“Oh, God, Jace—” she whispered, completely unprepared for what he’d told her.
“I dreamed about that night for three or four years. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen . . . ever. I lost count of how many times I wished I could live that day over. I should have taken them to Pendleton. If I had they’d still be alive, and maybe living a new life away from that man.”
Kyla gaped at his shadowed form. He must have condemned himself countless times for the death of that woman and her child. And Kyla had unwittingly dredged up the event and used it as a means to gain her own ends. She waded through the straw to his side of the stall and sat beside him. The Henry lay between them.
“Jace, I’m sorry. When I mentioned it—I didn’t know—”
She saw the careless lift of his shoulders in the gloom and her heart ached with love for him.
“Hank knew. You were in danger, and he knew I wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. That’s why he sent you to me for help.”
She felt guilty for dragging the story out of him. With a little hesitation, she covered his hand with her own, where it rested on his knee. “And you have helped me. More than once. You took care of me when I was sick, you saved me from those men, you brought me back to Blakely.”
Jace gazed down at the small hand on his. Yeah, and somewhere along the trail between Silver City and Blakely, this scrappy, red-haired woman, with a cast-iron will and beauty as delicate as a butterfly’s wings, had roused his heart, stirring it in its emptiness. He didn’t want to think of it as anything more, because there could be nothing between them. As soon as he finished here, he reminded himself, he would be gone. It didn’t matter how tempting the image was that he carried in his mind, of riding home—home—to this woman, of crystal cold nights, wrapped in thick quilts with her, warming his heart on hers. He gave up any chance for that the day he picked up that wanted poster on the sheriff’s desk.
“I think you’re a very good man,” she added softly “The finest I’ve ever known.”
Her words shook him to his soul. He felt her next him, soft and vital, her thigh brushing his. The denim between them didn’t hinder his memory of that night in the cabin, and her body under his hands and lips, fragrant, smooth, lush.
She edged closer, and her hand on his tightened. Unbelievably, she leaned forward and laid a trail of timid kisses that began at his temple and touched the corner of his eye, his cheek, the edge of his upper lip
He put an arm around her to enclose her within the blanket. When he turned his head toward her lips, she surprised him by claiming his mouth in a moist kiss. He couldn’t suppress the groan that rose in his throat. Her touch was silky, healing as she slid her fingertips along his jaw. When she broke the kiss, she sat back and unbuttoned her shirt, holding his eyes with her gaze. The binding, bright in the moonlight, came away as if by magic. Her breasts, pale and full, called for his caress but he didn’t move. Jace swallowed, uncertain for the first time in his adult life. If he obeyed the demands of his body, they would have this moment but it wouldn’t change their future. And perhaps after, she might think less of him than she did now for bedding her in a stable because he could offer nothing more. He couldn’t bear to lose her respect.
“Kyla, I don’t think—”
“I don’t want you to think,” she whispered. "This is something I want to give you, and take from you.”
Her innocent seduction roused a familiar aching heat low in his belly, the urge to proclaim and reaffirm his life within her. To surrender himself to her in a dark conflagration and rise from his own ashes, reborn. A different Jace Rankin.
But when still he made no move to touch her, she reached for his hand and cradled it under her breast. Her taut nipple pressed against his thumb.
With an oath, Jace flung away the remains of his shredded resistance. Pulling her to him, he buried his mouth against her flesh, muttering her name even as he closed his lips over it to suckle her. His heart pounded in his chest, thundering between his deep breaths.
Two spirits brimming with emotions and lifetimes of hurt, they fell to his blanket on the sweet straw, desperate and twisting, pulling clothes and boots away as they fought to get closer. She lay naked beside him, beautiful, unafraid, the scar on her arm forgotten. He sank his hands into her hair and held her while he kissed her greedily, his tongue seeking the slick warmth inside her mouth. Her hands moved restlessly up and down his bare back. He traced indent of her waist, the swell of her hip. Her breast, full and heavy, fit perfectly in his hand. Each moan he summoned from her, every sigh fueled his own arousal until he thought he would explode.
