The Lawman
Page 13
“So I’ve noticed.”
Leigh pulled into the clearing where the concrete slab gleamed a pale white in the light from the stars. “Well, here we are.” The beating of her heart sounded loud in her ears. “I guess we could just sit in the cab and drink the champagne.”
“That isn’t what your father would have done.”
“No, he liked to be able to look up at the stars while he contemplated his good fortune.”
Joe opened the door. “Then let’s go.”
The next few minutes were filled with the business of getting situated. The truck bed was littered with an inch or so of hay left over from the time Leigh had hauled a couple of bales out to Duane’s herd. Joe set down the champagne and glasses while he helped her spread an old blanket over the hay. It felt for all the world as if they were making up a bed with fresh linens, and then climbing into it as they settled themselves on the blanket, took off their hats and leaned against the cab. Down in the riverbed, a pack of coyotes yipped and barked as they chased a rabbit. Without a moon, the stars were so thick they looked like a dusting of powdered sugar.
“I feel as if I should take off my boots,” Joe said.
Leigh’s pulse quickened, and she took a steadying breath. “Go ahead.”
As he leaned down and did exactly that, she threw caution to the winds and took hers off, too, while he opened the bottle. She was impressed with how well he knew his way around a champagne cork.
After he’d poured them each a glass, he sat the bottle beside him and raised his goblet. “To Spilled Milk.”
“To Spilled Milk, my wonderful little filly, appropriately born under Leo, sign of royalty.” She clicked her glass against his and the chime carried through the clear air.
After they drank, Joe lifted his goblet again. “And to the Singleton nerve.”
She touched her glass to his and met his penetrating gaze. “To the Singleton nerve.” Then she closed her eyes and took a bigger swallow of champagne. Sometimes the Singleton nerve needed a little help. She settled back against the cab of the truck.
Joe followed suit, his shoulder brushing hers. “You had to think about it before you asked me out here tonight.”
“A little.”
“Why did you ask me?”
She drank some more champagne before answering. “To seduce you so you won’t sell the True Love.”
Joe’s chuckle was warm and rich.
“What’s so funny about that? Are you one of those untouchable cops who can’t be bribed?”
“I answered that the other day, if you’ll recall. When it comes to you, I’m very touchable.”
A shiver of awareness ran up her spine. “So why did you laugh?”
“Because you wouldn’t try to bribe me with sexual favors if your life, or even the ranch, depended on it. It’s not in your nature.”
“How can you be so sure? Didn’t anybody tell you I’m descended from a lady of the night?”
Joe laughed again. “No, I can’t say they did. Which ancestor was that?”
“Clara Singleton, wife of Thaddeus, the better half of the couple we’re honoring here tonight.”
“Clara was a prostitute?”
“There’s good evidence she was, before she met Thaddeus. But you see, he was a very liberal-minded fellow, and he didn’t care who had gone before him, so long as Clara pledged her love to him from that day forward. From reading her diary, I can tell she worshiped Thaddeus for restoring her good name.” She took another sip of champagne. “She would have done anything for him.”
“Sounds as if Thaddeus knew a good deal when he found one.” He reached for her glass and refilled it. Their fingers brushed as he returned the glass to her. The contact was enough to interrupt the pattern of her breathing, but he didn’t follow the gentle touch with anything more than a smile.
The champagne was making her reckless. “It was a good deal for him.” She took a sip while still maintaining eye contact with Joe. “She wasn’t an inexperienced virgin, like most of the brides he might have chosen. From a careful reading of the diary you can tell that Clara knew a lot about making love, and she taught Thaddeus everything she knew.”
Desire flared in his eyes, but his voice remained calm. “Interesting.” He drank his champagne, but his gaze never left hers. “So getting back to your original statement, you’re telling me that you, a descendant of a former prostitute, have the ancestral background to use sex to get what you want. Does that about sum up your reason for asking me out here tonight?”
“It could.”
“But it doesn’t.”
She gulped the last of her champagne.
He took the glass gently from her. “You don’t need that to deal with me.”
“Oh, yes, I do. I wouldn’t mind having the rest of the bottle. I wouldn’t mind being totally pie-eyed to deal with you, Officer Gilardini.”
He put down his own glass and turned back to her. “Then let’s see how you’re progressing toward your goal.” Rising to his knees, he cupped her elbows and drew her up to face him.
“What are you doing?”
“Administering a field test for sobriety.”
“You’re going to see if I can walk a straight line on my knees?”
His mustache twitched in amusement. “If you can do that, drunk or sober, we ought to get you on Letterman.” He held up his index finger. “Follow the movement of my finger.”
“Why?”
He sighed. “I knew you’d be a difficult test subject. This is called horizontal-gaze nystagmus. Now just do it.”
She laughed but did as he asked.
“Mmm. Again.”
She repeated the exercise.
Moving slowly, he cupped her face in both hands. “I regret to inform you that you are not intoxicated.”
Yes, I am. “How could you tell?”
