Things were different for Jenna after that. She was...unusually, unnaturally subdued. She didn't argue about eating, she just ate what Andie put in front of her. She didn't whine about exercising, she just did it. She didn't tell Andie what to look for when she rented a DVD, she watched what was chosen with no comment and little reaction, even when comedies became the main fair in her friend's attempt to cheer her up.

And it wasn't as if Andie herself wasn't on her side. She most clearly and definitely was. Jenna had heard the very heated last part of her conversation with her brother, although she did her best not to eavesdrop and try to make out specific words, but their meaning was clear.

She was taking him to task for how he had treated her.

Minutes after the house had gone silent, she heard a soft tapping at her door, and she desperately wanted to tell Andie to go away, but she didn't want to be impolite. "Come."

She stormed in as if she'd expected that Jenna would have put up much more of a fight than she did, coming to stand by her bed, looking nervous and upset.

"I'm sorry my brother is such an ass."

A good thing to lead with, one she was sure to find agreement on.

"It's not your fault," Jenna soothed tonelessly.

Andie leaned a hip on the edge of the mattress. "I wish I could claim that, but I'm a lot older than he is, and I had an active hand in raising him. But I do lay the blame for his 'work is more important than love' idea directly at our father's feet. He was the same way, so he comes by it naturally, not that he shouldn't have already outgrown it. Especially, considering how obnoxiously miserable he's been for the past months without you, which means he must've been in paradise with you."

Pretty close, Jenna had thought, at least on her end, although if he could cut her off so easily, right to her face – or her ear – then she was obviously the only one who felt that way.

---

Andie felt as if she was on the horns of a dilemma. Jenna was at the point where she didn't really need her any more. She was strong enough to do what she needed to do to survive out here alone, and Andie had done as much extra as she could manage, even down to stacking firewood on the pallets that were already lying between the two conveniently placed old oak trees about thirty feet from the house.

But she could plainly see that, because of her brother's infinite stupidity, Jenna was likely going to fall into a depression. Not that she really hadn't already been on her way, just because he was gone. When she got back, she was going to have to smack him around some, she could see.

She hated to go, though, when she knew what a hard time Jenna was going to have of it out here, all alone.

It still surprised her when her companion said – in that now dead little voice of hers – exactly what she had been thinking. "Andie, I appreciate you coming up here and staying with me, but I'm pretty much better, so don't feel obligated to stay any longer – not that I don't enjoy your company."

It was a perfect little speech, covering all the usual bases, delivered in a heartbreaking monotone.

Unable to come up with a reason why she should stay longer, although she already knew she wasn't going to take the first flight she could get, in order to spend a little more time here to reassure herself that Jenna wasn't going to do anything stupid, she pasted a smile on her face. "Well, then, I'll call and see what kind of flight I can get. Do you mind driving me as far as Bangor?"

"That would be fine. You'll keep in touch?"

Andie knew how to read that question perfectly as the request to keep her informed – at least superficially – about how her brother was doing, despite what an idiotic bastard he was being. "Of course."

The house was horribly quiet during the rest of Andie's stay, and the drive to Bangor two days later, after she'd dropped off her rental car, was even worse for the close quarters. Jenna pulled up to the American door at the one and only terminal, getting out to help Andie with her bags.

As usual, the big, gregarious woman would not allow for any discomfort between them. When she'd wrangled her baggage into submission, she threw open her arms and hauled Jenna into them, in a manner that was very much reminiscent of how her brother would have done it.

Used to do it.

Nevertheless, Jenna spoke first, sounding more emotional than she had since his phone call. "Thank you very much for coming all the way up here to take care of me when you really didn't have to."

"Aw, honey," Andie said, brushing Jenna's hair out of her eyes. "I know I didn't have to. I wanted to. I needed to meet the woman who has my brother in such a tizzy that he has totally lost his mind. I hope I can come back soon, too, maybe when you're feeling more healed emotionally, as well as physically."

Jenna hugged Andie close again, feeling the tears beginning to flow. "Well, thanks to you, I'm in better shape than I probably ever have been in my life."

"Good! Keep it up! And when you're ready, call me. I'm retired, and I can come up and bug you anytime. I'm not afraid of winter snow, either. I'll come up, and we'll paint the town plaid – flannel, of course!"

