Still Mine Read Free

he’d been there in the darkest hours of the night beside her. Waking up was a torment that still stung her eyes with tears sometimes. It was illogical but that didn’t drive the ache out of her heart.
    Six years was a pathetic amount of time to carry a flame for a man she’d only known a year. There were questions milling around in her head about her late husband that she wasn’t going to know the answer to. Dark spots in his life that he’d failed to share any information on. Contacting his family was impossible because he’d never introduced her to even a distant cousin. He hadn’t told her about his third-grade teacher or mentioned a sports team he’d played on or what his favorite sport was. Sometimes, it felt like she’d slipped into a dream for that year and woken back up to reality after his funeral, rubbing her eyes and trying to decide if it really had happened. The only tangible evidence of their time together, a life insurance policy that granted her the ability to dream of training to become something more than just another junior-college graduate.
    But that was another reason she’d let him clasp her hand and have an early evening wedding with only two nuns as witnesses. Paul had been alone and so had she. Her parents’ deaths the year before had dumped her into a foster care system that turned her out on her own on her eighteenth birthday. She’d been scraping by when she ran into the most alluring man to ever stare back at her. Her lips twitched up into a grin as she considered the way she had loved to look at him. She could still see the midnight black hair with matching eyebrows. His dark eyes, so full of fire—she’d been mesmerized. She could still see him, standing on the seashore, his boots neatly sitting beside him as he curled his toes in the sand. His face had been alight with enjoyment so brilliant it had stopped her in her tracks.
    One awkward comment had somehow lengthened into a conversation that lasted past midnight as the tide came in. Somehow, they’d connected in a manner that she’d never experienced before or since. Like he’d needed her, just as she needed him. It had felt so perfect that every man who asked her out now paled in comparison. She often wondered if that was one of the reasons the priest had agreed to marry them. Some attempt to keep her and Paul from going down a road paved with immorality and sin. The priest tried to tell her to attend marriage classes, at first refusing to offer them the sacrament of marriage without a six-month waiting period.
    But maybe he’d seen the fire in both their eyes. Even with her youth and inexperience, there was no way she’d have remained a virgin for half a year. She was too drawn to Paul and he’d been far too adept in the art of seduction to be ignored for very long. She had been drowning in the sensory overload, her body craving his even if she wasn’t exactly sure what that final surrender would feel like. It had been hot, pulsing need and written all over her face as she’d managed to force herself to demand a wedding blessing. One last effort to string up a safety net beneath herself before she gave in to her lust.
    Besides, Paul hadn’t much cared about the details. He wanted her and wasn’t going to be denied. He’d been humoring her for the two weeks of their courtship, taking her closer to the edge of reason every time he touched her.
    Like Tait seemed intent on doing.
    The deputy radiated confidence. He was the embodiment of warrant-squad deputies. Capable and without a hint of weakness. It really was too bad that she didn’t feel the heat.
    She should spend her energy feeling grateful. Paul had provided for her and that money enabled her to become the woman she was today. She’d worked hard for it but she never would have been able to attend the special training program for women interested in law enforcement if she hadn’t had the money his life insurance had given her. It was such an imperfect world,