Chapter 33

Dayton didn’t understand her anger or where it was coming from. At least, he thought with some relief, it had brought some color back to her face. A few moments ago, she’d been so pale he’d fully expected her to keel over in a dead faint. His concern for her well-being was mixed with confusion; he needed to get to the bottom of this.

“I’d like to know why Brady set off such a scare in you. He wasn’t about to give you a ticket or anything like—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Shayna whirled around to face him, clutching a file to her chest as if it were a lifeline. Her eyes were wide, and her breath came in shallow gasps. “I wasn’t worried about a ticket!” she snapped, her voice rising with a mixture of frustration and fear. “I just don’t like policemen. They—” She glanced away from his probing gaze, her voice dropping to a near whisper, “They frighten me.”

Dayton was taken aback by the raw emotion in her voice, the vulnerability that she had been trying so hard to hide. “Frighten you?” he echoed, his brow furrowing in confusion. “That doesn’t make sense. If you can’t trust a policeman, you’re living in a pretty scary place.”

Shayna looked away, her face pale and drawn, as if she were battling with memories that were too painful to share. “You don’t understand, Dayton,” she said quietly, her voice trembling. “It’s not about trust. It’s about what they represent… what they’ve done.”

Dayton’s heart ached at the sight of her distress. He took a step closer, his voice softening with concern. “What do you mean, Shayna? What have they done?”

"Shayna?" Dayton's voice was soft, tentative. "Did you leave New York just because of Erik or were you in another sort of trouble?”

Shayna's gaze snapped up from the floor, her eyes wide with disbelief. Outrage colored her features, causing her lip to quiver. "You think—I've broken the law? You think I'm a criminal, a murderer, or—"

Dayton stepped forward, his hands reaching out to gently grasp her shoulders. "You see a sheriff and you nearly collapse with fear. What am I supposed to think?"

It shouldn't have mattered what he thought of her, whether he saw her as a fugitive or something worse. But it did. It pierced her deeply, cutting to the core. Less than an hour ago, in the barn, she had dared to believe that he cared for her, that he saw her worth. How wrong she had been! Tears welled up, threatening to betray her composure. Desperate to conceal her vulnerability from him, she turned her head away and clenched her eyes shut.

"I suppose you can believe whatever you want," she murmured.

"Is that all you have to say?" His question hung in the air, laden with disappointment and disbelief.

Dayton’s face darkened with frustration and disbelief, his eyes narrowing as he took a step closer to Shayna, closing the distance between them.

“What do you expect me to say?” Shayna's voice trembled. “Do you want me to spill my entire life story? What good would that do? You wouldn’t believe half of it anyway. And even if you did, I don't want to share it with you. Just like you don’t want to share anything about Mel.”

Dayton’s anger flared, his jaw setting like concrete, the muscles in his neck tightening. “Why do you keep bringing Mel into this? You think just because I lost my wife, I’ve lost my sense of self?” His voice was taut, each word a jagged edge of suppressed emotion.

Shayna didn’t know where his thinking was coming from, but if he wanted to be insulting, she could play that game too. Raking a glare up and down his tall, muscular body, she said with venom in her voice, “It’s obvious you lost your heart. As for your manhood, I’m not in any position to say.”

Dayton’s eyes flashed with hurt and anger. He took another step forward, his chest rising and falling with the intensity of his emotions. “How dare you say that?” he growled. “You have no idea what I’ve been through. No idea what it’s like to lose someone you love and try to pick up the pieces.”

Shayna felt a surge of defiance, her own pain and frustration bubbling to the surface. “And you think you know me?” she shot back. “You think you know what I’ve been through? You have no idea how hard it was for me to leave everything behind, to escape a life where I was controlled and manipulated!”

“You ran away from your problems, Shayna. You didn’t face them. You can’t just run and expect everything to magically fix itself.”

Shayna’s face reddened with fury, her hands trembling at her sides. “Run away? You think I ran away? I did what I had to do to survive, Dayton! I left behind everything I knew, everyone I cared about, just to get away from someone who tried to break me!”

