A Defender's Heart. Tara Taylor Quinn

initial backlash. She hadn’t seen it coming. And she had to deal with that first.

      “Shall we have another glass of wine?” she asked, feeling like a kid asking for permission to stay out past curfew. Which was ridiculous. Charles was the late-night one. “We could sit out on the deck.”

      “Sure!” He shrugged, looked happy as he pulled out a bottle of her favorite unoaked chardonnay, while she slid a couple of fresh glasses off the rack mounted above the cooler.

      She loved him in this mood, so easy, so supportive. Would it hurt to put off the conversation until later?

      Following Charles through the house toward the deck, she considered her options. Her appointment with Carin Landry wasn’t until Wednesday, and she wouldn’t be seeing or speaking with Cedar again until she’d had more than one appointment with the woman. She needed preliminary conversation with her before she could form a list of questions. She could have Charles over to her house for dinner on Tuesday night. After his golf game. Unless he had dinner with the others in his foursome, all doctors.

      She’d been thinking about stopping by Lianna’s after work the next day. Her friend hadn’t said no to the weekend in wine country, but she hadn’t said yes, either. She’d sounded decidedly unlike herself. Maybe it was time for Heather to be a friend, rather than just have one...

      Charles pulled open the sliding glass door that led to the upper deck at the back of the house. She followed him out. She took a deep breath of air, convinced she could taste a hint of the ocean’s salt in the breeze. Growing up in Santa Raquel had given her what seemed like a biological need for that very special air.

      She handed a glass to Charles, exchanged the other empty for the one he’d filled, and stood by the rail waiting for their traditional toast.

      “To us,” he said, clinking his now-full glass to hers.

      She nodded, mouthed the words and hoped he didn’t notice that they didn’t actually pass her lips. Hoped they’d still be an “us.”

       CHAPTER SIX

      CHARLES SAT ON his usual side of the padded wicker love seat they normally shared. He lifted one leg and rested his ankle on the opposite knee. He seemed ready to sit for hours.

      She wasn’t sitting.

      “Out with it...” His words were soft. Infused with the caring that had touched her from the moment he’d said hello the summer before.

      “What?”

      “I’m just wondering when you’re going to tell me whatever it is that’s bothering you.”

      Her genuine surprise bothered her. She really hadn’t expected Charles to notice. Shouldn’t she have? Considering that he was the man she intended to spend the rest of her life with?

      Current necessary conversation aside, if Charles would wait for her, she’d marry him.

      “I’ve been wondering the same thing,” she admitted, turning to face him, but not joining him on the love seat.

      He couldn’t avoid seeing the difference. She always sat next to him.

      “Seems like now’s the time.” He was holding his wine in one hand, letting it rest against the arm of the love seat.

      She took a sip of hers, and then set it on the railing beside her. Her situation was clear to her—how to express it in a way that would hurt him least was not.

      “I’m struggling,” she started. And stopped.

      “Obviously.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. Nor did he seem angry. “I’m here to help.”

      Oh, God. She wanted his help. So badly.

      And yet...she didn’t. Something about leaning on Charles just then seemed wrong.

      “I want you to know that my feelings for you haven’t changed.”

      His nod was reassuring. “Good,” he said. “That’s one hurdle passed.”

      “I still very much want to marry you.”

      He took a sip of wine. “I have to admit, I’m relieved to hear that.”

      “But I can’t be engaged to you right now.”

      He looked out at the ocean, and then back at her. He studied her. She studied him, too, willing him to see inside her. To know how sincerely she wanted to marry him.

      “I’m feeling all kinds of negative things, Charles. I’m doubting myself. Not my feelings for you, or my desire to marry you, but things that go...deeper than that.”

      “You still have feelings for Cedar.” He sounded as though he’d been expecting as much.

      “No!” Why did everyone keep accusing her of that? “At least, not in the way you mean. I shudder—with fear—at the very idea of being with him again.” She took a deep breath, stilling those shudders. “But seeing him again, it was like an episode of what I’d call a very mild and temporary case of the past coming back to haunt me. I’m not myself.”

      He waited.

      She had to finish.

      Or begin.

      “Saturday night, as I was telling Cedar goodbye, I agreed to see him.”

      Charles’s chin dropped to his chest.

      “Not like that!” she quickly reassured him, waiting until he looked back up. “I swear to you, it wasn’t like that at all.” She could look him straight in the eye on that one. “He said he had a business situation to discuss with me. He was certain I’d want to know about it...”

      “Of course he did. He wants you back.”

      No. No, he didn’t. And even if he did...just, no.

      She shook her head. “I felt he was being completely straightforward.” When he’d made the request. Not earlier, in the kitchen, when he’d been about to kiss her.

      And she’d been about to let him.

      A reflexive response, due in part to the shock of seeing him. Since she’d already labeled him a no-show and was no longer expecting that he’d be there.

      “As it turns out, he was—being straightforward, that is.”

      Charles’s gaze narrowed. “You met with him, then?”

      She and Charles had been together most of the day on Sunday, roaming around at an art fair, stopping at a local wine-tasting. Having dinner...

      She nodded. “Today. For lunch. Or rather, during my lunch break. I didn’t actually eat lunch with him.”

      That detail seemed to matter to her a lot. She’d mentioned it to Raine, too.

      Although she’d eaten the salad he’d brought. Like he’d said, it was her favorite. He’d paid good money for it. And she’d needed to eat.

      Sitting forward, his elbows on his knees, Charles pursed his lips and glanced toward the ocean again. His hands weren’t clasped, leaving his body language open. He wasn’t completely writing her off yet.

      “I should’ve told you Saturday night when he asked, or Sunday, even.”

      He looked back at her. Nodded.

      She’d disappointed him. She hated that. He didn’t deserve it.

      “And that’s part of the problem,” she said, standing straighter. When she’d promised to marry him, she hadn’t realized she couldn’t. And she’d allowed a party to celebrate their engagement, with no idea that she wouldn’t be able to go through with it. But she’d purposely withheld information from him...and that was inexcusable.

      “I was afraid of your reaction,