Chapter 3

      The following evening, Sadie found Jasper out on the turret-top patio. He stood with the setting sun spraying color across the darkening sky and the silhouette of jagged Teton peaks succumbing to blackness. But he didn’t seem to be up here for the view. His head moved slowly, scanning the property below where lights illuminated carefully cultivated landscaping. Sadie hadn’t wanted to build her castle in the middle of trees. She wanted to be able to come out onto a patio like this and see the landscape. Her security team hadn’t complained. Like Jasper, they preferred to see the property.

      “You’re missing the sunset,” she said as she came up beside him, leaning her forearms on the rise of a stone sawtooth.

      “I’m not missing a thing.”

      She wasn’t fooled. He hadn’t come up here for leisure. He may have seen the setting sun but he hadn’t seen it. “Do you ever savor the moment? Take in a sunset—and I mean really take it in? Smell the grass and flowers? Or is it all rifle scopes and gunpowder for you?”

      “You do have a way with words, Sadie Moreno. Are you a secretly aspiring to be a writer?”

      He liked how he joined in on the teasing. “No, but I do have an artistic streak in me. Must have gotten that from my mother.”

      “She was creative?”

      “She painted. I saw her paintings from when she was a girl. She was pretty good.” Clasping her hands over the stone wall, getting the feeling he’d asked to probe rather than out of genuine curiosity. He’d asked as though her mother was still alive and she’d already told him she died after she was born. She looked out toward the horizon. She’d steer clear of any more talk of her mom.

      “What kind of creative streak did you get from her?” Jasper asked.

      “Interior decorating.” She looked over the stone wall toward what she could see of the lower levels of the house. “Maybe even exterior. I had a lot of input into the design of this house.”

      “It’s a nice house.” She caught him regard her warmly for a few second before he said, “I savor more than the sight through a scope or the smell of gunpowder. But thanks for that visual.”

      She turned to lean her back against the stone wall, elbows on the top sawtooth, taking in his wide shoulders. “What things do you savor, then?”

      He looked down at her mouth and then lower. Then his eyes lifted and she felt the burn of the man inside. He didn’t have to say the first thing that came to his mind.

      Women. And he could savor her.

      Sadie straightened and once again faced the view. Time to change the subject...real quick. “So...what made you bury yourself in work?”

      She saw a subtle flash of unguarded surprise. She bet people rarely surprised him.

      “Why do you think I do?” he asked.

      She shrugged. Where had she gotten the idea he buried himself? “Just something about you. And the things you said. Meeting your match with Dark Alley Investigations. That must keep you busy.”

      “It does, but why does there have to be a reason to love what I do?”

      “Do you love it?” All the death and sadness? Of course, that wouldn’t be the part he loved. He loved being a hero. The good guy.

      He took some time to mull over his response. She could see the calculation in his deliciously blue eyes.

      “It satisfies my craving for excitement.”

      His gently mocking tone reminded her of when she’d asked if women gave up trying to keep him excited. She put her attention on the setting sun, the sky deeper tones of red and orange, lighting streaks of cirrus clouds.

      “I shouldn’t have said that. I said I was sorry and I meant it.”

      “Don’t be. The truth is never something you should be sorry for.”

      Amazement brought her gaze back to him, the low light shadowing the Nordic planes of his face. She wasn’t sure if she’d call him humble, noble or chauvinistic. “You need women to excite you?”

      He grinned. “What man doesn’t?”

      While he definitely charmed, she remained serious. He must have thought on this awhile after they last talked. Maybe he hadn’t thought of himself that way before. Had he known what made him that way? Certain men avoid long-lasting relationships, but only as they matured. Some required more time than others, and maybe some men never graduated to the family level. Was Jasper that kind of man? He might only be about striving in his professional life.

      Still, mysterious attraction, whether welcome or not, compelled her to be sure. “Is it really the excitement that keeps you from settling down? Or did a woman break your heart?”

      His flirty grin wiped flat. The spark left his eyes and he turned to the darkening view. Perimeter lights began to dominate now.

      “Don’t want to get hurt again, huh?” She joined him in watching the last of the sun’s rays give the show over to the stars. “Me neither.”

      When he didn’t respond, she found she couldn’t let go. “She must have been some lady.”

      Slowly he turned his head. The profound emotion struck her and penetrated deep. She felt it. Without even speaking he told her how much the woman had meant to him.

      “I’m sorry,” she apologized again, facing the grounds, the horizon a dark blue with the rugged black outline of the mountains.

      “She was very special.”

      Startled that he’d responded, Sadie’s curiosity only intensified. She didn’t interrupt him, only let him take his time.

      “Kind. Never jealous. She believed in herself, and that made her more than physically beautiful to me.”

      Sadie pictured the confident woman he described and felt the bond he had with her. Although he didn’t say much, what he had said revealed the depth of his regard for the woman. How many men could say that about their women? Her father certainly had never spoken that way about her mother. Had Jasper had true love with his woman? It seemed that way.

      “What happened?”

      The warmth of memory faded as the end of something he’d considered good, if not life-lasting, came to an end. “The usual.”

      Someone’s heart gets broken.

      “Could she not handle your profession? The hours you work?”

      “She could have handled it.” Jasper offered no more. She’d already asked what happened between them and he clearly didn’t want to say. The usual. But she had been strong and he’d admired her no small amount. Yes, she must have been quite a woman to capture this fascinating man’s heart.

      Sadie didn’t welcome the flowering spark of envy. She rarely felt this way. When she was under her father’s reign, she’d been too busy feeling sorry for all of his subjects. And afterward, too busy crusading for the homeless. No man had threatened her femininity that way, whether intentionally or not. In this case, Jasper hadn’t intended to make her feel like that. She’d done that all on her own, and by no conscious will of her own. What an odd sensation.

      She stood with him under the stars, seeing one of her security guards making his patrol on the inside of the fence, disappearing into some trees. It