“Maybe you’re right,” he said, his voice suddenly gruff. “We live in different worlds. It was probably just spending so much time together, you know?”
She nodded, wiped another tear from her cheek. “I know,” she said softly.
He glanced away, took a long drink of wine. “We should...um...probably order.”
She tried to smile, but her lips trembled. “Actually, I’m not very hungry.”
“Yeah,” he said, closing the menu. “Me, either.”
“Hawk’s upstairs. Maybe we could take a walk before we go back up. It’s kind of windy, but there’s a full moon tonight.”
“A walk sounds good.” He need a good stiff wind to blow some sense into him, get his head back on straight.
Calling for the waiter, he paid for their wine, then helped Jessie out of her chair. As they walked out the door to look at the moon over the lake, he draped his jacket over her bare shoulders.
They stepped out onto the flagstones, the breeze lifting her long red-gold hair away from her face. Jessie looked up at him. “Don’t change, Bran. Not for me or anyone else.”
His hand came up to touch her cheek. He drew her into his arms. “Jessie...” He kissed her long and deep, and Jessie kissed him back. Instead of a promise of things to come, the kiss felt like a farewell.
She just wanted to go home. Back to Denver, away from all of the intrigue swirling around her. Away from the heartache. Away from Bran.
Lying in bed alone, she turned her face into the pillow to muffle the sound of her tears. She had never considered that Brandon might have feelings for her beyond that of a temporary lover. Her brother had warned her about him. Bran wasn’t a one-woman man.
But tonight...when he had said those things...it sounded almost as if he loved her.
She bit back a sob. Surely it was just working so closely together, as he had said. That and the element of danger. Surely he didn’t feel the same sickness in the pit of his stomach that giving him up was causing her.
She took a shaky breath. None of it mattered. She had done the right thing. If they were together, she would be afraid every day of losing him. He had offered to change, but there wasn’t a single thing about Brandon Garrett that she would change.
The sob escaped. She loved him so much. Her throat ached. She just wanted to go home. She would talk to Bran and Hawk about it in the morning.
The clock said 4:00 a.m. when her eyes finally slid closed and she fell asleep. Even then, she didn’t sleep late the next morning.
As she dragged herself out of bed, showered, and dressed, the need to escape grew even stronger.
“Shower’s free,” she said as she walked into the living room. Hawk took one look at her puffy eyes and pale face and headed for the bathroom.
“I’ll go first,” he said, closing the bedroom door behind him and leaving the two of them alone.
Bran didn’t look much better, his features drawn, hair mussed, his jaw dark with a night’s growth of beard.
“Sorry about last night,” he said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
She looked into his handsome, beloved face, and clamped down on a surge of emotion. “It’s just...it’s everything that’s happened. I think we should let Tripp and Larkin handle things from here. I think...think it’s time for us to go home.”
Bran just shook his head. “Until Weaver is dealt with and Holloway is in custody, you’re not safe.”
There was something different about him this morning, a darkness in his eyes, a tough, hard edge in the set of his jaw. She remembered seeing him that way before, but not for some time.
She smoothed the ends of the hair she had plaited into a braid and tossed it over her shoulder. “I don’t know how much more of this I can stand.”
The phone rang. Both of them glanced around in search of their cells. It was Brandon’s. He grabbed it off the dining table. “Garrett.”
“It’s Charles Frazier, Brandon. I found the bastard. The rotten, no good traitor was right there in my office.”
“Hold on, Charles. Let me put you on speaker.”
Jessie moved closer. “Go ahead, Charles.”