“You’re right, I don’t know what you went through. But you can’t keep pushing people away. You can’t keep using your past as an excuse to shut everyone out.”

“Shut everyone out?” Shayna laughed bitterly. “You’re one to talk, Dayton. You think just because you keep busy and don’t talk about Mel, you’re dealing with your pain? You’re hiding behind your work and your responsibilities, pretending everything’s fine.”

Dayton’s fists clenched at his sides. Shayna immediately saw his reaction.

“You’re a fine one to talk. You were not man enough to fight for me and you sure as hell aren’t man enough now!” she lashed out.

The words were hardly past her lips before he yanked her up against him. “I can remedy that for you. Right now!”

Before Shayna could jerk away, his thumb and forefinger caught her chin and held it fast. She stared defiantly up at him, “You don’t want to kiss me, Dayton! You think I’m a felon. Or—or something equally bad.”

His mouth twisted into a mocking sneer, “Oh, you’re bad all right, Shayna. Very bad for me.”

“And you’re—”

Shayna didn’t go on. She couldn’t. Suddenly his mouth was on hers, hard, hot and demanding. She squirmed against him and tried to wedge her hands between her and his broad chest, but he was holding her so tightly she doubted a piece of thread would slide between them.

Seconds later, it didn’t matter. The pressure of his lips softened and the tight grip he had on her waist eased. His hands took a slow, spiraling path up her back until his fingers finally reached her hair. Once they did, they threaded themselves into the silky strands, pressed against her scalp and begged her to answer his hungry lips.

Shayna didn’t disappoint him. With a soft groan, her lips parted beneath his and her hands slid across his shoulders, then gripped the back of his neck.

Kissing Dayton was like stepping into a warm, mysterious cave. She knew it was dangerous to continue onward, but she wanted to see, to feel what the next step would bring. And when his tongue invaded her mouth, she savored its taste and texture, reveled in the heat that was pooling in the center of her body.

Shayna wanted to make love to him. Again. It was that simple. She wanted to give her body to a man who doubted her character. A man whose heart was buried with another woman. That last thought was enough to give Shayna the strength to tear her lips away from his.

Shayna's voice trembled with a mixture of fear and frustration. "I can't—don't do this to me," she pleaded, her words choked with emotion. But as his grip tightened, her fear morphed into a fiery anger that bubbled up inside her.

In a sudden burst of defiance, Shayna's hand shot up, her palm connecting with Dayton's cheek in a sharp slap. The sound echoed through the room, cutting through the tense silence like a blade.

Dayton released his hold on her, then slowly took a step back. He didn’t know how things between them had escalated to this point. But one thing was for sure, he didn’t want the passion to end. He wanted to lift her off her feet, pitch her backward onto the bed and see her arms reach out to him. He wanted to see a look of love in her eyes and know that it was only for him.

As he studied her bent head, her slumped shoulders, her trembling hands, he wondered if he’d gone crazy. He didn’t know this woman! And from what she’d just told him, she didn’t want him to know her.

“I wasn’t doing anything to you that you didn’t want,” he said finally, his voice low and rough.

Shayna’s head whipped around to him, “Well, I’ll not want it again! I may not have much in this world, Dayton Radisson, but I do have my pride and my independence. I won’t let you take those away. Not you or any man!”

Did she honestly think that’s what he wanted from her? And why would she? Shaking his head in confusion, Dayton stepped toward her, “Shayna, you’re crazy if you think—”

“Yes, I’m crazy all right,” she furiously interrupted him, “damn crazy for thinking you might be different!”

“Different from what? Who?”

She looked at him, opened her mouth to answer, then just as quickly closed it. She wasn’t going to argue with him. She wasn’t going to look at him, and most of all she wasn’t going to want him. She was going to put an end to everything here and now. It was the smartest, safest thing she could do.

Her lips compressed in a tight line, she pointed toward the door, “Get out!”

Dayton couldn’t ever remember a woman shouting at him. Nor could he think of a time he’d ever been more furious.

“Gladly,” he yelled back at her, then turned and slammed the door as he left the room.