But this woman had been kind enough to come and open her office for me on a Saturday. Standing her up would be rude as hell. If I was truly going to try to change, this was the first step.

When the elevator dinged at the fifth floor, my feet became leaden. I felt like I was walking through sludge as I trudged to room 524. I walked in, but of course, there was no receptionist. It was Saturday. Where was the doctor? As I was looking around, thumbing through the magazines on the coffee table, a tall woman with strikingly light-blond hair and green eyes walked out from an adjacent room.

“You must be Mr. Steel,” she said.

I cleared my throat, my cheeks warming. “Yes, I’m Talon Steel.”

She smiled and held out her hand. “Dr. Melanie Carmichael. So nice to meet you. Would you like to come on back?”

I swallowed. In for a dozen… I followed her into her office. Her desk was in a corner, and the requisite couch sat against one wall. I was so not lying on the couch. A couple of recliners in forest-green leather sat around a marble coffee table. She sat down in one of them and motioned for me to take the other. Moving slowly, I did.

“So what can I help you with today, Mr. Steel?” She crossed her legs and smiled.

I sighed. Where did I begin? I didn’t have enough hours left in my lifetime to explain what had brought me in here, and most therapy sessions only lasted an hour. So I figured I’d start with what had prompted me to call.

“I beat the shit out of a guy today.”

She nodded. “I see. Why do you think you did that?”

Wasn’t she supposed to tell me why? “He was kissing my sister’s friend.”

“All right. And that kiss bothered you?”

I nodded.

“Why did it bother you so much? Is your sister’s friend your girlfriend?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t have girlfriends.”

“You don’t? Handsome man like you? Why not?”

“I’m just not wired that way, Doctor.”

“Wired that way? Do you mean you’re gay?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m not gay.” The whole gay line of questioning gave me a chill. I had never been attracted to men, yet…my history… I couldn’t go there. Not yet.

“Then why don’t you have girlfriends?”

“I just…don’t.”

“Okay. What types of relationships do you have with women, then?”

“Well, the only woman in my life right now is my sister, who lives with me. Other than that, the only kind of relationships I have with women are sexual.”

“So you’re a love ’em and leave ’em kind of guy, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so. At least the leave ’em part.”

“You use women, then. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Oh, for God’s sake. No, I don’t use them. They offer something to me, and I take it. What the hell is wrong with that? They’re getting what they want, and I’m getting what I want.”

“I’m not here to judge you, Mr. Steel.”

“Mr. Steel sounds ridiculous to me. Call me Talon.”

“All right, if you prefer. Talon. As I said, I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to help you. So let’s go back to why you beat up the man today. That appears to be the catalyst for bringing you in here, am I right?”

I nodded.

“Have you seen a therapist before?”

I shook my head. God knew Ryan and Jonah had been after me for a decade to see one. Instead, I went off to Iraq, hoping to get my brains blown out. No such luck.

“Do you have a history of violence, Talon?”

I shook my head again. “Not really. I was in the Marines, stationed in Iraq for several years. I saw a lot of shit go down there, and I did things I would prefer not to think about, but it was all in the line of duty.”

“Did you kill a man there?”

More things I didn’t like to think about.

Before I could answer, Dr. Carmichael spoke again.

“Let’s not go there quite yet,” she said.

Thank God.

“Let’s go back to today. Who was this girl that the guy was kissing? Your sister’s friend. Tell me about her.”

How could I tell her? How could I make her understand the ache inside me? I could talk for hours about Jade. I could talk for thirty minutes on those steely blue eyes of hers alone. They gripped me, tore at me, drew me to her. Emotions were rising to my surface—emotions I thought I was incapable of having.

“She’s my sister’s best friend, and she moved out here to our ranch after she got left at the altar on her wedding day.”

“Oh my gosh,” Dr. Carmichael said. “That’s terrible.”

“She seems to be handling it okay. The guy kissing her was her ex. He showed up this morning.”

“Are they reconciling?”

“Doesn’t look that way. I mean, he totally humiliated her.”

“But they probably still have some feelings there.”

I tensed up in my chair, gripping the arm, my knuckles whitening.

“So you have feelings for this Jade.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, first, the fact that you beat up her ex. Second, because you’ve got the arm of that chair in the devil’s clinch.”

I let out a breath and consciously relaxed my hand. Yeah, she was good.

“Tell me what you were feeling while you were beating him.”

“It was like I wasn’t myself. Almost like my arms and legs were acting on their own. The rage was so real. It took me over so that I wasn’t even there—just the rage was.”

“Why did you stop beating him?”

“Jade asked me to.”

“So Jade got through to you, through the fog.”

She had. Through the fog… The words Dr. Carmichael used resonated with me. It had been like a fog. A thick hazy fog. A red sickness that simmered within me.

“So is the man okay?”

“Yeah. I was pretty hard on him, broke his nose. He’ll have held a few bruises, but he’ll live.”

Dr. Carmichael nodded. For the first time, I noticed that no notepad sat on her lap. No pen. I was one patient of many.

“Why aren’t you taking any notes?” I asked.

She smiled. “I like to focus on the patient during the session. I’ll make notes afterward.”