Taming Elijah (The Kincaids Book 1)

by Stacy Reid

  His chuckle filled her with foreboding.

  “You know nothing of my nightmares, Sheridan.”

  “I know some. I asked Miguel and he shared the bare details. I also heard the words you uttered a few moments ago. I understand the horror, Elijah.”

  His face closed and she braced herself as a frosty look came into his eyes. “Do you? You believe because I relax when I am fucking you, you understand something about me?”

  His words flayed her, destroying the tentative hope which had been forming inside her, that he might be feeling something deeper for her. She pushed past the savage feeling of devastation accounting his reaction to that of a wounded animal’s behavior. They lashed out when hurting. She met his eyes and knew his words and actions were all about pushing her away.

  She might be a fool, for that realization had hope surging inside again. “Yes, you have been connected with me in the deepest way a man and woman can connect.” A blush heated her cheeks, but she continued. “You have touched me with care and gentleness when you’ve had cause to be angry with me. Cause to despise me. You always ensure that my needs come before yours that my pleasure comes before yours. So yes, you fucking me as how you call it, lets me believe I know something about you. I know that you are tender and kind. I do not know your nightmares. But I would like to know all of you and to offer comfort in any way I can. I want you to know I am here for you, as how you were there for me today.”

  He held her gaze for an infinite number of seconds. She did not bother to shield her eyes, letting him see all the doubts and hopes that swirled there. Her throat burned as he pushed her off him, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His breathing seemed calm, but she spied the white knuckled grip he had on the quilt.

  She pushed herself up on her knees and wrapped her arms around his taut frame. It took her a few moments to realize he trembled. He made to leave and her hands tightened. “Don’t go. Just stay here with me.”

  She kissed his neck lightly.

  “What do you know?”

  She assessed his flat tones. She would not lie or regret prying even though he may flay her for it. “I know your family was taken by Indians. That you tracked them with your brothers, but you did not get them back. Your son and your wife. I am so very sorry for your pain and loss, Elijah.”

  He shuddered. “The memories feel like gaping wounds that never heal. Emma had no faith in me. She should have known that I would have done everything in my power to find her. If she had waited another ten minutes she would have been in my arms. Instead, when she found the opportunity she slashed our son’s throat and plunged the knife into her own breast.” His voice cracked and fine tremors racked his frame.

  Sheridan squeezed him, unable to voice words to offer comfort. “You called for Nathan.”

  Elijah shifted, gripped her hip and drew her around so that she straddled his lap. Sheridan twined her hands around his neck and peered into his face. Pain washed over her at his appearance. Agony marred his feature and a single stream of tear ran from his left eye. She wished she could absorb his grief, and take it away from him.

  “Nathan was our son. He was four…four when he died.”

  His pain flooded her and she dropped her forehead to his.

  “He looked just like Emma. Fair and sweet, but he had my energy.” His low chuckle was filled with joy and hurt. “I loved him more than anything else. I thought Emma felt the same…Hell…I knew she felt the same. When they were taken I did not rest, Sheridan. I swear I didn’t. When I reached them, my horse collapsed and never rose again…but I was too late.”

  His hands tightened on her hips painfully but she did not protest.

  “It has been three years and I still dream of them often. I have seen horrors in the war. More deaths than I can stomach. But nothing haunts me as much as how my son’s tiny lifeless body looked crumpled, with that gaping wound across his throat.”

  Sheridan wrapped her arms around Elijah, and he glided his hands up her back and hugged her in return. She could only imagine the fear Emma must have felt…from what Miguel had told her, it had been over twenty Indians, and the horror stories of what they were capable of was rife in the West.

  “I dream of Nathan calling me…crying for me stranded in a deserted wasteland. Emma is always there as well…and lately you have been right there beside them.”

