Return of Dr Irresistible

And it was because he couldn’t say no to her that he had to get out of there now. Bad plan to stay with her. ‘Are you going to be all right here on your own tonight?’

‘Yes. Someone will come and try to relieve me in a few hours.’ She looked him fully in the eye again, somehow managing to look even smaller on the cot beside the unconscious horse. ‘Will you at least think about it?’

He knew what he thought about it. He thought—no, he knew—it was a bad idea. No matter how badly she wanted it.

‘Please? Give me some time to show you how it can be. After Gordy is stable enough that he doesn’t need me round the clock? After we relocate to the farm?’

After her arm healed? After he told her he had a probable buyer for all the equipment?

He stretched to buy a few seconds in the vain hope the right words would appear, present him some way to let her down easily, but his words were as elusive as hers had been. ‘Okay. I’ll wait until we’ve settled at the farm, see what everyone else thinks about the idea. Weigh the pros and cons...’

She breathed out slowly, in what he could only term as relief, and leaned back against the wall. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but could you also stay away from me for a few days?’

‘Why?’

She shrugged. ‘Because if you’re around, I’ll just keep wanting to ask you to do it, and then—’ She stopped suddenly, her cheeks flaring pink. ‘Well, not do it, obviously, because that would be stupid. Obviously.’ She was repeating herself so she stopped, shook her head, and then tried again. ‘I wasn’t talking about sex. Obviously.’

If she said ‘obviously’ again...

‘We don’t...not sex. I wasn’t talking about doing that. Hah.’ She shook her head. The more she tap-danced around, trying to clarify, the worse it got. ‘I meant doing...the camp. I would keep asking you to do the camp...’ A great sigh came from her and she stopped talking. Finally. Without more obviouslys.

‘Sure,’ he said, working to keep his voice normal. Unaffected. ‘I can give you space. You should sleep. Mom’s got my number if you think the bite’s growing infected. I need to go take care of some things anyway.’ He walked out.

He had important things to do, like locating his backbone before he just said yes to whatever she wanted to keep from letting her—and everyone else—down.

It was like that. The reason he didn’t want them in the circus any more? He didn’t want any one hurt. Any kind of hurt. But physical hurt—which could kill—had to trump emotional hurt. The emotional hurt just made you feel like you were dying.

They would acclimate to life off the road and outside the circus, he reminded himself yet again. And if they couldn’t, he’d help them find new homes. Somewhere he could stop worrying about them. Somewhere someone else would have to take responsibility when luck turned and those death-defying feats could no longer defy.

Since the second his father had died, that responsibility had passed to him, and even when he hadn’t actively been with the circus, he’d felt it. Oh, he’d ignored the hell out of it, but now that he could no longer do that he felt the weight of every life in his hands. And it was about damned time he used those hands to shield them.

He was a man now, not a boy to be shushed and ignored.