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He was off-duty and yet everything about him screamed police. Nathan was just that kind of man. Devoted to duty, he preferred order to chaos, rules to confusion. He would take a road trip and stay on the highway, where Amanda would prefer the back roads, stopping at everything interesting along the way. No wonder they had clashed.
And even knowing all of that, she still felt the rush of attraction that she couldn’t deny. She wanted to be immune to him and, clearly, she wasn’t.
But this was exactly why she needed to be here. Because until she was immune to Nathan Battle, she’d never be able to move on. Instead, she’d go on being haunted by memories, by thoughts of what might have been.
He took another drink of his beer and looked down at the bottle in his hand. “I was sorry about your dad.”
She blinked against the sudden sting of tears. The one thing she hadn’t expected from Nathan was kindness. It was…disarming. “Thanks. I miss him.”
“Yeah, he was a good man.”
“He was.” Safe ground. Talk about their families. Don’t mention the tension coiled so tightly between them.
“Why did you come back?”
And there was the Nathan she knew best. So much for the pleasantries—it was on to Round One. “Excuse me?”
“Well, hell, Amanda.” He frowned down at her and looked a little surprised that she didn’t seem affected by his displeasure. “You were gone for years. Why come back at all?”
“Are you in charge of Royal’s borders now, Sheriff?” she asked. “Do people have to check in with you before they move in?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She pushed to her feet. Even though she stood five foot ten, she was forced to tip her head back to meet his gaze, but she did it. “Royal’s my home as much as it is yours, Nathan Battle.”
“Couldn’t tell from how you acted,” he said, completely ignoring the hard glare she fired at him.
“I seem to recall you living in Houston for quite a while. Were you interrogated when you moved back home?”
“I’m not interrogating you, Amanda,” he countered. “I’m just asking a damn question.”
“That you already know the answer to,” she shot back. “Pam needed help with the diner. I came home. That’s the story. None of this concerns you, Nathan. This is my business.”
“Damn straight it is, but now that you’re back, it’s my business, too.” He stood as still and cold as a statue.
“How do you figure?”
“I’m the sheriff here. This is where I live. For you to come back now and start stirring things—”
“What am I stirring, Nathan?” she interrupted, and saw with a jolt of glee that he still hated being cut off. It infuriated her to remember that in the old days. She’d have shut her mouth so he could keep talking. Well, that time was gone. “I’m working at my family’s diner.”
“And getting tongues wagging again,” he pointed out.
“Please. People in Royal gossip about everything. I didn’t have to be here to have them talk about me.”
“They’re not talking about you,” he elaborated grimly. “They’re talking about us.”
“There is no us,” she said flatly, and was surprised by the twinge of pain that clutched at her heart.
“I know that and you know that, but the folks in town—”
“Forget about them,” she interrupted again.
He took a long deep breath from between clenched teeth. “Easy for you to say. But as sheriff, I need to have the respect of the people I’m protecting. I don’t like being the subject of gossip.”
“Then tell them that. Why tell me?”
“Because if you leave, it’ll stop.”
She set her wineglass down before she was tempted to throw it at his rock-hard head. “I’m not leaving. And, it’ll never stop, Nathan.”
That statement hit him hard. She saw the proof of it flicker in his eyes. But she wasn’t finished.
“Until we’re ninety, people around here will be speculating and remembering.…”
“Damn it, Amanda, I want you out of town.”
“And I want you to stop caring what other people think,” she snapped. “I guess we’re both doomed to disappointment.”
He set his beer bottle on the table beside her glass and moved in on her. He was so tall, he didn’t have to put much effort into looming. She supposed it just came naturally to a man used to having his own way. A man accustomed to telling people what to do and having them do it.
It might have worked on her years ago, Amanda told herself, but no more. She was her own woman now. She made her own choices and decisions and lived with the consequences. She wouldn’t be ordered out of town and she wouldn’t be scared off by a big, gorgeous sheriff with eyes as cold as a winter wind.
“If you think you’re worrying me, you’re wrong.”
“I don’t want you worried.”
