“The odd thing is,” he added after a while, “Connor always was the smart one, yet our father put him down. Hard man, my dad. Never in all the years we were growing up do I remember him showing either of us any affection. Favoritism, yes, sadly. But not affection. It never bothered me, but Connor—well, he needed more. He tended to bottle things up inside, you know? Let them fester.”

  “And you?”

  “Hell, I acted out by pushing things to the limit.”

  Okay. He’d talked more about himself in this one session with her than he ever had in the years he’d been married to Rea.

  “What about you?”

  “Me?” she asked, pulling her hands back, looking surprised.

  “Yeah. What makes you tick?”

  “Oh, well,” she stammered, and he could actually see her withdrawing emotionally as well as physically. “Just your basic, run-of-the-mill childhood. Nothing remarkable there.”

  Chrissie was not a good liar. It shouldn’t have bothered him that she’d lied. Aside from the fact that he’d just spilled his guts to her, it ticked him off that she couldn’t trust him with the truth.

  That’s what people who loved each other did. They trusted.

  Whoa.

  His heart ratcheted to about one-twenty. Where had that come from? He didn’t love Chrissie. He liked her. Had great affection for her. Admired her. Lusted after her.

  But he did not love her.

  He’d been there, done that. Wasn’t going to do it again. Ever. He knew himself too well. He knew that he couldn’t survive another hole like the one Rea had blown in his heart when she’d left him. He didn’t want to ever again put himself in the position where he was that vulnerable to a hit.

  And because Chrissie sometimes made him question a stand that had held him in good stead for several years, he figured now was a good time to get his head on straight again.

  “What do you say I take you home?” he said, standing and digging into his hip pocket for his wallet. “I’ve got an early day tomorrow. I’m sure you do, too.”

  “Sure,” she said, looking surprised by his abruptness but also as if she wanted to get away from this conversation as much as he did. “It’s been a long day.”

  She didn’t have reason to feel guilty about closing up on Jake just now, Christine told herself as she stood beside Jake at the cash register and Sheila Foster rang up the ticket for their meal. Still, Christine felt guilty for shutting him down.

  She’d come a long way in the trust department. However not far enough to trust him with the truth of her childhood, even though he’d been honest with her about his feelings.

  Intellectually she knew that she had no reason to be ashamed. The shame was her father’s and, in some part, her mother’s for not standing up to him and for not getting herself and Christine out of that horrible situation.

  But still, the shame was as sharp as a slap from the back of her father’s hand, as acute as the verbal abuse he’d heaped on her with dump trucks then ground in with steamrollers. You’re not cute enough. Not smart enough. Are too much of a mouse. Always in the way.

  Someday maybe she’d get past it. But right now, well, it wasn’t going to happen.

  The little bell above the diner’s door tinkled, and she shifted her attention there to see who had entered. It was Gretchen Halifax and some smarmy guy Christine knew she should recognize but couldn’t quite place.

  He was in his late thirties, maybe early forties. His hair was a dull brown, the same as his eyes. Small eyes. Snake eyes, she thought for some reason. Maybe it was the suit. It was a shiny gray material and made her think of snakeskin, covering a well-fed, bulky body. She wondered if he thought he looked the part of a smooth, savvy guy. Certainly the way he looked at her—big smile, come-on eyes—said that he thought he was quite the ladies’ man.

  She thought he was quite the loser but he hadn’t figured it out yet.

  Then again, he was with Gretchen, so what did Christine know.

  “Well, well,” Gretchen said when she spotted Jake at the counter. “If it isn’t the backstabber.”

  Christine frowned. Backstabber? What is she talking about?

  “Now, Gretchen,” Jake said, sounding as patronizing as he could possibly be, “nobody is stabbing you in the back.”

  “Oh? Then what do you call running against me for mayor?”

  Christine blinked from Gretchen to Jake. What? “Running for mayor?” Christine echoed, dumbfounded. “You’re running for mayor? Seriously?”

  “You know I’m a serious kind of guy,” Jake said, glancing at her before returning his attention to Gretchen. “Not afraid of a little competition, are you, Councilwoman?”

  “I’m not afraid of you. But then, I don’t see you as competition.”

  “If that’s the case,” Jake said, smiling his best candy-eating smile, “it shouldn’t bother you that I entered the race. See you around, Gretchen.” Then he added, “Devlin,” nodding to the man at Gretchen’s side. With his hand at Christine’s back, he guided her outside.

  Durmorr. Malcolm Durmorr. That’s who the man was, Christine realized from the muddle of her confused thoughts as she walked down the street.

  “When did this happen?” she asked when they reached her car, still a little dizzy with shock and surprise. And with something else. Disappointment. Jake had done something major in his life and he hadn’t even mentioned it to her. Hadn’t seen fit to tell her. Which meant he hadn’t thought she mattered enough to tell her.

  “Just this morning.”

  She felt her stomach sink a little lower. Okay. So he hadn’t told her. He wasn’t obligated to tell her everything he did. In fact, he wasn’t obligated to tell her anything.

  It was just that, well, she’d thought— She’d thought she mattered more to him. And it shouldn’t come as either a surprise or a disappointment that she didn’t.

