The Morning-After Proposal. Sheri WhiteFeather

in the middle of the night, leaving nearly everything behind. No keepsake items. No tangible memories.

      “What happened?” Henry asked, when he saw her expression. “What did that boy say to you?”

      “He told me that my mother was murdered.” She gripped the edge of the sofa. “But he told me that he buried her, too.”

      Henry came forward and gave her a gruff yet tender hug. “I’m so sorry about your mama.”

      “Me, too.” She knew the old cowboy understood grief. He’d been rattling around without his wife for the past five years. She gulped some air into her lungs and stepped back, afraid she would cry and not be able to stop. “I don’t know what to say. How to explain all of this.”

      “Just start from the beginning, honey. Tell me who you are, and who Dylan is to you.”

      “My real name is Julia Joyce Alcott, and eight months ago Dylan rescued me from a kidnapping. He stumbled upon me by accident. Afterward, my mother and I left town, and Dylan started searching for us because he learned there was a hit man on our trail.”

      She kept talking, repeating everything Dylan had told her. Summoning personal details, she admitted that her mother was a compulsive gambler who’d borrowed an excessive amount of money from loan sharks and couldn’t pay it back. “I didn’t know who the kidnappers were until my mother told me what kind of trouble she was in. Then she begged me not to say anything. She said they would come after me again if we gave them up. But if we ran away, if we got new identities, we would be free. But once we were on the run, she started gambling again.”

      “So you and your mama had a falling out?” Henry asked, filling in the blanks.

      “Yes. And that’s how I ended up here and she ended up dead.”

      “That hit man could have gotten you, too.” The old man shivered. “But you’re safe now, JJ. And you’ll always have a home here. You’ll always be part of the refuge, even if we’re struggling to make ends meet.”

      She glanced at a blue and white doily, where the pattern frilled into a scalloped edge. “Thank you, Henry.”

      They sat in silence for a moment. They both knew the refuge gave him purpose. He’d always been a cowboy, breeding cutting horses, but he’d started saving abused and abandoned animals after he’d lost his wife.

      “So are you and Dylan sweet on each other?” he asked suddenly.

      She shook her head, keeping her feelings, the heat Dylan evoked, to herself. “He keeps calling me Julia.”

      “’Cause that’s the name he knows you by. Do you want me to call you Julia, too?”

      “No. I want to be JJ.”

      “It still fits, you know. Didn’t you say you’re real name was Julia Joyce?” He sent her a small smile. “You can still be JJ.”

      She smiled, too. “Dylan wants me to go to Arizona with him to visit my mother’s grave.” Her smile fell. “But I don’t know if I can.”

      “You have to, honey. You’ll suffer inside if you don’t make peace with her.”

      “But it’s over now.”

      “No, it isn’t. You haven’t even begun to mourn. You’re still in shock, still trying to wrap your mind around all of this. When it hits you, it’s gonna tear you apart. And if you don’t say a proper goodbye to your mama, it’ll only get worse.”

      “Is that what happened to you when your wife died?”

      He nodded. “I was angry at her passing on and leaving me alone. So for a while, I avoided saying goodbye. But that didn’t do anything but mess me up even more.”

      JJ protested, defending her jumbled emotions. “I’m not angry at my mom for dying.”

      “No, but you’re mad about the hell she put you through. And for that, you need to forgive her. So let Dylan take you back to Arizona to see her grave. Let him help you through this.”

      She fidgeted, folding her hands, unfolding them. “He told me that he wasn’t leaving this place without me.”

      “He seems like a good one, honey. Someone you can count on.”

      Yes, she thought. But Dylan’s valor didn’t ease her mind. Because she feared that by going home with him, she was being kidnapped all over again.

      And this time the man who’d rescued her, the man who’d carried her to safety, was her captor.

      Two

      Dylan waited for Julia to return to the porch, frowning at the landscape, thinking about the uncharacteristic way in which she consumed him.

      He’d never been a possessive man, not until he’d stumbled upon her, bound and gagged with barbed wire cuts stinging her skin. Not until he’d freed her from her bonds and she’d reached for him, needing him like no one had ever needed him before.

      Dylan would always remember the way she’d grazed his cheek, the way she’d moved her mouth closer to his, the way she’d almost kissed him.

      Soft, he thought. Sweetly sensual.

      He refused to feel guilty for wanting her, for being affected by her touch. He had something else to feel guilty about, something that was ripping a grenade-size hole in his chest.

      Her mother’s murder.

      Dylan hadn’t fired the gun, but he’d done something that had triggered the hit. He’d killed Miriam just the same.

      But he couldn’t tell Julia. Not now. Not this soon. The truth wouldn’t bring Miriam back. It would only destroy what he intended to salvage with her daughter. The harshly tender, perilously intense connection.

      He’d been living with the twisted need to protect Julia, to become part of her, even before her mother had died.

      When the screen door creaked, his pulse jerked. Julia came outside and he stood up to look at her.

      She inched forward. She’d put on a suede coat, but she still looked chilled.

      And vulnerable.

      The roots of her hair were coming in dark, defying the bleach she’d used. He knew she was an outdoorsy girl, but today she seemed lost, the power of the earth, of the trees, of the snow-capped mountains nearly swallowing her whole.

      “Henry told me that I should go to Arizona with you,” she said. “So I’m going.”

      Would he be able to purge his sin by taking Julia to her mother’s grave? Would kneeing beside her in the aftermath of murder free him? “I’m glad Henry sees things my way.”

      “I have a feeling people always see things your way.”

      He frowned. “You don’t.”

      “I never expected to run into you again. And certainly not like this.” She slipped her hands into her pockets, burrowing into the lining of her coat.

      He held her gaze. “So you tried to forget about me?”

      “I tried to forget everything that happened.”

      “But you couldn’t, could you, Julia?”

      “No. Not completely. And please stop calling me that. I’m JJ, whether you like it or not.”

      He didn’t like it, not one bit. She was pulling away from him already, not giving him a chance. “You’re attracted to me,” he said, refusing to let her deny the heat between them. “The way I’m into you.”

      Rattled, she glanced away, fighting whatever she was feeling. He could see the struggle.

      “You saved me from a dangerous situation,” she said, her voice cracking a little. “We both got caught up in that.”

      He