“Good, because—”
“I don’t want you at all.”
Direct hit, she thought, as an icy fist slammed into her chest and squeezed her heart. But she wouldn’t let him see it. “I don’t want you, either, Nathan. I’m not that young girl anymore, dazzled because Nathan Battle noticed her. I’m not going to follow you around all doe-eyed, hoping for a smile from you. I’m—”
He grabbed her, yanked her close and kissed her with a fierce desperation that was fueled by desire and anger, all twisted up together. She could feel it in him as she felt it in herself. Past and present tangled together and memories were as thick as honey on a winter morning.
But those memories were swamped by all of the new sensations coursing through her. Amanda didn’t try to pull free. Didn’t pretend that she wasn’t as hungry for him as he was for her. Instead, she moved into him, wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.
This is what she’d missed for so long. This man’s touch. His kiss. The feel of his hard, strong body pushed up close against hers. She parted her lips for him and took him inside her. When he groaned and held her even tighter, Amanda felt bolts of heat shoot through her system like a summer lightning storm. So much electricity between them. So much heat.
Was it any wonder they had flashed and burned out too quickly?
His hands slid up and down her back, holding her, pressing her as close as he could. His mouth took hers again and again, and she met every stroke of his tongue with eager abandon. God, she’d missed him. Missed them. She had found nothing that could compare to what happened when they came together. No other man she’d ever met could compare to Nathan. Which meant that she was in very deep trouble.
Her mind raced even as her body lit up like a sparkler factory. This was a huge mistake. Falling into Nathan’s arms was not the way to get over him. But right now, all she was interested in was feeling her body come back to life as if waking up after a seven-year nap. Her skin tingled, her heartbeat crashing in her chest, and in the pit of her belly, heat settled and began to spread.
What was wrong with her, anyway?
Three
When Nathan suddenly released her and took one long step back and away, Amanda swayed unsteadily and gasped for air like a drowning woman. Her mouth burned from his kiss and her body was trembling.
“See?” he practically growled at her. “This is why you shouldn’t have come back home.”
“What?” She blinked up at him and saw that, once again, Nathan’s expression seemed to be etched into stone. He looked hard, untouchable and about as passionate as a slab of granite. How did he turn it on and off like that? And could he teach her how to do it?
“I kissed you and you were all over me.”
A sudden spurt of ice water flowed through her veins and put out all the lingering fires inside. Maybe he wouldn’t have to teach her after all.
“Excuse me? I was all over you?” She took a step closer and stabbed her index finger at him. “Just who grabbed who, here? Who came to whose house? Who started kissing?”
His mouth worked and his lips thinned into a tight line. “Not the point.”
“It’s exactly the point, Nathan.” Furious now, more at herself for falling so easily into old habits than at him, Amanda said, “Just like before, you came after me. You started all of this, then and now.”
“And I’m going to end it.”
Hurt raged inside, but was soon swallowed by a wave of fury. He decided when to start things. When to end things. And she was supposed to go quietly along. Nathan Battle, Master of the Universe.
“Big surprise. You like ending things, don’t you?”
His eyes narrowed on her and his jaw muscle twitched so violently she was pretty sure he was grinding his teeth into powder. Well, good. She’d hate to think she was the only furious one in the room.
“I’m not the one who ended it seven years ago,” he finally said, his voice a low throb of barely leashed anger.
“Not how I remember it,” Amanda countered, the sting of that long-ago night still as fresh as if it had happened just yesterday. “You’re the one who walked out.”
“It’s what you wanted.” His gaze drilled into hers.
She met him glare for glare. “How would you know, Nathan? You never asked me what I wanted.”
“This is pointless.”
A long minute or two of tense silence stretched out between them. The only sound—the oven timer going off—rang out like a bell at a boxing match signaling the end of a round.
It worked to jolt both of them out of their defensive stances and a second later, Nathan was heading for her door. When he got there, he paused and turned back to look at her.
“This town chews on gossip every day, but I’m not going to be gnawed on.”
