Unfortunately, the pathetic cries also agitated his worried mama. Bawling in response to her calf’s cries, she nosed right to the brink of the ledge. Her front hooves sent a shower of dirt and loose rocks rattling down the slope. Fearing she might go over the side and land on top of her calf or Jake or both, Rachel flapped her arms.
“Get back! Shoo!”
She should have realized a mama in the throes of panic for her baby wouldn’t be shooed. Instead of retreating, the beefy animal swung toward the new threat. Emitting something between a moo and a growl, she lowered her head and charged.
“Hey!”
Rachel didn’t have time to think, didn’t have time for anything except immediate evasive action. The rope was stretched taut at the small of her back, blocking retreat. Hammer stood braced on his forelegs at her immediate right. That left only the gully on the left. With a warning yelp to Jake, she plunged over the edge.
Her feet went out from under her halfway down the steep slope. She landed on her bottom and bounced the rest of the way, passing the calf on his journey up. She had a fleeting impression of a wet black nose and startled brown eyes mere seconds before an iron band clamped around her flailing arm. Jake jerked her to a halt, digging in his boot heels to steady himself against the pull of her weight.
“Hang on!”
As if she could do anything else with him manacling her wrist! Dangling by one arm, Rachel flopped like a landed trout. Rocks loosened by her wild slide and the hooves of the calf now scrambling the last few feet to his mama tumbled down around her head.
She flung up her free arm to protect herself…or tried to. Her elbow collided with a hard chest as Jake threw himself down to shield her. His weight landed full on top of her. Her breath left with a whoosh. Pinned between the unyielding slope and Jake’s solid, equally unyielding mass, Rachel sucked in swift, shallow gulps of air.
Those quick little gasps proved a serious mistake. Every rise of her breasts mashed them against Jake’s chest. Every panting breath brought his scent with it. Leather and male, horse and dust. The combination was so rich, so heady that she was still gasping when he eased the bulk of his weight from her prone body.
Worry roughened his voice. His blue eyes raked her face. “Are you all right?”
“I think so.”
With their legs tangled and her wrist still caught in his grip, she tried an experimental wiggle. The tentative movement produced no sharp pains or serious aches. Just a sudden, intense sensation.
Belatedly, Rachel discovered that Jake had wedged a knee between her legs to anchor himself in place. His thigh now rode as hard as a fence pole against the inner seam of her jeans. Gulping down another quick rush of air, she tried for cheery and nonchalant.
“I don’t think anything’s broken except my dignity.”
Afterward, she could never satisfactorily analyze just what she’d expected from Jake at that point. A disgusted reminder that he’d warned her to stand back from the edge, maybe. At the very least, a demand to know why the hell she’d come slithering down the slope on her backside. What she didn’t expect was the laughter that slid into his eyes.
“After a wild ride like that one, you’re going to need that liniment for sure,” he said.
This time, she managed to bite back the invitation for him to rub it on. But she couldn’t hold back her little shiver of delight when he lifted a hand and brushed her tangled hair away from her cheek. His touch was so tender, yet so tantalizing that the air she’d managed to pull into her lungs whooshed right out again.
“Jake…”
At her husky murmur, regret replaced laughter she’d glimpsed in his eyes a second before. Rachel could feel his withdrawal even before he eased his body away from hers.
“Come on, I’ll help you up.”
“I want you, too.”
Her breathless admission froze him in place. His gaze sliced down to hers. Rachel saw a frown form and recklessly plunged ahead. He might try to suppress the sparks that flew every time they got within twenty feet of each other, but there was no way she could ignore the heat that sizzled just under her skin whenever and wherever he touched her.
“I just want to keep things clear between us,” she said gruffly.
As clear as they could be between a member of an interagency task force and a possible suspect.
Like a pesky little gnat that wouldn’t go away her conscience buzzed at her. She should tell him about Russ Taggart. She should let Jake know that he wasn’t the only one hauling around a mixed bag of emotions about this crazy attraction between them. She’d given Russ enough time to run his computer queries and background checks. She owed Jake the truth.
