I wanted to make her come again before turning in for the night, but Tia fell asleep when I was in the shower and I didn't have the heart to wake her up. In the morning, she was still zonked out beside me so I got dressed quietly and slipped downstairs to make scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Something about having her in the house just felt right. Making breakfast for her felt right, like every other breakfast I'd ever made was now, in hindsight, missing something. And even as I felt my heart almost full to the brim with Tia Kinsley, I was slightly pissed off at myself for letting things get so out of hand the night before. I hadn't yet had the chance to tell her the things I needed to. How was I going to get her to take me seriously if I couldn't keep my hands off her for long enough to actually say what had to be said?

She came downstairs just as the eggs were finished, looking completely irresistible in one of my t-shirts and nothing else.

"Goddamnit," I said, kissing the top of her head. "How am I supposed to get anything done around here with you looking like that?"

She grinned. "You've got bigger problems than I thought if me first thing in the morning is enough to distract you, Dallas."

Tia didn't know. She didn't know how absolutely amazing she was. It was probably for the best, I could only imagine the trail of broken male hearts she'd leave behind her if she did.

"Are those from the hens?" she asked, sitting down at the table. "Your hens, I mean?"

"Sure are. There's no way I'm feeding you supermarket eggs, babe."

"Babe," she repeated, looking up at me. "I like that. I think I like it way too much."

I sat down across from her, studying her face. Oddly, she looked sad. That didn't make sense. I must have been reading her wrong. Why would she be sad?

"You good?" I asked as she tucked into her scrambled eggs.

"Yeah," she sighed. "I think so. In some ways I'm very good – and I think you know why. But we still need to talk."

"We do," I agreed. "I need to get the animals fed and checked and all that, but after that, yes, we still need to talk."

"It's too easy, isn't it?" she asked. "It's too easy for us to get naked and let everything else slip away."

I nodded ruefully. "You're damn right it is. And as much as I love getting you naked, sooner or later we have to deal with everything."

We finished our eggs and headed out to the fields. When we got to the cattle pasture and I opened the gate, Tia slipped her hand into mine. She was nervous about the steers, I could feel it in her tight grip, and she was looking to me to take care of her. It's like she said during breakfast – I shouldn't have loved it as much as I did, but there was no controlling how she just made me feel like a man.

She watched me hauling bales of hay, offering at one point to carry one herself.

"They're heavier than they look," I warned, stepping back and grinning as she tried, and failed, to lift one.

"Well maybe I can drag it?"

"Nah, the cattle get stressed if their breakfast is late. And I can't have some city girl upsetting my livestock."

It took her a few moments to realize I was joking, whereupon she snatched a handful of loose hay off the bale and threw it at me. "Shut up! I thought you were serious!"

I ducked, laughing, and hoisted the hay up onto my shoulder. It took a couple of hours to get everything done, but it was different with Tia there. It wasn't 'chores.' The way she watched me, not quite hiding how impressed she was, made me feel cocky as hell. On the way back to the cabin she slipped her fingers through mine again and leaned in against my arm.

"I like watching you work, Dallas."

My cock stirred in my pants. I tried to ignore it. "Yeah, I can see that."

She looked up at me, her brown eyes full of longing. How had it come to be that it no longer felt possible to live – to go about my days, to run the ranch – without that look in my life?

"What?" she asked, noting the consternation on my face.

"Oh, nothing."

"No, Dallas – what?"

We walked into the cabin and I pulled my sweaty shirt off over my head. "I need a shower. Give me five minutes, OK?"

Tia nodded, but I could see she was disappointed not to get an answer. So I stepped back into the room for a few seconds. "It was just that look in your eyes. It does things to me, Tia. Things I didn't think could be done to me anymore."

I ducked out quickly, knowing that if I spent so much as five more seconds with her, all our plans to talk like grown-ups were going to fly right out the window.

When I re-emerged a short while later, smelling a little less like hay and barnyard, she was standing over the stove.

"Don't get excited," she warned, "it's just some zucchini and beans. Better than canned soup, though – right?"

I walked up behind her, gently pulled her hair out of the way and kissed the back of her neck. "You're gorgeous."

She tilted her head to the side and smiled. We were standing very close, but our bodies weren't actually touching yet. I felt her pausing, refusing to lean back against me – because we both knew what was going to happen if she did.

