He nodded, watching as she closed her eyes in misery and mortification. "No," he said, reaching for her. "Don't do that. I'm sorry I invaded your privacy, but-"
She jerked back, covering her cheeks with her hands. "You're sorry?" She choked out a laugh. "You read my most private thoughts, thoughts I can never get back, and you're sorry?"
Turning from him, she plopped down on the edge of the bed, then dropped her head into her hands. "Go away," she said quite clearly. "Just go away."
He sank to his knees before her and gently pried her hands from her still-red face. "I'm very sorry if I embarrassed and hurt you. That's the last thing I wanted to do."
"You should have thought of that first. Before you read my things."
He felt like the lowest form of life. "I know."
"You keep butting into my life," she said in amazement. "I don't know why, but you do. I don't like it." She shook her head. "And to think I'd gone looking for you, wanting…"
He leaped on that-anything to change the subject. "Wanting what?"
"Never mind now." She lifted that stubborn chin. "You ask impossible questions, dig where you shouldn't be digging, and now this!"
"If I'm pushing where I said I wouldn't, then I'm sorry for that, too. But I'm worried sick about you. You're holding your head like it hurts so much it's going to fall off. You've given yourself ulcers. You need sleeping pills. And you've lost weight." He surged to his feet. "Yeah, I'm going to push now. I told you I wouldn't, but I can't hold back the concern, and dammit, I won't be sorry for that."
She'd gone completely still. "I can't believe how much you care."
At the moment, he couldn't, either.
"I'd come looking for you to tell you I… didn't mean it before. I don't want you to stay out of my life. I trust you, Cam. And I've never said that before, to anyone." She bit her lip at his stunned silence. "I just wanted you to know."
He gave her a little smile. "It means more than you could know to hear you say that." He just barely resisted the urge to add, finally. But he couldn't think beyond the journal. "Haley, about what you wrote…"
She made a little sound of protest and closed her eyes. "Don't remind me."
Again, he hunkered down before her. "It was thrilling to know you felt that way. That I wasn't the only one."
"You told me you wouldn't do this thing between us. That you couldn't."
"You know why I said that," he said gently.
"It wasn't meant for you to see." Haley tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. This was, without a doubt, the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to her.
He squeezed her hands, ran his thumbs over her knuckles. His gaze heated, holding hers. "When I read your words, something happened to me. Then I saw you standing there watching me and I could have devoured you alive. God, Haley, I've been dying to know what it would be like to be with you since that night we danced in the rain. You felt so good, wrapped around me-"
"Stop it," she said quickly, his words making her heart tattoo against her chest. She dropped her spinning head to their joined hands. "This is very embarrassing, you have to know that."
"Because you're as attracted to me as I am to you?" He loosened their hands to frame her face, lifting it. "That's one of those silly-girl things, isn't it? Wanting to keep it a secret?"
"Stop it," she said miserably, rolling her eyes when he smiled. "This isn't funny."
"No," he agreed. "But then, neither is the fact that I want you more than I've wanted anyone since Lorraine died. I didn't think I could want again, but I do. And I'm glad, so glad. You've opened me up, brought me back to the living. I want so much, Haley. And I want it with you."
What exactly did that wonderful man see in her? And could she see enough in herself to even give it a chance? "You've read my innermost thoughts. I'm not sure how to deal with that."
He rose and sat next to her, his weight dipping the bed down a little. His hands rested on either side of her hips. "It was wrong for me to read what you'd written and I apologize for that. But when you ran off, I got worried."
"So you just came on in? Didn't it occur to you I wanted to be alone?"
"I was worried," he repeated. "When I flipped on the light, I saw the yellow paper in the trash. My name just sort of stuck out at me. I shouldn't have, but I read it. I know it makes you uncomfortable and I understand that you are a woman who doesn't easily share herself. What I don't understand is why."
Now she had to look away. This was uncharted territory for her. Just as everything else with this man had been. "I've told you. I'm sort of a loner. I always have been. I like it that way."
"I don't believe that."
"It's true." She gave a little laugh that even to her own ears sounded high and nervous. Just sitting close to him did that to her, but now she had the added disadvantage of Cam knowing exactly how badly she'd wanted him. "I don't get along well with others," she said uneasily. "Just ask any of the teachers I've had over the years."
"Maybe no one gave you a chance."
That was just close enough to the truth to have her taking a deep breath.
"I hate to see you hurting so." He touched her, his fingers brushing over her forehead. "And I hate to think I had a hand in causing that headache."
She took a deep breath and spoke the honest truth. "It's gone." Facing him on her bed, where she'd lain dreaming about him so often, seemed a bit unreal. She caught sight of her journal lying on the floor near where Max was sprawled out, asleep.
"No," he murmured, touching her face until she turned it back to him. "Don't relive it. You'll make me feel bad again."
She lifted an eyebrow, but caught his smile. "You don't strike me as a man who would brood for long."
"Only when it comes to you."
With a sudden restless movement, she stood, brushed past his tough, rangy body and went toward the window. The rain had come; she could hear it hitting the earth, smell it in the air. "I meant what I said before. I trust you. I trust you with the real me. But you don't really know that woman."
"I'd like to."
She could see him in the reflection of the window, still sitting on her bed, watching her.
She took a deep breath and a big mental step when she moved back to him and took his hand. "I'm not a regular type of person, Cam. I'm… different. I don't even know who my father is. All my mother would say was that he was unsuitable."
"That doesn't matter to me."
"When I was two, I recited the past presidents of the United States, their political parties and the dates they served office."
"Impressive," he said dryly, trying to picture the uncaring woman he'd talked to tonight on the phone caring for a vulnerable, brilliant two-year-old Haley.
"Not to my mother. She told me how unladylike too much knowledge was, and demanded I forget what I'd learned."
"When you were two?" When she nodded, he said softly, "Oh, Haley. Darlin', I'm sorry."
"By the age of five I had read every book in the house and had mastered Spanish from an English-Spanish dictionary I found at the library in school."
Pride for her shot through him. "A child prodigy. I'd think your mother would have been proud."
"No," Haley said wistfully. "I was an odd little thing. Often sick, always weak. I never wanted to play with other kids. I read every spare second of the day and that embarrassed her, too. A Whitfield lady was to make her place in society, not lose herself from reality."
She looked around at the small, comfy room, with the soft, light from the lamp, the beautiful homemade quilt. Homey. So different from the rooms she'd had over the years. She could so easily get used to this life here, but she was afraid it wasn't meant to be.
"What did she do with you?" Cam wanted to know.
She hated his pity, but was determined now. She wanted him to understand. Everything. "At first, she'd send me to my room to keep me out of sight." Where she'd hidden away, reading for hours. "But eventually she shipped me off to boarding school."