  Sheridan clenched her eyes tight and swallowed unable to say anything. They stayed like that for long minutes, with the gently tapping rain on the roof the only sound in the night. There were no words she could find to offer as comfort. And the depth of how much he feared having a woman like her in his life was made apparent. Never had she felt so close to him, outside this moment, as he unburdened himself to her, but never had they been so far apart either.

  How was she to fight such nightmares?

  Chapter Fourteen

  The air was heavy with rain, and the smell of damp grass. Shadows crept up, and the night slinked away down the mountains. Elijah was going hunting. The men that thought they could take Sheridan with such brutal force would not know when he would come for them. They were men of violence and most of the time that was all they understood. Violence. It was something he could deliver.

  He slipped out into the dark of the night, the starless night blanketing him in cool shadows. He followed the sound of the hooting owl to behind the horse’s corral.

  “Took you long enough.” A low voice drawled in amusement. “I have been hooting for over an hour.”

  Elijah grunted and moved to stand beside his brother, Joshua.

  “What is your take on Sullivan?” Elijah wasted no time in getting to the heart of the matter. If he had been a few minutes later, they would have raped Sheridan in a God-damn alley with the town’s citizens a stone throw away.

  “What happened?” Joshua asked. “I only got a message you have need of me. I rode out right away. Mother sends her regards.”

  Low voiced, Elijah told him what had happened. There was a tense silence after he recounted how they had accosted Sheridan.

  Joshua sighed. “Sullivan calls himself king in these parts and he goes nowhere without his gunmen around him. The stories of the number of men he’s had killed vary. Some said he has killed eight men, some said two, some said none. What matters is that he has done enough to be dangerous.”

  Elijah glanced sideward at his brother. Joshua had an instinct for judging the abilities of men. Powerful, fierce, and ruthless himself, he knew fighting men. Knew when a man had honor, when he was a coward, and when he was willing to kill.

  He met his brother’s gaze with an iciness that he knew Joshua would understand. “I do not want Sullivan to see us coming.”

  Joshua nod, slowly rolling his cigarette papers into a smoke. “Do you want to kill him?”

  Elijah considered. “It is not our way to murder in cold blood,” he finally responded.

  “It is not our way to leave men that trouble and terrorize our women folks, either,” Joshua returned coolly.

  Elijah observed his brother silently. Joshua had that wicked rough-edged look to him. Nobody would mistake him for a kind, gentle man. Elijah could not see how his brother had crossed paths with Beth for her to have a son by him. Even though he supposed her son could instead belong to Noah. But Elijah doubted it. The eyes were all Joshua, a deep-sea green with flecks of gold. Elijah and Noah had similar eyes, but with no golden flecks. “How do you know Beth Hardin?”

  Elijah’s gut clinched at the stillness that came over his brother.

  “Bethany Hardin?”

  “Yes. She is here.”

  Joshua’s gaze shifted to the cabin, his face suddenly intent.

  “Not here in the mountains,” Elijah corrected.

  “She is at the Whispering Creek?”

  “Yes.” Elijah watched him wondering if he knew about the baby.


  “I had wondered where she went,” Joshua mused softly.

  “You searched for her?”

  “Yeah. I figured she didn’t want to be found, so I left it alone after a few months.”

  His brother didn’t know he was a father. Hell. Elijah thought of Beth’s fragility and hesitated. “How did you come to know her?”

  Joshua shrugged. “I don’t really.”

  Elijah narrowed his eyes and took in the flash of something in Joshua’s gaze. Guilt? “How did you meet her, Joshua?”

  Elijah waited patiently while Joshua took several drags of his cigarette. His gaze was flat and blank as he stared at the cabin.

  “I met her through her husband. I only had the one encounter with her.”

  Foreboding filled Elijah and he stared at his brother, hoping he did not say what Elijah was thinking. “How did you know her through her husband?”

  Joshua turned and Elijah flinched from the pain in his brother’s eyes. It flared hot and potent before Joshua quickly shuttered it.

  “She worked off his debt.”

  “Fuck, Joshua!”

