"The tractor that almost killed me?" Jaimi stopped when she realized where Dane was taking them.

He grinned. "It's our special place, sweetheart. I'm extremely romantic, and it feels that it's fitting to celebrate our three hours meet-i-versary in the place we met."

"Meet-i-versary?"

"Yeah. The anniversary of our first meeting. Romantic, right?"

She gave him a skeptical look. "Are we going to have to come here for every three-hour anniversary for the rest of our lives?"

His heart did a little jump at her question. He knew she wasn't serious, but the mere fact her mind had gone to "the rest of our lives," made him damned happy. "Nah. Once we can start talking in years, we can skip the three-hour anniversary celebrations, and just go with once a day. I think that's reasonable. What was it, like six o'clock when we met?"

She started to laugh. "You're a nut case. You realize that, don't you?"

"Yeah, I work at it. I also want to sit here because if we sit any closer, I'm going to be constantly on duty as sheriff. If we're back here, lurking in the shadows like the criminal I always wanted to be, people won't bother us." He tucked his hand under her arms and guided her toward the tractor that was now safely parked on the edge of the festival grounds. The trailer was still filled with hay bales and loose hay, but there was a sign on it that told people to keep off because it was closed.

He walked right past the sign, grinning when Jaimi raised her eyebrows. "More sheriff privileges?"

"No, just payback because I'm not going to give him any parking or driving citations for the rest of his life."

"Why not?"

"Because his reckless driving made us meet." He set their dinner on top of a hay bale, then held out his hand to give Jaimi a hand up.

She just stared at him. "You meant that. I could hear it in your voice. You really are a romantic, aren't you?"

"Yep." He waggled his fingers at her. "Let's go, sweetheart. Travis only plays for a couple hours so we don't have time to waste."

Her smile faded. "What if I don't want to talk? Can we just listen to the concert?"

His heart softened, and he walked over to her, encircling her wrists with his hands. He knew that he needed to tell her the truth, and he couldn’t tell her that it would be okay, that it would all work out, because he didn't know how she would react. He wouldn’t make promises he couldn’t keep, so instead of answering, he just leaned down and kissed her.

She sighed and leaned into the kiss, a kiss that was perfect, beautiful, and tender, the kind of kiss he wished would last forever, and lead to so much more.

But instead of scooping her up in his arms and carrying her off to his bedroom for the kind of kisses he really wanted to do, he forced himself to break the kiss, finishing off with a little peck to the tip of her nose.

She sighed, gazing up at him dreamily. "Can't we just make out for a couple hours instead?"

He grinned. "Let's talk fast, and then make out the rest of the time. Good?"

"Okay. Let's set a timer for two minutes. Deal?"

"Deal." But even as he agreed, he had a bad feeling that she might not be in the mood for kissing once he told her the truth about the family she came from.

She gave him a tentative smile that made his heart turn over, then she took his hand and climbed up onto the trailer. He followed swiftly with the three heavy blankets he'd grabbed from his truck.

Within a couple minutes, they were side by side, nestled under the blankets, with their food on their laps, with a thousand unspoken things hanging between them. As they sat there, the silence building between them, he found himself searching for the right words, the words that would tell her about the father she never knew, about the childhood her brothers had…but the words wouldn't come.

He had no idea how to tell her.

And she didn't ask. She just leaned against him, eating her dinner, and singing under her breath to the music, knowing every word of every song that her brother had written. Her face was beautiful under the moon, and the awe on her face as she watched her brother was enough to make his own heart tighten.

She seemed to sense him watching her, because her gaze flicked to his, and she smiled. "Travis is amazing," she said. "He's so gifted."

"I know." He leaned forward and kissed her gently, brushing the crumbs off her lips with the kiss.

She sighed and smiled at him, completely relaxed, completely in the moment with him. It was a perfect, romantic moment, under a clear, starry sky, a pile of warm blankets, with a woman who made his heart feel truly alive. It was the kind of night to be remembered forever…and yet he couldn't concentrate on it, not the way he wanted to.

Because he knew he had to rain hell down on her by telling her about the bastard father whose blood ran in her veins.

And the longer they sat there, the harder he knew it would be to tell her.

He had to do it.

He had to be the one to inject a whole shitload of darkness into her life, and he had to do it now, so he could help her deal with it. He'd helped each of her brothers through hell and back over the years, and had hidden from the bastard with each of them, especially Maddox and Ryder. He'd even taken some of the blows so the Stocktons could escape the real wrath. He was a part of that darkness, and he'd worked hard to be a light in that hell. It was his job with the Stocktons, and he knew it was his job with her.

But hell, he didn't want to do this to her. But she deserved to know the truth.

And it was time.