“Good for you!” She picked up her wine and took a swallow she didn’t really want before setting the glass down again. If he thought she was looking forward to being the topic of whispered conversations, he was nuts.
“The Battle family has a reputation in this town—”
“And the Altmans aren’t in your circle, are we?” she interrupted again and felt a small swift tug of pleasure, knowing it irritated him.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” Walking toward him, Amanda glared up into his dark brown eyes. “I’m amazed you ever deigned to propose to me in the first place.”
If possible, she thought his eyes actually went black for a second or two. How twisted was she that she still thought him the most gorgeous man on the planet?
“You were carrying my child,” he told her flatly.
That statement, said with such frigid control, sliced at her like a blade and Amanda fought against the pain.
They hadn’t spoken about their lost baby since the night he’d walked out on her. For him to bring it up now…“That was low.”
He paused for a long minute or so, just studying her through narrowed eyes. “Yeah, it was.” He scrubbed one hand across his face. “Damn it, Amanda, we’ve got to find a way to live in this town together.”
She slid her hands up and down her arms. Funny—even with the hot, humid air of summer, she felt a chill. Maybe it was him being here, so close. Maybe it had been the loss of heat when their kiss ended. And maybe, she thought, it was because of the memories he’d brought up and waved in her face.
The memory of the child she’d carried and lost. The baby she had wanted so badly. Whatever it was, she wanted to be alone until that icy sensation was gone. She needed time to herself. To think. To regroup. And she couldn’t do that until she convinced Nathan to leave.
“I’m guessing you have a plan,” she said with a sigh.
“Damn straight, I do,” he told her. “We go about our business. We live our lives. If we see each other, it’s friendly, but distant. No more private chats. No—”
“Kissing?” she finished for him.
“Yeah. No more of that.”
“Fine. Agreed.” She threw both hands high. “Nathan’s rules of behavior. Will you print me out a copy? I’ll sign it. You want it notarized, too?”
“Funny.”
“Well, blast it, Nathan, you haven’t changed a bit. Still issuing orders and expecting them to be followed. Who made you the grand pooh-bah of the Western world?”
“Pooh-bah?”
She ignored that. “You come to my house. You kiss me. Then you lay down rules for me to live my life by and what? You expected me to just salute and say, ‘Yes, sir’?”
“Would’ve been nice,” he muttered.
She laughed. In spite of everything. “Yeah, well, not going to happen.”
“You make me crazy,” he admitted, shaking his head slowly. “You always did.”
His voice was softer, deeper, and his eyes held a heat she remembered too well. So she stiffened her spine, refusing to be swayed by the urges she felt deep within her.
“Good to know,” Amanda said, tipping her head back to look into his eyes. “That’s some consolation, anyway.”
He blew out a breath and muttered something she didn’t quite catch before saying, “Fine. No rules. We go along. Stay out of each other’s way.”
“Fine.”
“Eventually, people will stop talking or waiting for something to happen between us and—”
“You’re still doing it,” Amanda interrupted.
“Doing what?”
“Making rules. Setting down how things will be,” she said. Tipping her head to one side, she stared up at him in complete frustration. “You can’t regulate life, Nathan. It just…happens.”
Like losing a baby you had loved from the moment of conception. That familiar twinge of pain, muted slightly because of time and her deliberate attempts to bury it, twisted inside her briefly.
“Unacceptable.”
“You don’t get to make that call, Nathan,” she said softly.
“You’re wrong.” His eyes were hard, flinty chips of frozen chocolate. Whatever softness had been there before had completely dissipated. “My life moves just as I want it to. No exceptions.” He paused. “Not anymore.”
There it was, she thought. Once upon a time, she had been the exception to Nathan’s carefully laid-out life. She’d thrown a wrench into his plans, made him scramble for a new strategy and then it had all fallen apart again. This time, though, she was older—and wiser, she hoped—and she wouldn’t be sucked into Nathan’s tidily arranged world. She preferred her life messy. She liked the adventure of not really knowing what to expect.
