White Dove's Promise

by Stella Bagwell

  “I’ve never had anyone of my own, Granddad. Not for keeps.”

  “You haven’t wanted anybody for keeps,” George wisely pointed out.

  Jared shrugged with resignation. “The minute a man gets hooked up with a woman, he has to start worrying about losing her.”

  Clearly disappointed, George shook his head. “Losing a woman isn’t the worst thing that could ever happen to a man.”

  Jared arched a brow at him. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me what the worst thing is,” he said wearily.

  George directed his foretelling gaze straight at his grandson. “The worst thing for a man is not ever having a woman.”

  The old man’s simple statement was so far from what Jared expected, he could only stare at him. Then slowly as the words settled deep inside him, it was as though George had suddenly pulled back a curtain and he could see how his life had been up until now and how it could be, had to be with Kerry.

  “What’s going on? Are you two guys letting the pizza burn?”

  Willow’s question snapped Jared out of his trance. “No, sis. But now that you’re here to take over I have to be going.”

  His sister was clearly disappointed. “Oh, but aren’t you going to stay long enough to eat?”

  Rising to his feet, Jared patted his great-grandfather on the shoulder. “Thanks sis, but I gotta run. Tell Gran I said hello.”

  Outside, he climbed into his truck and pulled onto the street with intentions of heading straight to the WindWalker place. He had to talk to Kerry. Really talk to her. But he desperately needed a shower first. He didn’t want to give Enola one more excuse to dislike him.

  Less than an hour later, he was shaved, showered and dressed in clean Levi’s and a blue cotton shirt. When he pulled to a stop in front of the WindWalker house, he noticed it was nearly nine-thirty. It was rather late to be calling, but lights filtering from the living room assured him the women were still up and about.

  A few short moments after he knocked Kerry came to the door. When she saw that it was him, a look of surprise and joy crossed her face. “Jared! I didn’t expect to see you this evening.”

  The sight of her sweet face and gentle smile filled him with a pleasure that was all new to Jared. She wasn’t just a beautiful woman he found attractive, she was the women he loved and that made everything different.

  “You didn’t really expect me to stay away, did you?”

  Kerry glanced back over her shoulder, then quietly stepped out to join him. The second she was standing beside him on the dark porch, Jared yanked her into his arms and covered her lips in a totally consuming kiss.

  The connection was brief, but hot enough to leave them both dazed and gasping for breath. Kerry clung to the front of his shirt while his hands roamed her back and took pleasure in the soft, rounded curves of her body.

  “Oh honey, I’ve missed you,” he said. “I had to see you tonight. I couldn’t wait.”

  “Jared,” she said on a rush of breath. “We need—”

  “To talk,” he explained. “Though God knows how I wish we could be together. Like we were last night.”

  Heat suffused her cheeks as her eyes clung to his face. “I’ve been thinking constantly about that. About you and me—”

  “You don’t regret it, do you?” he anxiously interrupted.

  “No.”

  He released a huge breath. “Thank God. Last night, after you went home, I was afraid you’d start having second thoughts.”

  “No,” she repeated.

  His hands gently framed her face. “We didn’t get to talk much last night before you left my house. That’s why I couldn’t let another day go past without seeing you.” He peered over her shoulder toward the door leading into the house. “What about now? Do you need to tend to Peggy?”

  “She’s already in bed asleep. And my mother is lying down reading. Do you want to go into the house?”

  He shook his head. “What I want to say to you—I want us to be entirely alone, okay?”

  The urgency in his voice put her heartbeat in rapid motion. “Jared, is something wrong?”

  He reached for her hand. “Let’s go sit in my truck,” he said.

  Kerry allowed him to lead her out to his company vehicle, then help her climb into the cab. Once he was inside with her, he immediately pulled her into his arms and kissed her for long, dizzying moments.

  When he finally broke the contact, Kerry drew in a ragged breath and rested her cheek against his shoulder. “I thought you said you wanted to talk.”

  “I want to do everything with you, Kerry,” he murmured. “Funny how much I know that now.”

  The weight of his hands, the scent of his skin and the hard warmth of his body soothed her, filled her with a quiet pleasure that worked itself all the way to her heart.

  “I don’t understand, Jared.”

  His husky chuckle slithered across her cheek. “I’m sure you don’t. I didn’t understand it myself until…we made love last night. And even then I didn’t quite want to admit it to myself.”

  She waited for him to go on and when he didn’t, she tilted her head back far enough to see his face. “Admit what?”

  A smile settled over his features. “That I love you.”

  She stared at him in stunned fascination. He’d said the words so easily and with such confidence that it was difficult not to believe him. Yet it couldn’t be true, she thought. Jared Colton couldn’t love her.

  A long, pent-up breath rushed past her lips. “Jared—last night—if you’re saying this just because—”

  Her words halted as he gently grasped her face between his hands. “Last night was—I’ve never shared anything so special with anyone, Kerry. But that’s not why I told you that I love you. I told you because I mean it. Because I want you to know how I feel about you.”

  Her ears had to believe what she was hearing, yet her heart wasn’t so easily convinced. It was still cowering behind its scarred past.

