Victoria poured water into the coffeemaker. “Yes, that’s true. After you left for Texas, his heart grew steadily weaker. He needed daily medical attention.”
He considered her words for a moment. “You Ketchums have never lacked money. Couldn’t you have hired a live-in nurse?”
With the coffee dripping, she walked over to where he sat at the pine table. “We did hire a nurse. But after the fifth one quit, Ross and I both realized it was hopeless.” She made a helpless gesture with her hands. “You know how Daddy was. Particular and demanding. None of the nurses could please him. They’d do something he didn’t like and then he’d get all worked up and yell and throw things. The situation was putting added stress on his heart. I eventually decided the only choice was for me to care for him myself.”
His expression knowing, he glanced at her. “And put your life on hold.” Again, he wanted to add.
She grimaced. “I didn’t think of it that way.”
“No. You wouldn’t.”
Stepping closer, she looked down at him, then clasped her hands together. As though she was trying to curb the urge to touch him in some way. The idea heated his blood like a shot of raw whiskey.
“Look Jess, I know that if your Pa needed your help you’d be the first to give it to him.”
He nodded. “Of course I would. I’d do anything I could to help him. But not give up my career as a lawman. He wouldn’t expect or want that from me.”
Jess watched her eyes slowly search his face and was surprised that he saw no accusation in the green depths. Instead, for the first time he could remember, she was looking at him as though she really wanted to understand his way of thinking.
“And you believe Tucker wanted me to put off my career as a doctor?” she asked softly.
Jess took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he considered Victoria’s question. He didn’t want to argue with her. God knew she’d pulled his baby back from a horrible fever and he was very grateful for all she’d done for the both of them. Yet he couldn’t lie about his feelings on a matter that had ultimately torn them apart.
Slowly, he swallowed a bite of the venison then said, “I believe Tucker wanted you to put off anything in your life that would take you away from him. Especially me.”
Color filled her cheeks. “That doesn’t make sense, Jess. He had Ross. And Hugh, before he got killed. There wasn’t any need for him to be so possessive of me.”
“You’re right. There wasn’t any need for it. The man had a thriving ranch, plenty of money and a family that surrounded him with love and attention. But you were his little girl, his sunshine.” Just as she’d been Jess’s sunshine, he thought. And once they’d parted, the world had been a much darker place for him.
If Jess had been throwing the words at her in an accusing way, Victoria would have found it easy to be insulted, to hurl accusations right back at him. But he wasn’t angry or blaming. He was quietly stating the facts, the way he’d seen them. Had she been blind back then, she wondered, or had he? Had Tucker purposely clung to her just so she wouldn’t leave with Jess? The mere idea that she was even asking herself such a question left her feeling like the floor was tilting beneath her feet.
Walking back over to the cabinet, she poured two mugs full of coffee and carried them back to the table. Sitting across from him, she took a careful sip of her drink, then said with quiet reflection, “I can’t deny that I was Daddy’s favorite. I don’t really know why. He loved his sons. Losing Hugh to that horrible accident in the bull pen was very difficult for him. Then mother died, too, and I guess he felt like his world was crumbling around him. That’s when he started to…cling to me. But obviously you saw all that. All I saw was a parent who needed me.”
Jess had tried so hard to open Victoria’s eyes to the ways of Tucker. But he’d never been able to make her see the old man was a user. He’d cheated on his wife, then pretended to be heartbroken when she’d died. Yet each time Jess had tried to point this out to Victoria, she’d accused him of being selfish and cold-hearted. Now, hearing her admit to being so blinded back then was like gouging open a wound that had never quite healed.
Releasing a heavy breath, he said, “Yeah. I know.”
She reached over and covered his hand with hers, jolting Jess with the unexpected touch. “Do you really, Jess?” she asked softly. “I never believed you understood back then. And I’m not sure you do now.”
The needy look in her green eyes made him so uncomfortable he had to drop his gaze back to his plate. “I don’t think we ought to go into this tonight, Tori. It only dredges up bad feelings for both of us and we don’t need that. At least, I don’t.”
“No. I don’t want us to argue. But ever since you left for Texas, I’ve wondered what happened to us. I wanted you to stay here with me…more than anything.”
Her raw, husky voice made him want to believe her. And maybe he did to a certain point. But the truth was she’d not wanted him enough to leave New Mexico and Tucker behind.
Cursing as he felt himself softening to her touch and the lure of her words, Jess told himself it didn’t matter what she was saying or how good it felt to have her hand on his.
In a voice gone suddenly gruff, he said, “I wanted a lot of things, too, Victoria. But I didn’t get them.”
As soon as his words died away, the room went unbearably quiet and her hand slowly pulled away from his. From the corner of his eye, Jess watched her rise to her feet and as she walked out of the room, the heavy thudding of his heart seemed to match her footsteps on the Spanish tile.
Lifting his head, he let out a weary breath. He’d not wanted to hurt her. But damn it, he couldn’t get sappy over her again. Not now. Not ever.
Chapter Eight
For the next hour, Jess tried his best to push Victoria completely from his mind. After he finished eating and clearing away the dirty dishes, he checked on Katrina, then went to his bedroom and took a shower. Yet all the while he tried to busy himself, the quiet emptiness of the house began to close in around him.
