didn’t really think through it all. And then when you sent me away I went home to another beating. This
time he didn’t just use a belt.”
“Son of a bitch!” Greer spit out.
“Sean came over to see me. I didn’t want him to know, but my father had gone into town and Sean came
in anyway. He was so angry. I’ve never seen him so angry. He told me he’d never let me stay another
night in that house. He wanted to take me back to the ranch so I told him what happened and that I
couldn’t go back there.”
She closed her eyes, tears slipping silently down her cheeks as she remembered the events of that night.
“He packed me a bag and then told me he loved me, that he’d always love me and take care of me and
that we were going to Vegas to get married and that I was going to call Frank and tell him I wanted to talk
about my career.”
She turned in her seat so she could see both Taggert and Greer and they could see her. “I didn’t marry
Sean to get back at you. I didn’t do it to punish you, and I didn’t do it in some fit of childish temper. I
loved him just like I loved you. I’d always loved him. I couldn’t stay there with my father anymore, and
when you told me we couldn’t be together there was no reason for me to stay in Creed’s Pass any longer.”
“Goddamn it!” Taggert exploded, his hands pounding the steering wheel. He braked hard and pulled the
truck to the side of the road, and then he sat there, hands locked on the column, his jaw clenching and
unclenching spasmodically.
To her shock, when he finally turned to her, tears burned bright in his eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell us, Emmy? Why would you keep something like that from us? Why?”
“I didn’t want anyone to know,” she said painfully. “I didn’t want Sean to know.”
“We could have helped you. We would have taken you out of there,” Greer rasped. “We would have
never let you stay there if we’d known. Yes, he’s an uptight asshole. Everyone knows that. We knew he
made your life hell with his narrow-minded bullshit, but goddamn it, Emily, we would have never let you
stay there if we knew his abuse was physical.”
“He was my legal guardian,” she said in a shaky voice. “What could you have done? He was my father.”
“Bullshit,” Taggert swore. “I would have killed the bastard for ever touching you.”
“How many times?” Greer gritted out.
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand the question. “Whenever I displeased him,” she said dully.
Taggert turned away, his face ravaged by grief. “I’m going to kill him. So help me, I’m going to hunt him
down and kill him.”
Emily put her hand on his arm. “No, please, Taggert. He can’t hurt me anymore. Just leave it be. I
wouldn’t have told you at all, but I wanted you to understand why I married Sean. I wasn’t trying to
punish you and Greer. I loved Sean with all my heart, and I’ll never be able to forgive myself for all the
sacrifices he made. I was the reason he died, Tagg. Not you.”
The interior of the truck closed in on her. Hot and suffocating. She needed air. She needed to breathe. She
needed to get away from the horror etched into Greer’s and Taggert’s faces.
Fumbling with the door, she yanked the handle and nearly fell out in her haste to get away. Ignoring
Greer’s shout, she stumbled into the ditch, crossed it and leaned on an old wooden post that was barely
holding up the barbed wire fence.
She bent over as her stomach rolled and clenched violently. She gagged once and went to her knees,
breathing heavily through her nose to control the overwhelming nausea.
Enough. It was enough. She was so tired of pain. Tired of never feeling like she was going to live again.
Happiness seemed like a once-upon-a-time story that never made it to the end.
“Emmy, Emmy, please baby, don’t cry.”
Greer wrapped his arms around her as he knelt beside her on the hard ground.
“I just want it all to go away,” she said. “I can’t do this anymore, Greer. I can’t.”
Taggert dropped down on her other side, his hand tangling in her hair as he pulled her head to his
shoulder.
“Come home with us, Emily. It’ll be okay, I swear it. We’ll get through this. Together. We’re never
leaving you.”
She raised her head to look at him at the same time he lowered his lips. They met in a heated rush, and
she tasted tears—his or hers?
His hands moved clumsily over her cheeks until he cupped her face. He deepened the kiss, his tongue
sliding like warm velvet over hers.