here, at Four Corners, it all seemed too tied to dangerous truths about the past.
It all seemed too big.
Vancouver would make it easier.
Lord knew it couldn’t get any harder.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“YOU’RE GOING OUT of town again?”
“Yes,” Elsie said, feeling annoyed for some reason by Alaina and her questioning. It was a natural thing to ask. She would be asking Alaina the same question if Alaina was going somewhere. And she would probably want details. But Elsie was not going to give details.
“So, what happened with Travis?”
She stiffened. “Nothing,” she said.
“Nothing?”
“No,” she said. “It’s fine. I’m good with that. I—I mean... There’s always next time.”
“That’s true,” Alaina said. “I mean, maybe you have the right perspective. There’s no point being upset because it didn’t pan out once. He’s a guy. He’s likely to come around eventually.”
“Maybe when the pond dries up,” Elsie said dryly.