Danger at the Border by Terri Reed Page A

her tone. “You were put through the wringer with your parents. But I sense there’s more.” He thought back to her question about why he didn’t have a girlfriend. His answer had been less than the truth. Her answer had mirrored his. “What’s the guy’s name who hurt you?”
    She met his gaze, then looked away. “Michael. Michael Compton. I almost became Mrs. Compton.”
    “Ah. He cheated on you.” Typical story.
    Shaking her head, she said, “No. That actually might have been easier to deal with.”
    “Meaning?”
    She stood and paced. “Meaning, Michael had his idea of what a wife should be. And as much as I thought I loved him, I couldn’t fit into his mold. Everything I did was wrong. My choice of career, my wardrobe. Even the car I drove wasn’t good enough.”
    “Sounds like a jerk. How long were you with this guy?”
    “Four years. We met the first week of my doctoral program at Utah State University and were engaged the following year. I was already working for the Forest Service part-time. He thought it was something I would do until after we were married and started a family.”
    “I get that. He feared you wouldn’t make your family the priority.”
    “Exactly. And he wouldn’t listen when I said I could do both. Women work and raise families all the time.”
    “Or hire others to raise their families.” The bitterness rising burned his tongue.
    “Nannies?” She retook her seat beside him.
    “A string of them.” He let out a rueful laugh. “I was a handful.”
    One side of her mouth lifted. “I’m envisioning you putting creepy, crawling things in your nannies’ pockets.”
    “I’ll admit to a few garter snakes popping up in strategic places.”
    They shared a smile. He admired how brave she was being considering they were locked up, hungry, tired and terrorized.
    When her smile faded and her gaze drifted to the food a few feet away, he said, “So what happened? Did he call off the wedding?”
    “No. He expected us to move to his hometown in Upstate New York, which I didn’t have a problem with. I applied for a position in the Rome Fish Disease Control Lab. It would have been an easy commute. But that wasn’t going to fly. So I called off the wedding.”
    Her career had been more important than the relationship. At least she’d been honest about it, unlike Janie had been with him. She’d said all the right things, but in the end, when she’d been offered a promotion that took her to Asia, she’d left him in the dust. “You did the right thing.”
    “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”
    “But better to do it before making a commitment you couldn’t keep.”
    She drew back. “You’re starting to sound like Michael.”
    He shrugged. “If you can’t give a hundred percent to your marriage, your family, then you shouldn’t get married. And that’s true for a man or a woman.”
    She blew out a breath. “So I take it that’s why you aren’t married? Because you can’t commit?”
    He lifted a shoulder. “Partly.”
    “Why else?”
    He grew uncomfortable under her scrutiny, but answered honestly, “I don’t believe in love.”
    She tucked in her chin. “But you believe in God.”
    “That’s different.”
    “How?”
    “Because God is God and the rest of us are, well, flawed and incapable of putting others before ourselves.”
    She canted her head, her gaze troubled. “That’s pretty jaded.”
    Maybe so, but better jaded than hurt. Hoping to steer the conversation away from himself, he asked, “How did Michael take your calling off the wedding?”
    “He was crushed. Told me I had led him on, made him believe we’d be together forever.” A frown appeared between her eyebrows. “He went so far as to say if he couldn’t have me, he didn’t want anyone else to. Kind of scared me.”
    Jeff’s hands curled into fists. “I would think so. Did he...hurt you?”
    “No, thankfully. He was all talk. We parted ways, but it taught me to be