Til Death Do Us Part by Beverly Barton Page A

J.T.’s arm as she passed him and walked down the steps and into the yard.
    â€œWhy don’t we go inside,” J.T. said. “It’ll be more private.”
    â€œWhy do we need privacy?” Still, Joanna stared down at her hands, avoiding making eye contact with him. “If I stay on the ranch, we won’t be able to keep this a secret. Everyone will have to know.”
    â€œFine.” J.T. shrugged, then sat down in the rocker his sister had just vacated. “Do you or do you not want me to take charge of this situation?”
    Joanna sighed. “Elena says that you’re the very best at what you do—at being a bodyguard.”
    â€œI’ve spent years protecting people.”
    â€œI’ll arrange with my mother to transfer whatever funds are necessary to cover your expenses.” Joanna lifted her hands out of her lap and gripped the rocker’s arms.
    â€œI’ll be here at the ranch another week anyway, so there’ll be no charge.” J.T. removed his Stetson, crossed his legs and perched his hat on his knee. “If you want me to stay on after my vacation, we can discuss my fee then.”
    â€œYou’ll stay on and take this assignment yourself?”
    â€œIf that’s what you want.” She looked so fragile, so vulnerable and helpless sitting there in the rocker, her small, delicate hands clutching the rocker’s arms, her body wound as tight as a bowstring. “Or if you’d prefer, I can have one of the Dundee agency’s best men fly out and take over the assignment.”
    â€œElena wants you to be my bodyguard.”
    â€œWhat do you want, Jo?”
    She raised her head, tilted her chin and stared him directly in the eye. “I want none of this to have happened. I want to go back five years and erase the past.”
    â€œYeah, well…that’s not possible, is it? All I can do is try to keep you safe now, in the present.” J.T. wished he’d been around in the past to protect her. Scum like this Lenny Plott would never have touched Joanna, because if he had, J.T. would have personally annihilated him.
    â€œLook, I’ll be honest with you.” Joanna released her death grip on the chair arms and stood, striding to the edge of the porch. She kept her back to J.T. “Before the—” she swallowed “—rape, I was fairly trusting and thought the world really was a wonderful place. My life had been almost perfect. I grew up as the only child of wealthy, successful parents, both of whom loved me. After I graduated from college, with a degree in art, I got a job at a small art museum in Richmond. I met and fell in love with an up-and-coming young lawyer in my father’s law office and we became engaged. The only unhappy time in my life was when my father died of a heart attack about a year before…before the rape.”
    â€œWhat happened to your fiancé?” J.T. lifted his Stetson off his knee, stood and placed the hat on his head.
    â€œI’m getting to that.”
    He walked up behind her, close, a hairbreadth away, but not touching. “Go on.”
    She tensed when she realized he was so close—so close she could feel the heat emanating from his big, powerful body. “The rape and what happened afterward changed me forever. Despite counseling, despite moving away and starting a new life out here in Trinidad, despite everything I’ve done to get over what happened to me, I’ve never been able to trust anyone easily again.”
    â€œI can understand how you might feel that way, at least for a while.”
    â€œNot just for a while.” She wished he wasn’t standing so close, wished she didn’t have the almost-overwhelming urge to turn around and ask him to hold her in his arms. “After I was raped, my fiancé had a difficult time dealing with what had happened to me. When I needed him most—needed his love and support—he walked out