“Yes . . . that . . . of course.” Shiloh shook her head and walked away from him and took a few steps, turning around. “I guess you could call me commitment-phobic, Roan. I don’t enjoy saying it about myself, but that’s my track record.” Pushing her damp palms down her thighs, she added, “Maybe I’ve never fallen in love. I mean, really in love. I meet a guy, and it seems good and positive . . . And then, when things start to get serious, I get scared. I mean, I panic.” She looked at him through her lashes, feeling shame. She felt she wasn’t whole. It was a feeling; one that she’d never been able to get rid of.
“Panic over what?” Roan wondered, taking off his hat. He placed the Stetson on a wooden peg next to the door and came back, standing a few feet away from Shiloh. Whatever was going on with her was tangled. And complicated. Why would he ever think otherwise?
“I-I don’t really know.”
“You lost your father when you were young?” he probed gently, seeing her bow her head, staring down at her feet.
“Yes.” Shiloh lifted her chin, holding his kind gaze. Despite Roan’s size, his muscle, his height, she felt nothing but care emanating from him toward her. The expression in his eyes was full of caring. This was no longer about the kiss. This was about her. Them. Maybe. “Why?”
Shrugging, Roan said, “You said earlier that your mother and father had a very deep love for each other. That after he suddenly died, your mother was lost. For a year?”
Painfully remembering that time, Shiloh gave a jerky nod. “It was the worst year in my life,” she admitted softly.
“I’m no shrink,” Roan said in a deep tone, “but is it possible you were at such a young, impressionable age when you lost your dad, that when you grew up, a relationship scared you?”
“What do you mean?” Shiloh wanted to cringe and hide within herself because the eagle-like look in Roan’s eyes scored her to her soul; as if he suddenly understood everything about her flawed personality. Shiloh wanted him to think good thoughts about her, not see her as distorted, less than, or perhaps not a whole woman.
“Maybe you’re hesitant to commit to someone you love because you’re afraid you’ll lose them? Like your mother lost your father?” he asked, searching her eyes. Roan saw the impact of his observation in her expression, especially her wide, intelligent eyes. His words struck her like an RPG going off beneath her feet. Roan told himself it was always easy for a stranger to see another person’s wounds. It was never easy to see one’s own scars, however.
Rubbing her wrinkled brow, Shiloh slowly turned away, walking around the shell of the cabin, absorbing his words, what he saw in her. “God,” she muttered, halting and staring across the cabin at him, “I never saw this. I never did. . . .”
“Don’t be hard on yourself, Shiloh. It wasn’t yours to see. When we’re in the middle of a firefight, you never have the overview.” Roan could see her mind working at the speed of light, saw sudden awareness dawn within her as she sponged in his observation. He saw anguish in her eyes, sadness, and finally a spark of awareness he read as hope.
Roan hoped that she could break this unconscious pattern of being afraid to get into a serious relationship with someone and riding it out to its natural conclusion. Not afraid to even take the first step to find out what it might be like. Shiloh wasn’t a risk taker because she felt if she fell in love, that love would be torn away from her, just as her mother’s husband was torn away from her. Even as an eight-year-old, she saw the heart-wrenching destruction of her mother’s soul over the loss of her loved one. Roan felt deeply for her, but there was little he could do to help her out of that deadly mind construct she’d erected when so young. To change that pattern, Shiloh would have to consciously face her fears and overcome it.
And then, he asked himself, why was he pursuing this at all with her? To what end? Yes, he wanted this woman in his bed. He wanted to be inside her. He wanted to hear her sweet cries of pleasure. He wanted to please her. Why? Damned if Roan knew. But there was something sweetly innocent about Shiloh that wasn’t a put-on; it was simply her. It was who she was. The idealist who wrote about love and romance. Her books always had happy endings that she probably had searched for, and had not found for herself. The books fulfilled a part of her life that had fallen through the cracks of hard knocks and traumatizing experiences at eight years old. But books were no substitute for the real thing. Roan even wondered if she was a virgin. How commitment-phobic was Shiloh? Did a kiss send her into panic? A man wanting her in bed? Or after being in bed, did the relationship get too close to her fear of loss, so she ran? Grimacing, Roan thought he shouldn’t use that word. Maybe she left the relationship out of fear. The distorted pattern ran her personal life.