“I can’t be near you . . . like this . . . anymore,” he whispered. “Clearly, I cannot be near you.”
“You asked me how I felt,” I cried, dismayed. “And I have embarrassed you.”
“No. That’s not it. I embarrass myself.” His cheeks were stained with red, and his jaw was tight.
“I feel like a lecher,” he explained, urgent but quiet. “And I don’t like it. I don’t trust myself. On the one hand, I look at you, and I see courage and competence and strength. I see a valued companion. A brave soldier.” He choked on the last word, and the stain deepened. He ran his hands over his face.
“On the other hand, I see only Deborah. I see the line of your cheek and the bloom on your skin. I see the changing colors of your eyes, and I want to . . . to . . .” He paused and took a deep breath. “I loved my wife,” he said, sounding almost desperate. “I loved everything about her. She was elect in every way. And you are nothing like her.”
I gasped, and he flinched. It was the worst kind of rejection because I knew it was true.
I immediately wrapped myself in my accomplishments, in my triumphs, the way I’d always done. The way I’d always had to do. I’d had to value myself and better myself because I knew no one else would.
“I am smart like she was,” I argued. “And I am capable . . . and strong.” I grasped at the items from my never-ending lists. “I am . . .” My voice hitched, and I made myself stop, mortified.
“Yes. You are all those things,” he answered immediately, even contritely. “But I would never have looked at you the way . . . the way I look at you now. You would not have been the type of woman to garner my attention. Your eyes are too piercing. You are too thin. Too tall. Too . . . bold. And yet . . . I am . . .” His voice trailed off like he was searching for the right words, but I didn’t want to hear anymore.
“Why do you tell me this? It’s not as if I don’t know.” I was near tears, and I despised myself for it. I turned, grappling for the door handle. Just like before, he was there, pushing the door closed again, but he gathered me against his chest and rested his cheek on my bowed head. I did not turn in his arms. I couldn’t. My love yowled and my back bristled, and the need to claw my way free was overpowering.
“Forgive me, Samson. Forgive me. I am a man still grieving for a wife who deserved more than I gave her. I loved her. I will always love her. So to look at you and feel the way I do is . . . troubling to me.”
“I would like to leave now, sir.” I gulped, my eyes clamped closed, my hands fisted, clinging to my control with everything I had left.
“Deborah. Look at me. Please. I am trying . . . to explain.” He made me turn toward him.
“Explain what?” I did not raise my eyes.
“That I find you impossibly, undeniably, irresistibly beautiful. In fact, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes upon. And I cannot do this any longer.”
Maybe he intended for us to laugh together. He would smirk and I would shrug, but I was in no mood to be the butt of his joke. Especially not when it was the same ribbing I’d taken from the Thomas brothers for so many years. But when he let the words settle around me, final and firm, I lifted my gaze to his. He did not smile or take them back. We just stared at one another.
“The hated highlands have stolen your sanity, General,” I said, but my heart had begun to race, and the need to weep had intensified for entirely different reasons.
“Perhaps,” he whispered. “Because I am mad about you. Crazed, in fact.”
“Crazed?”
“Beyond all reason. But what I am trying—very poorly—to say is that I love you too.”
“You are in love with me?” I asked, tremulous.
“I am in love with you. Desperately. And I am afraid everyone will see it.”
Had he not confessed his feelings—even as tortured and tangled as they were—I would never have dared do what I did. I stepped in close to him, raised up on my toes, and pressed my cheek to his. I didn’t try to speak, and I didn’t seek his lips; I wouldn’t survive another kiss like that. Not right now.
With my face pressed to his, I was shielded from his eyes but not from his pounding heart, and I wrapped my arms around him, holding on to him with all the devotion I’d never allowed myself to express. To anyone. And his arms encircled me in return.
We did not converse. Our hands didn’t rove. We simply stood, cheek to cheek, his breath tickling my neck, our arms locked in a fierce embrace. And it wasn’t until we heard boots in the corridor beyond that he cradled my face in his hands, pressed his mouth to mine once more, and let me go.