Jace enfolded Kyla in his arms and rolled her over so that she lay on top of him. With his hands gripping her buttocks he pulled her hips flush to his own in a rhythm that was as primal as the course of the tides. Boldly, she pushed against him, feeling his erection that lay between them.
She dropped to his side and let her fingers roam the naked length of him, over the soft hair on his chest and down his flat belly to his hard fullness.
“You’re in charge, Kyla,” he told her as he had first time, his voice gritty and low. He lay on his back, arms open, unguarded. “You make love to me.”
“I don’t know what to do . . .”
“Then I’ll show you,” he said, and whispered urgent instructions to her.
Suddenly Kyla found herself lifted to lie on him again, her breasts flattened against his chest. His hands and her own instinct carried her the rest of the way. He entered her, completed her, filling the emptiness that was meant to hold only him. But as she began to move with him, she found what he had meant when he gave her power over their bodies. She thrust along the length of him, spiraling the intense waves of tightly coiled pressure that grew tighter in her abdomen. No self-consciousness or fear hindered her. There were just the two of them in the world tonight, making love in the shaft of a moonbeam.
She heard him murmuring to her as he lay beneath her, while he let her seek her pleasure with his body. The pressure continued to build, winding tighter and tighter, until with a final stroke he pushed her into a oblivion of excruciating sensation. Spasms of pleasure wracked her with the swiftness of wing beats.
Unable to delay his own release another moment, he rolled her onto her back again. Cradling her head in his hands, he plunged into her with fast, pounding thrusts as he sought to relieve the heavy ache in his belly and groin.
Seeking her mouth, he took her with a fierce kiss equaled his need. "Kyla," he ground out. Her name was ripped from him as she became a part of the rapid, white-hot pulsations that convulsed him as his climax tore through his body.
After, they lay entwined, their bodies cooling while a peaceful languor stole over Jace. Making love to Kyla on the floor of a shack or in a stable wasn’t ideal—she deserved far better. But if his luck held, if he lived long enough to be able to reflect back on his life, these two nights would be the sweetest he had ever known.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After weeks on the road, the captivity of Jim Porter’s barn made Kyla edgy. She cooked and helped with chores close to the yard, but there weren’t enough things to do to keep her busy for long. She would have liked to ride the range, but Jace wouldn’t permit her to wander too far in case one of the Vigilance Union should spot her. It was a good bet any one of them would see through her disguise.
Jim’s wife had died several years earlier and his daughters were married and gone, so there were no other women for her to talk to.
Jace, on the other hand, seemed unaffected by the inactivity. He filled his hours polishing the Henry and cleaning his guns, or tending the horses.
She wasn’t used to so much free time. Although she’d always yearned for the trappings of her gender she’d never wanted to sit for hours and sew a fine seam. She was accustomed to working. Her restlessness stemmed not only from boredom, but also from anticipation of events to come. They’d reached Blakely, but she wasn’t home yet.
Even worse, tho
ugh, sitting around left her with nothing to do but think. After all of this was over, she’d go back to the ranch, to the same life she’d had before Hardesty returned. The problem was that she was a different person from the one who had stolen away under the cover of night with a dead man’s instructions to find a bounty hunter. She had fallen in love with her rescuer, and now when she pictured her life at the ranch, she had trouble envisioning it alone.
But Jace was right—he wouldn’t make a rancher. His skills lay in his talent for reading men’s hearts, not the land. He was different from Hank in that respect, and there were not a lot of occupations that called for such an ability. Her own heart ached when she thought of seeing him ride away for the last time. And since she had little to do, she thought of it often enough, adding to her sense of impending doom.
