Kimberly Cates - The Wedding Dress

She pressed her hand to her stomach, feeling strangely violated as she imagined the cynical Jared Butler reading through the private, precious thoughts meant only for loving eyes. Oh, God. What had she written? She’d been trying so hard not to cry that she could hardly remember. But Jared couldn’t know that, could he? Then why was he looking at her with—damn, a hint of…pity?

“How would you feel if I read your private letters to your family?” Emma confronted him, hands on hips.

“That will never happen.”

“I suppose your work is too important for you to be bothered to drop your parents a few lines?”

Jared compressed his lips for a moment. “I don’t have any family.”

Emma stared at him. His eyes were hooded, dark with secrets. “But your father…you said…”

“He’s dead. They all are.”

Emma’s heart clenched, her fury at Jared’s intrusion paling in comparison to her runaway imagination. Picturing just how bleak her own life would be if God obliterated everybody she loved.

Jared held up his gauze-wrapped hand in surrender. “I was wrong to read the letters. I admit it. But don’t you think being chewed up in a dogfight is penance enough?”

“Not unless I was the one who got to bite you.” She hated the fact that he had a point. He might have read her letters, but he’d also saved Captain.

“What if we make a deal, you and me?” Jared offered. “I’ll not invade your privacy again and you’ll stay on the right side of the chain barricade at the rear of the castle. No more prowling around where you don’t belong.”

He looked so damned reasonable, those green eyes fixed on hers as he waited for her answer. But this was one time reasonable wouldn’t work any more than indulging his temper had.

One of Hope’s favorite phrases rose in her mind: You’re not the boss of me. Okay, maybe it worked better coming from an eight-year-old, but Emma could at least hold on to the gist of the words.

She walked over to the crate, lifting it up to carry back to the tower room. “I’ll just get my dog out of your way now.”

“Hold on. I didn’t say you could keep it. A dog on a dig site is a rotten idea.”

“He won’t go near your precious dig site. He’ll be with me. After all, they had dogs in medieval times, didn’t they?”

“Deerhounds and mastiffs and—”

“I could use some company with manners. Captain won’t be able to read my letters or—”

Or look so damned sexy when he was really a nosy, unprincipled—

“All right. You can keep the dog. But at the first sign he’s digging—”

“Maybe you can sew buttons on his paws.”

“Fine. I won’t read your letters or give your dog to the SPCA and you won’t go poking around the back of the castle. I just don’t want the site contaminated. Surely we can agree on that. Do we have a bargain?”

Without a word, she turned and walked out the tent door, the dog’s box in her arms.

“Emma?”

She heard Jared’s irritated call. He was waiting for an answer. Too bad, she thought. He’d have to wait a long time.

Because there was one more thing she’d forgotten to mention about the McDaniel code. McDaniels kept their word. She had no intention of making Jared Butler a promise she wouldn’t keep.

She hadn’t forgotten the warrior she’d seen or the strange tug she’d felt in the center of her chest at the sight of him fighting upon the sea.

As if the valiant knight from centuries gone by felt just as lost as she did.

And she was the only one who could find him.

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