by Helen Conrad
She stood and looked down at him. “Good night, Jimmy,” she said softly, longing to lean down and kiss him. There was something prickly about him again, and she wasn’t sure if he would like it. “Does your mama kiss you good-night?” she whispered.
Jimmy turned and she could see his eyes glowing in the darkness. “Sometimes,” he whispered back.
“Will you let me kiss you, since she’s not here?”
There was silence—then his small voice said, “Okay.”
She leaned down and brushed his round cheek with her lips, then smoothed back his hair.
“Good night, Jessie,” he said solemnly. “You read stories really good.”
There was a lump threatening in her throat and she didn’t dare to try to speak. Straightening, she beat a hasty retreat. “Don’t let the bedbugs bite,” she said from the door, then closed it, leaning against it for a moment before moving on. There was just something about that kid that tugged at her heartstrings.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Look Of Love
The bath—last resort of the anxious and the bored. In Sheri’s house it was also an event, for her bathtub was huge, with water jets and an atrium all around the back. Jessie poured in bubble powder and filled it to the brim, lowering herself in and sighing with pleasure.
The water was running and she didn’t hear the bathroom door opening. When she saw Michael standing in the doorway, she jumped and gasped aloud.
“Oh!”
“Hi.” His hair was still slicked back, but the dark glasses had disappeared. He had the leather jacket slung over one shoulder and his sleeves were rolled up to the elbows.
She resisted the impulse to leap from the bath and throw her arms around him. “You’re back,” she said simply, instead, and it felt as though some awful pain had been lifted from her. “Thank God.”
He closed the bathroom door and came toward the tub, draping his jacket on the chair in front of the dressing table.
“Did you find him?” she asked anxiously, though she could see from the tired look on his face that he wasn’t satisfied with his day’s work.
“No. I must have hit every casino on the Strip, and most of the downtown places, too. I talked to a lot of people, got a few leads, but so far none of them has panned out.”
She swished the bubbles that were stacked up high around her. “We were on television. The casino had us on tape.”
He nodded. “I saw it in a bar downtown. Crazy, isn’t it?”
Her smile was fleeting. “Yes,” she murmured. “Crazy.” She put her head back and sighed aloud. “Fifty thousand dollars, they said. Fifty thousand dollars.”
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that too much money is a corrupting influence? Look at it this way. I saved you from a life of conspicuous consumption. You should be grateful.”
She closed her eyes and moaned. He dropped down beside the tub. “I’m sorry, Jessie,” he said quietly. “Once we get this all straightened out...”
She opened her eyes and reached out, touching him with one soap-drenched hand. “Don’t say another word about it,” she told him. “Just let me enjoy my misery every now and then.”
“Right.” As she began to draw back her hand, he caught hold of it, a smile dancing in his silver-blue eyes. “Well, since I’m here, I might as well find out the truth,” he said teasingly.
She gazed up at him, a little alarmed. “What truth?”
“About this borderline business,” he said, glancing down at her bubble-hidden body.
With her free hand, she clutched a washcloth to her chest. “Michael!”
He pretended to be quite serious. “I think it’s time I made my own judgment on the matter.” Trailing his free hand in the frothy bubbles, he began herding them casually to the side and out of his way.
“Michael!” she warned, watching her comforting bubbles go.
But he ignored her, frowning his concentration. “I don’t know. This is going to require careful analysis.” He pushed away a final clot of bubbles and her breasts were revealed just beneath the soapy surface of the water. “Measurements must be made,” he muttered as his hand entered the water and cupped her.
She giggled, trying without success to twist away, but her fingers curled around his.
“Samples must be taken,” he went on. Bending down, with his tongue he touched one dark tip that just broke the surface. She sighed and leaned back against the porcelain tile as her body flooded with a tingling sense of relief. This was what she had been waiting for all day. All her life.
“Tell us, Ms Carrington,” he continued to tease, gazing deeply into her eyes. “In fifty words or less, what makes you think you’d be a good Samarkand welcome girl?”
She batted her lashes and pretended to think hard. “Let me see. Well, my biggest ambition in life has always been to help people.”
“Real good. I need some help right now.”
He leaned forward and brushed her mouth with his, moving urgently, hungrily, as though searching for something he hadn’t found yet. She rose partway out of the water to meet him, her nakedness forgotten. His hands slid down her wet back, going beneath the water to take hold of her bottom. “That’s just what I needed,” he told her as he gently dropped her back to the water. Standing, he began to work on the buttons of his shirt. “That tub’s big enough for two people, don’t you think?”
She didn’t answer. Her attention was completely captured by the bare chest he was exposing. She’d seen every kind of man in her time. It got hot riding fences and men took off their shirts. Some even took off everything to jump into a neighbor’s reservoir, and Jessie had laughed and joined them. But this was different…. so different. Just watching, she felt as though she could feel every curve, every angle, every line of his body. When he looked at her, his gaze burned so, that she caught her breath. There was something as natural as rainfall in the way she felt when she watched him. Natural as rainfall and wild as a stormy wind. This sort of desire was new to her. It consumed her like a flame, warming and singeing at the same time.
