Unexpected Bride (21 page)

"You don't need that office. There're other available spaces to lease."

"So you don't care if I open an office in Cloverville," she concluded. "You just don't want it to be next to yours. You don't want me that close to you?"

He had been honest when he'd admitted to wanting to avoid her. But, then, why did he keep kissing her?

"I'm afraid if I have much more contact with you. I'm going to wind up like the colonel," he admitted, gesturing toward the statue. "Broken to pieces after you run me over on your way out of town."

"Clayton..."

"C'mon, Abby," he said, "the ADD explains a lot, and it makes you an even bigger risk for me. You're going to get bored and change your mind. Maybe you'll break the lease."

But he worried about her breaking something besides the lease, as well. He worried about his heart. She was the only one who'd ever come close to derailing his plan not to fall in love. Abby and Lara. They touched something inside him that he'd closed off for so long. He couldn't risk opening his heart. He couldn't risk the kind of pain that his mother had barely survived when she'd lost his father.

And he
would
lose Abby. She wouldn't stay in Cloverville. Neither the town nor he could hold her interest for long.

He glanced toward the old statue of the colonel. The neck weld had broken again, and the head, with its dented helmet and mangled ear, lay in the bushes beneath the colonel's feet.

He could identify. Every time he was around Abby Hamilton, he lost his head. But he couldn't lose his heart over her, too.

"I wouldn't break the lease. I've been running my business for a while, Clayton," she reminded him. "I
stuck
with it."

He lifted a brow, skeptical. "But to launch a business, to sign clients, you'd have to spend a lot of time here. You'd have to move back to Cloverville, at least for a while." Would she consider it?

"I have an office in Detroit, and I haven't lived there for a few years," she answered.

"But you lived there when you started the business," he argued. "Just like you did in Chicago."

Abby's eyes stung with unshed tears. It wasn't that Clayton didn't trust her or respect her that kept him from leasing the office space. He just didn't want her around him. At all. "We both know you don't want me staying in Cloverville, anyway. That's why you won't lease me the space."

"I'm not going to tie myself up in a lease that you'll only wind up breaking," he explained. "You're used to living in the big city. This town is too boring for you—you'd lose interest fast."

Were they really talking about Cloverville? Or did
he
want her interest and
worry
that he couldn't keep it, that he couldn't keep her? "Clayton..."

"And when you take off this time, you're going to break someone's heart," he said.

Abby's breath caught and burned in her lungs as she stared up at Clayton's face, trying to read his feelings. But he wasn't looking at her. He'd turned back toward the swing set.

And Lara.

Lara, whose heart was bound to break if she got any more attached to Cloverville and the McClintocks.

"You're right," Abby agreed.

She knew what she had to do.

"What are you doing?"

Abby glanced up in response to her friend's question. Colleen stood in the doorway, her eyes dark with concern. Abby returned her attention to her packing, her hands shaking as she folded clothes into an open suitcase. If only Mrs. Mick didn't keep unpacking it... "I think it's obvious."

"But why are you leaving now?" Colleen asked. "I thought you were actually considering moving here."

"Opening an office, yes. Moving here?" She couldn't lie. "I considered it."

"I wish you'd open an office in Cloverville." Colleen enthused. "I could help you run it."

"Sure, Clayton would love that." she remarked with a derisive snort. "My stealing away his office manager—"

"If he rented you the space next door, I could manage both, with a little help. Mom even said she'd like to work for you."

Abby had wanted Mrs. Mick to become Lara's new caregiver. The older woman made no secret of her feelings for the little girl—she already loved her. "Well, Clayton won't lease to me, so it doesn't matter."

"He's an idiot," his sister said. "You can lease a space somewhere else in Cloverville, and I'll just quit him and come to work for you."

Abby laughed. "That'll make him love me."

And wasn't that the problem? Panic pressed tight against her heart. She
wanted
Clayton to love her. Why? Had she gone and fallen for him even though she knew they could have no future? Clayton could never love her, and Abby refused to settle for anything less than love. She and Lara deserved more.

She snorted in disgust at her own thoughts. "Like that would ever happen."

Colleen's brown eyes brightened. "It won't if you take off."

"I don't want Clayton to..." She couldn't even say it aloud. She couldn't think it.

"Abby, you're falling for Clayton," her friend proclaimed, clasping Abby's wrist so that she had to stop packing. "That's wonderful."

"It's impossible. We hate each other."

"You know what they say about the fine line between love and hate," Colleen teased. "Can you tell me that you really hate him?"

Abby bit the inside of her cheek, but she was numb to the pain. "No. But I wish I did." Then she wouldn't care that he'd never love her.

"I understand," the younger woman said.

Abby realized that Colleen hadn't been around the house for a reason. She'd been busy falling for someone, too—someone who couldn't or wouldn't love her back.

