Page 111 of Now That It's You
The bluntness of his question seemed to startle them both, and Cara took a moment to answer. “Because,” she said slowly. “Look, I’ll just lay my cards out on the table here. I think we should give it another shot between us.”
Kyle stared blankly at her face. “What?”
“I’ve been thinking about you since I saw you out with your mom the other day, and I miss the way we were. Don’t you?”
The word no teetered on the tip of his tongue, but that would be unnecessarily cruel. He didn’t want to hurt her. He just didn’t want to be with her. Especially not now, with his desire for Meg burning a hot hole through the center of his chest.
“You deserve better,” he said at last.
“I think I deserve you.” She gave him a small smile and set the beer down on the counter. “I think we belong together.”
“No.” Now that he’d said the word, there was no taking it back. Her smile vanished, but Kyle pressed on, knowing he needed to make himself clear. “I’m sorry, Cara, it’s not you. It’s me.”
God, that sounded lame. Cara must have thought so, too, because her brow creased with those tiny little lines she used to call her devil horns.
“No, it isn’t.”
“What?”
“It’s not you. It’s also not me.” She set her beer down on the counter and folded her hands in her lap. “It’s the same thing it always was, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, even though he had a pretty good idea.
Cara aimed her index finger toward the corner of the room. Kyle didn’t have to look to know what she was pointing at. “It’s her, isn’t it? It’s always been her?”
He turned anyway, even though he knew what she was looking at. He stared at the sculpture, at the delicate curves of copper, the burnished brown iron, the sloped steel angle that looked like a shoulder blade. The piece was clearly feminine, but it was abstract, not recognizable as any one person.
At least that’s what Kyle used to think.
“I always knew it was her,” Cara said softly, dropping her hand back in her lap. “All that time together, you loved someone else.”
Kyle swallowed hard and closed his eyes. It seemed stupid to argue, but some stubborn, idiotic part of him did it anyway. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do.”
He opened his eyes to see her shaking her head a little sadly. He’d expected to see anger in her eyes, but it looked more like pity.
“Meg Delaney,” she said. “Your brother’s wife.”
“They didn’t get married.”
“I know. I was there, remember?” He watched her head tilt as though angling to conjure the memory. Kyle remembered, too. The lavender scent of the unity candle behind him. The high giggles of the twin flower girls. The heated itch under his collar, the sensation of choking to death on his bowtie or his guilt or some combination of the two.
Beside him now, Cara spun the beer glass on the counter. “I watched your face that day,” she said slowly. “When she turned and ran out of that church?”
“I don’t?—”
“I’ve never in my life seen you look at me that way.” She gave a hollow little laugh. “I’ve never seen any man look at any woman that way. Like you wanted to chase her down that aisle.”
He shook his head, wanting to argue, but knowing he didn’t have a leg to stand on. She was right. All of it, every word she’d said.
“I’m sorry, Cara,” he said at last. “I wish it could have been different.”
“It’s okay.” She gave a small shrug and picked up her beer, taking a tiny sip before setting the glass down again. “I knew before I came here today how things would turn out. I had to shoot my shot.”
“I appreciate that,” he said. “It takes guts. More guts than I ever had.”
Cara studied his face. “Does she know?”
