Run To You

she’d bothered to get dressed—until she looked up into his shuttered gray eyes. He held himself tight. Once again hiding behind a stony face.
    “We’ll get married as soon as I can get a license,” he said as if he was ordering a ham sandwich, but with less passion. “Do you want to do it here or Vegas? Vegas would be easier.”
    “What?” Married ? Easier? Her arms fell to her sides and shock dropped her jaw. “You want to marry me?” She hadn’t even thought that far ahead.
    “We have to now.”
    Have to? Typical, he didn’t ask her to marry him and he obviously wasn’t very happy. “We don’t have to do anything.”
    “I believe we do.”
    All her tingly feelings started to feel like nauseous bubbles in her stomach. “Because we had sex?” She hadn’t been thinking about marriage. Only about how much she loved him. “We don’t have to get married, for God’s sake.” Dinner and a movie would be a good start. “When I said I love you last night, I meant it. I love you, Beau.”
    He looked at her through his Sergeant Junger gaze and said quite reasonably, “You’ve known me eight days.”
    But love wasn’t about reason or apparently days on the calendar. “Yes, and I know that I’ve fallen in love with you. You’re my Superman. I feel safe around you. You have my back and I have yours.”
    “I don’t need you to have my back.”
    “I do anyway.” She raised a hand toward him as she felt the first crack in her heart. “You make me feel safe. Like I can do anything. I can stand up to bullies and run through flashbang.” She dropped her hand to her side. “I can stand in front of my sister in my father’s house with courage and strength.”
    “You can do those things by yourself. You don’t need me.”
    “I know, but I want you.” The crack in her heart spread a little more and she placed a hand over the tumble in her stomach. Confusion spun her head around. He asked her to marry him because of last night? Wait. Wrong . . . he told her to marry him because of last night. She loved him and could easily see herself spending the rest of her life with him, but there was only one question really. She swallowed and could barely get it out. She didn’t want to know. She had to know. “Do you love me, Beau?”
    He folded his arms over his bare chest, retreating even further. “I care about you.”
    Oh God. She loved him so much it consumed her heart and soul, and she felt sick inside. “I care about stray dogs and cats but I don’t want to marry them. Do you love me, Beau? The kind of love that makes your heart ache all over? Like you can’t keep it all in? Like it’s too big?” She lifted her arms wide, then dropped them to her sides. The backs of her eyes stung and she blinked back her tears. “I love you. I chose to have sex with you because I love you.”
    His brows lowered over the tempest in his eyes but his voice remained calm, reasonable when he said, “You didn’t give me a choice, Stella. You didn’t give me time to think of the responsibility.”
    Responsibility. He felt an obligation to marry her. She’d worked hard not to be any man’s obligation and his words hurt worse than if he’d hit her. As if his hog’s tooth pierced her chest. “Responsibility,” she choked past the stab to her heart. The weight of her pain pressed the breath from her body. “Oh.” She tried to breathe and not to cry and breathe. Her eyes stung and her chest hurt. “Okay.” She headed past him to the door.
    “Where in the hell do you think you’re going?” He reached for her and missed.
    Away. Away from him. Fast, before she fell apart and he felt responsible to put her back together again. “I don’t need you. Remember?” She opened the door and stepped out into the morning light. The sun burned her eyes and she quickly moved down the concrete steps.
    “Stella! Get back here.”
    She stopped by the front of a maroon minivan. The woman loading kids in the vehicle blurred as the first tear spilled from her lower lid. She turned and looked up the steps at Beau, standing at the top in his black underwear. “Get your pants on.” She turned and headed in the opposite direction from the Escalade. She moved around the side of the building and sat on the steps leading to another complex. Her hands tingled, her ears rang, and she thought for sure she was going to pass out. She shook her hands and put her head between her knees. She breathed in and out as she stared at a