“I’m not sure. But it heals the horses quickly enough.”
His eyes widened. “Horse liniment?”
“It won’t kill you.”
“No, but you might,” he muttered.
She didn’t understand. “I wouldn’t hurt you. I only want to help you.”
Ruth tugged on her wrist, but he tightened his hold to something near painful. “You have to stop touching me, Ruth. It’s wrong and you know it.”
“How can this be wrong? Don’t you feel it, too?”
“Yes, damn it.” He released her with a shove and a growl. “If you don’t stop, I’ll show you exactly how wrong this is.”
There were times when she caught a glimpse of the boy she’d loved lurking in his eyes. But more often than not she saw a man she did not recognize, a man that frightened her a little with his hard hands, his mysterious scars, his rough words and mercurial moods.
Noah had been in her heart for years, in her dreams, too. But in them he’d only walked back into her life. There the dream had ended. In her girlish fantasies there had been none of the awareness that set her on edge whenever she was with him and made her half crazy with longing whenever she wasn’t. Ruth had a feeling any dreams of Noah from this point on would be quite different.
“What is this?” She placed her palm against his chest, and Noah’s heart thudded in time with the pulse in her wrist.
He caught his breath, closed his eyes and his face tightened. She took the tiny respite, smoothing her hand over his heated skin, across to his breastbone, then down, and down some more, her fingers tangling in the softer hair that furred his belly.
Before she could touch what she’d only gotten a hint of yesterday, he opened his eyes. “Stop it, Ruth.”
The longing in his gaze warred with the weariness in his voice. His face pale and drawn, he looked older than she knew him to be.
Ruth removed her fingers from the top of the sheet and softly touched his hair. “I’m sorry. You’re tired.”
He pulled his head away. “You don’t understand what you’re playing with.”
Her hand, hanging bereft in the air between them, clenched. “I’m not a child, Noah. I know what I feel.”
“Lust. Plain and simple.”
He sounded so certain, and Noah should know. He’d been out in the world. He’d been a man for a long time. Still …
“What I feel when I touch you isn’t plain and it certainly isn’t simple. I—”
“You’re right.” He cut her off, a bit desperately she thought. What did he think she’d meant to say? That she loved him?
She had. She did. She always would.
“Desire isn’t plain or simple,” he continued. “Especially the first time you feel it.”
Ruth narrowed her eyes, unconscionably furious that he’d felt this before with someone else. What they shared was special—had been from the beginning and was only more so now.
“I’m flattered you feel this way about me, Ruth.”
“Flattered?”
She was getting angrier by the minute. He acted as if she were an ignorant child, as if he found her amusing. He behaved as if he did not feel the same way, and she knew that he did.
Oh, he might not love her, but he wanted her. She glanced down at the sheet draped over his hips. He couldn’t deny that.
Noah put his hands in his lap. “We come from two different worlds—”
“No. We come from the same world. That’s how we got to Kansas.”
“Even then you and I were different. I was a thief. You were a child. I came to that train on a leash, Ruth. Maybe you’ve forgotten that, but I never will.”
The bitterness in his voice made her pause. At the time he hadn’t seemed to care about the rope. She’d thought him proud and brave. But maybe he’d learned to hide his humiliation at a very young age.
“I haven’t forgotten.” She put her hand atop his, refusing to retreat when he started. “I’m the one who set you free.”
His face, hard and angry, smoothed, then gentled. “You tried at any rate. But there are some things a man can never be free of.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
He shook his head. “Marry the sheriff. Have ten kids. Forget about me.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t know why you want to deny that what we have is special. What’s between us is too powerful to go away.”
Before he could divine what she was about, Ruth kissed him, using what little she knew, combined with everything she’d learned, to pour all that she felt into him.
For a moment he resisted, his body rigid, his mouth stiff and tight. But when she traced the seam of his lips with her tongue, teased the corners, too, then feathered her fingers into his hair and cradled his head between her hands, he relaxed, bit by bit, and soon he was kissing her back.
At first he did not touch her, squeezing his hands together in his lap as if to keep some part of himself under control, and that would not do.
She moved closer, her breasts pressing against his bare skin until his warmth seemed to seep through the excessive layers of her clothes. He groaned, the sound a delicious vibration against her lips and her chest, then wrapped his big hands around her hips and held on.
Ruth did nothing but kiss his mouth and touch his hair. To be truthful, she wasn’t exactly sure what else to do. One of her most vivid memories of Noah was waking up with her cheek against his chest, his arms holding her safe and tight. The peace she’d experienced then still existed, yet at the same time she felt anything but peaceful.
Back then he’d smelled of winter wind and summer salt. He still did. If she put her cheek against his chest now, she would be unable to stop herself from tasting that scent, walking her lips over the glorious expanse of muscle, flesh and bone. She wanted to open her mouth and take part of him within.
Insane longings bubbled inside her, and if she acted on any one of them, he would push her away. She wasn’t so foolish as to believe he’d lost his head as much as she had. Though she wanted to kiss him until the night blew away, Ruth broke the embrace before Noah could.
Eyes closed, lips wet, he was so beautiful tears burned in her throat. Not wanting him to see how much he affected her, she inched away. His fingers clung to her hips, then slid free as she stood and turned.
“Think about that while you sleep, Noah. I know I will be.”
Lori Austin is a pseudonym for Lori Handeland, who sold her first novel in 1993. Since then she has written many novels, novellas, and short stories in a variety of genres. She has won multiple RITA Awards from the Romance Writers of America. Lori lives in southern Wisconsin with her husband and enjoys occasional visits from her grown sons.
Lori Austin Page 9