"Dallas," she whispered. "I'm not kidding, we need to talk."

I stepped away."I know. I know we do."

Tia turned to face me. "What's going on with that woman? Larissa? Are you with her?"

We sat down across from each other at my rickety little kitchen table with Beau underneath it, on high alert for any crumbs of food that might come his way.

"I'm not with her. Not in any way. She's not my girlfriend, she's not even my friend. And as of right now, as I said, I don't even know if the baby is mine."

"But what if he is?"

"Then I'll do what needs to be done. I'll do my part. Maybe that sounds a little cold, but I mean I'll do my part for him. Not for her. If he's mine, I'll to be there for him, but I really can't exaggerate how completely uninterested I am in anything more than a parenting arrangement with Larissa. She doesn't seem very stable – which is all the more reason to be involved in my son's life. If he is my son."

There was an odd look on Tia's face – she was listening closely, but I couldn't get a read on what she was thinking.

"What I'm trying to say," I told her, "is that I'm not interested in Larissa. I'm interested in you."

"What if I wasn't here? Would you be interested in her if we hadn't met?"

I shook my head. "No. Definitely not. But I want to be honest with you, I want you to understand that if he is my son, I am going to be involved in his life."

"Do you want him to be your son?"

At the time, I interpreted this question as another attempt to confirm that I didn't have any feelings for Bentley's mother, and not as a way to gauge my interest in parenthood.

"I don't know," I responded, which wasn't true. I did want him to be my son – more than I ever would have thought possible. But I didn't want Tia to run straight for the hills. "I never wanted kids, Tia. It just wasn't part of the plan. But if he's mine, it's not his fault his parents were irresponsible idiots – why should he have to pay for that? And I know how hard it is to grow up without a father around. My parents are still married and everything, but my dad was too busy to actually deal with any of his kids when we were young."

"So you don't want kids, but if Bentley turns out to be yours you'll do the right thing? Just out of a sense of duty?"

"Yeah."

It was the wrong answer. I didn't know it then, but it was. I should have just told her about what was going on in my head. About the fact that the idea of having a child, now that it was a real possibility, had grabbed my heart as well as my mind. About all my dreams of being there for Bentley, in the ways only a father can be.

Tia didn't look happy, which was confusing. Did she want Bentley to be mine? It didn't make sense. And Bentley – and my possible fatherhood – was actually the easy part. I rubbed my forehead.

"That's not all there is to talk about, either. I'm – I'm kind of fucked up, Tia."

It had to be done. It had to be said. And beating around the bush wasn't something I did. She looked up from her lunch, squinting slightly like she was trying to figure out if I believed what I was saying or not. I continued.

"Sorry to just drop that in your lap like that but you need to know. You're a smart cookie, and I know you've probably already figured it out anyway, but there it is. I'm fucked up. And I'm not sure I'm worth your time. Whether or not I have a kid."

Tia lifted her fork to her mouth, thinking. "OK," she replied. "OK, Dallas. I want to argue with you, you know. I want to say no, no, you're not fucked up. Or, if you are, we all are – in our own ways."

"True. We are. But some of us are more fucked up than others. And it's not like I don't have good reasons to be."

"You're – you're talking about Iraq?" she asked haltingly, sensing that it wasn't a light topic of conversation.

I inhaled slowly. "Just hearing that word – 'Iraq' – makes me want to shut down," I said. "I tried to talk about it, you know. Once – when I came back after my second tour. The military paid for a few sessions with a trauma counselor. It didn't help. Mostly because I couldn't even face the idea that I needed it, so I didn't even say much of anything to the guy. And then, afterwards, it was like this conspiracy of silence with everyone around me. Friends, family, my higher-ups – no one really wanted to hear about it. Not the bad parts of it, anyway. And I don't want you to think I'm blaming anyone. No one knows how to talk about these things in America. All we want is to slap yellow ribbon stickers on our bumpers and talk about heroism. That's what I wanted, too. But it didn't work. I'm not a hero, and eventually I just couldn't keep pretending I was just to make everyone around me feel better."

Tia listened patiently, openly. She didn't immediately insist that I was wrong, that no, I actually was a hero, and that I deserved the medals that sat in a dusty drawer up in the loft. It was a relief.

