She couldn’t tell him about that, though, because it would be nothing but a lie.

She was so tired of lying. She didn’t want to do it anymore.

And she wanted to know the truth from him. She needed to know he was innocent.

“I saw my dad die,” she heard herself saying.

She felt his body tighten beside her. “What? When?”

“When I was a kid.” She cleared her throat, knowing she couldn’t give him too many details or he could possibly put them together into her identity. But she needed to share something with him, and this was the deepest thing in her life. And maybe she could tell from his expression whether anything in the story hit home with him—not proof of his innocence but at least some clue to give her direction. “It was a…a hunting accident. But I was with him. He was shot, and I saw him die.”

Caleb was silent for a long time, but his arm had tightened around her. “The woods,” he breathed at last. “That’s why you’re scared of the woods.”

“Yeah.” Her voice broke, since it was so hard to talk about, even under the false pretense. “Sometimes I feel like I…I’ve never really gotten past that day, that my whole life just circles around it.”

“That kind of trauma, when you’re young, it’s not surprising. That’s why you’ve not had many close relationships?”

“I don’t think I’ve had any close relationships. Except with Reese, my best friend.”

“And me,” he added, nuzzling her hair.

“And you.” She stroked his chest over his shirt and realized how true this was.

“What about your mom?”

“I was never really close to her, and it got worse after my dad died. She couldn’t get over his death.”

“When did she die?”

She was about to correct him but caught herself just in time. He knew she was adopted, so naturally he assumed both her parents were dead. Knowing her mom was alive would be one clue too many. “Less than a year after my dad.”

“Was it…was it suicide?”

It made perfect sense—would explain two deaths in a short amount of time. So she just nodded.

Her mom might as well have died the year after her father had.

Caleb didn’t say anything, didn’t offer any superficial platitudes. It was a relief, since anything he said wouldn’t have come close to answering the way she was feeling.

Naked. Vulnerable. But still safe somehow, as if she could trust Caleb with what she’d offered him.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a Shakespeare play,” she said after a minute, remembering her reflections earlier.

“Romeo and Juliet?” There was a little smile in his eyes, a dry humor that could never be fully stamped out.

She loved that about him.

She gave a little laugh. “No. They were so young—and barely knew each other. That doesn’t feel like me at all. I was thinking one of his more mature tragedies. Hamlet or something. Where one act sets off this whole downward spiral of events, and no matter how hard you try, you just can’t pull yourself out of them. Sometimes my life feels that way. Since my father’s death, I’ve never been able to pull out of the downward spiral.”

Caleb let out a long breath. “I know how that feels.” He was silent for a while, and then he began, “Did you ever want to…” Caleb trailed off and restarted his question. “If that had happened to me, and I knew who was responsible, I would have wanted to make the person pay.” He sounded serious, reflective, like he was genuinely thinking it through, feeling with and for her.

It hurt in so many ways. “It was an accident,” she managed to say.

“But someone did it.”

“Yes.”

“What happened to the person?”

She swallowed hard. “Nothing.”

He let out his breath. “Yeah. You’re a better person than I am. Because I would have done anything in my power to make them pay for it.”

The irony was so exquisitely bitter that she froze for a few seconds. Then she reached up to take his face in one of her hands, making him meet her eyes. “I’m not any better than you are, Caleb. Don’t tell that lie to yourself. We are just the same.”

She saw the words process in his eyes, and his expression twisted very briefly with emotion. “Okay.” He pulled her into a tight hug and murmured against her ear, “Although I think you might be a little better than me.”

She shook with bone-dry amusement and a different kind of feeling and let herself enjoy his embrace.

He held her against him for a long time until he adjusted their bodies enough for him to press his lips against hers. “Thank you for telling me. About your father.”

She nodded, knowing he’d realized how hard it was for her to say. “I don’t tell anyone.”

“You can tell me, though.”

“Yeah.” After a moment she added, “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Do you have anything you want to tell me?” She looked up at him and was surprised to see an expression of uncertainty on his face.

Like he was torn, like there might be something he wanted to unburden on her too.

She wanted it. Wanted to know more about him, wanted to know the contours of his soul. Wanted so much to know if she was allowed to feel for him this way.

She waited, but then she saw his face relax and knew he’d made his decision.

He wasn’t going to open up all the way with her yet.

“I love you,” he said, turning on his side and smiling at her. “Is that what you wanted me to say?”

She accepted the new mood his word and smile had shaped, since it was safer, easier. She smiled back. “You said that this morning.”

“I haven’t changed my mind yet.”

“Good. Me either. I love you too.”

His smile widened and he leaned forward, kissing her gently at first until he wrapped one arm around her and the kiss deepened dramatically. “Do you know what?” he murmured against her mouth, his voice throaty and erotic when they finally broke the kiss.

“What?”

“This is the first time in my life when I’ve ever wanted a woman for more than her body. Is that strange?”

He was definitely getting into sex mode, but she could tell that his last question had been a serious one. He wanted an answer.

“I don’t know. Maybe a little. Forty years is a long time to want nothing but sex from women.”

Her mind felt rather blurred and overly warm as he kissed her again, deeply and leisurely. She pressed her body against him, wound her arms around his neck, opened her mouth to his tongue, felt all of him giving to her, taking from her, both at the same time.

When he finally pulled back from the kiss, he was smiling. “Well, truth be known, I didn’t start pursuing women when I was four, so it’s been a little less than forty years.”

It took a minute to register the words through the cloud of lust and feeling in her mind, but when she did, she couldn’t help but giggle. “Thirty years, then. It’s still a long time. You’ve really only thought about women’s bodies in all that time?”

“In work contexts, it’s different. I can respect them as much as men. But beyond that…” He shook his head. “You’re the first woman I’ve ever wanted beyond just the physical.”

She couldn’t help but like that idea, no matter what it said about Caleb’s sexual history. She liked that he’d never felt for any woman anything close to what he felt for her.

She knew those kinds of feelings were dangerous, knew the more she entertained them, the harder it would be to ever do what she was here to do. She knew the smartest thing for her to do right now would be to change the mood between them to something simpler—something hot and sexy and not filled with this kind of soft emotion.

But instead of saying something dirty, she asked, “So what exactly about me do you want?”

His expression was unusually soft, tender, with something almost happy warming his eyes. “Are you fishing for compliments?”

“Not compliments.” She was smiling the same way he was. “Just an explanation of what you meant. How hard can that be?”