Free With Family In Mind (Saddle Falls Book 1) by Sharon de Vita Page A

knowing how his family had suffered. “You love, cherish and protect your family at all costs.” He turned to her and she could see the pain etched in his face. It immediately softened her toward him. “At least that’s what the Ryans believe.”
    Instinct took over, and without thought Rebecca laid a hand on his arm, not just to touch, but to comfort. That, too, was foreign to her, but just seemed so right somehow. “I know, Jake, and I understand that. Truly.” Her voice was a whisper. “Which is the whole point in telling you this story. I wrote it, and spent months and months researching and digging for the truth, because I truly believed something was wrong there, seriously wrong, and I knew that if I didn’t, no one else would. No one seemed to care about one poor little girl who was suffering unbearably because of her mother.” Her own words echoed in her ears and she realized she could have been talking about herself.
    “But you cared,” he said quietly, looking at her in a new light and covering her fingers with his own. Her hand was small, delicate and feminine. And so soft it made him ache to touch her other places, to see if she was that soft all over.
    Rebecca swallowed hard and forced herself to continue. “Yes, I cared, Jake, not because of the sensationalism of the story, not because I wanted to hurt the mother or invade her privacy, but because I needed to get to the bottom of it, to find out what was wrong.”
    “To find the truth?” He was beginning to think he’d misjudged her, and been biased and unfair, allowing his own personal prejudices to cloud his reasoning, which was not his way. He was usually thought to be a rather fair person, except when his family’s safety was at issue. Then all bets were off.
    But still, hearing the pain in Rebecca’s voice, understanding the dedication it took to get to the bottom of this story, made him realize that perhaps Rebecca St. John was different from what he’d first believed her to be. Perhaps, just perhaps, she deserved the benefit of the doubt. It was something to think about.
    She nodded. “Yes, Jake, to find the truth. But in order to get to the truth, someone had to get hurt. I had to invade the mother’s privacy, to delve into her past to see if my hunch was right. So yes, in this instance I did hurt someone, and I did deliberately invade her privacy—”
    “Yeah, but Rebecca, that’s different—”
    “Different?” One brow rose and she almost smiled, wondering if he realized he was now defending her and her actions. “How is that different, Jake?”
    “Well…” He was trying to think, but she was so close and her hand was still on his and her touch was distracting him, interrupting his brain waves to the point where thinking was difficult. “It’s different because…” His voice trailed off and he merely stared at her, feeling like a fool.
    He hadn’t expected her touch to hit him in the gut with a sledgehammer of desire.
    With great effort, Jake gave himself a mental shake and dragged his thoughts back to their conversation, even as his gaze settled on her soft mouth again—a mouth he wasn’t going to be able to resist much longer. “What you did, Rebecca, saved that kid’s life. So the mother got hurt. Big deal! Under the circumstances, considering what she’d been doing to her own kid, I’d say she deserved anything she got. If you hadn’t dug into the mother’s past that kid might be dead right now.”
    “True, Jake, but it wasn’t me who saved that little girl’s life. It was the truth. Merely the truth. And I didn’t use the information I obtained to sensationalize the story. I wrote about it to help that child, to find out what was going on with her, what was making her sick.” Rebecca sighed wearily. Even now the memory saddened her. “She was a helpless child who suffered immeasurable because of an emotionally ill mother.” Leaning back in her seat, Rebecca looked at him. “Now do you understand