Free Sacrifice of Passion (Deadly Legends) by Melissa Bourbon Ramirez Page B

caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. His anger slipped away as he squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them.
    “You lied, Delaney.”
    “Vic…” Her voice grew cold. Controlled. “What happened between us back then doesn’t matter anymore—”
    “The truth always matters.”
    Her cheeks turned crimson and she swallowed.
    He dropped his gaze to her lips. To her neck. “Don’t you ever wonder…”
    She held perfectly still. “What?”
    He moved closer to her. Ran his thumb across her jaw, barely resisting the urge to kiss her, right here and now. He warred with himself, fighting the urge to make right all that had gone bad between them, desperate to rebuild the protective wall inside him. He had Zach to protect now. His livestock. The piglet.
    His heart.
    The words came out anyway. “What it would have been like. Between us. If we had made love.”
    She spun away, her hands fumbling to open the driver’s door of the Jeep. “N…no,” she said. “Never.”
    He knew she was lying.
    “Mm-hmm.” He backed off, gratified. She wanted to deny it, but she still felt him, just like he still felt her in the deepest part of his soul. “Well, I sure as hell do.”
    She glared up at him as she slid into the vehicle. But it didn’t quite mask the flash of uncertainty in her expression.
    “You can make it up to me,” he said. “Let’s finish what we started and all will be forgiven.”
    “Forget it. It’s in the past.” She stabbed her key into the ignition.
    He smiled and cocked his head. “Doesn’t have to be.”
    She stared determinedly at the steering wheel, as though afraid to meet his gaze. “We can’t go back, Vic. We can’t change what happened. Or what should have happened.”
    She cranked the engine, and he headed for his truck, calling over his shoulder. “No. But it would give us both closure.”
    He got in his truck and drove down the driveway. He looked back and saw Delaney, Jeep still idling, hands still gripping the wheel, eyes still focused downward.
    No, they couldn’t change what happened, but if they didn’t do something—talk, yell, screw till they both passed out from exhaustion—they’d be stuck in the past, both of them, always wondering what they could have had. What it would have been like to be together.
    And what it would take to move the hell on.

Chapter Eight
    Dusk settled around Delaney as she left her parents’ ranch house and walked across the gravel drive to her Jeep. After finishing at Jasper’s with the mare and foal in the morning, she’d put in a full day at the clinic caring for the sick and recovering animals. Now, freshly showered and no longer smelling like horse, dog, and antiseptic, she was ready to face Carmen.
    Last night she’d started to tell her friend about that night so long ago. About her darkest secret. Her deepest hurt. She wanted to unburden herself, confide in someone she trusted. And hope that Carmen could still look her in the eye without pity. She’d chickened out, only telling her part of the story, leaving out the worst part. But now, she couldn’t keep it in any longer.
    She stared at the tree that had been on her parents’ property forever and wished she had a chainsaw to cut the damn thing down. The tree should have withered and died like the others around it had during the blight in the mid-eighties, but it had survived, even with the burden of a thick, heavy, link chain encased under its living bark. She and Vic had given it the name the Chain Tree. It was the place where they always met. Where they were supposed to have started their new life together. This tree had once been the symbol of love and of hope and of the future.
    Now the tree was an awful reminder of the love that had evaporated in a single moment.
    A reminder of violation. Of pain.
    Of betrayal.
    “Evenin’, Del.”
    Delaney jumped, dropping her keys in the dirt. She flung her palm to her chest, then wheeled around. “Alan! Dammit, don’t sneak up on me