“Oh. Wine? You didn’t have to do that.”

“I figured after the whole cow crisis, you might need it.”

“You might be right about that. Come on in.” She let him inside, and he followed her into the kitchen.

“Something smells good.”

“Yeah, about that. It’s Italian food from the restaurant down the road. Sorry. No home-cooked meal for you tonight.”

“Any food tonight sounds good to me, even takeout.”

“I’m so glad you think so, since my plan tonight was going to be something microwaved from the freezer. This is a much better option.”

She handed him the corkscrew while she pulled plates from the cabinet. He opened the wine, then helped her set the table.

“Come on, Boomer,” she said. “You can run out back with the other dogs.”

“Thanks for inviting me over. Though I’m not sure if it was gratitude, or if you’re interested in my prowess with handcuffs.”

She laughed as they sat at the table. “Well, I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

The food was good, and Luke was starving. The wine was decent, too, and he was glad he’d picked up the bottle. Emma seemed relaxed, especially after the first glass.

“Rough day?” he asked.

“Busy day. Though they all seem to be busy lately.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“Yes, it is. I’m not complaining at all. Though I hadn’t expected the cow thing. That’s not really my area of expertise, since my focus is on small animals. But I was happy to be able to help out.”

“There are large-animal vets in the area.”

She took a sip of wine and nodded. “True, but they’re not always available. And I can deal with it in an emergency.”

“Kind of like a cop delivering a baby? Not exactly what we’re trained for, but if it comes up . . .”

She lifted her gaze to his. “Have you ever had to do that?”

“What? Deliver a baby?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head. “It hasn’t come up. Yet.”

She laughed. “I’m guessing you hope it doesn’t.”

“No. I’m hoping every set of expectant parents on my stretch of road gets to the hospital to have their babies.”

“It’s a good wish. But as we know, emergencies happen and sometimes events occur that you can’t foresee.”

“That’s true.”

She took another long swallow of wine, her gaze distant as she spoke. “Sometimes, life doesn’t turn out as you plan it at all.”

Somehow, he got the idea she was talking about more than just cattle emergencies and babies being born in the car.

“Emma?”

She jerked her attention back on him. “Yes?”

“Is there something on your mind?”

“No. Not at all. Why do you ask?”

“Because I don’t think you were referring to cattle or babies.”

“Oh. Sure I was.”

“You know, you really haven’t told me about your past. Or the guy who left you heartbroken and wary of relationships.”

“Did I say there was a guy?”

“You mentioned it in passing.”

“Oh. Well. Not much to tell.”

“Yeah, you keep saying that, but I think there’s a lot more to the story. And sometimes it helps to talk. I told you about Rebecca and the disaster that was my first marriage.”

“You did, didn’t you?”

“So . . .”

Emma took a deep breath, and another long swallow of wine. He could tell she was pondering whether or not to tell him something. Obviously it was a big thing to her, so he waited patiently.

“It’s an ugly story, Luke. And it makes me look bad.”

He reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I find that hard to believe. But it obviously bothers you. I think you should tell me about it.”

She nodded. “I met Vaughn my freshman year of college. He was one of my professors. I was enamored of him. He was so smart, and sharp and funny, and oh, I had such a crush on him. It was like our eyes met in the classroom, and that was it for me. He encouraged it, would meet with me in his office to go over my papers and my lab notes. One thing led to another, and we got involved in this very heavy relationship, which of course could have cost him his job.

“The fact that he didn’t seem to care made it all the more thrilling for me. We were madly in love—or at least I was. He helped me with all my classes. He’d help me study, and I was doing so well in school. Of course I couldn’t move in with him, because the school couldn’t know about our relationship. I think the clandestine nature of it was what made it so exciting.”

She paused, took another couple of sips, staring at the glass, not looking at him. Luke knew she was reliving that time, and maybe she needed to in order to get it all out. He didn’t want to say anything, because he realized this was important for her. He also realized she probably didn’t talk about this time in her life very often.