Instead, she just asked a question. "Why do you say that, Dallas? That you're not a hero? Did you do something wrong?"

I ran my fingers through my hair as anxiety swept through my veins. "Did I do something wrong? It was war, Tia. That's what no one seems to realize. What do people think happens during a war? I did a lot of things. We all did, on both sides. I got medals for some of those things."

I still wasn't talking about it, not really. It was that same elusive language everyone used during my tours, and after. I did 'things.' 'Things' happened.

"Listen," I implored, desperately fighting the emotions that were threatening to spin out of control. "I don't want to lie to you. Ever. And this isn't some 'boo-hoo, make me feel better' speech, either. It's just – I've never talked about this. Literally. Even with the guys in my unit. What was there to say? There wasn't even time – we were busy, and when we came home, it was like the truth was inconvenient. Like everyone wanted to bask in the glory of me serving my country, and no one really wanted to face what that meant. I've killed people, Tia. I've seen people die. I watched my best friend die in that fucking desert, bleeding out in the sand and begging for his mother."

I gulped, suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of nausea. It's amazing how easy it is to put things out of your mind. I hadn't thought about Skip Thompson for a very long time. But the memory of his face, the fear in his eyes as I knelt beside him screaming into the radio for a medevac team, came back to me with terrifying clarity. I shoved the chair back and stood up, breathing heavily, coughing because it was suddenly as if I could taste the desert dust in my throat again.

Tia stood up, too, and took my hand. She led me outside and put her hand on my back while I doubled over, retching over the side of the porch. "It's OK," she whispered. "It's OK, Dallas. I'm here."

"It's not OK," I choked out. "It's not OK. Goddamnit. I didn't do anything, Tia. I just sat there and watched him die. And –"

I took a long, shaky breath, struggling to hold it together because I knew if I let even a tiny trickle of emotion out the floodgates were going to open, and I couldn't let her see me like that.

"What could you do?" she asked, cradling my face in her soft hand. I turned into her touch and squeezed my eyes shut.

"Nothing. I told you – nothing."

"You said you called a medical team. You weren't a medic, were you? I'm asking you what you think you could have done. It was a war, you said it yourself."

I sat down heavily on the stairs and put my head in my hands. Tia sat beside me and wrapped her arm around me, pulling me against her. "You're right," I whispered. "You're right. The counselor said the same thing during that one brief session. I couldn't do anything – none of us could. He was dead within seconds of being hit. But I still feel it, Tia. The helplessness. I never want to feel that way again. I never want to let anyone down like that again."

"You didn't let him down."

For some reason, that was the sentence that hit me right in the gut. I dug my fingers into my scalp, trying to distract myself with physical pain, but there was no stopping it. I tried to stand up again, following some instinct that told me to get the hell out of there, to do anything I could to prevent her seeing me in that state. But Tia reached up and pulled me back down. "You didn't let him down, Dallas."

"Don't," I pleaded. "Tia, don't – don't say –"

"You didn't let him down," she repeated. "Look at me! Dallas! You didn't let him down! Did you shoot him?"

I shook my head 'no.'

"Did you call for a medical team?"

I nodded.

"But it was too late?"

"Yes."

"And you stayed with him, that's what you said. You were there. He wasn't alone when he passed. You couldn't have done anything else. You must know that. On some level, you must know it."

"I do, Tia. But somehow it doesn't help. I spent weeks afterwards, torturing myself, wondering. What if he'd been standing a foot to the left? What if I hadn't asked him to cover me? And you know what?" I looked up at her, struck by the steadfastness in her eyes. "I just miss him. I miss him so goddamned much."

That was it. I broke down, trying to turn away, raging at myself for doing the one thing I'd promised myself I wasn't going to do. But Tia stayed right where she was, holding me even tighter, resting her cheek against my shuddering shoulder.

"I know," she said, holding me. "I know, Dallas. I miss my parents. Every second, every day. We walk around like normal people, don't we? Like our hearts haven't been flayed. And it's so hard. It is so fucking hard."

Her voice broke, too. We reached out instinctively, blindly, like drowning people groping for life preservers. I pulled her onto my lap and we wound our bodies around each other. And then we stayed there, drawing comfort from the simple fact of not being alone, of being with another person who understood.

"You know," I said, when I'd calmed down enough to speak normally again. "That's not even the half of it, Tia. Meeting you has got me thinking about so many things."