  “I’m—I don’t know what to think,” she told him. “I’m not even sure I believe you.”

  He groaned. “Kerry, remember when I told you I would never lie to you?”

  She nodded, which immediately brought a smile to his face.

  “Then believe me now.”

  “A few moments ago you said you didn’t want to admit something to yourself. Were you talking about—loving me?”

  He moved his hands to her shoulders. “Like I said before, Kerry, I’m not going to lie to you. So yeah, it was tough for me to admit to myself that I’d finally run into a woman I couldn’t take lightly.”

  She was suddenly overwhelmed with the idea that maybe what he was saying was true. He really did love her. “Oh Jared. You could have anyone you wanted. Why me?”

  With a hand at the back of her head, he pressed his cheek against hers. “My little sweetheart. I don’t want just anybody. You’ve ruined me. Now the only woman I’ll ever want is you.”

  Tears suddenly clogged her throat, making it impossible to speak. With a tiny sob, she flung her arms around his neck and buried her face against his chest.

  “Kerry? Are you crying?” he asked in disbelief.

  When she didn’t answer, he tipped up her chin, then groaned as he spotted the tears on her face.

  Using his forefinger, he gently wiped at the salty tracks on her cheeks. “Tell me, sweetheart. What’s wrong? Are you trying to let me down easy?”

  That caught her attention and she stared at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you don’t love me back? That I’m wasting my time here?”

  Her gaze dropped to where his shirt veed against his throat. “We haven’t known each other very long,” she murmured.

  “We’ve known each other for years,” he argued.

  “Only from a distance.”

  His hand stroked her hair. “And that was enough for me.”

  The simple statement went straight to her heart. “Oh Jar
ed, this is all wrong. I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with a man like you.”

  His hands were suddenly gripping her shoulder. “Say that again.”

  Kerry dared to lift her eyes to his. “I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with a man like you.”

  A slow, euphoric smile spread across his face. “Then you do love me.”

  “I’m afraid I do.”

  He appeared to miss the misery in her voice. Instead he showered kisses over her cheeks, down her neck, then back up to her lips, where he whispered, “Kerry, Kerry. Why would you be afraid?”

  Sighing, she turned away from the temptation of his lips. “Jared, don’t you understand? I’ve spent the past four years trying to put my life back together. I didn’t think I’d ever want to be near another man. Now you’ve come along—”

  With a hand at the side of her face, he urged her to look at him. “You’re going to be next to me for the rest of your life, Kerry. You might as well get ready for that.”

  Torment filled her eyes. “Maybe you think that way right now—at this moment. But you’re a wanderer, Jared. You’ve already said you’ll be leaving Black Arrow once your job is finished. You haven’t changed your mind about that, have you?”

  He eased her back so that he could look her fully in the face. “No,” he said after a moment. “But what does that have to do with you loving me and me loving you?”

  Closing her eyes, she stifled down another groan of torment. “My home is here, Jared. Or were you just planning on us having a long-distance relationship?”

  “Like hell,” he cursed. “Wherever I go, you go. You and Peggy.”

  Her heart sank like a dead weight. “No, Jared. That’s not the kind of life I want or need. It’s not the kind of life I want for my daughter. I want us to have a real home, a rooted home.”

  Jared released a heavy sigh, then slowly eased back in the seat. “What do you expect from me, Kerry? To give up my job? I worked like hell to get my engineering degree. It’s not something I want to just toss away. And let’s face it, we can’t live on love alone. I want to be able to give you financial security.”

  Kerry didn’t know it was possible to feel so deliriously happy one minute and deflated the next. Jared loved her! Just knowing that thrilled her, filled her heart with wondrous joy. Yet her eyes were open enough to see that he had no intentions of giving her the kind of home she needed for herself and for Peggy. Why hadn’t she reminded herself of that fact last night before she’d made love with him, she asked herself bitterly.

  Because once he’d touched you, that was it. You were like a little lamb lost and fool enough to think you’d find a home in the arms of the big bad wolf.

  She sighed. “Surely you don’t think I’d be selfish enough to want you to give up your job?”

  “Then what do you want me to do?”

  Regret plunged deep inside her as she realized there was nothing he could do or say to break down the wall of differences between them. “Forget about me. About us and last night.”

  He didn’t say anything and after a while, when the silence became too much for her to bear, she forced herself to look at him.

  “I can’t. I won’t,” he said with grim resolution. “I don’t know about you, Kerry, but I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. You can’t ask me to give you up.”

  She covered her face with both hands. “Oh Jared, this just isn’t going to work,” she mumbled. “We’ll only make each other miserable if we try.”

  His brows inched upward as though he couldn’t believe what she was telling him. “If that’s the way you feel, then why did you sleep with me last night?” he asked angrily. “Why didn’t you make it clear you just wanted a one-night stand?”

  Dropping her hands, she stared at him in stunned disbelief. “Is that what you think about me? Is that the sort of woman you think I am? I just told you that I loved you!”

  His lips twisted. “Sure,” he said cynically. “You love me so much you’ll follow me to the ends of the earth.”