“By my senior year, I was convinced that after graduation we’d move in together. I could be seen with him as a graduate student because he wouldn’t be involved with me once I started vet school. I applied and got into vet school. I was so thrilled.

“That’s when everything started to change, when his hold on me turned from encouraging to dominating. He told me he wanted me to live with him, but as a vet student I’d be immersed in my studies and we’d never see each other anymore, that I wouldn’t be able to help him with his school projects anymore. It would be like we were strangers, so we should probably end it.

“I was crushed. For four years we’d been everything to each other—or at least he’d been everything to me. And he was ready to walk away from it all because I would have to focus on my studies?”

Luke frowned. “He forced you to choose between him and vet school.”

“I didn’t realize it at the time. I was so in love with him, I’d have done anything for him. But yes, that’s exactly what he did.”

“And you chose him.”

She looked down at the wine. “I chose him. I dropped out of vet school and I moved in with him. And then I became his research assistant, helping him with his papers and his research. I’d do his laundry and clean his house, and whatever else he wanted me to do for him, whenever he wanted me to do it. He monitored where I was every moment of the day. If I was going to the grocery store, I had to call him before I left, and call when I got back. It got to the point where I was a prisoner in his home. I had no friends. I had lost them all years before because he wanted all my focus on him. He even cut my family off. So when he was teaching, I had to either be working on his papers or staying at the house.”

Luke’s stomach tightened. He knew where this was going, had seen it time and time again in women who were controlled and abused. “And if you didn’t?”

She shook her head. “Then I was punished. If I really loved him, I would do it right.”

He reached out and smoothed his hand over her hair. “I’m sorry he treated you that way, Emma.”

“I don’t deserve your sorrow. I was an intelligent young girl with career goals, and I allowed him to manipulate me into giving it all up to become nothing more than his slave.” She lifted tear-filled eyes to his. “How could I have let that happen?”

His heart ached for her. “You’re not the first woman that has happened to. Blame him, not yourself. Men like that have a way of making you fall in love with them, of making these promises for the future, and then once they have you hooked and seduced, they pull the rug right out from under you.”

“I could have walked away at any time. Why didn’t I?”

“Because you were afraid of him, of what he might do if he followed you and found you. He threatened you, didn’t he?”

She nodded. “All the time. He threatened me; he threatened my family. He even said he monitored my sister’s movements, knew where Molly was, and if I left him he’d hurt her.”

Sonofabitch. This guy was evil. “How did you get away?”

“I was so lonely. He was at school all the time, or at evening functions. I was always alone at the house. He never let me go anywhere. I finally had had enough of living that way. I used to be fun and outgoing. I had once had so many friends, a plan for my future, and he’d stripped it all away from me. I decided I couldn’t do it anymore, so when he had a business trip, I decided to seize my opportunity to leave. He hated travel because it took him away from me, where he couldn’t monitor me. But after a few years, he was confident he had me so under control that he could go out of town and I’d meekly stay there. But this time, he had a three-day trip. I packed up everything, took money I had stockpiled, took the car, and hightailed it out of there. Then I went home to my parents and told them everything. They helped me get a restraining order against him.”

“Did he get fired?”

Her lips curved slightly. “Yes. After I recovered enough of my backbone, I went to the university and told them what had happened between us during the entire four years I was an undergraduate, and after, including the restraining order. I saved all the e-mails we had written to each other when I was an undergraduate, up to and including the notes he wrote ordering me to do this or that, and I used those against him.

“He lost his job. He was furious with me, but with the restraining order, he couldn’t come near me, or he’d be arrested. The last time I heard, he was living in Texas.”

He took her hand. “Why didn’t you tell me about him—about all this—sooner?”

She gave him a look. “Come on, Luke. Would you have wanted anyone you care about to know about such an epic failure in your life like this?”

“Emma. I care about you. I don’t expect you to be perfect, or for your past to have been perfect. But if we’re going to have a . . . relationship, we have to be up front with each other about everything, including the ugly parts.”