Passion to Protect Read Free

tonight, or at least you can’t go alone.”
    “I don’t recall asking your opinion.” She turned abruptly, her gaze snapping to meet his. Her stunning blue eyes went ice-cold, the way they always did around him, regardless of his every attempt to act as if he’d forgotten all about their history, as if the memory of how it ended hadn’t been eating away at him since the day he’d learned that she was coming back...the day he’d first begun to realize that he’d never completely gotten past her—or his foolish orphan’s dream of someday, finally, creating a family of his own.
    “Listen, Liane. I get that I’m not your favorite person.”
    Though Deke had made it clear the subject was off-limits, Jake had heard the rumors that the life Liane had chosen hadn’t gone the way she’d planned, that the man she’d married had abused her. Still, that was no reason for her to treat his every word and gesture like poison. Or to confuse him further by leaving foil-wrapped home-baked treats on his cabin porch and then slinking away before he had the chance to thank her. “Put the past aside for a minute and listen to me on this, or you’re going to end up injured. And what good would that do your family?”
    She stilled, her stare heating in an instant. “The past? This isn’t about you, Jake. It’s about my family. I’m not leaving them out there, especially on a night like this one. I can’t.”
    He nodded, understanding her worry. He knew Deke as well as he knew anyone, had looked up to Liane’s father from the first time the older man had promised to kick his backside over the nearest mountaintop if he did anything to hurt his girl. But Jake had never known him to be so long out of contact or this overdue returning from a trip.
    “Then let me come with you,” he offered. “It’ll be a whole lot safer. I know the area well enough, and I’m used to navigating these woods night and day. I could help you pick up the trail.”
    A lariat looped above her head before she launched it in a smooth arc. Instead of roping the still-spooked Copper, she pulled a solidly built pinto from the herd—a herd he thought looked smaller than it should have.
    Had Deke taken extra mounts for pack animals? He tried to remember how many horses he’d seen in the corral this morning on his way out for a follow-up visit with his orthopedic surgeon.
    Liane held the bucket for the brown-and-white mare and led her toward the post, distracting him by saying, “But you can’t possibly, with your leg—”
    “The hell I can’t,” he ground out through clenched teeth. Before his accident he’d been in peak form, and ever since, he’d worked out daily, never allowing himself to give way to self-pity for a moment. He might have lost the career that had defined him, but three other deserving men, family men, had lost their lives last summer. “It doesn’t take two legs to ride a damned horse.”
    Abruptly stopping in her tracks, she turned to look at him, her eyes gleaming. “I’m sorry, Jake. I know how rude that must’ve sounded, and I really doappreciate your offer. But we’re talking about my kids and my father, and I’ve already wasted so much time with people on the phone. Besides, I’ve been wandering these canyons since I was a kid. I can find my way blindfolded.”
    “You say that now, but I can tell you, no matter how well you think you know the territory, the darkness is disorienting. So saddle up a mount for me, too,” he said. “I’m heading back to my place to grab a few supplies. Then I’ll be right back, and we’ll both go find them. Okay?”
    Liane stared up at him, her lips pressed together while she thought. When the tension in her shoulders eased, he took it as a sign of surrender.
    “Go get what you need,” she said.
    He hurried home, then filled hiking canteens and grabbed the small survival kit he always kept stocked for his forays into the forest. With fire a possibility, his thoughts