Welcome to Mills & Boon. Jennifer Rae

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СКАЧАТЬ hadn’t taken much notice, until her thirteen-year-old eyes had realized the rider was a boy around her age, and that he looked too gorgeous for words in jeans, plaid shirt and cowboy hat resting low over his eyes. Lauren had pushed her forward when he’d come close and she’d tentatively said hello. He’d done the same and they’d chatted for a couple of minutes. He was on vacation, staying with a relative. She’d explained she lived in the small town permanently. It had been puppy love at first sight for Cassie and she’d agreed to return the following afternoon and he was already riding off on his horse when she’d realized they hadn’t exchanged names.

      “What are you thinking about?”

      She glanced sideways when she realized Tanner was looking at her. “Nothing. You’ll think it’s silly.”

      “Try me,” he said with a wry grin. “Sometimes we all need a little silly in our lives.”

      Gosh, he was so right. She was tired of being serious all the time. Of worrying. Of overthinking. Of being a grown-up. Some days she longed to be frivolous and just have fun.

      “All right,” she said and took a deep breath. “I was thinking about how right over there,” she said and pointed to a crest of sand covered in clumps of grass, “is where I got my very first kiss.”

      His gaze narrowed. “Really?”

      “Yep. I was thirteen and very naive.” She laughed and grinned. “Hard to imagine, huh?”

      He smiled, as though he’d guessed she was a teenage dork. “And?”

      “And he was a boy I met on the beach. He was a cowboy,” she said and met his eyes. “Like you, I guess. He had a horse and a hat and a nice smile and he kissed me.”

      “And that’s it?”

      She shrugged. “It was enough. It was everything a girl’s first kiss should be... It was sweet and soft and his lips tasted like peppermint.”

      She smiled coyly, embarrassed by how foolish she must seem to him. But Tanner wasn’t laughing. He was watching her with such burning intensity she couldn’t move. The wind whipped around them and she shivered even though she wasn’t cold. Something kindled between them. A look. A memory. Something she couldn’t fathom. For the thousandth time she wished she knew him better. And she wished she wasn’t scared to death of letting him into her life and then knowing he’d be out of it once he left.

      “Anyway,” she said, stepping back. “It was a long time ago. And I never saw him again.”

      “So he just kissed you and took off?” he inquired, continuing to walk. “That’s not exactly chivalrous.”

      Cassie took a few long strides to catch up with him. “Actually, I took off. I spooked and ran.” She came to a sudden stop and waited for him to halt and turn around. “We should get back. I promised Mary-Jayne I wouldn’t be too long.”

      He crossed his arms, unmoving. “So why did you spook and run?”

      “Because that’s what I do,” she admitted on hollow breath. “When it comes to getting close to someone I guess I spook easily.”

      He stared at her. “You didn’t run from Doug.”

      “He was never around,” she said quickly, hearing her words echo on the breeze. Did I really say that?

      “But you wanted commitment,” he reminded her. “Marriage, family...right?”

      “I thought so,” she said warily, feeling the intensity of his gaze so acutely it was like a fire racing over her skin. “But maybe...”

      “Maybe it was safe to want it from Doug because you knew you’d never get it?”

      There was something so elementally powerful about his words she stepped back, stunned by how much truth she heard. Was it possible? Had she set her sights and her dreams on a man she knew would never be able to deliver? Were her expectations and hopes that low?

      “I don’t know. Perhaps,” she murmured, wavering between a sudden rage at Tanner for working her out, and an irrational fear that no one else ever would. “I don’t usually psychoanalyze myself.”

      “You mean you don’t dwell on your abandonment issues?”

      “I don’t have—”

      “Sure you do,” he said gently. “You lost your parents at a vulnerable age and now you expect everyone else to leave you, too.”

      “You lost your parents around the same age and you don’t have—”

      “Of course I do,” he said, sounding suddenly impatient as he cut her off. “Anyone who loved Doug ended up as collateral damage in one way or another. I know that from experience. He dumped me into boarding school, remember? Why the hell do you think I’m back here, Cassie? Why do you think it’s so important to me that Oliver doesn’t grow up thinking that the people who are supposed to protect him didn’t bail and take what’s rightfully his?”

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