Enroute home to Gold
Ridge, Colorado after their honeymoon, David and Hannah Logan are attacked by a
pair of bandits who plunge them back into a past they shared, but never truly
came to terms with together... It’s been almost a year since the nightmare of
violence and assault tore Hannah from David’s side and left him bereft and
angry. When she returned to him, determined to rebuild what they’d lost, the
light of love had come with her. Now, a new torment threatens to destroy
everything, and Hannah’s biggest enemy might just be David himself…
Excerpt:
“I wanted a father, and I got Jonas Wilkes. I needed to
trust him, and he made me feel...” She shuddered, visibly changed her train of
thought. “Then I met you; Gold Ridge’s most respected citizen. I’d never met
anyone quite like you, David Logan. You were handsome, sophisticated, powerful...
What was it Margaret called you? A charming outlaw.” She smiled. “She was
right, that’s exactly what you are. But you took my breath away the moment I
saw you. I will never forget that day, or turning around to see you on the
stairs of the Nugget, all elegance and danger. You terrified me, and you
excited me. I felt things in those first seconds that I have never felt before.
My God, David, I think I fell in love with you before you even spoke to me.”
“You do know how to flatter me, Hannah,” he whispered.
“But it’s not flattery, David. Every time you walk into a
room, you make my heart feel like it’s going to burst with the love that fills
me. I can’t believe you’re my husband. That you chose to give me that much of
your life.”
She smiled, tilted her head to one side, whimsical yet more
serious than he’d ever seen her.
“Finish, Hannah,” he requested. “I want to know what you’re
feeling.”
“Do you remember the first time you kissed me?”
He nodded.
“I would have behaved like a common whore for you that day,
and it frightened me to death, David. I was with a fine, Southern gentleman. A
man well-bred, respected, all the things that a lady wants. And instead of
being a lady, I was ready to─”
His laughter stopped her abruptly.
“You do yourself a great disservice, Mrs. Logan,” he teased
tenderly. “Any gentleman is still susceptible to the charms of a lovely woman.
And you do take away my sense of propriety, Hannah.”
“The first time you made love to me, I was certain that God
had put me on this earth to belong to you, David. You gave me everything that
my heart had ever wanted, even the things I didn’t let myself hope for. I felt
safe, and whole, at peace. Every time you touch me, I feel that way.
Beautiful... complete...”
“Then why are you so afraid, Hannah?”
“I don’t want to be,” she said fiercely. “I hate it, David!
I despise myself for feeling like this. But─”
“But?” he coaxed gently.
“Elizabeth was right,” she put her fingers to his mouth when
he would have objected instantly. “She was right about some things, David. I’ll
never know you the way Ellen did. I’m not from the same world. Your Southern
honor is one of the things I love most about you, but it’s a mystery to me,
too. You were married and fighting in a war when I was little more than a baby
at my mother’s breast. Your soul was scarred in ways that I can only imagine.”
Tears flooded her eyes as she stared up at him. “David, the sun in my world
rises and sets in your eyes.” She gulped in a sharp breath. “I’ve never needed
anyone that much, and it frightens me.”
David nodded, lifted her hands to his lips again as he
kissed the fingers that shook within his light grasp; then he looked intently
at her.
“Will you listen to me now?”
“Of course,” she replied, voice thick with emotion. She
watched as he rose, took the other chair on the balcony, and set it directly in
front of her. Then he sat and took her hands again.
“I love Elizabeth, Hannah,” he began quietly. “But, you’re
wrong. She doesn’t know me. Not now. She remembers the child she grew up with,
the young boy who adored her, and looked up to her. She loved Ellen; partly
because I did; and partly because Ellen needed her approval and acceptance.
Beth doesn’t know how to make you need those things from her, because the truth
is, you don’t.” He smiled at her, warmed by the returning glow of devotion that
stared back at him from her eyes. “The war cost us our way of life, and for
some, it’s not a thing they’ll ever recover from. I feel like I’ve lived in two
worlds for a long time, Hannah, not belonging fully to either one. When I let
myself love you, I discovered that I had a home again.”
Her tears fell, silent, silvery trails of sorrow and
gratitude that wet the gentle contours of her cheeks. David brushed them aside,
then kissed her forehead.
“When you came to the Nugget after Wilkes left for St. Louis, I told myself
that I was doing the honorable thing by protecting you.” He snorted softly,
self-derisive. “I was doing nothing of the kind. I wanted you close to me,
looking at me with that adoring, trusting awe that made my heart feel like it
was trying to escape my body.”
“And I thought you didn’t want me near you.”
His laughter was low, genuinely amused.
“I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of you,” he
corrected. “I don’t think any woman has ever looked at me with the trust and
respect that’s in your eyes each day. You humble me, Hannah. No one’s ever done
that. Not even Ellen.”
Startled, she looked closer at him, felt herself falling
into the aching darkness of his eyes. She slid off her chair and settled at his
feet, her head in his lap. David’s fingers brushed through her hair, and she
shivered as she stared up at him.
“You are one of the most courageous women I’ve known, Hannah.
Strong, independent, passionate, and loyal. Any man can buy a whore, Hannah.
Few men are lucky enough to know a woman’s heart is his possession, and that
she can be trusted to keep his in return.”
