I was downright stupid! Why had I gone back out there? I should have left the sleeping dog lie but no…it was the beer. I’d had how many drinks? Three? Or was it four? It was truly never a good idea to drink around Thatcher. I had too many emotions. Too many unanswered questions. Too many naughty thoughts.

And like a fool, I made it halfway up the stairs and my curiosity got the better of me. It was high time I got answers. If anything, to put the past squarely in the past. To keep it there. Not on the outskirts of my mind where they always hovered like an early morning fog. I needed this. I deserved this. Once I could figure Thatcher out and why our relationship went from good to great to non-existent, I would finally be able to move on. In my mind, of course because I had moved on.

Absolutely moved on. I hardly even noticed the nicely-sized erection pressed into my butt and lower back when he grabbed ahold of me. I hardly noticed the rock-hard flex in his forearm as it snaked around my waist pulling me into that nicely-sized erection. Hardly. Even. Noticed.

Shoving away from the patio door, I made my way toward him. Quick as my question was out, he looked away. He’d avoided me for long enough. I was a crazy woman on a mission. I had nothing left to lose. Literally. With my divorce and house up in smoke, there was a strange sense of power in me. I was a single woman on a mission. A tigress. And Thatcher Patterson, that man, was my prey.

“You gonna ignore me now?”

“Thought you were going to bed.”

“I changed my mind.” I bent over his cooler, pulled the top off and helped myself to another beer. “See. You and I, we have a lot to talk about and I decided it was time for answers.”

“What if I don’t give you the answers you’re looking for, Abigail?”

“You’re going to Thatcher. I’ve waited long enough. I’ve been a good woman to my husband and now that that is over, I’m looking for answers. I deserve them, don’t you think?”

Instead of sitting in the other chair opposite Thatcher, I pushed the turtle bin over and sat down next to his legs so my feet sat flush on the grass and my bottom rested on the patio. Before I could ask, he reached over and popped the top off my beer. The sound was a satisfying whiz in this tension-filled heat.

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

We sat silent for another few moments. Me trying to gather my thoughts and hoping he would start this long overdue conversation. He never did. Finally, after I’d drunk half my beer I opened my mouth.

“Why did you leave us?”

“Why do you care now?”

“Is this what you’re going to do, Thatcher? Answer my questions with questions of your own? This is my turn. The least you could do is give me that.”

“Answer me the one question first. Why do you care now?”

I plucked a blade of grass and twirled it between my fingers as I considered his answer. My instinct was to play games with him, not be forthcoming but one thing I knew about Thatcher Patterson was that in order to get what I wanted, I had to be honest. In return, he would be, too.

I relaxed my shoulders and began, “I care now because I wanted you to care about us. I wanted you to be Thayer’s dad. I planned on that. And not being able to understand why you didn’t want anything to do with me, with us, has made me resent you. Has made me question why you aren’t the man I know you are?” I forced a laugh, “At least the man I thought you were back then. You’re honorable to everyone else, except us. I care now because hearing the answers will help me put that final nail in the coffin that was once us.”

Even though it was hot out, shivers raced along my spine as I let those long overdue words hang between us. He didn’t say anything and I kicked myself for being naïve enough to believe he actually would. It was time. Our past, the past in which I was desperately in love with him, day-dreaming like a dummy of what kind of wonderful life we would have together, be put to an end. I knew by the rustle of his clothes that he’d shifted forward in his chair. I wasn’t prepared for the wickedly handsome voice in my ear though.

“What if I don’t want that final nail in the coffin that was once us?”

If I leaned back, I would be nestled into his muscular legs, my head would be cocooned into his chest and I knew, I hated that I knew this, but I knew that for once in the past five years if I did that, I would feel safe at home. I knew it would be easy to forget the way he hurt my heart.

But no.

No. No.

“There you go again, answering my questions with questions.”

“I’m sorry, Abigail. I don’t even know where to begin. It’s a fucked-up story, okay? It made sense when I was young and stupid.”

“But it doesn’t now?”