Of course, then scenes like tonight would probably rise up again to torture her, but that was a risk she’d rather take. Better than having your life plotted out on a ledger sheet, with no surprises, no jolts of pleasure or pain.
“Royal’s a small town,” he was saying and Amanda pushed her thoughts aside to pay attention. “But not so small that we can’t comfortably ignore each other.”
“That’s how you want this to play out?” she asked. “We each pretend the other doesn’t exist?”
“Better that way,” he said.
“For who?”
He didn’t answer. He just opened the door and said, “Goodbye, Amanda.”
The sound of his boots on the stairs rang out like a too-fast heartbeat. A few seconds later, she heard a car engine fire up and then he was driving away.
Amanda closed her door on the world, wandered to the kitchen and retrieved the stuffed potatoes that were just a little too well-done. She idly stood there and watched steam lift off her dinner and twist in the barely moving air.
“Damn it,” she whispered and stared through the window to the night beyond the glass. Her dinner was burned, her stomach was spinning and her temper was at war with her hormones.
Nathan was a force of nature. One that apparently was destined to crash in and out of her life whether she wanted him to or not. And the worst part?
“He walked away. Again.”
She poured a fresh glass of wine, forced herself to eat the overdone potatoes and promised herself the next time she and Nathan were in the same room, she would be the one doing the walking.
The Battlelands Ranch glowed in the darkness. It stood like a proud dowager, waiting to welcome home its prodigal children. Practically every window shone with lamplight. Even the outbuildings—the barn, the foreman’s house and Nathan’s own place—boasted porch lights that formed brightly lit pathways.
Just like always, Nathan felt tension slide away as he drove down the oak-lined drive and steered his 4Runner toward the house he’d had built for himself when he moved back to Royal. He might not be a rancher these days, but the land was in his blood as much as it was in his younger brother Jacob’s. The Battles had been on this land for more than a hundred and fifty years. They’d carved out every acre. Bled for it. Wept for it, and managed to hold on to it through all the bad times that had come their way.
The heart of the main ranch house was the original structure, a stately Victorian that the first Battle in Texas had built more than a hundred and fifty years ago to please his new bride. Over the years, that turreted, gingerbread-adorned structure had been added to, with wings spreading from each side and spilling into the back. Most of the ranch houses in the area were more modern, of course. Some mansions, some simple houses, they were all interchangeable in Nathan’s eyes.
This place was unique because the Battles didn’t tear something down just because it was old. They fixed it, improved on it and kept it, always to remind them of where they’d come from. Now that stately old Victorian was the centerpiece of a ranch bigger and more prosperous than that first Battle could ever have dreamed.
Gnarled, twisted live oaks stood like ancient soldiers on either side of the drive and gathered in clumps along the front and rear of the house. As Nathan parked his car and climbed out, he heard the swish of leaves in the grudgingly moving hot air.
From the main house came the sharp, clear sound of children’s laughter, and Nathan smiled to himself. Lots of changes here at the Battlelands—mostly thanks to Jacob and his wife, Terri. They and their three kids were making this place come alive again as it hadn’t since Nathan and Jake were kids themselves.
He glanced quickly at the wading pool and the nearby wooden swing set and climbing gym he’d helped Jacob put together for the kids. That laughter spilled from the house again and Nathan instinctively quelled the small twist of envy he felt for what his brother had. He knew Jake was happy. He had a family and the ranch he loved and Nathan didn’t begrudge him any of it.
Still, it was a stunner that his younger brother had a wife and kids, but Jake had taken to life as a family man as easily as he had assumed control of the ranch years ago.
Nathan loved the place and it would always be home to him, but the ranch had never been at the heart of him as it had for Jake. As long as Nathan could remember, he had wanted to be a cop, while Jake wanted nothing more than to ride the range, and deal with the cattle grazing on the thousands of acres the family claimed. It had worked out well, Nathan told himself. Didn’t matter that he was the eldest. It was enough for Nathan that the Battlelands was in good hands—even if those hands weren’t his.
