Jesse's Renegade (#3 of the Danner Quartet)

by Nancy Bush

  He took off his coat and tossed it over the vanity, unbuttoning his shirt at the same time.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry. Much as you don’t believe it, I haven’t stooped to rape yet. I’m tired and I want to go to sleep.”

  He stripped down to his pants and Kelsey scurried off the window seat and handed him the feather comforter from the bed. Across his right shoulder was a faded scar. Catching her gaze, Jesse said sardonically, “That wasn’t rape either.”

  “I never believed it was. Alice McIntyre was undoubtedly trying to rope you into marriage. As were most of the others.”

  Jesse gazed at his wife in amazement. “The last person I’d expect to come to my defense is you.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why. You’ve been pretty vocal about what you think of my past. Now, good night, Kelsey,” he added pointedly when she still hovered by the chair. “Excuse me. I forgot. Good night, Mrs. Danner. Or isn’t that acceptable either? Maybe you ought to tell me what you’d like to be called.”

  “Kelsey will be fine,” she said sheepishly. She dragged her eyes away from his sun-bronzed chest, hurrying to switch off the lamp by her bedside. The room was plunged into darkness, but as her eyes adjusted, she could make out shadows and shapes in the thin stream of moonlight coming through the window.

  Long, quiet moments passed while Kelsey lay beneath the blankets and stared at the ceiling. She could hear him breathing, but she refused to look his way. It was too tantalizing. Desperately, she wanted to curl against his chest, feel his arms around her, glory in the joy of his lovemaking. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t.

  “Oh, hell,” he muttered suddenly, crossing to the bed. Kelsey stiffened, her heart racing crazily.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded when the bed sank beneath his weight.

  “Crawling in beside my wife.”

  “No, you’re not!”

  “Yes, I am,” he countered, his arms sliding possessively around her waist, drawing her close to him, her back to his chest, his mouth near her ear.

  Tenderly, he brushed back her hair, turning her chin in order to examine every beloved curve and plane of her beautiful face. His fingers traced her skin’s smooth, delicate texture.

  “Don’t, Jesse,” she said softly.

  “I know you don’t want this marriage to continue. Neither do I,” he said, dousing the flare of sudden hope in her breast. “But while it’s lasting, I can’t sleep on the other side of the room, thinking about you here, wanting you.”

  Kelsey closed her eyes and sucked in a long breath. “Jesse…”

  “When I saw you lying on the street, and I didn’t know whether you were—mortally—injured or not, it made me realize how short life is.” His voice was husky, deep with emotion.

  Kelsey swallowed, her pulse beating light and fast. Charm, specifically Jesse’s fatal charm, had been sorely missing since they’d become reacquainted. But now it washed over her in drowning waves. “Your life probably will be short,” she murmured, seeking desperately to derail the thrust of this conversation. “Since you’re bound and determined to throw it away for the sake of vengeance.”

  His face was somewhere near her nape, buried in her hair. His hand stole gently upward, cupping her breast. His breath was torn and ragged. “Montana Gray killed a friend of mine. A woman,” he admitted, the words pulled from within him. “Nell. She’s the main reason I set out after Gray.”

  Kelsey heard one thing. “A woman,” she repeated, hurting inside.

  “Gray killed her. He fashioned it to look like an accident, but he killed her. He killed her because she’d passed on information to me about his business dealings.”

  Kelsey slowly turned in his arms, the enormity of his admission sinking into her brain. She searched his shadowed eyes, the lines of his face, for some evidence that he was lying. But he gazed at her impassively, and except for that passion smoldering in those aquamarine depths, she could discern no other emotion. If he were anyone else, she would swear he was telling the truth.

  “Are you saying your motives were noble?”

  “I don’t know what I’m saying,” he muttered. “But it’s the truth, and I wanted you to know. And I don’t want to wait any longer,” he added, his hands bunching her nightgown and pulling it over her head, tossing it to a distant corner of the room. “I don’t want to wait for this.”

