by Pam Crooks
Jack paced the short length of her room to the wall. “He knew who I was.” He swung back toward her. “How did he know I was Jack Ketchum?”
She whipped out the revolver and gripped it in both hands.
She didn’t need to say anything more.
Jack dropped his glance to the Derringer and gritted a terse oath. In the firelight, the scar slashing his cheek turned his features hard and cruel. The imposing breadth of his shoulders, his ability to fill the room with his power, his burgeoning fury, transformed him into a warrior who would fight until he could fight no more.
He frightened her, standing there. As capable of destroying her as she was of him.
“I’ll tell you once, and once only, to put that gun down,” he said.
She shivered at the lethal calm in his voice. “I’m going to kill you, Jack.”
“Oh?” He arched his brow and took a lazy step toward her. “Was it something I said?”
“Something you did, and don’t move any closer.”
“Something I did.” As if she’d never spoken, he moved again. Easily. “Care to enlighten me?”
“Not only did you kill my brother, but you killed my mother, too.”
He froze in mid-step. “The hell I did.”
“Bess Reilly, remember? In New Mexico Territory, a year ago.”
“Sweet saints in heaven.”
“She rode with the Ketchum gang. Sam and Black Jack and the others.”
He went still. Deathly still.
“She was there, Jack. When you and your blood-thirsty posse tracked them down.” To Grace’s horror, her chin trembled, and her eyes welled up with tears. But the grip on her revolver never wavered. “She died, like a hunted animal. She never saw you before, or any of the men with you, but you killed her anyway.”
A deep, primal sound erupted from his throat. Grace had barely registered the ferocity of it, that it had come from somewhere inside of him so full of anger, so shredded with pain, when he came at her. A mind-numbing blur of man and muscle and cunning speed.
She was no match for the sheer heaviness of him. He threw his body against hers, tackling her sideways on the bed, his hand fast against her wrist. She cried out her surprise, her frustration and pain from the viselike grip of his fingers. A grip so strong he could break each slender bone if he wanted.
And he would, if she didn’t give in. Yet Grace hung on to the Derringer as long as she could, until it hurt too much, and her grasp helplessly weakened. He snatched the revolver, and she curled away from him, into the pillows, giving into tears of anguish, of abject failure and loss, freeing them all from her broken heart.
Behind her came the metal-against-metal sound of bullets pulled crisply from their chamber. Then, the mattress shifted, Jack murmured her name, and he pulled her toward him, into his arms, until the sobs quieted.
Grace lay on her back beneath him and sniffled. She refused to look at him at first, not while she warred with a bevy of emotions, turned topsy-turvy from the wine in her blood and the confusion he always made her feel.
He drew the side of his hand over her wet cheek, wiping away the heaviest of her tears with a touch so gentle, she welled up all over again.
“Damned if I’m going to let you blame me for Bess’s death, Grace.” His voice carried a thread of resolve, but desperation, too. “I’ve never bragged to be perfect, but the only person I killed that day was… my father.”
Even before she spoke the words, she realized how they’d sound coming out of her mouth. That she was grasping at straws, that she wasn’t being fair, that she didn’t hate Jack as much as she thought. Or should.
But she had to say them anyway, because they needed to be said. He had to know he’d destroyed her family, one after the other, leaving her alone. Forever alone.
She owed it to Carl. To Bess. But mostly, she owed it to herself.
Her gaze didn’t waver. “You were the last man standing, Jack.”
His brow knitted. “And that makes me guilty?”
“Who else can I blame?” Her chin quivered anew. It wasn’t right for either of them, her heart insisted. Not anymore. Not like it used to be, but still she clung to the belief he was responsible. “Everyone died in that shoot-out. No one else can be accountable, can they?”
“It wasn’t my bullet, Grace!”
“Does it have to be?”
“Hell, yes!” His hand fisted near her ear. “If you’re going to hold me responsible, then at least have it be when I pulled the trigger.”
“Maybe you did.”
