"Uh-huh."
"You're one tough lady."
"I'm getting tougher." Her hands curved protectively around the pup while words bubbled up in spite of acid and good sense. "I was going to attend vet school like my brother, but I met Kurt and didn't want to leave the area. We got married and started moving around so much it was difficult to enroll again. Once we settled in Charleston, Kirstie came along. I always figured after she went to kindergarten... But then..."
He turned his head along the fence to look at her in the dark. "Things fell apart."
"Pretty much."
Overhead, halogen lights flickered, sensors kicking in with nighttime. "How did you meet him?"
His question jolted her more than the lights stuttering to life. She should have expected him to continue the conversational thread that she started not just once but twice.
Subconsciously trying to scare him off? "Um, we were taking a chemistry class together at Minot State University. We'd both lived in the area all our lives, but went to different high schools."
"Does Kirstie have other relatives here, then, from her father's side?"
God, he made it easy to talk, and even though the memories hurt they just kept flowing right out of her mouth, so many stored words. "No. He was an only child of older parents, like mine. His parents are dead now, too, thank heavens, because it would have broken their hearts to see what he became."
Like it broke yours.
He didn't say the words but she could almost hear them, anyway. Certainly she could see them in his expressive eyes now crystal-clear blue in the blazing security lights that showed far too much for her to feel at all secure. Still she searched, wondering what more she would read, and found the last thing she expected...
Understanding.
Then his face smoothed back into the charmer smile, and he lifted the puppy to eye level again. "What's this fella's name?"
"Fella? You'd better brush up on your male-female anatomy lessons, pal, because that's a girl."
"Ahh. I should have guessed. Girls always are much more fun to hang around with than guys, anyway."
She rolled her eyes. "Do you always lay it on this thick?"
"Pretty much."
Honesty again. She liked that. She let herself lean back against the chain fence and enjoy the moment, sitting alone in the dark with a handsome man who thought she had a nice ass and was worth the effort to charm. She'd spent so many hours as a teenager sitting in this same yard dreaming of a man who would wine and dine her as a break from shoveling manure out of stalls.
She'd been a fool in the making even then. "I really didn't know what he was doing."
Nightmares still woke her in a cold sweat, horrific dreams where people pointed accusatory fingers at her. Kurt Haugen had been her husband, the man she'd chosen to give her body and life to, and he'd become scum. There must be something bent or twisted within her since she'd chosen him. She must have known and just turned a blind eye. Surely she knew something more even now, since he'd died without fingering all his connections.
Her only defense? She truly had been a blind idiot. "I was stupid and too trusting, but I swear to God, I didn't know," she vowed again.
"I never thought you did."
An exhale rattled from her, and she wondered why it mattered so much that he believe her, this man who would mean nothing to her, a man who would be gone in a couple of short weeks. But she needed to hear the words and hope maybe tonight she could sleep with the peaceful assurance that somebody other than her family really believed her. She didn't bother to say thank you. The words probably would have slammed to a halt against the lump clogging her throat, anyway.>"Prideful Paige told you?" Jansen shook his head. "I don't think so."
Prideful Paige. Prickly Paige. Pretty Paige. Yeah, all three made her too interesting by half. "She told me some, and I read between the lines well."
Jansen stayed silent. Waiting? A man of few words? The guy didn't give off any hints.
Except...wait. He looked like Kirstie right before she'd blasted his boots.
The guy had a weak stomach.
Bingo. Achilles heel identified, Bo launched his attack. "I take it from your green tinge you didn't enjoy that landing much."
Jansen swallowed hard without answering.