Duke’s jaw got hard and his eyes got tight whenever I tried to ask him for updates. He’d give me as little information as possible. It should’ve offended me. I should’ve been given all the information about when I could expect to get my life back—after I testified against a killer of course. But I was relieved. It wouldn’t be my life I was getting back. My life was here. I’d be slipping into a stranger’s skin, back into the spotlight as a stranger to myself. But completely on my own. No Andre. No one to provide the compass for the full and insincere life of Anastasia Edwards.
Duke grasped my chin so I was looking at him again. “I’m serious, Anastasia. I’ve got plans for you later.”
My stomach dipped in the exact way it had since the first time. My hunger for him was never sated. He matched me with his needs. I moved my hand down his abs and toyed with the buckle of his belt. “I’ve got plans for you too. So how about you make sure you don’t fall off that horse.”
He kissed me again, hard and quick. “Honey, I fall off that horse, it’s ’cause I’m dead. Nothing else.”
I frowned with the thought of it. A sharp stab in my chest reminded me of Andre, of how easy it was to lose people when you cared about them.
“Hey,” Duke said, voice soft. “I’m comin’ back to you.”
The words shook me to my core. They were simple but the meaning behind them wasn’t. The way Duke looked at me wasn’t.
It was the look in his eyes that had stilled my heart in rare moments this past month. It was fleeting. At first, it was quick enough for me to dismiss as something constructed from hope. But it was becoming more frequent lately, this look. One that said three words, the ones I hadn’t repeated since that night, the ones he still hadn’t said.
But he stepped back giving my hips one last squeeze. “You call on the landline if anything happens.”
I rolled my eyes, not just because they still had a landline. “Yes, but as I said, I doubt anything will happen in the two hours I’m alone.”
I was totally freaking wrong about that.
The knock at the door surprised me, scared me a little too, if I was honest. But I guessed if anyone was coming here to murder me, they wouldn’t knock.
Harriet was due back from her hair appointment soon, the only reason I was alone in the house in the first place. I wanted to go on the herding trip with them, but there were others from a neighboring ranch involved and Duke didn’t want to risk one of them recognizing me.
Duke would be pissed at me for opening the door, but I didn’t realize what a bad idea it was until I opened it and a very pregnant woman gaped at me in surprise and then recognition.
“You’re Anastasia Edwards,” she said.
Shit.
I was Anastasia Edwards. Despite what I’d said to Duke on that night a thousand years ago, I had forgotten. I’d forgotten I was the movie star. People had treated me differently for years. They’d treated me with respect—whether it was fake or not. They never let me forget that I was someone famous, that I was a celebrity.
And at some point, that turned me into something less than human. I’d let it convince me that I was nothing more than that.
But this ranch. Duke. His family.
They’d turned me into something more than the celebrity. They’d turned me into something human.
So yeah, I forgot who I was right up until I saw the recognition on this beautiful woman’s face.
I was a movie star and a murder witness.
So I really hoped this woman wasn’t a gossip.
“Um, yeah, I am,” I said with the least amount of confidence I’d had admitting that.
“Are you with Duke?” she asked, cradling her stomach and frowning slightly.
Oh shit.
Was this woman, the soft woman I’d been so sure he had? She certainly looked like someone deserving of Duke—long dark hair, caramel eyes, skin that was the same. Native American, if I had to guess. And beautiful with very little makeup. She was small—apart from the belly, of course—wearing a tight black dress and cowboy boots, and perfectly kind eyes.
She belonged here, in this place, with this family. Something told me that.
“Am I with Duke?” I repeated.
She smiled. It was easy, but had pain behind it. “Yeah, I heard he was back from LA.”
I frowned. “No one was meant to know that.” He’d be very pissed off about his commando skills.
She smiled wider. “No one does. Tanner mentioned it. He’s left me messages.”
It clicked then. This woman. Her pain. The fact that she seemed to belong here. This was her. Of course it was. She was perfect for Tanner.