Even a thoroughly morose Jenna had to laugh at that, and they hugged one more time before Andie did just what her brother did – turned and left, without looking back.

Must run in the family.

---

Andie proved to be a bit more of a chatty-Cathy than she had been when she was there, calling her frequently, especially at first. It was good to talk to someone, since her family rarely called, and her only real social life was the times she forced herself to attend book club – when they didn't cancel it due to the weather.

It was going on spring of the next year before she got the call from Andie that she hadn't realized she had been holding her breath about getting. He had worked things out – rather messily, it seemed – but they were done. His corrupt boss and his network of dirty cop underlings were hauled in, due, in no small part, to his single-minded, stubborn efforts.

Justice had prevailed, and he had managed to live through it.

If you could call that living, Andie had thought to herself as she spoke to Jenna. The man was a shadow of his former self; his demeanor and tone very much like the one she was getting from the other side of the phone.

She shook her head after the call ended. The two of them were going to stubborn themselves out of a life together, and she wasn't about to let them do that. As much as she detested the idea of meddling in anyone else's affairs, she knew they belonged together, and she was at least going to do something to nudge that idea along, somehow.

So the next time she saw her brother – which was the first time she'd seen him since he'd come out of hiding, they went to his favorite restaurant – her treat. It was wonderful to see him, even if he did look quite a bit worse for wear.

Andie knew he would have protested against the idea, but he had a defeated, resigned look in his eye that she'd never seen before, and she knew the cause.

"So we've been talking about me all this time, what's up with you?" he asked, cutting into his steak as if it had personally insulted him. Merck was heartily sick of the prepackaged convenience foods he'd been forced to live on throughout all of this, as well as the grubby little fifth floor walk up, where he'd been holed up.

"Oh, I don't have much of a life, as you know. But I'm thinking I might change that."

"Really? How?"

"I've been thinking I might come out of retirement. Take a job as a town sheriff or the equivalent thereof."

"Why?"

Andie shrugged. "Something to do. A change of scenery, at the very least. Something with a one year contract, so if I don't like it, I can come back or move on and do something else."

He took a swallow of coffee. "Sounds as if you're serious. You got any particular place in mind you want to go?"

She gave him a smile that made him instantly suspicious. "Yeah, I do," she said and proceeded to name the little burg closest to Jenna, where she had gone to get supplies and had bought him all of his bandages and stuff and the pair of sweats he still had. He wasn't really listening while she rambled on about the pay being reasonable, and that there were no ordinances – as there were in many metropolises – that she would have to live within the town limits. She could buy a little homestead and settle down...

His mind was much too full of thoughts of Jenna, as it had been ever since he'd left her. He spent his days almost obsessively going after the bad guys, who were masquerading as good guys, but his nights – his nights were full of no one and nothing but her. At times, squirreled away as if he was the rat, he thought about her so hard and so often that he would have sworn he could feel her next to him, smell her shampoo and feel her breath on him, her body surrounding him as she came in his tight embrace.

He didn't make any further comment. He didn't need to. His big sister was off and running, with him making the bare essentials of responses.

But Andie could see that she had planted the seed. It might take a bit to germinate in his noggin full of granite, but it was there, and it would worm its way into his unconscious and take root before he knew what hit him.

She smiled as he changed the subject, already beginning to plan the wedding in her head, whenever it came about.

---

"Do you have a permit for that burn, Miss McInnis?"

She had been so lost in thought as she'd watched the flames of the chaff she'd collected from the yard that had fallen during the winter that the question came from someone – someone male – who was entirely too close to her.

And entirely too familiar sounding.

"Dipshit, I don't need –" she began, but when she turned, the sight of him took her breath away, and no further words could escape her mouth.

He was in full uniform, but it confused her – it looked just like the one Sheriff Buckman from over in Newbury used to wear, but he'd died recently, and the post had remained vacant with his deputy filling in until someone suitable was found.

And, for some reason, people willing to end up in a little, no-nothing town on the edge of nowhere in the wilderness of northern Maine weren't thick on the ground, so it was expected to remain vacant for quite some time.

