Lash swallowed hard. Maybe he ought to walk back into town. "I'm real sorry about your pickup. I never would have stopped on that bridge, Garrett, but there was this baby deer lying there, and—"
"I know. You've already explained all that." Garrett smiled crookedly and dropped a big hand onto Lash's shoulder. "The pickup's insured, Lash. I don't give a damn about that. Jessi said you could have probably dragged yourself out of the current a hell of a lot sooner, just by letting go of her. But you didn't, Lash." The hand on Lash's shoulder squeezed. "You saved my sister's life. And I think you know that there's not much on this planet I hold closer to my heart than that hellcat baby sister of mine. You're one hell of a good friend. Feel free to drown my pickup any old time."
Lash couldn't look Garrett in the eye. His stomach twisted up in knots, and guilt washed over him just as forcefully as that flash flood had done. Damn.
"Consider yourself part of the family from here on in," Elliot said.
"Anything you need, Lash," Ben added. "Anytime, anywhere, you call on us. You hear?"
Lash forced himself to meet their gazes, one by one, and he nodded. Last, he faced Wes. His dark onyx eyes were glinting.
Wes took a step forward, drew a thoughtful breath, and finally extended a hand. Lash blinked in surprise, but took it, and returned Wes's firm shake. Wes never said a word. But he didn't have to.
Lash felt ill. These men were not the bullies of his childhood, out to cause him trouble and make him miserable. These were good, honest men who thought of him as a friend, welcomed him into their midst, treated him like a brother, for God's sake. They trusted him.
The telephone rang. Garrett picked it up and spoke softly, then glanced toward Lash and held it out. "You have an aunt Kate?"
"My foster mother's sister," Lash muttered, and took the phone, feeling his self-appointed aunt couldn't have picked a worse time to call.
He covered the receiver with one hand and glanced at the brothers. "Sorry for the interruption. This might be a while. She feels it's her civic duty to check on every one of us periodically and grill us about every aspect of our lives. No matter where I go, she manages to track me down."
"I'm heading up to bed anyway," Garrett said. "Why don't you take Adam's old bedroom, Lash? There are some of his clothes in the closet, so you can get dry. They oughtta fit."
"Thanks," Lash said, eager to get out from under their grateful eyes. Adam was the one missing brother, the one still living in New York and working for an international bank. But with Lash's luck, he'd show up in time for the lynching. He watched the brothers head toward the stairs, then covered the phone again, briefly. "Which room would that be?"
"Second to the last one on the right," Elliot said. "Right between mine and Jessi's."
Lash's heart tripped over itself, and he felt heat creep up his neck and into his ears. "Oh."
He dragged his gaze from theirs, though he could still feel their eyes on him as they marched up the stairs. Then he drew the phone to his ear. "Hello, Aunt Kate," he said.
He could still hear the Brand brothers talking upstairs. Extolling his virtues and his heroism, he imagined, groaning. Damn, if they knew the truth…
He answered Kate's questions without thinking. Told her he really wasn't interested in hearing what his so-called "brothers" were up to, and finally put the phone down.
It didn't matter that the Brands didn't know the truth, he thought, because he wasn't going to so much as think about touching Jessi again. It was simple. Mind over matter. Willpower. He could do this.
He sat there a long time, telling himself just how easy it would be. Then he headed up to his assigned bedroom, took a long, hot shower, changed into some dry duds and crawled into the welcome warmth of the bed. And thought about Jessi lying in her own bed, naked, maybe, thinking of him, maybe. Touching herself gently and closing her eyes and whispering his name. Just a wall away from him.
Lord!
When he finally fell asleep, his willpower dissolved along with his consciousness.
