If there was a tiny whisper of recognition echoing softly in the back of his mind, he put it down to being tired.
"A witch," he repeated for lack of anything better to say.
"Yes," she smiled at him and heaved what looked like a sigh of relief. "Like you."
Now he laughed. A strained, forced laugh that hurt his chest and scraped his throat. But what else could a man do when faced with a woman like this? "I don't know what you're up to with this story, Hannah, but even I know that witches are female. And ugly," he pointed out. Hell, just looking at her shining face and creamy skin put the lie to her outlandish tale. If she really was a witch, she was the best damn looking one he could imagine.
"A nasty lie invented to frighten children," she said hotly, obviously insulted. "Naturally, not all witches are beautiful."
"Oh, sure," he agreed, already thinking of a way to escape this crazy conversation.
"But," she added, "I've yet to see one with warts on her nose. And for your information, a male witch is called a warlock."
Something inside him shivered. The dark well of his soul opened a crack and the movement was painful. Jonas had the distinct feeling that if he allowed it, memories long buried would come rushing to the surface. But as he already knew, memories were rarely pleasant. So, desperately, he fought the sensation back.
His gaze swept over her and, as if he'd been dunked in ice water, the desire he'd felt only moments ago froze in his veins.
"Warlocks and witches," he muttered and stared around the familiar kitchen as if trying to ground himself in reality.
All right, maybe she was a witch. It would certainly explain why his mind seemed filled with thoughts of her. And why he had hired her in the first place. And why she was still here when every instinct he possessed kept screaming at him to send her away.
Now he sounded crazy for even considering the possibility that she was telling at least the partial truth.
"Elias told me you don't remember your true heritage."
"So you've decided to make one up for me?" he countered with a snarl in his tone that he couldn't quite contain. "You should have tried something a little easier for me to accept. Like maybe I'm a missing prince, kidnapped from his rightful family as a child."
She clucked her tongue at him in disapproval. "Now you're being silly."
"I'm being silly?"
"I didn't make this up," she said and took a step toward him.
He backed up from the eager anticipation in her eyes. She may not be crazy, but she was damn sure worked up.
Damn it, he never should have confronted her. He should have left well enough alone. But there was something about this woman that refused to be ignored. It was as if he were drawn to her despite his best intentions. Despite knowing deep in his heart that becoming close with her would signal an end to everything he'd ever known.
But a warlock?
"You are the Mackenzie," she said. "That's why Aunt Eudora sent me to you. That's why we have to be married."
A short bark of unamused laughter exploded from his chest again. "Well, that explains everything," he said tightly.
"You're the hereditary head of the Guild," she went on, as if what she was saying meant something to him.
It didn't, though. He didn't know what the Guild was. And didn't want to know, he told himself as he felt the shadows inside him begin to lift dangerously. His life was here. In Wyoming. On the ranch he intended to make something of.
"Even if you were right –" he said and held up a hand when she looked as though he'd given her a brightly wrapped gift package, "which I'm not saying you are—it doesn't matter. Not to me."
She gasped and pulled her head back, looking at him through wide, shocked eyes. "How can you say that? Your duty –"
"My duty," he interrupted her, "is to this ranch and the men I have working for me and the man who raised me."
His head was spinning, making him feel as sick as he usually did on a Saturday night, with none of the fun involved in drinking himself into a stupor.
"But you're the Mackenzie," she repeated, as if saying his name in that lofty tone would mean a damn thing to him.
"I'm Jonas Mackenzie," he said. "And that's enough. Nothing you can say is going to change that. My life is here. My everyday, average, normal life is here. I'm not a witch and I'm sure as hell not the head of this Guild you keep harping on."
"Search your memories, Jonas," she said, her voice reaching deep inside him to rattle his heart and stir his soul. "Use your powers to recover that which you've lost somehow."
