by Janet Dailey
"Pushing you away?" He laughed at that. "It was all I could do to keep from crushing you in my arms and never letting you go!" His expression sobered to a grim look. "Then you introduced lover boy as your fiancé. I've never come any closer to killing a man in my life." He grasped her shoulders in a punishing grip. "You aren't going to marry him, Jonni."
Under the spell of his disturbing touch, Jonni believed he was probably right. But so many of the things she had believed had turned out to be so wrong. Maybe this crazy, wild fire Gabe had kindled would burn itself out and there would only be cold ashes left. This past week had made chaos of her life.
"I'm too confused to be certain about anything." All her insecurities played across her expression, tousled gold hair sweeping her shoulders with the bewildered shake of her head.
"I love you. You can be sure about that." He lowered his dark head and took her mouth, kissing it deeply. Jonni was again swept breathlessly into the emotional current of his passion, which carried a pledge of eternity. When the pressure of his lips became seductive, she struggled against his persuasive force. Gabe let her escape his kiss, but not his arms. "All I want you to do is love me just a little."
"I need time to think," she protested, and fought the impulse to admit she already cared for him too deeply for her peace of mind.
His jaw was clenched as he suppressed the surge of impatience that flashed in his eyes. It was as if he knew how easily he could physically arouse an answer that would be more satisfactory to him.
"How long?" he demanded.
"Not … long," Jonni promised. She wanted to make her decision when she was free from the unsettling influence of his touch. And she needed to reevaluate her feelings for Trevor.
"It had better not be." Gabe released her and took a step away. He seemed to need the distance between them as much as she did. "I don't know how much more of this I can stand." He pivoted toward the horses. "The lightning has moved on. I think we can risk riding back to the ranch."
"All right." Jonni silently agreed that there was greater danger in remaining where they were.
Bending, Gabe picked up her hat as well as his own and handed it to her. She took it and swept her hair on top of her head, pulling the hat over it. While she tucked a few wayward strands under the crown, Gabe untied the horses and turned them outward. He held the dun's bridle while she mounted and then passed her the reins. Jonni waited under the protective overhang as he swung into his saddle.
The rain was still coming down steadily but the wind had died and the lightning flashes were a considerable distance away. The thunder was a gentle roar. The horses moved reluctantly at their riders' bidding into the rain, their hooves clip-clopping on the wet ground.
Chapter Nine
THE BARN DOOR STOOD OPEN. Ducking her head, Jonni rode the gelding inside out of the rain. Gabe had paused to close the corral gate and was only a few feet behind her. Water dripped from the crease of her hat brim as she dismounted, her toes squishing in wet socks, her leather boots saturated inside and out.
"'I'll take care of the horses." Leading his horse, Gabe reached for her reins. "You'd better go and change into some dry clothes." His gaze didn't quite meet hers.
"Gabe?" There was something she wanted to ask him. Or tell him. Jonni wasn't sure which. She just knew she didn't want to leave him yet.
He turned back to her, and something written in her expression snapped the thin thread of his control. With a stifled groan he caught her in his arms. It must have been what she wanted because she immediately wound her hands behind his neck and met the downward descent of his mouth halfway.
The heat of his body warmed her rain-chilled flesh, which shivered beneath her wet clothes. His deep, langorous kiss swelled her heart to the bursting point. The thought of never feeling this mindless joy again made her cling to him with desperate fingers. If this was love, she didn't want to lose it.
"So this is what's been going on while I've been gone!" A voice as sharp and cutting as a broadax sliced them apart.
Jonni looked in disbelief at the man standing just inside the doorway, his legs spread slightly apart, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. Her pulse drummed an alarm, its message beating wildly in her throat.
"Trevor!" The shock of identification was in her voice. Her gaze ran to Gabe, who had pivoted at Trevor's cold challenge. He stood a half a step in front of her, partially shielding her. The wet shirt, plastered to his skin, revealed tautly coiled muscles ready to spring.
"If you remember my name, maybe you also remember that I'm your fiancé," Trevor said in cold, sarcastic condemnation.
