of Avalanche Lake. “Let’s stop here until daybreak. Okay?”
“Fine with me.”
Hearing Clint sound so despondent, she knew the time had come. As soon as they dismounted, she helped him tend the horses and build a small campfire. The temperature was dropping as every minute passed. She didn’t think it would freeze tonight, but it wouldn’t be far off. After they laid out their sleeping bags, Jensen pulled out a couple of MRE’s for him to choose from. “Thanks, any will do” he mumbled, sitting across from her. “Look, I want to thank you for…back there. You put your life on the line to save me.”
“You would’ve done the same for me.”
He didn’t dispute her claim.
For a few moments, they ate in silence, sipping water from their canteens. The fire cast a circle of light in the growing shadows. Jensen gazed up at the massive sky. “Look at the stars. I can see why this is called Big Sky Country.”
“Impressive.”
They finished eating and not wanting to attract more bears, Jensen helped him pick up and properly dispose of their trash. After they took turns visiting the bushes, she could see he was about to settle down for the night.
Okay – it was now or never.
“Clint?”
“What?”
Jensen lowered herself to sit on her sleeping bag, facing him across the campfire. “You asked me why I did what I did? Why I pushed you away?”
“The better question is why I keep allowing you to do this to me?” he snapped. Clint was as angry at himself as he was at her. “You question why I chase storms? I don’t have a good answer and I don’t have an answer as to why I chase you. As far as storms go, you’re by far the most destructive one I’ve ever encountered.” As if on cue, the wind picked up, howling around the mountain peaks in the distance.
Jensen knew she deserved whatever he dished out. When he paused to take a breath, she held up her hand. “Just let me say my peace. I didn’t intend to tell you this. I didn’t want you to know.”
“Know what?” Clint locked his gaze with hers. He could clearly see the distress on her face. “What are you trying to say?”
Jensen stared at the fire, not wanting to see his face.
“The first time we made love…”
Clint interrupted her. “Don’t call it that. Love had nothing to do with it.”
Jensen shrugged. “Okay. The first time we had sex and I left before you woke up…I left to go to M. D. Anderson to have a mastectomy.”
Chapter Eleven
Clint felt like he was underwater, trying to hear what someone was saying onshore. Jensen was speaking, but he couldn’t discern the words. “Repeat what you just said.” Surely, he’d misunderstood.
“I had a mastectomy the day after we spent our first night together. My recovery didn’t go well, and that was why I didn’t take the job right away.”
She watched his face in the dancing firelight. Jensen could tell he was shocked. His body jerked the slightest bit as if he’d been jolted with electricity.
When she couldn’t look at him anymore, she stared at the fire – waiting for him to say something. Anything.
“A mastectomy,” he finally repeated the word softly. His voice was different. Stilted.
“Yes. I only have one breast now.”
Jensen watched him move away from her, he actually pushed back from where he was sitting. Worse than the distance he was putting between them was the look on his face. She refused to put it into words.
“I can understand how you feel,” she began.
He rose to his feet. “You have cancer?”
Have cancer. Had cancer. She hoped the past tense applied. “I found a lump and it turned out to be malignant.”
“How are you now?”
The question echoed in the stillness of the night. “I wish I could say I’m cured, but that’s not how it works. The term the doctors use is remission. I looked the word up for myself, it means a temporary recovery.”
Clint walked around the fire, looking toward the mountains. “That was why you wouldn’t let me touch you. That was why you wore lingerie that made me think of armor.”
His comment hurt her. “Armor?” She laughed wryly. “If you only knew how hard I tried to find something sexy, something that would entice you – and still cover up my…deficiencies.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“When? Before we made love the first time?”
“Yes. Why didn’t you?”
She felt guilty all over again. “I didn’t tell you because I wanted to be