The dream spun its seductive web around him. He was on that same bank with Jessi, only this time it was grassy and lush instead of mud-slick and cold. The creek ran calm, and glittered beneath a blazing white sun. But the storm raging inside him was a fierce one. They were naked, the two of them, arms and legs twined as they undulated in a chaos of passion. He could feel her body tight around the length of him, and he was so close … so close…
And then a lasso settled around his neck from some unseen place, and yanked him away from her. He heard Jessi cry out … and he stared back at her … but she faded, slowly, like a damp mist evaporating in the sun. And then he saw himself, sitting atop a great black horse. And he was dressed oddly … like some saddle tramp from an old western flick. The horse stood still beneath a giant oak tree, and Lash forced himself to look up at the sturdy branch that stretched above his head. A noose dangled from it, swaying softly in the breeze.
It lowered to eye level. He wanted to bat it away, but his hands were bound behind his back. The ghostly noose settled itself around his neck, pulled itself tight with a sudden jerk that left him gasping.
He lowered his gaze, tried to swallow and couldn't.
Around him, the Brand brothers—all five of them, even the missing Adam—sat their mounts. They wore long, time-yellowed dusters and had six-shooters strapped to their hips. None of them had taken the time to shave this morning, by the looks of them.
Garrett puffed on a hand-rolled smoke, then flicked it to the ground. "Any last words, Monroe?"
Lash tried to speak, but couldn't. The damned noose was too tight.
"Didn't think so," Garrett said. Then he nudged his horse up beside Lash's, leaned over and raised up a hand. He slapped the rump of Lash's mount hard, and the horse reared beneath him, and then bolted right out from under him.
Lash felt himself falling and he closed his eyes, waiting for the snap of his neck that would come when he reached the end of this rope. Falling, falling, falling…
He jerked upright in the bed, gasping for air and clawing at his neck. But there was no rope there, and no lynching tree in sight.
There was only Jessi Brand, smiling sweetly behind her seductress's eyes. He blinked to clear the dream away, but she remained. He was awake. And she was here, in his bedroom.
"It just occurred to me," she said, very softly. "I never thanked you properly … for saving my life."
* * *
Chapter 6
« ^ »
"You shouldn't be in here," he said. His voice was hoarse, but he attributed that to last night's cold water, and the fact that he'd just dreamed of slow strangulation. "Your brothers—"
"It's morning, Lash. Garrett and Wes have gone to see about the pickup and to help the crew repairing the bridge. Garrett had to return the car he borrowed in town to come home last night, too. Elliot and Ben are out checking the stock, and Chelsea took the baby into town for his checkup." She moved closer and sat on the edge of the bed. "She had to take the long way around."
Lash swallowed hard and slid toward the other side.
"When you didn't get up in time for breakfast, I was afraid something might be wrong," she whispered. She reached up, as if to untie the sash of the satiny pink robe she wore. But instead, she just toyed with the dangling ends of it, arousing him more than if she'd yanked it off and sat there naked.
"Guess I was tired," Lash stammered. Dammit, he couldn't stand much more of this. He could see she wasn't wearing a thing beneath that robe. Her breasts were perfect, and he could taste them again just by looking at their shape, so clearly outlined in the thin fabric. If she crawled into this bed … if she touched him…
"Yeah, me too," she said with a careless shrug. "I don't know, though, it seems I haven't been sleeping much at all lately."
Damn. He hadn't been sleeping well, either, and he knew she was well aware of that fact. She had to be. She was the cause of it. And he'd pretty much revealed the direction of his t
houghts last night.
He cleared his throat. "So, uh, how are you?"
"Bruised in all the places I can see, and it feels even worse in the places I can't." She smiled at him, a devilish look in her eyes. "But I'd have been a heck of a lot worse off if it hadn't been for you."
"I didn't do anything any other man wouldn't have done."
"Only if the other man were one of my brothers." She turned around and leaned her back against his headboard, drawing her knees up so that she could wrap her arms around them. "I think that's why I'm so drawn to you, Lash. 'Cause I never expected to find any man who could measure up to those brothers of mine. But then I met you, and you do it in spades."
He sensed she was being sincere with him. Not laying it on to soften him up. And it touched him, in spite of himself. "That's probably the nicest compliment anyone's ever given me," he told her. "Especially since I think so highly of your brothers, Jessi."
