Lissa- Sugar and Spice (The Wilde Sisters 3)

“This isn’t the same thing.”

“It’s absolutely the same thing! You came here to hide from life, but it won’t bring back those soldiers. All it’s done is hurt you and those who care for you. The people in Clarke’s Falls who’ve known your identity all along and choose to protect you by pretending they didn’t. The men who work for you—they know you’re Nick Gentry, too, but they’ve given you space to heal.” Lissa paused. “And me,” she said softly. “Each time I saw the darkness in your eyes I wanted to take you in my arms and beg you to tell me what was wrong, I wanted to tell you everything would be all right, but I knew you’d push me away and—”

A deep, anguished howl broke from his throat. Lissa wrapped her arms around her lover; he wrapped his around her.

“I feel so damned guilty,” he said brokenly, “knowing that I lived, that they didn’t…”

“If you had died that day,” she said, her voice trembling, “how would it have made things better? Four dead instead of three?” She drew back a little, just enough so she could look into his eyes. “You lived. And now you have a choice. You can honor those men by living your life for them as well as for yourself. You have to return to the world, Nicholas. You have to do the work that made millions of people happy, that made those guys happy! If you owe those men anything, you owe them that.”

Tears rolled down her face, glittered in his eyes. They were both silent for a long time. Then Nick drew her hard against him and buried his face in her hair.

“This is the first time I’ve talked about it,” he said. “I couldn’t. Not with the surgeon, not with the shrinks, not with the physiotherapists.”

“You can talk to me about anything,” Lissa said. “Anything!”

“The truth is—the truth is, I miss working.”

“I miss you working, too.”

Nick looked into her eyes, the start of a smile on his lips. “Meaning, you’re tired of having me around?”

“Meaning,” she said, returning that smile with one of her own, “you haven’t had a film out in almost two years.”

“And you know this because…”

She gave a little laugh. “I know it because I’ve seen every movie you ever made.”

Her nose was leaking; Nick drew a handkerchief from his pocket.

“Blow,” he said gently, holding the square of pristine white linen to her nose. She did, and he cocked his head. “Every movie? But you told me—”

“I know what I told you. I lied. I’ve seen them all and I loved them all.” She laughed again. “You are the toughest, tenderest, sexiest cowboy on the silver screen, Gentry.”

“I don’t want to boast, but I’ve also been the toughest, tenderest, sexiest CIA agent and NSA spy and once, the toughest, tenderest, sexiest talking-head-TV-reporter on the silver screen, Wilde—assuming there is such a word as tenderest.”

“If there isn’t, there should be. You are one hell of an actor, Nick Gentry.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Nick said softly. “But here’s a fact.” He framed her face with his hands. “Melissa Wilde, you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

He kissed her, and she sighed, rose on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck.

* * *

He’d said they’d have twenty-four hours before word of his reappearance hit the news.

Wrong.

Normally, the ranch crew was just finishing breakfast when Lissa came down in the mornings. She might see one of them, perhaps two, but that next morning, all the men were waiting for her and all of them looked solemn.

“What?” she said with alarm. “Ace? What’s the matter?”

“Is the boss comin’ down? Not that I’d think you’d know if he was or wasn’t, Ms. Lissa, but—”

It wasn’t a time to stand on formalities.

“He just let Brutus out,” Lissa said. “Please. What’s wrong?”

“We thought you both should know, ma’am…”