  They stood in silence watching each other. Elijah remembered everything he knew of Beth’s husband. He was a brutish, nasty son of a gun. Elijah did not question how she came to be at the ranch. But in the wary gazes she gave him, he saw the hints of frailty Sheridan spoke of. But he also saw the strength and the pride.

  He didn’t want to ask this of his brother but he had to, if he was going to reveal Joshua had a son. “Was she willing?”

  The silence became painful. Elijah closed his eyes. It felt like hours before he opened them to see shadows creeping over the mountain. They were storm clouds, and they gathered as surely as the one brewing in his gut. “If Beth’s husband gave her to you, to work his debt off on her back and you took his offer, Joshua. I am going to beat you to a fucking pulp.” He met his brother’s gaze with rage burning in his blood. “Test the truth of my words.”

  “There is nothing you can do to me, Elijah, which I haven’t done to myself.”

  He didn’t want to think Joshua would rape anyone. “Was she willing?” Elijah snarled, unable to let it go.

  “It was a willingness brought on by fear of her husband. Blinded by my own lust for her, I saw the fear too late.”

  Elijah heard the torment in his voice. He heard something else. Dark and dangerous. Elijah thought about the fact that Beth had hidden from her husband at the ranch for almost two years now, but her husband had not found her. “He is not coming for her, is he?”

  “No.”

  He left it at that. Some secrets should be kept in the dark.

  “If you were to approach her now, would she react in fear?” While he wanted Joshua to know his son and for the Triple K to claim him, Elijah doubted he could do it, if it would unravel Beth further. She had been hysterical when they had taken Sheridan. The fear in her wide brown eyes had sickened him. No woman should feel such fear. If Joshua had been the one to put it there, Elijah would beat him bloody.

  Joshua dragged on his cigarette, a picture of cool. Elijah saw in his eyes though the rioting emotions. They had always been able to read each other. Joshua was the one person Elijah did not even think to lie to, and he hoped to God his brother didn’t think it necessary to deceive him.

  “I have no reason to approach her,” he finally responded with a grimace.

  “You have not answered my question.”

  Joshua glanced at him sharply. “Why is it important?”

  “Does she have reason to fear you?” Elijah snarled.

  “I did not rape her,” Joshua said tightly. “She gave herself willingly and I was not man enough to say no. If I hurt her, it was because she had never had a man before, and I realized it too late.”

  “Hell.”

  “Those were my sentiments. She had been Mrs. Hardin for two years and was a damn virgin. I never expected that.”

  Joshua stepped towards him and clasped his shoulder. “Why all these questions? Is she hurt?”

  Elijah did not hesitate. “No. She has a son. Nine months old. He’s a Kincaid.”

  He watched the knowledge dawn in his brother’s eyes and Joshua froze, his face paling. He stumbled almost weakly toward a stump and sat down. Elijah followed him silently.

  “Thank you for telling me.” His brother’s voice was hoarse and Elijah knew how much he had shaken him. Joshua was not the kind of man to show a lot of emotions.

  “Do you know his name?”

  “Grayson.”

  Joshua nodded grimly and then changed the subject. “The threat to your woman?”

  “She is not my woman.”

  Joshua grunted and looked at him with mocking eyes.

  Elijah stooped beside him. “I am going into town.”

  “For Sullivan?”

  Elijah nodded. “I won’t kill him. He will be in his saloon or the hotel and I am going for him. They took Sheridan at his orders.”

  “Are you going to call him out?”

  “No,” Elijah mused. “He fancies himself a big man in these parts. He likes the power and the idea of being invincible. He likes being followed by a lot of tough riders, with people stepping out of the way. We have seen men like him before. We know how to bring them down. He is nothing more than a vicious bully.”

  “He will not forgive you for the humiliation,” Joshua said. “It would make sense to kill him.”

  “I promised Sheridan no more deaths.”

  He smiled. “And Sheridan is important?”