  “And you love me so much you’ll forget about traveling the globe to work for some rich gas or oil company,” she shot back at him. As soon as the last word died on her lips, she regretted losing her temper. She didn’t want to hurt Jared. She loved him. But she couldn’t see what good that was going to do either of them now.

  She reached for his hand and felt a sense of relief when his fingers clasped tightly around hers. “Oh Jared,” she pleaded, “I don’t want us to be angry at each other. We’ve just now found each other.”

  He couldn’t stay angry with her, Jared realized. Not with her hand clinging to his and her eyes begging for him to understand.

  He stroked a hand through her silky hair. “Then don’t ask me to forget you, Kerry. We’ll work this out somehow. Trust me.”

  “I—told my mother this evening that she had to get used to you being in my life now.”

  Surprised by her admission, he asked, “What did she think about that? Not much I’m sure.”

  “She thinks I’m crazy to trust you. Am I?”

  Jared drew her back into the circle of his arms. “I’m the one who’s crazy. I’d marry you tomorrow if you’d say the word.”

  Instead of being thrilled at his mention of marriage, she was terrified to think of herself as Mrs. Jared Colton. She’d trustingly handed her heart to a man before and he’d eventually stomped it. A marriage license was no guarantee that Jared would be any different.

  “Jared, this is too soon. I have Peggy to think about—”

  “I adore Peggy. I want to be her father. I want to be your husband. What more do I need to say?”

  At this moment Kerry wasn’t sure what she needed from him. Even if he said he’d forget his job and stay right here in Black Arrow, she wouldn’t be convinced they could make it as a family.

  “There’s nothing you can say, Jared,” she said in a raw, husky voice. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I’m just not ready to jump in with both feet.”

  “Then I’ll have to do everything I can to make you ready,” he said gently.

  She pressed a kiss on his cheek, then pushed herself away from him. “It’s getting late. I’ve got to go in.”

  “All right,” he reluctantly agreed, “but we’ll take this up tomorrow night at my house. I’ll cook supper for you and Peggy.”

  “You’re not playing fair, Jared.”

  Grinning sexily, he leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on her lips. “I have no intention of playing fair, Kerry. So get ready.”

  “Jared—”

  The rest of her protest was cut off by a hungry kiss that left Kerry’s senses reeling, crumbling beneath a hot weight of desire.

  “All right, I’ll see you tomorrow night,” she promised once he lifted his head. But as she quickly climbed out of the truck and headed into the house, she wondered if she’d lost her mind, along with her heart.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next evening Jared was frying T-bone steaks when Bram entered the kitchen by way of the back door. One glance at his tired face told Jared something other than a brotherly chat was on his mind.

  “Hey, an unexpected visit from my brother,” Jared greeted him. “What’s up?”

  Bram pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and straddled it. “I’m on my way home to the ranch. I thought I’d stop by and clue you in on the fire.”

  Jared turned away from the sizzling skillet to face his brother. “Has the fire inspector come to any conclusions?”

  “He wound up the investigation this afternoon and although it will be a while before he makes any public statement, he’s told me it was a clear case of arson. In fact, he said there wasn’t even an attempt to hide the origin of the fire. Someone splashed gasoline everywhere then tossed on a few burning candles.”

  Even though Jared had pretty much suspected the fire had been set, hearing the facts from Bram sent a cold chill to the pit of his stomach.

  “Hell, Bram, what’s going on
here? Who would want to hurt me and Kerry?”

  “We don’t know if the arson was meant to harm you two. The perpetrator might not have been aware that you two were in the courthouse.”

  Jared cursed. “You don’t believe that any more than I do. The bastard knew we were there. He couldn’t have missed the light or our voices. He was only a room away from us!”

  Bram swiped a hand across his face. “Yeah. You’re right. I think there was real criminal intent here,” he admitted in a weary tone. “I’m just not sure if the fire was directed toward you and Kerry or if it was only set to destroy county records. Or both.”

  Suddenly remembering the steaks, Jared turned back to the cookstove and flipped the contents of the skillet.

  “I don’t get it, Bram. Kerry and I went through most of the birth and marriage certificates in the Colton family and we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Why would anyone want to destroy our family records?”

  “Why does anyone want to destroy information,” he said grimly. “To cover up something.”

  “Yeah. But what?” Jared countered. “I went by the feed store last night to talk to Gran about it. I was hoping she could shed some light on this whole thing. But she wasn’t feeling well and had gone to bed.”

  “I doubt she would have told you anything.” Bram replied. “She’s always been tight-lipped. Especially about her younger years.”

  “I can’t understand why,” Jared said as he forked one of the seared T-bones onto a warmed platter. “She’s been a widow for what, sixty years or more now? You’d think she could talk about the man without breaking apart.”

  Bram rose from the chair to join Jared at the stove. “You think this has something to do with our grandfather?”

  Jared shrugged. “Hell Bram, I’m just guessing. I really can’t see how it could be connected to him. Gran is eighty years old and as far as we know she’s never heard anything from his family. We don’t even know if he had any family.”

  Bram took a few moments to mull over Jared’s suggestion before he spoke. “That’s true enough. And I’m not so sure I want to be the one to question Gran about this,” he admitted. “Are you going to try again?”