“You can have that life,” he told her. “It’s right there for you to take.”“I love you,” Eve quickly countered.“Loving me hurts you, doesn’t it?” Beckett asked, looking down. “No, you don’t have to tell me. I know. I can smell it. I can smell the pain coming off of you,” he said, looking at the floor. “You had love before and a future. What does loving me get you, Eve? What does it get you?” He stood, angry with himself.“I don’t need to get anything from you. It’s the way it is. There’s no changing that.” She gripped the porch railing.Beckett stepped close to Eve and tenderly tucked a lock of hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear.“You’re saying goodbye,” she said, her eyes full of questions.“Do you know there are other little girls out there like that one? I lived with a few of them. They would sell their souls for a mother like you.”At the word mother Eve’s chin crumpled. She tried to hold back the tears, but they wouldn’t obey.“See that? It’s what you need. You need that—a little kid calling you Mom.” Beckett put his arms around her as she shattered.The pain she kept hidden surfaced from where it had been smoldering. When he felt her knees weaken, he hugged her harder.“That’s right. It’s okay. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, baby. You want normal.” He guided her to the chair he’d vacated. “There’s a guy out there who’ll hold your hand. There’s a little girl out there. She’s waiting for you. It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay.” He knelt in front of her and rubbed her arms.She slapped at his hands, letting outrage carry her words. “I don’t want another man. I want you. I’ve killed for you. I’ve protected you. What the hell do you think you’re doing? Do you honestly think these hands that kill can hold a child?” She held her fingers in front of her face.“Yes. Absolutely. Don’t you know, gorgeous? Mothers are some of the most vicious killers out there, if their kids are threatened. You just have more practice.” He took her hands and kissed them.“I’ve lost too much. I can’t lose you. Don’t make me. Please. I’ll beg you if I have to.” She watched his lips on her palms.He shook his head and used her own words against her. “The hardest part of loving someone is not being with them when you want to be.”He stood, and she mirrored his motion,already shaking her head. “Don’t say it.”Beckett ignored her; he knew what he had to do. He had to set beautiful Eve free to find that soft, touchable woman he’d seen her become with the little girl.”

“I just wanted to make you happy,” he said. “Are you happy?”“I’ve been happy a couple of times. What can I do so that you can join me?”He laced his fingers through hers and holding her hands, stretched her arms up above her head, holding them there. “Baby, you don’t have to do anything but be present.”

“Beckett, where’s Eve?”When he had her pressed to his chest, she tried again. “Are you going to tell me or what?”Beckett sighed and looked into her face. “I left her, babycakes. She needs wings, not handcuffs.”He held Livia tighter, like she was a teddy bear.She stopped moving her feet and hugged him around the neck. “You’re not handcuffs. Don’t you know that? She loves you. She does, I’ve seen it.”Beckett resumed dancing, dipping her again. “Look around, Whitebread. She’s not here. She didn’t try to stop me from coming. Her heart belongs to a dead man and a dream. I’m neither of those things.” Beckett released her and clapped for the end of the song. He reached in his pocket and produced a crumpled envelope. “Here’s my gift to you guys. I’m sure Blake won’t want to accept it, but I’m hoping you’ll convince him. For me.”

“Varian cringed as Merewyn faced him. If he looked half as bad as he suspected, he wouldn’thave blamed her had she run for the door. “You don’t have to do this.” She stepped into his arms. “Yes, Varian, I do.” She brushed the matted hair back from his face. “I don’t care what you look like. It’s you I love, not your looks. Your humor, your kindness, even that little snuffle snore you make when you sleep.” “I don’t snore.” She laughed. “Yes, you do.” And with that she pulled his lips to hers.”

“When Cole’s kisses lingered on her belly button, she crossed her legs.“Are you okay?” He appeared instantly at her eye level, worried.“I’m fine. I just, I never let a guy…um, well, they never wanted to. It’s not what I do.” Kyle’s eyes looked everywhere but his.“Is it because you don’t think you’d like it, or you don’t think you deserve it?”She bit her lip and looked away again. He saw her answer.“You do deserve it,” he said fiercely. “Can I give it to you?”

“I realized something tonight when you were in the arena doing your thing.”She took another deep breath of the roses’ scent. “What was it?”“I love you, Elle.”Her eyes flared wide to search his and her heart stopped.“Do you love me?”“Yes, I love you, Chase.”Simple, sure, an indisputable fact she couldn’t’ve held on her tongue if she’d wanted to. But was she ready to love somebody who loved her back?Was she?“You had me since Spin Master,” he said, with that grin she loved. “But I didn’t know it ‘til tonight.”“Oh, well, then, I get it,” she said, smiling back. “You only loved me ‘cause I saved your life.”“I want you to save it again.”He stood up to pull something out of the front pocket of his starched jeans. He reached for her hand.“I’m asking you to marry me, Elle. Will you?”Tears blurred her vision. They caught in her throat. Oh, God, how could she ever be a wife again? But how could she ever leave Chase?She tried to buy herself a little time to think. “You said you don’t trust women.”“Only you. I trust you. I trusted you with my life the first time I ever saw you.”That made her grin. And then she felt very solemn. He was looking right into her soul, holding her hand in his big calloused one. She clung to it.“You’re in a league of your own, Elle. Not just was a bull-fighter, but in every way.”She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to think. She knew she loved him, but this was scary.“You’re not the marrying kind, Chase. You’ve told me that a dozen times.”“I changed my mind.”“I’ve been married, Chase. It didn’t last. I left him.”He lifted one big shoulder.“What will last is that I love you,” he said. “That’ll never change. I’ll follow you all over the country if I have to, just to get a glimpse of you. Just to hear you laugh. You can work as many rodeos as you want. You can do anything you want and even if I’m not there, wherever I am, I’ll be loving you. Until I die.”“You’re looking at me as if it’s a done deal,” she said, smiling.His grin broadened. “It is. I can convince you. I know I’m good.”She laughed.“You might as well save us some time. You know I got no quit in me.”“Yes, I do know that.”“So what do you say?”“The main problem is that you’re not the man who’ll do everything I say. I told you that’s what I have to have before I’ll marry again.”“How d’you know I’m not him? I’ve been pretty pliable here lately, wouldn’t you say?”“You are so full of it, Chase Lomax.”“You’re the one who told me I have to get a life after rodeo. Well, that’s exactly what I’m tryin’ to do, right here.”