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“Your leg. What was I thinking?”
He reached in his pocket and pulled out his bandana. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “For…you know.”
She cleaned up and pulled on her panties and jeans. She clasped her bra and started to button up her shirt, but several buttons were missing.
“Sorry about that,” Zach said.
“It’s okay.”
He scrambled into his boxers and jeans, sat down on a bale of hay, and pulled her into his lap, wincing at the pain in his thigh as he brushed his lips lightly over hers. He had been rough with her. Now he wanted to be gentle. To hold her and love her.
“Your leg, Zach.”
“It’s all right.”
“No.” She squirmed, trying to escape. “I don’t want to hurt you. It’s the last thing I ever wanted.”
“Then don’t leave me, darlin’. Please don’t leave me.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, tears trickling down her cheeks. She bounded up, and before he could react, she had grabbed her boots and run out of the barn.
He couldn’t run, so he couldn’t follow her. The pain in his thigh lanced through him like a gash from a sword.
But it was nothing compared to the agony in his heart.
Chapter Fifteen
Dallas McCray had a gnawing pain in his stomach that wouldn’t go away. For a few days after the family returned to McCray Landing, he tried dousing it with Pepto-Bismol and Zantac, to no avail. Then, as he watched his brother mope around the ranch, working himself harder than he should while recovering from a gore injury, Dallas figured out the problem.
Guilt.
He had been wrong about Dusty O’Donovan. She hadn’t been after Zach’s money. Had she been, she would be here now. Zach had made no secret of the fact he’d wanted to bring Dusty back to McCray Landing with him, but she and Sam had gone back to Montana.
Dallas tried to understand what Zach must be feeling. Love. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt it, at least not the way Zach did for Dusty. His marriage to Chelsea had grown stale. They never talked, and they never spent time laughing or playing. They hardly ever made love anymore. Had he ever felt for Chelsea what Zach appeared to feel for Dusty? Would he be devastated, as Zach was, if Chelsea left him?
He sighed. He didn’t know the answer to that question.
He needed to figure out his own marriage, but that would take more time than he had at the moment. In the meantime, he’d do what he could for Zach. He had a lot to make up for. Grabbing his cell phone out of his pocket, he called Chad.
“What’s up, Dallas?” Chad’s voice was always so full of life.
“Hey, Chad. I have a favor to ask.”
“Sure. What can I do for you?”
“You know that PI you used a couple years ago when your van was stolen?”
“Larry? Yeah.”
“I need his number.”
“I don’t have it on me. Can I call you later?”
“Yeah. Er, no.” Dallas fidgeted with a few coins in his pocket. Was he about to overstep a boundary? “Maybe you could call him, if you don’t mind. Since you and he go way back. Wasn’t he in your class?”
“Yep.”
“I want to hire him.”
