Page 94 of Texas Hold Em'
“But they were worth you risking your life?”
“Don’t test me, woman.”
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” I bit back. “How is it any different when I want to take matters into my own hands compared to when you do? I’m a Ranger, not a damsel. I knew what the risks were. And I know how to handle myself. I couldn’t sit back at the house twiddling my thumbs pretending there wasn’t something better I could be doing with my time. If not for me, the cops would have been on you guys back at the landfill and you’d all be dead.” I folded my arms and glared expectantly at him. What could he say to that?
“We would have figured something out. We always do.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh please. Just admit it. I helped.”
He glared hotly at me. “It didn’t feel like help when you rode off without me.”
I shrugged. “What did you want me to do? Bates was getting away. I knew I stood a chance of stopping him, so I went for it.”
“You’re a selfish woman.”
“Selfish?” I asked incredulously. “I was doing it to saveyourass. Forgive me for not wanting to follow orders. I was going crazy back at the house. I felt so powerless.”
“And I felt powerless watching you drive off!” He got in my face, and I glared hotly up at him. His eyes flicked back and forth between mine and I felt anger rolling off him in waves. “What do you expect from me, Carrie?”
“I expect you to trust me to handle myself.”
“I do trust you,” he said, his voice rising, “but I don’t trust anyone else. And how can I protect the woman I love when she’s riding away from me?”
His words hit me right in the chest. The anger in me immediately softened. “Did you just say ‘love’?” I whispered.
CHAPTER 39
JAMESON
“Yes,” I breathed. “I love you, Carrie.”
She looked at me like she never had before, and I forgot about the pain in my ribs and my side. I forgot about my headache and my worry for Jackson. In this moment, the only thing that existed was her.
I took her hands in mine. “Even though you make me fucking crazy, out of control, and like no matter what I do it will never be enough because I could never truly protect a woman like you, I do. I love you. I love how batshit you are. How your mind works. How you taste. How you aren’t afraid of anyone or anything. How scared you make me…” I trailed off. I couldn’t put the rest of it into words.
Carrie had changed me. She’d changed everything.
She smiled up at me. “You don’t have to protect me.”
“Yes I do.”
Carrie shook her head. “No. You don’t. But I love that you try. And I love you, too.”
There it was. Those three little words.
I hadn’t expected her to say them back, but there they were, invisible in the air between us.
Carrie stretched to the tips of her toes and kissed me. She wrappedher arms around the back of my neck and held herself to me as I held her close and lifted her off the ground. My ribs protested, but I didn’t care.
After everything that had happened, this moment belonged to us.
When I set her down, I noticed she was soaking wet. “You’re filthy.”
She pointed down the road to her bike in the ditch. “I sort of wiped out in the ditch.”
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. “Just wet and kind of smelly. Are you hurt?”
