A Little Bit Country: A Little Bit Country / Blackberry Summer

His hesitation was so slight that Rorie doubted anyone else had noticed it. “Naturally Rorie’s welcome to visit us any time she wants.”

“If staying with these two drives you crazy,” Kate inserted, “you could stay at my house. In fact, I’d love it if you did.”

Rorie dropped her gaze, fearing what she might see in Clay’s eyes. She sensed his indecision as she struggled with her own. She had to leave. Yet she wanted to stay....

“I think I should take the rest of my vacation in Victoria,” she finally told them.

“I know you’re worried about getting back in time for work, but Skip’s right. If you left Victoria one day early, then you could be here for the fair,” Kate suggested again, but her offer didn’t sound as sincere as it had earlier.

“Rorie said she doesn’t have the time,” Clay said after an awkward silence. “I think we should respect her decision.”

“You sound as if you don’t want her to come back,” Skip accused.

“No,” Clay murmured, his eyes meeting hers. “I want her here, but Rorie should try to salvage some of the vacation she planned. She has to do what she think’s best.”

Rorie could feel his eyes moving over her hair and her face in loving appraisal. She tensed and prayed that Kate and Skip weren’t aware of it.

During the next hour, Skip tried repeatedly to convince Rorie to visit on her way back or even to stay until the fair. As far as Skip could see, there wasn’t much reason to go to Canada now, anyway. But Rorie resisted. Walking away from Clay once was going to be painful enough. Rorie didn’t know if she could do it twice.

Skip was yawning by the time they decided to call an end to the evening. With little more than a mumbled good-night, he hurried up the stairs, abandoning the others.

Rorie and Kate took a few extra minutes to straighten the living room, while Clay drove his pickup around to the front of the house. “I’d better burn the evidence before Mary sees these pizza boxes,” Rorie joked. “She’ll have my hide once she hears about dinner.”

Kate laughed good-naturedly as she collected her belongings. When they heard Clay’s truck, she put down her bags and ran to Rorie. “You’ll call me before you leave tomorrow?”

Rorie nodded and hugged her back.

“If something happens and you change your mind about the fair, please know that you’re welcome to stay with me and Dad—we’d enjoy the company.”

“Thank you, Kate.”

The house felt empty and silent once Kate had left with Clay. Rorie knew it would be useless to go upstairs and try to sleep. Instead she went out to the front porch, where she’d sat in the swing with Clay that first night. She sank down on the steps, one arm wrapped around a post, and gazed upward. The skies were glittered with the light of countless stars—stars that shone with a clarity and brightness one couldn’t see in the city.

Clay belonged to this land, this farm, this small town. Rorie was a city girl to the marrow of her bones. This evening had proved the hopelessness of any dream that she and Clay might have of finding happiness together. There was his commitment to Kate. And there was the fact that he and Rorie were too different, their tastes too dissimilar. She certainly couldn’t picture him making a life away from Elk Run.

Clay had accepted the hopelessness of it, too. That was the reason he agreed she should travel to Canada. This evening Rorie had sensed a desperation in him that rivaled her own.

It was a night filled with insights. Sitting under the heavens, she was beginning to understand some important things about life. For perhaps the first time, she’d fallen in love. During the past six days she’d tried to deny what she was feeling, but on the eve of her departure it seemed silly to lie to herself any longer. Rorie couldn’t believe something like this had actually happened to her. Meeting someone and falling in love with him in the space of a few days was an experience reserved for novels and movies. This wasn’t like her normal sane, sensible self at all. Rorie had always thought she was too levelheaded to fall so easily in love.

Until she met Clay Franklin.

On the wings of one soul-searching realization came another. Love wasn’t what she’d expected. She’d assumed it meant a strong sensual passion that overwhelmed the lovers and left them powerless before it. But in the past few days, she’d learned that love marked the soul as well as the body.

Clay would forever be a part of her. Since that first night when Nightsong was born, her heart had never felt more alive. Yet within a few hours she would walk away from the man she loved and consider herself blessed to have shared these days with him.

