wasn’t taking his word for it. She turned, using his own grip to shove him against the wall and into an angel Christmas wreath. The painted wooden angels went flying. But not the man.
Addie tried to get his hand off her mouth so she could call out for help. Then she remembered her brothers weren’t at the ranch. Two were still at work, and the other was Christmas shopping in San Antonio. Only her mother was inside the house, and she had a sprained ankle. Addie didn’t want her mother to come hobbling into the middle of this.
Whatever this was.
“Stop,” he repeated when she kept struggling. His voice was a hoarse whisper, and he dragged her from the hall into her office.
Addie gave him another jab of her elbow and would have delivered a third one if the man hadn’t cursed. She hadn’t recognized his order for her to stop, but she certainly recognized his voice now.
Wes Martin.
The relief collided with the slam of adrenaline, and it took Addie a moment to force herself to stop fighting so she could turn around and face him. Even though the sun was already close to setting and the lights weren’t on in her office, there was enough illumination from the hall to see his black hair. His face. His eyes.
Yes, it was Wes all right.
The relief she’d felt didn’t last long at all.
“What are you doing here?” Addie demanded. “And how’d you get in the house?” Those were only the first of many questions, and how much else she told him depended on what he had to say in the next couple of seconds.
He didn’t jump to start those answers. Wes stood there staring at her as if she were a stranger. Well, she wasn’t. And he knew that better than anyone. He’d seen every last inch of her.
Ditto for her seeing every last inch of him.
And despite the fact that it was the last thing Addie wanted in her head at this moment, the memories came of Wes naked and of her in his arms. Thankfully, he wasn’t naked now. He was wearing jeans, a button-up shirt and a tan cowboy hat.
But there was something different about this cowboy outfit.
Beneath his jacket, he was wearing a waist holster and a gun.
“I came in through the side door.” He tipped his head toward the hall. “It wasn’t locked.”
That wasn’t unusual. Because the ranch hands—and the family—were often coming and going. They rarely locked up the house until bedtime. Even then, that was hit-or-miss since security wasn’t usually an issue.
Until now, that was.
“I didn’t see your car,” she said, and since she’d just come in from the main barn, Addie would have seen any unfamiliar vehicles in the circular driveway in front of the house.
“I parked just off the main road and walked up. I’m sorry,” he added, following her gaze to his gun. “But I had to come.”
That didn’t answer her other question as to why he was there, and Addie wasn’t sure if she just wanted to send him packing or try to figure out what the heck was going on.
She went with the first option.
Wes had crushed her heart six ways to Sunday, and there was no need for her to give him another chance to hurt her again.
“You’re leaving,” Addie insisted, and she turned around to head to the hall so she could usher him right back out the side door.
She didn’t get far because he took hold of her arm again. Not the tight grip he’d had before, but it was enough to keep her in place. And enough to rile her even more. “Let go of me.”
“I can’t.” Wes opened his mouth, but any explanation he was about to give her ground to a halt. “We have to talk,” he added after a very long pause.
“And you had to sneak in here and grab me to do that? You could have called.”
“I had to see you in person, and I grabbed you because I didn’t want you shouting out for someone. I didn’t want to get shot before you listen to what I have to tell you. And you have to listen.”
It was partly her bruised ego reacting, but Addie huffed, folded her arms over her chest and glared at him. “You slept with me three months ago and then disappeared without so much as an email. Why should I listen to anything you have to say, huh?”
Still no quick answer. Probably because there wasn’t one. Not one she’d want to hear anyway. But what she did want to hear was why he had on that gun holster that looked as if he’d been born to wear it. Also, why hadn’t she been able to find out anything about him online?
Everything inside her went still.
“Who are you, really?” she asked.
Another long pause. “I’m not the man you think I am.”
A burst of air left her mouth. Definitely not laughter. “Clearly. Now tell me something I don’t know.”
The hurt came hard and fast. Addie felt as if someone had put a vise around her heart. The tears quickly followed, too, and she tried hard to blink them away. No way did she want this man to see her cry.
“I’m sorry.” He added more of that profanity and reached out as if he might pull her into his arms.
Addie put a stop to that. She batted his hands away. “You knew how vulnerable I was when you slept with me.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “You’d recently found out your birth father was a serial killer.”
There it was, all wrapped up into one neat little summary. Stripped down to bare bones with no details. But the devil was in those details.
Well, one devil anyway.
Her biological father.
“Is everything you told me about your childhood the truth?” he asked.
She hadn’t thought Wes could say anything that would surprise her, or stop her from forcing him to leave, but that did it. Addie just stared at him.
“When you were three, some ranch hands found you in the woods near here,” Wes went on, obviously recapping details she already knew all too well. “You said you didn’t remember your name, how you got there or anything about your past. You don’t remember how you got that.”
Before she could stop him, he brushed his fingers over her cheek. Over the small crescent-shaped scar that was there. It was faint now, just a thin whitish line next to her left eye, but Wes had obviously noticed it.
Addie flinched, backing away from him. What the heck was going on?
“Is all of that true?” he repeated.
Addie mustered up another huff and tried not to react to his touch. Wes didn’t deserve a reaction. Too bad her body didn’t understand that. Of course, her body was betraying her
