“The Cowboy Code?” she asked, smiling.
Jaron nodded. “Hank Calvert had his own set of rules to live by and they’re damned good ones.”
“Bria told me that Sam and the rest of your brothers feel the same way,” Mariah commented as she opened the box and surveyed the contents.
“We wouldn’t be the men we are today if not for Hank,” he admitted. “Among other things, he taught us what it meant to have integrity and be respectful of others.”
She nodded as she picked out a couple of pairs of high heels. “I never got to meet Hank. When Bria started having family dinners, I was away at college, and by the time I graduated, he had passed away.”
“He was one of the best men I’ve ever had the privilege to know,” Jaron said, meaning every word of it. “He made everyone around him want to be a better person.”
“From everything I’ve heard about him, he must have been a wonderful man,” she agreed, bending over to pluck more shoes out of the box.
As he stood there staring at her pairing up shoes, he completely forgot what they had been talking about. Swallowing hard, Jaron did his best to concentrate on anything but the woman next to him. The light scent of her herbal shampoo, the sound of her soft voice and the enticing sight of her shapely bottom when she bent over to take more shoes from the box were sending him into sensory overload and playing hell with his intention to forget the most incredible night of his life.
When the region south of his belt buckle began to tighten, he decided a hasty departure would be in both of their best interests and, carrying the last box into the closet for her, he turned toward the hall. “I’ll let you get the rest of your things put away. If you need me for anything, I’ll be downstairs.”
Before she had the chance to tempt him further, Jaron went down to his office, walked around the desk and plopped down in his desk chair. What the hell had he gotten himself into?
He couldn’t be in the same room with Mariah for more than five minutes without burning to hold her, kiss her and a whole lot more. But he refused to allow that to happen again, even if he did end up in a constant state of arousal for as long as she resided at the ranch.
As he sat there shoring up his resolve, his gaze landed on the only thing he had kept from his life before being sent to the Last Chance Ranch—the reason he couldn’t allow himself to get involved with Mariah. Encased in a small acrylic cube, the creased and tattered Dallas bus pass represented his escape and freedom from years of physical abuse at the hands of a man who never should have been allowed to procreate.
Reminded of his dismal childhood, Jaron took a deep breath. He had been afraid that no one would believe a thirteen-year-old kid when he’d told them that his old man had killed his mother. But he had skipped school that day anyway and used his lunch money to buy a bus pass to police headquarters downtown. At first, he’d been right—no one had taken his claims seriously. Even the rookie patrolman assigned to take his statement had treated him like a child with nothing more than a grudge against his father.
But when Jaron had shown the officer the scars on his back and told the man that Simon Collier had threatened to kill him and dispose of his body the way he had done with his mother, they’d immediately started paying more attention to what he had to say. A caseworker from Family and Protective Services had immediately been called, a photographer had taken pictures to document the ugly evidence of the abuse marring his skin and a warrant for aggravated battery of a child had been issued for his father’s arrest.
Jaron had been upset that they were focused on apprehending his father on charges of child abuse rather than the murder of his mother. But he needn’t have worried. True to form, old Simon had allowed his temper to get away from him when he’d seen that Jaron had been the one who’d turned him in to the law. During his tirade, he’d shouted that he should have done away with him at the same time he killed Jaron’s mother. Unfortunately, during the ensuing investigation and trial, DNA evidence had linked his father to at least four more homicides of women with the probability that there were several more. But DNA analysis hadn’t been as developed back then and what evidence they’d collected for some of the other murders had either been destroyed or contaminated.
But his dad had been convicted for the murder of Jaron’s mother, and the only other good that had come out of the trial was the judge had allowed Jaron to legally have his last name changed to his mother’s maiden name.