  He bent his head to her breast, sucking her nipple between his teeth with controlled savagery. Kelsey moaned, her own wanting such a building pressure she couldn’t think straight. She plunged her hand in the thickness of his midnight hair, desire raging through her veins in pinpoints.

  “And,” he added against her skin as he placed soft kisses against her quivering breasts and up the slope of her neck, “since you’re certain my life might end at any moment, I might as well take advantage of the few hours left to me.” He swept back her thick-red brown mane, his hand lingering in the rich silken strands. “I’m going to make love to you.”

  She drew a trembling breath. “I can’t do it, Jesse. I don’t want to.”

  “Yes, you do,” he breathed against her mouth.

  “No… not if… not when I know we’re bound to… we will… divorce. I can’t…”

  “I think that’s exactly what you want,” he argued softly. “To be with a man who has no hold on you. Your husband. Someone society won’t frown on you having an affair with. But you’re happy there’s no future ahead of us. It’s what you really want.”

  He couldn’t be more wrong about her. “No!”

  “I’ll give you your divorce,” he murmured achingly, uttering words he knew she wanted to hear. “But right now I want my wife.”

  She thrust her hand against his broad chest and pushed, but Jesse’s mouth had captured hers. She fought to tell him the truth, but struggling was no use; his kiss was devastating, his tongue teasing the inside of her mouth until Kelsey’s reason melted along with her resistance. He held her crushingly tight against him, his arms like iron bands. When he freed her mouth to trail fiery kisses across her cheek to her ear, Kelsey managed to say, “This is going to hurt later. I can’t bear it. Please, don’t, Jesse,” she pleaded, adding for good measure, “I’m—I’m not well enough—to do anything like this.”

  “Like this?” he said on a regretful chuckle. His tongue traced the curves and crevices of her ear and Kelsey shuddered with pure longing.

  “You can’t… please, Jesse… don’t…”

  “You’ll have to be hell a lot more convincing than that, Mrs. Danner.”

  “You’ll have to force me,” she babbled.

  “Oh, horseshit,” he said on a laugh, and Kelsey lowered her gaze from his beloved face because she knew he was right.

  Surrendering was not in Kelsey’s nature, however. And she’d learned too early and too well that she could trust no man, not even her husband, especially not her husband, the man whose sexual prowess had attracted and won even the most chaste, most sheltered women. “All right. You win. There’s a part of me that wants you. I guess it’s ridiculous to keep lying about it.”

  “Completely ridiculous,” he agreed, capturing the hands still thrusting against his chest and wrapping them around his back. “Don’t, Kelsey,” he said softly, staring into her mutinous eyes. She was afraid of getting hurt, hurt by him, and that knowledge burned like nothing else. He didn’t even ask himself why she was so paralyzed with fear; it was simply a fact. Rarely had he encountered a woman who so clearly wanted nothing to do with him. Yes, she was attracted to him, but it was only for the moment, and distantly Jesse realized that it wasn’t what he wanted. Not now. What he wanted was Kelsey: mind, body, and soul. And if he had any hope of winning her, he had to stop now, while she still possessed some modicum of respect for him.

  But even as he realized what he had to do, her lips, red from kisses, lifted upward; her magnificent eyes fluttered closed. Cursing himself for his one vast wea
kness, he took what she now willingly offered, plundering her mouth with his tongue, caressing her quivering body with his hands.

  Kelsey gave in with unbridled ardor, her self-control buried beneath an avalanche of primal need. She’d sampled lovemaking once, Jesse’s lovemaking, and it had left her confused, shocked, and full of a longing she could not, and would not, let herself face. But it was here now, wild and beautiful and out of control. Mere words of denial were nothing beneath the weight of her own discovered passion. She simply had reached a point where she didn’t want to fight anymore.

  With a moan of surrender Jesse covered her body with his own. Kelsey wrapped her arms around him, holding him close, attuned to every hard and fluid muscle. In the darkness, the fervency of his kisses and thrusting hardness splintered her thoughts, sending her to a faraway ecstasy. She suddenly wanted to please him as he pleased her, and when she touched him his groans of laughter and desire returned that pleasure.

