Colton's Lethal Reunion (Coltons of Mustang Valley)

What was he telling her? He just hadn’t loved her?

Okay, they’d been thirteen. He’d been pubescent. He could have wanted to check out other girls.

But why hadn’t he just said so?

Why cut her off as though she wasn’t worth anything?

Still... He hadn’t loved her?

She glanced at her computer screen. Saw the latest search results for Nan Gelman. Knew she’d cared about them earlier.

Nothing in the world made sense, or mattered, if Rafe hadn’t loved her.

She shook her head.

Or maybe it did. Maybe this was what she’d been missing. Was that it?

Just as he’d exposed the mineshaft idea, the one thing she’d missed, was he letting her in on a little personal detail, too?

Well, then... Okay. She’d process. Deal. Grieve. All the things she did when she was alone.

For a second there she feared she was going to cry. Right then. Right there. She could feel her throat tightening. The pressure building behind her eyes.

Then it was gone, replaced by red-hot anger. How dare he...?

She wanted to throw something at him. A big something. Right in the middle of that face that had haunted every fantasy, and played a part in every bit of lovemaking she’d ever known.

“He gave me an ultimatum,” he told her.

Yeah, so—that was no reason to ruin a girl’s life. To steal away her belief in her own worth.

To rip hope and dreams out of her world for a while.

Or forever. She went back and forth on that one, still staring at him. Speechless.

“If I was ever caught even in the area of the cabins, or was seen anywhere within talking distance of you, he was going to have your father fired. He knew about your dad’s drinking, said he only kept him on because of my birth dad. And, I’m sure, because your dad was a great cowboy. One of the best, from what I’ve been told. What I know is that he wasn’t kidding, Kerry. You and Tyler would have been homeless with an alcoholic father looking for work that he wouldn’t have been able to find anywhere within Colton reach.”

She kept her mouth closed. Felt everything within her drop. Just drop. Her shoulders, her muscles, her stomach. It took a second to comprehend what he’d said.

To picture the thirteen-year-old boy she’d known being told that an entire family’s future rested on his shoulders.

And thought of what he’d told her about watching her head out toward their safe place. He wouldn’t have been able to go there, even when she wasn’t there. He’d have had to walk by the cabins to get there.

All those years... She’d gone to their spot, sat. Waited. Hoped he might show up. Believing that someday he would.

So, she guessed, he hadn’t stolen the hope and dreams away right at the beginning. That had happened slowly, over time.

And for him, a young man who’d lost everything dear to him. His daddy, and then his closest friend...

He’d always told her that she was the only person in the world he fully trusted.

To have had to make that decision...

And to have done so.

He’d been a boy and had chosen like a man. Lived like a man.

The tears filled her eyes, after all, as she stared at him.