Marry in Haste... by Karen Rose Smith Page B

when she was a teenager. She’d come into her mother’s room and found her sitting at her vanity, a stack of letters in her hand.
    â€œWhat are they?” Mallory had asked.
    Her mother had said, “I was cleaning out the closet and found them with your father’s things. They’re letters from his first wife, Dawson’s mother.” And then she told Mallory something Mallory had never forgotten. “He wouldn’t have kept them unless they meant something to him, Mallory. I’ve always suspected he came to me because of a midlife crisis and once the damage was done to his marriage, he couldn’t go back. There’s a lesson here, honey. They had that ‘always’ kind of love, and that kind lasts forever. Your father is my true love, but I’m not his. If I hadn’t been blinded by my love for him, I would have realized it before we married. Don’t ever marry a man who still has ties to another woman.”
    Reed still had ties to another woman.
    His voice was a husky rasp when he said, “Just drop your legs and I’ll put you down.”
    She’d wrapped her legs around him to fit to him…to give them both a taste of fulfillment. But a taste wasn’t nearly enough, and she wasn’t about to give any more when he still had feelings for his fiancée. She suspected Reed wasn’t the type of man who could love a woman one minute and forget about her the next.
    Even though she unwound her legs, she felt his arousal as he lowered her. Still, embarrassment didn’t keep her from asking, “Reed?”
    His hands slipped from her and he stepped back. “What?” His voice was gritty with a desire she could still feel, too.
    â€œWere you involved with anyone before Stephanie?”
    â€œInvolved? You mean, in a serious relationship?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œNo. Stephanie was the first.”
    Her heart sinking, Mallory turned away from him and made her way to the bank.
    â€œMallory, it’s over with Stephanie,” he called to her.
    She stopped for a moment. “Only because she married someone else.”
    Silently he watched her step onto the bank and head for the clump of cedars. She could feel his eyes on her but she didn’t turn around and she didn’t slow her steps. The sooner she dressed, the sooner she’d forget how Reed’s hands had felt on her skin and how his body had felt pressed against hers.
    Â 
    The Texas night was unusually quiet as sweat dripped from Clint Lockhart’s brow and down his back. A lone coyote barked in the distance, startling him. They couldn’t have the dogs after him yet here. They didn’t know where he was. Why hadn’t the guard who’d shot him come after him?
    He didn’t know. He didn’t care.
    His bad luck had changed to good when the prison van tried to pass a slow-moving pickup in front of them. Doing at least sixty-five in the passing lane, a sports car had come at them out of nowhere. The van had swerved to avoid a head-on collision, slid into a ditch, and rolled over. In spite of his chains and cuffs, Clint and two other convicts who weren’t badly injured managed to get out. Both guards had been unconscious, and they’d gotten the keys and had their restraints off in a matter of minutes. One guard must have come around as Clint had gone through the woods instead of turning north like the other two prisoners. He’d only managed about twenty yards when he’d heard a shout, then a warning gunshot fired into the sky. But he’d kept on running.
    Moments later he’d heard a second shot and felt the burning pain in his leg, knowing he’d been hit. Still he’d kept running.
    When he’d reached the clearing and the railroad tracks, he’d heard the sound of a train. Then he’d watched and he’d waited. All that ranch work and weight lifting at the prison had paid off. His upper body had done what his