She came within a breath of confessing, was searching for just the right way to bring the investigation out in the open, when other matters took priority. Most notably, Jake’s reaction to her blunt admission that she wanted him. An ache started in the middle of Rachel’s chest as she watched his frown fade and his expression go distant with memories of another time, another woman.
“I know,” she whispered, reaching up to stroke his bristly cheek. “You loved Ellen. You still love her.”
His silence thundered in her ears. She might have lost her nerve at that point if he hadn’t blinked. His blue eyes shifted, focused once again on her. The painful past still lingered in their depths, but Rachel saw her own image reflected there as well.
“You and I aren’t to the point of loving yet,” she said slowly. “We might never be. But I’m willing to see where this leads if you are.”
When he didn’t answer, Rachel slid her hand from his cheek and threaded it through the damp, springy hair at his nape. Soft as a whisper, gentle as the breeze that sighed through the pines, she fit her mouth to his.
He’d warned her. The thought ricocheted through Jake’s head as he drank in her taste. He’d told her flat out that he wanted her, that she stirred needs he was trying his damnedest to keep under control. Too late he realized his warning should have been directed at himself and not her.
One touch, and he wanted more. One taste, and heat exploded in his veins. He fought the sensations. Refused to acknowledge his need until Rachel’s mouth opened under his.
Her tongue offered a pleasure he’d denied for so long. Too long, he thought on a rush of hunger. With a swift pull, Jake scooted her back under him, positioned her so that her body fused with his at a dozen different pleasure points. Angling his head, he deepened the kiss.
After the first, muffled gasp, Rachel answered with a flaring hunger that fed his. Legs tangling, lips warm and pliant, she jerked loose the wrist he’d forgotten he still held and wrapped both arms around his neck. A distant corner of Jake’s mind registered the dust still floating in the air around them. Spared a fleeting thought for the horses waiting patiently above. Worried that he was too heavy for her.
If he was, she didn’t seem to mind. Her tongue played with his, teasing, taunting. Their teeth clicked, scraped. Desire coiled hot and urgent in Jake’s gut with each bump of their noses and chins, each twist of her hips under his. Rock hard and aching, he raised his knee to ease the pressure of his too-tight jeans.
Or tried to. It was the same knee he’d wedged between Rachel’s thighs to keep her from sliding the rest of the way down the gully. The movement, slight as it was, unintentionally increased the pressure on her mound and generated an instantaneous reaction. She arched her head, breaking the kiss. Red rushed into her cheeks. She let out a low, ragged hiss that could have been a sigh or a moan, and Jake’s control slipped its last restraints.
He forgot the fact she’d just bumped down a rocky slope on her bottom, no doubt collecting a few bruises along the way. Forgot his determination to put her out of his head and out of his dreams. Forgot that she wasn’t Ellen.
It was Rachel who fanned this heat in his belly. Rachel who writhed under him, her mouth as greedy as his. Rachel who yanked his shirttails out of his jeans with the same ferocity he attacked her jacket. The red NT
SB windbreaker had twisted under her. Grunting with a combination of frustration and urgency, Jake snaked an arm around the small of her back and lifted her. He had to tug at the slippery material twice before he could get the zipper within reach.
With the windbreaker out of the way, he made short work of her knit top. A single glance at the stiff, dusky nipple pushing against the cream-colored bra told him she’d reached the same flash point he had.
The visible evidence of her excitement almost pushed Jake over the edge. He came within a half a breath of ripping off that scrap of lace, taking her tender flesh in his mouth, tormenting her with his teeth and tongue.
He ached for her. Wanted her more than he’d imagined he could want any woman again in this lifetime. But he wasn’t going to yank down her jeans and mount her like a stallion after a mare in heat. She deserved better. She deserved more.
“Rachel.”
Smoothing back her tangled hair, he willed his hand to a gentleness he was far from feeling.
