He watched helplessly as Lacey mourned for the son Davis had taken from her. Rafe brushed away a solitary tear. Joseph wasn’t his child, but he’d known the little boy since his birth. How could he not feel her loss or grieve with her, for her? Not when he was crazy in love with Lacey. Her loss was his loss. She hurt, he hurt.
Danger had seen to the child’s burial while Lacey was still fighting for her life. Rafe thought her son’s death and burial must seem surreal to her. She needed this closure. God, he just wanted to get her out of this daunting country and to his ranch in Triangle, Texas. Get her away from all the horrible memories, the heartache and pain, hold her in his arms, and let her healing begin. Love her. Cuddle her. He figured she deserved lots of cuddling, and by God, he intended to see she got it.
Rafe squeezed Lacey’s shoulders. She looked up, her expression bleak and lost. His heart grabbed. Tears stood in her gold-colored eyes. No matter how much petting he gave her, no matter how much he loved her, she reminded him of a broken doll. Crushed. She’d never be the same again.
Bruises still marred her face. Her right arm rested in a sling. Two bullet holes still mended and thin scars the color of strawberries marred the tender flesh of her belly where Smitt had cut her multiple times with a knife.
Gone was the feisty woman who’d once laughed, teased, and flirted shamelessly. He thought that woman had probably died down in that well. Lacey was quieter, a paler shadow of her former self. More serious. Where once her eyes had sparkled with silent laughter, they now reflected deep pools of pain. The woman he’d fallen in love with, the lively, cheerful female whose laughter had captured his heart, no longer existed. In her place was a woman who was stronger for her ordeal, but one who rarely smiled, and sometimes flinched when someone got too close to her.
Rafe didn’t care. All his focus was on Lacey and what she needed. He intended to spend the rest of his life making her smile, making her happy. She deserved no less.
Tugging her into his arms, he bent closer, sheltering her from the sharp bite of the icy wind. They’d been standing here for at least thirty minutes. The bitter cold cut through their denim coats, but he refused to rush her. If she needed to stand here all day, then he’d remain beside her and hold her hand.
The hours after her attack, the time she’d spent in the old well, hell, he knew she had some catching up to do to settle it all in her mind, to free her soul of the guilt she felt over Joseph’s death. Funny how things worked out sometimes, how life raced at you full speed and knocked you on your ass.
He’d loved Lacey for three years, but she’d been married to Danger. He’d never expected to hold her in his arms. Because of Danger’s involvement with another woman, and the attack on Lacey and her son, she was now his wife. From the ashes of their wrecked lives, this was the one thing he refused to regret or was willing to change or give up. Lacey—his wife.
“Are you ready?” she asked quietly. “I need the last of the boxes from the house. I want to get out of here, Rafe. Please?”
By here, he knew she meant Montana. “Are you sure you’re ready?” He hesitated, then cleared his throat. “Lacey,” he said huskily. “Sweetheart, Karen’s in the house. So is Danger. He’s weak. The man can barely stand. He’s using a walker for mobility. I just wanted to prepare you, baby.”
“Walker?” Her gold eyes rounded with sadness.
“It’s temporary. He’ll get strong again in time. I can’t believe he left the hospital without the surgeon’s release.”
“Danger does things his way,” she said a bit sadly. “And the surgery, well you know, they drilled, instead of cutting his skull apart. I think maybe that was less invasive than…” She shrugged. “You know?”
“Yeah. You’re right. I know I told you this before, and God knows it kills me to say it again, but if you still love him, still want him, I’ll set you free.”
A faint smile touched her lips, there, and gone in a blink. “You keep making that offer one might think you want your freedom.”
“God no, sweetheart,” he rushed to assure her. “Never.” He wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tight against his chest. “I never want to let you go. I want to take you home and spoil you. When you’re ready, and if God’s willing, I want us to try for another baby. I want our home overrun with the sound of childish laughter, Lace.”
Her face abruptly looked blank. “Another baby?”
Maybe it was too soon for him to mention more children to her. He cleared his throat. “At least three, if you want…someday.”