But the position had, apparently, been filled.

And filled nicely.

He looked as breathtakingly gorgeous in a uniform as he did out of one.

Jenna ruthlessly suppressed that thought in favor of smothering the fire out and heading for the house, doing her best to ignore the man she literally ached for, who wasn't making it easy for her to ignore him by dogging her every step.

"That's it? No, 'Hi, Merck, it's good to see you – I'm glad you're alive –'"

Jenna came awfully close to thwacking him with the poking stick she used to keep a handle on the fire, although she stifled the impulse. But she knew she wasn't going to let him get away with saying something like that to her unanswered, lifting up on her tip toes to get directly into his face. "Right, yeah, like you did, when you called your sister while she was here taking care of me, where you should have been. I knew it was you, and you sure as hell knew it was me, but all you did was ask for your sister, like I was her fucking secretary and you didn't know me from Adam. So fuck off, John Merck."

It had been a mistake to get that close to him. Her body was definitely not in sync with her mind. As the alarmingly sensual scent of him filled her lungs and clouded her head, wanting her to lay herself into him, to wrap her arms around him and then sink to her knees and make him scream the way she knew he could still do to her in a heartbeat.

But she couldn't – she wouldn't – allow that to happen. Instead, she ignored him, stalking into her house as he stood there, looking after her, a determined look on his face.

Jenna locked the door behind her.

She should have known that wouldn't be enough. Because seconds later, he was leaning casually against the kitchen counter as she was making herself a cup of coffee, arms folded over that massive chest of his, making her recall how the light patch of hair over the plates of those muscles felt beneath her fingertips, her tongue, her cheek as he held her to him in the aftermath.

But she was not about to just roll over and let him back into her life.

"Breaking and entering again, I see?"

He lifted one finger, at the end of which dangled the key chain that held the spare key she kept hidden outside the house. "You showed me where it was, remember, just in case I needed it?"

Jenna grimaced, hating that she had caused her own problem. Hell, she had done that by not reporting him to the police when he had fainted in her bed, originally!

"Fine. Give me the key – I want you out of my house."

His big hand closed around it as he said quietly, diffidently, "I'm so sorry to have hurt you, Jenna, in all the various ways I managed to do that because of my own fears, as well as my fears for you, but most of all for denying you and what we have together."

He needed to stop talking. Now. The tears that she had spent so long learning to keep at bay lived just barely under the surface with all of the other feelings she'd stuffed down about him, and if she listened to what the asshole had to say, she wasn't going to be able to prevent them – and him – from overwhelming her.

She whirled around, giving him her back, hoping that would help put some starch in it for her, because all of her carefully constructed walls had already begun to crumble just at the sight of him.

"I'm not kidding, Merck. I want you to get out. Now." She was proud of just how vehement she sounded when she was beginning not to feel sure about wanting him to leave.

At first he didn't move, drowning in the pain he could hear in her voice, cursing himself for ever having looked up in the woods that night to see the lights on in her house. He should have just died out there – in many ways, he knew that would probably have been better for her – he wouldn't have hurt her as he had, whether or not he believed at the time that his reasoning was sound.

He knew he should go, as she'd asked, but he couldn't quite get himself to do it. He knew it was the right thing to do. But his body – his body was beating at the doors of his mind, battering them, reminding him that she was right there, forcing wonderfully explicit images of what he had done to her – and what she had done to him. Visions of her being spanked over his lap, crying out in ecstasy, begging him for release playing over and over again until he could no longer prevent himself from stepping up close behind her, not really touching her, but very nearly.

"I'll go," he said, and much to her disgust, Jenna's heart sank. She could hear the sincerity in his husky voice as he spoke. "But I want to say something to you before I do, something that I should have said to you long ago, when I first realized the truth of it. And I have no excuse for what I've failed to do – or what I've done. Besides the fact that I am a coward, who wanted to cling to familiar ways rather than take a chance on something new, no matter how much I wanted it. Hiding behind my need to protect you, which I didn't do a very good job of, in the end. Please turn around, beauty," he asked softly, knowing he had no right to ask anything of her. "I'll say the rest of my piece and be gone."

