an accident, bleeding somewhere where he couldn’t get to her. He’d already sent two of his pals off to search for her. If she was okay, she would have let him know, he thought. Maxie wouldn’t do this to him. Maxie wouldn’t make him wonder.
Maxie loved him.
He believed. And he waited.
Waited past the time of the ceremony.
Waited as their guests left, his humiliation hidden beneath the granite expression he’d perfected over the years. His eyes never leaving the door, Kyle let his hurt and anger escalate and even as his heart leaped when a figure slipped into the chapel, he cursed himself for forgiving her so easily in those few seconds. Until he saw her mother and the look on her face. The sympathy and pity Lacy Parrish sent him was enough to kill Kyle where he stood.
He dropped Maxie’s wilting bouquet and with his white barracks cover tucked under his arm, he left the church with the measured cadence of a marine going off to war. Which was exactly what he had to do. Married or not
Less than twenty-four hours later, dressed in desert beige camouflage utilities, Kyle stood in formation with his platoon, his body weighted down with his pack, bedroll, ammunition and weapons. He didn’t speak to anyone, too aware that his buddies knew he wasn’t the married man he’d hoped to be today. He tried not to imagine Maxie’s face, what she was thinking when she stood him up, what she was doing now. A woman’s sob caught him off guard, and his gaze snapped to a fellow marine, his wife in his arms as she cried and told him she would miss him. Kyle’s throat tightened, the pain in his chest threatening his breathing. That should be me, he thought, tearing his gaze away to scan the crowd of women and children, parents and friends who’d come to see the marines off. He waited for long, dark auburn hair to catch his attention, waited to see her running toward him, begging for his forgiveness and telling him she loved him.
She’ll come, he thought. She won’t let me get on this plane without saying goodbye. Kyle believed and he waited, lagging behind when his platoon filed toward the plane. Still he stalled, back-stepping, searching the mass of people. She’ll come, he told himself. She might have wanted a wait to many him, but she loved him. She did.
A sharp command pierced his thoughts, and he faced his first sergeant.
“Move it, marine! The war won’t wait.”
Kyle obeyed, the last man aboard the aircraft. Yet even as the hydraulics lifted to seal the huge troop carrier, Kyle still hoped, still looked. But as the hatch closed him in with over a hundred other marines, Kyle faced the truth.
And inside, he died.
One
Grand Canyon, Arizona
Seven years later
Maxie paused, the shovel full of soiled hay halfway to the wheelbarrow when she heard the helicopter. The noise vibrated the walls of her barn, disturbing her animals as the pilot made a low-flying sweep of her place before setting down.
“Relax, Elvis,” she said to the horse tethered outside his stall. “You ought to be used to that by now.” She flung the putrid pile onto the heap, shaking her head. The independent pilots the park service hired when they were shorthanded in bad weather usually had Top Gun envy and were always a little showy. Apparently the pilot she was supposed to board for the next week or two wasn’t beyond hotdogging, either.
Since it was likely one of the pilots she’d boarded before, she didn’t immediately run out to greet him, estimating it would take him a few minutes to anchor the chopper and walk the hundred yards from the dirt helipad to the barn. If he thought to look for her there. Either way, she didn’t want company. Usually the service put the temps up in hotels or at Mrs. Tippin’s Bed and Breakfast, but with half the rescue teams out with the flu and the tourist traffic unusually high now for the lack of snow, the overflow boarded with her. The occasions were too rare for her to regret that part of the deal she’d made with the service three years ago. She just hoped this pilot didn’t expect her to wait on him. She had too much work to do.
After maneuvering the heavy wheelbarrow down the long corridor of stalls to the truck parked outside the rear entrance, she forced it up the ramp and quickly dumped its odious contents. Maxie hurriedly backtracked, bringing the wheelbarrow back for another load, then hefting the shovel.
Movement at the far end of the barn caught her attention.
She froze. The color drained from her face. Her gloved fingers tightened on the handle.
Rescue me. Oh, someone please take me away from here.
But Maxie Parrish knew no rescue would be coming.
Her worst nightmare was walking steadily toward her.
She would recognize him anywhere, anytime. Even with the fleece collar of his butternut suede jacket pulled up against the wind and his face shielded beneath a black cowboy hat, she knew him. By his stride, the shift of his shoulders... his sexy rocking hips.
Seven years’ worth of guilt and shame threatened to swallow her whole, and Maxie fought the overpowering urge to run.
Instead, like a sinner anticipating penance, she waited for the moment when he would recognize her.
A duffel slung over his shoulder, his gaze was more on where he was stepping than where he was heading. “This the Wind Dancer Ranch, ma’am?”
“Yes, Kyle. It is.”
He stopped short. His head jerked up, his gaze narrow and piercing her straight through to the bone.
He didn’t say a word. He just kept staring, whatever he was feeling locked tightly behind an expression harder than ice. His fingers flexed on the duffel strap at his shoulder. His lips tightened. And Maxie felt the hay-strewed floor soften beneath her feet as he moved within a yard of her. His gaze roamed, and she felt heat slowly sketch her face as he searched for changes and absorbed each one. It was hard to believe those eyes still held the same intensity, dark and wicked, making her skin warm in the chilly morning, making her body talk when she wanted it to be silent.
And unfortunately, after all this time, he knew it.
It didn’t help that he looked as good as he did when he was a marine, she thought. Oh, he was older, more mature and though there were a few lines around the corners of his eyes and a cynical tightness to his lips that hadn’t been there before, he was still essentially the same. Handsome, tanned, sable haired with pebble dark eyes that had always held a glint of mischief. They didn’t now, offering nothing. Apparently he didn’t think his surprise arrival was any kind of blessing, either.
Kyle was shaking inside. Seven years faded away, and he was a marine, standing on the flight deck, waiting for her, hurting like mad. He couldn’t stop the sensations, wishing to God he had never set foot inside the barn, but knew he had to get control, reminding himself that she was his past, not his present.
Damn.
Damn, damn, damn.
It shouldn’t be this hard to just look at her, Kyle thought, the agony of losing her and never knowing why clutching at his chest Yet like a masochist searching for more pain, his gaze moved over her face, her petite features, the lush figure even a shapeless flannel shirt and down vest couldn’t hide. She’s cut her hair, he thought stupidly. Her auburn waves were evenly trimmed, side parted and skimming her jaw, her long drop earrings emphasizing those great bones. One thing he had to say about Maxie—she had a body that evoked wild fantasies and a face that gave a man sleepless nights.
He ought to know. He’d had his share of them. And he didn’t want any more.
He brought his gaze back to hers. “Hello, Max.”
The sound of his voice, deep as the ocean floor, coated her, sending tremors through her bloodstream. And with it came a flood of unwanted memories, of heartache and guilt. Oh, Lord, the guilt, Maxie thought. It had never eased completely, and as she stared into his eyes now, it magnified. The