Turner watched the way Annie studied the family ranch and wondered how he was going to make this up to her. She hadn’t wanted to come with him; it had taken both Izzie and Izzie’s uncle to convince her that she didn’t want to go back to her ranch out in the middle of the countryside alone tonight.
Not that anyone suspected she was the target. After Turner and Jake had explained what was going on—as much as they possibly could considering it was an ongoing police matter—she had finally agreed.
But she’d said it was because Turner needed someone with medical skills to keep an eye on him. Turner suspected that was just an excuse.
It was just a graze. Allen had made that clear.
Now she quietly walked next to him, dressed in bloodied jeans and an old FCU T-shirt of Allen Jacobson’s. It dwarfed her. Not exactly how he’d expected the evening to end up.
His eyes landed on a painting hanging on one wall. His aunt, Houghton’s mother. She’d been killed when Turner had been very young. Murdered. They’d never caught the killer.
The pain his uncle had gone through had been the greatest sadness his family had ever faced in Turner’s lifetime. She had been his mother’s best friend. He could still feel her loving arms holding him whenever he’d spend the night with his older cousin Houghton. She hadn’t deserved what had happened.
Any more than Annie had deserved what had happened to her tonight.
“Sweetheart…”
Blue eyes turned to him. “I’m not your sweetheart, Turner.”
Not yet. But that was something he wanted. He’d fallen a bit more for her tonight. Maybe into far more than lust, if he was honest. Annabelle Jane Gaines fascinated him from the top of her honey-streaked brown hair to the soles of her little white shoes.
“I want you to be my sweetheart,” Turner said quietly. More seriously than he ever had before.
“Why?” Calm even control. That was what she vibrated. “What is so special about me that you’ve done all of this?”
“You…” He admired her honesty, her directness, but giving that in return was harder than he would ever have expected it to be. He’d had serious discussions with women before—he was thirty-four years old and hadn’t lived like a damned monk. But none had felt quite like this. “I…damn it, Annie. It was that day. In the storm.”
“What do you mean?” She wasn’t just asking what was on the surface. Annie was wanting to peer into his very soul.
“You were so…strong. Steady. You didn’t panic. And the way you looked at me…I can’t forget you. I can’t. I don’t want to. I’m sorry about tonight. I’ve gotten a few threats, but we didn’t think anything would eventualize. Elliot had men on the trail of the ones responsible. We must have been wrong about who was responsible. I’m sorry. Ann—”
His free hand—Allen had insisted he wear a sling for a few days, and had still had the one from where he’d been shot by Wallace Henedy—brushed down her soft cheek. He just wanted to touch her. “I will never let anything happen to you, little one. I won’t.”