lust, hit him as his gaze swept over her.
Wavy honey-brown hair framed her face. Her hair was always soft to touch. There was no way to shut off the memories, no matter how much they hurt or stirred him. A red linen suit with a matching linen blouse and red high heels added to her attractiveness. The red skirt ended above her knees, leaving her shapely legs bare to her ankles. His imagination filled in how she would look without the red linen. While desire ran rampant, at the same time, a shroud of guilt enveloped him. He had failed her in the worst way possible.
Each time he saw Emily, guilt gnawed at him for failing to save the life of their four-year-old son, Ryan, after a tour bus accident on a family ski vacation in Colorado. It had been five long, guilt-ridden years since then, and a chilly bitterness had settled in between them. His life had improved only slightly last year when he’d moved out of the house to the guesthouse on their ranch. They could go for weeks without crossing paths.
In many ways it was better to be apart, because then he could let go of the burden of guilt. That’s why he had joined the Army Rangers for three years after the accident. After the death of his close friend, Jeremy, he wanted out of the Rangers. He couldn’t be with Emily without thinking about how he had failed her and how unhappy she had been with him.
At the moment when they approached each other, Emily looked up and her green eyes widened. They avoided each other most of the time but couldn’t today. He kept walking, his heart drumming while desire and guilt continued to war within him. Would he ever be able to face her without an internal emotional upheaval? Her smile was polite, the kind of smile usually reserved for strangers. When she came closer, her smile vanished before she greeted him with a quiet, “Hi, Tom.”
“Good morning. You look great,” he couldn’t keep from saying.
Her gaze shifted to the briefcase in his hand. “Are you at the club for a meeting?”
“Yes. The finance committee. How about you?”
“I’m having lunch with a friend,” she answered. How polite they were, yet a storm was going on within him. Guilt, hurt, too much loss plagued him each time he saw Emily or talked to her.
“Have a good time,” he said as he passed her.
Her perfume stirred memories of holding her in his arms while he kissed her. Longing tore at him along with anger at himself. Why couldn’t he let go completely? He and Emily didn’t have anything together any longer. Only he knew that wasn’t true. There was one thing they still had that hadn’t vanished—a physical attraction that he felt each time she came into his sight. It was something he couldn’t understand and didn’t want to think about.
On a physical level, he knew she felt that chemistry as much as he did. She couldn’t hide her reactions completely, and neither could he. But each time he encountered her, he was reminded that they both needed a chance for a fresh start, and that maybe the best thing he could do would be to give her a divorce and get out of her life completely.
* * *
After lunch at the Texas Cattleman’s Club and an afternoon at her photography studio in downtown Royal, Emily drove home to Knox Acres, the cattle ranch she shared with Tom. She still couldn’t stop replaying their brief encounter at the Texas Cattleman’s Club. Since she first met him, she’d had a strong physical reaction to Tom. She still got tingles from just seeing him. Through good times, through the worst of times, Tom had dazzled her since they had fallen in love at sixteen. She had no comparison, but she didn’t think that mattered. Tom was the best-looking, most appealing guy she had ever known.
Even so, other aspects of their marriage outweighed sheer lust. And they had lost what was essential in a marriage—that union of hearts, that joy in each other.
Their happiness had shattered the night their tour bus had skidded on an icy Colorado highway, going into a frozen pond. Tom had almost died pulling Ryan from the frigid water. Tom had ended up with pneumonia, a deep cut on his knee and a broken collarbone, broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. But in the end, he hadn’t been able to save their son’s life. After three days Tom could travel and they flew Tom, Emily and Ryan to a big hospital in Denver. They couldn’t help Ryan, either. In eight more days, Ryan succumbed to his injuries. Somehow, amid all the grief, she and Tom composed themselves long enough to donate Ryan’s organs to spare other parents the agony of losing a child.
The vacation had been Tom’s family reunion, and twenty-three members of his family were on the bus. Besides Ryan, Tom’s aunt died from drowning. Three other people, including two children, died in the accident, but they weren’t in the Knox party.
Weeks turned into months and months into years, and her memories became more precious. In an effort to strengthen their marriage, they had tried to conceive again, but a new baby—a new start—never happened for them. Emily felt she had failed Tom in this; it was another blow to their marriage. They’d lost their son, and eventually their love, and their relationship became more strained until Tom moved out and they hardly saw each other any longer. It was general knowledge with most people they knew that they were estranged. Sometimes that still shocked her as much as everything else that had happened to them. She had been so in love with Tom when they married, she never would have believed the day would come when they barely spoke and hardly saw each other.
Hoping to put Tom out of her thoughts, she talked to her big white cat that had been a kitten given to Ryan when he was four. After feeding Snowball, she turned on her computer to read her email, and in seconds, a message caught her attention.
It was harsh, simple: Guess you weren’t woman enough to hold his interest. Here’s his real family, his secret family—until now. Frowning and puzzled, Emily scanned the subject: Today—for your eyes only. Tomorrow—for all of Royal to see.
She froze when she read the sender’s name: Maverick. She had no idea who Maverick was. No one in Royal knew the identity of the hateful troll who’d been threatening and blackmailing people in town for the past few months. There were rumors Maverick might be the work of the three snooty stepsisters—that’s how she pictured the clique of women, Cecelia Morgan, Simone Parker and Naomi Price, who seemed to think they owned the Texas Cattleman’s Club and everything else in Royal these days. They always made Emily feel that she wasn’t good enough to be included in their company.
Another chill slithered down Emily’s spine when she opened the email attachment. It was a photograph. She stared at Tom in the picture, and shock hit her. As a professional photographer, Emily knew at a glance this picture was real. A smiling, earthy redhead with her hair fastened up in a ponytail posed with Tom, who stood close and had his arm draped around her shoulders. In front of them were two adorable children. The boy she guessed to be around four—the same age their Ryan had been when they had lost him. The little red-haired girl was pretty. In the background was a gingerbread dream house and beside the boy was a show-worthy golden retriever. They looked like the perfect family.
So this was Tom’s preferred family. That made her the world’s biggest fool. She and her husband had been growing apart for the past five years, and now she could see an additional reason why. Fury made her hot. There was a whole different side to Tom she had never seen—a deceitful side. She had trusted him completely. She stared at the picture, which was absolute evidence that their marriage was built on lies. Tom had another family. He was leading a double life. The realization was almost a physical blow.
If she wanted proof that their marriage was irrevocably broken, she had it now. Fresh out of excuses to delay the inevitable, heartsick and furious with Tom for his deception, she could see no other option: she planned to file for divorce. She would give him his official freedom to stop being secretive about the family he loved.
