Free Her Dearly Unintended by Regina Jennings Page A

the man who lived by the seat of his pants, had already planned what he was going to do. He bent toward her and, contrary to all she’d resolved, she didn’t run. He was so near. The cleft in his chin, the flecks of hazel in his brown eyes. Her hand slid from his cheek to his hair, still wet, and then his lips covered hers. At the first touch she was dragged under surer than if she’d plunged into the swollen river outside. He smelled of woodsmoke, rain, and her own cooking—everything familiar but terrifyingly foreign at the same time. One hand spread flat against his chest felt the solid goodness of him. No longer her playmate of years gone by, he was a man with a man’s power and a man’s resolve. He was comforting. He was frightening. He was facing death but making her feel more alive than ever.
    His kisses slowed. He wrapped her in his arms and held her forehead against his collarbone. His heart hammered beneath her palm.
    â€œYou’ll hide like I told you?” His voice was raspy. “If anything happened to you, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
    She gathered her wits. “You’d do fine without me. You always have.” At first she was proud of her answer, but as he looked away, she felt something remotely akin to shame. What was she doing? Why couldn’t she admit to him that she’d rather face this danger at his side than be protected and lose him? Why couldn’t she admit that this meant more to her than a desperate farewell?
    Her own breathing slowed as he stepped away. He stared pointedly at the geodes in the windowsill, each one standing alone, but he didn’t touch them. Instead, he started in again with the instructions, the warnings, but they fell on deaf ears. All she could hear was her own conscience begging her to be honest with him while she still had the chance. To confess that she hadn’t stopped loving him, no matter the distance he’d put between them. Why couldn’t she show him her heart?
    Because she’d done it once before, and what followed had hurt her more than she’d ever admit.

Chapter Eight
    The afternoon sun bounced off every drop of moisture bedecking the grass, the leaves, and the spiderwebs. Even the mud slicks sparkled proudly as if they’d accomplished something remarkable in their soggy brown depths. Josiah turned one last time at the edge before the mountain began its sharp descent. The wiry Silas stopped, too, his worried expression visible even from that distance.
    Josiah raised his hand to his mouth. She couldn’t be certain, but it appeared that he’d blown her a kiss before they disappeared over the ridge.
    Keep him safe, Lord , she prayed as she raised her hand for a last farewell gesture. Funny how she didn’t even have to consider what a wife would do in this situation. She followed her heart and found that she knew how to behave after all.
    But sometimes her heart led her astray. Sometimes her compulsions weren’t for her own good, and she needed to tackle that problem head-on.
    Katie Ellen was not a procrastinator. When something needed to be done, she did it. But this was different. She needed to gether heart straight, but she didn’t rightly know how to go about it. She’d been wrong before, although rarely, and had dealt with dread and guilt. So why did she feel the same now? Loving Josiah made her feel guilty, like she’d failed in some way, and she never wanted to admit her failings when she could help it. What she really wanted was to correct the mistake and move on, but fixing her heart would take an invention that couldn’t be hammered out by the blacksmith.
    She found herself inside the house. Normally she would immediately put her hand to cleaning the watery, milky, smoky mess, but no matter how the scatterment irked her, she let it be. There were things more important than tidiness. She’d always thought that if she could control life