A tear rolled down the side of her face, surprising her. This wasn’t a time for sadness, but joy. She’d discovered a deep inner strength she hadn’t known she possessed. She wiped the moisture away and rested her head against the post, her eyes fixed on the heavens.

The footsteps behind Rorie didn’t startle her. She’d known Clay would come to her this one last time.

Eleven (#ulink_17e28020-2d09-5a0e-906e-e1e528866d01)

Clay draped his arm over Rorie’s shoulders and joined her in gazing up at the sky. Neither spoke for several minutes, as though they feared words would destroy the tranquil mood. Rorie stared, transfixed by the glittering display. Like her love for this man, the stars would remain forever distant, unattainable, but certain and unchanging.

A ragged sigh escaped her lips. “All my life I’ve believed that everything that befalls us has a purpose.”

“I’ve always thought that, too,” Clay whispered.

“Everything in life is deliberate.”

“Our final hours together you’re going to become philosophical?” He rested his chin on her head, gently ruffling her hair. “Are you sad, Rorie?”

“Oh, no,” she denied quickly. “I can’t be... I feel strange, but I don’t know if I can find the words to explain it. I’m leaving tomorrow and I realize we’ll probably never see each other again. I have no regrets—not a single one—and yet I think my heart is breaking.”

His hand tightened on her shoulder in silent protest as if he found the idea of relinquishing her more than he could bear.

“We can’t defy reality,” she told him. “Nothing’s going to change in the next few hours. The water pump on the car will be replaced, and I’ll go back to my life. The way you’ll go back to yours.”

“I have this gut feeling there’s going to be a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in mine the minute you drive away.” He dropped his arm and moved away from her. His eyes held a weary sadness, but Rorie found an acceptance there, too.

“I’m an uncomplicated man,” he said evenly. “I’m probably nothing like the sophisticated man you’re dating in San Francisco.”

Her thoughts flew to Dan, so cosmopolitan and...superficial, and she recognized the truth in Clay’s words. The two men were poles apart. Dan’s interests revolved around his career and his car, but he was genuinely kind, and it was that quality that had attracted Rorie.

“Elk Run’s given me a good deal of satisfaction over the years. My life’s work is here and, God willing, some day my son will carry on the breeding programs I’ve started. Everything I’ve ever dreamed of has always been within my grasp.” He paused, holding in a long sigh and releasing it slowly. “And then you came,” he whispered, and a brief smile crossed his lips, “and, within a matter of days, I’m reeling from the effects. Suddenly I’m left doubting what’s really important in my life.”

Rorie lowered her eyes. “Who’d have believed a silly water pump would be responsible for all this wretched soul-searching?”

“I’ve always been the type of man who’s known what he wants, but you make me feel like a schoolboy no older than Skip. I don’t know what to do anymore, Rorie. In a few hours, you’ll be leaving and part of me says if you do, I’ll regret it the rest of my life.”

“I can’t stay.” Their little dinner party had shown her how different their worlds actually were. She wouldn’t fit into his life and he’d be an alien in hers. But Kate... Kate belonged to his world.

Clay rubbed his hands across his eyes and harshly drew in a breath. “I know you feel you should leave, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“The pull to stay is there for me, too,” she whispered.

“And it’s tearing both of us apart.”

Rorie shook her head. “Don’t you see? So much good has come out of meeting you, Clay.” Her voice was strong. She had to make him understand that she’d always be grateful for the things he’d taught her. “In some ways I grew up tonight. I feel I’m doing what’s right for both of us, although it’s more painful than anything I’ve ever known.”

He looked at her with such undisguised love that she ached.

“Let me hold you once more,” he said softly. “Give me that, at least.”

Rorie shook her head. “I can’t...I’m sorry, Clay, but this is how it has to be with us. I’m so weak where you’re concerned. I couldn’t bear to let you touch me now and then leave tomorrow.”

His eyes drifted shut as he yielded to her wisdom. “I don’t know that I could, either.”

They were only a few feet apart, but it seemed vast worlds stood between them.