She nodded. "I know you do. That makes all this kinda hard on you, doesn't it?"
Damn. Straight to the point, again. She sure didn't pull punches or play games. "Yeah, it does. Friendship is something sacred, Jessi. A person would be foolish to let something as fleeting as … as lust get in the way of it."
"So you're pretty sure that's all there is between us? Just … lust? Just two people who can't stop thinking about tearing each other's clothes off and—"
"Don't." He met her big brown eyes and felt it again. Desire, rushing through him like some internal brand of hellfire. Searing-hot.
"I love my brothers, too, you know," she told him, holding his gaze trapped in her own. "But not enough to let them run my life, Lash. And I can't quite swallow that you care more for my brothers than even I do. So I'm thinking there's something else bothering you."
He drew a breath, then looked away.
"You wanna tell me about it?"
He shook his head, but heard himself talking to her all the same. "I was raised by a foster family, Jessi. A great big oversize family, just like this one."
"And it was terrible?"
"No, it wasn't terrible," he said quickly, but he lowered his head when he said it.
She dipped her head, searching his face.
"Okay, parts of it were pretty awful, but parts were okay. It's just that it was enough to convince me that a settled-down life with a dependent little wife and a bunch of relatives tripping over each other wasn't what I wanted. I want freedom, Jess. I want to be able to sling my stuff in a bag and take off whenever the urge hits me. Go wherever my feet feel like taking me. No guilt trips or balls and chains dragging me down. No anchors holding me still."
"That all sounds real nice."
He nodded. "It has been."
"So you think I'm looking to hook myself around your throat like an anchor, Lash? You think I'm gonna cry to my brothers if you and I do what we both want to do, and then you up and walk away?" She pierced him with her eyes. "C'mon, do you really think I'd do that to you?"
He spoke, but his voice was so hoarse his words came out unintelligible. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I don't know. I guess … I guess I don't think you'd do that. But—"
"And you want me, right?"
He closed his eyes. "One of the good things about being raised by the Reverend Mr. Stanton, Jess, was that he taught me right from wrong."
"And you think making love to me would be wrong?"
"I know it would."
She drew a breath, then let it out all at once. "You know something, Lash, I don't think I believe you. I think you're afraid of me. Afraid that once wouldn't be enough, and that being with me might just smash that drifter's way of life right to smithereens."
His eyes widened, and he felt as if she'd hit him between the eyes with a mallet. Could she be—? No. No way in hell. She wasn't even close to the truth.
She got slowly to her feet, straightened her robe, and started back to the door, but paused there, facing him again. "But I'll tell you this much. I know it's real, because I feel it in my gut. It's going to happen, Lash. If not now, then later. You know it as well as I do. I want you, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. You want me, too, though you're having a little more trouble accepting it. We're both adults, and you don't have one thing to be afraid of. Not me, and not my brothers. I think what you're really scared of is yourself. But this thing between us isn't gonna go away, you know, no matter how much you try to ignore it." Her hand touched the knob, like a caress. He couldn't breathe. "When you're ready for me, Lash, you just let me know. But don't wait too long, 'cause I'm not going to."
Then she slipped away and he managed to breathe again. Damn, he was in trouble here. Deep trouble. It would take a saint to resist that woman.
And Lash Monroe was no saint.
She was wearing him down. She sensed it.
The morning sun had burned off the dark clouds of the night before, and dried the rain-ravaged ground. Jessi was grateful to be alone in the house as she washed up the breakfast dishes and did a load of laundry. The boys had refused to let her work in the barns today, insisting she sleep late and take it easy after her episode last night. So she'd just make up for it by doing some of the indoor chores. It was hot already. The coming day was going to be the scorcher after the storm, she predicted, and she dressed accordingly: cutoff shorts and a sleeveless tank that hugged her curves. Funny, she'd never noticed whether her clothes hugged her curves before. It was Lash, she decided. He made her feel like … like a woman. A sexy, desirable woman. And the reason he made her feel that way was that he wanted her. He wanted her so much it scared him witless. Wanted her even though he was determined not to. Wanted her so much he wasn't sleeping nights thinking about it.
