He didn't say anything more, but he didn't need to. She could feel how much he cared in the way he kissed her, in the way he was so careful with her, even when he thought he was being rough.

“I know,” she said, and then his mouth was on hers again and they were flying. And afterward as she lay there on the floor beneath him, so perfectly complete, she knew that even if he never actually spoke the word love aloud, at least in that one moment with her on her bedroom floor, he'd felt it.

That night as they ate dinner out on the porch, she had to ask. “How did it go with your father?”

“He wants to help with the cabin.”

“Really? Is that the only reason he gave you for coming here?”

Connor was silent for a long moment. “Sam called him. Told him the news. He was worried.”

The news. That was all he would say about the phone call that had changed his life.

“What did you tell him?”

He lifted his beer, drank from it before answering. “Same thing I've been telling everyone.”

“That you're fine.”

“Yup.”

Ginger bit her tongue in an effort to keep her mouth shut. But after what had just happened upstairs she felt so close to him, cared way too much to keep listening to the same lie over and over.

“Has anyone believed you yet?”

“Say that again.”

His words were cold. Hard. But she couldn't back down. Not this time.

“You keep saying you're fine. But you and I both know it isn't true. You're not. You couldn't be. Not yet. Not when everything you ever wanted was just ripped away from you.”

“Jesus,” Connor said, slamming his bottle down on the table so hard a crack appeared in the spot it hit. “What the f**k is wrong with all of you? You'd think it was a crime to look on the bright side. Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doing? See how the world is my f**king oyster now? Now that firefighting isn't tying me down, isn't taking up every goddamned second of my life, shouldn't I be seeing the endless possibilities?”

“Yes, Connor. Yes to all of that. But that doesn't mean you can't mourn first, let it all out. Even if it's only for five minutes.”

“Don't you get it?” He shoved away from the table. “I could travel the world, see the seven goddamned wonders.

Just keep going until I feel like turning around and starting over.”

“But that's not what you want,” she challenged him again.

“How the f**k do you know what I want?”

She pushed her chair back, went to him, took his hands in hers. “Because I know you. I know who you really are.

And I want to help you. Please let me help you, Connor.”

“Fine. You want to help me? I'll show you exactly how you can help. The only way you can help.”

He spun her around and shoved her into the logs behind them, pinned her hard against the wall with her wrists gripped tightly in his hands above her head. He was breathing hard and she gasped in stunned surprise at his rough handling of her.

“I know you don't mean that,” she got out a second before he covered her lips with his in a kiss so rough she tasted blood. She wasn't sure if it was his or hers, and the twisted truth was that as his mouth devoured hers, she didn't really care. Not when all she wanted was to keep tangling her tongue against his. Not when she would gladly take her next breath from his lungs.

But a second later he was wrenching his mouth away from hers and tightening his grip on her wrists, hard enough now that she cried out. She could feel rage rolling off him in waves, almost as if he were even angrier now because she hadn't run from him.

He shoved his thigh between hers, hard enough that a slick of fear ran through her. She tried to pull away from him, yank her wrists from his tight grip, but he only held on tighter.

“Talk to me, Connor,” she begged.

“You think you know what I want,” he said, his words harsh, utterly at odds with the soft swoosh of waves on the shore. “You're wrong. This is what I want. All I want.”

She felt him drop a hand from her wrists, but instead of letting her loose, he ripped off her sundress in one quick movement.

She couldn't see his eyes clearly in the dark, only the shadows beneath his cheekbones, the planes of his face that were so beautiful to her. It was all happening too fast for her to find any words to make him stop — too fast to even know if that's what she wanted — and then he was covering one of her br**sts with his palm, squeezing her roughly, branding her with the intense heat that always poured off his body.

Her body reacted instantly to his touch, opening to let him in, moisture quickly coating her thin panties, the top of his thigh.

“Connor,” she groaned as she instinctively rubbed herself against him, seeking the pleasure she knew was waiting in his arms, even now. And then his hand was between her legs.

Her hips instinctively bucked up into his fingers, seeking more, but even as he thrust two fingers into her, even as she responded to his touch as she always had, she was struck with the sense that he was stuck in the space between reality and a nightmare. Just like that night up in his room when she'd run in to help him and he'd pulled her hard against him.

And just like then, her fear left as quickly as it had come. Because even out on this rough and ragged edge, she knew he'd never deliberately hurt her.

How could she possibly be afraid of him, when at his core Connor was the most decent, most heroic man she'd ever known?

One word from her and he'd stop.

But she didn't want him to.

“This is who I am now,” he said, the words raw as they exited his throat, his mouth moving at her neck, sucking, biting at the same time. He let go of her wrists with his other hand and moved it to her br**sts, rolling an erect nipple between his thumb and forefinger, making her gasp again with another shock of pure pleasure. “This is who I've become. And now that you've seen the real me, it's time to make your choice.”

“You can try to convince me a hundred times,” she managed to get out with the little air she had left in her lungs, “and I'll never believe you.”

But instead of calming him, her words seemed to send him even closer to the edge as his fingers dove in, then out of her, his thumb pressing against her clitoris, his palm gripping her breast. And then tremors were taking over her body, her body tightening around his fingers, her eyes closing, her head falling back against a log.