  “Kelsey,” he murmured in her ear. Then more harshly, “Kelsey, Kelsey, Kelsey!”

  His hands, in turn, discovered all her feminine secrets, leaving Kelsey clutching the bedcovers, her body aching for release. His expert touch brought her to the trembling brink of fulfillment time and again before he finally pushed himself full length inside her, driving with a need so great, even Kelsey sensed how much the moment meant to him before her body exploded in primal ecstasy at the same time Jesse reached fulfillment.

  But afterward, while he lay beside her, his face buried in her red-brown hair, his arm tucked protectively beneath her breasts, his body warm and relaxed, one leg swung possessively over hers, she lay awake long into the night, watching as moonlight faded into the unwelcoming gray light of dawn.

  She loved Jesse, had always loved him, and seemed destined to always love him. His past didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Love didn’t listen to reason, she realized with dull, thudding pain. Her heart didn’t care that he couldn’t feel the same. She simply loved him.

  Inhaling a shuddering breath, Kelsey squeezed her eyes closed. Hearing about Nell had been the final nail in her coffin. Before that she could almost believe he was a vengeful womanizer without a noble or heroic fiber in his body. But she’d recognized the ring of truth when he’d explained about Nell; his very reluctance in admitting it attested to how much the issue mattered.

  Her emotions had gone wild, as if a gate were slowly raised and her feelings had been released in a turbulent, ravaging flood. There was no hope for her pride now. She’d succumbed, heart and soul.

  And Jesse was more than willing to give her what she’d begged for, demanded, all these weeks. Now that she didn’t want it. Now that it was the last thing in the world she wished for. Now that she’d faced the fact that her husband was the most important part of her life and she would do anything to keep him.

  Now Jesse Danner was about to grant his wife a divorce.

  Chapter Nineteen

  There was a bite of fall in the breeze that rattled the still-green leaves on the tress and brushed against Kelsey’s cheek as she leaned her elbow against the rail and gazed across the waving fields beyond. She was alone, mainly because she’d craftily engineered some time without the accompaniment of any of the Danners.

  She needed time alone to think. Making love to Jesse seemed to turn her brain to mush, she’d discovered to her disgust and horror. Was that what other women felt? Was that what made him so irresistible to the opposite sex?

  “Blast the bastard,” she muttered under her breath.

  Footsteps sounded against the dry ground behind her. Kelsey stiffened but didn’t turn around, wishing with all her heart that her well-meaning in-laws would give her some much-needed space.

  “Thinking about Jace?” Jesse’s voice asked, low and quiet.

  Kelsey turned to stare at him in surprise. Apart from some passionate nocturnal visits, he’d kept her at arm’s length. In fact, Kelsey was absolutely livid over the way he’d made it clear to all and sundry that she might be his wife, but she had no chance of entering his heart. His moments of tenderness had been for Jace’s benefit, she now knew, and though she was grateful that he’d put her irritating brother in his place, she wished he would treat her the same way in front of his family.

  Instead, Jesse had reverted to his old self: aloof, sardonic, and even testier than usual—a result she attributed to the fact that his family couldn’t seem to quit teasing him about his reputation. In any case, Jesse was as cold and distant as the moon.

  Except in bed.

  “Actually, I was thinking about you,” she told him flatly, tossing her head.

  He leaned his muscled forearms over the rail, his shirtsleeves shoved up to his elbows. “What have I done now?” he asked lazily.

  “As if you don’t know. I don’t like the way you’re treating me.”

  He threw her a sideways glance and smiled. “Would that be during the day, or at night?”

  “Both,” Kelsey declared, annoyed because she invariably responded when he looked so damnably attractive. Turning away from the appeal of his smile, she asked, “Was there something you wanted? Or is it that we’re alone and so therefore you can be nice to me?”

  “There’s something I wanted. I thought we could go for a ride up to the hot springs or over by Silver Stream, if you felt up to it.”

  “I think I’d rather stay right here.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  He started to turn away, but she placed her hand on his muscled forearm, conscious of the warmth of his skin. He waited.