He caressed her cheeks with his thumbs, sending heat coursing through her. “If you had been, your eyes would have jerked involuntarily while you were following the movement of my finger. Yours didn’t.” His voice grew husky. “They’re also the most luminous brown eyes I’ve ever tested.”
Leigh gulped. “I think I need more champagne.”
His voice was gentle but firm as he leaned toward her. “No, you don’t,” he murmured, holding her captive with the pressure of his fingers. “You’re a Singleton.” His mouth hovered above hers. “You can take the heat.”
12
JOE KNEW he could be kissing a felon, and it showed how far gone he was that he no longer cared. If Leigh had hired someone to cause the accidents, she’d certainly lost control of the process. If it turned out she was implicated, he’d use everything he’d learned about the law to get her off. Maybe she was guilty of loving the ranch a little too passionately for her own good. Joe understood. It was the same sort of desperate need he was beginning to feel for her.
Her mouth opened beneath his as he’d known it would. She could no more deny him than he could deny her. He took her surrender with a fierce joy, thrusting his tongue deep into her sweetness as he pulled her close. He sought to ease the pounding demand of his body against the softness of her breasts, the valley between her thighs—ah.
Yet she was not close enough. He needed...needed... He opened her blouse, unfastened her bra and groaned with satisfaction as the unbound swell of her breast filled his cupped hand. She arched her back and he pushed the garments from her shoulders, baring her to the glow of starlight. It was her element. Surrounded by the silver glow, she lost all hesitancy and met his gaze with a passion that made him catch his breath in wonder.
He stared at her, dazzled as if confronted by a goddess. His voice rasped in the night. “Who are you, Leigh?”
“The one you came to find.”
He shook his head. “But I didn’t—”
“Didn’t you?”
And he knew then that it hadn’t been the ranch or the Old West he’d been seeking. It had been himself, the man he’d lost somewhere on the str
eets of the city. With this woman, he could be that man.
She reached for his hand, turned it palm up and feathered a kiss there. Then she placed it over her breast so he could feel her pounding heart, beating as rapidly as his. “I am flesh and blood, as you are, and our bodies have a powerful need for each other. But our spirits crave connection even more.”
And he knew that, too. He’d known it from the moment he’d first looked into her eyes. He’d been fighting the knowledge because it didn’t fit with anything he’d ever believed. But he couldn’t deny what his trembling soul told him was true.
She brought his hand back to her mouth and kissed each finger before holding the back of his hand against her cheek. “Make love to me, Joe.”
The deepest sorrow he’d ever felt washed over him. He hadn’t expected this, not really. Even if he had, there’d been no time to make preparations. And no matter how unearthly the connection between them, it could have earthly consequences. He shook his head.
She released his hand and he mentally prepared himself to climb into the truck cab and ride back to the ranch for a long, agonizing night of abstinence. Instead, she smiled her enigmatic smile and reached into her pocket to withdraw several familiar-looking packets. “Would these help?”
He broke out laughing, a joyous sound that welled up from deep within him. “You are amazing. From fantasy to reality in the blink of an eye.”
“Well?”
“Yes, these will help.” He scooped them from her hand and tossed them to one side, right where he could find them again. Then he reached for her, holding her close as he gazed into her wondrous eyes. “And I will make love to you, Leigh Singleton,” he murmured. “And count myself the luckiest of mortals to be allowed that.”
She took his face in her hands. “I knew there was a poet in there somewhere.”
“You would make a poet out of a stick of wood,” he said, leaning down to drink nectar from her lips.
She unfastened his shirt, and he grew dizzy with the first contact of his skin against hers. Were there sparks from the friction, or was it desire exploding behind his eyes like Roman candles? He buried his face against her neck and the scent was of jungles he’d never seen, opulent flowers he’d never touched, yet he knew them as intimately as he would soon know her.
Her skin tasted like spice from the Orient, fruit from a tropical paradise, ambrosia from the depths of his fantasies. She created a world in the circle of her arms and offered it to him. Offered. Never had there been a sweeter word to describe the way she lifted her breasts for his pleasure. And he took shamelessly.
It was not enough. He removed the rest of her clothing that he might touch her essence, know the richness of her craving to be loved. She was lush with need, ripe for him, pulsing with his rhythm. He eased her back on the rough blanket, having only a moment to wish it could be velvet against her soft skin. But overwhelming awe swept away that mild regret as he gazed at her flawless body stretched beneath him.
Her image would be with him forever, yet he stroked her with the fervor of a blind man striving to memorize every nuance with his fingertips. She rewarded his touch with small gasps and moans that tightened his groin until he could stand no more and fought to free himself of his own remaining garments.
Looking into her bottomless eyes, he knew he could have slid effortlessly into her without thought of protection and she would not have resisted. The temptation flavored his tongue and trembled through his taut body, but he curbed it and reached for one of the packets beside her head. Distracted by the tumbled locks of her golden hair, he paused to comb his fingers through them. Then he opened the packet.
