Tangled Hearts by Barbara McMahon

good thing he didn’t know how he affected her. Could she stand to have her heart broken a second time?
    Forty-five minutes later, they were heading toward Oklahoma. Two suitcases in the back seat contained their clothes. Brianna had her briefcase containing two journals she wanted to read, but Jake had refused to let her take any other work.
    They were well beyond the city limits before Brianna allowed the enormity of the situation to hit her fully. She was going away for the weekend with the man she loved.
    Yet from his point of view, he was merely protecting her from an unknown intruder. When the man was caught, Jake would say goodbye and she’d once again be on her own.
    Until then—she had three days at least, maybe more. She could store up a lifetime of memories in three days. She'd have to. It was unlikely an opportunity like this would come again.
    Smiling suddenly, she knew she could have resisted. She had other options. Jase would come stay with her. Josh would have had her at the ranch. It wasn’t that long a drive into Texarkana from the ranch that she couldn’t have done it every day for a while. Or she could have stayed with Sandy.
    The real reason she agreed to Jake’s demands to go with him was that she wanted to. It was that simple.
    This time she knew there was no future for them. She was no longer the starry-eyed woman who had believed in happy endings. She wouldn’t be caught unaware as she had been two years ago when he stopped calling. Now she knew she’d have to save up memories and be prepared to say goodbye when they returned.
     

Chapter Four
     
     
    The sparkling snow reflected the sun's rays until Brianna wondered how Jake could see to drive. She donned dark glasses and looked out the side window. The fields along the road were pristine and empty beneath their snowy covering. In the distance, she saw a small herd of cattle, but they had not trampled the snow near the road. For a moment, she was transported back to her childhood. She and her brothers had loved the snow, made snow angels, built forts, had rousing snowball fights. As the youngest, she'd rarely won the snowball fights, but she never stopped trying.
    She tried to remember the last snowball fight. It had to be just before her parents had been killed. It seemed as if Jase had changed overnight after that.
    Of course, he would have had to. He'd been responsible for her and Josh.
    Funny, she’d never thought about it much before. How hard that must have been for him. He’d only been a kid himself.
    “Worried about something?” Jake asked with a quick glance in her direction.
    She turned, jolted back to the present. “No, just remembering when I was a kid and the fun my brothers and I had in the snow. Doesn’t seeing all this make you want to get out and play?”
    He shrugged. “I like some things in the snow. Skiing, snowmobiling. What do you mean by play?”
    “Play in the snow itself. I loved making snow angels when I was little. My mom would come out and judge whose were the best. I always won.” Brianna smiled in reminiscence. “Maybe because it was the only thing I could win. My brothers never gave an inch. And since they're both older, I didn’t have a chance.”
    “They watch out for you,” he said neutrally.
    “Well, Jase sure did. He worked hard to keep me and Josh with him after my folks died. But Josh, too, started bossing me around after Mom and Dad were gone. Guess they took their responsibilities very seriously.”
    “Jase is your older brother, right?”
    “Yes. He was just a kid himself when Mom and Dad died. The judge waited until he was eighteen and then granted him custody of us until we came of age. But Josh was bossier.”
    Jake darted her a quick glance and remained silent. He said nothing. He knew how bossy her brother was, and how strongly Josh felt about protecting his sister.
    Jake almost gave in to the temptation to tell her, as well, but the urge passed. It was old news. And Josh hadn’t