Eventually, he prowled through several rooms on the pretext of hunting for something to read. When he failed to find Victoria in any of her usual places, he went out to the back porch where several pieces of lawn furniture were scattered across the planked floor.
Although it was dark, there was enough moonlight to allow him to pick up her silhouette sitting in a cushioned glider at the far end of the ground-level porch. As he walked over to her, he told himself he was definitely a glutton for punishment. He didn’t need to be out here. There was no reason for it. Except that where Victoria Ketchum was concerned, he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked with faint surprise.
Not waiting for an invitation, he eased down beside her. “I could ask you the same thing.”
She sighed and he wondered if the sound was an expression of pleasure or if it had been made out of the sheer weariness of dealing with him.
“I’m enjoying the warm night,” she answered his question. “We don’t have very many of them, you know. At least not here in the mountains.”
The fact that her voice was warm and welcoming made him feel like a heel. Although Jess didn’t know why. Earlier, in the kitchen, the only sin he’d committed was speaking truthfully. He couldn’t help it if she didn’t like what he had to say.
“It’s pretty obvious that you’re trying to avoid me,” he said.
Turning her head, she looked at him in the semidarkness and was amazed at how just the sight of his profile still had the power to make her ache with longing.
“You made it clear I was talking too much. So I thought it best to stay out of your way for a while.”
He rubbed a restless hand against his thigh. “You were talking too much,” he admitted. “But,” he shrugged as he searched for his next words, “I didn’t mean to sound so…sharp.”
Pressing her lips together to keep them from trembling, she glanced away from him. In a
husky voice, she said, “Yes, you meant to.”
Sheer frustration caused him to groan loudly and her eyes to sweep back to his twisted features.
“Victoria—” he began only to have her soft voice interrupt him.
“Please don’t start apologizing. Especially when you really don’t mean it.”
But he did mean it, Jess thought. Hurting Victoria, even with just words, was something he no longer wanted to do. When and how that had happened, he didn’t know, but he was certain about one thing—the change scared the heck right out of him.
“Why are you making this so damned hard, Tori? Just what do you want from me?”
The question caused Victoria to writhe with pain. At one time in their lives, he’d known exactly what she’d wanted from him. His touch, his love, his children and the promise that he would love her until their dying days. But she supposed he’d forgotten those days when he’d professed to love her. Back when the two of them had planned to marry and build a house of their own on the Hastings ranch. She knew he didn’t want to hear those sorts of things from her now. The thought made her throat tighten painfully until her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper when she finally answered, “You don’t really want me to answer that, Jess.”
His eyes roamed her shadowed face. “What makes you think so?”
She reached for his hand and slid her fingers intimately between his. Unwittingly, the image of the two of them naked, their bodies entwined, flashed through Jess’s mind and his heart began to pound with hot, needy anticipation.
“Because you still blame me for everything that happened between us,” she answered in a quiet, matter-of-fact way. “Because you…don’t want me…the way I want you.”
He muttered a curse word. “Are you crazy, Tori? Do you know what living under the same roof with you these past few days have been doing to me? It’s all I can do to keep from getting up out of my bed and crossing the hall to you.”
For long moments Jess could feel her eyes searching his face. Then suddenly, before he knew what was happening, her arms were sliding around his neck and her lips hovered next to his.
“Then why haven’t you, Jess?”
Like a flash of lightning, white-hot desire was suddenly surging through his body, stirring his blood to a heated frenzy. With a mind of their own, his hands slipped to her shoulders. His brow leaned into hers. “Don’t do this to me, Tori. To us,” he whispered roughly. “You’ll only be sorry.”
Her fingers pleated together at the back of his neck and pressed into the strong muscle and bone. “I’ve been sorry before.”
The delicious warmth of her body, the flowery scent of her hair and skin, the touch of her fingers were all luring him, tugging him to a place he shouldn’t go. Yet it was impossible for him to pull away from her, from all the things he’d hungered for since the two of them had parted.
“Damn it,” he murmured in a low, agonized voice, “this is crazy. It’s not going to get us anywhere. But, right at this moment I don’t really care.”
Her response was a sigh and a kiss so soft that it only whetted his appetite to have her. With a deep groan of surrender, he pulled her against him and slanted his lips roughly over hers. Instantly her mouth opened, inviting his tongue to slip inside. As he tasted that intimate part of her, his hands slid beneath the hem of her sweater and stroked the soft skin of her back.
Victoria’s head reeled with hot sensations as she was suddenly thrust back to all those years ago when Jess had been her man, her love. The taste of his mouth, the searching pressure of his lips, the hard warmth of his body was all just as wonderful as she remembered and her heart was suddenly weeping from the sheer joy of touching, loving him again.
By the time he finally lifted his head, her pride and common sense had flown away into the dark night. She clung to him tightly, her fingers dug into his back as she pleaded, “Oh Jess, make love to me.”
He eased his head back far enough to look into her eyes. Indecision flickered in the gray depths and she realized he was fighting a mental war with himself. He wanted her, yet he hated himself for it.
