Free Burning Wild by Christine Feehan Page A

annoyed, feeling as if he was wasting his time. Watching Emma with Kyle made him feel different.
    “Emma, do you remember what happened?”
    Her gaze flicked to his face and her arms tightened around the baby. She nodded. “Not how it happened, only you holding me down and fire all around us.” She swallowed hard, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Andy . . .”
    He put his arm around her as if she belonged there—with him. “I know, Emma. I’m sorry. I couldn’t get him out. It was too late.”
    “Don’t blame yourself.” She looked up at him again and her eyes looked like two deep pools. For a moment he thought he was falling forward. “Did he suffer?”
    His fingers went to the nape of her neck, massaging the tension in an effort to comfort her. “No. He died immediately. He never felt the fire.”
    She bit down hard on her lip and stared into Kyle’s face. “The people in the other car? They both died, didn’t they?” She swallowed visibly, trying to remember everything she’d overhead. “You knew them both?”
    Jake reached out and took Kyle’s little hand. “His mother died, as well as the driver. The medics delivered my son and saved his life. I was lucky they could get the baby out in time.”
    “I’m sorry about your wife.”
    “We weren’t married,” Jake admitted in a low voice.
    Again her gaze flicked to his face. “I’m sorry,” she said again. She turned her attention to Kyle, cradling him close to her, ducking her head so that her face was hidden.
    Jake realized she felt bad for him, that the tears shimmering in her eyes were for him, for Kyle—not for herself. It was to his advantage to allow her to think he’d been crazy about Shaina—that he felt the same sorrow at losing a loved one as she did. It gave them another bond. He considered letting her believe it, but something inside, something strong, welled up in him, refusing to let him lie to her about that. Not even by omission.
    “Emma,” Jake said softly and waited until she looked up at him. “I didn’t love Shaina. I don’t have the same emotions as you do.” Maybe he really wanted to warn her. All the advantages were on his side. Maybe there was a shred of decency left in him and he believed she deserved it. Or, God help him, Drake Donovon, his semi-friend and now part-time counselor, with his constant set of rules and talk of honor, was getting to him. Whatever, Jake knew he had to tell her the truth.
    “I despised her. She deliberately got pregnant to blackmail me into marriage. And then when it didn’t work, she drank and did drugs while she was pregnant. I had to have someone watching her all the time. I came here to bring her back to my ranch, to keep the baby safe until he was born. You lost someone you loved. Shaina was . . .” Like me. He couldn’t bring himself to say it and he just trailed off.
    Emma stared up at his face, her eyes wide and unblinking, completely focused on him so that he went still, feeling threatened—feeling as though she could see all the way to his soul, to the cold monster living there, waiting to strike. She shook her head slowly. “Not like you.” As if he’d spoken the words aloud and she’d heard them. “You aren’t who you think you are.”
    He knew exactly who and what he was. He never spared himself by trying to whitewash his character. He’d embraced the cold monster, refusing to fall victim ever again. He would be stronger, more cunning, faster, more ruthless, than every enemy he had. And he would never be vulnerable again—not to anyone. They would find him an implacable enemy who pulled no punches and had no mercy when he struck at them—at any of them. And this one, this young, fragile woman who looked at the world through rose-colored glasses, she was going to belong to him and he was taking her, whether she wanted it or not. No, he was exactly like his enemies, only worse.
    He paced away from the bed, away from her intent gaze. He was the one in control,