  “Why?” she asked, feeling the need to fill the uncomfortable silence.

  “Why run for mayor? You’re the one who said it. I need to do something adult. Something civic minded. So I’m doing it.

  “I don’t like that woman’s platform,” he added as he opened her car door for her. “She wants major tax increases—for the local oil business as well as other businesses. She wants to cash in on increased tax revenues, and I am totally against that. Her platform not only affects my business but those of many of my friends and the people who keep Royal prosperous. She’d have a negative effect on the town—we’d lose business right and left—if she gets elected.

  “Besides,” he added, “I don’t like her or her methods. And I don’t like the people she runs with. Malcolm Durmorr—unlike the rest of the Devlin family—is a lowlife, a deadbeat opportunist. The fact that Gretchen keeps company with him just reinforces my decision to run against her.”

  “Well,” Christine said, fighting that sinking sensation of exclusion that she had no right to feel, “good luck. And good night. Thanks for dinner.”

  She got in her car and drove off. Without another word. It was a little hard to talk through tears. And damn it, she was crying.

  It made no sense. It made no sense at all that he hadn’t told her about his decision. He had to have been thinking about it for quite a while if he actually filed the papers today.

  His silence might not make sense unless he was trying to make a point, she realized, wiping her eye. And the point was she was not a staple in his life.

  Now the really bad news. She hadn’t realized until this very moment how badly she wanted to be.

  She was in love with him. Damn her naive, foolish hide. Against all her own warnings not to, despite what she’d known about him going into this, she’d made a fatal mistake.

  She’d fallen in love with Jake Thorne.

  He’d hurt her.

  As Jake lay awake alone in bed that night, he knew that he’d hurt Chrissie by not telling her about his decision to run for mayor. And the worst part? He was pretty certain he’d done it on purpose.

  He’d kept thinking he’d tell her that he was seriously considering running, but in the end he hadn’t. He hadn’t told her because he’d known that if she found out from someone other than him, it would put their relationship in proper perspective. There was no future for them. Something they both knew.

  So how come he’d felt as if he’d kicked a kitten when she’d looked at him with surprise, then hurt, then a dawning understanding? She’d known exactly the message he was trying to send. He’d wanted to make sure that she remembered—hell, he’d wanted to make sure that he remembered—what their arrangement was about. No promises. No future. Only fun for now. For as long as it lasted.

  His cell rang, blasting him out of the doldrums. He was still picturing Chrissie’s face when he flicked on the bedside light, saw that it was nearly five in the morning and answered his phone.

  It was his site manager, Ray. There was an oil fire near Odessa. A bad one. They needed a crew. And they needed them fast.

  He split the calling list of available men with Ray, then assembled his half of the crew. They’d all be there, on-site, within an hour—two max.

  When he hung up the phone, he ran through a mental checklist. He hadn’t missed any beats.

  Everything was under control. Except his heart. It was waging a helluva war in his chest.

  Each hard pump said, “Go, go, go.”

  But he knew he wasn’t needed on-site. Knew he had no business at any oil-well fire. He wouldn’t be able to stand back and simply supervise. He knew he’d get one whiff of the oil smoke, feel the burn of the blaze against his face and dive into the thick of things.

  He dragged a hand through his hair, steeled himself against the need. Braced himself for the fight.

  But not hard enough.

  “The hell with it,” he swore and vaulted out of bed.

  He needed… He needed…something. Something to remind him he was still alive. Something to prove he was vital.

  He needed Chrissie.

  And because he needed her so badly and because he didn’t dare give in to that need, he dressed in battle gear and headed for the fire.

  Christine had the TV on in her kitchen as she always did in the morning while she got ready for work. She was rinsing out her coffee cup in the sink and about to shut off the set to head out the door when the reporter’s voice stopped her.

  “It’s a bad one, all right, Mike.” The reporter was doing a live remote from the site of an oil-well fire south of Odessa. “Hellfire, International—the Royal, Texas-based firefighting company—arrived in force about six o’clock this morning.”

  “Hellfire,” she whispered aloud. Jake’s company.

  “At least two of the firefighters are being treated for minor injuries by EMTs,” the reporter continued to say, “and it’s not looking as though they’re going to be capping this bad boy for a while yet. Let’s roll some tape we shot earlier of an interview with Hellfire’s head man, Jake Thorne.”

  Christine couldn’t believe it. There was Jake. At the site. He was covered in smoke smudge and sweat, suited up in full firefighting gear, rattling off techniques and solutions and probabilities, then hurriedly excusing himself as he donned gloves and helmet and headed toward the plume of fire that boiled out of the ground like a geyser on a straight line from hell.

  For a moment she couldn’t breathe. Refused to believe that Jake was actually there. Not just there, on the site, but actively involved in fighting the fire.

  “The fool,” she sputtered aloud. “The damn fool.”

  It wasn’t just a question of if he suffered more smoke or fire inhalation it maybe could kill him. There were no ifs or maybes about it. He was risking everything. Everything.

  “And for what?” she asked aloud as she grabbed her purse and headed out the door at a run. “An adrenaline rush?”

