Page 89 of Keepsake
“Yes,” I lied.
“I am in love with you.”
My eyes filled instantly. I didn’t think he’d go there, and it hurt me to hear it. “Well, don’t be,” I said, my voice a scrape. “I’m a mess, Zach.”
“I’m not scared of messes.”
“I can’t be anybody’s girlfriend.”
He stiffened. “You can’t, or you won’t?”
I really couldn’t. I’d known that from the start, too. But then I went ahead and got involved with him anyway. Once again, I’d taken when I thought I was giving.
“Can we start this conversation over?” Zach asked, rubbing the back of his neck. “That didn’t come out the way I meant. And this isn’t how I wanted this to go.”
“This is the only way it can go.”
“Why?” His voice cracked a little on the word.
Damn it. You had to give him points for honesty. Another man might try to protect himself—to back away from the sentiment. But not Zach. He was the best kind of person in the world, as Daphne had said.
And I was the worst. He didn’t get it. But it was high time that he did. “It’s not about love, Zach.”
“It is for me.”
“You knew I was only here for the picking season. What did you think would happen?”
His eyes reddened, and he turned the question right around on me. “What didyouthink would happen?”
This. May had warned me. And Daphne called it.
The dragons in my heart blew their noxious breath. Again. And now I was too tired to hold them back. I needed to leave Vermont before I caused this beautiful man any further pain.
“It was just sex,” I lied, unable to meet his eye. “That’s all. It was good, but it’s over now.”
The first second after I inflicted this wound was all shock—mine as well as his. His face turned an angry red. Then, after another two beats of my heart, Zach finally turned his face away from me and walked off. A second later I heard the bunkhouse door slam.
Steady, I coached myself.It’s better this way.
On shaky knees, I got up and closed the bedroom door. Then I opened the desk drawer and pulled out the Boston letter demanding my presence next week. I also took out every paycheck the Shipleys had written me, and I tore them in half and dropped them into the wastepaper basket.
Then I sat very still on the bed and tried hard not to cry.
25
Zach
Manual labor. That was the only thing I was good for right now.
Luckily, another silver birch had managed to fall in the night, angling its papery trunk from the forested windbreak on the north border of the farm across the cow pasture. Luckily, it had taken out a section of the old split-rail fence.
I stood there swinging the ax with more force than was strictly necessary, happy when a satisfying chuck of wood went flying away from the cut. I wound up and swung again.
“Whoa, killer,” Kyle cautioned. “Lemme go get the chainsaw. We’ll make quick work of that.”
“I got this one,” I muttered, waiting for Kyle to clear out of the way so I could swing again.
“What’s eating you?”