On the third afternoon of idleness, Kyla found Jace at the corral. She paced back and forth in front of him as he held Juniper’s hoof in his hands and searched for rocks. The sun cast a halo of red and gold on the crown of his dark, downturned head, and made the hair on his lean forearms sparkle. His faded blue shirt stretched across his shoulders, hinting at the muscle she knew lay underneath. He was beautiful to look at, even performing such a mundane task.
She kicked a rock into the fence post, making the horse twitch. Then sighing heavily, she paced some more.
Finally Jace glanced up. “Jesus, Kyla, go find something to do. You’re scaring the horse.”
“There isn’t anything left to do around here,” she crabbed impatiently. “How long are we going to wait before we go after Hardesty?”
Dropping Juniper’s hoof, he shook his head and chuckled. “You would have been a lousy bounty hunter. Waiting and watching have a lot to do with capturing outlaws.”
She frowned. “But if we wait too long, he’s bound to find out that we’re in town. We’ll lose the advantage of surprise.”
“Yeah, I want him to know.” He said this as if it were the most obvious course of action.
She stopped pacing and stared at him. “God, why? He’ll just lie in wait for us.”
“At first he will. But how long can a man keep that up without going crazy? He’ll never know exactly when I’ll be there. Will it be at sunrise or sometime in the afternoon? Will I face him in the street or sneak into the house in the middle of the night and shove a gun barrel up his nose?” Idly he patted Juniper’s neck. “I’ll have the advantage, all right. He’ll just get more and more hotheaded. And hotheads make mistakes.”
“Well, what are we going to do?” she asked.
“Kyla, there isn’t any ‘we’ about this. When I decide the time is right to confront Tom Hardesty, you’ll wait here.”
“No!” she protested. She never once thought that she would be left behind. “You have to take me with you.”
His blue gaze turned flinty. “The hell I do. I work alone. Anyway, I don’t want to have to worry about watching your back and mine, too. This isn’t a church picnic we’re planning, you know.”
Hot blood suffused her face. “Don’t you talk down to me now, Jace Rankin. I didn’t travel all those miles to find you, and get shot and kidnapped just to sit back at the end and miss seeing Hardesty get what he deserves!”
He shrugged and picked up Juniper’s other foreleg. “You’ll just have to trust me to do the job you hired to do,” he said, effectively ending the debate and the conversation.
Unable to answer him, Kyla lapsed into hurt, angry silence. He had pointedly reminded her that, first and foremost, theirs was a business deal, and that whatever else had taken place between them did not affect him.
Well, so be it, then, she thought. She had the right see what her money was paying for.
And if it meant watching Jace as closely as Hardesty was watching him, that was what she’d do.
* * *
Jace watched Kyla stalk to the barn in the afternoon sun. Her nose was up so high he wondered how she’d see where she was going. And her hips swayed slightly under her jeans, although he supposed she didn’t realize that.
Picking up a horse brush, he stroked Juniper’s coat. The reason he gave her for stalling Tom Hardesty was legitimate one. But not the only one. The longer he delayed, the more time he would have with Kyla before he had to tell her good-bye. When the day came that he had to ride away from her, it would be the hardest thing he’d ever done.
He pulled the brush through Juniper’s mane with smooth strokes while his thoughts strayed to Kyla.
He had told her that he didn’t think he was capable of caring for anyone, and he’d believed his own words at the time. The old man had seen to that, somehow honing in on the part of Jace’s boyhood heart that felt compassion, affection, and love, and beating it until it was wiped clean of all emotion.
But Kyla—he shook his head, stunned when he thought about it. She had revived him with a touch, with respect that was not earned through fear, and with love. And like a drought-dry plant waiting for rain, his heart had responded.
What would he do with these newfound feelings, though? Too bad he couldn’t stick around to see what might have been. He leaned both arms on Juniper’s back and gazed at the mountains in the distance.
Too bad he couldn’t tell her he loved her.
* * *
Tom Hardesty sat at the kitchen table, checking the rounds in his Colt and his shotgun with quick, jerky movements. He’d done it earlier today. Twice. He would soon be doing it again.
