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Yeah. Okay. He hadn’t left a phone number. So he called back and left the number for the nurses’ station on his floor. But she still didn’t call and he thought maybe she hadn’t listened to her messages. Or maybe he’d pressed the wrong button and inadvertently erased the one he’d left her.
Amazing, the lies a man could tell himself, Tanner thought as he boarded the plane bound for home.
Still, lies could only take you so far.
The truth had been hand-delivered the very next day. It came in the form of a note, polite and to the point, handwritten on linen stationery that bore General John Hamilton Wilde’s letterhead.
Dear Lieutenant Akecheta:
My daughter thanks you for your call and says to tell you she wishes you well and that she knows you will understand how busy she is at this time. She joins me in offering you our deepest gratitude for everything you did for us.
The both of us are happy to hear you are recovering from your injuries and wish you well in all your future endeavors.
Sincerely yours…
He’d read it twice, but the meaning never changed.
It was over.
They’d shared a few days together. Nothing more than that.
Besides, he couldn’t blame her for walking away from him. He wasn’t a man anymore. Not the one she’d been with.
He was back to being Tanner Akecheta from the res in South Dakota.
And she…she was a general’s daughter.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please prepare for takeoff.”
Tanner buckled his seat belt, turned his face to the window, and spent the next few hours doing his best not to think of anything beyond what in hell he was going to do with his life once he got home.
* * *
The El Sueño Ranch, Texas:
Alessandra took a final look at herself the mirror in her bedroom at El Sueño.
It was time to get moving. Her family was waiting for her downstairs. She knew they were eager to celebrate.
She was home. She was safe. She had survived.
As for the rest…
“Stop it,” she told her reflection.
There wasn’t a reason in the world to keep reminding herself of what an idiot she’d been.
The time she’d spent with Tanner Akecheta was in the past. A past that had all the substance of a dream. How could it be more than that when she’d only spent a handful of hours with him?
As for loving him…
More idiocy.
Take one man. Add one woman. Put them in a dangerous situation, drop them into an isolated setting, and what did you have?
Alessandra picked up her brush and ran it through her new chin-length hairdo.
The Movie of the Week.
