A Ring And A Rainbow. Deanna Talcott

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      Chapter Three

      As astonishment rolled through Claire’s eyes, all he could recognize was his blunder. “I meant,” he revised quickly, “that I’ve missed having you as a friend.”

      “We haven’t been friends for a long time, Hunter,” Claire reminded him. “You went your way, I went mine.”

      “You didn’t go anywhere, Claire. Like you said, you stayed here.”

      “And was that so bad?”

      “Maybe not. Not for you. You worked your way up in the company.”

      She stared at him in disbelief. “My life here is more than working my way up in a real estate office, Hunter,” she said evenly. “My life is not just about a job. It’s about commitments, and a sense of community and belonging.”

      “Funny. I seem to remember a time when you didn’t feel that way at all. I remember when you talked about seeing the world, when you talked about shedding the old memories and trading them in on some new ones. Ones that you’d created—not the ones that you were saddled with.”

      Claire winced. Hunter’s reminders of the rough times her family had endured hurt. “I’d rather you didn’t bring that up,” she said, her eyes flashing. “My father—”

      “I’m not talking about him,” he said. “This is about you, Claire. You always held your head up, no matter what happened. You never had anything to be ashamed of, and you made sure people knew it. But by staying here, you have a bundle of baggage attached to your backside.”

      “That was a long time ago, Hunter,” Claire reminded. “And I let go of it a long time ago.”

      He paused, his gaze narrowing, his expression thoughtful. “Why, then,” he asked, “can’t you do the same with us?”

      The unexpected question stopped Claire cold. Apprehension gripped her middle, making her heart pound and putting an ugly pain behind her breastbone. “You misunderstand,” she said finally, carefully. “There hasn’t been an ‘us’ for a long, long time.”

      “But you still can’t let go of it.”

      “Because…” She pressed her lips firmly together, and let the moment of weakness and indecision pass. She couldn’t allow herself to tell him he had been her everything, that he’d been her world, her life, her passion. Instead she settled for, “You were different. That’s why. I trusted you.” She stepped away, to the dresser, and picked up the faded family photo that she’d framed. Skimming her thumb over the top of the frame, she wiped away any trace of dust, then handed it to him. “I remember the day this picture was taken.”

      He studied it, his expression quizzical. Her father wasn’t even looking at the camera, and her mother was frowning, her mouth clamped tight. It looked as if they’d been arguing. “But…you couldn’t have been much more than seven or eight.”

      “Even so, I remember it. Because you were standing behind the lilac bushes watching.” He looked up at her in surprise. “You were waiting to see if I could go play. And that’s how I remember you, always on the perimeter. Always there. Always waiting for me, no matter what. And because of that I gave you everything.”

      A trace of annoyance touched his forehead, then he slowly, carefully, slid the picture back on the dresser. “We were next-door neighbors, Claire. We grew up together.”

      “But I grew up giving you my hopes and dreams. You knew me better than I knew myself. And sometimes I could just look at you and know what you were thinking.” Her voice dropped to a painful whisper. “Hunter, you were my first—”

      His palm lifted and his fingers splayed to prevent her from uttering “lover.” “I didn’t take that intimacy,” he emphasized, “lightly. I still don’t. But we were eighteen years old, Claire. Back then,” he admitted, “I was naive enough to think we would be together forever.”

      “We could have been,” she countered, painfully aware of his masculine good looks, his deep rich voice. “But of course the ink had to go and dry on your college diploma.”

      He let a second slip away, his gaze expressionless. “You could have come with me.”

      “I had responsibilities,” she argued. “I couldn’t just leave.”

      “I asked you to postpone the wedding and come with me.”

      “You remember things a little differently than I do,” she said, nailing him with a look that spoke volumes. “Because I don’t remember being asked, I remember being told.”

      “I wasn’t going to turn down that job!”

      “So you turned me down instead.”

      “Don’t say it like that!” He raked a hand over the top of his head. “I didn’t turn you down, and I didn’t turn away from you.” Claire watched as the muscles in his jaw thumped and his mouth went thin, hard. “I needed to move on. I couldn’t bear the thought of spending the rest of my life in that station, pumping gas, giving directions and filling the paper-towel СКАЧАТЬ