Free Double Dare by Vicki Hinze

you, there’s a lot more going on here than a lack of trust,” Justin speculated. “That can be earned. But you said there were a few things. What are the others?”
    Earned. Yes, maybe. But he said it as if it were as easy as picking up a Sunday paper. It wasn’t. It was damned hard. She returned to her topic. “There are two,” she said. “The first is that men make promises and vows to appease women—and they break them the very second women interfere with what they want to do.”
    “Ah, I understand now.”
    She drank from her glass. “What?”
    “The reason Colonel Drake warned you about the rules. I thought that was odd at the time, but now I totally understand why she felt compelled to issue the order.”
    Irritated at being this transparent, she bristled. “It’s important to follow the rules, Justin. Rules. Like promises orvows, when you break them, the result isn’t a hypothetical. It’s real, and too often, real people get hurt.”
    He had to be angry. It should be radiating from him, but not a hint of it was evident in his voice. Silky-soft and smooth, it never wavered. “And your third truth?” He encouraged her to go on.
    She did, seeing no sense in not saying it all now that most of it was already on the table. “Three. It’s my ironclad policy never to trust a man who cheats.”
    “Because you divorced one,” he said.
    “Yes.” And it’d damn near killed her. “Your marriage is none of my business, Justin, and I’m first to admit it. But it would be foolish to ignore our histories. As you said, lives depend on the decisions and judgment calls we make.”
    “And personal feelings just blur the lines on rules and make things messy.”
    “That, too.”
    A muscle in his jaw ticked. The look in his eyes turned hard and cold. Still his voice stayed velvet-soft. “I’m not shocked, Maggie,” he said. “Maybe a little disappointed in you, but I’m not surprised that when you look at me, all you see is a man who cheated on his wife who might also, despite Colonel Drake’s vouching for me, be one of Kunz’s body doubles.”
    “I don’t think you’re a double—not at the moment, anyway.” Confusion inside her created chaos. Was he trying to provoke her or to make her feel guilty? She refused to feel either. Her feelings were her own, valid and forged in the agony that follows betrayal, in the pain of being tossed suddenly from the lifetime expectancy of “us” into “just me” without warning. She’d trudged through months ofdepression and hell, wondering if her job had been the cause of their problems. Wondering why, during a time of national crisis, it had been so easy for her husband and best friend to hurt her and lie to her. She’d suffered, and she still suffered because there were no easy answers to these questions and a million more like them that haunted her. Often, there were no answers at all.
    No, Justin Crowe wasn’t going to make her second-guess what she knew to be true. She’d lived the victim side of the unfaithful. She’d trusted Jack implicitly, totally and completely. And with no warning, he’d left her broken and devastated in the pile of rubble that once had been her life.
    No man would ever have that power over her again. She just couldn’t survive it twice.
    The waitress silently poured coffee, clearly picking up on the tension at the table. She cast a covert glance at Maggie’s hand, checking for a wedding band, and seemed reassured on seeing one, then left the table.
    “I feel the sadness in you, Maggie.” Justin added cream to his coffee. “I’m sorry you were hurt.”
    She swallowed hard, lifted her chin. “No, I’m sorry.” She bit her lip, took responsibility. “I had no right to say any of that to you.”
    He rubbed the handle of his cup with his thumb. “I might have gotten more than I wanted, but at least you were honest. I can respect an honest woman.”
    What did he mean by that? Clearly there was a message in that comment, but