That meant it was time for him to figure some things out.

There was no excuse for a man to take himself to a place he didn’t want to be, when he had the power to stop it.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

WHEN JAMIE EMERGED the next morning for breakfast with her family in the mess hall ahead of her Saturday trail rides, she felt sore, gritty-eyed and extraordinarily tender somewhere down deep in her chest.

Apparently, there were other side effects to sex beyond the major ones that were typically advertised.

Yes, she understood pregnancy and STDs were the big ones that people went on about, but she thought somebody might have mentioned this. That you might feel like there was crushed glass embedded somewhere deep inside you that you couldn’t get to. That when you breathed, it hurt a little bit.

That you might feel like you’d traded part of yourself when you took another person inside your body.

She shivered beneath the pale morning sunlight as she crunched across the gravel-laden driveway toward the rustic building where they took their breakfast.

The Dodge family ate hours before the guests typically did, getting together to establish a game plan for the day.

It had been a little while since Jamie had taken guests out on a ride, with Kaylee and Dallas taking turns with her now.

She was eager for this morning. Because it would feel a lot like her old life.

Like before changing.

Before last night.

Before the past few months.

She sucked in a deep breath, before pushing the door open, and when she walked in all the hope that she’d just been imbued with drained out of her system. Because her family was sitting there, just like they often did on such mornings. Dallas, Bennett and Kaylee. Lindy and Wyatt, even, since this was one of the mornings when Wyatt didn’t cook her bacon. Grant and McKenna.

And Jamie didn’t feel like she had yesterday morning. She still felt different. Still felt changed.

She hated it.

“Good morning,” Jamie said.

She was greeted by a chorus of good-mornings, and a slightly slower good-morning from McKenna.

Jamie shot her friend a look, and felt like McKenna could see straight through her. Jamie looked away, choosing instead to focus on Wyatt.

“Good to have you with us this morning,” he said.

“Yeah, good to be here.”

“You know, since we missed dinner the other night.”

She had a feeling this was as close as she was going to get to an apology from her older brother.

“Yeah,” she said.

She really hadn’t appreciated how horrible this might be. She had been such an idiot last night. And she had done her best not to think about it too much this morning when she woke up. She’d been so exhausted when she’d gone home that she’d fallen into bed, curled up into a ball and forced her mind into a blank. Tried to ignore the fact that her body was still pulsing, that her skin was still burning from all the places that Gabe Dalton had touched. And, since that was pretty much everywhere, it meant her whole body felt like it was on fire.