A Defender's Heart. Tara Quinn Taylor
the people invited by her parents and by Charles.
Heather’s friends had mostly faded into lives of their own when she’d started dating Charles—and before that, too, after the “big breakup.” She’d been part of a couple for almost six years, and while mutual friends had stuck by her—and him—she’d been the one to pull away from the group.
She’d been the one to break things off with him.
Thinking she’d go through the kitchen and enter the living room from the other side, Heather slipped away from the party and walked into a much smaller gathering—the two guests she’d invited, Lianna, her closest friend from elementary school on, and Raine, her college roommate. They stopped talking the second she came in.
“What’s going on?” she asked, wondering if there was a problem with the food. Not that they were in charge of it. Her mother’d had the party catered. But they were in the kitchen and...
“I’ve been looking for you two,” she added, glancing from green eyes to blue, red hair to blond. “You’re supposed to keep me sane here!” She was only half joking. She couldn’t wait to marry Charles—sometime after the year engagement she’d insisted upon—but this gathering was not her favorite part of the festivities.
If it hadn’t been for Charles’s need to introduce her to his large circle of acquaintances, she never would’ve agreed to have the engagement party, no matter how much her mother nagged her about social etiquette and doing the right thing.
Lianna and Raine exchanged a glance, Raine cocking an eyebrow at Heather’s closest childhood friend. Almost as though conceding best-friend status or something.
“What’s going on?” she asked again. The two had met a few times, but didn’t know each other well enough to be involved in some big heart-to-heart. If this was about which of them was going to be maid of honor...
Her mother had been after her to make a choice—strongly preferring Lianna, of course, since the redhead had been part of their family since grade school. But Raine had seen her through the best, and then the worst, times of her life. The ones that had defined the woman she was, and would be.
Still, she couldn’t imagine getting married without Lianna, her rock, by her side. And Raine was her safety net...
It was all too much. She’d decide later. Right now, she had to get to Charles.
“We’re worried about you,” Lianna blurted when Raine gave her a far-too-obvious silent nudge.
Heather chuckled. “About me? Are you kidding? I’m finally at a place in my life where there’s no need to worry.” She looked from one to the other, knowing that what she said was true. “Seriously.” And then, when they both looked unconvinced, she added, “A year ago, yes.” She’d come close to the brink of despair, close to not caring if she lived or died, when she packed up and moved out of the home she’d shared with Cedar. “But I’m fine now. Great, even. Or I will be as soon as this party is over.”
“This engagement is so sudden...”
“Charles and I have been dating for more than six months. I moved in with Cedar three weeks after I met him.” The math was important to her. She wasn’t jumping into love ever again. Hadn’t figured herself for someone who’d ever have done so.
She’d allowed herself that mistake, with the promise that she’d learn everything she had to learn from it, so she wouldn’t have to repeat the lesson.
“And I insisted on a yearlong engagement,” she reminded them. And herself. Charles wanted to get to the justice of the peace as soon as possible and start a family together.
Understanding that he wanted to be young enough to play ball with his kids, to coach Little League and soccer teams or move stage sets for dance competitions, she’d shortened the engagement from two years to one, but because of the oh-so-painful past, a result of the three-week courtship, she was holding firm on that year.
“He’s fifteen years older than you.” Raine acted as if she was making some big announcement. Heather slowed down for a second and stared at her two best friends.
“Surely the two of you aren’t having a problem with our age difference? My God, Raine, your stepfather is closer to your age than your mom’s, and you love him to death. Because, for the first time in your life, she’s happy. Truly happy.”
In colorful leggings that hugged gorgeous legs and a black formfitting shirt that defined hips that were just about perfect, Raine withstood Heather’s intent look without fidgeting. Or answering.
“And you...” She turned to Lianna. “Dexter’s only five years younger than Charles.”
“We fit each other,” Lianna came back without a second’s hesitation. She took a step closer. In black dress pants and a cream-colored silk blouse, she could command any room she entered. “Charles fits your parents, sweetie. Look at him in there. He’s having the time of his life.”
“And you’re in here.” Raine came closer, too. “Trudging through a party you didn’t want and counting the seconds until it’s over. Is that really how you want to spend the rest of your life? Counting the seconds away?”
So she’d been watching the clock. But she’d been counting minutes, not seconds. And only because she’d never been a big partier. She liked to spend time with people in small groups—not coming at her all at once.
“Charles is good with large groups of people,” she explained. “It’s a strength he has that counters my weakness in that area. He covers for me there, and I cover for him in other areas, where my strengths counteract his weaknesses.”
“He has weaknesses?” Lianna’s droll tone wasn’t lost on her.
“Come on, you guys.” Heather looked from one to the other, pleading unabashedly. “You just need to spend more time with him. Get to know him like I do.”
Well, not quite in that way, but...
“Seriously,” Lianna said. “What strength of yours counteracts a weakness of his?”
“He sucks at anything to do with aesthetics. I have a talent for creating beautiful spaces.”
“Your greatest talent is your ability to read people.” Raine’s tone, softer than Lianna’s, was no less compelling. “Does he even know that?”
“He knows what I do for a living.”
“Strangers know what you do for a living, sweetie,” Raine said. “Every time you appear in court, everyone there knows you’re a polygraphist. One trip to your office would tell someone that you administer lie detector tests, are a certified criminologist and also have a degree in psychology. I’m talking about your gifts, not your training. You deserve to be with someone who respects your ability to see inside people and relies on it. Someone who needs you in particular for what you have to offer. Someone who values your specialness.”
Like Cedar had? She felt the familiar sensation of lead falling in her stomach, and she quickly diverted her thoughts before she sank down with it. She’d gotten over all of that.
Was beyond it.
Had moved on.
Her friends were staring at her. Raine had once told her she believed Heather was empathic. Heather’s take was that other people could see what she saw if they just slowed their own thoughts and feelings enough to hear and see those around them.
Which was why she’d failed so miserably where Cedar was concerned. She’d been unable to get beyond her own feelings for him when he was around. She could now. And was ready to prove it.
“Being used isn’t my idea of happiness,” she said, as if any of them needed a reminder.
She’d had her doubts about Cedar, had seen what he was becoming, but she’d let passion cloud her judgment.
“So why