“Only once. And not at her.” His jaw moved. “It wasn’t like you think. I swear.”
He was right, of course. Tonight, she’d clung to a fantasy formed from sketchy information about her mother’s killing. Goaded by Carl’s misguided hate, she’d blown it up in her mind, allowed it to fester… until she’d almost made a terrible mistake.
She would’ve been no better than her mother.
No better than Carl.
A murderer, of the worst degree.
She drew in a miserable, weepy breath.
“Did Carl put you up to your scheme to kill me?” he asked roughly.
“No.” She trembled at the memory of her brother’s terrible vengeance, halted only by a split-second of fate. “He wanted the pleasure all for himself.”
“So where’d you get the gun?”
“It’s Allie’s. She got it from Mick,” she said in a small voice, enduring a new round of guilt that she’d taken it without her friend’s knowledge. Something Grace had every intention of rectifying the moment she saw Allie again. “I’ve never owned a weapon in my life.”
Jack regarded her, his features solemn, as if he tried to decide if she spoke the truth.
“Nor have I ever belonged to a gang,” she added stiffly. “Don’t you dare accuse me of it again.”
“No.” He conceded with a slow nod. “It’s not your style.”
Her style?
She didn’t know what her style could be, unless, perhaps, it was her maddening inability to know the truth in the people she loved most. Their honesty and integrity. Or the lack of it.
“For what it’s worth, Grace,” Jack said quietly. “I’m sorry about Carl.”
She swallowed. Hard. “He was trouble from the day he was born.”
“But he was still your brother.”
“Yes, he was that.”
“And Bess, too.” Jack paused, and Grace sensed he was thinking of her mother, of that horrific day when so many on both sides of the law had died. “I wish things could’ve been different for all of us.”
“Me, too,” she whispered in a wobbly voice, yearning—as she always would—for the normal, law-biding family she never had.
Regardless, losing her mother had been difficult; her grandmother doubly so. But Carl’s death drove home the devastating reality that Grace had failed to save him. In spite of everything she’d done, or tried to do, he’d died too young, too violently.
He didn’t need her anymore.
No one did.
A new round of tears she could no more halt than she could fly to the moon spilled out of the corners of her eyes. Another outpouring of sadness for what would never be….
“Grace, honey.” Jack smoothed her hair with slow, gentle strokes. “Reckon you’re feeling about as low as anyone can get about now. But for what it’s worth to you, I’m here. And I’m not leaving until you feel better.”
She wanted him to go.
She wanted him to stay.
Mostly, she wanted him to hold her.
“You d-don’t have to be nice to me, you know.” She hiccupped. “I just tried to shoot you dead.”
“Yeah, I know.” His thumb stopped a stream of tears and wiped them away. “I’m not real happy about that, but I guess I’ll have to forget about it for now.”
“I’m sorry.” She breathed in deep, let the air out slow. A shred of composure returned. “Really, Jack. I am.”
“Y
ou owe me, woman.”
“You don’t have to tell me how much.”
He’d been nothing short of the perfect gentleman from the time she’d first met him. Strong and protective, compassionate and kind. What had she done to acknowledge that, but reward him with suspicion and the worst kind of betrayal?
“Can you ever forgive me?” The plea rushed out of her mouth in abject humility. In the purest of sincerity. “If you can’t, I’ll understand, but I’m hoping you’ll at least consider it.”
“I’m considering, all right.” The gray in his eyes darkened. His voice turned husky. “Lots of ways to make me forgive you.”
His meaning wasn’t lost on her, and her pulse skipped a beat. The air between them shifted, and suddenly everything started to change, twisting into a keen awareness of what it was like to lay on the bed like this. Together. Just the two of them in her room.
It didn’t matter how it happened, or why. Grace knew only that she needed to be with him. She wanted him… she refused to rationalize her yearning, growing stronger with every pulsing beat of her heart. Later, she would. She’d have to. But for now, she could think only of Jack, that he was very much alive. Vibrant and real. Her hand lifted, and she laid her palm across his scarred cheek, the part of him that she admired… and made him different in so many ways from other men she’d known.