She fiddled with the collar on his denim coat. “I want you, Rafe. I want your babies…someday. Right now, I can’t think about having more children.”
He felt as if a knife had been thrust in his heart. “Okay. I didn’t mean to rush you. I wasn’t rushing you. I just want our marriage to be solid, a little something to cement it together.”
She tilted her head, searching his face. “I love you, Rafe. For now, that has to be enough glue to hold us. You have no worries where Danger is concerned. Danger…well, he made his choices…and he took away mine. He made decisions without consulting me or giving me a chance. I’ve made mine. Now…” She smiled. “I have three boxes in the house, in our bedroom.”
“Our bedroom?” He lifted a quizzical brow.
“The one you and I slept in together. After you left, I moved into that room. Danger stopped being a husband to me months before, long before you and I slept together. You’re the only one I’ve had sex with in over a year.”
Rafe cupped her chin and pressed a light kiss against her mouth. “We didn’t have sex, Lace. I made love to you. You gave me the most incredible night, the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to me.” He rubbed his mouth against hers. “Wait for me in the truck. I’ll get the boxes and we’ll get the hell outta here.” He handed her the keys. “Start the engine. Lock the doors.”
Her gaze flashed to his and she nodded. She took the keys and turned away.
“Lace?”
She turned back, a small figure wrapped in a denim jacket, question in her solemn gaze.
“Here.” He pressed a gun in her hands, the backup he kept in an ankle holster. “You know how to use it?”
“Yes.”
“Be sure you do if you have to. Don’t give the bastard a fighting chance.”
“I never intend to.”
Rafe leaned down and took her mouth. When he released her, he stepped back. “Go. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Okay. Thanks. I’m not up to facing Danger or Karen’s hostility.”
“You don’t have to, sweetheart, that’s what I’m for.”
Rafe, ex-Special Agent, now sheriff of Triangle, Texas, knocked on Danger’s front door—the one Smitt Davis entered when he attacked Lacey. The man had wrought nothing but death and destruction and nearly destroyed a wonderful young woman. One day, Rafe vowed, the bastard would pay.
Waiting impatiently for someone to let him in, Rafe shuffled his boots. Damn, it was cold.
“Come…in,” Danger said, throwing open the door. His body jerked with uncoordinated movements. He leaned heavily against the metal walker, his breaths sharp and ragged. His speech sounded slightly slurred, most likely from pain medicine Rafe decided. “It’s a bit of a mess, but…” Danger’s words trailed off, he shrugged and turned toward the den.
“It’s okay. I’m here for the rest of Lacey’s things, not to see your house.” Rafe prayed it was the last time he ever had to see Danger or set foot in this house.
Danger turned a piercing eye on him.
Shit. Even recovering from surgery, the man could stare down a rattlesnake. Rafe realized he’d sounded rude, but this wasn’t a social visit, and certainly the two of them hadn’t parted on the best of terms at their last meeting, not when Danger had attacked Lacey in her hospital bed the way he had, accusing her of murdering Joseph.
Rafe had no doubt Danger hated his guts, after all, he’d seduced the man’s wife, not once, but se
veral times right here in their home. Even if he’d done it with Danger’s silent approval at the time, Rafe knew it hadn’t been a smart move on his part. The only room he hadn’t made love to Lacey in was her and Danger’s bedroom.
He felt he didn’t have much decency left after sleeping with Lacey and her still married to a man who was ill and not thinking straight at the time, but damn it, she was his now. Rafe wasn’t about to question his good fortune. It wasn’t his fault Danger gave her up.
The one decent thing he’d made certain he did was stay out of Danger and Lacey’s bedroom and bed, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself from touching her. God knew he’d tried, but in the end, he’d wanted her with a desperation he still felt. He’d die before he ever left Lacey vulnerable to another man the way Danger had done.
Rafe stepped inside the house and stilled. Good grief. His jaw gaped. His eyes widened. A bit of a mess was a misnomer. It was all he could do to keep from groaning. Karen, Danger’s new wife, was already making her mark inside the house—and not for the better.
