She smiled. “All right.”

She was pacifying me. I could tell. She didn’t believe for a minute that she had misread me.

And of course she was right.

“So let’s get back to you and your alone time. Do you still like your alone time now?”

I nodded.

“What you do during your alone time?”

“Sometimes nothing. Sometimes I swim. I have a lap pool at my house. I’ve always loved the water.”

“I see. What is it that you love about the water?”

“I don’t know, really. I guess I just like the way it wraps itself around me.”

“Like a shield?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. It seems to…”

“What?”

“It…soothes me. Takes the weight away.”

“I see. That makes a lot of sense. What else do you do while you’re alone?”

Well, I jacked off a lot. But I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her that. It had been way too long since I’d had a woman. Even though I’d had girlfriends in the past, I’d never had what I thought was a serious relationship. Only one of us had—before Talon and Jade, that was. Ryan had been with a woman named Anna for several years, but they’d ended up calling it off.

“Sometimes I read up on ranching, agriculture.”

She laughed softly. “That’s part of your work. I’m talking about your free time. Your alone time. What do you do besides swim?”

I honestly didn’t know how to answer her. If I wasn’t swimming or sleeping, I was doing something involving the ranch, whether it was reading up on new techniques, attending a conference, or talking to my brothers or my foreman. God, had I really become so involved in my work?

“I…hang out with my brothers and sister.”

“What about friends? What about a girlfriend?”

“Talon has a group of guys he plays poker with. Ryan joins them sometimes.”

“But you don’t?”

“No. I don’t really believe in gambling.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t.”

“Why do you think that is?”

I had no idea what she was driving at with this line of questioning. “Isn’t it better not to gamble, Melanie? I mean, it can lead to addiction, right?”

“Do you think you have an addictive personality?”

This was getting way off track. “Of course not.”

“All right. I’ll move on, then. What about dating?”

Was it my imagination, or did her cheeks turn pink just a little bit at the mention of dating? “I don’t have time. Plus, I haven’t met anyone I’m interested in.” Until now, that was.

“Friendships?”

“Again, I grab a drink with some of the guys on the ranch sometimes, sometimes my brothers.”

“No one else?”

“Well, my best buddy from my childhood just came for a visit. He’s actually the cousin of one of the kids who was killed back when Talon was abducted.”

“I see. So you’ve spent some time with him, then?”

“Yeah. He’s still here. He has a ten-month-old little boy who’s really cute.”

“How old are you, Jonah?”

“I’m thirty-eight. How old are you?”

I shouldn’t have asked that. I wasn’t sure why it had popped out.

“I’m forty.”

I hoped my shock didn’t show on my face. I’d have pegged her for much younger, but all that schooling…and she’d been in practice for a while. Of course she was older.

She continued, “But we’re not here to talk about me, are we?”

“I’m sorry. That was personal.”

“No worries. I’m not one of those women who gets weird about her age.”

“No reason you should. You look great. I’d take you for late twenties.”

She blushed again, this time all the way down her neck. Her skin was fair, and the rosiness erupted like pink petals against her flesh.

My groin tightened.

“Thank you. Let’s get back to your friendships. You mentioned that your friend has a little boy. Do you ever think about having a family?”

I tensed up. “For a long time, I didn’t. But now I see what Talon and Jade have together, and I wonder…”

“What do you wonder about?”

“I wonder if…if there’s someone like Jade out there for me.” And I also wondered if she might be sitting across from me. “I mean, if Talon, with all of his past, can make a relationship work, maybe there’s hope for me.”

“I think there’s plenty of hope for you.” She looked at the clock on her table. “Our time is up for today. I want you to think about something before we meet again.”

“Sure. What’s that?”

“I want you to think about what your responsibilities truly are, and the next time you come in, we’ll talk about that.”

“Easy. I’m responsible for everything. It’s my ranch.”

“It’s one-quarter your ranch. Let your siblings do their jobs. When you come back next time, I want to know what you’re truly responsible for. Not what you think you’re responsible for, but what you actually are responsible for.”

Seemed like a simple enough question. So why did I have no idea where to start?

Chapter Four

Melanie

I sat down in my chair, shaking, after Jonah Steel left my office. The poor man felt the weight of the world upon his shoulders, and I wasn’t sure how to help him realize that it was not his responsibility. I specialized in treating victims of childhood trauma, and in his own way, Jonah was a victim of childhood trauma. But I had the feeling that his problems went further back than Talon’s abduction. Somehow he had grown to believe he was responsible for everything in his life, and I had to figure out how to disavow him of that that notion.

More importantly, if I was to truly help, I had to get rid of my sweaty palms and quivering body. Jonah was the most attractive man I’d met in some time, and I didn’t mean just his amazing physical looks. I was a sucker for someone like him—a man who had so much honor that it became his nemesis. Jonah wanted to protect everyone, but he couldn’t. He was only one man. And twenty-five years ago, he was a thirteen-year-old boy.