Sea Glass Island (Ocean Breeze) - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,51
part.”
“I’ll bet you’re going to look sexy as anything in a tux,” she said in a low, sultry voice. “Maybe a little James Bond with a hint of George Clooney thrown in.”
“It’d take more than a fancy suit to put me in their league,” he said. “You’re just trying to get back on my good side by tossing all these compliments my way.”
“Nope. That’s how I see you. Very sexy. Very sophisticated.”
“I’m a small-town doctor,” he reminded her. “I might look like I’d fit in, but I’d never be truly comfortable in a city like New York.”
“Fair warning?” she asked.
Ethan hadn’t thought of it that way when he’d said it, but she was right. “As a matter of fact, yes. Just so there are no misunderstandings between us the way there were between Boone and Emily.”
“So, unlike Boone, you flat-out won’t compromise at all?” she asked.
Ethan heard the challenge in her voice. “Uh-oh. We’re back to us again. Sweetheart, you and I have issues that have nothing to do with locale.”
“You sure about that? Didn’t you once tell me that one of the things standing in our way was that you live here and I live in New York?”
Ethan sighed. “I suppose I did. Distance is hard on a relationship, no question about it. But it is not the real issue. The real issue for you and me is that you believe in love and I don’t.”
“Then why’d you push so hard for Boone and Emily to work things out?”
“Because they are in love. Even I can see it’s the real deal. Me? I’m not cut out for it.”
“Too selfish? Too cynical? Low self-esteem?” she prodded.
Ethan saw exactly what she was doing. She was trying to push his buttons by suggesting negative traits he didn’t want to envision that he possessed. Still, he couldn’t deny there was some truth in all of those things.
“Could be,” he said candidly.
Her gasp suggested she was shocked that he’d acknowledged it. “Ethan, you don’t mean that! I’ve been around you enough to see how kind and generous you are, how caring. You may want to be cynical, but I saw the expression on your face when you talked about how in love your parents are. And we’ve beat that low-self-esteem horse to death already.”
“What’s your point?”
“I think you want to be antilove because you’re scared,” she told him. “Burned once, twice shy. Isn’t that the expression? You were badly burned. It’s little wonder you might not want to take another chance on putting yourself out there, on making yourself vulnerable. Love can rip your heart out. There’s no denying that. Why risk it? Isn’t that really your philosophy? Isn’t that what keeps you sitting on the sidelines?”
What she was suggesting sounded an awful lot like saying he was a coward. That grated. And yet he could hardly tell her she was wrong when she’d hit so close to the mark. He never again wanted to feel the way he’d felt when Lisa had walked out on him. It wasn’t the rejection per se. He liked to think he was tough enough to get past a woman leaving him. It was Lisa’s view of him as damaged goods that he simply couldn’t get out of his head.
Of course, there was a case to be made that they hadn’t really been in love, not the kind of love that Samantha obviously believed in. That deep and abiding love didn’t bail at the first sign of trouble...or at the loss of a limb.
“Do you have the qualifications to try to pinpoint what makes me tick?” he asked irritably.
“I pay close attention to human nature. It helps with acting,” she responded, clearly not offended by his remark. “Am I wrong?”
“Not entirely,” he conceded.
“Can I ask you something else? Will you answer honestly?”
“If I can,” he said.
“Am I anything at all like your ex-fiancée?”
“Heavens no!” he said fervently. Oh, he’d wanted her to be shallow and vain, but mostly so he could dismiss the undeniable attraction between them. Instead, he’d seen time and again that she had substance, that she cared about her family, even when they got on her last nerve. That’s what made resisting her so blasted difficult.
She laughed at his emphatic response. “Well, thank goodness for that. How’d you fall for a woman like that, anyway?”
He had to think about it. His impression of Lisa now was seriously jaded by all that had happened. What had he seen in her at the beginning?