Lacey’s tastes in furnishings were exquisite. Karen’s were stunningly garish. The woman had stripped the homey wallpaper from the den. Rafe was glad Lacey had remained in the truck. She’d hung the autumn leaf and deer patterned paper to complement the local environment, as well as make the den the masculine room it was meant to be.
Karen had replaced it with Pepto Bismol pink and neon green wallpaper. The wide, busy stripes of the two colors bled together and created a nauseating effect. He didn’t know whether to gag, laugh, or go someplace and throw up. Swear to God when he met Danger’s evasive gaze, the man looked ready to hurl. Rafe didn’t believe for a minute the sickness etched on the sheriff’s pale face had anything to do with his recent medical condition. The man looked ill okay, no doubt sickened by the horrible mistake he’d made marrying Karen.
Rafe turned away. Hell, it made him sick and it was none of his business. He’d shared hot cocoa with Lacey in this room, made love to her in front of the big fireplace Karen was having dismantled rock by rock. In his opinion, the woman was not only a lunatic, she was a fucking nightmare. She’d hooked her claws in Danger about as deep as a female could sink them. It was obvious she intended to obliterate every trace of Lacey ever being here. He wondered if she hadn’t figured out yet she could never erase Lacey from Danger’s mind or heart.
Karen had never made any attempt to conceal her hatred for Lacey. Odd, since she was the one who’d wronged Danger’s wife. Rafe eyed what had once been a cozy room. The big, comfortable masculine furniture had been hauled away and in its place—God, he didn’t know what was in its place, something tawdry with extravagant pink and white flowers bearing oversized mint-colored leaves.
Determined to ignore the dazzling colors, Rafe blinked. If Danger could live in a room that resembled nothing better than the décor of an 1800s bawdy house, then he could sure spend a few minutes, get what he came for, and get the hell outta Dodge.
“I…uh…Lace left three boxes of her things in the guest bedroom. She asked me to get them.”
“Sure.” Danger shifted the walker, turned toward the hall and led him to the room. He paused inside looking around. “I’m afraid Karen had an accident with a bucket of paint and spilled it all inside one of the boxes.”
“Did she now?” Rafe snapped. “I’ll take the box. Maybe Lace can salvage something.”
“Is this the room you screwed my wife in?”
Rafe clenched his jaw. He hadn’t expected a verbal attack from the man. “Let’s not do this.”
“Is it?” he popped back. “Answer me, damn it!”
Reaching for two of the boxes on the bed, Rafe shook his head. “That doesn’t deserve an answer, and you’re doing Lacey an injustice.”
“A whore is a whore, no matter who she fucks.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that…one time. But when it comes to a whore, I think you’d know that one better than I would. Good God, man, how can you justify feeling wronged? You didn’t want her. When a man wants a woman, he doesn’t do…h–he doesn’t do to her what you did.”
Danger’s gray eyes burned with fury. “She fucked you the first chance she got.”
“No. That isn’t true. Otherwise, I’d have made her mine three years ago. Lacey isn’t a whore and you know it.” Rafe refused to back down or keep the fierceness out of his tone. He wasn’t catering to Danger. If anyone had a right to feel betrayed, it was Lacey.
“You didn’t answer me. Is this where you fucked my wife?”
“I have no intention of discussing what happened between Lacey and me with you. I won’t turn our relationship into a laughing stock or Lacey. You’re talking about my wife, the woman I love.”
“My wife first!”
“And she’s mine last. Jesus, Danger, ill or no illness, you did some lousy things to the woman you were supposed to love and cherish. You’re still saying bad things about her when you know your words aren’t true. You can’t lay your guilt on her or me. You wanted me to screw her. Don’t complain now because your plan worked too well, and if you call her a bad name once more, I’ll deck you.” He eyed Danger’s pale face. “I don’t want to argue or fight with you, but I have my doubts you ever loved her like she deserves to be loved or you would never have taken another man’s word she was unfaithful.” He drew a sharp breath trying to control his anger. “You didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt or the courtesy of even asking her if she was guilty. You went off half-cocked and cheated on her with Karen.”
Danger’s bottom lip curled. “You stand there and defend Lacey when you spent a night in bed with her in my house?”
