Desert Bound (Cambio Springs) by Elizabeth Hunter Read Free Book Online Page B

done—”
    “That was your plan.”
    “And you never told me different!”
    He stepped closer. “Maybe I tried and you didn’t listen. Maybe I realized that there was only one person whose dreams mattered in our relationship.”
    She looked like he’d slapped her, and Alex immediately regretted the words, but his blood was boiling, and he couldn’t stop.
    “I gave you everything I could, Ted. Everything. I put up with a hell of a lot of shit that I wouldn’t have from anyone else. And half the time, I thought I was invisible. But I never lied. Not once. You just didn’t listen.”
    Her face was pale, but her jaw was set. “Actions speak louder than words.”
    “And how did my actions lie to you? When we were living together? When we made love? There were two people there, Ted. You can’t put that on me.”
    “No, you can just take off and lie about coming back ‘soon.’”
    “I didn’t lie to you!” He threw his hands up and started walking toward the trailer again. He had to get away from her. Maybe it was all a mistake. Maybe he was an idiot for even looking back. “I have never broken a promise to you. Not once.”
    “How I’m supposed to believe you’ll stay? That you won’t leave again when the job is done.”
    “You left me !”
    “And you were already gone!”
    “I came back.”
     “Sure you did. But not to stay! I thought you were back five years ago. When you came to me in Palm Springs—” She choked on the words as he turned. 
    “Ted.” Coming to her a year after their breakup had been a mistake. He’d known it even when he was driving to her house. Knew he couldn’t offer her what she needed from him. But he’d been weak and he’d missed her so damned much.
    Making love to her had been like coming home. And they’d never talked about it. Alex’s guilt fell like a blanket over his anger.
    That time, he had been the one to leave, and he couldn’t deny it.
    “I didn’t know what to believe,” she said. “You left. Again. And every time I tried to move on, you came back. Every time I met a guy I liked, you were there to mess things up. Just to remind me of what I couldn’t have.”
    “I’m back now.”
    “And how am I supposed to believe that?”
    She stood in the light of the almost full moon, black eyes flashing. Dark hair slipping down around her face. 
    “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known in my life.”
    She took a step back, surprised. “Alex—”
    “And the hardest.”
    “I have to be.”
    How much of that was his fault?
    Alex whispered, “You won’t believe a word I say, will you?”
    “What does it matter? You said yourself we were done.”
    “We’re not done.” He stepped closer, needing to touch her. “We’re never done. That was the lie.”
    “Did it even hurt you?” He almost didn’t hear her. Her voice had gone from hard to painfully soft. “Giving me up? You keep telling me that I’m the one who left you, but you walked away from that apartment without a backward glance.”
    It hit him like a punch to the chest. He took a step back. “How could you ask that?”
    He’d been wrecked. Broken. A thin covering of man over a broken-hearted kid. It was Ted who had moved on. Ted who’d packed up their apartment and left him behind. She was the one who put up walls. 
    “You say you never broke a promise, Alex, but you did.”
    “When—”
    “You gave me your heart, then you took it away. And you took mine with it.” She blinked rapidly. “So don’t tell me I’m hard. I’m just protecting what’s left.”
    Then she turned in the moonlight and walked away.
     
    Hours later, Alex was still awake. Still watching her walk away.
    “You walked away from that apartment without a backward glance.”
    He’d had to. If he’d have looked back, Alex would have fallen to his knees and begged her to stay. Begged her to give up the residency that brought her back home, even when he knew she needed to go. Being tied to the city