"What are you doing here?" Jonni breathed the question, her feet rooted to the barn floor. Part of her kiss-dazed senses was beginning to assimilate the potential danger in the situation.
"Surely it's obvious. I came here to be with you for the weekend." Trevor's eyes never stayed on her long. They kept flickering to Gabe, aware of where the opposition stood and of the threat he represented.
"Why didn't you let me know you were coming?" she demanded in agitation. If she'd had any advance warning at all of Trevor's arrival, the atmosphere wouldn't be crackling with such violent undercurrents.
"I wanted to surprise you. Some surprise!" he jeered. "I flew in ahead of the storm, only to discover you'd gone riding. Or at least that was what your father said. He failed to mention that you'd gone riding with him."
"He didn't know," Jonni protested, not wanting Trevor to think her father had any knowledge of the change in her relationship to Gabe.
"I went out to check the cattle," Gabe said in an emotionless voice that made Jonni's blood run cold. "At the last minute Jonni decided to ride along with me."
"And to think that while I've been pacing the floor, half out of my mind with worry over you out there in that storm, you were with him!" Trevor had begun to tremble visibly with jealous anger.
"We would have been back sooner, but when the storm came up we had to take shelter," Jonni explained. Considering Trevor's present state, she had the feeling she was wasting her breath, but she had to make some attempt to keep this scene from erupting into something ugly!
"That must have been cozy," he taunted.
"Nothing happened." Jonni knew how close that statement had come to being a lie, and her complexion crimsoned at Trevor's skeptical glance. Almost immediately it swept to include Gabe.
"I had a feeling all along about you, Stockman," Trevor accused in a curling sneer.
"Isn't that a coincidence?" There was something reckless and dangerous in Gabe's coolly amused response, all pretense of politeness discarded. "I'll bet I had the exact same feeling about you."
Her heart catapulted into her throat. She was being left out of the conversation, ignored. The two men were now regarding each other with open challenge, their eyes locked in combat, each trying to stare the other down.
"I've always suspected the code of the West was just a myth — the honest, hardworking cowboy with all his supposed righteous morality for another man's property." Trevor was blatantly contemptuous. "You're nothing but a thief, trying to take something that doesn't belong to you."
"I'm not the thief." Cold steel ran through Gabe's voice. "Jonni was wearing my brand long before she ever met you."
A cold chill of inevitability shivered through her veins. It was snowballing out of control. Jonni was powerless to slow the momentum that was racing to a final confrontation. There seemed nothing she could say to prevent it.
Trevor laughed, a cold, deadly sound that came from his throat. "I'll bet you'd like to believe that. You probably had it all worked out, didn't you, Stockman? If you could marry the rancher's daughter, you could get your hands on the whole operation. You wouldn't be just the hired hand anymore."
Jonni stopped breathing. That remark was a direct insult, a slap at Gabe's pride. A deadly stillness enveloped Gabe. She was reminded of a cougar, poised to leap on its prey. Any hope that there was something she could say or do to sto
p this vanished.
When Gabe finally spoke, it was with a calmness that said he found a certain satisfaction in the situation. "I sincerely hope you're prepared to back that up, Martin, because I'll enjoy making you retract that statement."
Trevor hesitated for only an instant. "You're damned right I'm prepared to back it up." He started forward, shrugging out of his suit jacket as he walked toward Gabe.
"No! Stop this!" Jonni grabbed at Gabe's elbow in a desperate appeal.
His eyes never left Trevor as he removed her hand from his arm and pushed her to one side. "Stay out of the way, Jonni," he told her. "This is going to be a pleasure."
Blindly, Jonni retreated until she came up against the rough lumber of the barn wall. Her hands were pressed against the surface, indifferent to the splintering texture scraping at her palms as she watched the scene unfolding before her eyes.
With rare disregard for the care of his clothes, Trevor tossed his suit jacket toward the corner of the barn and began tugging the knot of his silk tie loose. Never once did he slow the deliberate strides that carried him toward Gabe.