  “Tell me why you’ve been so cool toward me.”

  “Would you rather I acted like a doting lover?” He searched her face. “I don’t know what your future plans are, Kelsey, but if you ever come back to Rock Springs, it’ll be easier for you if people don’t think our marriage was a happy one.”

  “Is our marriage a happy one?” she asked softly, turning away from his assessing eyes, squinting across the fields.

  “Are you reconsidering divorcing me?”

  The words sounded dreadful to Kelsey’s ears. “We have a bargain,” she said through a tight throat. “I’ll stick to it.”

  Jesse frowned. “Kelsey…”

  She ached inside, and she didn’t know how to make that ache disappear. The thought of racing across the grounds, her hair flying behind her, the wind burning across her skin, was more than she could bear to forsake in the name of pride. “I’d like very much to go for a ride with you,” she said in a small voice, turning blindly toward the stables.

  He caught up with her as she was struggling to place a saddle onto the back of a black mare with dainty hooves. “Stop that,” he commanded, his voice so dire that Kelsey froze, the saddle held in her hands. He finished saddling the eager mare, then turned to Kelsey, examining her left hand in careful detail.

  “Nothing was seriously broken,” she assured him, moving the splinted fingers slightly. His hard fingers softly examining and caressing hers bothered her. “I’m nearly as good as new.”

  He suddenly pulled her into his arms, shocking her so much she actually gasped. Then he released her and, without a word, saddled up the chestnut gelding in the box next to the mare’s, then led both horses outside.

  He didn’t comment on her rejection of a sidesaddle, Kelsey noted as she swung herself astride with Jesse’s help. Her skirts hiked scandalously upward, around her knees. Apart from a sideways glance, Jesse seemed oblivious to the fact that his wife was behaving like a wild hooligan.

  For that she was grateful. She thought longingly of Joseph Danner’s well-oiled Winchester hanging on the north wall of the stables. She wanted to test her skill again, but suspected Jesse wouldn’t be as eager to go riding with her if she insisted on bringing along firearms.

  Jesse opened the gate to the fields, swinging himself lithely onto the chestnut’s broad back. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Almost.” Before he could react, she slid from the saddle, raced back to the stable and plucked the
rifle from its hook on the wall. When she reappeared, she kept her gaze focused on the chamber, assuring herself the rifle was loaded even while she felt Jesse’s stripping gaze. With agile grace, and only a twinge of discomfort from the lingering bruised muscles of her shoulder, she climbed onto the mare’s back, steadying the rifle across the mare’s withers with one hand.

  “It appears we’re going for a walk,” Jesse said with scarcely veiled sarcasm. “Unless you plan on galloping with that weapon in one hand.”

  “I don’t want my skill to atrophy.”

  Jesse couldn’t decide if he was irritated or amused by his wife’s insatiable obsession with firearms. Considering the danger he’d embroiled her in, maybe she was right to be so cautious. “Just don’t aim the damn thing at me,” he growled.

  She grinned. “I’ll try to be careful.”

  Jesse found himself wanting her so badly he could scarcely keep his hands from reaching out and yanking her to him. Instead, he guided his horse across the field to the banks of Silver Stream, the dividing line between Garrett and Danner property. He thought of the last few nights of passion with his fiery wife and was consumed with an ominous fear for the future. He wanted her too much, and though she was now willing, even eager, to sleep with him, the sense of urgency he felt, as if it were all going to be snatched away from him, seemed to consume her as well. Their lovemaking was intense, but no words of love were spoken—by either one. Jesse had never experienced the feelings Kelsey was awakening in him and certainly didn’t trust them. Love? That was a word women used to absolve themselves from the baseness of lust. Women couldn’t be honest about their feelings—especially society women—and he mustn’t forget that Kelsey Garrett Danner was a society woman now.

  Except she toted a rifle and let her skirts ride above her knees like a carefree child.

  What did she feel for him? He couldn’t help wondering. She wanted out of their marriage; she’d been clear about that. But what if she were to become pregnant? What if she was already?