She rolled the cursed wheelchair away from him, just far enough that he couldn’t miss the message.
He looked as if he wanted to say something but finally gave a nod and pushed her silently back to his pickup truck. He didn’t say anything when he lifted her in again and made sure the seat belt was fastened or after loading her wheelchair into the back of the pickup truck and climbing in himself.
The distance between them seemed vast and unbreachable, as far as it would take her to reach Hawaii by canoe, the drive to Cape Sanctuary far less comfortable than the one they had taken on their way down the coast. Tension filled the cab of his pickup truck. She could feel it rolling off him in waves. He played the stereo, one of those adult contemporary rock stations where she knew the words to every song, but she had no desire to sing anything.
The coward in her wanted to curl up in the corner pretending to sleep, but she forced herself to stay awake mile after painful mile as the tension between them ratcheted up.
When he finally pulled up to Sea Glass Cottage, she saw lights on in the upstairs rooms, both Caitlin’s and Olivia’s. Good. Her girls were home safely.
“Thank you for a lovely day,” she said with the politeness of someone expressing appreciation to a cashier at the grocery store.
He uttered an epithet, an ugly, raw word she’d never heard him say.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?” she asked, though she knew perfectly well what he was talking about.
“Pushing me away. You let me inside one minute, then close yourself up completely the next. You do it again and again. And I just let you.”
She heard the pain in his voice and closed her eyes, hating herself. She had created this situation, had hurt him, because she was too weak to make the necessary break between them. She cherished their friendship so much. Losing it was going to devastate her, but she didn’t see any other choice.
Anything she could think to say sounded horrible, so she finally just spilled the words that came to her.
“I told you we could never have a relationship. I don’t know why you’re making this so ugly.”
“You did. You absolutely did. You told me we couldn’t have a relationship.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, curling her hands in her lap and hating herself and this entire situation.
“I love you, Juli. You have to know that.”
His words were raw with emotion and she stared at him, shocked to her core. She hadn’t. She knew he cared about her as a friend and that he was attracted to her, but somehow she had convinced herself things hadn’t progressed as far as love.
How stupid of her. She had been shortsighted and selfish and cruel.
Henry Cragun was not the sort of man who would kiss a woman he didn’t care for deeply.
“You...don’t,” she said feebly.
“Stop. I’ve been trying to tell you for months. Every time you let me close enough that I think you might be ready to hear it, a moment later, you shut me down. Why do you push me away, again and again?”
Because I’m broken.
She couldn’t tell him. The words clogged in her throat. She had to get out of here. Instead she was literally trapped in this truck with him.
“I can’t have this conversation with you right now. Not here. I need to get out.”
“Why? So you can run away again?”
“I wish I could run away.”
He stared at her, the truth of her words stark and unadorned between them. He drew in a sharp breath, then let it out slowly.
“Why? Just tell me that. Why are you running so hard? Obviously not literally right now, but you have been running figuratively from me for weeks.”
When she didn’t answer, when she couldn’t answer, he sighed heavily and climbed out of the vehicle to get her wheelchair.
He hardly touched her this time as he lowered her to the chair, then pushed her to the porch. She wanted to tell him she could do it herself but didn’t trust herself to speak without bursting into tears.
Sea Glass Cottage was usually her haven, the place to which she had escaped after Steve died, where she had begun to heal. Right now, it didn’t feel like a sanctuary as he pushed her up the ramp he had built to the porch.
Finally, she knew she had to say something. She owed him that, at least. “I’m sorry, Henry.”
“For what?” He looked