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“Dallas had always been there for me—so strong. I began to think of him as invincible. Rawley’s father had taken a whip to Dallas’s back until it looked like raw meat.

Dee managed to get Dallas home, but he was fighting a fever.

He’d lost a lot of blood. I was terrified that he’d die …

and then who would we turn to? We knew Boyd was behind it and I planned to confront him.

But I stopped to see Becky first and we came out here. ”

He tilted her face until their gazes met. Holding his gaze was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

“I want you to understand that I was twenty-one and scared. I loved Becky as much as a twenty-one-year-old man who knows little of life can love. When she offered comfort, I gladly took it.”

She heard him swallow.

“Whores had never appealed to me … until that night, I’d never …” His voice trailed off.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“I’d never been with a woman until that night—not in that way. And I never touched another woman until you.”

He released his hold on her and reached for his violin. “Listen to this,” he ordered. He began to play a soothing melody, over and over. “That’s Becky’s song.”

She licked her lips. “It was lovely.”

“But it never changes. It stays the same. It doesn’t grow. It doesn’t deepen. It doesn’t challenge. It never did.” He placed his violin on his shoulder. “I want you to hear the song I played for Mr. Cowan, the song he couldn’t forget.”

She drew her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees.

The music began softly, gently, and she imagined a child discovering the wonders of a dandelion, blowing the petals, and watching them float upon the breeze.

As smoothly as the dawn pushed back the night, the song grew deeper, stronger.

The chords echoed around them, thundering against the falls, filling the night until chills swept through her and her heart felt immense gladness.

The song rang of destiny and glory and splendor.

She marveled that the melody came from within the man she loved, and she knew that she would forever remember it even as the final chords vibrated into silence.

She knew no words worthy of his efforts, no praise adequate enough for what he had just shared with her, so she said inanely, “That was beautiful.”

“I call it ‘My Loree.’ That’s what I hear in my heart when I look at you, when I hold you, when I love you.

” He set the violin aside and scooted up until they were connected hip to hip.

He framed her face with his hands. “Becky was a part of my youth and I’ll always love her—just as I’ll always love my mother.

That doesn’t mean that I love you any less.

She was the first woman I ever made love to, and that memory will never leave me.

But everything about her pales in comparison to all that I hold dear regarding you.

I loved her as much as a boy can love.” He trailed his thumb along her cheek. “I love you as much as a man can love.”

He settled his mouth over hers with a tenderness that mirrored his words. He removed her clothes in the same manner that dawn removed the darkness, calmly, quietly, with reverence and tranquillity. Then he tore off his own clothes and gently eased her down to the quilt.

The night air carried a hint of spring, and she knew she should feel cold, but all she felt was the glorious warmth of his body covering hers. She touched her fingers to the old scar on his shoulder. “You never told me who shot you.”

He pressed a kiss to the puckered flesh on her shoulder. “The same man who shot you.”

“He was so intricately woven through our lives—”

“Through our pasts, Loree. He’ll never touch us again.”

She was weary of the past having a tight hold on her present. She wanted a future rich with the love this man could give her. “Love me, Austin.”

He gave her a warm lazy smile. “Oh, I do, Sugar. With all my heart.”

He lowered his mouth to hers, and their tongues waltzed to the music created by their hearts. She threaded her fingers through his thick hair, holding him near. He nipped at her chin, before trailing his mouth along the column of her throat.

“So sweet,” he rasped.

And she felt sweet. For the first time in over five years, she truly felt sweet and untainted by the past. He knew her ugly secrets, her foolish mistakes, accepted them and loved her in spite of them.

For both of them, she knew the innocence was forever lost, but together they could regain the laughter, the joy, and the promise of tomorrow.

And the music. Although he wasn’t playing his violin, she almost imagined that she heard the chords thrumming through her heart as he brushed his lips over the curve of her breast. His tongue swirled around her nipple, taunting, teasing.

She rubbed her hands along the corded muscles of his shoulders, shoulders that had tried to carry her burden.

“Hear the music, Loree,” he whispered before returning his mouth to hers, hot and devouring, his fingers stroking, bringing to the surface the symphony housed within her soul.

Then he eased his body into hers and the crescendo reached new heights, thundering around her, with the force of his love.

Each thrust carried her higher, farther, until she reached the tallest pinnacle.

As he rose above her, she held his startling blue gaze and felt the heat of the hottest flames as he carried her over the edge into fulfillment.

Her body arched as his did, both quivering like the taut strings of a violin, masterfully played. With his final thrust, he cried out her name.

It echoed over the falls and through her heart in such a way that even when it fell into silence … it remained.