After that night at the cabin, the night Jameson opened up to her about his marriage to Maybelle Butler, Van stopped trying to tell herself she needed to pull away. She gave up feeling guilty for not maintaining a certain emotional distance from him.
His honesty about what had happened in his marriage had gotten to her, weakened her resolve not to let him too close. She fully accepted now that, if he’d once been a player, those days were gone. Though she continued to insist that they not go public in Bronco, she gave herself up to spending every moment she could with him.
The next weekend, they made the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Bozeman and stayed at the Armory Hotel in a beautiful, restful suite with a king-size bed and sheets so soft she hated to get out of bed in the morning. In Bozeman, they did all the touristy things. They hiked the Bridger Foothills National Scenic Trail, visited the Museum of the Rockies and the American Computer and Robotics Museum.
Hand in hand, they strolled Main Street downtown, stopping to window-shop and so she could pick up a couple of souvenirs. It was so good, just to be with him out in the open without worrying that someone might see them together and say something to her mom or Grandma Daisy.
Getting away alone, just the two of them, had her giving more thought to her own insistence on secrecy. Van started to see that her fear didn’t really center on her family. She would never move home just because they pressured her to.
The problem lay in her own vulnerable, hopeful heart. Once she outed her relationship with Jameson in her hometown, she would become so much more likely to let herself go further, to start imagining a future with him, to long for a real, lasting bond with him.
That way lay trouble. Tempting, lovely trouble—but trouble, nonetheless.
To give her trust again, take a chance on love again...
No.
The risk still felt greater than the possible rewards. To give in, let herself fall and believe that he would be there to catch her...
It was asking too much of her battered heart.
As the second week of July became the third and she spent every moment she could steal at Jameson’s side, Van somehow managed to cling to their original agreement—that it was only for the summer, that at the end of August shewouldwalk away.
So what that the pull between them only seemed to get stronger? So what that she loved being with him, in bed and out?
So what that sometimes she could almost picture a life with him, right here in Bronco, close to her family?
She had her life all worked out, and love would not mess with it. Not this time. She’d been hurt once too often. No way was she headed for heartbreak again.
The weekend after their Bozeman getaway, Van and Jameson decided to stick close to the ranch. Saturday morning, she woke with his arms around her and knew she wouldn’t be heading for Happy Hearts to have coffee with Daphne and Evan, wouldn’t be there later to help with whatever chores needed doing.
She felt a little bit guilty about that...
But not guilty enough to leave the warm shelter of Jameson’s arms.
“Mornin’.” His voice was sleep-rough and arousing, as was the feel of his warm palm skating over the curve of her hip and easing inward in search of all her womanly secrets.
She gave them all up to him. Twice. Once with his face buried between her thighs as he coaxed a powerful orgasm from her using his clever mouth and thrillingly rough, hardworking hands. And then, a few minutes later, she surrendered again, this time with him buried deep inside her, rising with her to the top of the world, soaring over the edge into free fall only seconds after she did.
For a while, as the sun rose and sent fingers of golden light easing in around the edges of the blinds, they just lay there together. She felt so close to him, happy and unguarded, completely content.
Which might have been the reason why, later, after breakfast, when they sat at the long table in his kitchen together, relaxing over that second cup of coffee, she failed to evade when he said, “Sometimes lately, like this morning, I get the feeling you’re learning to trust me at least a little.”
“I do trust you,” she answered softly with a smile to match. “You’re a good man, Jameson, you really are.”
He gazed at her so steadily as he offered his hand. She took it. They wove their fingers together across the tabletop.
“What is it, then?” he asked. “What happened to you? I know you joke about the players who did you wrong. And I’m sorry for all that. But there’s something else, something deeper, I think. Something that happened right here, in Bronco. Something that you can never quite get past, never completely forgive.”
She didn’t look away. “You’re right. My worst heartbreak happened here.”
“Will you tell me about it?” He said it so gently, not expecting her to give him her hardest truth, but asking her to share if she might be willing.
That he’d asked so quietly, so hopefully—it mattered. She couldn’t deny those deep blue eyes, couldn’t refuse him the answer he sought.
She did pull her hand from his, though. She retreated to her side of the table, withdrawing from him, surrendering to her instinct for self-protection. “You would have to promise not to do anything about what I tell you—not to try to track down the people involved. I need your word that you will just leave it alone.”
“The people involved?” He kept his voice carefully controlled—but not carefully enough. “What the hell happened, Vanessa?”