  Heart racing, she did something she’d never done in her entire career at the hospital. She called in sick from her cell phone. Then she floored the convertible all the way to Odessa.

  She’d recognized the area from the news report, so she knew exactly where to find the fire. Still, the hour-long trip felt like forever. When she finally arrived, she was met with more frustration because she couldn’t get to Jake. The police and local fire departments, as well as the drilling operation’s security, were out in force to keep the area secure and free of curiosity seekers.

  After parking several blocks away, she quickly locked her car and, at a trot, headed toward the source of heat. The heat factor grew outrageous the closer she went to the fire. So did the security.

  “I’m EMT support,” she lied, flashing the name tag on her uniform.

  She figured it was the Respiratory Therapist title under her name that did the trick.

  “Go on in. We’ve got triage and treatment set up over there.” The guard pointed in the general direction of a pair of ambulances where several medical personnel were treating firefighters in need of oxygen, rehydration and first aid.

  All of them appeared to be fine and getting the treatment they needed. None of them was the man she was looking for.

  Working hard to control the tremor in her voice, she approached one of the firefighters where he sat resting on the tailgate of a pickup. “Where’s Jake?”

  He poured cold water over his head, then wiped soot from his face with a red handkerchief. “Down there somewhere,” he said, nodding toward the fire.

  Her heart sank just before a roar went up from the gathered crowd.

  “She’s capped!” someone shouted just as Christine turned and saw that the fire was out.

  “Thank God,” she whispered under her breath, then felt her heart take another dive.

  “Man down!” The shout came from the center of the activity.

  She didn’t think. She headed toward the site at a dead run.

  Frantic, she searched the weary faces of every man who turned to look at her as she ran past. Ahead, a knot of firefighters hovered over the prone figure.

  She pushed her way through them, grabbing one man’s shoulder and shoving him aside. “Let me through,” she snapped, then almost broke down and wept when the firefighter she’d tried to move out of her way turned around and looked at her.

  It was Jake.

  “Chrissie,” he said, confusion and surprise clouding his face. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you!” she said, not knowing whether to kiss him or hit him or bawl all over him. “I thought you were hurt. I—I thought you were…dead.”

  “Oh, sweet cheeks. Sweetie. It’s okay. I’m right as rain. Old Ben here didn’t fare as well, though. He might have a broken ankle.”

  The EMTs arrived right behind Christine and immediately went to work on Ben.

  “Chrissie?”

  Shock. She supposed she was suffering from a little shock. First from the scare. Now from relief.

  “Chrissie,” he said more gently. He turned her to face him, cupping her elbows in his big hands. “I’m okay.”

  His gaze locked on hers, his brilliant blue eyes searching from his smoke-smudged face.

  Latent fear made her breath ragged. Frustration made her voice tight. “Why did you do this? Why when you know the risk?”

  He had the sense to look guilty before he lifted a shoulder, defiant, defensive. “They needed me,” he said, but without the conviction to ring true. He knew what it could have cost him. So did she.

  “What if I said I needed you?” She hadn’t intended to confess. Hadn’t wanted him to know. But now that it was out, there was no turning back. “What if I said I love you? And I was scared to death that I’d lost you? What if I said that?”

  He looked as though she’d punched him and knocked every last breath from his lungs. He blinked, looked away, then back into her eyes. Finally he shook his head. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

  “Yeah,” she said, feeling very weary suddenly. And so lost. Lost in love with a crazy, foolish man who hadn’t had a clue how she felt or what the thought of losing him had done to her. A man who clearly felt uncomfortable with her revelations. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

  She pulled out of his hold and started walking away.

  “Hey… Hey, Chrissie,” he said, catching up with her. “Let me walk you back to your car.”

  She laughed. No humor. Just sad acceptance. “Don’t bother. Just…don’t bother,” she said, knowing that he was as uncomfortable with her being here as she was with the fact that she loved him.

  She loved a man who didn’t care enough about himself to ever care about her.

  She’d hoped. Deep down inside she’d foolishly hoped that she meant more to him than a good time and good sex. Okay, that made him sound shallow and cruel. He was neither.

  He was, however, exactly what she had always known him to be—a man who had no intention of committing to a woman. Especially not her. He couldn’t have made it more clear. First by leaving her out of the loop on joining the mayoral race. And now with his total disregard for his own life.

  No man who loved a woman would unnecessarily put himself in danger the way he’d just done.

  Christine went to work. She came home. She cried. That went on for two days. And then she’d had enough. She’d survived worse than Jake Thorne’s nondeclaration of love. And she would survive this, too.

  But what she would not do was talk to him. She couldn’t. She was too raw yet. And too needy for the sound of his voice. No, she would not talk to him. Cold turkey was hard, but it was the only way to get over him.

  So she didn’t return his calls or answer the messages he left on her machine. She did not want to hear him say things such as “It’s me, not you.” Or “I never meant for you to get hurt.” Or “I thought we both knew there was nothing serious going on.”

  Well, nothing serious was going on. At least, not from where he stood. And from where she stood? Well, she’d eventually find firmer ground. She’d get over it. She’d get over him.