Renegade's Kiss

by Barbara Ankrum

  After constructing a makeshift pallet in the back of the Raffertys' high-box wagon for the youngest girls, four-year-old Gertie, and Ruthie, two-and-a-half, eleven-year-old Adeline settled them and Zachary down there and stretched out beside them.

  Jesse tied Rabble to the back of the wagon, and climbed into the wagon slowly, his sooty face pale and drawn. Andrea knew he hadn't taken the time to dress the burn on his hand properly and suspected he didn't want to burden John with the knowledge he'd hurt himself. His only concession to the wound was to wrap a sooty bandanna around it. Now, she could see, he was paying the price.

  When he sucked in a breath as he reached for the traces, Andrea laid her hand over his. His eyes, glazed with pain, met hers with a question.

  "Jesse," she said quietly, "let me drive."

  He shook his head. "There's no need for—"

  "Don't be stubborn. There's no one to impress here, or try to fool. Just give me the traces."

  The battle of wills lasted only a few seconds, long enough for Jesse to see the sense in her words. Reluctantly, even gratefully, he did as she asked.

  After a day of upheaval, little Ruthie and Gertie fell instantly asleep with the rocking motion of the wagon. Jesse did not speak to her on the way home; he seemed weighed down by the events of the day. He leaned back heavily against the wagon seat, staring almost sullenly off into the darkness. The silence between them was broken only by the night sounds of the crickets and the rumble of the high box as it made its way to Willow Banks.

  * * *

  Andrea tucked the edge of the blanket on Jesse's bed around Adeline, brushed her hair back, and kissed her forehead.

  "Sleep well," she whispered so as not to wake the little girls sprawled beside her.

  "Miss Andrea?"

  "Yes, Addie?"

  The young girl swallowed hard, her voice, high and small. "You... you don't think they'll come here... do you?"

  Andrea squeezed Addie's hand. "No, honey. Don't you worry. We won't let anything happen to you. I promise."

  Addie nodded. "Yes'm. I'll try."

  "Try to get some sleep."

  "Yes'm. I will."

  "G'night, Addie."

  "Night."

  When she reached the kitchen Andi found Jesse slumped on the kitchen chair, rubbing one sooty hand over his equally sooty face. His other hand rested in a bucket of cool water. Exhaustion pulled at him. A single candle lit the room.

  "I never realized what a convenience two good hands can be," he said sheepishly, looking up as she came in the room. The front of his shirt was dripping wet from a misguided attempt to manage a washcloth one-handed.

  Andrea regarded him for a few seconds before making up her mind. She walked to the counter and took a sponge and a clean linen towel from the drawer near the sink. Then, crossing to Jesse, she hesitated only fractionally before reaching for the buttons on his shirt.

  Jesse's reaction was swift. His hand clamped down on hers and his eyes darkened. "What are you doing?"

  She shrugged off his hand. "I'm taking off your shirt."

  He swallowed hard. "It's my hand that's hurt, not my... my chest."

  She stared at him evenly. "Your hand isn't the only thing covered in soot. Do you plan to blacken my clean sofa tonight as well?"

  His eyes narrowed suspiciously but he couldn't argue her logic.

  "I should hope not," she finished and continued unbuttoning his shirt.

  "I can do that," Jesse claimed, but when she allowed him to try, he found it nearly impossible.

  With a small smile, she finished the job, lifting the filthy fabric of his shirt off his shoulders and past his sore hand. He sucked in a breath through clenched teeth.

  Andrea dragged her gaze from his smooth sun-browned shoulders and the thick mat of hair that started on his chest and disappeared into his tapered waistband of his trousers. That he wore no union suit in this heat didn't surprise her, but he glanced up embarrassed just the same.

  "Here," she told him. "Keep your hand in the water until I'm finished. You'll at least soak out whatever dirt you ground in there with your stubbornness tonight."

  "Ow! That's not... any better," he gasped in complaint.

  She soaped up the sponge with strong brown soap.

  "Close your eyes."

  "Andi, this is ridicu—"

  "Close."

