Page 86 of Prohibited

A strange melancholy rippled through him as he drew her against him and tilted her face back so he could look into it while he caressed her cheek.

“Why not?” he whispered.

She looked away. “I was pregnant once. After–” She cleared her throat. “It was my fiance’s child. Etian. He died in France.”

“You loved him,” he said without envy.

“Yes,” she said. Her shoulders sagged slightly. “Well, we– We thought we would marry. So we were careless.”

“You lost the child.” Ryan placed his knuckle under her chin and raised her face so that he could watch her expression closely.

“Yes,” she said, matter of factly, but he didn’t miss the pain that flickered in her expression. “In France. It was the shock of the war. The shock of Etian’s death. It almost killed me. The doctor had to take– take her from my body. He told me I would never be pregnant again.”

Though she tried so hard to look brave, she could not stop the single tear that startled to roll slowly down her cheek. Ryan crushed her against him suddenly, and gritted his teeth against the sorrow he felt for her. He tried to resist, tried to remember what it felt like to ignore his empathy for her. It was too big, too much. The unbearable weight of loss was on him again. Tommy. His mother. Hisgrandfather. Despair at the inevitability of it. He breathed deeply and she gripped him just as tightly.

“What about your husband?” he asked her in a voice that he managed to keep steady. The curiosity had been gnawing at him all this time.

“What about him?” she said with a touch of disgust.

“You threw your ring,” he said. “You took up with Walter Stanley.”

“I should have never married Linus,” she said with a sigh. “It was a mistake. Losing Etian, the baby– It was a… reaction.” She said the last word bitterly.

“And Walter Stanley?” he said, not bothering to keep the hatred out of his voice.

She shrugged and laughed humorlessly. “Another reaction. To Linus. To being forced to come back to Tulsa.” She glanced up at him, a touch of a real smile on her face. “He reminded me of you. At first. That’s why I–”

Of all the things she could have said to him, that was not something he would have expected. It didn’t make him happy.

“I mean, there’s something about you physically,” she said quickly, obviously registering his displeasure. “I didn’t mean– You’re very different people, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he said shortly. But he caressed her hair and pressed his lips to her forehead to show her that he’d forgiven her for drawing such a comparison.

After a moment, she said, “It wasn’t a reaction. It was a mistake.”

Ryan pressed her face against his shoulder. “We’re going to kill him. Tomorrow.”

Her head snapped up and a jumbled look of fear and relief clouded her face. They stared at each for a long moment while he waited for her to say something. Anything.

And after a moment she finally said, “Good.” She swallowed. “Just be careful.”

He huffed a dark laugh. “Darlin’,” he said, running his thumb over her bottom lip again. “He’s the one who should be careful.”

“It’s just that–” She paused, hesitating. “He has a lot of people on his side. In the police force. In society.”

“To his own detriment,” Ryan said with a smile that wasn’t nice at all. “One of his own guys is ratting him out to us.”

“Who?” she said, drawing her eyebrows together.

“Don’t worry yourself,” he said, leaning in to kiss her again.

“How do you know it’s not a trap?” she said, leaning back from him, face serious.

“One of our people set it up,” Ryan said. “We trust her.”

Evelyn bit her lip but didn’t look convinced. “You of all people should know that he excels at ambush.”

“Not this time, Evelyn,” Ryan murmured against her lips. “Not this time.”

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