Maddox's soul felt like it was being pierced in a thousand places with Hannah looking at him like that, trying to understand why he had to leave. He couldn't believe what it felt like for her to look at him with such faith. She honestly believed in the goodness in him, and that made his throat tighten, and his chest ache. "Hannah," he said softly, stroking his finger along her cheek. "You have no idea how badly I want to be the man that you see when you look at me. The only way I know how to do that is to walk away."

He heard the engine of the snowplow pause, and he swore silently, realizing that at any moment someone was going to knock on the front door, or even just walk right in. He couldn't leave Hannah looking at him like that, with hurt in her eyes, unable to understand why he was the way he was.

He knew there was only one way to do it. Only one way to show her what he was. Gritting his teeth, he pulled his wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open. He paused for a moment, his heart pounding, then he took a small, yellowed piece of paper from behind his credit cards and he handed it to Hannah. "After the incident with my dad and Beth, I put the engagement ring in her locker at school. I wrote a note and said that I had bought it for her, and I still wanted her to have it. I told her I wanted her to keep it, so she would always know how deeply she was loved. I told her that she had been the only bright light I'd ever had in my life, and I appreciated all that she had done for me. I also wrote that I would never bother her again, because I understood that she could never trust me to keep her safe."

God, he remembered those words he had written. His hand had been shaking. His eyes had been blurred with tears, a seventeen-year-old boy who had given up on dreams before he had even become an adult. But even then, he'd learned what his limits were on what he deserved to hope for or ask for in life. "I wanted to do right by her. I wanted to somehow find a way to wipe away the trauma from that night, the heartbreak of finding out that the man she loved, that she had been willing to marry, was nothing more than a monster, and that she had failed to see it."

Hannah stared at him, her lips slightly parted, her dark brown eyes riveted to his face. Her fingers were loosely clasping the note, but she wasn't looking at it. She was just watching him, and the empathy in her eyes was almost too much for him to take.

He nodded at the note in her hand. "I found that note from her in my locker the next day, along with the ring. That letter is my curse. It's my destiny. It's my reminder of what I can't allow myself to want or have. I want you to read it."

Hannah looked down at the paper in her hand, staring at it for a long moment. Maddox felt himself tensing, knowing that she was going to read the words that he had made his mantra for so long, words that had literally broken him when he had first read them.

She finally looked up at him. "Why on earth does it matter what a seventeen-year-old girl thought of you fourteen years ago? Why would I care what she thought? I know what I see today. That's the truth. That's the reality."

Maddox swore. "You should care because she saw what I'm capable of. You haven't seen it. I have. I've lived it. I feel the darkness fermenting inside me. I feel the need for violence. I feel the hate. I feel it. She saw it. She knows." He pulled the paper from her hand, his hand shaking as he took it. He needed Hannah to understand what he was. He simply could not walk away until she knew. He didn't know why, but he needed Hannah to see the real him.

He stepped away from her and unfolded the paper. "Ava, hon," he said as he turned toward the little girl. "Mommy and I need to talk in the living room for a sec. Is that okay with you?"

She nodded and gave him a thumbs up and a smile. She looked so happy and peaceful, sitting at the table that his heart turned over. She pointed to the snow and made a patting motion with her hands.

He raised his brows. "You want to make snowballs later?"

She grinned and made a throwing motion.

"A snowball fight?"

She nodded again, smiling more widely.

He nodded. "You and your mom against me. Sound good?"

She clapped her hands, her eyes dancing.

"As soon as I get done talking to your mom." He walked over, gave her a kiss on top of her head, then grabbed Hannah's hand and walked out into the living room, leaving before he could let himself think about how sweet and adorable Ava was.

He shut the kitchen door and then took Hannah to the far side of the room. When he turned to face her, she was staring at him as if he were insane. He frowned. "What?"

"How on earth can you consider yourself a monster when you treat Ava like that?"

He didn't answer her. He unfolded the note and began to read it.

Maddox. I have never seen anything like I saw last night.

Everyone in town talks about your father, his drinking, and his violence. I knew the kind of home you came from, or I thought I did. I had no idea what your life was really like. I can't believe your father punched me in the face. That isn't violence. That's sick. Your father's sick, not the kind of sick that can be helped with treatment. The kind of sick that belongs in a horror movie.

