Before long, the trees muffled, then silenced the sound of water. The hills were greener, the landscape less dramatic. They heard a dog bark, a cow moo low and deep. He could almost imagine he was going home.

He turned again, doubling back a bit on a road that was no more than dirt and stone. Then a field stretched out on one side, green and overgrown. Trees grew thick on the other.

“This is it?”

“Yes.” Reeve turned off the ignition.

“They found my car here?”

“That’s right.”

She sat for a moment, waiting. “Why do I always expect it to be easy?” she said. “Somehow I think that when I see something, when I know something, it’ll be clear. It never really is. But there are times I feel the knife in my hand.” She glanced down at her palm. “I can feel it, and when I do, I know I’m capable of killing.”

“We all are, under the right circumstances.”

“No.” Outwardly calm, Brie folded her hands. Agony was kept inside, where she had been taught personal agonies belonged. “I don’t believe that. To kill, to take a life, requires an understanding, an acceptance of violence. A dark side. In some, it’s strong enough to overpower every other instinct.”

“And what would have happened to you if you’d closed your eyes and rejected violence?” He gripped her shoulder harder than was necessary and made her face him. “Blessed are the passive, Brie? You know better.”

He pulled out her emotions with a look. She couldn’t stop it. “I don’t want violence in my life,” she said passionately. “And I don’t, I won’t, accept the fact that I’ve killed.”

“Then you’ll never pull out of this.” His voice was harsh as he backed her into the seat. “You’ll go on living your fantasy. The princess in the castle—cool, distant and unattainable.”

“You speak to me of fantasy?” He was pushing her; it no longer mattered that she’d once asked him to. He was pushing her toward a dark boundary. “You make your own illusions. A man who’s spent his life looking for trouble, seeking it out, who pretends he’ll be content to sit on the porch and watch his crops grow.”

She’d hit the mark. Fury and frustration welled up and poured out in his voice. He had his fantasies, and she’d become one of them. “At least I know what my own reality is and I’ve faced it. I need the farm for reasons you’re not willing to understand. I need it because I know what I’m capable of, what I’ve done and what I might do yet.”

“With no regrets.”

“Damn regrets. But tomorrow might be different. I have a choice.” He wanted to believe it.

“You do.” Suddenly weary, she looked away. “Perhaps that’s where we differ. How can I live my life the way I’m obligated to live it knowing that I’m—”

“Human,” he interrupted. “Just like the rest of us.”

“You simplify.”

“Are you going to tell me that a title makes you above the rest of us?”