  Jesse slammed his eyes shut as she came at him with the sponge, drawing the warm soapy sponge over his face in smooth, sensuous strokes: his cheek, his jaw, his throat.

  He clenched his teeth. He'd half-expected her to scrub him like a child, but there was no motherliness in her approach. She bathed him as a woman would a man, in a dangerous, sensual way that made him forget the throbbing in his hand and think instead of the smoky defiance in her eyes.

  He felt her lift the sponge away, heard her rinse it in the bucket. Jesse's breathing went still as her other hand came up to the hold the back of his head. Her fingers slid against his scalp, while with her other hand she rinsed the soap from his face. His body tightened involuntarily in response to the erotic gentleness of her touch. He reached for the towel and wiped the moisture from his face, then dropped it strategically into his lap.

  Common sense told him to put a stop to it now. Something more basic inside him didn't want her to. It had been a long time since a woman had touched him with such tenderness. Too long. He relaxed a fraction, closing his eyes, absorbing the sensations. At moments like these, he longed to stay, wished he could be part of her life... as if nothing before had happened. As if he was good enough for her. He wasn't. The old man had made sure of that. But that didn't mean he couldn't spend a few minutes imagining it so.

  His thudding heartbeat drowned out whatever she'd just said to him. "What?"

  "Your arm," she repeated softly. "Give me your arm."

  "Oh." Slowly, he held it out. She took his wrist in one hand, and with the other she dragged the cool, rough-textured sponge up and down the length of his arm, following the curves and hollows of his muscles. The chilly water did little to cool the heat building within him. His pulse hammered beneath her fingertips. He wondered if she could feel it, if she knew what she was doing to him.

  Her eyes stayed on his while she washed his sensitive inner arm and trailed the sponge over and between each finger. Was it his imagination, or was her hand trembling? Her chin was tilted up with just a touch of defiance, as if daring him to stop her.

  He didn't.

  When there were no traces of grime left, she did the same for his other arm, careful not to touch his palm.

  When she turned to rinse the sponge, Jesse looked up, training his gaze on the small, thudding pulse at the base of her throat, only inches away from his face. Did it always race so? he wondered. No, he thought not. His gaze drifted inexorably south, down the curve of her breasts. Urges he had no business having made his breath come fast and shallow, and caused his heartbeat to vibrate his whole body.

  In slow, deliberate circles, she rubbed the soap against the sponge. For a moment, he imagined her touching him that way with her bare hand, gliding her soapy palm, skin to skin against him—

  Damn! What was he thinking?

  When she pressed the cool sponge to his chest, Jesse grabbed her wrist, startling her.

  "Don't—" he warned.

  Her breath came unevenly, despite her attempts to control it. "Let me," she asked simply.

  His fingers cut into her wrists. "What are you trying to do to me, Andi?"

  "I'm trying to wash you."

  "You're playing with fire."

  "I'm not playing at all," she replied gravely, looking away. "I'm simply trying to—"

  "Drive me crazy?"

  "No."

  "Well you are."

  He stood up. Andrea, however, didn't move out of his way. She stood planted only inches from him, the heat from their bodies combining in the breath of space between them."Andi—"

  She lifted her chin. She looked so soft, so beauti
ful. He wanted to reach out and pull her into his arms, show her what it really meant to want. Instead, he said, "Thanks for the sponge, bath, but—"

  "But what? You can't stand to have me touch you anymore?"

  "Touch me? God Almighty, Andi, that was no simple touch. You know what I'm talking about."

  "Maybe I do. Maybe it doesn't matter how I touch you," she said turning away at last. "My touch obviously repulses you."

  He nearly choked. "Repulses me?" Grabbing her with his good hand he spun her around. "You're wrong. You couldn't be more wrong."

  "Am I? It seems nothing I do pleases you anymore. We used to be friends at least. Now all I see in your eyes is... is desperation. Why don't you just go if you can't stand to be around us anymore? If you hate this place so much."

  "I haven't complained, have I?"