But you… You're so much worse than he is. Your father doesn't pretend to be anything other than what he is. No one trusts him. No one cares if he lives or dies. No one is surprised when he gets put in jail for being a drunk. But you. You're the real demon. You pretend you're kind. You pretend you're sweet. You pretend you're worth trusting. You make people believe that you're a good guy, that you'll keep them safe, that you'll use your strength, and your heart to weave a cocoon of protection around everybody that you care about.

Damn you, Maddox. Damn you!

You're a liar and a cheat. You betrayed me, and everybody else in the school and this town who sees any kind of goodness in you. Anyone can protect themselves against the threat they see coming. But no one can protect themselves against the hidden threat, a threat shrouded in the disguise of a friend, a lover, and a protector.

You took my heart, you made me trust you, you made me love you, and you made me believe in you. My parents didn't believe in you, and I fought against them in support of you. I gave everything to defend you, because you made me believe in you, and you made me love you. And it was all a lie. A lie!

You are so much more of a monster than your father ever will be. He's an old man. A drunk. A loser. One punch, and you had him on the ground. One punch had ended it, but then you attacked him like a rabid animal, salivating for the taste of his blood. I can still hear the sound of his nose crunching under your fist. I can still hear his groans as you kicked him in the ribs. I can still hear that horrible scream tearing from your throat, like a wild animal attacking its prey. I will never forget watching the man who won my heart turn into a monster right in front of me.

I don't want this ring. I don't want this note from you. All I want is to find a way to wipe you from my mind forever, so that I never have to think again about the fact that I live in a world that is also occupied by you. Stay away from me. Stay away from my family. Stay away from my friends. Stay away from my town. Do everyone a favor, and just die. Beth.

Maddox took a deep breath as he finished the letter, trying to slow his racing heart. He hadn't read it in several years. He'd forgotten exactly how bad it was. He could still remember the stark shock that had reverberated through his body as he read the words of the girl he had built all his dreams and all his love on.

He looked up at Hannah, and her face was white, sheet white. "When I read her note, I realized she was right," he said. "Every time I was with her, I had made sure to show her only a nice guy. I was considerate, kind, understanding. I pretended that I was fine. I pretended that my father hadn't affected me at all. I pretended that I was worthy of who she was, with her protected life, her happily married parents, and her Sunday mornings at church. I never once let her see what was inside me. So, she's right. I did betray her. I did lie."

He folded the letter over, the creases well-worn from years of living in his wallet. "I learned a lot from that. I learned that I'm a monster. I don't remember kicking my dad. I don't remember screaming. I don't remember feeling my fists sink into his flesh. All I remember is rage, so much rage. But her letter is the play-by-play that I don't recall. I lost control because I loved her, and that love made me vulnerable. When my dad hit her, I had no ability to control myself."

He met Hannah's gaze. "Love turned me into the demon. I won't do that again, especially not to you and Ava. You guys have had much too much violence and loss in your life. Do you really think either of you could handle it if I became violent in front of you? This is why it's so important to me that you understand who I am. No more misrepresentation. No more pretending I'm something that I'm not." He held out his hands, palms up, in surrender. "This is what I am, Hannah. And we both know that you and Ava need so much more than a ticking time bomb that will explode at some point."

As Hannah stared at Maddox's face, she finally understood. She understood why he saw himself the way he did. She also understood, for the first time, the side of him that he had kept trying to explain to her. Her heart bled at the words Beth had written to him. She'd felt his pain while he read them, and she'd felt the way he raised his barriers, shutting down his emotions.

How could he possibly believe in himself after that?

And, how could she possibly believe in him after that? Could she?

She did. She still did. Why?

Silently, she took his hand, and turned it over. There were scars on his knuckles, the kind of scars that came from punching things. His dad? The criminals he tracked down? A tree? She thought of the scars on the hands of the man who'd killed her sister. On the hands of the boyfriends who had hit her mother. Men with scars on their knuckles had always made her want to run, to hide, to protect herself. Why wasn't she afraid of Maddox? Was she stupid? Desperate for love? Or able to see a truth that only she could see?

She looked up at Maddox, searching his face, trying to see the truth in there.

She saw his pain. She saw his anguish, years and years of anguish. But she also saw the violence, beat into him by a childhood of hell. She thought of how he had showered her and Ava with kindness, genuine kindness, affection, and warmth. He made them safe. Was he right that his darkness would win? Or would his goodness and beautiful heart triumph? She was afraid of men. She didn't trust them. One bad experience would destroy her forever.