The shirt was tossed aside and the slacks slid down his muscled hips, followed by his briefs. The soft light in the room turned his body a creamy gold. She sighed aloud when he turned and came toward the tub. He was so beautiful, so male. Waves washed against her as he sank into the water. And then he was with her, his long body sliding against hers, his arms holding her, his face nuzzling her neck.
The water was their medium, almost another partner in their sensual rendezvous. It lapped against her cheek, splashed against his muscular back, drained from his hands as he lifted them, poured like a waterfall down over her breasts. Parts of their bodies emerged dreamlike from the sudsy water, now his hard, hair-darkened thigh, her slender, chiseled shoulder, now his sinewed buttocks, her long, golden legs. They were all movement and touch, splash and sigh—a ballet of seduction.
She didn’t allow herself to think. Thinking brought on an awareness of the risk and the certain knowledge that this man was not really hers, not in the long run. That he would be gone soon.
But a part of her still knew, and that was painful. Pleasure and pain merged, so that the lovemaking had a bittersweet tinge that only heightened the intensity with which she clung to each beautiful moment.
The bedroom they were using was beside the bathroom. They wrapped each other in thick, fluffy towels and made their way to it, tumbling down on the bed in a tangle, towels and bodies, softness and love.
And then there was no time for play. Jessie was all urgency, whispering for Michael to hurry, and Michael was hard and sure and thrusting inside her, his hips coming against hers in rhythmic mastery, his breath hot on her face, rasping in his throat, and her legs curled around him and held him tighter still.
She wanted desperately to give him what he was searching for, to be what he was searching for. She didn’t know if she succeeded, but she knew what they had was good. They were magic together. Ecstasy had never been so fine.
; They lay very still when it was over. Neither of them spoke, but Michael’s body still covered hers, and his breath tickled her ear.
“Jessie,” he whispered after a while. “Tell me about the incident with the shotgun.”
She didn’t open her eyes, but her face froze. “You don’t want to hear about that.”
His hands slid along the pillow, framing her face. “I want to know everything about you. Everything there is to know.”
She opened her eyes and stared at him, a spark of anger in her dark gaze. “Why? What possible difference can it make in your life?”
Startled, he pulled back a little, giving her breathing room. “I care about you.”
“Sure.” Her mouth formed a bitter line. Now that the lovemaking was over, she couldn’t hold back reality any longer. The thoughts she’d suppressed came flooding to the surface. “You’re going to be gone soon. You’re going to find Kerry and get Sky arrested. And then you’ll go back to San Francisco and I’ll go back to my ranch. And then what difference will it make if you know all about me?”
His hand captured her wrist and held it tightly. “You’re right, Jessie. I could be gone tomorrow,” he said, the features of his face hard and jagged in the muted light. “Or I could be dead tomorrow. We don’t know. All we have is right now. Right now I care. And I want to know.”
She stared at him, wishing he hadn’t put it so bluntly. But why not, after all? If she was going to be blunt, he should be allowed that himself.
“Have you ever been married, Jessie?”
She didn’t want to tell him about Beau, or about the shotgun thing. But maybe it was time. He wanted to know all about her.
“Yes. I was married once.” She shifted her position. “Not for very long. It was a teenage thing. I got married thinking I would live something out of a fairy tale. And instead it ended up like something off the funny papers.” She shook her head. “What he wanted and what I wanted were such different things. Funny how hard that was to see before we got married... and how impossible to ignore once we were.” Good old Beau.
She wondered what he was doing these days. “We parted ways pretty quickly.”
“And after that? Have there been many men in your life?”
“There’ve been almost no men in my life. Oh, there have been plenty of men who’ve tried. I’ve had a lot of men working for me over the years, some thinking it might be nice to marry themselves into a ranch, others just fancying a roll in the hay. I managed to avoid most of that sort of thing.”
A viselike pain twisted inside him. He knew what it was and he despised himself for it. He didn’t want to hear about her having other men. Maybe it was because he was old-fashioned; maybe it was because he was a chauvinist. He didn’t know which. But he did know he didn’t want to hear about it. He knew how old she was, that she was a healthy, vibrant woman, knew she wouldn’t be normal if there hadn’t been someone. But some irrational side of him wanted her to be all his, to have never touched another man. Stupid. That was what he was. But he couldn’t help it.
Now he was not about to ask for a blow-by-blow account of every cowboy who’d ever stumbled into her life. That history was better left unspoken. But he did want to know about the shotgun affair. For one thing, something about the way she spoke of it told him it had been important.
His hand began to play with her tangled hair. “Except for the shotgun incident,” he reminded her.
“Yeah, there was the shotgun incident.”
“Tell me.”
She took a deep breath. “It began over a year ago, at the Halloween dance. I wasn’t going to go, but Annie, my best friend, talked me into it and even loaned me a dress. And I was feeling, I don’t know, really alone. So I went. I curled my hair. I put on makeup.”
She turned on her side and looked at him. The rest wasn’t going to be so easy to tell. “And I had a real good time. The punch was spiked and I drank a lot of it. There was this one guy who kept dancing with me. His name was Bud Harvey.”