She pulled away from me just far enough to look at me. "Really?"

"Yes, really. I don't blame you for not seeing it, you haven't known me for long. But this – what we're doing right now? Talking about this? Being this way with each other? I've never done it before. You did that. You made me question myself. You made me wonder if hiding away in the woods of Montana and refusing all human contact might not have been the best response to what I've been through. And even if you decide you don't want to be with me, I'll always be grateful for that."

"Why are you telling me?"

"Because I want to. Because it's important to me that you know who I am."

Tia nestled into my shoulder. "But why?"

"Why do you think?"

"Come on, Dallas. I thought we were being honest with each other."

She was right. Again. I held her away from me and kissed her cheek. "Because I like you, you goofy girl. I actually like you a whole lot. And I want you to know who I am before you go getting yourself into something you might end up regretting."

"Of all the people in the world who would reject someone for going through something awful, do you really think I would be one of them?"

"It's not really about that," I told her. "I have some idea how you feel about me, you know. I'm not a total moron. But there's fantasy – there's how you wish things would be – and there's how things are. I can be a difficult person. And sometimes it's hard to see that side of someone if you have feelings for them."

We were getting cold. It was a sunny day, but the summer was long gone, and Tia was starting to shiver in my arms. "Here," I said, standing up, "let's go back inside. I can light a fire."

"Wait," she stopped me, grabbing my arm. "I don't know as much as you, Dallas. About anything – about relationships or about life or the world. But I'm not living in a dream world. I'm not falling asleep every night thinking you're some knight in shining armor. You're too rude to be a knight."

I laughed. "That's true. I was a total dick to you those first few times, wasn't I? I'm sorry about that. I think it was partly because you were so beautiful, and you seemed so sweet. Maybe part of me knew you were trouble?"

That comment, about Tia being 'trouble,' was a joke. I thought she would take it that way. But she looked down suddenly, her eyes clouding over with – something. "I'm joking!" I told her. "Look at me, Tia. It was a joke. What's that look for?"

"So you like me?" she asked suddenly, her eyes focused intently on mine. "You have feelings for me?"

"Of course I like you! 'Like' doesn't even begin to cover it. Do you think I'm like this with other women? Do you think this is just normal for me?"

She shook her head quickly. "No. I just – I wanted to know."

I looked down at her in front of me. She was a lot shorter than I was, almost an entire foot. Her relative smallness intensified all the protective feelings inside me, the desire to keep her safe and happy and warm. And I can't lie, I liked being looked up to – physically and otherwise. She trusted me, she listened to me. Being with her filled me with a contentment I didn't even know existed before I met her.

I wanted her again. I wanted to be as close to her as it was possible to be. She knew it, too. As soon as we got inside she turned and pressed her body up against me. And when she turned her pretty face up to mine, I saw my own desire reflected back in her eyes.

"Dallas," she whispered, putting her hand on my chest.

"I know. I know, Tia."

There was a new feeling between us, then. As she undressed in front of me she didn't turn shyly away or refuse to meet my eyes. I watched her slip out of her clothes, my cock stiffening as each layer fell to the floor.

"Jesus, you're gorgeous," I whispered as she unhooked her bra and chucked it onto the kitchen counter. She gazed at me, sliding her panties down her smooth, dark thighs and standing there, naked, showing me what was mine. I reached out and ran my thumb over one of her nipples, feeling the blood quicken in my veins when she closed her eyes and drew her lower lip between her teeth.

"You're mine," I breathed into her ear when I finally allowed myself to pull her into my arms. "Aren't you?"

I picked her up and carried her, legs wrapped around my waist, to the sofa.

"Yes," she whispered into my ear. "I'm yours, Dallas."

There was such a commotion inside me. The urge to take her the way she needed to be taken was matched by an unfamiliar tenderness, a need to treat her with care, the way you would something fragile, something precious.

I gazed down at her as I unbuckled my belt and she reached up, tugging at my sleeve.

"What is it, baby?"

"Hurry, Dallas."

She didn't need to ask twice. Pushing my body down between her impossibly soft thighs felt like coming home. My cock ached to feel her around me.

"You're killing me," I told her, curling my tongue between her lips.

"Dallas..."

"What is it?"