"My powers?" A low-throated chuckle rippled through him as he lifted both hands to squeeze a suddenly aching skull. "Well, sure," he said mockingly. "I'm a witch. Why wouldn't I have powers?" His gaze leveled on her. "What powers are those, I'm almost afraid to ask?"
She reached for him and, before he could avoid her touch, laid one hand on his chest. He felt the warmth of her scatter inside him like a thistle blossom in a high wind. Jonas drew an unsteady breath into heaving lungs and forced himself to stand still. He wouldn't let her know what her touch did to him, anymore than he would admit that a few of her words had struck him harder than he'd like to think.
"I feel the power within you," she said, looking up at him. His gaze locked with her forest-green eyes and he felt himself tumbling into their depths. Her voice went on, softly drawing him deeper, deeper into the secrets and shadows she kept hidden in her eyes. And all too close to the secrets he knew were buried inside him.
"You are the Mackenzie, Jonas. And the only man who can help me."
The world went still. For a long moment, they stood together in the center of the kitchen, each of them straining to make the other see, understand.
He felt the strength of her belief and it shook him to his bones. Her warmth filled him as she leaned closer, closer. Dipping his head, he kept his gaze locked with hers, losing himself in her eyes. He heard her breath catch just before he dusted his mouth across hers.
A wild, fierce blast of heat rocketed through him as their lips met, and instinctively he pulled back. Staring down at her, he tried to rationalize what had just happened. Tried to pretend that what he'd felt had been nothing more than a simple reaction to a simple kiss.
Damn it.
"Oh, my," she whispered, those incredible eyes of hers glittering in the lamplight.
Then Hepzibah yowled from the corner and the spell was broken. Jonas sucked in great gulps of air like a drowning man breaching the water's surface for the third and last time. He owed that cat a favor, he told himself as he quickly stepped beyond Hannah's reach. When her hand fell to her side, he felt strangely empty. He ignored that feeling and carefully edged past her toward the door.
He needed to be alone. To get away from this woman and her craziness that seemed to be contagious. England ought to be far enough.
Why in God's name had he kissed her?
And what would it be like to deepen that kiss? Stop, he told himself firmly, veering away from that train of thought. He wouldn't be kissing her again. That path would only bring them both all kinds of misery.
"I'm sorry for…"
"Kissing me?" she provided.
He nodded and rubbed the back of his neck.
"Don't be," she said, lifting one hand to touch her lips as though she could still feel the slight pressure of his.
His teeth ground together and he steeled himself against the desire to cross the room, pull her into his arms, and kiss her long and deep.
"I'm not what you think I am, Hannah," he said tightly. "So if you're expecting me to shout hallelujah and go along with whatever you've got in mind, forget about it."
"But Jonas—" she started.
He wrenched the door open and spared her a glance over his shoulder. "And for God's sake, don't count on my help for anything. I'd only let you down."
* * *
In the middle of the night, Hannah went looking for him. She'd waited hours for him to come to the
house, but he'd stayed away, apparently determined to avoid her. It was that kiss, she told herself, relishing the memory. All evening, she'd relived that too-brief moment when his lips had touched hers.
Her stomach still flip-flopped just thinking about it. He'd felt it, too, she was sure of it. Otherwise, he would have returned to the house hours ago. As if hiding would help. Didn't he realize he couldn't ignore his destiny any more than she could hers?
And he thought her stubborn.
She wrapped a blanket around her nightgown-clad body and stepped out onto the kitchen porch. Shivering slightly, she looked around the moonlit darkness until her gaze landed on a thin strip of lamplight shining at the bottom of the closed barn doors. She smiled to herself, took a deep breath, and hurried across the yard, her bare feet tingling with cold.
Hoping the hinges wouldn't creak, giving Jonas warning of her presence, she pulled on one of the heavy doors and opened it just far enough to allow her to slip silently inside.
She heard him before she saw him. His voice rumbled through the still barn and before she could speak, she found herself caught by his words.
"It's all right, girl," he was saying in a whispered hush. "No need to worry now. I'll stay right here with you."
