Page 52 of More Than This Land

He’d never been truly awkward around women. It wasn’t like they scared him.

Claire was different. Part of him wanted to impress her.

The other part warned him to keep this foolishness hidden away and let her go.

Which was easier?

His spine itched and prickled like the time he’d gotten a burr stuck in his shirt. He and Claire had never been awkward. They’d been tense, sometimes combative, but always careful, with the odd dose of vulnerability thrown in.

But never this kind of scuff-your-toe-in-the-ground awkward.

He racked his brain for something to say that would keep her here a little longer.

Nothing came to mind. He knew how to talk ranching. Horses and cattle.

Claire knew those things too, but it felt too much like business, and he’d had enough of that for a while.

He needed to talk to her as a person…as a woman who attracted him and made him do crazy things like admit feelings.

“I’ve been looking at some options.” Claire gathered up her hair as a brisk breeze sent the ends flying into her face. “Office spaces, mostly. Just getting a sense of the market.”

“Billings?” Somehow, he managed to make it sound like a curse word without even trying.

“A few places.” She pressed her lips together and nodded. “There’s a firm on the south side that reached out last month. They have a client list that would be interesting. Regional agricultural focus.” She paused. “The commute from Covenant Creek would be impractical.”

It hurt to nod. He did it anyway. His jaw worked once, and when he forced his lungs to work, the air burned going in. “That makes sense. Billings has more infrastructure for your kind of practice.”

“It does.”

The church door opened behind him. Two more families spilled out into the night. “Goodnight, you two.” The blended voices made it difficult to tell who spoke, but they all waved.

Claire returned the gesture, her whole face lighting up as she waved. It took Luke too long, and by the time his hand left his pocket, they were climbing into their vehicles.

Once they were alone, she returned to holding her arms close to her sides, her posture tense and almost anxious.

He had two choices.

He could say the hard thing. He could lay down the control and the fear and the carefully maintained distance and tell her what he’d known since Sunday dinner. The feel of her hand in his rushed through him with a blistering force. He could ask her, plainly and without strategy, to stay.

Or he could nod and say goodnight and get in his truck and drive home with his pride intact and his heart hollowed out.

“Well.” She extracted her keys and jingled them. “It was good to see you.”

“Yeah.” He drove his knuckles into the very bottom of his pockets, pushing until it threatened to rip the pockets off. “You too.”

She clicked the button on the fob to unlock her car. The headlights flashed once in the dark, a single moment that highlighted her and sent her shadow stretching to join his. She moved toward the driver’s side. He stood with his boots planted on the asphalt and every word he wanted to say arranged in a logjam behind his sternum.

“Claire.”

She turned.

He had nothing else. No plan, no careful framing. Just her face in the parking lot light, eyes patient and a little sad. Did she want him to say it?

“Drive safe.” His voice scraped out. “The roads get slick this time of night, and it looks like it’s about to rain.”

Her expression shifted. Not much, but enough that the ache in his heart took another beating.

Her chin dropped a fraction. Then she nodded. “Goodnight, Luke.”