She didn’t stop to think, to reason; she only reacted. In a dead run, she headed for the front door. The move was so unexpected, she was into the hall with her hand on the knob before he’d taken the first step. As the door stuck, she cursed it, cursed her own inefficiency for not having it seen to weeks before. As she started to tug a second time, Stan’s hand closed over her arm.

“Don’t.” His voice was low and strained. “I don’t want to hurt you. I have to think this through.”

With her back to the door, Maggie stared at him. She was alone in the house with a murderer. Alone, she thought desperately, except for a fragile old woman who loved him enough to have shielded him for ten years. Maggie watched him rest his hand on the butt of his gun.

“We’d better sit down.”

Cliff drank his second cup of coffee and wished it was bourbon. If he’d tried to make a fool of himself over a woman, he could’ve done no better. Drinking in the strong, bitter taste, he scowled down at the laminated counter in the café. The scent of frying eggs and sausage did nothing for his appetite.

How could he have botched it so badly? What woman in her right mind, he asked himself, would respond favorably to a shouted, angry proposal? Maggie had given him the heave-ho, and now that he’d cooled off a bit, he couldn’t blame her.

Still, he wasn’t one of the fancy crowd she’d run with in L.A., he reminded himself. He wasn’t going to change his manners for her any more than he expected her to change for him. She’d chosen to change her life before he’d been a part of it.

Chosen, Cliff thought again, cursing himself. She’d chosen her home, and he’d never seen anyone put down roots so quickly. He shouldn’t have panicked at the mention of the recording in L.A. She’d be back. The land was as important to her as it was to him. Perhaps that had been their first bond, though they both insisted they’d had no common ground.

She’d be back, Cliff told himself again. He’d been an idiot to think bullying her into marriage would assure that. Maggie wouldn’t be bullied, and she was here to stay. Those were two of the reasons he loved her.

He should have told her that, he thought, pushing the unwanted coffee aside. He could have found the words to tell her he’d been in love with her for weeks and that at dawn, with the morning light spilling over her face, he’d realized it. It had taken his breath away, stolen his senses, made him weak. He could’ve found the words to tell her.