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“Well, how about this, I’ll tell you all about my past broken heart, long as you tell me about yours.”

Her eyes lowered, a heaviness washing through her. “Oh, who wants to talk about all that old stuff?” She flashed him a grin he knew wasn’t anything more than an attempt at distraction. “Let’s talk about now.” She patted his chest and batted her eyelashes up at him. “And frozen pizza.”

But he couldn’t seem to let it go, much as part of him wanted to. Life was complicated, much as he hated that. But he was a practical man, and complicated could get solved if you faced it head-on. “I think I should know, Cora. If I’m going to be part of your and Micah’s lives, I think I should know what happened with his father. At least the basics. At least so I don’t end up saying the wrong thing to either of you.”

“You won’t.”

“I’d like to know, and in return, I’ll tell you why I’ve kept myself guarded. It’s something I haven’t told . . . anyone. Not the whole story.”

She blinked up at him over that. “No one?”

He shook his head. “Not a living soul. My mom knows a few pieces, and Gavin knows a few other pieces, but no one knows the whole of it. I don’t like talking about it. It’s embarrassing as hell. But maybe it’d be good for us, to start on an open and honest foundation.”

Again she looked down at the ground. He almost told her to forget it, to shove all those words back in his mouth and go back to sex and pizza andfun.

“He just didn’t love us,” she said in a small voice before he could.

“And you loved him?”

She made a scoffing sound. “I . . . I thought I did. I was desperate for someone to love me.” She swallowed and waved a hand. “That can’t make any sense to you, what with the family you have, but growing up I only ever had Lilly. So I just wanted someone who loved me, except I was too young and too dumb to know what love really is.”

“No, I think I do understand that.”

She gave him the most doleful look, reminding him for a second of Micah and his near-teenage disdain for so many things. “You had your mother and a whole big family and a ranch, Shane. You don’t have to pretend you understand. It was a long time ago. I’m over it now.”

“I did have a loving family. You’re right. Maybe if my father hadn’t died, I’d be oblivious, but he did die, and when he did I felt a lot of . . .” Shane wouldn’t let the emotion clog his throat. He simply wouldn’t. He’d be straightforward and plain and then maybe . . .

He’d loved Mattie and had wanted a life with her, but he hadn’t been honest with her. Not about himself and how he felt, certainly not about what had happened with Dad. So, he’d do it differently this time. He’d give himself to Cora, and then it’d have to work out. Because she’d give herself back. If he did it all right, she’d have to.

Chapter Eighteen

Cora couldn’t believe she was standing in her room, naked under her robe, after some seriously awesome sex talking about . . .this.

Feelings and heartbreak and awful pasts. She didn’t want this, and she was more than grateful for her promise to Micah or she might have given in, given it all over to Shane, and where would that have left her?

Ithadbeen a long time ago, and she wanted nothing fromthentouching her life now. The only reason she’d given him the vague answer she’d given him was because . . . Well, she wanted Shane. The whole of him. His past hurts and scars and the crazy idea he could understand her, even if he didn’t know all the pieces.

Maybe it was selfish, and maybe it was wrong, but she wanted all of his pieces. All for herself.

“I felt a lot of responsibility when my dad died,” Shane said carefully, as though each word were chosen individually, with great thought. “I took a lot on myself, and because of that my family became more of a . . .Burdenisn’t the right word, but I didn’t see myself as equal or as part of it. I was the protector. Finding someone who didn’t need me to be that, well, I let that skew my thinking.”

“She didn’t love you?”

He blew out a breath and raked a hand through his hair, this gorgeous, tall, broad-shouldered man who only wore faded navy boxers.

“We dated in high school. I think we loved each other, as much as you can when you’re a teenager anyway. Graduation loomed. I wanted to get married, and she wanted to go to and finish vet school first. It seemed reasonable. I’d be the rancher. She’d be the vet.”

“She sounds perfect,” Cora muttered, trying not to sound as petulant as she felt. Failing at it.

Shane laughed, bitterly, and Cora knew that shouldn’t have soothed her, but it did.

“Uh, no. End of her sophomore year of college, she lost her scholarship, failed a few classes. Her parents cut her off, but she came to me crying about how she needed to prove she could do this. One of the stipulations of my father’s will was that we each be afforded a certain amount of money, a trust fund of sorts, that we’d get at twenty-one, with the idea we’d buy or build our own place, on the ranch or off.”

“Shane,” Cora said on an exhale, afraid she knew where this was going. Maybe it was silly to hurt for him when she’d been beaten by the man she’d wanted to love, but Shane was so good. A betrayal like being used? It didn’t seem fair.

“I figured we were going to be partners,” he continued, standing a few feet away from Cora. “And she wouldn’t mind living with Mom for a few years while we made it back. Long story short, she didn’t have much intention of coming back home, of marrying me. I’m not sure she ever graduated. I paid for that semester and then she . . . disappeared. Well, I mean, not disappeared. Her parents knew where she was and all. She just stopped talking to me.”

“She’s the worst,” Cora said emphatically. “I’d spit in her eye if I ever saw her.”