“Sweetheart.”
She blinked, her body still trembling with eagerness under his. A question formed in her brown-green eyes as she took in his expression. Jake answered it with an honesty that almost ripped him apart.
“I think we should see where this leads, too.”
The hoarse admission cost him more than he’d anticipated. Memories swirled. Pain pulled at his heart. Ruthlessly, he ignored both.
“But not here,” he said gruffly. “Not like this. I didn’t anticipate… I wasn’t planning…”
He gave a quick shake of his head, disgusted with his fumbling attempt to explain.
“I don’t have anything to protect you.”
It took a moment for Rachel’s still reeling senses to grasp his meaning. Surprise replaced the chill of his withdrawal, bringing with it a rush of warmth.
She’d always assumed responsibility for her own protection. She was too intelligent to leave something so important to chance. And the men she’d dated, including the smooth, handsome congressional staffer she’d been seeing for almost a year, had always expected her to take care of things.
That Jake would put her welfare before the hunger she’d felt in his hard mouth and rough hands made the other men she’d known seem shallow and self-serving by contrast. It also opened a little door in Rachel’s heart she suspected would never quite close.
In that moment, she said a swift, silent goodbye to Dale, who’d been pushing for the commitment Rachel wasn’t ready for. She’d call him, she swore. Tonight. Tell him the instincts that had held her back, the doubts she’d hoped to sort through during her visit to Arizona, had finally crystallized. She knew now that they weren’t right for each other, knew why the future she’d tried to envision with him had never jelled.
She’d been searching for Jake. Wanting him. Waiting for him.
Now that she’d found him, she decided wryly, she could wait a little longer. Jake was right. This wasn’t the time or the place. Sam and his wife might fly overhead at any moment. The cows staring down at them from the ledge were too interested an audience. Besides, there was a jagged rock digging a permanent hole in her hip.
“We’ll try this again sometime soon,” she murmured, brushing her mouth across his. “With no rocks or bawling calves to distract us.”
“Very soon.”
The soft promise sent a thrill down her spine, as did Jake’s strength as he helped her up the slope. Her hand clasped tight in his, Rachel clambered back onto the ledge.
By the time they arrived back at the valley, she ached in every part of her body. The combination of several hours in a saddle and her precipitous slide down a rocky canyon wall had left her legs so rubbery she could barely climb into the pickup for the drive home.
Sliding a hand under her arm, Jake helped her into the cab. The small but intimate courtesy didn’t go unnoticed by his brothers or sisters-in-law. Rachel caught their swift exchange of looks, just as she’d picked up on the speculative glances the rest of the Henderson clan had aimed their way when she and Jake had brought in the stray cows and their calves.
She’d done her best to shake the dust and dirt from her clothes and hair before they left the canyon, but a single peek in the pickup’s visor mirror illustrated the futility of her efforts. Makeup-less, tangle-haired, her lips red and swollen from Jake’s kisses, Rachel gave up worrying about appearances during the long ride back to the Bar-H.
The silence that settled in the cab differed considerably from the charged tension that had gripped her and Jake during the drive out. He still had doubts. Still grappled with his guilt and memories of Ellen. Rachel accepted that, even as she acknowledged that her own doubts had disappeared. Anticipation hummed in her veins, along with a sense of rightness she’d never experienced before. The future hovered before her, lit with the same shimmering, seductive glow the colored lights had cast that night at the fair.
She was still basking in the glow when they arrived at the ranch with the cavalcade of trucks and stock trailers strung out behind them. Rachel slid out of the pickup and grabbed for the frame. She clung to it for support while her legs wobbled like half-set Jell-O.
Frowning, Jake came around the front of the pickup. “You okay?”
She gave him the same answer she had after her precipitous descent into the gully. “I think so.”
“You’re too shaky to walk. Why don’t I carry you into the house? You could put your feet up and rest while we finish out here.”
As delightful as that sounded, Rachel shook her head. “And admit that I’m a wimp in front of your brothers and the rest of the crew? No way. Just give me a minute or two. I’ll be all right.”
