Page 110 of Let It Breathe
“I’ll walk you to your truck,” Reese said.
Clay looked at her. “You’re barefoot. And I’m pretty sure I can find my way ten feet back to the truck.”
She glared at him, stuffed her feet into a pair of rubber boots beside the door, and turned to Dr. Wally. “Will you excuse me for just a moment? Family business.”
Without waiting for a response, she shut the door behind her and stepped out into the drizzle. Clay looked at her bare arms. “You need a coat.”
He didn’t wait for her to argue. He pulled off his coat and settled it around her shoulders.
She rolled her eyes. “Now you need a coat.”
“I have long sleeves. You don’t.”
She pressed her lips together, ready to disagree. Then stopped. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I suppose you already heard how things went with the bank.”
Clay shook his head. “I left before you got back. We’ve run out of prep work we can do without knowing how you want to proceed with construction.”
Reese gave a thin little laugh and hugged her arms around herself. “How I want to proceed is not the same thing as how we’re going to be able to proceed. The bank turned us down.”
The words stung like salt in a paper cut. “Reese—I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too. Not what I needed to hear today, on top of everything else.”
“Everything else,” Clay repeated. “I’m sorry about that, too.”
“You’ve been saying that a lot lately.”
“I mean it.”
She shook her head. “I know. It’s just—I just can’t do this, Clay. Not again. Not after so many years of disappointment and hurt and complications with you and?—”
She looked down at her rubber boots, not meeting his eyes. Her hair was getting wet and Clay wanted to reach up and brush the damp strands from her eyes. He wanted to crush her against his chest and just hold her. He wanted to throw her in his truck and drive away someplace he could make love to her over and over until they both dropped from fatigue. He wanted to storm inside and tell the goddamn veterinarian to stay away from her—that she was his.
But she wasn’t.
And he didn’t do any of those things.
He lifted a hand to touch her, then stopped. “Reese, about last night. About what happened today?—”
“Don’t,” she said, looking up at him. “Just don’t.”
“But—”
“I have to get back inside.”
Her eyelashes glittered with tears as she blinked them away, and he didn’t know what to do. He took a step toward her. She took a step back.
Clay stopped moving and nodded. “Okay.”
“Goodbye, Clay.” Reese grasped the doorknob.
The words twisted in his chest like a corkscrew.
“Goodbye,” he said, and turned away from her.
