"I read what you wrote about the pub."

They'd jumped back into the lake to swim naked in the summer waters, their movements sending ripples out around them.

"That was the last paper I wrote," she told Beckett. "I brought it to give to you. Wanted you to have it."

"I didn't know you felt that way, that you saw the pub that way."

Danielle dunked down below the surface, gathering courage in the quiet world. When she popped back up, she wiped the wet from her eyes and looked at the man in front of her. "I realized that I'd kept my heart from you because that's what we'd agreed to, in a way. But in doing so, I also kept my feelings and thoughts about you to myself. Given the circumstances, I thought it was time to share. At least share with you what I've shared with others." She paused, took a deep breath. "And I've been thinking."

"You're kidding."

"Shocking, I know. But I think that... I'm still processing this so be patient with me. I'm not usually very good at extemporaneous speaking."

"Thank God that was last Wednesday's word-of-the-day on the calendar so I know what that means."

She let out a chuckle. He was good at this, she realized. Making things easier and at the same time making them ten times more difficult. It would almost be easier if Beckett offered resistance to what she said, how she felt. Then her words might have a stronger conviction to them. "I do better to think things through, to consider and let the various pieces come together."

"We came together," he told her, the smile on his face lifting as his hand reached through the water to grab her butt.

Despite herself, she let out a full laugh. "Yes, we did. We're very good at that."

"We should come together again, just to be sure," he made another quick move for her and she held him back, shooed him away.

"Just stay there," she told him, treading water, glad for the physical effort that balanced the emotional effort it took to gather and get out her feelings. "I've never told a man that I love him. Romantically, that is. I've never had a man tell me that he loves me. Until this morning. And..." She left his gaze and studied the rigid line of treetops that pierced the soft blue of the sky. "And, deep inside—hold the jokes," she told him with a narrowed glance back to him, "I wished to hear those words from you, to feel what it would feel like to be loved by you. But it was a wish that was unattainable. No," she shook her head, "unattainable is the wrong word. It was simply a frivolous wish. A wish that I was safe to dream of because I knew it would never come true."

The slopes and lines of his face hardened. And with his shorter hair wet and away from his face, the man looked damn near dangerous, she thought. Not a mean kind of dangerous, but like a man on the edge of making decisions that would affect both of their lives.

"Please don't misunderstand. Beckett, I watched women parade in and out of the pub to see you. For years I watched you leave after closing with those women. It wasn't reasonable for me to think that your heart was involved once we started sleeping together. I mean, you told me no promises, no strings, remember?"

"I remember." His voice was low, rough. "So you're saying it was all just a challenge for you? To see if you could sleep with me?"

"God no. That's not what I'm saying at all. See, this...you're actually making my point." She shook her head again and began shivering in the water—either from nerves or the wet chill.

"I used to think you were the one afraid of promises and strings and saying things like I love you to a person. I thought you were the one afraid of expressing your heart and making a commitment to someone. But, I think that's only partly true."

"What do you mean?"

"I think I'm afraid of those things too. Of the unknowns that accompany them."

She looked directly at him, the blue of her eyes rivaling the blue of the sky, as he hung on to her every word.

"I think that with you, I was safe because I didn't have to worry about what all of those things meant—promises, love, commitment. And then this morning you told me you love me and you want me to stay. And you threw my world for a loop. You turned it upside down, Beckett."

He watched her face attempt to lighten and lift but instead she only managed to look small and afraid. Two words he never would have used to describe Danielle. How had he not seen how scared she was? He'd always considered Danielle to be fearless, but now, he was seeing into places he hadn't looked before, and he was seeing through to the dark crevices within her, those cracks of fear he wanted nothing more than to fill.

"No jokes about me being upside down?"

"I like where your head's at—figuratively, though literally too if I were holding you upside down—but no. Not this time. No jokes."

She really did love this man, she thought. She ached to hold him, to be held by him. To give in and let herself feel his love. But there were still words to be spoken, questions to be asked. She couldn't lose her head entirely.

"I love you too," she said finally, meaning every syllable, every word from the bottom of her heart. Heat fluttered to life in her veins, spreading through her, relaxing her enough to remind her to keep going until she said what she needed to say. "I've loved you since the day I met you. It's different now than it was then. Back then it was imaginary. But this, the reality, is better. It's just scarier because it makes me more vulnerable. And I'm not very good at being vulnerable. I've never really learned how. But I do love you, Beckett."

The lake water swirled around them as he moved in, held on to her, and spun with her while his mouth moved over hers. Not knowing if she'd said too much or too little, his mouth teased her out of her head and into that glorious ride of feeling desired, understood. Loved.

When he pulled back for a breath, she studied him once again in this new halo of light that seemed to shine on them, around them.

"I'm wondering something, though." She wanted to push out of his hold but made herself stay where she was and just ask what she had to ask. "What do you want, Beckett? You said you want me to stay, to not take the job in California, but what do you want with me? Because, to be honest, I can't stay around here—well, Stonebridge—and be...whatever I am to you...forever. I want to be more than a girl on the side. I want more than that."

Once the words left her mouth, Beckett's face hardened all over again. The light that reflected in his eyes dimmed as he stared down into the water. "I don't know how to respond to that."

