belief in love. It hadn’t been any single woman who had disillusioned him. The woman who had broken his father’s life, as well as his with her death, and the friend who hadn’t known how to survive, had given him the belief that no love could truly last forever.
Moving through the darkened bedroom, Tehya shed the shirt he had given her and crawled between the chilled blankets. From where she lay, she could see the light from the door, and Jordan as he stood in the doorway, simply watching her.
He was at his most dangerous when he was so still and silent. When he was plotting, planning, or worse yet, when he was thinking.
He had a wicked, devious mind. He was a man who believed what he believed, and there would be no forcing his beliefs to change.
“You’re wrong.” His voice reached across the room, so icy, so emotionless, that a chill raced over her soul.
“Of course I am.” She swallowed tightly and fought back the tears she would have shed if it would have done any good. If it would have won her the heart of the man she loved, she would have cried a river.
“I care for you.” The sudden, fierce sound of his voice, the underlying fury in it, had her eyes closing in pain as she fought the hitch in her breath that would have been a sob. “I don’t want to lose you, Tehya. Not your friendship. Not … this.” The snarl in his voice assured her that he meant much more than whatever relationship they had had at the base.
“Then keep me, Jordan.” She stayed, in the bed and refused to look directly at him. “But you can’t do that either, can you?”
She couldn’t be weak. She had felt something earlier when he had taken her. She had felt something from him that she didn’t understand, something she didn’t know how to describe.
She wouldn’t fight him, but that didn’t mean she was giving up. Sometimes, a person just had to give Jordan time to think, to find the truth himself.
Even if it meant letting him walk away to find it.
“Good night, Jordan,” she said softly when he said nothing more.
He stood in the doorway, still watching her, the shadowed contours of his face appearing more savage, his eyes bluer as they gleamed in the low light reflecting behind him.
Sometimes, there were some things that just weren’t meant to be, she told herself. She was prepared for that. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t hope, that she couldn’t pray that when this was over, when the past was finally defeated, buried, and destroyed once and for all, then just maybe, she would have a chance at holding his heart.
A Malone man, he loves, not just with his heart, but with his soul. She remembered Riordan Malone’s words years before when she had met him in Alpine, Texas, the small town the Malone family had lived in for decades. Remember that, Tehya. It’s not their hearts that lead them, it’s their souls. And such a love is never easy. Such a love is never truly won but by the faith of a woman’s very spirit, and her ability to understand the battle she faces.
At the time, she hadn’t understood why he had told her that. Now, though, she knew. Riordan had to have seen what she had already begun to feel. He had to have known exactly how stubborn, how completely bullheaded his son could be.
Just as she had known how dominant, how powerful, and how incredibly gentle Jordan could be as well.
Jordan was a man who had made his decisions and faced his understanding of the world years before. He’d created the defenses he needed and survived the only way he knew how. By not believing, by not loving. But the truth was, Jordan had loved far more than he would ever admit.
She didn’t understand the battle she faced in claiming what her soul ached for. And she had no idea how to fight it.
All she knew was that she was terribly afraid she couldn’t live without him.
CHAPTER 14
The bedroom door closed, stripping the light from the room and leaving Tehya to stare into the dark.
She listened as he undressed and checked his weapon before laying it on the bedside table, then slid into the bed, all without the aid of the light.
Once he settled in, a moment of tense silence filled the room before he spoke.
“I was sixteen, she and her family were visiting