Hannah sidestepped quietly across the dirt floor until she could see into the far stall where Jonas stood beside a chestnut horse in a puddle of lamplight. She watched him running his big hands gently over the animal's coat, smoothing along its long, graceful neck, stroking its muzzle with an almost tender touch.
"That cut on your leg's already healing," he was saying in the same calm, reassuring tone. "In a few days, you'll be right as rain."
The horse lifted its head and shook it, sending its mane flying. It moved restlessly in the stall but Jonas stood his ground, murmuring words of encouragement, letting his hands soothe the animal.
Lamplight gilded his face and hands. Even the tips of his hair seemed to catch the golden glow and shimmer. Hannah watched him, mesmerized by his soft voice, by the gentleness that seemed to flow from him.
She smiled to herself and branded this image of him into her memory. Years from now, she wanted to be able to recall this night and the gentleness in his features, the quiet strength of him. His tenderness tugged at her heart. His compassion for a wounded animal touched her and made her want to go and offer her help. But she knew he wouldn't welcome her.
Talking to him would have to wait, she thought and with one last look at the man in the lamplight, she turned and left the barn as quietly as she'd entered.
* * *
Magic didn't help.
Three days later. Hannah was forced to admit that things weren't going well at all. Since their kiss in the kitchen, Jonas had avoided her as he would the plague. She only saw him at mealtimes, and then he bolted his food and left again without a word or even a glance in her direction.
The tenderness she'd glimpsed in him three nights ago seemed to be reserved for the animals in his care.
Even when she followed him about the ranch, turning up at the corral or the barn, he disappeared as quickly as he could.
It was as if he was determined to pretend that she'd never told him who he was. That he hadn't kissed her.
That magic hadn't been born in that brief meeting of their lips.
"Foolish man," she muttered, looking at Hepzibah who was busy stalking an empty pea pod across the kitchen floor. "Does he think by turning a blind eye to it, he'll change what is?"
The scratch of the cat's claws on the floor was her only answer. Hannah rubbed her upper arms and stared at the clean, lamplit kitchen. All around her, the empty house screamed with silence. Even the usual murmur of voices from the bunkhouse were gone tonight. All but two of the men had gone into town, Jonas with them. She'd hoped to have a moment with him before he left but again he'd outfoxed her.
"The man doesn't need magic," she said aloud, just to hear the company of a voice, even her own. "But just the same, he'll have it."
All she had to do was make him remember.
Picking up a spoon, Hannah dipped it into the pot on the stove, watching the bubbling pink liquid inside as she stirred carefully.
Hepzibah gave up her hunting to come and rub against her mistress's legs.
But Hannah focused her concentration on the mixture she'd placed her hopes on. Moving the wooden spoon through the potion, she chanted the spell she'd rehearsed earlier. "I've found him, but still he's lost. Return him now, whatever the cost."
She smiled faintly. Perhaps being near the Mackenzie was helping her own pitiful abilities. Her rhymes were much better now, she thought.
* * *
Whiskey didn't help.
Neither did the usually comforting noise and stench of the saloon. Jonas squinted into the gray-blue pall of cigar smoke hanging over the crowd, looking from one familiar face to the next. He'd been coming into saloon every Saturday night for years. But tonight, he wasn't finding the peace he usually did.
Jonas picked up his glass and stared thoughtfully at the amber liquid inside. He'd already drunk half a bottle and it hadn't done a thing to dim the image of Hannah that seemed to be permanently etched on his brain.
In the last few days, he'd done nothing but trip over her. Everywhere he turned, there she was. If he went into the barn to check on the mare, she showed up just a step or two behind him. Smiling that innocent smile. Looking up at him from those incredibly green eyes of hers.
She would stare at him as if waiting for him to kiss her again. Waiting for him to tell her she was right about him. But how could he do that?
For God's sake… a witch?
