She really had seen me after all. It hadn’t just been in my head.
I’d softened at that confirmation. “Maybe not. But he was offering a good life. Trust me, it wouldn’t be settling.”
She shook her head. “It would have been settling for you.”
“Then I could have left.”
“But that’s just it – you never would.” Now she was the one who’d sounded frustrated. Her words the ones streaked with bitterness.
Immediately she’d attempted to smooth me over. “And I wouldn’t want you to. I love you, Em. One day things might be different, but right now if I have to choose between a boy and you, I’m going to choose you.”
She’d met my eyes, and I saw the truth. Yes, she’d left because of me, but underneath that, I’d seen something else – fear. She’s been afraid to stay, maybe because she hadn’t known how to be happy or maybe because she’d been scared he’d eventually leave her and she’d wanted to be the one to do it first.
The minute she’d realized that I’d seen through her, she’d turned back to her task of unpacking. “It would have been weird without you, anyway,” she’d said, stuffing panties into a drawer. “We already established our relationship as a threesome. Bryan wanted the things you gave him as much as he wanted the things I gave him. It doesn’t work to go from sharing to not sharing.”
I’d leaned my shoulder against the wall and continued to study her. There had been so much that we’d had in common. And so much that we hadn’t. If I’d found the right guy, I’d have stayed through the worst of things. When she’d found the right guy, she’d left while it was still good.
One thing had suddenly seemed quite clear – we couldn’t go on like we had been forever.
I raised my chin and issued the challenge. “Then maybe we shouldn’t share anymore.”
“That’s probably not a bad idea.”
I don’t know what I’d expected her to say, but it hadn’t been that. “No, it’s probably not,” I’d agreed, more hurt than I should have been considering I’d been the one to suggest it.
Hostilely, I’d grabbed a dress from our suitcase and went to the closet to hang it up, determined not to let her see me get emotional.
But there’d been no hangers in the cheap motel room. I’d kicked the door, stubbing my toe so hard that tears pricked my eyes.
Amber had glanced at me over her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I’d hissed. Then I’d leaned my back against the wall, balled the dress up, and hugged it to my chest. “I didn’t give anything to that relationship, Amber. You wouldn’t have missed me as much as you think you would have.” The words had felt like peanut butter in my mouth. They’d stuck and even when I’d pushed them out, there were still traces of them clinging to my tongue.
Amber had crossed to me then. She’d put a hand on my shoulder and with gentle eyes, she’d said, “He likes having two girls. Without you, he’d eventually want to bring someone else into the bedroom. He can’t come without watching two girls go at it, and I’m not interested in having sex with any woman that isn’t you.”
They were excuses, and we’d both known it. “He wouldn’t need another girl. Or you’d turn on a fem porn and it would be fine.”
She’d shaken her head. “It’s not the same.” Then, with only the slightest bit of a breath beforehand, she’d said the words that had addressed the real issue. “Anyway, you wouldn’t have left so it wouldn’t have been necessary.”
“I would have,” my throat had caught on the lie. “If you had really wanted me to.”
“Whatever,” she’d grinned. “I wouldn’t even begin to know how to get rid of you.”
“Are you kidding me? Getting rid of me is easy – you just have to tell me to go.” It had hurt to be that honest, in parts of me that I couldn’t identify. It was as if I’d given up the key to my demise simply because the person who’d asked for it was someone I’d loved that much. So much that I’d been willing to clue her in on the one way she could destroy me.
I’d had to do it. She’d sacrificed for me. It was only fair I did the same.
At one point in our relationship, she would have refused the gift. She would have pushed my words away and told me that she’d never let me go.
But things had changed with Bryan. She’d seen what could have been possible for both of us. And, likely, she’d begun to grow weary of my needs and the trouble they’d caused.
So instead of denying, she’d embraced it. “I’ll remember that next time.”
Next time came a whole year later, but she did, indeed, remember.
CHAPTER 11
Amber wasn’t in her room when I looked for her the next day. Nor was she downstairs. Reeve also wasn’t around. Despite the amazing breakthrough we’d had the night before, something inside nagged with suspicion and jealousy. Were they together somewhere? And if they were, did that mean anything?
Around noon, the anxiety began to crescendo, and I paced the house like a mother worried about her lost child. I was seriously considering asking Tabor, the bodyguard Reeve had assigned to protect me, to help me search the ranch, but then, on my third trip to the back deck, I spotted her.
She was standing about fifty feet away, by the shed that housed the ATVs and other large ranch equipment. Jenkins circled her feet as she chatted with a trim man in a button-down flannel shirt and jeans. He wore a cowboy hat so I couldn’t make out his face, and, even though his description matched nearly every one of the men on the ranch, I tensed and began searching for clues that would tell me if it was Reeve or not. He was drinking a beer, something I’d never seen Reeve do midday. But Amber was so familiar with him. She grabbed the bottle from his hand and took a swig. With his hands free, the man retrieved something from his back pocket. Cigarettes, I realized. He lit one and handed the pack to Amber as she returned his drink.