River’s End

saying that to make me mad or because you actually believe the only reason I’m here is to sleep with you?”
    She shrugged, then turned away again. The wind had risen to sing through the treetops. That, and the sound of the night birds, was a music that always soothed her.
    But not tonight.
    She’d tried a hot bath, the herbal tea her grandmother enjoyed before bedtime. They’d added yet another layer of fatigue to her body and did nothing to soothe her mind.
    “I don’t have any objections to sex,” she said coolly, willing him to leave before she pulled him in any deeper. “But I’m tired, and my grandparents are sleeping at the end of the hallway.”
    ‘‘Fine, go to bed.” He walked to her shelves, scanned the titles of books and plucked one at random. “I’ll just sit here and read awhile.”
    She closed her eyes while her back was to him, then composing her features carefully, faced him. “Maybe we should straighten this out before it goes any further. The few days in the backcountry was fun. More fun than I’d expected. I like you, more than I anticipated. Because I do, I don’t want to hurt you.”
    “Yes, you do.” He set the book aside, sat down. “The question is why.”
    “I don’t want to hurt you, Noah.” Some of the emotion pumping inside her leaked into her voice. “We had an interesting time together, we had great sex. Now I’ve got a lot more on my mind. And the simple fact is I don’t want what you seem to believe you want from us. I’m not built for it.”
    “You’re in love with me. Olivia.”
    “You’re deluding yourself.” She shoved open the French doors and stepped out onto the narrow terrace.
    “The hell I am.”
    She hadn’t expected him to move that quickly, certainly not that quietly, but he was beside her. spinning her around, and the temper in his eyes was ripe and hot. “Do I have to make you say it?” He yanked her against him. “Is that the only way? You can’t even give me the words freely?”
    “What if I am in love with you? What if I am?” She fought her way free, stood back with the wind whipping at her thin robe. “It won’t work. I won’t let it.” Her voice rose. With an effort, she controlled it before she gave in to the urge to shout. “Maybe if I didn’t care. I’d let it happen.”
    “That makes sense, that explains everything. If you didn’t love me, we could be together.”
    “Because it wouldn’t matter. I’m afraid, and you’d see to it I wasn’t alone. I’d let you do what you seem so hell-bent on doing and take care of me, at feast until this is over.”
    A little calmer, he reached out to touch the ends of her hair. “I knew it was a mistake to say that. Taking care of you isn’t taking you over, Liv.”
    “You’ve got this nurturing streak. You can’t help yourself.”
    The idea so completely baffled him, he could only stare. “No, I don’t.”
    “Oh, for God’s sake.” She stormed past him, back into the room. “You want to look after everyone you care about. Listen to yourself sometime when you talk about Mike. You’re always coming to his rescue. You don’t even realize it. It’s second nature. It’s the same with your parents.”
    “I don’t rescue my parents.”
    “You tend to them. Noah. It’s lovely, really lovely. Just tonight, I’m listening to your mother talk about how you come by their house and try to save her flowers. Or how you go hang out with your father at the youth center, take him pizza.”
    “He might starve otherwise. It’s not tending.” It was a word that made him want to squirm. “It’s just family.”
    “No, it’s just you.” And she could have drowned in love with him for no other reason. He was beautiful—inside and out.
    “You focus,” she continued. “You listen, and you make things matter. All the things I wanted to believe about you, all the ways I tried to tell myself you were shallow or careless were just ways to stop myself from feeling. Because I can’t.”
    “Won’t,” he corrected. “I sound like a pretty good catch.” He started toward her. “Why are you trying to shake me off the hook?”
    “I don’t come from the kind of people you come from. My mother was a victim, my father a murderer. That’s what I have inside me.”
    “So everyone who comes from a difficult or violent background isn’t capable of love?”
    “This isn’t a debate. I’m telling you the way it is. I’m telling you I don’t want to be involved with