After that, he would go to each window in the house to check the yard for any sign of trespassers. He would spend a half hour at each one, staring at the yard with gritty eyes. He’d done that many times today, too. And last night. Yesterday. Waiting. Watching.
He’d given up on sleeping, but hell, he didn’t want to be caught napping when Jace Rankin decided come. That would be rude, wouldn’t it? A high little laugh escaped him at the thought. Anyway, if he slept he’d just have those dreams again, the ones about an eight-foot-tall bounty hunter, an angel of death who had reached Blakely, despite all the men Tom had sent to defeat him.
So far Tom had managed to elude Luke Jory, but he knew that he must have heard the news: Jace Rankin was on his way. Although it wouldn’t matter after he killed the bounty hunter. Jory would be satisfied with that. And Tom knew he could do it—he was only the man who could do it. He just had to be ready.
He brought out the Colt again to check it.
Jace Rankin was coming.
Pouring himself another drink, Tom pushed a dirty dish out of his way to make room on the tabletop. The place was a mess—that worthless Mayella had stopped coming by almost a week ago, just after he received that string of teeth in the mail. She must known that Rankin was on his way, too.
The hell with her. The angel of death was coming, he was bringing the woman with him, red-haired and high-hipped. He touched the scar on his face with a hand that shook ever so slightly. He’d even the score then.
When he got the woman.
* * *
Jace sat on the edge of an empty water trough, stitching his stirrup. The late October sun felt good on shoulders, especially the one that bore the year-old scar. He knew that Kyla was watching him. He almost laughed—she was smart and strong, but not nearly enough to fool him. And since she didn’t have enough to do to keep her busy, her scrutiny was even more noticeable.
She trailed him to the corral and sat outside when he sat outside. Whenever he went near the horse, she sidled over and made small talk. He was on the verge of asking if she’d like to come to the outhouse with him.
But the time was upon him—he would have to act. He had strung Hardesty along for several days. Based on what Kyla had told him about the man, he ought have achieved just the right measure of jumpy anxiety by now. Enough to be sloppy, and maybe dangerous too. No matter. He forced the heavy, curved needle through the leather.
Everything he’d heard about Tom Hardesty told him that the man was a blue-ribbon bastard. But it didn’t matter. He’d face
d sons of bitches of all stripes and types. And taking on this one would give him grim pleasure—this was for Kyla.
* * *
The sun was a yellow-white ball on the horizon when Kyla finished slapping together a meal of biscuits and gravy. Since Jim Porter hadn’t returned yet, she set just two plates at the table and dished up supper. It wasn’t fancy, but it beat some of the things she and Jace had eaten on the trail all those days.
She paused at the kitchen window with the silverware clutched in her hand. The evening at McGuires’s in Baker City seemed like a lifetime ago now. The butter yellow gown and all of its matching accessories lay at the bottom of a mountain ravine, probably buried under snow and ice. She touched the locket, grateful that she had been wearing it that day. Memories sometimes faded—her mother’s image was dim and indistinct now after so many years. But when Jace was gone, she would have the locket to remember him by. Whether he thought of her after they parted, she would never know.
Turning away from the window with a sigh, she went to the door to call him to supper. Beyond the screen door, the yard was quiet and lonesome in the autumn sunset—with Jim and his crew gone, she felt as if she were the only one here.
“Jace!” she called. “Supper!”
She went back to the stove and lifted a stove lid to throw in another stick of wood. It was nearly November, and even in this warm ranch kitchen, she could feel a chill gathering.
She walked to the door again. “Jace!”
In the empty yard, not even a bird twittered in the silence, no horse nickered, no chicken clucked. And Kyla’s heart froze. She pushed open the screen door raced outside to the barn.
There she found Juniper and Jim Porter’s wagon. But Jace’s gelding was gone.
“Damn you, Jace!” she cursed, her voice quivering with tears that gathered in her throat. He’d left her behind. He’d really done it.
Desperate Hearts Page 24