Oh, yeah, she knew. She couldn't help but know. It was in his eyes every time he looked at her, and getting more and more evident all the time. Hell, it was going to be obvious to everyone in the house pretty soon.
She was at the sink, drying coffee mugs with a dish towel, when she sensed him behind her. She took her time about turning to acknowledge his presence. Let him look his fill, she thought, feeling a little trill of excitement sing through her veins. She liked this feeling. It was so new, so thrilling.
He cleared his throat, so she finally glanced over her shoulder at him. "Oh. You're up."
"Your brothers will skin you for dressing like that," he observed.
Jessi frowned at him. "It's how I always dress when it's hot outside. Gee, Lash, you've seen me in shorts before."
His gaze slid down her legs, slowly, and came back up again. "Maybe I have," he muttered.
"Maybe it's different now that you know you want me, though."
"Jessi, don't—"
The screen door banged and Elliot traipsed in, followed closely by Ben. They looked at Jessi, then at Lash, then at each other. Ben shrugged. Elliot grinned, and came forward to take the dish towel away from her.
"Thought we told you to take it easy today, sis. You never could follow an order."
"And probably never will," she said, but she filled a cup with the fresh coffee she'd made and sauntered to the table, electing to sit before one of them told her to, in which case she'd be forced to remain standing, just on principle. "Have you heard from Garrett?"
"Yeah, he called from the office. Damage to the bridge wasn't as bad as they thought, and the repairs ought to be finished by tomorrow. Meanwhile, he got a loaner from the dealer, so he has wheels again while he waits for the insurance company to settle up on his pickup." Elliot's grin was infectious.
"What's so funny about that?" Jessi asked.
Elliot shook his head. It was Ben who said, "The loaner is a little bit of a car that looks, according to Garrett, like a toaster on wheels. He can barely sit upright in it."
Jessi laughed out loud at the image, and Elliot did, as well. A low hissing sound came from the living room, and Jessi frowned and went to check it out. "Uh-oh. Look at this, you guys."
Her brothers and Lash followed her, and paused at the sight
of the scene being played out on the floor. The old cat, Pedro, was poised, rear end in the air, chest to the floor, hissing and batting a paw at Ol' Blue. The big hound lifted one eyebrow, then closed his eyes again with a tired sigh.
"Blue, you lazy dog, he wants to play," Jessi said.
Blue made a groaning sound and didn't stir.
"Either that or he wants to fight," Elliot said. "You sure that old cat isn't gonna claw Blue's eyes out?"
"He's just feeling him out, seeing how much he'll put up with," Jessi told him. She walked into the living room, coffee mug in hand, to bend down and stroke the hound dog's head. "Blue, how come you're ignoring Pedro?"
Blue lifted his head high enough to reach up and lick her face.
"Hell, Jessi, I think Blue's just jealous. He never showed you so much affection until you came lugging that cat home," Elliot said.
"Could be that he knows how close he came to losing you in that flood last night," Ben put in, speaking low and soft. She knew he was thinking about his wife, and how much it hurt to lose someone you loved. But her brain quickly jumped back to what Elliot had said. About Blue loving her more now because of the competition. Maybe that thought merited some more study.
"Well, guys, I have to leave you now. Keep an eye on these two for me, will you?"
The three of them frowned. It was Lash who spoke. "Where to?"
"Marisella's house … my house, I mean. The Loomis boys are supposed to help me hoe out that garage today to pay me back for taking care of that mare. And I have a contractor coming at noon to check the place out and give me an estimate on the remodeling. I'll be out most of the day. I want to check on the Loomises' mare while I'm at it. And if it gets too late, I'll probably just spend the night at my soon-to-be new clinic. So if I don't come home, don't go calling out the National Guard, okay?" She paused near the door, where her overnight bag was packed and waiting.
Ben shook his head. "You had a rough night, Jess. Maybe you ought—"
The Baddest Virgin in Texas Page 9