Page 10

F ollowing the woman as she walked past the house, Austin admired more than the gentle sway of her hips. He admired the courage that had allowed her to put her fears and ugly memories aside to come to his aid last night.

More than that, she had overlooked what she knew of his past. He hadn’t received so fine a gift in a good while. Little wonder he had wept in her bed. She possessed a heart that was as pure as the gold of her eyes.

Hell, once he found the man who had stolen five years of his life, maybe he’d search for the man who had killed her family and see him brought to justice.

She came to a halt and flung her arm toward the garden. “Your chore.”

The chore turned out to be no chore at all: plucking red ripe strawberries from her garden and placing them gently in the bucket so they wouldn’t bruise.

She had told him that she couldn’t abide the fruit when it was bruised.

Based on the fact that she had devoted over half her garden to growing strawberries, Austin figured she had a fondness for them.

Near dusk, she set a quilt beneath a tree and brought out two large bowls. One was filled with washed strawberries. The other with sugar.

She plopped onto the quilt, took a strawberry out of the bowl, rolled it around in the sugar, and popped it into her mouth. She closed her eyes and released a low throaty moan that made Austin want to groan.

Against his better judgment, he stretched out on the quilt beside her and raised up on an elbow. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “There is nothing finer than the first strawberry in spring.”

He disagreed. He could have named a hundred things: her smile, her sun-kissed cheeks, the strands of her hair that had escaped her braid and framed her face like the petals of a dandelion.

As a boy, he’d often taken a deep breath before blasting the dandelion petals onto the breeze.

Right now, he wanted to blow softly, gently, his breath as quiet as a whisper while it fanned across the nape of her neck.

Digger barreled around the corner of the house.

Loree grabbed a strawberry and tossed it into the air.

The dog leapt up, his jaws clamping around the ripe fruit.

The animal hit the ground and rolled over.

Loree laughed joyfully, reminding Austin of the first time he had placed a bow on the strings of a violin.

The music had sounded just as sweet because it had been unexpected: something he had created.

He found himself wishing he’d been the one to make Loree laugh. Not the stupid dog.

“Help yourself to the strawberries,” she said as she tossed another one to the dog before taking one for herself.

Austin brought a strawberry to his lips and bit into the succulent fruit.

The sweetness filled his mouth. It didn’t need sugar.

It amused him to watch Loree carefully coat each strawberry with sugar before she ate it.

He grew warm as her tongue darted out to slowly, meticulously capture each errant grain of sugar that clung to her lips.

He imagined her kiss would taste of strawberries and sugar.

He’d been too long without a woman, and he was having one hell of a time taming his thoughts.

Watching the wind whip strands of her hair around her face, he wanted to play with it as well.

He wanted to touch her rounded cheeks with his fingers and the upturned tip of her nose with his lips.

He’d known too few women in his life, and even though one had torn out his heart and shredded it to pieces, he couldn’t bring himself to hate women.

He figured women were like men. Some good.

Some bad. Some fickle. He’d latched onto a fickle one the first time and it had cost him dearly.

But in spite of the steep price he’d paid, he couldn’t see himself spending his remaining days without the comfort of a woman.

Once he’d cleared his name, he’d take a wife.

He wanted what his older brothers had. Neither had gained their wives without paying a price.

The comforting silence eased in around them as the shadows lengthened.

The dog loped to the edge of the clearing, barked, and raced back to catch another strawberry.

Austin was beginning to doubt the dog’s ability to protect Loree.

Other than last evening when the dog had growled at him, he had seen no signs of aggressiveness.

The dog reminded him of an overgrown puppy.

“Why are you out here, Miss Grant?”

She jerked her head around to stare at him. “I like watching the sunset, I enjoy eating strawberries—”

“No. I mean why do you live out here alone? Why not move into town? I can’t see that this is a working farm. What keeps you here?”

“Memories. We were happy here. I guess I feel that if I left, I’d be abandoning my family.”

In the distance, he saw a white picket fence surrounding three granite headstones. “How old were you?”

“Seventeen. How old were you when you went to prison?”

“Twenty-one.”

“That sounds so young.”

“Not as young as seventeen.”