“Stay with me tonight,” she whispered.
His head angled, and he pressed a tender kiss to the inside of her wrist. “Don’t think you could keep me away, honey.”
The words filled her with heady triumph, and she slid her hand under the collar of his shirt. So warm, his neck. So strong, too. She pulled him down for his kiss, her lips parting in readiness for their intoxicating feel.
She didn’t expect their gentleness. Their playful seduction. Not after he’d kissed her with such fierce possessiveness only this morning. Jack Hollister was a hard man, and he’d kissed like one.
But not now. Not this time.
His teeth nipped and teased and flirted with her lower lip, then her upper one. His tongue leisurely traced the shape of her mouth, back and forth, until he left her lips wet and aching.
And curving in amusement at how he masterfully plied them, bringing her to the brink of a full-fledged kiss, then pulling back, denying her.
“What is this little têtê-à-têtê you do, Jack Hollister?” she whispered coyly. “I fear the rules are too difficult to play.”
She turned her head, giving him no access to the mouth he gave sport to, but danced around. His chuckle sounded low and deliciously pleasing in her ear.
“My rules, yes. Meant to break and enjoy.” He dropped sensuous nibbles along the curve of her neck, raising gooseflesh clear to her toes. He took her lobe between his teeth and nibbled there, too.
But when his head lifted, his amusement had faded.
“By the time I’m done with you, Grace, you’re not going to remember anything or anyone, y’hear?” He fisted his hands into her hair. His gaze drifted over her face. “Except me and the love we’ve made.”
She’d not often seen him look so intense, or speak so fervently, and her skin tingled in excitement.
He pushed away from her, and the mattress lifted from the absence of his weight. There seemed to be no need for words while he made short work of removing his gun belt, unbuttoning his shirt and Levi’s, of pulling off his boots and woolen socks, then his knitted union suit. With every layer of clothing he peeled from his body, her breathing quickened and her anticipation heightened.
Merciful saints, he was a fine sampling of man. What woman wouldn’t want to give herself completely to him? Tall and lean, every muscle honed taut, his skin golden in the firelight, he was manhood at its finest. His buckskin hair hung shiny and thick to his shoulders, and he carelessly swept it all back before he lowered himself over her again.
“You have any idea how many times I’ve thought of doing what I’m about to do to you right now?” he murmured, tugging the satin ribbon belt of her nightgown free.
His fingers seemed too thick to manage the tiny pearl buttons, but he undid them with ease, and moving with lazy deliberation, as if he savored every fractured second of what was to come, he parted the Wedgewood blue cotton wide.
The room’s fire-warmed air touched her naked breasts, her belly, her thighs, and she trembled from lying before him like this. He drew in a ragged breath… and feasted a long, hungry gaze over her.
“Perfect,” he whispered huskily. “Just as perfect as I knew you’d be.”
If she could speak, she would’ve denied it. She’d made far too many mistakes, been responsible for too many failures, had believed and betrayed wrongly too many times to ever deserve the praise.
Yet the feel of his hands spanning her waist dashed any semblance of logical thought or conversation. Roughened by work, capable of killing a man or gentling a woman, they slid reverently upward over her ribs with luscious seduction toward the mounds of flesh all but quivering to be claimed….
He held one in each palm as if they were precious gold and lowered his head, taking a hardened nipple into the heat of his mouth. Grace sucked in a breath at the exquisite sensation and speared her fingers into his hair, holding him to her while his tongue lavished her with sweet torture. And when he repeated the seduction on the other side, she knew she was lost.
Lost to the mastery of an outlaw’s son who made her feel cherished as a woman. Who didn’t care who she was or what she’d done. Who didn’t know all her imperfections and likely wouldn’t care if he did.
