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But he couldn’t stop the wheels from turning.
“Besides,” she continued, while he tried to catch up with the situation, “I’m not ready to have kids yet. Not until I’m at the point where I can consult on shows, but not have to be on-site and produce them. For now, I travel way too much.”
“So stop. Matt’s the production manager at Montford, but there are other universities in the state. Or what about the Orpheum? Or Symphony Hall? Or Gammage? What about Herberger or the Celebrity Theater? Or even Cricket Pavilion? Instead of working for everyone, you could work full-time for one theater. Run your own show at home.”
“It sounds as though you’ve considered my possibilities.” The little smile tilting her lips snagged his heart.
“Of course I have.” Duane leaned forward, grabbing both of her hands, that smile driving him in spite of his need to put on the brake. “I mean this, Sophie. I think we should get married.” He paused. “If you want your future to be with me.”
She was young and beautiful. What in the hell was he doing, thinking she’d want to tie herself to him permanently?
He’d lost his mind.
“Of course I want my future with you,” she said, though she didn’t sound any more sure than he felt. “You wouldn’t have a key to my home, or have ever been invited back after that night we met, if I didn’t want you in my life. Before you, I hadn’t dated in almost five years, Duane. That was my choice. Not because I didn’t want to marry and have a family, but because I wasn’t going to screw up again. I knew that when I met the man I wanted for keeps, I’d know it.”
His heart pounding, Duane still felt something settle within him. Something good.
Until he started thinking again. “And did you know it? When we first met?”
“No.”
He tried not to let the disappointment crush him.
“I knew it the morning after, when I woke up with you and didn’t hate myself for being in bed with you. Being with you felt so right.”
No wonder he hadn’t wanted to get out of bed that morning. And why something about her had been calling him back ever since.
“Then it’s time to get married.”
“If it were time to get married, you wouldn’t be having such a hard time getting through this.”
Oh, he loved this woman. Loved how well she knew him.
And was scared as hell by it, too.
“I’m having a hard time because I know how important it is that we do this. I know how much is resting on it.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I’ve agreed to run for state office. You’re right. People are going to be watching me. Judging me. Looking for smut. I don’t care so much for myself, but I care for you. If we don’t get married, we’d have to quit seeing each other, because it’s unlikely we’d be blessed with a miracle and be able to keep our liaison secret. You’d be found out and called my whore.”
“Your midlife crisis.”
“Right.”
“Which would hurt your chances of getting elected.”
“Yes.” And that bothered him.
“But maybe we aren’t ready for scrutiny yet.” Sophie paused, frowning. “Or maybe there’s more that needs to happen in our individual lives before we can settle into being a generational couple.”
Could she mean she had more seeds to sow?
A vision he’d been blocking for the past couple of hours haunted Duane, sending shards of dread through him all over again.
A simple brown bag on her front porch.
“If I promise to understand that this time you mean your proposal, and that you’re serious about us getting married soon, can we postpone this conversation for a day or two? Let me have some time to settle in and think?”
Relief had been understandable half an hour ago, when he’d found out she still cared. It wasn’t so forgivable now—not when she was postponing something he should want more than anything else on earth.
“Of course.” He relented before she could change her mind. “I’ve been thinking about this since you left,” he told her. “I’m a bit ahead of you.”
“You’re always ahead of me,” she said with a chuckle. “I’ve never met anyone as clear thinking as you are. That’s one of the things I love so much about you—your ability to see through the muck to what’s really there.”
“To cut to the chase,” he murmured, recognizing what she was telling him about himself. He’d been praised for the talent many times in his legal profession.
So why, when it came to Sophie, were his thoughts anything but clear?
Sophie slid to her knees, the heels of her boots visible behind her. “Counselor, could you please give me a recess, just until tomorrow morning so that we can go into the bedroom and have recess for real?”
He recognized what she was doing. Diverting them, returning them to the world where they were perfect—alone, just the two of them.
Their fantasy.
It was what they always did when reality intervened. Retreated.
But the fantasy wasn’t working anymore.
Sophie’s hand on his thigh was. He was already hard. Anticipating. When it came to sex, she never failed to arouse him. Not ever.
“Please take me to bed, babe.” Sophie’s voice took on a note of quiet desperation. “Hold me and make the world’s craziness go away. Long enough for me to get some rest?”
“You haven’t been sleeping well?” She hadn’t said anything. And he’d called her every single night she’d been gone.
“Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“I never sleep well when you aren’t with me.”
She did have a way with words. Or, more precisely, her words had a way with him.
“Another reason why we should get married,” he said, even when he knew he didn’t want to push the point.
“I know.”
But she still didn’t say yes. And he wasn’t any more sure he was ready for her to do so.
For tonight he needed to feel her skin against his, to lose himself in her scent, in her arms, in her center, and visit once again the heaven that had been created for the two of them.
Fifteen minutes later, after cleaning up, retrieving her luggage and turning off the lights, Duane walked hand in hand with Sophie down the hall to the master suite, thinking only of getting her warm body as close to his as he could.
Chapter Six
WIDE-AWAKE, Sophie stared at the ceiling—or what she could see of it in the moonlight. Her body was completely sated, satisfied, loved. She’d been consumed by Duane’s lovemaking like never before. In tune with his every touch, she’d felt precious, powerful, the most beautiful woman in the world.
Then, with their hips pressed up against each other, they’d drifted off to sleep.
Problem was, she’d woken up. And with Duane’s head resting on her shoulder, his hand still covering her breast, she didn’t want to move and disturb him. She wanted him right where he was—needed him there. Where no one could see them. Disturb them.
Challenge them.
In bed with Duane, alone with him, she knew she’d never have to sabotage herself again. Never have to subconsciously prove her inner strength through carefully mastering of base appetites. She’d never have to fight feelings of emotional scarcity.
But she couldn’t live her life in bed with Duane.
Tomorrow would come—as it always did. To shine light on things that went unnoticed in the darkness.
And while Duane was always an incredible lover, part of him had been more distant tonight. He was pulling away from her.
She knew that. Understood it.
And maybe he was withholding from himself, as well. Pushing himself into something he wasn’t sure was right.
If he’d really wanted to marry her, they’d be married by now.
Wouldn’t they?
She listened to Duane’s even breathing. Counted the beats of his heart against her side.
Every instinct she had told her that for them to marry under pressure—because, with his nomination, they either had to marry or split—would be a recipe for disaster.
She couldn’t afford another personal disaster. You could only bankrupt your heart so many times before it gave out on you. Or gave up on you.
“What are you thinking about?” His voice was strong, steady. Not sleepy at all.
He hadn’t moved. And neither did she.
“How long have you been awake?”
“Most of the night.”
The fact that he wasn’t resting any easier than she was scared her. Duane was usually out as soon as he lay down. And slept all night. He kept a schedule that would challenge a man half his age. He needed his rest.
He’d asked what she was thinking about. If she brought up the problems between them, would she lose him?
Was she ready to do that?
No. She wanted to bury her head in the sand. Be on vacation. Pretend. Live for the moment.
She couldn’t run from her doubts. They’d only catch up with her. They always did. At far too high a price.
Running her fingers through his hair, she said, “I’ve been lying here trying to figure out what’s different about you tonight.”
“Different how?”
“I’m not sure. It feels like you’re holding back. And yet I can’t give you any evidence to support the feeling.”
The hand on her breast slid away. “Feelings are the one fallacy of the factual system,” he said, rolling over until his head rested on the pillow right beside hers, touching hers. “So much of the time, they don’t make sense.”
“So I’m right. You’re holding back.”
“No. I don’t think so. At all.” The protest, though a little too forced, was at least something to clutch on to.
Her stomach, which had been working its way into a small frenzy, relaxed a bit.
“But I’m sensing something?”
“Nothing more than the confusion of having what I want be at odds with what I need.”
She didn’t ask which she was—the want or the need. Or if she was even what he was talking about.
A year ago, she would have been positive she knew both—his wants and needs. A year ago, when there’d been no visible cracks in their idyllic hideaway life, his wants and needs hadn’t been a threat.
“We shouldn’t have to work so hard to make this work.”
“Relationships, even the best of them, are hard work. Always.”
“You sound awfully certain about that for a man who’s lived alone most of his life.”
“I had the very best teacher.”
“Who?” She had no idea because, outside of her home, she knew very little about him.
“Will Parsons.”
“What does Will have to do with us?”
“You weren’t in Shelter Valley yet when Becca got pregnant, were you?”
“No.” But she’d come to know the couple well enough through Matt and Phyllis, and had been accepted into their peripheral family circle, in spite of her past.
“Anybody ever tell you their story?”
“I know the basics—high school sweethearts who married and weren’t blessed with children until Becca was in her forties.”
“That’s the public version.”