  "You needn't put into words what I see so plainly written in your eyes every day after working in your father's fields." She emphasized the word, 'father' as if taunting him.

  "Don't bring him into it," Jesse growled.

  "Why not? He's here, isn't he? Standing in this room as if he were still alive?"

  "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "Don't I? I see him in your eyes every time you look at the field, or pick up a hoe or heave a maul to split a rail. I see the hatred in your eyes and..." she softened her voice, "the young boy who could never please his father. He's the reason you left and he'll always be alive for you, standing between you and me and the farm."

  "The old man's dead," Jesse stated unequivocally. "Leave him buried."

  This time she caught his arm. "Can you, Jesse?"

  "Look, there is no you and me. All right. When I left this place, I left for good. I walked out on you, too," he said cruelly. "There's no turning back the clock on that. You made your choices, I made mine. You found your life with Zach—"

  "Zach's dead."

  Jesse's eyes flashed to hers. "And you're done mourning him awfully quick, aren't—"

  Her palm connected with his cheek in a ringing slap, knocking his head slightly sideways.

  Jesse staggered and touched his jaw. He shook his head miserably. "I'm sorry. I... I shouldn't have said that."

  Andrea whirled away from him, tears stinging her eyes, too angry to speak, too hurt to defend herself.

  With a hand on her arm, he turned her to face him, raising her chin up with his forefinger so she'd be forced to look at him. "Andi... I'm sorry. I know that's not true."

  "You can think whatever you want of me, I don't care."

  "I think of you all the time, that's the problem." His quiet admission hung in the air between them like a thread of hope. In confusion, she looked up at him, her eyes violet pools of trouble he was getting ready to dive into.

  Oh, hell.

  Before she could protest, he dropped his mouth against hers in a kiss that showed exactly what he meant. At first, she struggled, pushing against the wall of his chest, but he deepened the kiss, parting her lips with his tongue and proving to her that repulsed was the furthest thing from how he felt.

  Andrea leaned into Jesse's kiss feeling her knees turn to jelly and her anger to dust. She'd longed for this since that first time he'd kissed her in the hallway. Thought of it every time he'd looked at her, every time she'd looked at him.

  He was right.

  This was what she wanted and she wouldn't apologize for it. She was a woman, not a little girl.

  Her husband was dead and the man she'd spent half her life loving was holding her in his arms.

  His hand slid up to cover her breast and he drew her close against him so she could feel what the towel no longer hid. Desire. Hot, longing, desire. The sweet ache between her thighs intensified and she wrapped her arms around his back, digging her fingers into the strong muscles there. She felt her nipples pucker in reply to his touch. If she could just hold him forever like this. If she could only prove to him...

  On an angry breath, Jesse tore his mouth from hers and set her away from him, but not before she felt him quake with the power of the kiss they'd just shared.

  She stared at him wordless, breathless.

  "Do you know what I was thinking about when I was caught in that fire, Andi?"

  She shook her head.

  "You. I was thinking of you. Of this," he said, meaning the kiss, "and wondering who would take care of you if I died." He rubbed a thumb down her cheek. "Wishing that things had wound up different between us."

  Things could still be different, she thought, but couldn't bring herself to beg him.

  He dropped his hand away and turned toward the window. "But tonight, as I watched John's barn burn, all of his plans go up in smoke, I realized how fragile our hold is on our dreams. How useless."

  "John will rebuild."

  "And maybe," Jesse pointed out, "next year a tornado will get him, or a hoard of grasshoppers or—"

  "Or an early frost or a thousand other things that happen to farmers," she admitted. "But he's willing to risk it. It's his dream, Jesse. His land. Like this is yours. It's in his blood—"

  "Dirt doesn't run in my veins, Andi. When are you going to see that?"

  "When are you going to learn to put the past to rest, Jesse?" she heard herself asking. "Why can't you let your father go and move on?"

  "I said to leave him out of it—" he bit out.

  "How can I when you can't? He's at the root of all this. Why Jesse?" she pressed. "What did he do to make you hate him so?"

  He spun around to face her. "You mean what didn't he do?"

