And she couldn’t do this. She wasn’t that girl anymore. He’d killed her.
“You broke my heart, Rafe.”
Chapter 6
Rafe might have killed the girl she’d been, but she wasn’t a girl anymore. She was a grown woman with a life that satisfied her. She could risk her life saving others because she didn’t have anyone who was counting on her, anyone who’d be devastated, if she was killed.
Not that there was usually all that much danger in Mustang Valley. Lately, though... First with the murder of a bodyguard hired to protect the president of Robertson Renewable Energy Corporation, Bowie Robertson. Then attempts made on the lives of Bowie and Rafe’s sister Marlowe, and then Payne Colton’s shooting, and now a ranger killed and someone shooting at her and Rafe...
“How come you never married?” Kerry plopped down to one of the six chairs tucked into her dining room table—an antique she’d restored. After everything that had happened in the past few hours, she needed a moment to regroup. To be the woman she was, not the young girl she’d once been.
She needed to see Rafe Colton as the man he was now, not the boy he’d been.
He sat, too, leaving a chair between them. “Never found a woman I wanted to live with for the rest of my life. How about you?”
She’d brought that on, she supposed. Don’t ask if you don’t want to be asked. Being a detective, one who spent her days asking questions of others with it understood that her own thoughts didn’t come to play in the interaction, she’d maybe become a little rusty at the personal stuff.
“I’m not all that fond of men,” she said. “I just don’t believe they’re wired to be what I need in a relationship.”
She saw the verbal bullet hit him. Hurt for him. And couldn’t lie about what his choices had done to her. Not just his, of course. Her father—he’d tried his best but most definitely had not been a man she could rely on, other than to be able to trust that if he wasn’t drunk, he would be soon.
And Tyler—he’d fallen down that same rabbit hole.
“Then you haven’t known the right men,” Rafe finally said.
She shrugged. Maybe.
“There are a lot of happily married women in the world. And men who’ve risked everything for their families. For their country. For...”
Holding up a hand, Kerry smiled. “I get it,” she said. “I actually work with several of them.”
And at home, she had trust issues.
“I’ve found that my life is happier, I’m more at peace inside, when I have no expectations where men are concerned,” she said, giving him more than she’d ever admitted aloud.
Because he was Rafe?
She hoped not. She wanted to believe that she was just a bit more open—a smidge vulnerable—because they’d just been shot at and she had a cop stationed outside her door.
“What about kids?” His question hit a very sore spot.
“I always wanted them.” She was only confirming what he already knew. She wanted four so that they’d always have each other, but no more than that, so there would be at least one parental hand per kid at all times. At thirteen, the theory had sounded valid.
Fooling with a corner of the folder in front of her, a compilation of information about the women her brother had hooked up with over the years, she said, “Now... I’m thirty-six. I’d have to meet a guy, fall in love and get pregnant in pretty quick order...”
She’d been feeling the pressure since her thirtieth birthday. The idea that time was running out. More now, she was starting to settle for a new reality. One where she didn’t have kids of her own. But she had a career she truly loved. Friends she truly loved. A town filled with people who looked out for her. A home that welcomed her every time she walked in the door.
“I’m just so damned sorry, Kerry.”
Rafe’s words hit too deep. She shook her head. “Don’t be,” she said. “I made my choices just like you made yours.” And one of them had been not to settle for less than she’d felt for Rafe. She’d rather live alone than be with a man she always felt was second-best.
“I guess I should get going.” He stood up. She walked with him toward her front door.
“I don’t like the idea of you driving back out to the ranch,” she said, suddenly not complacent, or content, at all. “Whoever shot at us likely knows who you are. He could know that your truck was parked out in front of my house. Might be waiting for you to be alone.”
“I’m not running scared,” he told her. “And I’m not stupid, either. I can tell if I’m being followed. I have a rifle in the truck. And I’m an excellent shot.”
He’d been a decent shot when she’d known him. She’d been better. They’d target practiced with BB guns a lot. She concentrated on the target. He’d always been looking at her.