Salvation in the Sheriff's Kiss(32)

Every nerve in his body read him the riot act, but he ignored each one. He ignored everything save for the warmth spreading through him. Despite the layers of fancy fabric, he could feel the length of her pressing into him. She still clutched the cloth bag, her arms curled between their bodies. The wooden edges of the chess pieces dug into him, but he didn’t care. Nothing had ever felt this right, this good. How had he ever let her go?

Abbott had been adamant he send her away, but what if there had been another way to keep her safe? How many nights since she’d left had he tormented himself with that question? Especially after what they had done. He’d never known being with a woman could be like that. It was as if someone had set off fireworks throughout his body, waking him up fully for the first time in his life. The memory of what they’d shared that one night above the jailhouse when they’d given in to their passion still had the power to rock him to his core. To give it up, to let it go...it had almost killed him.

“I’m sorry, Mere,” he whispered, his lips brushing the hair at her temple. The words were woefully inadequate, falling short of ever making up for what she had suffered at the hands of others.

At his hands.

He breathed her in one last time and then released her. He’d given up his right to hold her when he’d broken her heart and destroyed any tender feelings that had grown between them.

“I’ll take you back to town,” he said.

She nodded and pulled away. Her absence left a gaping hole inside of him and the loneliness he’d nurtured since she’d left for Boston rushed back in to fill the space.





Chapter Eight

Meredith glanced over her shoulder to the back of the wagon where Hunter tied his horse’s reins, his head bent to the task. The brim of his hat shielded his face as he looped the leather straps through a metal rung on the back of the wagon. She couldn’t help but wonder what might have been had he truly loved her as she once thought. Would they be here now as husband and wife? Would children fill the empty house and laughter replace the quiet loneliness that had sunk into its walls?

Those were the thoughts that had sustained her through Pa’s trial. In her darkest moments, she’d held her dreams of a future with Hunter tight and wrapped herself in them like a protective cloak. She had thought Hunter shared the same dreams. He’d seemed so earnest, been so loving. She’d had no inkling he’d only been toying with her affections to get what he wanted.

And yet...

And yet here he was now, being so kind again, acting the man she’d once believed him to be, and Heaven help her, she was glad he’d happened upon her today. She knew she shouldn’t rely on him in such a way. She’d done that once and it was a road littered with regret. He’d made it clear to her then, he didn’t want a life with her. What he’d wanted, he’d already taken.

No. That wasn’t entirely true. If she was being honest, anything he’d taken she had freely given. One thing Pa had always taught her was to take responsibility for her own actions.

Your actions belong to you. You need to own up to them. Good or bad, right or wrong. It’s just the right thing to do.

Her father had never balked or glossed over the things he’d done in his past. But he’d turned his life around when he met Mama. He’d admitted to her once that when you found that kind of love, you did whatever you had to in order to hang on to it and never let it go.

Meredith had found that kind of love once, and she’d taken Pa’s advice, but it turned out Hunter didn’t share her feelings. She’d discovered the hard way you couldn’t always hold on to something if it didn’t want to hold you back—a lesson easily forgotten when Hunter had taken her in his arms.

It hadn’t always been that way. During the worst of it, when her father’s sentence was passed and there was no recourse left, being held in Hunter’s arms had made it a little less overwhelming. A little less scary. It had felt the most natural thing in the world to seek comfort in the most basic of ways. He was her forever. The marriage vows had already been spoken by their hearts, the actual ceremony a formality. She had truly believed that. She could lean on him and know he would always be there for her.

Until the day when he wasn’t. Until the day when she woke from one nightmare only to realize another had begun.

Even so, she hadn’t regretted what they had shared. She had gone into it with her heart wide-open. She only wished her eyes had been open, as well. Maybe then she would have seen a hint of what was to come. She’d been quick to believe he loved her, never once doubting the strength of his feelings. She had never considered their different circumstances, never thought he would place his family name and his father’s expectations over what they had shared. She thought she knew him better than that, but she hadn’t.