She dug another strawberry into the sugar. “You mentioned a brother …”

He nodded. “Houston.”

Her eyes widened as she bit into the strawberry. She laughed as the red juice dribbled down her chin. He clenched his hands to stop his fingers from gathering the juice and carrying it back to her lips, or better yet to his own. She wiped her face with her apron. “Another town?”

“Yep. My parents lived there for a while.”

“Have you been to Houston?”

“Nah, they lived there before I was born.”

She sighed wistfully and gazed toward the trees. “I used to dream of traveling the world and looking at the stars from different cities.” She shifted her gaze to him. “Do you think the stars look different on the other side of the world?”

“I don’t know. Never thought about it. Never dreamed that big.”

“What did you dream of?”

Marrying Becky. Raising a family. But before that …

a distant memory flickered at the back of his mind of standing at the edge of a gorge, yelling out his dream …

and listening as the echo carried it back to him.

Then the memory died like a flame snuffed out because there wasn’t enough air to keep it burning. “I don’t recall.”

“My father used to tell me that I had to put my heart into my dream if I wanted it to come true. How do you put your heart into something?”

Austin hadn’t a clue. He’d watched his brothers pour their hearts into the women they loved, thought he’d done the same with Becky, but if he had, she would have waited for him.

He was convinced of that. Whatever their love had been, it hadn’t been strong enough to endure separation, and he couldn’t help but wonder what else it might not have endured.

The dog came charging back from the edge of twilight, dropped low to the ground, and growled, baring his teeth. Worry etched over her face, Loree rose to her knees. “Digger, what is it?”

The dog barked and bounded back for the trees, disappearing in the brush. A high-pitched shriek rented the air.

“Bobcat!” Loree cried as she jumped to her feet. “Digger!”

The dog barked and the ear-splitting feline cry came again, followed by a yelp echoing pain.

“No!” Loree yelled as she began running toward the trees.

Austin surged to his feet, ran after her, and grabbed her arm, halting her frantic race to the trees. “Where’s my rifle?”

“In the corner of the front room, by the hearth.”

“Come with me while I get it.”

She shook her head vigorously. “I’ll wait here but hurry.”

He didn’t trust her to stay, but he heard the dog’s wounded cry, the cat’s victorious screech, and knew he had no time to argue.

With his heart thundering, he raced inside the house.

He grabbed his rifle, loaded it, and shoved a handful of bullets into his pocket.

Then he tore back outside, rounded the corner, and staggered to a stop in the clearing.

The woman was gone!

“Loree!” Fear for her edged any rational thoughts aside. He stalked toward the trees where the dog had disappeared. “Loree!”

He no longer heard the thrashing of battle. An eerie silence settled over the woods. He tread carefully between the trees, his heart hammering. When he found the woman he planned to shake her every way but loose for scaring the holy hell out of him. How dare she risk her life for a stupid dog.

He found her kneeling between two mighty oak trees, rocking back and forth, silent tears streaming down her cheeks, her arms wrapped around her dog. Austin knelt beside her. “Loree?”

She opened her eyes, the golden depths revealing her ravaged grief. “He was all I had left,” she whispered hoarsely. “He was just a dog, but I loved him.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “You take the rifle and I’ll carry him to the house.”

“Let me hold him for just a minute … while he’s still warm.”

She buried her face in Digger’s thick fur. Austin scanned the trees, his ears alert. He didn’t like the thought of Loree living out here alone with wild animals. The deer he didn’t mind, but a bobcat was another story.

Gently, he touched Loree’s shoulder. “We need to get back before it’s too dark.”

She lifted her head, sniffed, and nodded. Blood had stained the front of her dress and panic surged through him. “You’re hurt.”

She glanced down before lifting a vacant gaze to his. “No, it’s Digger’s blood. The cat was gone by the time I got here.”

“You should have stayed by the house like I told you.”

“I was worried about Digger. He never backs—backed—away from a fight.”

“Christ, your mother was right. You put a dog before yourself—”

“I’d put anyone, anything I loved before myself. I don’t see that as a fault.”

He didn’t mean to sound harsh, didn’t want to lecture her, but the thought that she might have been the cat’s next victim had him shaking clear down to his boots. “Take the rifle.”