Carla Cassidy

I wish I would have been there for you._ He finally found his voice. __ wish I would have been there to beat up all the children who bullied you, to shoot your father dead the first time he broke one of your bones. I wish I would have been there to sweep you out of town and save you from the horrors you went through.__er eyes widened in surprise and then immediately narrowed as she shook her head. __ didn__ need to have a hero in my life, Mark. I needed to figure out how to be my own hero. I took the easy way out. I allowed small-town people to label me and then I did my very best to live up to the label they__ provided. It__ taken me thirty-seven years to realize I don__ need a hero. I__ all I need and I__ strong enough to build the rest of my life alone.

In that instant of eye contact, in the mesmerizing depths of that sweet emotion, she felt bound to him in a way she__ never felt connected to another man. It was as if in that moment their hearts and minds, their very souls, were one.

He laughed, a low, sexy growl, as she moaned in obvious frustration. __atience is a virtue,_ he said. __orture is a federal offense,_ she replied.