She dropped her gaze to the bedspread. “It... it was bad what I did, flirting with him. I knew he was married. But I hadn’t flirted like that in ever so long, and it felt so good.” She glanced up to see what he thought, but she couldn’t tell for sure, and she looked away again. “He was a good-looking guy, and I guess I’d have to admit I was flattered that he was paying me so much attention. I wasn’t used to that. He was treating me like a princess or something.”
She had to stop and steady herself. She’d never told anyone about this before. “But a little later, when I went outside to get some fresh air, he came out, too, and he started trying to kiss me. When I resisted him, he just laughed. He said he liked wildcats.” She swallowed hard. “I started to realize I’d made a big mistake. I knew he was married. There was no way I was going to… .to do anything with him. But he pulled so hard and he... he tore my dress...” Her voice cracked and she stopped, embarrassed. If she was going to start crying or something sappy like that, she would just give up, that was all. She waited. The tears seemed under control. She glanced at Michael. He was lying very still, waiting.
“You forget how strong men are,” she continued. “I work with men every day and I can ride as hard and do everything the roughest man I hire can do. But when a man tries to force you...you forget, that’s all.” Her voice was rising and she wished it wouldn’t do that, but she didn’t know how to stop it. “I... he tore that dress. I couldn’t even give it back to Annie like that.”
Michael’s hands balled into fists and a nerve began to twitch at his temple. “Did he... ?”
“No. But he tried hard enough, laughing the whole time, like he thought I was just playing hard to get. I finally got away from him and ran.”
“Did you go to the police?”
She laughed harshly. “The police? What for? It wasn’t like I was blameless. I mean, I did flirt with a married man and everyone saw me.”
A man from a city environment, Michael didn’t quite understand what difference that made. “But that didn’t give him the right...”
“No. It sure didn’t.”
His face was carved from stone. “What did you do?”
Now she was on firm ground again. Her voice was clear and steady as she went on. She did what any self-respecting rancher would have done when insulted the way she had been. “I went home, loaded up my shotgun and drove over to Pine Creek, where he lived. I got behind a tree and waited for him to arrive. It wasn’t long before his car came up the driveway. I cocked the gun and waited, ready to blow him away.”
Michael leaned on one elbow and stared at her. “You’re kidding.”
“No, I am not kidding.” She shoved together pillows and leaned back, half-sitting. “What did you expect me to do? I don’t have a man to fight my battles for me. I have to take care of myself.”
He nodded slowly. “Go on. What happened next?”
“He got out of the car. I aimed, got him right in my sights.” She pantomimed the shotgun on her shoulder.
“That felt so good, knowing I could get back at him so easily. I remember the feeling, the satisfaction.” Her smile was wistful. “And then there was this creak. I can still hear it. The front door opened and out on the porch came—“ she sighed “—his wife, carrying their little baby.” She laughed softly, dropping her arms and the imaginary shotgun. “I took one look at them, and it was all over. I knew who I’d be hurting if I killed the bastard. And it wouldn’t be him.”
Michael studied her solemn face. “So you didn’t get your revenge.”
“Not yet.” Her soft brown eyes regarded him serenely. “But he’s not going anywhere. And neither am I.”
Michael’s eyes glittered in the soft lamplight. He admired this woman who took matters into her own hands without complaining to others. He also admired the fact that she had second thoughts. Killing a man would only have made matters worse, of course. But getting even— that was a concept he could understand.
“What was his name ag
ain?”
“Bud Harvey.”
“Bud Harvey,” Michael repeated slowly. “Right. You want to get even with him the way I want to get even with Sky Matthews.”
“I guess so.”
They both lay still, thinking their own thoughts. Somewhere down the street a church bell chimed the midnight hour.
“Where’s Jimmy?” Michael asked.
“He went to bed long ago.”
“No word from his elusive mother?”
“No. Tomorrow he’s going to look. He promised.” She turned and gazed at him. He’d listened to her story and he hadn’t ranted at her or blamed her or told her she was stupid. Was this man real? Emotion filled her and she reached for him, sinking her fingers into his thick hair and kissing his mouth with short, loving kisses.
He took her in his arms. “Funny,” he murmured near her ear. “The more I get of you, the more I want.”
She sighed happily, and then her mind wandered back to the subject of Jimmy again. “Poor Jimmy,” she said softly, playing with Michael’s fingers. “If I were that boy’s mother, I’d be going out of my mind with worry. I’d have his name on every television station, on the radio, everywhere. I don’t understand it. Do you?”
Michael shrugged. “Jimmy’s probably never lived the kind of life you and I know, with parents together and a real house.” He paused, realizing how ridiculous his words were. He was talking about the middle-class ideal, the suburban dream, not his own reality—or even Jessie’s, for all he knew.
But Jessie had taken his statement to heart. “Poor baby. From what he’s told me, he hasn’t had a whole lot of schooling. He’s spent most of his life with the migrant workers, following the harvests.”
Michael nodded and leaned his head back, eyes closed. He was tired. Her heart went out to him. She hadn’t stopped to think of the emotional toll this was taking on him. A pang of conscience shook her.