Jenna had spent the night tossing and turning and replaying her last conversation with Hunter. And wishing with all of her heart that it had gone differently.
That he hadn’t asked to pick up where they’d left off because she didn’t just want to fall back into bed with him.
She wanted more.
Everything.
* * *
A truth that haunted her as she made her way out to watch Brody and his brothers start on the renovation to the kitchen. They’d finished the electrical and the plumbing and were starting room by room with the upgrades. Today was the new cabinet installation and she wanted to see how the dark cherry looked against the new countertops. It looked great, but the site didn’t fill her with even the slightest excitement. Not with Hunter still heavy on her mind and her feelings for him swimming down deep.
She’d wanted so desperately to take him up on his offer, to pick up where they’d left off with the physical and feel him at least one more time.
She didn’t just want sex.
But he did.
He’d never said one word otherwise.
Instead, he’d simply stood there in front of her motel room long after she’d gone inside.
While she might have fallen in love with him, he wasn’t in love with her.
Which was fine.
Really.
She didn’t need Hunter DeMassi anyway. She had her house and her property. Plenty of room to build an extra structure and start her own equine center.
In due time.
Her money was invested in the renovation right now, but it was just a matter of keeping her nose to the grindstone. She had to keep going. Fighting.
As for Hunter …
He was back at work, back doing a job that kept him going but didn’t feed the passion inside of him. He loved horses, too, he just wouldn’t let himself give in to the emotion. Act on it.
Not with the wild broncs, and not with her. He was stuck, just as Clara had been, and like his great-grandmother, he was going to stick it out. To endure instead of living.
Jenna wasn’t falling into the same trap. She was living for herself. Really and truly living.
If she didn’t drop dead of a heart attack first.
She clutched her chest and stared at the familiar man standing in her front yard.
“Chuck?” She eyed the black leather pants and sleeveless vest. “What are you wearing?”
“You said you wanted something different, Jenna. Something more bad ass. Well, here I am.”
“I didn’t mean I wanted you to be different,” she started, but he held up a hand.
“I know what you want. You want a man to take charge.” He crossed the distance to her. “Well, that’s what I’m doing.” And then he ducked, his shoulder catching her in the middle as he tossed her over his shoulder.
“Let me down right now.” She pounded his back, but it only seemed to make him that much more determined. “I mean it, Chuck. This is crazy.”
“Crazy wild,” he said as he strode toward a black Jeep with temporary tags. “The rental car place didn’t have a motorcycle, so I had to settle for this. But I’ve applied for a loan with my credit union. As soon as I get the approval, I’m heading to Austin and the nearest Harley dealership.”
“Go wherever you want, but put me down first.”
“Sorry, but us strong, alpha males take charge.”
“I mean it. Put me down right now or you’ll be sorry.”
“No can do.”
“I mean it…” she started, pounding harder, but the deep voice drowned her out.
“You heard the lady. Put her down.” Hunter’s deep voice echoed in her ears and she twisted, catching a glimpse of his uniform-clad body just a few feet away.
“Of course, Sheriff.” Chuck let go and she slid to the ground like a sack. “We were just role playing. You know how couples do.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“Exactly. See, Jenna, here, likes a more take-charge kind of guy so I ordered a few things on Leatherup.com and here I am.”
“How do you know what Jenna likes?” Jealousy burned hot and bright in his gaze and a strange sense of hope spread through Jenna. As if he really and truly did love her.
But then that wasn’t the problem. It was him admitting his feelings. Acting on them.
“I do like a more take-charge kind of guy,” Jenna cut in, climbing to her feet. “I like a man who isn’t afraid to be himself.”
“But I did that,” Chuck started.
“Not you,” she told the man before turning to Hunter. “I’m talking to you.” She planted her hands on her hips and eyed him. “You’re afraid.”
The declaration made his frown that much deeper and unease zapped her. But she’d already opened her mouth and the real Jenna, the one she’d been trying to change for the past few months, wasn’t about to shut up.
“You’re afraid to love me. To love anything. Because you’re afraid if you do, then no one will love you.”
“You talk too much, you know that?”
