Page 33 of Rawhide and Ransom

“Like what?” He kept his voice as soft as hers.

“Like you want to…you know...”

“Kiss you?” He adored the way her fair skin grew pink all over again beneath the sprinkling of freckles on her nose.

“I still can’t…yet.”

The wordyetthat she’d added hesitantly at the end buoyed his hopes. “Like I said, I’m a patient man.” Some things weren’t meant to be rushed.

“It’s not that I couldn’t go through the motions for you.” Her voice sounded strained. “But you deserve more than that, Hawk. You deserve a woman in your life whose heart is whole. Whose thoughts and feelings, hopes and dreams are focused on you and you alone. Not divided between you and the past. You and my memories of someone else.”

As tough of a topic as it was, Hawk liked the fact that they were talking about it so openly and honestly. If she feared such transparency would discourage him, she couldn’t have been more wrong. Yeah, she’d just admitted that her late husband was still nestled inside her heart, but she’d also just admitted that the man standing in front of her was beginning to wiggle his way inside that same space. He had no problem sharing her heart and memories with a good man. A man who’d loved her and Miley the way they deserved to be loved. A man who’d provided for them and protected them the way a husband and father should.

Hawk’s only problem with Chayton Dakota was the way his life had been unfairly cut short. He was convinced the man had been unjustly and cruelly torn from his wife and daughter. What Chayton Dakota deserved was justice beyond the grave, and Hawk planned to do everything in his power to get it for him — for Annalee and Miley’s sake.

He studied the war of emotions in Annalee’s eyes. “Boaz wouldn’t have run from the grief you’re grappling with, and neither will I.”

“Wh-what?” The question wrenched out of her.

From the corner of his eye, he saw the butterflies she’d been holding earlier fluttering her way again. Instead of answering her question, he ever-so-slowly extended his arm in their direction. One of the bigger ones flapped its wings closer, hovering over his wrist. Then it darted off.

He dropped his arm in disappointment.

Annalee’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “How did you do that?”

He snorted. “I didn’t succeed. You watched me fail.”

“But youalmostsucceeded.” She sounded amazed. “It took me a lot longer than that. It also took rubbing honeysuckle all over my arms,” she confided with a chuckle.

“Is that your secret?” It was rather genius, come to think of it.

She nodded. “Chayton taught me that.” She smiled to herself, adopting a distant look as she did the backstroke through a welcome pool of memories. “He taught me so much, Hawk. Like Running Bear, he loved the land, and he was closer to it than most people.” She made a rueful face at him. “Sorry. Sometimes I get caught up in my?—”

“Tell me more,” he said quickly. He didn’t want her apologies. He wanted her to feel free to tell him anything and everything that was in her heart. He wanted her to feel safe enough to share her innermost thoughts. The good ones. The bad ones. The uncertain ones. Learning more about Chayton Dakota’s life would aid the investigation into his death. Not to mention spilling her heart in the middle of the gardens she loved would be a lot easier than sitting through an interrogation in Johnny’s office at Lonestar Security.

To Hawk’s dismay, his suggestion made Annalee’s eyes grow damp. “It’s hard talking about him,” she confessed thickly.

He hadn’t meant to upset her. “Then don’t.” The last thing he wanted was to cause her more pain.

“It hurts.” Her voice trembled. “It also terrifies me.”

His eyebrows rose. “To talk about him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Curiosity burned in him. Whoever had made her afraid was going to pay to the full extent of the law. He and his friends in security and law enforcement would see to it.

“I don’t know. Maybe because the answers we seek are stuck in my head somewhere.” She pressed her fingers lightly against her temples. “Answers to all the things that still don’t make sense. Like why a perfectly healthy husband and father could just stop breathing and be gone in an instant.” She snapped her fingers. “He took Gilbert Farm to new levels with his no-pesticides growing policy and non-GMO fertilizers. He loved every row of corn and beans. He nurtured every plant.” She smiled sadly to herself. “I teased him mercilessly about how in tune he was with animals and nature, even calling him a Disney Princess.”

Her voice grew choked with tears as all the things she’d kept bottled inside her for months came pouring out.

Hawk was content to listen to the storm surge, knowing she would feel better afterward.

She dabbed the corners of her eyes. “He couldn’t eat a peach without tossing the pit into a cup of water afterward.” She shook her head in bemusement at the memory. “The next thing I knew, it was sprouting on the windowsill and ready to transplant. And each time I kept a potato too long in the pantry, he’d jam a few toothpicks in the side of it, balance it over a bowl of water, and watch the roots go bananas!”

Hawk enjoyed the way she came alive as she relived some of the happiest moments of her marriage. “You weren’t kidding when you said you learned a lot from him.”

“I did.” She nodded vigorously. “My adoptive parents taught me how to plant, prune, and mulch; but he showed me which flowers would bring butterflies and which ones would bring hummingbirds. He taught me which plants would settle the stomach and which ones would heal a burn. Because of him, I know how to smell when the next rainstorm is on its way before the first cloud shows up. He was a man of few words, but he was completely in tune with the beauty that surrounds us and with his Maker.” She seemed to wilt. “Which is why his passing felt all the more sudden. And wrong.”

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