“I come by it honestly, I’m told. My mother is just as bad.”

She snorted. She’d heard.

“I figured we’d head up around Snoqualmie. I saw a lot last year when Carrie and I went up. Work for you?”

“I’m just along for the ride. I wore shoes I could hike in, just in case.”

“Hm, a hike. After I wake up in a warm cabin and have hot sex with a willing woman covered in ink. But just as a general rule? Not gonna make you hike without telling you up front.”

“Good to know. I don’t camp much. I like hot showers too much to really get into it. Erin did con me into going to the Sleeping Lady a few years back. We’ve gone several more times. If it comes with a spa and gourmet food as well as some pretty swank accommodations, I can swing that.”

“I lived in the dorms my first year of college. I hated the communal showers. I hated wearing flip-flops.”

Imagining him in cheap flip-flops did a good job eroding her annoyance. “You lived in the dorms?”

“Don’t mock. My parents thought it would be a good experience. I met a shitload of girls. Lots of furtive, very quick f**k sessions before roommates came home. That was the good part. I got an apartment my second year when I worked at the firm part time.”

“I bet you met a lot of girls. I can’t even imagine the Jonah in his early twenties. Though, I do admit to the fairly overwhelming appeal of the Jonah in his forties. I like a man who knows what he’s about.”

“Good to know. I was more reckless then.”

“Who isn’t when they’re twenty?”

“I bet you weren’t.”

“I’m reckless now, Jonah. As for when I was twenty? I was in my own way. I was trying to figure out everything. Trying to raise myself, I suppose.”

“Trying to survive?”

“By the time I was twenty or so I knew I’d be all right. I had some skills that I could pay the rent with. I realized how much I loved to travel around that time, too.”

“Do you ever go back? To Happy Bend, I mean.”

“I went back once. For my great-grandmother’s funeral.”

“How old were you then?”

She licked her lips, trying to ignore the pain in her chest. “Twenty-three.”

“Do you still have family there?”

“I imagine so. I don’t have much contact with any of them. I hear from an aunt from time to time.”

“They never took you in?”

Erin had urged her to share more with people and she was usually right. So she’d give it a shot.

“Sometimes. They were dirt poor, most of them. The aunt I have contact with sometimes, she and my mother are sisters. Were sisters. Whatever. Anyway, she’s been plagued with health problems and a variety of addictions.” Like the rest. Alcoholics and crazy people. She came from such fine stock.

“I lived with her on and off until I was six. She went to jail a few times. Had to move from one run-down, piece-of-shit place to another.”

She shrugged but he took her hand, saying nothing.

“Don’t.” She pulled her hand back.

“Don’t what?”

“Pity me. I don’t need your pity.” It’s why she hated talking about any of it.

“I don’t pity you. I care about you. I can hear the pain in your voice. I offered comfort. It doesn’t make you weak to take it.”

“This is all easy for you to say. Academic even.”

“Is that what it is? Only people who’ve suffered like you can understand what it means?”

“Don’t be an ass**le.”

“You already told me I was one. Don’t be a bitch.”

“I already told you I was one as well.”

“That must be why we work.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, staring out the window.

“Are you going to close off?”

“Back. Off.”

“No.”

She whipped her head to get a good look at this man she’d been so silly to think she could be with. Pushy!

“Just take me home.”

“You agreed to come spend the day with me.”

“That’s before you started being all pushy and nosy.”

“I was born pushy and nosy. Ask anyone. You knew that when you got in the car with me. You knew that when you opened your door to me this morning.”

“Look, this is . . . We’re just having some fun. You’re making it more than it is.”

It was his turn to snort. “Bullshit. Evasion is one thing. Lying is a whole different thing and, frankly, beneath you. This is far more than just some fun and you know it. If it was just fun you’d have told me to f**k off when I demanded your monogamy.”

“I should have.”

“But you didn’t. Because you know it’s more than just fun. It’s more and you can’t deny it. I won’t let you.”

“Why?”

“Because I like you. You’re nothing like anyone I’ve ever known before and that appeals to me a great deal.”

“Oh, so I’m your walk on the wild side then?”

“Fuck you. Fuck you, Raven, for thinking you can use that to keep me out.”

The slice of anger in his tone didn’t scare her. Well, it did, but not for her physical safety. Just her everything. It should have made her feel better, but instead, she knew it had been a tactical error. He wasn’t going to be scared off. He was too damned stubborn for that.