"I have to leave, Colleen." Before she fell so hard that she tossed aside all her self-respect.

"You're going to break Lara's heart."

Not Clayton's—his sister didn't presume to claim he loved Abby. She'd never been more grateful for her friendship with this McCHntock. She and Colleen respected each other too much to lie
to
each other,
yxsxfor
each other.

Abby nodded. "That's why we have to leave now, before she gets any more attached."

"What if it's already too late?" Colleen asked.

That fear had Abby's stomach tied into tight little knots. What if it was already too late for both Lara and
her?

"We've moved a lot over the years," she reminded Colleen. "Moving to different areas of Detroit and Chicago, different apartments. Lara's pretty resilient."

And so was she. She'd handle leaving Cloverville a second time. Hell, it wasn't as if she'd ever really been back—she'd only been visiting.

Colleen released her wrist, but said, "I thought you were going to wait until we heard from Molly."

Abby felt a twinge of guilt. "I can't stay..."

"Not even for Molly?" Colleen persisted. She'd make a great mother someday, Abby thought, since she expertly wielded guilt as a weapon. But, then, she understood guilt fairly well.

Poor Colleen. Abby hated leaving her as much as she hated leaving Mrs. Mick and Rory and...

But she had to leave.

"Molly's smart." The smartest one of all of them. She'd been class valedictorian in high school, on the dean's list in college, and she probably would have graduated with honors from medical school if she hadn't taken time off to plan her wedding. "She'll figure out what she wants."

And unlike Abby, she would be able to
get
what she wanted.

"What about you?" Colleen asked. "Are you fine?"

"I will be, once I get out of here." God, she hated lying to her friends and herself.

Clayton, nerves shot from his most recent early-morning run-in with Abby, jumped when his office door slammed. He sloshed coffee over the rim of his mug, leaving wet brown circles on the files on his desk. Maybe he'd have to give up drinking coffee.

"Clayton!" His youngest sister stood over his desk, her face bright with exasperation. "Why are you being such an ass?'

His head snapped back, as if she'd slapped him. Colleen had never spoken to him in such a manner before. Of all his siblings, he'd always gotten along with Colleen best. Which was why she'd come to work for him. And he didn't know what he'd do without her. "Colleen, I don't know what it is that you think I've done."

He'd already been planning on giving her a raise; the business was doing great despite competition from some new insurance offices in the strip malls on the outskirts of Cloverville. Thanks to his father, Cloverville residents trusted the McClintock name.

"You're running Abby out of town."

"I haven't done anything to Abby." Other than kiss her. He could still feel the softness of her lips against his, and he could taste the sweetness that was hers alone. How he wished he'd done more than kiss her.

No, he would have been a great deal smarter to never kiss her at all. Abby Hamilton had never been anything but trouble. He clung to that belief even though he knew how untrue it was. Abby was a smart businesswoman and a wonderful mother. Even so, she would always be trouble to Clayton.

"You won't lease her the office."

"She can lease another office, if she really wants to open a business in Cloverville," he pointed out, tired of having to take the heat over his decision. Even Mr. Carpenter was giving him trouble, claiming to be out of light-bulbs the other day, despite boxes of bulbs Clayton had glimpsed in the back.

"She wants
this
space."

Why? Why did she want to be so close to him, when she knew how he felt about marriage and children? He'd been honest with her, and he wished she would be honest with him. But, then, maybe she hadn't been honest with herself, if she really thought their kisses had been nothing more than goofing around.

"I don't trust Abby Hamilton," he said. Actually, he didn't trust himself around her.

"She's leaving, Clayton. She's packing right now."

He sucked in a breath, almost as if Colleen had shoved his desk into his stomach. His hand shook as he reached for his coffee mug, pushing it toward the corner of his blotter and out of his reach. "I thought she was going to stick around until she heard from Molly. Has she called yet?"

Colleen shook her head. "No, she hasn't."

"Some loyal friend, huh? Taking off before she hears that Molly's all right," he huffed, shaking his head as if disgusted. He was, but only with himself. He should be happy—or at least relieved—that she was leaving. But all he felt was regret and a sense of the loss he'd wanted to avoid.

'This isn't about Molly. It's about
you
." His sister confirmed his suspicions.

He'd run Abby out of town a second time, with his cold disapproval. Except that he didn't disapprove of her. He was damn proud of her. All the time he'd spent worrying about her over the past eight years had been for nothing.

"Why won't you give Abby a break?"

"I can't." Because she might break
him,
or at least his heart.

"Is this still about Colonel Clover?" his kid sister demanded to know.

Clayton should let her believe that it was. He didn't want to admit to his real reason for keeping Abby at arm's length. His feelings. How easily he could fall for her, if he let himself.