He might have given her a warm smile. He might have blushed and scowled at her, then dragged her up and kissed her. Both fantasies had floated through her dreams. Both had ended with him making love to her. Neither had included the look he was giving her now—surprised, guarded, regretful. It was the regret that hurt most, Maggie decided, pushing herself up in bed, holding the sheet up to cover herself as she did so. Surprise was a natural reaction to hearing those words from someone for the first time. And she had expected a certain amount of caution from him. His past relationships had made him wary. But regret…oh, man, that hurt, because there was no comforting explanation for it. Regret was regret, and though her mind scrambled frantically, nothing she could think of could soften the blow. Ry didn’t want her love. “Well,” she said, a knot of tears lodged in the middle of her throat like a walnut in the shell. She fussed with the bed covers, gathering the material by the fistful and pulling it up around her.