"Try," she told him, her heart dropping hard and fast to the murky black bottom of the lake.

"For starters, you've never been on the side of anything. I'm pretty sure I've shown you the opposite of that. I've never had a damn heart mowed into the town green before." He squinted his eyes and rubbed at them, the water suddenly stinging. "And I guess on one hand, I want to promise you everything, because you deserve that. And on the other hand, I don't want to hurt you. And that's inevitably what'll happen."

"Inevitably," she repeated softly.

Unsure whether or not she was affirming his words or questioning them, he shoved a hand through the water for relief, watched the waves he made, the way the ripples extended across the lake. "Before I met you I always assumed people would leave, go about their merry way, so why get too involved in anything? It would always end eventually, so why not end it before things got sticky? Then, well today, thanks in part to what you said, I think I realized that I'm the one I should be worried about, not other people. I don't want to hurt you, Danielle. I want to see you happy, I want you to have everything in this life you've ever wanted. But if I'm even a shred like my mother, which I am, I'll inevitably hurt you. And I don't want to do that."

He launched through the water, kicked away, and began swimming toward the dock, so she followed him, her emotions so heavy they threatened to sink her at any moment.

They each climbed up the ladder, water glistening as it dripped down their naked skin.

"Shit," he muttered, helping her up the last step. "I'm doing this wrong again."

As they each worked to tug on their damp clothes, frustration snuck up on her. "Just tell me what you want. Please. Everything else we can figure out. I just need to know what you want with me."

"I want you. That's all I know. I want you not to leave, to stay here. I want you."

Rapid tears filled her eyes then spilled over, dripping down her cheeks as she shook her head against what she didn't want to say but knew she had to. "That's not good enough, Beckett. I can't sacrifice my career for casual sex. That's not enough. You're right, I deserve more. But so do you."

When he didn't say anything further, she pushed past him, headed to shore. But he was quick to reach for her, spinning her around before she got too far.

"I don't want to lose you," he told her. Daylight caught in her small sapphire earrings, the earrings he'd been so proud to give her, and burned brightly into him. And the sharp blue of her eyes burned just as deep.

"You were the one who made it clear from the beginning, you didn't want me in the first place. Not all of me, at least. Fun sex without strings, that's what we agreed to. But I don't want that anymore. I agreed to it, yes, but I've changed my mind. I can't be in love with you, have casual sex with you, then go off and date someone else. Or worse, watch you date someone else." She wanted to sob, and almost did, but she held it in with all the effort she had in her. "I cringed every time a beautiful woman came in the pub because I thought, okay, I signed up for this casual dating thing, I have to be okay with it if she asks for you."

"I was never with anyone else when I was with you."

"I don't need to hear you say stuff like that, Beckett. I've never needed you to feed me lines to make me feel better."

Temper edged and his jaw bit down before he spoke. "I'm not feeding you a damn line."

"Regardless," she said, her voice remaining even, "I'm not looking for a man on the side. I want a man to share life with. All of it, not just when it's convenient. And anything less than that is fun, sure, but not worth sacrificing my career for."

As the sting penetrated, he let go of his hold on her and watched her leave down the dirt path that snaked along the water, back toward the castle.

Once again, he'd let his guard down, and once again, he'd done it wrong, he thought.

He took one last look at the blurry layers of lake and trees and sky. The sun was beginning its nightly dip, casting long shadows on the shimmering water.

What the hell did he want? he wondered. Was she right? Of course she was, she was a smart woman who knew what she had to do to take care of herself. But did he know what he had to do to make sure he could give her everything she deserved, everything she desired? Did he have it in him?

He made his way back up the dock onto solid land. And when he stepped on a pebble, he stopped, reached down and retrieved it, then threw it far out into the lake, reaching over the mid-center mark, feeling release in the action.

Maybe he had an easy go of things, maybe he was just easygoing—most of the time. But one thing was for sure, nothing about Danielle was easy. And he was glad for it. The woman drove him nuts and fascinated him. He wanted her, he needed her, and he'd do everything in his power—difficult or not—to let her know that she mattered.

Then he picked up another rock, threw it, and heard it soar through the warm air, riding the summer currents, then drop down in a splash.

She'd always seen through him to his heart, and knowing that had been unnerving and intriguing over the years. And now, finally, he was seeing through to her heart where love and fear paired up and punched him away.

He was a man who could admit that it scared him to his core that he was close enough to her to hurt her, that he saw into those places she kept hidden beneath the surface. There was a responsibility that accompanied the understanding of someone's heart, and realizing that, Beckett was a little boy all over again. He felt scrappy and scared, responsible for the happiness of those around him who loved him and cared for him, and at the same time wanting nothing more than to make them smile.

For the first time maybe ever, he was going to work as hard as it would take to keep Danielle for good. Forever. To make her smile as often as possible, to console her when she was afraid, to make love to her, with her, whenever and wherever they wanted for the rest of their lives.

Coughing out a choked breath, he threw another rock, watching it fly. He was rarely surprised by people, but he sure as hell was surprising himself.

Forever, he thought again, this time without choking.