Renegade by Patricia Potter

Author:Patricia Potter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504021593
Publisher: Open Road Media

Erin didn’t flinch as Wes glared at her after stomping into the room and demanding what in the hell she was doing there.

She gave Wes back as good as she received. “To see that you keep your word,” she said.

“Forget it,” Wes said. “I give you your freedom.”

“I don’t want it.”

For a moment, Wes’s eyes softened, then grew hard again. “I don’t want to marry you, Erin. I’ve outgrown you.” The words were purposely cruel, and all three in the room knew it.

Only Susannah felt Erin’s pain as her friend’s hand dug even further into hers.

“Have you?” Erin challenged softly. “Don’t you?”

Wes moved farther inside the house and sat down in one of the large chairs.

“I’ve changed, Erin. The boy you knew no longer exists.”

“Neither does the girl,” Erin said. She took off her gloves and showed her hands to Wes. “I’ve been working in the fields with my sister. I’ve learned to make my own clothes and to cook. Does that bother you? Do my hands bother you? We’ve all changed, Wes. We’ve had to. But one thing hasn’t. I’ve loved you all my life. I’ll never love anyone else.”

“It’s no good, Erin. I have nothing. Not even two legs to be able to build again.”

Erin couldn’t stand it a moment longer. She rose, went over to his side and sat on the arm of his chair. Her hand loved his face, every plane of it, every curve, every new crease. She leaned down and kissed him, slowly. Very slowly until his lips responded. Hungrily. Even desperately.

“I love you,” Erin whispered, when finally their lips parted. “I missed you so much. I prayed and prayed you would come home.” She felt tears well behind her eyes, but they weren’t for him. They were for all the years and days and minutes they had lost.

“It’s no good,” Wes said. “I can’t tie you to a … cripple.”

“I already am tied to you,” she said. “Don’t you know that yet?”

“Your family—”

“Didn’t change the way I felt before, and certainly won’t now,” she said.

“We have another war on our hands. I don’t want you involved.”

“Papa’s involved, too. The Martins and their … friends … want his land, too.”

“Dammit, Erin. It won’t work. I don’t have anything left. I have to start all over again, and I don’t know whether I can.”

“As for starting over, we’re all going to have to do that, my family included. And you can do anything you want to do.”

Her lips nuzzled boldly at his, and he wanted to take them. He wanted that more than anything in his life, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to her. He couldn’t do it to himself.

“Except walk on two legs, or help a colt foal, or brand cattle, or so many other things I took for granted.” Including making love. How could he make love to her now? How could he wrap his legs around her as he had once dreamed of doing? He looked around for Susannah, for help, but she had disappeared.

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