But I knew what it was. I knew exactly what Tia wanted. She wanted me. She wanted me to take her over, to fill all the empty parts of her body and of her soul. She whimpered when she felt me against her thigh, slick with her own arousal, and there was no holding back, no more anticipation. I guided myself to her opening and watched her mouth open when I thrust my hips downwards and gave her what she needed.

I'm not sure we broke eye contact once. It was like there was suddenly nothing on earth except Tia, like I couldn't get enough, couldn't be close enough, couldn't know enough of her. I bent down to kiss her again as my body shuddered with the pleasure she was giving me.

"Dallas?" she asked plaintively, stroking my cheek, pulling me in closer.

"Yeah, Tia?"

"I want you to come inside me."

There had never been any question about that. I kissed her again, my body responding to the hunger it sensed inside her. Her voice was different, too. Higher, thinner. She was desperate for me and it was sweeter than anything I've ever known.

"I'm going to," I told her. "I'm going to fill you up, Tia."

Her breath caught in her throat when I said that, and I felt her sex clenching around my cock.

"Mmm. I can feel you, baby. I can feel the – oh fuck, Tia. Oh..."

She was getting there. Getting to the place that I was leading her to. I thrust into her a little deeper, a little harder, my cock twitching as she cried out and pushed her body up against me.

"Dallas! Dallas..."

"What is it?" I asked, my voice deep and thick and slow with desire. "Are you going to come for me, baby? That's what I want. I want to feel your little pussy coming around me, Tia. I –"

My voice trailed off as she rocked her hips up to me and the expression on her face morphed back and forth between sweet little smiles and agonized, desperate frowns. I was so close, the cum in my balls right there, ready to spill out into her as soon as she asked for it.

"Dallas!" she moaned. She was there. She was mine. I plunged into her, hard, and her eyes rolled back in her head.

"Come for me," I urged, my body tensing up as she gave herself up to me entirely. "Come for me, baby. Tia, come, come..."

I peaked as she did, as her sweet pussy tightened around me, begging me, pulling the pleasure out of me. I held her down, pinning her underneath me and emptying myself completely, growling her name.

I stayed where I was until every last drop was inside her, until every aftershock had faded away. Then I lay down, pulling her onto me and burying my face in her thick curls.

"Jesus Christ," I breathed, barely able to talk. "Fuck, Tia. That was – that was –"

There were no words. I wasn't coherent. It didn't matter, she knew what I meant. I held her in my arms so tightly she actually had to struggle away from me at one point.

"Dallas," she squeaked, "I can hardly breathe."

"Sorry about that. It's all those hay bales. I don't know my own strength."

Tia turned her face up to me, balancing her chin on my chest. "It's OK. I love how strong you are. I think part of me wants you to squeeze me to death."

We were spent. I was spent. Not just in the usual empty-balls way, but in all the other ways a man can be spent, too. I didn't even realize I'd fallen asleep until I woke up to Tia shaking me gently.

"Dallas?"

"Yeah?" I mumbled. "Shit – did I conk out?"

I rolled over onto my side and looked at her. I knew nothing had been worked out, but it felt hopeful – she'd just slept with me again, hadn't she? Why would a woman do that if she was planning on never seeing you again? But her expression was troubled, just like it had been during our earlier talk. I ran a single finger down her cheek.

"Why do you look sad, Tia? I know everything isn't automatically perfect now, just because I spilled my guts. I get that. But – we can go somewhere from here, can't we? I want you. I'm not saying it's going to be easy – or that I'm going to be easy – but I want to try. I haven't wanted to try for years. Do you want to try with me?"

She lay down on her back and looked at the ceiling, sighing. "So, just to be clear, Dallas – if Bentley didn't exist, you never would have wanted children? That's what you said –"

"Why are you asking me this," I asked, thoroughly confused at the change in the mood between us. "Of all the things we talked about, why is this the thing you seem so worried about? I understand if you're not interested in getting serious with a guy who has a kid, I get that. It'll break my heart, but I'll understand. Is that it?"

Tia laughed, but it wasn't a joyful kind of laugh. Something was wrong, I could feel it in my gut. Her repeated broaching of the topic of the baby – not Larissa, but Bentley himself – was so odd. My stomach sank as the bleak realization came over me – we hadn't just had makeup sex. It was the opposite. It was break-up sex.