He swept her away, up into the clouds, to places she’d never been. Somehow, at some moment, her nightgown landed in a lacy blue heap on the floor, over his Levi’s and boots and holstered guns. Their bodies turned into a tangle of naked skin. Of clinging arms and legs. Of frenzied desire and whispered words meant only for each other.
With Jack, there was no inhibition, only shared intimacies and unquestioned trust. Grace gave him her body while she helped herself to his. He taught her deliciously wicked pleasures she never before imagined….
When the fire raged too hot between them, when the time had come to climb high and be quenched, he rose above her, a sheen of perspiration on his sleek, muscled body, bulging from restraint. Her thighs parted wide, and he probed the petals of her femininity. He found his place inside her with one slick thrust, and her back arched with a gasp.
“Grace,” he rasped. “Sweet, perfect Grace.”
He filled her with their coupling and rocked her with his loving. With each timeless thrust, they climbed higher and higher, past the clouds and into the sky, and together, as one, they reached their climax and shattered into a million glorious stars.
Chapter Fourteen
A Redheaded Woodpecker tap-tap-tapped against a barren branch outside Grace’s window. Jack figured the little critter got separated from the rest of his family somehow and wound up in Great Falls to spend his winter. Not that he seemed bothered by it; he cheerfully flitted from branch to branch, offering a welcome spot of color under the morning sun.
Just like Grace brought into Jack’s life.
Color, pleasure and happiness. Fulfillment. Their loving had been… incredible. So much so they’d turned to each other again in the night to sate the fiery need burning in their blood.
Only to find the fire unquenchable.
Jack dropped a kiss into her hair, a mass of shining sable pooling over his arm and against the stark-white pillow. He relished the feel of her warm, naked body cocooned against his while she slept. Waking up with his thigh on hers, her ankle curled around his calf while his palm cradled the delectable weight of her breast… hell, it felt right to be with her like this.
Perfect and right.
He’d fallen in love with her. Crazy hard in love. From the moment he first laid eyes on her, the Lady in Blue sitting all alone in Margaret’s Eatery had stolen his heart.
Last night had only confirmed how much he wanted her in his life. And what
the hell was he going to do about it?
One thing he knew for sure. He didn’t know how he was going to let her go back to Minneapolis. And she would, after they found the Society’s stolen money. She had friends there. Her obligation to see the library finished. It was a life that would have no place for a scar-faced lawman-turned-cowboy, as imperfect as she was perfect.
Once she opened those striking blue eyes of hers, things would look a lot different than they did last night, when her emotions had been raw from the effects of wine, her brother’s death and, Jack knew, her determination to kill him.
He took comfort in knowing she didn’t want him dead. At all. Grieving, hurting, she’d lashed out, but Jack had had enough experience with women to know when intimacy was real, when it wasn’t, and last night, Grace had made love with a fervency that almost melted his bones.
Still, she’d always associate him with her mother’s death. He understood that. Accepted it. It had been his posse who’d gunned the gang down, and yeah, he was the last man standing. The only one left to take the blame.
A troubled sigh escaped him, and his breath fluttered the strands of soft hair at her temple. As if she sensed the way of his thoughts, Grace stirred. Her lashes slowly lifted, and Jack endured the bite of regret that their time in bed was about to end.
Her dark head rolled on the pillow. She blinked up at him, and a languid smile curved her full mouth. The mouth he’d explored and tasted and tantalized again and again through the night.
“What time is it?” she asked, her soft voice husky from slumber.
“Late. Very late.”
“Mmm. Too bad.” Rustling the covers, she shifted from one side to the other and stretched, like a lazy, pampered cat. She slid her arms around his neck and pressed her warm, silken body against him with the grace and ease of a woman who was right where she wanted to be. And had no intention of leaving anytime soon. “Let’s stay here forever, shall we?”
The pebbled tips of her breasts against his chest gave him an inkling of her thinking; his blade thickened and throbbed with familiar yearning.
“Don’t ask me twice, woman,” he murmured, his hand finding one slim buttock. He helped himself to an appreciative squeeze. “You’ll convince me for sure.”