Huffing as if he was asking her to climb Everest, Jenna turned and found herself held carefully in his arms, as if she would shatter if he held her too tightly. One big finger lifted her chin, so that she could no longer stare at the second button of his uniform but had to meet those clear blue eyes of his. His words rang strong, true, and full of his heart, speaking directly to hers for the first time.

For his part, Merck allowed himself to be as open to her as he had ever been with anyone in his life, all of his defenses were down, and would have been even if he hadn't willed them to be, devastated, as he was by the sight of her sobbing as he spoke. "I love you, Jenna McInnis. I am truly sorry for the hell I have put you through. I had hoped that – however impossible it might seem – you might harbor some sort of feelings for me, even after all this time apart and all the anguish and pain I've caused you. But I can see now that you don't, and I can hardly blame you." She heard him swallow hard. "I've taken the job of sheriff in Newbury, but it's only for a year, and I promise, I will leave you alone until my contract runs out, then you'll never have to see me again."

He hugged her tightly to him one last time, not wanting to let her go but keeping it short or he knew he'd find himself carrying her to her bed and having his way with her, whether she wanted him to or not.

As he stepped away from her, he whispered, already in the act of it when he asked, around the lump in his throat and the agony of his heart, "May I have one last kiss?"

She shouldn't have let him kiss her. She could have stayed strong before that. It was going to kill her to do it – and kill her to see him in town, which was inevitable, since it was so small – but she could have done it.

Until his lips met hers. She tried, at first, not to do what every fiber of her wanted to – not to melt against his impossible strength, to lean against the hardness of him that she so coveted late at night when she was alone with her decidedly lewd thoughts of him.

Merck had thought it would be a dry kiss given under protest, something like what he had received on the cheek from distant aunts. But he was amazed and elated when she kissed him back, tentatively at first, then, slowly, more passionately, and he couldn't help himself. He wrapped his arms around her and picked her up. He gave her no choice but to lean against him, tantalizing him with the body he knew lay hidden beneath her unimpressive yard work clothes.

He pulled his head back to look down at her, desire preeminent in his eyes. "How clean is your kitchen floor?"

"It's much cleaner since your sister's last visit, but take me to the bed, anyway. I don't fancy having the pattern of the linoleum tattooed into my back while you fuck me."

He had already brought them there by the time she finished speaking, but then he stopped abruptly, looking down at her with an almost frown on his face.

"This isn't just fucking for me, Jenna. I am not sure it ever really was, even at first, although I didn't realize it at the time, or, more likely, I was unwilling to acknowledge it. But I love you. So it isn't just fucking; it's making love to the woman I adore."

Her feet still dangling above the floor, Jenna seemed to be looking everywhere but at him until he shook her a bit.

"Am I alone in this? It doesn't really make any difference to me – I still want you every second of every minute of every day that you'll let me be near you, but I was wondering -"

"Yes, Merck, I love you. I don't like you a considerable amount of the time, and you can be a stubborn ass with alarming frequency." She glared up at him, knowing this wasn't really much of a declaration of her feelings. His was much more romantic.

But he didn't look as if he cared in the least. He was grinning broadly, and he whirled her around a few times, just for good measure, unable to believe his good fortune, and knowing full and well that he didn't deserve it or her.

"Stop. I want to say it to you properly," she commanded, smacking his shoulders.

He stood abruptly stock-still, gazing intently into her eyes as she looked up at him, her voice suddenly freezing in her throat at the profundity of the words she was about to say and the deep, abiding feelings they expressed. "I love you, John Merck."

Her reward was a warm, sweet kiss.

"But do you forgive me, Jenna?" he asked poignantly, surprising her. "For all the wrongs I've done you?" His hands or lips followed his words as he spoke them. "For the times I took my hand to your backside." His fingers grasping her nether cheeks and squeezing until she squealed, he continued, "And the scars I've caused you." He pressed his lips to the tiny divot in her neck, because he didn't want to bend down to reach the ones on her back. "And, worst of all, the pain I know I inspired here." His big hand lay over her heart.

"I do, John Merck. I do." She kissed him then, and he thought his heart was going to burst with it. "As long as you make love to me now – haven't we waited long enough?"

Indeed, he agreed. They had.