The Borrowed Ring

“I can't help it, a little,” she murmured. “I admire what you do—no matter what reasons you claim might motivate you. I appreciate how good you've been to your aunt. And I'm impressed by the way you've gotten to where you are pretty much on your own.”

He started to speak, but she didn't give him a chance.

“That doesn't mean I think you're perfect,” she told him firmly. “You can still be a jerk sometimes. Bossy and arrogant. Leaving me that way at the resort was really rotten of you. So was letting me wonder for so long whether you were as bad as Drake. Making decisions for me based on your assumption that I'm too dumb to make them for myself. That really makes me mad.”

“I never said you were dumb.” He was beginning to sound defensive now.

“And I don't like the way you refuse to talk to me about what you're thinking and feeling, leaving me to try to guess and risk making a fool of myself. I don't like it when you—”

“So your point is?” he interrupted.

“My point is, I know exactly who you are. The man. The cop. The jerk.”

“Would you quit calling me that?”

Her mouth twitched. “Starting to bug you?”

She was immeasurably relieved to see what might have been a mere hint of answering humor in his dark eyes. “Yeah.”

“So maybe I can be a little jerky sometimes myself.”

“Maybe so.” Growing somber again, he looked down. “I want you to know that I'm not brushing off your feelings. You have to know you're very special to me, too. But—”

“But?” she prodded when he fell silent.

“You deserve better,” he said in a rush. “You deserve someone who knows how to build a real home. A real family. Someone who isn't prone to dragging you into danger.”

“Daniel—”

This time he was the one determined to have his say. “I haven't lived in the same place for more than a few months since I left my aunt's house when I was eighteen. I've never had what you would call a serious relationship. I change my identity so often, I don't even know who I am half the time. I could just as easily have been using a fake name as my own when you found me in Missouri. I've been answering to Jonas Lopez for the past three weeks.”

She lifted her right hand to his beard-shadowed face. “I know.”

“Don't look at me like that,” he said roughly.

“I'm sorry. I don't seem to have any control over the way I look at you.”

“You aren't listening to a word I say, are you?”

“I'm listening to every word you say,” she countered quietly. “And it breaks my heart that you think so little of yourself.”

He started to rebut that, but she slid her hand from his cheek to cover his mouth. “We've never really talked about that day beside the pond years ago. Maybe we should talk about it now.”

It didn't surprise her that he was shaking his head even before she finished the sentence.

“You told me that day that you blamed yourself for not protecting your mother,” she continued quickly, before he could turn away. “You thought you should have been able to somehow prevent what happened to her. You said you were afraid to care about anyone else because you were afraid something bad would happen to them.”

His face was hot, his eyes haunted as she recounted that conversation he must have found so painful then. So mortifying now. “I was a kid and still hurting over finding her. I said things to you that I hadn't been able to say to anyone else.”

“I know. And I'm really not confusing you again with that troubled boy, Daniel. But I want to make sure you aren't confusing the past and present either. That you aren't still afraid to take the risk of loving anyone because of that misguided guilt over your mother's death. You worry about your aunt being associated with you and hardly ever visit her. As for me—I don't need to be protected. Nothing is going to happen to me for loving you.”

“How can you say that after everything that has happened to you because of me?” he said through clenched teeth, catching her right hand and holding it so tightly she almost winced. He turned her hand palm down to reveal her reddened knuckles. “What about this?”

Glancing down at the bruised skin, she wrinkled her nose. “My fault. I knew better than to punch with my knuckles.”

“It wasn't your fault. Nothing has been your fault. It's all been because of me.”

“I h