But as she looked into Maddox's haunted eyes, she knew that he was wrong. He would never break her or Ava. Ever. She knew it all the way to the depths of her soul, through all the broken pieces of her heart that lay scattered around her. "I believe in you," she whispered.

Pain flashed across his face. "No, Hannah, don't—"

She laid her hands on either side of his face. "Ava and I have both seen darkness. We've seen the worst kind of men that walk this earth. I see the scars on your hands, and I see the scars in your heart. I know what you have done. I know what you are."

He went still, watching her, like a cat poised to spring away.

"But I'm not afraid, and neither is Ava."

He closed his eyes, and tipped his head back, as if fighting off a surge of emotion that was too strong for him to cope with. Then suddenly, he opened his eyes, slid his hand behind the back of her neck, pulled her against him, and kissed her.

It wasn't a sweet, tender kiss. It was a kiss of desperation, the kiss of a man drowning in hell, fighting for breath, for air, for salvation. Hannah flung her hands around his neck and pulled him close, kissing him back just as fiercely. She accepted all of his turmoil, taking it into her, and giving him all the peace and love she had to offer. She rode the tide of his frenzied kiss, of the desperation eating away at him, of the need raking through him with such agonizing ferocity.

He angled his head, deepening the kiss, taking, taking, taking. Except she knew that it was more than that. He was offering her his pain. He was surrendering his fear and his self-hate to her. He was trying to find his way through the darkness to the light that she was offering him.

So she held him tight, allowing him to pin her against his body with such strength that he almost took her breath away. His legs were strong, braced on either side of hers, a fierce warrior made of both the hardest steel, and the most tender, fragile threads of hope.

It was hope she felt in his kiss. The hope that maybe the words on that folded sheet of paper that he'd lived by for so long weren't actually the end of his story. God, she needed hope, too. She had left Boston to escape from the memories and the oppressive hopelessness and fear that had been crushing both her and Ava. In a few short days, Maddox had changed all that for her. He had shined sunlight onto them, beautiful, nourishing sunlight, and then he'd enabled them to feel it.

His darkness was worse than hers, in some ways. More personal. More internal. She was afraid of the world. He was afraid of himself. She broke the kiss, pulling back just enough to be able to speak, her lips still against his. "I love you, Maddox. So does Ava."

He sucked in his breath, his arms tightened around her, and he froze. She could feel his heart thundering against her chest, a frenzied, almost out-of-control rhythm. He whispered her name, a low, guttural groan of anguish, and then he swept her up in another kiss, this one a thousand times more desperate and agonized than the one before.

His kiss was frantic and deep, so deep, as if he was trying to lose all he was in their connection. His arms were so tight around her, and she could feel his chest trembling against her. Tears filled her eyes at the realization that the strong, capable, modern-day cowboy was actually trembling because she had told him that she loved him. Because it meant something to him, and because it terrified him.

She held him tight, accepting the desperation of his kiss, his frantic need, his shields, meeting each kiss with her own, of equal strength, equal passion, equal need. "I need you, too, Maddox," she whispered.

He broke the kiss and stared at her, searching her face. "Hannah—"

There was a loud knock on the front door, making them both jump.

Neither of them moved. They just kept staring at each other. Hannah's heart was pounding, and her cheeks were flushed with heat. Why had she just told him she loved him? Did she really need to have her heart completely broken right now?

Maddox ran his finger along her cheek, as he had done so many times in the past few days. "I will treasure you forever, Hannah. You and Ava have given me something so beautiful that I didn't even know existed."

"You're still leaving?" She didn't need to ask. As soon as he'd started reading the letter from Beth, she'd known he was going to leave. Beth's accusations had become embedded on his soul, and she knew the resulting scars would never leave, no matter how much she offered of herself, and no matter how much she loved him. And yet a part of her had hoped that he would step into the sliver of sunlight she was offering him.

He nodded. "I'll stay for the snowball fight, and then I have to hit the road." He sighed, searching her face.

She nodded. "I know." She did know. And she also knew that as much as she loved Maddox, and she did, that she needed him to love her right back, and so did Ava. Simply staying there, but not loving them, wouldn't be enough. Maddox had taught her about love. She wasn't afraid anymore, but at the same time, he'd awakened a longing in her for love, real love, the kind of love that would battle through any obstacle, no matter what.

Maddox couldn't go there...or rather, he wouldn't. He could. Anyone could. But he wouldn't. And she needed that from him, and so did Ava.

Which meant he wasn't right for them...but if that was so, why did everything feel so good when he was with her?