Rafe nodded. “I’m not saying what I did was right. I should have taken Lacey and got out of your house. I’ll accept that blame, but everything else was your doing. I knew what you wanted, what you were doing, but Lacey had no idea what you were setting up.”
“Looks like I judged her right. She jumped your bones fast enough.”
“Enough! Don’t stand there and pretend you didn’t know how I felt for Lacey. You knew I was in love with her, and you used it to your advantage. It took three years of careful seduction on my part to win her to my bed. It only took you a night to give me your blessing to persuade her. I don’t think I would have ever won her, if you hadn’t thrown her away.”
“You sonofabitch! You set out to steal Lace from me from the beginning.”
“Yeah, I admit I wanted her from the first moment I laid eyes upon her, but I would never have touched her. I stayed away. Damn it, I tried to stay away. You kept calling me, kept insisting I come to Montana. You left us alone together at every opportunity. Yeah, when you made it plain you didn’t care about Lacey, then yeah, I made plans to seduce her, but I wouldn’t have followed through…until I realized you were cheating on her. You forget, I saw how you treated her, heard how you talked to her.”
“How I talked to her?” Danger smirked. “You’re just trying to ease your conscience.”
“No. I don’t regret anything that happened between me and Lace. You belittled everything she did. I decided to put more effort into winning her, because you sure as sweet hell didn’t deserve her.”
Danger growled low in his throat. “I’m warning you, Rafe—”
“Uh-uh. You had your say. It’s my turn. It took time to earn Lacey’s trust, to win her love. You treated her like shit. Worse, you said cruel things to her that devastated her. I won’t let her be hurt like that again, not by you or anyone else. And I won’t give her up because you’ve suddenly come to your senses and want her back. You had your chance with her and you blew it.” Rafe hefted a box onto his shoulder and turned to go.
“Was it good for you? Did she make those crazy little kittenish sounds for you she makes when she climaxes?”
“For God’s sake, Danger!” Rafe spun around to face him. “Where were you when I made her mine? Where were you when I spent an entire day, an entire night and half the next day with
her? Where were you for all those hours? You left us here alone. It was your setup from beginning to end. You wanted me to screw your wife so you’d be free of blame and guilt. Well, guess what? Guilt isn’t so easy to shake, is it?”
Danger’s mouth opened, closed.
“I let you maneuver me into seducing Lacey, but she doesn’t deserve your disrespect, Danger. I admit my part of the guilt. It’s time you faced up to your part in this fiasco. Then let it go. Let Lacey go. Because of what you and I did, she’s been through hell, but I intend to spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to her. She doesn’t belong to you anymore, man. She’s my wife. You have a wife, a kid on the way.”
“Lacey will always belong to me,” Danger said, his face pinched with stubbornness.
“No. You threw her away like she was a piece of garbage, just like Smitt Davis did. You weren’t happy with that, though, you trampled her into the ground on your way out the door. You pushed her at me. I’m not stupid enough to make the same mistake.” Rafe eyed the white gauzy bandage around Danger’s head, the chalky color of his skin. “Look, you were ill. From the things you’re saying and the look of you, you still don’t have things straight in your head. Bad things happened we’ll all regret for the rest of our lives. The one good thing to come out of this fiasco is my marriage to Lace.”
“We lost our son. That’s a little more than a bad thing.”
“I’m not insensitive to that.” Rafe sighed. “I know both you and Lace suffer because of the loss of Joseph, but it isn’t her fault.”
“We lost our son!”
“Yes. And it was neither one of your faults. It was bad timing all around, and there was nothing either of you could do to stop what happened. You and Lacey lost your son, but she and I lost our baby, too.” Rafe heaved a ragged breath. “We don’t have what you and Karen have, and we may never have it again. You have Karen, and you have another child on the way. Lacey…well, Lace might never be able to get pregnant again. That has to count for something for you in the way of revenge. Smitt messed her up inside. Does that make you happy to hear? Let her go. She’s suffered enough. Start over, Danger, and leave her and me in peace so we can try to rebuild our lives.”
Playing For Keeps (Montana Men) Page 9