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“I really will be all right,” she said. “So you can go if you need to.”
“I don’t need to.” His mouth nuzzled her damp hair. He could feel the curves of her body and her sharp little bones through the thin nightgown. The hunger that warmed and stirred inside him was both familiar and forbidden. But right now the last thing he wanted was to leave her.
“I’m a big girl,” she said. “I don’t need protecting.”
“Maybe you do. If anything had happened to you tonight, I would never have forgiven myself.”
“What makes you think you’re responsible for my safety?” She looked up at him, her eyes wide in the moonlit darkness. Tanner didn’t reply. The question had triggered memories that would haunt him forever.
“Something’s bothering you, I can tell,” she said. “What is it, Tanner? I want to understand.”
He took a sharp breath and let it out in a long, slow exhalation. He never talked about what had happened two years ago in Wyoming. But maybe it was time.
“I was a deputy sheriff back in Wyoming,” he said. “It was a good life, helping my brother run the family ranch and working as a part-time lawman to help out in the lean times.”
Rose nestled closer, like a child about to hear a bedtime story. Maybe I should stop, Tanner thought. But now he’d started, so it was too late for that.
“My brother and I both had families. He and his wife, Ruth, had four youngsters, and now they’re now expecting a fifth. My wife . . . Annie.” Even the name was painful to speak. “We’d been married just three years. We had a young son and another baby on the way . . .”
Tanner bit back a surge of emotion and continued. “My work as a deputy was pretty routine—a few burglaries, some stolen cattle, some domestics. But all that changed when a wanted serial killer named Cletus Murchison, who’d murdered a woman in the next county over, was tracked to a mountain cabin above our town. To make a long story short, there was a standoff, with half a dozen local lawmen pinned down on the slope below the cabin. I volunteered to circle around the back way and try to take him from the rear.”
“And did it work?” Rose asked.
“It did, mostly because I was too dumb and inexperienced to know any better. I shot the bastard through the window, from behind. He was dead before he even knew he’d been hit.
“The news media called me a hero, and I guess it went to my head some. The county folks decided to hold a ceremony and give me a medal. My wife was proud and wanted to be part of it, but on the night of the celebration, our boy got the flu, and Annie wasn’t feeling so great herself. There was nothing to do but leave them home and go by myself.”
The memories were raging now, ripping into him and through him like claws. Tanner wanted to stop, but this was a story he knew he had to finish.
“I drove home to find our house in flames. I tried, almost died trying, before the firemen dragged me out—but it was too late to save my wife and son.”
“Oh, Tanner,” Rose whispered.
“Murchison had a brother. He set the fire. I was still in the hospital when the feds caught him the next day. He died last year in a prison stabbing . . .”
* * *
Tanner was quivering with emotion. Rose wrapped her arms around him. He was broken, as she was, but more painfully than she could even imagine.
“It was my own fault. If I hadn’t been so damned full of myself, I’d have turned down the award, canceled the ceremony, and been there to protect my family.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Rose said.
“I should’ve at least been worried about leaving them alone, with no one watching the place. But it didn’t enter my damn fool head.” Tanner took a long, painful breath. His hand stroked Rose’s hair. “I went back to the ranch and tried to move on. But everything I saw and heard reminded me of what I’d lost. When I read about this job opening, I knew I had to apply. I was hoping it would help me make a new start, but all I’ve done is bring my old baggage with me.”
Rose’s arms tightened around him. Was this why he seemed so protective of her, because he’d once failed to protect the people he loved?
Tilting her face upward, she brushed his lips with hers. She’d never made such a move with a man before, but he was so wounded, so much in need of comfort that she forgot to be afraid.
The low sound in his throat could have been a growl or a sob as he responded to her kiss, his lips caressing hers so gently that she wanted to weep with the sweetness of it. Wanting more, she arched upward against him, inviting his hands to graze her body through the fabric of her nightgown. She had been forced, raped, and violated by men, but she had never been loved—and only now did Tanner’s tenderness give her the courage to want what every woman deserved.
“Take me, Tanner,” she whispered. “Make love to me.”
Without a word, he rose, lifting her in his arms. His long strides carried her back to the bedroom, where he lowered her to the bed, kicked off his boots, lay down beside her, and took her in his arms. His hands found their way under her nightgown,
gliding up her body, cupping her breasts, triggering whorls of sheer pleasure.
“I want you, Rose.” His lips brushed her ear. “But I don’t want to hurt you or frighten you. Anytime you want me to stop—”