A smile edged its way through his concern. “I can think of a lot of ways to describe you, Ms. Quinn. Wimp isn’t one of them.”
That perked her up considerably. With an answering grin, she waggled her brows and was about to inquire just what adjectives he’d use when a short, stocky figure strode around the side of the house.
The silly grin froze on Rachel’s face. Her stomach plummeted halfway to her boots. Russ Taggart’s expression as he raked a hard glance over his only lead in a year-long investigation sent it plunging the rest of the way.
“Mr. Henderson?”
Jake’s gaze drifted over the newcomer’s jeans, white cotton shirt and lightweight sports coat. “Yes.”
Taggart slipped a hand inside his jacket and extracted a black leather case. With a quick twist of his wrist, he flipped it open. His nickel-plated badge gleamed dully in the afternoon sunshine.
“I’m Russell Taggart, FBI Special Agent in Charge.”
“In charge of what?”
With a cool, assessing glance, Taggart tucked the ID case back into his pocket. “Among other things, I’m heading the investigation into the crash of a chartered DC-10 that went down in the mountains north of here last year.”
Frowning, Jake looked to Rachel. He was remembering their conversation the other night, she guessed. Recalling how Aunt Alice had bragged about her niece’s role in this very investigation.
“We need to talk to you, Mr. Henderson.”
Jake’s glance cut back to the FBI agent. “What about?”
“About the fifty-dollar bill you passed at the fair a few nights ago. We have reason to think it came from a DC-10 that crashed last year. We’ve been trying to ascertain just how the bill came into your possession ever since Ms. Quinn reported seeing you take it out of your wallet.”
Chapter 7
Rachel had faced down some formidable opponents in her career. Her analyses and findings had put her on the firing line often enough that she’d learned to take angry denials and countercharges with an impersonal objectivity.
But there was nothing impersonal about her reaction to the sudden narrowing of Jake’s eyes. Her stomach churning, she stiffened against the anger that slowly reddened the skin of his cheeks.
“You reported me to the FBI?”
“Yes.”
“
The same night we met at the fair?”
“Yes.”
His fury cut loose, stinging her like the steel-tipped prongs of a bullwhip. Even as he lashed into her, Rachel could see he was as disgusted with himself as he was with her.
“Dammit! I’ve tied myself up in knots over you these past few days. Made a total ass of myself. And all the while you were waiting for your friend here to… How did he put it? Ascertain just how that fifty came into my possession?”
She tied herself up in as many knots as he had, but Rachel could see he wasn’t ready to hear that.
“Yes.”
Jake moved toward her then. Only a few inches. Just enough to make her lift her chin and prompt Taggart to step into the breach. His voice bristling with authority, the agent attempted to gain control of the situation.
“Ms. Quinn was part of the initial accident investigation team. Of course she would report her sighting of that bill, just as she agreed to maintain personal contact with you while we ran our checks.”
Jake hooked a sardonic brow. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
The scorn in his voice could have peeled the bark off a ponderosa pine. Rachel certainly felt as though she’d lost a layer or two of skin.
“Jake…”
“I’ll admit you had me fooled during the little scene in the canyon this afternoon. Just how much personal contact were you prepared to maintain during the course of your investigation, Ms. Quinn?”
As angry now as he was, Rachel fired back. “What happened in the canyon this afternoon had nothing to do with that blasted fifty-dollar bill. It had nothing to do with anything except you and me.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Dammit, Jake, I wasn’t stringing you along this afternoon. I…”
“Got a problem here, big brother?”
Her fists clenching, Rachel bit back her hot denials as Reece and Marsh appeared and ranged themselves on either side of their sibling.
“Apparently I do,” Jake answered through tight clenched teeth.
Sydney and Lauren drifted up to join their husbands, as did Shad McCoy and a few of the hands. Together, they formed an impenetrable phalanx.
Twice in a Lifetime Page 7