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to happen for him, unless it was from the hip.  No his gun would stay right where it was behind the seat.
    “Won’t you take off down that road, and let’s find out?” she suggested with a snort.
    “How do you know how to shoot then?  A shooting range at the country club?  Skeet practice?” he asked snidely.
    “My daddy taught me to shoot on our ranch, and my husband was a cop.  They made sure I know how to protect myself.”  There seemed to be a warning for him in her words.  “I only left my pistol at the R & R because we were going to a bar.”
    That brought up another question Dylan wanted an answer to.  When he first saw her at the bar without her wedding ring, he had thought she was messing around on her rich husband tonight.  Now he knew the man was a cop and he was dead. 
    “How did your husband die?” he couldn’t help but ask.  When he thought of a widow, he thought of an old gray-haired crone, not  a gorgeous thirty-something woman who smelled like sugar cookies.  There was a long pause, and he thought he heard a whimper, which made him feel like an ass for asking her.  It really wasn’t his business.  “I’m sorry, if it’s too painful—“
    “He was on an undercover drug operation and was murdered,” she spat out each word like it tasted bitter in her mouth.
    Dylan couldn’t come up with any words of comfort.  His throat closed off in sympathy for her situation.  At her age, that had to be damned hard to deal with.  And he had been a first-class ass for accusing her of cheating on the man.  That explained why she was still wearing the ring, and it explained her hesitance to dance with him or anyone else. 
    Who knew, maybe it was still fresh, hadn’t been long since he died.  “That must have been tough.  How long, um…when did it…”
    “Three years, four months and seventeen days ago,” she replied in a trembling voice.  “If the time on your phone is right and it’s after midnight.”
    Dylan knew without looking that his phone was correct, and he knew without thinking about it, this woman wasn’t over her husband’s death yet.  Even though it had been three years, she was still grieving for him.  He hoped she didn’t end up like his mother who grieved for five years before killing herself.  Dylan always thought she died from a broken heart, as much as the bullet that ended her life on what would have been her fifteenth anniversary.
    Although it would be nice to have a woman, anyone, grieve for him like that when he bit the bullet, he wouldn’t want to put anyone through what she must be suffering.  What his mother had suffered.  What he and his three younger brothers suffered.  Being an orphan was not a fun experience.  Not something he ever wanted to subject any child to. 
    That’s why he avoided relationships like the plague.  Once a man got entangled with a woman, children followed.   This woman was a relationship kind of woman, and he was kind of thankful things hadn’t progressed at the bar.  He never wanted to be anyone’s daddy.  He had a hard enough time taking care of himself.  He didn’t want anyone relying on him, depending on him to take care of them, or being let down when he didn’t come through for them.
    When he died he wanted to go out solo, the same way he’d lived most of his life.
    “We better get moving, or it’ll be dawn when we get to the ranch,” Dylan said opening his door.  And it’ll be noon before I get the hell away from the R & R Ranch for good, he added mentally as he hopped down to the ground.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    It was three in the morning when they finally made it to the ranch.  Dylan walked Carrie to the big house and left her at the porch.  He was dog tired, and his arm felt like he had for sure torn something loose in there.  He’d have to go to the doctor after he got away from there to have it checked out.  It had been six months since he’d taken pain medicine, but he could sure use some