Fated Read Free Page B

feet.
    He indulged himself, smacking her
curved ass. “Language, Candace. And your father is the least of my worries. Although he might be a source of concern for you.”
    She abruptly subsided, and he
snarled at himself under his breath. How could he forget how old man Grant
viewed his only child? Hadn’t he seen it with his own eyes? Wasn’t that the
primary reason he’d left her in the first place?
    Moving ahead, he took advantage of
her short-lived meekness, and jerked open the back door of his vehicle.
Lowering his sweet burden, he again turned her to face the car, and released
the cuffs. There was no way she could sit comfortably with her hands bound
behind her, and they’d already done the trick.
    “Inside.”
    “No.”
    Hardly loath to put his hands on
her again, he stroked one hand up her back to cup her nape, bending her head
forward, then guided her inside with a gentle hip
check. Candace scrambled inside and away from his touch, throwing her body back
against the seat, folding her arms across her chest.
    “I’ll have someone pick up your
car. Put it in the station lot.”
    “Sure. Humiliate me some more.” She
wouldn’t look at him, and despite the now lowering light, he could see her
bottom lip tremble before she took it between her teeth. There was the
vulnerable Candace.
    “It’ll be safe there.” He’d gone
from seeing victory in his grasp to feeling like a total shit.
    “Park it behind my store.” A hint
of a plea added to his crappy feeling. He wanted her to beg, but not this way.
    “We’ll see.”   Reese didn’t like to bend at all, especially
when dealing with the woman who’d led him a merry dance since his return. Maybe
she had good cause to be pissed with him, but she’d never given him the
opportunity to explain. Ignored his letters, and more recently, every overture
he made, while taking her needs down the road.
    Shutting the door, he strode back
to the Bimmer to retrieve her purse, and noted the piece of luggage in the
back. He grabbed it, too, and also the piece of material women wore over their
shoulders to ward off a chill. As he approached his car, Candace ducked her
head, and he could literally feel her shields going up. Well, he’d made the
mistake once of walking away from her once. A quick learner, he wouldn’t make
another.

Chapter Two
     
    Candy watched Reese saunter back to
the cruiser, his tall, broad frame silhouetted against the lowering sun. She
couldn’t make out his features, but the effect of the Stetson-like hat crowning
his head, and the swivel of his lean hips, brought to mind the quintessential
cowboy. Which he had been, a ranch hand after school and on weekends before he
went and signed up to put his ass in danger a world away. From
her. He’d filled out some, packed on more muscle, but she suspected he’d
feel much the same, under his clothes. She had an earlier body memory of his
strong form, one that filled her dreams at night more often than she’d admit.
    She didn’t need to see his face.
Every nuance, every beloved jut and dip of bone and those chiseled lips were
emblazoned like some computer chip stored deep in her brain. He’d matured, was
now a full grown man, but he was still her Reece.
    No, not hers, if
he ever had been. She borrowed from her father’s credo of not
remembering or thinking about things that cut to the bone, and honed it, rarely
bringing up that memory once she accepted Reese had left her. A brief note, two lines. I’m
doing the right thing. Love you. Torn from a cheap pad, a
mere scrap of paper.
    Not even a signature. Could have been from anyone, except she’d recognized the heavy,
slashing penmanship. He’d fucked her over—literally—and taken off the
day after he graduated. She’d had to learn the details from his loser friends,
and that summer and the remaining year of high school then devolved into an
endless party circuit. Sinclair had been her rock during that time, as Candy
used anything at her disposal