Page 88 of I'll Be There
Conner caught up to her, even as she kept walking.
“Please—let’s talk about this.”
She glanced at him, her heart in pieces, but clinging to the truth.
“Your life is too big for me, Conner. Too dangerous. I can barely sleep at night with just thememoryof my trauma. But to live with a man whorunstoward danger...” She stopped then, torn by the agony in his expression. Tears dragged down his tightened jaw.
“I love you so much I think it will break me in half, losing you. But I’m not as strong as you. I’m just a...a potter. I like quiet, and working with my hands, and creating things. You save lives. But you do it by living so large it destroys me.”
“Please, honey, I said I’d quit—”
“You’d just as easilystop breathing. And you can’t hold your breath for the rest of your life.”
He stared at her, shaking his head.
“And I won’t let you.”
“That’s not fair—”
“You will only resent me when you see your smoke jumping brothers leaving and you’re not with them.”
He swallowed, shook his head. “No I won’t.”
He carried so much on his shoulders—his friends’ lives, his brother’s death…at least he didn’t have to reckon with that anymore.
And he wouldn’t have to worry about her, either. “I know it wasn’t your fault, but your worry for me nearly got us all killed tonight.”
“Liza—”
She held up her hand. “If it weren’t for you worrying about me, you would have brought Blankenship to justice when he showed up at the jail.”
“He never would have been there if it weren’t for you! You—youput this into motion.”
She knew he didn’t mean it as an accusation, but the words still made her wince. “I know. And I feel sick.”
“I don’t. Liza.You did this.You brought my brother back into my life—and yeah, right now I’d like to kill him all over again, but—I’m so brutally relieved, too, and—you did this. You fixed my life. Youalwaysfix my life.” He caught her hands, brought them to his chest. “I love you. Please, let’s figure this out.”
He stood there, stealing the moonlight, his eyes shiny, his face still tarred with soot, turning his beard dark, grizzled. Dangerous. Brutally handsome, especially with the sleeves torn off his shirt, the wind raking fingers through his freshly cut hair.
Standing there, giving her his heart.
And now she hated herself. Pressed her fingers to her eyes. “Conner—”
“I’m going to be at the church tomorrow. Eleven o’clock. Waiting for you at the altar. And I don’t care if anyone else shows up...anyone but you.” Then, he took her heart right out of her chest as he knelt before her, still holding her hand. “Please, Liza. Please marry me.”
She couldn’t see for the wash in her eyes. But she did manage to hold in her breath, the raw hiccup of her feelings as she tore her hand out of his grip. “It’s over, Conner. I was just lying to myself—to us. It’ll be better this way. You’ll see.”
He was shaking his head.
“Don’t follow me. It’ll just make it harder.”
He didn’t. She knew because as she left the parking lot and hit the sidewalk, she looked back.
Not sure, really, why she did.
He hadn’t moved. He remained, spotlighted in the middle of the parking lot, kneeling, his hands clasped against his forehead.
As if praying.
