Page 40 of His Virgin Vessel

"My dad is a sheriff, and a pretty tough guy." I didn’t know why I said it. It was like I was trying to convince him to send me back home, which was the last thing I wanted. But, actually, the last thing I wanted was him to be in danger, especially because of me. On his own, he could run far and fast. Dragging me along behind him, he would always be handicapped, and I knew that he would put my life above his own every time.

"I don't want your dad to be in danger because of me either."

I grinned. "Big, bad Asa Covert wants to protect Sheriff Brian Dugas? Don't let the rest of War Cry find out."

"I don't want anyone to get hurt on my account," Asa retorted, a little petulantly.

"Because you're a good person."

"I told you already ..."

"Here's the thing," I interrupted him. "You've told me time and again that I'm a good girl and no amount of pretending will make me a bad girl, because it's who I am, it's in my bones. I think the same is true of you."

Asa snorted derisively. "If you knew some of the stuff I've done ..."

"Killed anyone?"

Asa looked annoyed. "Well, maybe not actually killed ..."

"Mugged anyone?"

"Not as such."

"Raped anyone?"

"Of course not! What do you think I am?!"

I smiled. "I think you're a good guy. I think that there was a time when you were young when, because of your horrible home situation, it became safer for you to become a bad guy. You play the part better than me, for sure, but then you've been doing it for longer. Maybe you've been doing it for so long that you've even convinced yourself that it's what you actually are. But in the end, what you said to me is true—you can pretend all you like, but you can't change who you really are. And, for my money, you're a good guy."

Asa looked at me for a long beat before speaking. "You're crazy."

"That's a separate issue, and it doesn't make me any less right."

He shook his head and rolled his eyes, still offering no real comment on what I had said.

"We're quite the pair," I said. "Both pretending to be something we're not."

"And you're going to say we belong together?" Asa guessed.

"You said that, if things were different, if you weren't the man you are, then we should be together."

"I said that?"

"Something along those lines. And it turns out that you're not the man you are. So why shouldn't we be together? What's stopping us?"

"You mean apart from your father, the sheriff, a biker gang, and the Mafia?"

I laughed. "Yeah, aside from that, what's stopping us?"

Asa looked at me a long time with a little smile on his face. I wasn't sure what I expected him to say next, but it certainly wasn't what he said. "What would I have to do?"

"What?" I started up into a sitting position on the bed, looking down at him.

"Hypothetically," Asa said carefully. "What would I have to do?"

There had been a little voice in my head for a while now suggesting a course of action, but I hadn't mentioned it, because I feared how Asa might react. It was a risk, but it seemed like the only way out for him, and the only way I could keep him in my life.

"I don't think my dad has much of a case against you. Nothing that will hold up in court, I mean."

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