  Elijah gripped a fistful of the earth and threw it at him.

  Joshua chuckled. “Sullivan was a little gutsy ordering her to be taken in the middle of the day.”

  Elijah agreed. “He’s a little insane, I think. Drunk with power.”

  Joshua scrutinized him shrewdly. “Whatever you do, don’t underrate him. Do you ride tonight?”

  “No. He will be on edge waiting for my return, surrounded by his men. I will keep Sheridan here for a few days, then I will make my move.”

  “You don’t have to,” Joshua offered. “I could pay him a visit at his outfit. He would never know what hit him.”

  Elijah considered it briefly. Joshua was a man of violence, even more so than himself. He was more lawless and brutal, but completely protective of the frailer sex. He believed women should be pleasured and cosseted, which was why Elijah could not believe Joshua would have hurt Beth.

  “No. For what Sullivan has sanctioned for Sheridan, anything that befalls him will be by my hand.”

  His brother was silent for a moment. “So you have forgiven her?”

  “There is nothing to forgive.”

  Joshua laughed low in the darkness. “It seems as if you cannot resist her lure, brother. Because of her you broke your friendship with a man who you had called friend for twenty years.”

  The memories washed over Elijah and he leaned back against the tree, gazing in the star-studded sky. He had broken Thomas. More than his body he had severed the friendship they had. Thomas had been demented with rage and possessiveness at the thought of his wife with his best friend, but it had been unconscionable, the way the whip had darted and lashed, biting into her delicate skin.

  Elijah had lost rational thought and he had broken every finger on Thomas’s whip hand. Elijah had been calm and methodical when he took each finger, staring into his eyes while breaking them one by one. Each snap had severed the final ties to their friendship. “I broke our friendship because he took a whip to her.”

  Joshua flinched. “You had not told me that part. I thought you took her maidenhead?”

  “I did,” Elijah said flatly. “She had been his wife for months, but Thomas never touched her. Yet he was still insane with jealously when he saw us together.”

  Elijah felt Joshua’s start of surpr
ise instead of seeing it. “Are you certain? I had always thought the fairer sex repulsed Thomas. I was shocked when I heard he got married. We had never seen him with a woman…but to be jealous to the point he whipped her?”

  “I didn’t understand his possessiveness. I knew we shocked him. Hell, I was shocked when he asked me why I was in bed with his wife. But I realized he only married Sheridan for her wealth. We knew him to be a man of honor. It is not easy for me to think of Thomas in a light where he would deceive someone for monetary gain.”

  Elijah and Sheridan had spoken for long lengths. The day had been filled with them making love or talking. He tried not to think about the fact, that the day had been one of the most peaceful of his life since he had lost his family. “It seems the entire town of Blue Lagoon knew we were together. Sullivan used it as his excuse to treat her with such contempt. No one offered aid at their rough handling, because she is now considered a loose woman.”

  “This is a fucking mess,” Joshua growled.

  “I know. Sullivan will not give up.”

  “Is she that wealthy or is it her beauty?”

  Elijah thought of Sullivan’s offer to share her. “He wants both…but her wealth is the greater draw. Fifty thousand pounds.”

  A soft whistle hissed from between Joshua’s teeth. “That is a hell of a lot of money, Elijah. Why don’t you just marry her and be done with it? That would make you the target, and you are more than capable of protecting your own. To fight you they would have to fight Noah and me as well. Sullivan would have to be stupid to take on such a challenge.”

  Elijah sighed. “You know I will never take another wife.”

  “Does she know that?”

  Elijah gave him a stony look.

  “You are gentle with her,” Joshua said softly. “She doesn’t even fear you, Elijah. If she knew your reputation I wonder if she would be so wildly defiant.”

  He grunted. “She listens well enough.”

  “Not when you told her to get out of the rain.”

  Elijah jerked his head up and narrowed his eyes at the taunting smile around his brother’s lips.