“Is there a reason why? Or should we call an end to a good thing and say we’ll still be friends?”
Trying for breezy and light only fell flat. Rick pulled off the road, hitting the hazard lights. “Lana, we both know the reason.”
“It’s because of Silas’s power play, isn’t it? Rick, I swear I’m going to fix—”
He cut her off with a shake of his head. “That’s not why. Am I worried about what might happen? Yeah. But I’ve been worried every day for years about whether my business will keep afloat. If I’m screwing up by not taking tourists’ money. If I’m screwing up with Diego after all. I worry all the damn time, Lana. What’s happening with the group is just more of the same.”
Rick’s hands gripped the steering wheel too tight as he sat there staring out at the expanse of snowy crop fields. “That’s how it’s always been. When you live in Moose Springs, you never have control of what happens to you. You just have to survive what’s constantly being thrown at you.”
“Like me.”
Hazel eyes found hers, despite her attempts not to look at him. “You are the best thing to happen to me. You’re amazing, Lana. Which is why this isn’t going to work and why I’m not going to hurt both of us by dragging it out.”
“I don’t understand,” she said softly. “You told me you loved me last night. I refuse to believe that wasn’t what you truly feel. So how does ‘I love you’ turn into ‘let’s break up’ by the next morning?”
“Your shoes click.”
She had no idea what that meant.
“I never noticed it before.” Rick pressed on in a gruff voice. “I mean, I did. But when you were with your family, every woman’s shoes clicked on the floor. Every man was wearing slacks.”
“You’re ending this because of my shoes?”
“No. I am just starting to realize that we live in different worlds. Your world is a lot bigger and a lot more important than mine. Being with me…your loyalty to my town…it’s costing you.”
“Whatever my mother said—”
“What she said was you might lose control of the Montgomery Group. A multibillion-dollar company. Lana, this is just a holiday fling. I didn’t realize what the stakes were at play. I can’t cost you that.”
“The choices I make in my professional life are my own, Rick.” Lana’s voice caught on his name.
“I know. And I have the choice to make things harder for you or to walk away.”
He made a soft, soothing noise in his throat, as if she were a deer about to shy away. Lana didn’t feel like a deer; she felt like a lion, digging its claws in, desperate not to let something good slip out of her hands.
She didn’t want to lose him.
“We don’t have anything in common, Lana. And this has been so good…” Rick’s voice choked, and he stopped talking. He cleared his throat roughly before continuing. “I’ve loved every minute with you. You make me laugh, and you make everything so much better. But one day, you’re going to wake up and realize the guy at the pool hall in some nowhere town doesn’t wear slacks on a Tuesday.”
“You’re being amazingly insulting to both of us.”
“Sweetheart, we don’t fit. And when you realize it, I don’t want to be a decade in and too far gone to survive watching you walk away. The first time gutted me, but you…I don’t think I’d get over it. You don’t know the damage you could do without even trying.”
Anger flared inside her. “Don’t you think I’m scared too? Rick, I’ve never told a man I loved him in my life. I don’t do flings, because I don’t want temporary. I want real. I want permanent. I want a home and a family and a life with someone. And I thought…”
She stopped midsentence because it wasn’t fair to tell him she’d wanted that with him. Not when she was the one destined to walk away.
“I don’t know what this could have been, but I’m not making another woman miserable by tying her to my side. I won’t go through that again, Lana.”
Lana would not cry. She would not. “It’s not my job to fix what your ex-wife broke. It’s not my responsibility to prove myself because she couldn’t.”
“I know. But it’s my choice to walk away before I get hurt. Before we both do.”
He was doing this with the quiet acceptance of a man who had decided he was beat.
Unable to stop the silent tears from leaking down her cheeks, Lana said in a hurt voice, “You’re not going to fight for us at all, are you?”
That flash of heat filled his eyes, that determination, that fire she only saw when he was holding her in his arms. “This isn’t what I want, gorgeous. But it’s the right thing to do. I can’t give you what you need. I can’t be what you need.”
“I never asked you for anything. I never wanted you to be anything or anyone other than who you are. I refuse to fight for a man who won’t do the same for me. Either you’re in or you’re out, Rick.”
He didn’t answer, but that was all the answer she needed.
Lana wanted to scream. She wanted to kick him in the leg for being an idiot. She wanted to cry, because he was breaking her heart into a million pieces, and she didn’t think she’d ever be able to glue them back together again in the right places.
But Montgomerys didn’t make scenes. They accepted tough news with decorum and grace. Sometimes the only thing to do was keep her head held up high.
“I’ll arrange for a flight home for you, dearest,” Lana said, because she didn’t know if he had the money saved up to get himself back. Chicago was beautiful during the holidays, but broken up or not, Rick was the best man she’d ever met. The last thing she would do was strand him at Christmas.
Not with someone he was done with.
Chapter 16
The hospital room was silent except for the steady beeping of the vital signs monitor. Lana sat in the plush chair placed next to the side of Killian’s bed, careful to be as quiet as possible. His eyes were closed.
“The surgery to stop the bleeding worked. I guess I’m not dying after all.”
Killian’s Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed hard.
“You almost sound disappointed.” Lana poured him a glass of water from the pitcher at his bedside.
Gone were his impeccable manners, replaced by a hand nearly crushing the thin plastic cup as it shook. He knew he’d badly injured his spine. Reminding him of that wasn’t going to help. Not when unshed tears glistened in his eyes.