“Guilty as charged, Sheriff. But that still doesn’t change anything. You’re afraid, but you don’t have to be.”
“Really? And why is that?”
“Because I love you anyway.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Instead, he simply stared at her before he finally opened his mouth and murmured, “It’s not about being afraid. It’s about keeping a promise.” He turned then and walked away.
And she knew this time he wasn’t coming back.
* * *
He was nipping this in the bud right now.
That’s what Hunter told himself as he headed to City Hall to file his papers for the next election. He’d made his choices and while he wasn’t all that happy with them at the moment, a man had to keep his word and do the right thing.
That’s what Hunter told himself, he just wasn’t so sure he believed it anymore. Because he’d changed.
He didn’t feel so indifferent inside. So contained. So suppressed.
He felt, period. And that was good. Useless, but good.
Hunter pulled into the parking lot and walked into the lobby.
The soft voice sounded directly behind him and he turned to see Jenna standing in the doorway.
She wore a Giddy Up T-shirt tucked into a fitted black miniskirt that hugged her in all the right places. But it wasn’t the outfit that stalled the air in his lungs. It was the gleam in her eyes.
“I told you this isn’t going to work,” he managed, despite a suddenly dry throat.
“I know what you said, but you’re full of shit. It can work. That’s what really scares you. Not the notion of failing, but that you might be happy. Too happy, and you don’t think you deserve to be happy because your brother’s the one who deserves to be here. Not you. That’s what you really think, isn’t it? What eats at you. Why him and not you?”
“It should have been me,” he said, the feelings pushing and pulling and finally boiling over so fiercely that he couldn’t keep the lid on them a moment more. “I was always pushing the limits, climbing on the back of a bronc, living like there was no tomorrow. I was only thinking about myself, but my brother spent his life thinking about other people. That’s admirable. That’s deserving. He deserved to live, not me.”
“That’s not your call, don’t you know that? That’s life, and death. We don’t get to pick the latter, but we can damn sure make the most of the former. We have to deal with what we’re dealt. He’s not here for whatever reason, but you are and you can’t keep punishing yourself because of that. You’re here, Hunter, and that’s okay.”
It was.
Hunter realized that as he saw her staring up at him, her eyes full of gratitude because unlike his folks who couldn’t see past their own pain, she could and she saw him. The real man. The good. And the bad.
And she loved him anyway.
“It doesn’t change anything,” he told her.
“Because you don’t love me,” she stated. “That’s it, isn’t it? I convinced myself on the drive over here that you didn’t say the words because maybe, just maybe you were as scared as I was, but that’s not it, is it? You don’t feel the same.”
“No, I meant that I already filed my paperwork. I’m on the ticket.”
“Oh.” The truth seemed to hit her and a grin curved her beautiful lips. “Well, then, I guess we’ll have to see what we can do about losing this election, Sheriff.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you’re going to be much too busy helping with my horses and teaching down at the rodeo arena to have any time left over for law and order. That means we’ll have to do whatever’s necessary to make sure you’re not expected to keep the peace.” She stepped up to him then, her hand going to his chest. “I think a little lewd and lascivious behavior smack-dab in front of the courthouse is a good start, don’t you?”
And then she kissed him with a fierceness that had people gasping and gossiping.
Unease rushed through him, followed by a sense of joy so profound that he knew he could never turn and walk away from her. Not now. Not twenty years from now. Not ever.
What’s more, he didn’t want to walk away.
It was time to stop pretending. Time to love someone. To trust someone enough to let them love him.
A strange sense of peace stole through him, and for the first time in a long time, he didn’t give a lick who was watching him or what they thought.
“I do love you.” He said the words he’d felt for so long but had refused to admit. “More than anything.”
Her panic faded into a look of pure delight as she broke the kiss and pulled away. “Does that mean you’re up to joining forces and raising some horses together?”
He grinned and tightened his hold on her. “’Til death do us part, baby. ’Til death do us part.”
“That sounds like a proposal more than a job offer.”
His grin faded as he stared deep into her eyes. “Will you marry me, Jenna, and make me the happiest man alive?”
“I will,” she murmured. “I do.” And then she kissed him and left no doubt in his mind that she meant every word.