Warlock, his brain corrected, though it didn't matter a damn. Either way it was nonsense. Witches lived only in fairy tales or in minds far drunker than his at the moment.
He took a sip of the whiskey, savoring the liquid fire as it slid along his tongue and down into his belly. But he had a feeling that even if he drank a wagonload of the stuff tonight, it wouldn't bring him the oblivion he wanted.
Still it was worth a try. He grimaced tightly and tossed the whiskey down his throat. Before it had finished burning a trail down his throat, he was slamming the glass back onto the table and pouring himself another.
Should have gone to Jefferson tonight, he told himself in disgust. A few hours with one of Sal's girls would quench any man's fire. But even as he considered it, he knew it wasn't a solution this time. Not for him, anyway. Because none of Sal's girls was a blond-haired, green eyed… witch.
And none of them carried the power of a lightning bolt on their lips.
"Son of a bitch," he muttered thickly and reached for the bottle again. Even if the liquor wasn't helping, it couldn't hurt.
But before he could throw another drink into his already roiling stomach, one of his cowhands rushed up to him, looking back over his shoulder as if being chased by a ghost.
"What's the matter now?" Jonas grumbled. Had it only been a few days ago when he'd been congratulating himself on a long-standing string of good luck?
"Billy's in trouble." Stretch Jones leaned across his table and looked him dead in the eye.
Jonas blinked, bringing the blurry image of the tall skinny cowhand with an Adam's apple the size of a lemon into focus. "What kind of trouble?"
Stretch pushed his hair out of his eyes, leaned forward, and started talking again, his words tumbling over each other in a rush. "Some cardsharp's took most of his money and Billy's just drunk enough to complain."
Frowning, Jonas looked across the room toward the poker table in the corner. "Complain too loud, he's liable to get shot."
"Don't I know it, boss. That's why I come to get you. You tell Billy to leave it lay and he most likely will."
"He'd damn well better," Jonas growled as he pushed himself to his feet. "I don't need a dead cowhand just before roundup."
Stretch hunched his shoulders. "It would make more work for the rest of us."
Casual talk aside, neither of the
men was going to let Billy die over a card game. As he pushed himself to his feet and started for the table in the corner, Jonas thought, at least this was something. Drinking wasn't helping. Maybe a good old-fashioned brawl was just what he needed. Besides, he couldn't just stand there and let Billy get shot, could he?
When he was still too far away to do a damn of good, he saw that he was too late. The gambler drew his pistol and aimed it at Billy.
That corner of the saloon went quiet.
A couple of men scooted their chairs back, getting out of range.
"It's in the fire now," Stretch said from behind him.
Through the haze of whiskey blurring the edges of his mind, Jonas cursed low and long. A careless shout from him might be all the surprise the gambler needed to jerk his finger on that trigger. And Billy would be dead.
Anger rumbled through him and vaguely he noted the distant drums of thunder.
He turned his dark gaze on the gambler's freshly shaved face and cold, empty eyes. Not much hope there. Seconds crawled by, as if the world hung in the balance and time forgot to move.
He shifted his concentration to the small pepperbox pistol the gambler held. An unpredictable weapon at best, Jonas knew it could be counted on to either fire one bullet, all five at once, or none at all.
"All we can hope for," he said softly, more to himself than to Stretch, "is that the damn gun won't work."
Time skittered into life again and the gambler pulled the trigger. Billy jumped in his seat, obviously expecting to feel the slamming white-hot pain of a bullet crashing into his chest.
But nothing happened.
Furious, the gambler jerked the trigger again and the same empty click sounded out in the room. He glared at the gun and tossed it angrily aside.
At the same time, Billy realized he wasn't about to die and lunged across the table, hands outstretched, reaching for the other man's throat. The young cowhand grabbed hold of the gambler's fancy ruffled shirt instead and yanked him off his chair. The two of them went down amid a crashing of chairs and a chorus of shouting voices.
"Luck, boss!" Stretch slapped him on the back. "You always did have the damnedest luck!"
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