And, since Terri was pregnant again, Nathan knew that the family ranch was going to be in Battle hands for many more years to come. He couldn’t help wondering what Jake thought of that, if his brother ever sat down and realized that his sons and daughters would be working the same land that had been handed down to him.
That twist of envy grabbed at him again and Nathan couldn’t help wondering how his life might be right now if Amanda had carried their child to term. Would they still be together? Would there be more children? He tried to imagine it, but couldn’t quite pull it off.
The ranch house door opened just then and a spill of light from inside poured onto the wide front porch. Grateful for the distraction, Nathan watched as his brother stepped out of the house. Talking to Jake would help him get his mind off of Amanda. Hopefully. His thoughts were crowded with her.…
God, the taste of her. The scent of her. The feel of her body aligning with his and the hush of her breath on his skin—damn it.
Jake leaned against one of the porch posts and asked, “Late night?”
“A few things to see to,” he answered vaguely and headed toward the main house.
Jake came down the steps, holding a beer in each hand. He was as tall as Nathan, but where Nathan was broad and muscled, Jake was wiry. His dark brown hair was a little too long, his jeans were worn and faded and his boots were as scarred and scuffed as Nathan’s own. He was slow and steady and more at ease with himself and his world than Nathan had ever been.
Jake went his own way and managed to have a good time while he was doing it. Nathan had always admired that trait in his younger brother.
With a wide grin, Jake handed over one of the frosty bottles. Grateful, Nathan accepted it and took a long drink. When Jake wandered off, Nathan followed his brother across the yard toward the swing set. Apparently, Jake wanted to talk—away from the house. But nothing would get Jake talking before he was good and ready, so Nathan just enjoyed the night and the returning sanity now that he was a safe distance from Amanda.
He’d thought he was well and truly over her. Nathan had deliberately put her out of his mind years ago. He’d lost himself in work and in the arms of the willing women who’d come and gone from his life without leaving so much as a trace of themselves behind. So yeah, he’d figured with Amanda back in town, he’d face her down and keep moving on.
But the hard ache in his body let him know that though his mind had let her go, the rest of him hadn’t. And there she was again, he thought in disgust. Right back in his thoughts, front and center. He closed his mind to the memories and focused on the now.
There were a few dawn-to-dusk lights around the play area and he took a second or two to look it over. He and Jake had dug out the wide area beneath the playground equipment and then poured enough fine sand to sink an aircraft carrier. It had taken the two of them nearly two weeks to get everything set up and finished off for safety, but knowing his niece and nephews loved it made all the work worth the effort.
Made of sanded, polished wood—to prevent splinters in tiny hands—the climbing gym sprawled across the pristine lawn as if it had grown in that spot. Jake’s five-year-old twin sons and their two-year-old sister loved climbing on it and especially enjoyed the castle-like room at the top. Gave him a good feeling, seeing the next generation of Battles clambering all over the structure, hooting and hollering at each other, just like he and Jake had done when they were kids. It also made him remember that if things had turned out differently, his own child might have been playing here as well.
He shook off that disquieting thought and buried it under another long drink of his beer.
Jake slapped one hand against the swing set and blurted, “So, how’s Amanda?”
Nathan almost choked on his swallow of beer. When the coughing ended and he could breathe again, he looked at his younger brother. “How the hell did you know I went to see her?”
Jake shrugged. “Mona Greer was walking that tiny excuse for a dog of hers and saw you going into the diner apartment. She called Sarah Danvers, Sarah talked to her daughter and Amelia called Terri a while ago.”
The Royal hotline was already buzzing.
“Well, hell,” he muttered. So much for keeping his private life private. He hadn’t seen a damn soul around the diner. Mona Greer should look into a career with the CIA or something. Even at eighty, her eyesight was damn good and she clearly had a sneaky streak.
Jake laughed. “Seriously? You thought you could slide in and out of Amanda’s apartment and nobody would catch on?”
“A man can dream,” Nathan mumbled.
Jake laughed even louder and Nathan told himself there was nothing more irritating sometimes than a younger brother. “Did you come out here just to bushwhack me with gossip then laugh at me?”