“Now? Fuck, Abigail. You’re all I think about. Thayer is all I think about. Do you have any idea how hard it’s been for five years in a row to watch another man raise my son? To watch him attend parties and go to church, even grocery shopping with the woman that belongs to me?”

That had happened, hadn’t it? When Thayer was first born, I can’t remember his exact age but he was a tiny newborn, still so young that he was that crying baby inside the grocery store that you couldn’t help. I turned the corner, Thayer screaming his head off and there was Thatcher.

I turned back to look at him, because I had to look. I had to see the anguish I heard in his voice, on his face. “I don’t belong to you, Thatcher.”

“That’s bullshit,” he whispered. “You and I both know that isn’t true. Why’d you come back out here?”

His voice was low and cocky and I hated how he sounded so sure of himself when I felt like a mess.

“To get answers and that’s all.”

“Liar. It’s not all. You don’t think I can see the desire in your eyes when you look at me with Thayer? You think I’m blind to the way your pulse flutters in your neck when I’m this close to you? Or the way those big green eyes of yours go from a shade of jade to pure olive when you’re turned on? I can read you like a book, Abigail Layne. You came back out here because you’re still attracted to me. Because deep in your heart, you know you belong to me. And if what you’re telling me is the truth about you and Adrian, then I’m gunning for you, Abby. I’m gunning for you hard. You and Thayer. This time, no stupid thoughts and ideas are going to creep into my head and change my mind. I’m going to do whatever I have to, to get you to trust me again. To make you see that we belong together.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I stood up. Unable to take this Thatcher so up close and personal. He sucked all the air up around us making it hard for me to breathe.

“I realize maybe you’re not ready to jump into another man’s bed quite yet and that’s fine, Baby. I got all the time in the world.”

He was so smug sitting there. That half-turned grin ticking up enough that his dimples showed and his sun-kissed skin that was alight from the flames and the way his eyes never wavered from mine, made me want to scream. Because he was right. A part of me that I’ve kept buried for so long, still believed that Thatcher and I belonged together. That we deserved a real chance. Try as I might, jumping into bed with another man didn’t seem that bad of an idea. Not if that man was Thatcher anyway. I could only imagine that time had been good to him. That time took all his bedtime moves and turned them into something extraordinarily good.

I just wished I could trust him. Sleeping with him, I knew would involve my heart. If I gave him my heart and that of my son’s, how could I be so sure he wouldn’t break them all over again? I wouldn’t dare put Thayer through that. Which is why, God help me, I couldn’t give him another chance. No matter what my heart believed.

Or what my body wanted.

“Time doesn’t change the past. And you just keep skirting around the entire issue. Why did you leave me, Thatcher?” Even asking the words, in the darkness of night between the two of us, it still hurt. I hated the raw sensation that squeezed my chest.

He broke eye contact with me and I immediately assumed he wasn’t going to answer which got my blood boiling again. Damn him! I stood up and walked past the candles, out into the grass.

“Listen, before you get your panties in a bunch, I-” his eyes darted back to mine and his mouth curved into a wildly handsome grin. “Wait. I bet you aren’t even wearing panties underneath my sweatpants, are you, Abigail?”

I swear it was like his words made the fabric of his sweatpants between my legs that much more sensitive and I could suddenly feel the inside ridges of the seam rubbing against my lady parts.

“Are you, Abigail?” His husky voice brought me out of my trance and I knew he knew that I wasn’t. That even if he knew I washed them earlier, the upward point of his chin and his arrogant smile told me that he knew I wasn’t wearing them now.

“I think you know I’m not.”

We held each other’s gaze. Mine, no doubt, flushed as all get out that I hoped he couldn’t see in the darkness. But his gaze, oh his had that same teasing grin and I could only imagine what must be going through his dirty mind. I knew what was going through mine that was for sure. And it was far from clean. His gaze dropped from mine as he slowly perused my body, inch by inch.

“My eyes are up here.”

“I know, but my eyes are busy looking at something else. Envisioning something else.”

