been right. Ry had been right. Nathan was a loser. He’d just been… what? Using her?
She wiped the back of her wrist over her cheek and under her nose. “But why? To what purpose?
“And why me,” she demanded bitterly. Or maybe the questions was, Why not me? Why, just once, couldn’t something work out for her in the love department?
All she wanted was someone special. All she wanted was someone to love. To make a life with. To make babies with. To replace the family she’d lost when she’d been little more than a baby herself.
And all she’d ever gotten was interference from her brother and now Ry… and from fools who either ran or didn’t care enough to make a difference in her life.
Hours later she’d left the city lights behind and was cruising down miles of empty highway. She wasn’t even aware when she’d crossed the Royal city limits. Wasn’t conscious of the fact that she’d taken the old Cattle Trail Road. She’d just driven. Mile after mile after mile.
It was after midnight when she pulled into the main drive of the Dusty E. And it wasn’t really a surprise, when five minutes later, she cruised to a stop in front of the Evans’s ranch house.
She might not have deliberately set out for the Dusty E, but her subconscious had led her to the one place she’d always felt safe. Home.
Yeah. She’d come home, she realized as she cut the motor and killed the lights. Then she just sat there and let the darkness and the sense of open arms settle around her like a warm, cuddly blanket. She’d been an orphan when Ry’s mom had welcomed her into the rambling tan stucco house with its graceful, open veranda and endless banks of arched windows. She’d been brokenhearted then. She was brokenhearted now.
And this place—filled with fond memories that had become her safe haven all those years ago—had drawn her like a combat-weary soldier was drawn to home.
She let out an exhausted breath and, leaning forward, pressed her forehead against the back of her hands, which were gripped around the top of the steering wheel.
And felt another overwhelming wave of grief wash over her.
She’d come home to lick her wounds…and yet the man who had caused the deepest cut to her pride was even now, sleeping in the bedroom behind the fourth window to the right of the entryway.
Tired to the bone, she sat there for several moments…then lifted her head and squinted toward the house when the porch light flicked on.
The front door eased opened and Shamu tiptoed out. The big coward, she thought, finally managing a watery grin. This was no watchdog, cautiously sniffing the air. Clearly, he was hoping his master was going to handle whatever critter had decided to risk life and limb to trespass on hallowed Evans ground.
And then Ry stepped outside. She wasn’t grinning anymore.
He was shirtless, barefoot and barely tucked into a pair of work-and wash-faded jeans that hung precariously low on his lean hips.
Without her sanction, her heart skipped several beats, and she accepted that it wasn’t only home, but Ry who had drawn her here.
He was, she told herself bleakly, the most beautiful man in Texas, with his dark hair mussed and falling over his brow, his brown eyes piercing hers with concern and questions as he walked slowly toward her car.
“Bear? What’s up, sweetie?”
She just couldn’t help it. When he leaned down, a concerned and sober scowl on his face, she started crying again. Hot, silent tears that trailed down her face and tracked under her chin, and ran, like a salty river, over the convulsing cords at her throat to wet her blouse.
She cried for all the things she’d lost when her parents died. She cried for all she’d lost when she’d finally accepted Ry didn’t love her. She cried for her lost pride and Nathan Beldon’s betrayal.
When Ry opened the driver’s-side door and, without a word, lifted her out of her car, she wrapped her arms around his warm, strong neck and took solace in his softly murmured, “Shh. Shush now. Don’t cry, bear. Don’t cry, baby. I’ve got you.”
And she kept right on crying.
It was killing him.
Ry couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand to see her in this much pain and know he was probably the cause of it. The Carrie he knew was strong. The little girl who had mourned for her parents had grown into a self-contained woman who would feel diminished and embarrassed by giving in to tears. She’d consider it a weakness. Unlike some women he knew, she would never resort to weeping to manipulate a man or get her way. If she cried, then she was hurting. Hurting bad. It took him back to that horrible time when the only thing he could do to help her was be someone for her to hold on to in return.
Wincing as a bare foot met with a piece of gravel, he carried her into the house, kicked the front door closed behind him and headed for the living room.
Still holding her in his arms, he sat down on the sofa, then settled her onto his lap as her long, sleek body curled into his and clung.
And felt his guilt over the scene at her apartment settle like a festering thorn.
Only the full moon peaking through the huge picture window to the west illuminated the room, casting them in soft shadows and cocooning them in the intimacy of the night. Despite feeling like the horse’s ass he was, he was very aware of her slim hip nestled into his lap, far too aware of her warm breast pressing against his chest through the thin red silk of her blouse. But most of all, he was conscious of how badly she needed the very person who had driven her to this state to be her friend right now. A friend…not a man whose first and basic instinct was to comfort her in the most elemental and pleasurable of ways.
It broke his heart to feel her slim shoulders tremble, to feel the warmth of her silent tears on his skin. So he just hung on tighter. Pressing his lips to the top of her head, he combed his fingers through her silky hair and made soothing sounds to settle her.
Her eyes were red and swollen when she finally lifted her head and pressed the heels of her hands to her eye sockets. He watched in silence as her throat convulsed and she made a concentrated effort to pull out of her funk.
“Hold on a sec,” he said and, easing her off his lap, walked out of the room. When he returned, she’d done when he’d known she would do, what he’d known she needed a moment alone to do. She’d used the time to compose herself.
He handed her a glass of water and a box of tissue.
“I am too—” a hiccupy shudder broke up her words “—too pathetic to draw breath.”
Despite her misery, he smiled. “And you’ve reached this conclusion all by yourself? Or did someone or something nudge you in that direction?”
She sniffed, then blinked and after a long drink of water, tugged a tissue from the box and blew. “Someone and something,” she said, mopping up the beautiful mess she’d made of her face and reaching for another tissue.
He didn’t even hesitate. He sat back down beside her and drew her onto his lap again. She snuggled into him like a sleepy kitten, looping her arms around his neck and nestling her head under his chin. Her breath was warm