As moments passed, she began to fear he was going to reject her, but then his head bent back to hers and he gave her a kiss so hungry and forceful it stole the breath from her lungs.
As she struggled to regain her lost air, his hot gaze roamed her face. “Just remember you asked for this,” he said thickly, then quickly rising to his feet, he tugged her up from the glider.
With her hand gripped tightly in his, she followed him through the maze of lawn furniture until they reached the back door. There he paused and pulled her into his arms long enough to kiss her again.
The urgency and need Victoria tasted on his lips stoked the fires already burning inside her and she quickly began to unfasten the buttons on his shirt. When she parted the heavy cotton and smoothed her hands over his heated skin, he groaned and grabbed her fingers.
“We can’t do this here,” he said huskily.
Taking her by the arm, he led her into the house and down the long hallway to his bedroom.
At the side of the bed, he quickly removed her clothing, pausing long enough between articles for a kiss here, a touch there.
Beneath the urgency of his hands, Victoria’s heart pounded with a mixture of pleasure and unbearable anticipation. For four long years her sexual needs had gone into cold hibernation, but now Jess was here, bringing her desire back to a bright, burning flame. She couldn’t touch him, taste him enough. And the banked glow in her eyes told him so.
He removed his own clothes in hasty jerks. Once they were heaped on the floor in a pile next to Victoria’s, he settled her back onto the mattress, then stretched out beside her. As he took her into his arms, memories were showering his mind, filling him with a longing so deep it shook his hands and pained the very center of his heart.
Pressing kisses along his jaw, she murmured feverishly, “Oh Jess, Jess. This is the way we were always meant to be. Tell me I’m right.”
He closed his eyes against the beauty of her face. “Nothing about this is right, Tori. But God help me, I want you. I can’t stop wanting you.”
“Jess—”
Whatever else she’d been going to say was blotted out by his lips. After that, all words were forgotten as his fingers reacquainted themselves with her breasts, her belly and thighs, and eventually, the warm, wet silkiness between her thighs.
Of all the times he’d imagined making love to Victoria again, he’d always done it in slow motion. He’d taken the time to explore every inch of her, to stoke the fires in both of them until the heat of wanting was unbearable. But now that he had her for real, he couldn’t slow his movements or the rushing need to have her completely.
Sensing his impatience, she ripped her mouth away from his and panted, “Don’t wait, Jess! I need you now!”
He lifted his head just enough to look at her. “Are you sure?”
Wrapping her legs around his, she lifted her hips invitingly against his bulging arousal. “Oh—oh yes,” she choked. “Make me yours. Again.”
Jess didn’t need a second invitation. He slipped the hard length of his arousal inside her and their bodies began to move in a frenzied reunion.
Victoria wasn’t sure if minutes or hours had passed when she finally floated back to earth. Her lungs were heaving and sweat bathed every inch of her skin. Her hands, which had been gripping Jess’s back just moments earlier, were now as limp as her sated body.
Eventually, her breathing slowed and her strength returned. Jess was still draped over her and with a contented sigh, she lifted a hand and began to stroke his shoulder. But after a few moments Jess moved himself off her and rolled to one side of the mattress.
Turning her head, she looked at him with soft, drowsy eyes. Making love with Jess again had felt like coming home from a long, lonely journey and in the process she’d learned what she’d feared for the past four years. Jess was the only man she could ever want. Ever love.
The hollowness to his question widened her eyes and stung her with fear. Had nothing changed? He’d just shaken the earth beneath her. Hadn’t he felt anything?
“Nothing is wrong with me,” she said carefully. “I feel wonderful.”
She would, he thought bitterly. As long as Victoria Ketchum got what she wanted everything was wonderful in her eyes. But then how could he fault her for what just happened between them? Jess asked himself. He’d gotten what he’d wanted, too, hadn’t he?
Expecting him to take her into his arms as he’d always done when they had made love in the past, Victoria rolled toward him and waited.
But this isn’t the past, Victoria. And Jess isn’t exactly that same man who used to make love to you.
Across from her, Jess twisted his head so that he was facing her. There was nothing soft about his expression or his voice as he said, “I don’t know what you think this means, Victoria, but I don’t intend to let you make a fool of me again.”
She stared at him while the rosy glow that, only moments ago had been warming her heart, now changed to ice-cold fingers of disbelief.
“Is that…” she swallowed as emotions threatened to overwhelm her. “Is that what you think I was trying to do?”
Jess’s jaw hardened even more as he steeled himself not to let his eyes dip from her face. He couldn’t allow his gaze to linger on her beautiful, naked body. Not when desire for her was already building in him again like a monster out of control. Damn her. And damn himself for being so pitifully weak.
“I don’t know what your motives are,” he said lowly. “I just want to make sure you understand I have no intentions of getting involved with you, or any woman. Ever again.”
Victoria wasn’t a naive teenager with her head in the clouds. She wasn’t silly enough to believe that one physical connection between them was suddenly going to make him fall in love with her. Or even make him want to have an affair with her. Yet she had expected him to be, if nothing else, warm and tender toward her. Apparently he was incapable of showing her even that much, she thought sadly.
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