“Fine. I can see coming back out here was a waste of my-”

“It wasn’t a waste of your time. Look…I…I realize I fucked up, okay? It wasn’t my intention to hurt you. I wasn’t ready, Abby. Not for all the things I knew would happen if we stayed together.”

“That’s it? I’ve waited five years to hear that? Which literally amounted to nothing? Five years, Thatcher. I’ve been wondering what in the hell has been your problem and you tell me something I already know?”

He dropped his bottle into the grass next to the others and stood up, walking toward me with grim determination in his face. For some inexplicable reason, my heartbeat sped up much too quickly. He stopped an inch away from me and I held my breath.

“Relax, Abby. I was afraid to be a father, okay? I didn’t want to turn out like my dad. I still don’t.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means…it means that my dad was an asshole. You don’t have any idea what it was like growing up with him. He was emotionally abusive. Physical every now and then. My biggest fear is turning out like him.”

Thatcher’s eyes were hard now. Wide open and painfully blank. Empty of the attraction from only moments ago and I realized I didn’t know much about Thatcher Patterson. Not like this anyway.

“You remember during senior year and I was late meeting you and Adrian for the Homecoming parade?”

“I remember,” I said quietly because I had a feeling where this was going.

“When I finally showed up after the parade and I had my arm in a cast.”

“You were lying, weren’t you? About falling from your dad’s tractor?”

“No, I actually did fall from it. I fell when my father yanked me out of it. That’s the part I left out.”

“I could tell you were lying then. Why didn’t you go to the police or tell the doctor who fixed you up?”

“Are you kidding? Lone Star’s best businessman Mr. Walter Patterson. No chance in hell anyone would believe me.”

“What about your mom?”

“What about my mom? You know she’s always been too drunk to care much about anything. At least that’s what she pretends. She loves her life the way it is – ever sticking up for me was never a question for her.”

“He did it to Grace as well?”

“Nope. Just me. Cause, you know, I was the boy. Had to teach me how to be a man and all.”

Thatcher stopped talking and my heart ached for him. Ached for the young Thatcher as well as the man he’d become. Because Mr. Walter Patterson had well and done messed him up emotionally enough that he’d been afraid to be a dad of his own.

“After you told me about the baby, I went home that night, God Abigail, I was scared. Nervous. Excited. I couldn’t believe someone so amazing was carrying my baby. I really believed we were going to be a family.”

“What changed?” my voice was achy with hurt and I dreaded what he was going to tell me.

“My grandmother died two days later and my father was so hateful toward me, blaming me for everything right and wrong in my grandparent’s world. Blaming me for running their hardware store into the ground. I couldn’t do it, Abby. There was no way in hell, I could even chance being like him toward a child.”

I reached for him. Placing my hand on his arm. “You’re not him. I had no idea you ever went through anything like that.”

He shrugged, “I hid it well. Besides, it wasn’t all the time. Only sometimes. Maybe that’s why my mother never thought it was a problem. Maybe at the time, I never thought it was a problem either. Always talking myself into why he reacted the way he did. Anyway, I’m sorry, Abigail.” He ran his hand along his stubble and up, over his eyes. Blinking excessively, he said it again. “I’m sorry for hurting you. For so many things I would have to write them all down. I’m no good with words.”

“Sounds like you’re doing just fine to me.”

“Is that an acceptance of my apology?”

Was it? “Well, let’s just say, it’s a start.” We had a long road to go.

Unexpectedly, he chuckled and pulled me into a hug. “It’s a definite start.” He squeezed me tight and I hugged him back fiercely, trying to give my support to that young man who was treated so horribly by his father.

“I’ll take what I can get with you,” he spoke into my ear. Our hug went from all out friendship to downright sexual in nature and I could feel him. Really feel him. The hard planes of his shoulders beneath my hands, the firm hold of his arms around my middle and the hard press of his chest and abs along my body. Not to mention the way his body warmed up mine from head to toe.

Reluctantly, I slid out of his grasp, “A truce of sorts.”

His finger brought my chin up, planting my gaze squarely on his. “A truce of sorts,” he agreed.