Heart of Gold - By Tami Hoag Page 0,66
thought hurt. All these years he’d gone along on his own, touching no one, needing no one. In a few short weeks this one small woman had so captured him, it would be like tearing his heart out to leave her. And it would be doubly painful because until Faith, he had stopped believing he had a heart to lose.
“I’m leaving for Washington in the morning,” he said abruptly, his voice gruffer and more clipped than usual. “Agent Timmons will stay on and escort you back for the trial.”
He set his jaw at a stubborn angle and resolutely refused to look at Faith. But then, he didn’t need to see her face to know her reaction. He could feel the shock and hurt roll off her in waves that battered his wall of self-control.
“Why?” she asked in a stunned whisper, managing to put all her painful questions into that one word.
He wasn’t strong enough to look her in the face and answer. She sounded so hurt, and Lord knew the last thing he wanted was to hurt her more than he already had. He’d known all along she wasn’t for him, but he hadn’t been strong enough to resist her. His weakness had nearly gotten her killed.
Struggling with the guilt, he prowled around her room and further punished himself by memorizing every detail of it. The wallpaper was a delicate floral print. She had snapshots of Lindy tucked into the frame of the beveled glass mirror above her cherry dresser. There was also a photograph of Faith and her friends in their graduation caps and gowns with Notre Dame’s gold dome behind them and a rainbow arching over their heads. The dresser top held a porcelain pitcher and bowl filled with dried flowers.
Everything about the room was delicate and feminine and old-fashioned. The air was sweet with that soft lavender scent he would forever associate with Faith.
Forcing his mind back to the issue, he said, “You knew from the start I couldn’t stay. I was nothing less than honest with you, Faith.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Shane had warned her on more than one occasion that he couldn’t make promises, that their relationship would span only the time it took to solve the case. She had known that going in, but it still hurt to hear him reconfirm it. Lord, it hurt. The pain was so sharp, it cut through the haze of medication and eclipsed the throbbing ache in her shoulder.
Stupid, romantic fool, she berated herself. How many times did she have to learn the same lesson before it would sink in? Shane had come right out and told her she would never possess more of him than his body. Still, she had plunged in headfirst, brimming with Pollyanna optimism, sure that she would be able to change his mind, that she would be the one person able to get behind his defenses and touch the vulnerable, lonely man who lived behind those gray walls of isolation.
Stopping at the foot of the bed, Shane’s left hand gripped the carved cherry wood post as if he needed something to steady himself against. “I came to apologize,” he said.
For breaking my heart? Faith wondered bleakly. Don’t bother. I should be used to it by now.
But when she met his gaze, it was his pain she felt, not her own. It hit her like a blast of cold wind, stunning her, confusing her.
“You could have been killed because of me,” he said, his voice thickening with the emotion he had worked so hard to suppress. His hand tightened on the bedpost until his knuckles turned white. “You’ll never know how sorry I am that happened.”
She would never know the regret he felt not only for her injuries but over what he had lost as well. The dream of a future with her had been within his grasp until reality had intruded in the form of Adam Strauss. Now Strauss was dead, but the reality was just as alive, just as harsh. He had chosen a lifestyle that didn’t allow for dreams.
“Is that why you’re leaving?” Faith whispered, her heart immediately taking hope. “Shane, I don’t blame you for what happened.”
It was clear, though, that he blamed himself. The guilt that etched lines into his handsome face was almost unbearable to see.
“Shane, I love you.”
He shook his head, not to deny her statement, but to keep her from elaborating on it. “Faith, don’t. It can’t work between us. I knew that from the