  Confused, she shook her head. "I don't know what—"

  Jesse's expression went dark. His words, when they came, were filled with venom. "He didn't father me, Andi. That's what he didn't do."

  Her eyes went round. "Wh-what?"

  His smile failed to reach his eyes. "I'm a bastard, all right? The great Thomas Winslow wasn't my father. Are you satisfied now?"

  Chapter 14

  Andrea stared at Jesse as if she'd never seen him before. He stood, shoulders slumped in defeat, staring at the floor.

  "A-are you sure?"

  His ring of laughter was sharp, biting. "As sure as a bastard can be of his parentage."

  "Don't call yourself that."

  "That's what I am. A bastard, a by-blow, the get of some poor fool my mother had the misfortune to fall in love with."

  His words, so bitter and full of anger, shocked her. It all made some kind of crazy sense now. His hatred of the land and his father. His leaving... not even trusting this secret to her. Not believing that she could forgive it. Had he had so little faith in her love for him? So little faith in her? The realization stung.

  All these years and he'd never told anyone. Through a sweep of lashes, Jesse's tortured gaze rose to meet hers. Shame burned in his eyes. Suddenly, she knew what it had cost him to tell her. The scent of honeysuckle drifted in through the open window. Lightning bugs tapped against the pane in the silence that stretched between them.

  "It was that last day you found out, wasn't it?"

  "Yes." His eyes held hers.

  "Why? Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Tell you?" He laughed humorlessly. "You think I wanted you to know that about me? That I didn't even have a decent name to give you? That the man who had pretended to be my father for my whole life had made it plain the farm I'd broken my back over would never truly belong to me because his blood didn't run in my veins?"

  "Oh, Jesse..."

  He made a fist with his good hand. "Y'know, I never knew what it was about me he hated so much." Jesse's voice shook. "He was different with Zach. Zach couldn't do anything wrong. The old man saved that damn strap for me."

  "Zach loved you."

  "I know that," Jesse said, shaking his head in dismissal. "I never blamed him. Zach never sided with the old man against me, in fact more than once he tried to take the blame for things I did to save me from a strapping. He was my brother regardless of the blood we didn't share."
r />   Andrea watched him closely. "How did you find out?"

  "You know that's the ironic part. I don't think the old man ever meant to tell me. I was such a convenient whipping boy... I guess I finally made him mad enough that it just slipped that day. That last day." He looked up at her.

  Andrea swallowed the thickness in her throat and waited for him to tell her. At last.

  "He was angry about some row I'd just plowed in the cornfield. It wasn't straight enough or deep enough." Jesse smiled grimly. "I disagreed. He accused me of sassin' him and started to undo the buckle on his belt. I warned him against it. By then, I outweighed him by twenty pounds and was two inches taller than him. And I'd already decided, after that last time he'd whipped me, that he'd never hit me again as long as I could fight back."

  "What happened?" she asked.

  "He didn't listen. He took the belt off and started coming at me. I warned him again that he was makin' a mistake. But that only enraged him more. Told me to mind my tongue, called me gutless. Told me I'd never have the stuff it took to be a farmer.

  "There I stood, covered with sweat and dirt from his goddamn field, muscles on fire from pushing that damn plow and what I wanted more than anything at that moment, was to kill him."

  Andrea shook her head. "Did he hit you?"

  "He tried. The belt came down on my arm. I yanked it out of his hand, and slugged him in the jaw." Jesse smiled coldly at the memory. "He went down like a sack of grain with this... real surprised look on his face. It didn't last long. He sat up there in the cornfield and tore my life apart with a few words. He was in a rage. He told me it didn't surprise him that I'd shown my true colors at last and that I was no son of his."

  Jesse raked the fingers of his left hand through his hair. "I didn't know what he meant at first, but I told him that was just fine with me if he wanted to disown me.

  "He said to me, 'I don't have to disown somethin' that never belonged to me in the first place, you ungrateful little bastard.' He said I was the spawn of some other man and he'd done my ma a favor marrying her."