She watched him, her lips parted and her breath coming in quick spurts that made her breasts quiver. He leaned down to kiss those trembling peaks, to draw them once more into his mouth and feel the excruciating pleasure against his tongue. Her small, inarticulate cries heated his blood and filled him with visions of burying himself deep within her. He released her and sheathed himself with unsteady movements.
When he glanced back at her, his breath caught in his chest. She opened her arms, opened her thighs in a gesture of giving so complete that he moaned in ecstasy. He moved over her, knowing that he would never be the same man from the moment he joined with this woman. He held her gaze as he moved slowly, taking his time, entering her with the reverence due the most shattering moment of his life.
At last he was there, and she lifted her hand to trace the tears dampening his cheeks.
“Yes,” she whispered in sweet benediction. Then she tightened around him, awakening the wildness that lay just beneath the surface.
With a sound deep in his throat that he barely recognized as his own, he drew back and thrust forward again. She rose to meet him with a gasp of approbation. He moved again, watching the light flare in her eyes. He worked with that light, building it into a bonfire that made her body glisten in the starlight. In this moment he would claim what she had offered. And she would no longer be the same woman who lay down beneath him.
Surging within her, he lost all sense of where he left off and she began. Nothing mattered but the entity they were creating together, a fusion born of white-hot heat and primitive rhythms. At the moment she arched and cried out, synergy pulled him into the same spiral of release, and he surrendered as never before, without fear, spinning through time and space, his soul entwined with hers.
* * *
THE RISKS OF HEARTBREAK remained the same, but now Leigh had savored the rewards and knew she would dare anything to hold this man in her arms. For a few precious moments, he’d cast aside his protective armor and allowed her a glimpse of the richness of emotion he kept hidden like a casket of stolen jewels. No matter how he closed himself off again, he could never take back the naked passion that blazed in his eyes as he rose over her, or the tears when he claimed her.
He stirred and lifted his head from where he’d nestled in the curve of her shoulder. He gazed into her eyes and his mustache lifted as he gave her a slow smile. “Have we landed yet?” he asked softly.
“We may never touch earth again.”
He brushed his lips against hers, tickling her with his mustache. “I don’t know astrology from Astroturf, but something weird is going on here.”
She nibbled on his lower lip. “People don’t always have to believe in things for the consequences to affect them. But in case you’re interested, we called down some mighty forces tonight.”
“I’d be a fool not to agree with you.” He touched his forehead to hers. “I’ve never had an experience even close to that.”
“Of course not. Neither have I.”
“Because it’s written in the stars?”
“That’s right.”
“This requires some thinking.” He eased away from her and reached for the edge of the blanket. Then he pulled it over both of them as he rolled slowly to his back and gazed up at the spangled sky. “You believe what happened tonight between us was predestined?”
At least he was no longer making fun of the idea, she thought. “What other explanation can you give? You were in an elevator accident, a rare thing in itself, right?”
“Almost never happens these days.”
“And you met Ry McGuinnes, who happened to be interested in buying this ranch.”
“And I came out here and saw you.” He reached for her hand beneath the blanket. “Then the fireworks started.”
“And where is the first place we made love? The same place Clara and Thaddeus first made love.”
He caressed her palm with his thumb. “You said she wasn’t the virginal type, so they might have fooled around someplace else before he built this place.”
“Nope. I’ve read Clara’s diary. They didn’t make love until their wedding night, when he carried her over the threshold of the adobe house he’d built for her, under the lintel with the True Love brand burned into it. She was very proud of that wedding night, almost as if the abstinence cleansed her of her past.”
Leigh’s chest tightened and tears blurred the clear light of the stars. “Yes.”
His breathing quickened. “For you, too?”
“Yes.”
He turned on his side and propped his head on his hand so he could look at her. He cupped her face and stared intently into her eyes. “That’s wonderful to hear. You can’t imagine how wonderful.” He paused. “And I know what should come next now that you’ve confessed how you feel. But the thing is, you’d be getting a bum deal with someone like me.”
Although she’d expected him to say something like that, it still made her heart trip and stumble. “I’m willing to accept the risk.”
“I doubt you even know the extent of the risk.”
“I—”
“Do you know why I decided to leave police work?”
“I suppose because you were sick of the violence.”
He shook his head. “That’s a good, standard answer, but it’s not true. What many people don’t realize is that a lot of cops get hooked on the excitement that violence brings, and I was one of them. Looking back, I’m not surprised Darlene left me. I was a terrible husband. Being around her bored me compared to being on the job. Even Kyle’s activities bored me, so I wasn’t much of a father, either.”
Secretly she’d feared this part of his personality, but she grasped at hope with both hands. “Yet you did quit the force. And you’re trying to connect with Kyle.”
“And making a mess of it, too.” He sighed. “There was a time I was a lot like Kyle. But I killed off that part of myself when I was pretty young.”
“No, you didn’t.” She reached up and stroked the soft line of his mustache. “I met that side of you tonight.”
He looked down at her, longing darkening his gaze. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured. “And I can be such a bastard sometimes.”