"The first time I met you I thought you were an insolent devil." With the tie thrown aside, Trevor unfastened his collar button, and two more. "I wished then that I'd rammed my fist down your throat. I should have. This time I will, you can count on it."
Gabe never said a word. He just waited, flatfooted, for Trevor to walk up to him. At the last minute he ducked under Trevor's swing, the blow glancing off his shoulder, and hooked a fist into Trevor's midsection. Trevor grunted and blocked the following right to his jaw.
Paralyzed by the action, Jonni couldn't look away. Trevor was no match for Gabe — she knew it. Gabe had the weight advantage, was stronger and had a longer reach. It was all stupid and senseless, but she seemed to be the only one who realized that.
Jonni winced when Trevor staggered under Gabe's fist and came back for more. An overhand punch snapped Gabe's head back and Jonni saw blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Trevor had drawn first blood, but that didn't mean he'd win the fight.
After an exchange of more smashing blows, Trevor was knocked to the ground. Jonni watched him rise. There was a gash across his cheekbone and a thin trail of red from his nose. She wanted to scream at him to quit, to give up before he was badly hurt, but she knew Trevor wouldn't hear her — and if he did, he wouldn't listen.
Halfway to his feet, he lunged at Gabe. Gabe sidestepped the first blow, which carried the full force of Trevor's weight behind it, and rocked under the second before landing a punch of his own. Both men had begun to breathe heavily, grunting with each swing. The brawling sounds had the stabled horses whickering nervously and shifting in their stalls, adding to the noise.
A right from Gabe sent Trevor sprawling on the floor near the opposite wall. As Trevor staggered to his feet he grabbed a pitchfork propped against the wall. Jonni's gaze widened in horror.
"Gabe! Look out!" She shouted the warning.
Even as she called out, Trevor was swinging the pitchfork like a baseball bat, apparently unaware of the lethal, pointed prongs weighting the end. Gabe's raised forearm warded off the blow then twisted to grab hold of the weapon. While Trevor fought to keep possession of the pitchfork, he left himself open for Gabe's right cross. It knocked him backward onto the floor, tearing the wooden handle from his grip.
Gabe turned and speared the pitchfork into a small mound of hay in the corner. Cold anger darkened his expression as his attention returned to the half-conscious man in the blood-splattered and dirty silk shirt. Trevor was trying to rise. Gabe reached down to grab him by the front of his shirt and haul him to his feet, and the savage intent written on his face ended Jonni's silent role as spectator.
"No. No!" In a frightened rage, she flung herself at the arm Gabe had cocked to swing. "You're going to kill him! Stop it!" She beat at him, aware that her ineffectual blows were inflicting little damage. "Stop it, you big brute!" she screamed at him. "Can't you see he's hurt? Leave him alone!"
"I'm finished with him." Breathing heavily from the brawl, Gabe let him go.
Trevor swayed drunkenly and would have fallen if Jonni hadn't rushed to his side to support him, taking his weight. Trevor made a weak attempt to push her aside without success. Her hand lightly and soothingly stroked his jaw as she turned his head to look at her. His eyes were glazed over, betraying his barely conscious condition.
"It's over, Trevor," she whispered to him, an ache in her voice. His handsome, chiseled face was bloodied and bruised and no trace of his cocky self-confidence remained. "You're hurt. You can't fight anymore." He stopped resisting and leaned heavily on her. He was beaten and knew it. Her flashing eyes turned on Gabe in accusation. "Just what did you prove?" she challenged, almost choking on the sob that rose in her throat.
There was a dangerous narrowing of Gabe's black eyes. The back of his hand was pressed to his mouth, half covering his mustache. When his hand came away there was a smear of blood on his skin, but Gabe hadn't taken the abuse Trevor had received.
"He sweats and bleeds just like the rest of us," Gabe answered, and reached to pick up his hat from the barn floor.
"You're nothing but a brute and a bully!" Her voice quivered. "You knew you could beat him. You knew you were stronger and faster, but you just had to let him provoke you into fighting. Trevor wasn't any match for you, and you knew it. You challenged him!"
"He didn't have to take me up on it."
"You know he did," Jonni accused.
