Page 25 of Frost and Venom

“Even if we were in a relationship and I cheated on you?”

He laughed again, that low, male amusement that seemed to curl down her spine as pure heat. “You’re incapable of cheating. But we can pretend. If you cheated on me, Harlow, I’d have to take a good look at what I was doing to push you that far away from me.”

“You wouldn’t retaliate in any way?” That would be difficult to believe. She heard sincerity in his voice, but she doubted he could possibly foresee his reaction.

“Against you? No, I’d do my best to figure out the problem and get you to communicate. Now, the man you cheated with, he might be a different story. I don’t have a clue what I’d do to him. That’s me being honest.”

“How can you be so certain of your reaction to me cheating on you?” she persisted.

“Because I am very good at allowing logic to take over and push aside all emotion. I’ve been doing it all my life. Emotions can lead you down a very dark path. When I hunt, I try to do so without judgment. I hear the details of the assignment, do my own investigation, and then I go after my suspect or suspects. Most of the time, it is cut and dried. I go after drug cartels or terrorists who have killed American citizens and continue to plot against our innocent population. Sometimes it is an individual that, for some reason, law enforcement cannot apprehend.”

There was a lot to process, but she mainly heard how he could compartmentalize. She did that. She used logic to hide her emotions. From the time she was a child, she had learned never to show her true feelings to anyone, least of all her parents.

“I have a terrible feeling your childhood was just as ugly as mine or even worse.”

His eyes moved over her face, a brooding perusal that sent a chill down her spine. For the briefest of moments, there was hell in the depth of his gaze. “We’ll talk about that when you know for certain you want to commit to being with me. I wouldn’t want to scare you off when we just have this very fragile thread tying us together.”

Harlow was uncertain how fragile that thread actually was. She’d been thinking about Wilder for a good two years. Since she never looked at other men and only had envisioned herself—in her largest fantasies—with Wilder, she thought that thread between them was more like a chain.

“Just because I might want to be with you, Wilder, doesn’t mean we should be together or that a relationship would work. I told you, I’m a very bad risk. That’s me being as honest as I can.”

“Mon rêve, do you really want to spend your entire life alone? I was certain I would be doing just that until I found you. You’ve found me. Isn’t the risk worth taking? We may never get another shot at finding the right person.”

She found herself looking at her feet as they walked along the fence line. She had never thought of herself as a coward, and he hadn’t exactly called her one, but she felt like one. Wilder had a good point. Did she really want to live her life completely alone? No partner? No children? She knew she didn’t, but…

“I hate to think of myself as a coward.”

He stepped in front of her, stopping their forward progress. “Harlow.” Very gently, he framed her face with his large palms. “You are anything but a coward. You have every reason to be afraid of trusting your heart to me. I know I have to prove myself to you, and I intend to do just that. By my actions, not my words. I know I’m going to make mistakes, but if we both want it, I also know we’re going to be good together. I know it. I don’t just feel it, I know it.”

He stepped aside so they could resume walking along the fence line.

She wanted to be like him. He appeared to be so fearless, and yet when his brilliant gaze met hers, she could see his vulnerability. He was exposing that soft spot in him he kept hidden from the rest of the world, the one he was willing to put in her care. If she accepted that immeasurable gift, she would have to allow him to care for that same vulnerable spot in her.

Harlow halted abruptly, one hand curling around his forearm to stop him as well. “Something’s horribly wrong, Wilder. Look over there by the fence. That’s a mountain lion kill, and it’s one of Helen’s goats.”

“This is mountain lion country, honey. Surely, it isn’t unusual to come across one of their caches.”

“It’s one of Helen’s goats. She has working dogs. A large team of Pyrenean Mastiffs. Three females and a male. They’re all different ages, but when I tell you they guard the livestock, I mean they really do. They’ll take on any predator, and they work as a group. Like a lion pride, the females will go after whatever threatens their charges, and if they need help, they call in the male. He hangs back to protect the animals while the females fight off the threat.”

“It isn’t a breed I’m that familiar with,” Wilder admitted.

“They originate from Spain and they’re quite large and formidable. Helen socialized them, so for the most part, they’re good with people. In fact, they’ve always been friendly toward me. They love kids, and they get along with Misha, although I don’t allow Misha on her property out of an abundance of caution. They’ve chased off mountain lions, bears, bobcats, foxes, you name it. Usually, the three females patrol and do the actual running off of the predator, while the male seems to hang back with the animals in their charge.”

“A division of labor.” Wilder sounded amused.

“Exactly, and it works.”

“They sound efficient.”

She nodded. “Very efficient. The fact that one of her goats has been killed and stashed on my side of the fence raises a big alarm to me.”

Harlow began to move toward the carcass so she could study it. She didn’t get too close, taking a careful look around. Misha hadn’t raised any alarms, but chances were, the cat was somewhere close. Misha would be in danger, and if she and Wilder were close to the mountain lion’s food, they would be putting themselves at risk.

“Even with really good guardian dogs, wouldn’t she expect to lose an animal once in a while to a determined cougar?”

“I’ve seen those dogs in action. They run a tight ship. She lost a few chickens to predators because sometimes they got out of the fences and built nests away from the coop, but even that stopped once she had the entire dog crew. The way it works, apparently, is you train your first dog, socializing them as well, and then you get a second puppy. The adult teaches the pup right along with you. Then a year or so later, you get the next pup, and now two dogs are training that one right along with you. You’re building a solid pack, and the pups have the benefit of the adults’ experience.”

“They sound like an interesting breed,” Wilder commented.