he did mention that he had mob ties and that he wasn’t afraid to use them, despite my bodyguard and the hick sheriff. Those were his exact words.” She looked up at him. “Mr. Banks is no hick sheriff. He’s a good man. I don’t think he believed me at first, but he listens. I think I convinced him.”
“You did,” he said sourly.
Her eyebrows arched. “How did you know that?” she asked suspiciously. “How in the world did you know?”
Jake’s face drew up as he searched for an answer that wouldn’t get him thrown out of the house.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“YOU CALLED SHERIFF BANKS,” she accused.
He made a face. “Well, I was concerned,” he said curtly. “It finally dawned on me that your bodyguard wouldn’t have been practically waiting on the doorstep when we got home, without a good reason.”
That went right by her, that insinuation of jealousy. “Yes. My best saddle horse had been injured, with deep cuts on his flanks, just like Gold. He came to tell me about it.”
“Your ex-husband needs a few more years in stir, just to give him the idea that he hasn’t the right to maul helpless animals,” he said.
“He doesn’t care. Not about animals or people. I don’t think he’s capable of it. I spoke to a friend from college who’s a forensic psychologist. She says there are people who have no sense of compassion, who don’t feel sympathy. They’re self-centered. The only feelings they’re concerned with are their own.” She shook her head. “It’s a hard concept to wrap your head around.”
“Yes,” he agreed. His lean hand smoothed up and down her bare arm unconsciously. “When I was overseas, we had a guy in our unit who worked as a sniper. He laughed when he killed an insurgent. Laughed.” He sighed, his face hard with anger. “I killed men. I had to, to save my own men. But I never laughed. It’s hard to live with, taking a life. Any life.”
“We’re raised to believe that killing is a sin,” she said. “Then they put people in uniforms, send them overseas, give them a gun and tell them to kill people. It’s a painful contradiction. Some people just snap.”
“They really do,” he said. He leaned back in the chair, shifting Ida into a more comfortable position against him. “We had an officer who watched two of his men get torn up by gunfire in a night attack. He ran into the gunfire, screaming, before any of us could stop him. He was killed instantly.”
Her small hand smoothed over the soft fabric of his shirt. Her eyes, wide-open, looked across his broad chest to the window. “Everybody has a breaking point,” she said. “Poor man. Did he have family?”
“A wife and a new baby, a son. He was so excited when the baby was born. He stopped total strangers to show them the digital images of the little boy.” He drew in a short breath. “What a hell of a way to die.”
“Yes.”
His big hand smoothed over hers, where it lay on his chest. “Did you want children?”
“Oh, very much,” she said quietly. “With my first husband. He wasn’t particularly handsome, you see, but he had wonderful qualities. A child with such a parent would have been blessed. But that was never meant to be. With Bailey, I used birth control from the beginning. He said that he didn’t want children. When we were first married, I was tempted to forgo the pills. Thank God I didn’t!”
He could feel the torment in her. She was so different from the person he thought he knew months ago.
“Do you want children?” she asked absently.
His heart jumped. He’d wanted them with Mina, wanted them almost desperately. He drew in a breath. “I did,” he said finally.
She smiled sadly. “With Mina,” she guessed.
There was a cold hesitation. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked...”
“It’s all right,” he said, surprised at her empathy.
“I’m a private person, too, as a rule, Jake,” she said, using his name for the first time.
He was surprised at the hunger it kindled in him. Surprised and shocked.
There was a long silence. His big hand smoothed gently over her short hair while they just sat quietly together.
Jake had been something of a playboy in his younger days. He still liked taking beautiful women around with him. This woman in his lap was beautiful, but she was also fragile and gentle and kind. He’d taken her at face value, as so many other people in the community had.