favors the brave.”
“And you are the brave?”
He paused a fraction of a second. “Back then.”
“What about now?”
“I got older. I’m a very, very good boy now.” He murmured those words close to her ear, this man who knew what he was doing. Her breath left her in a rush of want, her body reacting instantly with a heavy ache deep inside. A very, very good boy...
She turned her head to see more of his profile. He had hard features, nothing of the prettiness of the theater majors at her college, none of the country club grooming of the aspiring business majors. Graham was still keeping an eye on the crowd around them, the way he narrowed his eyes causing little lines to fan at their corners. She felt that same thrill of being protected; she felt that same tug of sympathy for a man who never dropped his guard.
“At least now you won’t freeze to death for my sake,” she said. “You already took a few punches for me tonight. I’m sorry about that.”
“I did?”
“On the way out of the bar.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. That was just some pushing and shoving. No one landed a decent hit.”
And it wouldn’t have fazed you if they had.
He was older, stronger, tougher than the other guys. Stronger than she was, although she thought of herself as both strong and strong-willed—stubborn, her mother called it—and she needed to continue being both if she ever hoped to live the life she wanted. But always being strong could wear a person out.
So tonight...
Why couldn’t she be Jane for just one night? Not the strongest, not in charge, not the decision maker. What could be the harm in spending a little time with a man who knew what he was doing?
Graham had no idea what he was doing.
His plan had been set: he was checking out of the world, going to live in isolation on a cattle ranch, which sounded like going to live in Siberia. Good. He was battered and tired and ready to retreat from the human race. He’d be done with society and all the empty social niceties, officially, tomorrow.
And yet here he was, standing in the crisp, clean air with his arms around a woman who was warm and beautiful, young and full of the future. What the hell was he doing?
Starting tomorrow morning at sunrise, he’d report for duty, so to speak, at the James Hill Ranch. His uncle Gus was the foreman there, and had been for a long time. Word must have traveled through the family that Graham had left the Marine Corps, then left the corporate business world, and now left grad school. For thirty years, Uncle Gus had been a benignly neglectful bachelor uncle, but he must have decided it was time to pay attention to his nephew. The offer had come out of the blue.
Graham didn’t know anything about horses. The closest he ever got to cattle was seeing them out the car window as he drove the highways between military bases. That meant he was coming to his new job with no skills, so he’d only be good for the grunt work. He was going to get worked as hard as he’d ever worked in the Marine Corps, digging ditches and hauling sandbags like the lowest-ranking new recruit.
It had been a long time since he’d been the low man on the totem pole. Graham had left the service at the rank of captain. He’d been a company commander, personally responsible for the training and well-being of two hundred Marines, charged with leading them on every assigned mission, anywhere in the world they were sent.
No longer—and that was fine. Graham looked forward to the oblivion that hard labor would grant him. He’d be responsible for no one and nothing. He’d be bone tired every night; he’d sleep. He’d wake up the next day and do it all over again. He expected nothing more out of life.
So why was he standing here with one light and lovely Emily Davis in his arms?
Some of the crowd had started to go back inside. Graham watched as they hustled right back out again. The sound of men shouting and bottles shattering mixed with the hyped-up chatter of the outdoor crowd.
“It sounds like a war zone in there,” Emily said.
Not quite. But Graham had no desire to start dredging up memories from Afghanistan, so he said nothing.
“The poor Keller family. They bought this place just a few years ago. I went to high school with their son, Jason. Sounds like they aren’t going to have much furniture left.”
“So you’re a local?”
He could have bitten his tongue out. What was he doing? Making small talk? Trying to get to know her?
“Sometimes,” she said. “I was born in San Antonio, but I’ve got family around here. I grew up going between San Antonio and Austin, Austin to San Antonio. I never went beyond that little hundred-mile stretch until I started college in Oklahoma.”
He said nothing.
“I’m nearly done there. Nearly. Not soon enough.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. A college girl with her life ahead of her. His was so empty in comparison. He shouldn’t have his hands on her, not even in an innocent prom pose.
“How about you?” she asked quietly, and he could tell she’d turned her head to look at him.
He opened his eyes. “Just passing through.”
Glass shattered inside the bar.
“We may be here awhile.” She sighed and relaxed into Graham’s arms just as easily as if they were old friends who hung out together all the time. “Every time it sounds like it’s quieting down, it spins right back up again.”
The blue ruffles at her waist tickled the inside of his wrist.
Old friends. Sure.
The last time he’d held a woman in his arms for any length of time, he’d been in bed and they’d just shared some very satisfying sex. He didn’t mind falling asleep like this with a woman, spooning when they were still appreciative of each other’s bodies. He couldn’t remember the specific woman and the specific bed of the last time, though. Not at the moment, not with his arms full of Emily. It had been a long while, he knew that much.
He’d gone long stretches before, of course, due to deployments: a year in the Middle East, half a year on an aircraft carrier. He was a civilian now, no geography forcing him into celibacy, yet he’d had no interest in any of his fellow grad students while pushing through this past semester. Working for his uncle on a ranch far from civilization wasn’t going to require much of a sacrifice when it came to his social life. He didn’t have one, and he hadn’t cared.
Until now. The night before he was about to bury himself in the middle of nowhere, he was holding a woman who was making him remember things that were worth living for.
Maybe this was like quitting smoking. One planned for it, wanting it and dreading it at the same time, until finally, the night before officially quitting, one last cigarette, better than all the ones that had come before, was savored.
Emily Davis was his last cigarette.
He wasn’t going to sleep with her. Even if she’d have him, he would be all wrong for her. He wanted to make sure she got out of this bar safely and back to her bright life, and then he’d drive west two more counties and find the ranch where his uncle worked.
But in the meantime, whether he had minutes with her or hours, he’d savor this woman who was buoyant and charming—and unafraid to tell a man to go to hell—before he began his self-imposed exile.
There couldn’t be any harm in that.
* * *
Emily felt something change in the way