"Instead of rehashing how the milk got spilled, you'd better do something about taking care of lover boy," Gabe suggested dryly. He hesitated a fraction of a second, his hands on his hips, then he added, "I'll help you get him up to the house."
"No!" Jonni rejected his offer of assistance with an angry toss of her head. "I don't, need your help, and Trevor wouldn't thank you for it. You've done enough damage without humiliating him still more by dragging him to the house for mom and dad to see."
"Jonni, I — Whatever Gabe had been on the verge of saying, he clamped his mouth shut on it, a jaw-tensing hardness in his expression.
When he failed to make a retort to which she could answer back, tears welled in her eyes. A puzzled anger and hurt made her throat ache, and she lashed out at him in frustration. "I don't understand you … I don't understand either of you! It was senseless and stupid to fight. What kind of satisfaction could you get out of hitting each other?"
"It was strictly a personal satisfaction," Gabe answered grimly. "You see, Jonni, we didn't have anything to lose. One of us had already lost you before the fight, ever started." Flat, expressionless black eyes made a slow sweep of her. "I don't see why you're so upset. Women get a kick out of men fighting over them."
"It's revolting, to see anyone getting beaten up," Jonni denied in a flash of anger.
Trevor lurched against her and her arms tightened to steady him. "My legs don't want to stand up," he murmured in a dazed voice.
Her heart contracted at the sight of the bruised and swelling face reeling close to hers. "Ssh, darling!" She soothed him with her voice, treating him like an injured and confused child. "I'll help you."
With a gesture of weariness Gabe pulled his hat low on his forehead and turned away. "Take him up to the house before he bleeds all over you."
Jonni glared at the callously indifferent man walking to collect the saddled horses. His total lack of sympathy for his defeated opponent angered her, but Gabe wasn't paying any heed to her.
"Come, on, Trevor." She shifted her attention to the wobbling man leaning against her. Draping his arm over her shoulder, she turned him toward the barn door. "Let's go to the house and treat those cuts and bruises on your face."
Trevor tried to make his legs obey, but his was a staggering walk that relied heavily on Jonni for both support and direction. The ground, muddy from the heavy rain and continued drizzle, didn't provide solid footing for either of them. Jonni slipped and slid, half carrying Trevor. T
he sprinkling rain ran down her hair and into her eyes, hampering her vision and making the short journey even more difficult. By the time she reached the front porch of the house she was panting from the exertion.
"We're almost there," she promised Trevor, and gathered herself for the effort of pushing the door open and maintaining her balance at the same time.
Turning the knob, she kicked the door open with the toe of her boot. She was trying to maneuver Trevor across the threshhold when her father appeared in the foyer. Bewildered astonishment opened his mouth and drew a frown on his forehead.
Jonni didn't have time for explanations at the moment. "Help me get him inside, dad." The strain of her burden echoed itself in the gasping request for assistance.
But John was already hurrying forward to steer Trevor into the house and add the support of his arms. One took at the battered face and he shouted, "Caroline!" Then his gaze slashed questioningly to Jonni. "What happened? He looks as if he ran into a brick wall."
"It was Gabe," she said stiffly.
An eyebrow arched. "That's the same thing," her father muttered, almost to himself. "Let's take him into the kitchen," he directed.
"Good heavens, John, what's the panic?" her mother inquired in a laughing voice as she rounded the doorway of the dining room, wiping her hands on her apron. She didn't require an answer when she saw Trevor. Having been a nurse before she was, married, she was instantly all crisp efficiency and bustling concern. "I'll get some warm water and the first-aid kit. Bring him to the kitchen."
Together Jonni and her father took him to the kitchen. A basin of warm water was already on the table, along with clean towels and an antiseptic. The first-aid kit was opened and Caroline Starr was removing the items she felt she might need.
When they had him seated in a chair, Caroline handed Jonni a small bottle with its cap removed. "Here, give him a good whiff of this ammonia. That should bring him around."
Jonni held the bottle to his nose. When Trevor gasped and staffed coughing, she took it away. "Enough," he insisted in a more lucid voice.