When his mouth finally settled over hers the kiss wasn’t at all what she expected. She wanted deep, wet and hot. She got soft, slow and chaste.
Panic like she’d never known stung her eyes as she thrust her tongue inside his mouth, begging for more. Begging him to take her. But he denied her.
He tore his mouth from hers and stumbled back. The foot of space between their bodies felt more like an abyss. His blank gaze settled on her face. “We can’t, Maddy.” His chest shuddered as he struggled to control his breathing.
“Can’t what? Make love?” She reached out with one hand, but he took another step back, the movement sending a piercing pain through her heart.
“It won’t work.”
Her lungs tightened until it hurt to breathe. “If this is about Jonathon’s visit…let me reassure you—”
“It’s not about Carter. It’s about me, Maddy.” He shoved a hand through his hair and turned his back to her.
“I don’t understand.”
The silence went on until she thought the air in the room might splinter if either of them spoke. Refusing to have a conversation with his back, she marched around him. “If you’re dumping me, at least have the guts to do it to my face.”
His shoulders stiffened. Good. If they were going to sling arrows, she deserved a couple of direct hits, too. Slowly, as if each movement caused great pain, he lifted his head. His blue gaze, clouded with agony, clung to hers, and she held her breath, battling the fierce sting in her own eyes. Oh, no, Jake. Please, no.
“You’re an incredible woman, Maddy. A woman any man would feel honored to call his own.”
“Any man but you?”
He winced.
Another arrow. Another direct hit. How come it didn’t bring her pleasure?
“You deserve better than me.”
“Why do I have a suspicion this has nothing to do with you believing I’m too good for you?”
He pressed his lips into a tight line and stared over her shoulder. “You deserve more than a horse trainer, trying to make a name for himself on a struggling ranch.”
“You’re lying. This isn’t about the differences in our background.”
“Leave it alone, Maddy.”
“I never thought you were a coward.”
The bleak look in his eyes broke her heart.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I do deserve better.”
His eyes snapped at the blunt statement. Thank God the wounds weren’t real, or he’d be bleeding like a stuck pig right now. Please say you love me, Jake.
He drew himself up to his imposing six-three height. “Leaving…leaving tomorrow would be best.”
A cold chill rattled Madeline’s bones. She didn’t know if she could take much more, but she refused to give up without a fight. “Best for who? You, me or Annie?”
He rubbed his forehead and stared at the concrete floor. “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”
“Should I?” Startled by the rasp in her voice, she swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the thick lump in her throat.
“Okay. We’ll do this your way, Maddy. I want you to leave because of me. I don’t want a future with you. I apologize if I’ve led you on.”
She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs burned and everything in the room tilted. Not even standing in the wedding chapel, waiting in her gown for her no-show groom, hurt this much. Because you never loved Jonathon.
She hadn’t loved her former fiancé in the all-consuming, everything-I-am, can’t-live-without-you kind of way she loved the stubborn cowboy standing five feet away. It wasn’t easy, but she forced the words past her frozen lips. “What about Annie?”
He shrugged. “I’ll tell her something.”
“How about the truth? That you got what you wanted from me and now you don’t want me hanging around.”
His gaze slid away from hers. “Don’t, Maddy. Please.”
Hurting more than she ever thought she could, she moved closer to the big lug. His eyes refused to meet hers, so she pressed her fingers to his cheek and applied enough pressure until he turned his face toward her.
“I didn’t realize it right away, but I fell in love with you the first time I saw you, stomping toward me with a fierce scowl on your face and maybe even a hint of amusement in your eyes at finding a woman in a wedding gown caught on your barbed-wire fence.”
She stroked the beard stubble along his jaw and willed the tears away. “Even though you were angry and frustrated, your hands were gentle on my body, gentle with my dress. I knew right then that underneath all that macho-cowboy bluster was a man capable of real feelings.”
He shut his eyes, but he didn’t pull away from her hand.
“I’d just been dumped by my fiancé, yet all I could think about was the way my heart tripped over itself every time our eyes met.”
“Stop.” He stepped out of reach and backed farther into the corner.
Madeline hugged herself as raw grief filled her, making her limbs tremble and her teeth chatter. “I don’t know what to do, Jake. How to make you believe that the love I feel for you is real, deep, the forever kind.” She waved a hand around her head. “I can’t imagine my life anywhere but here. With you and Annie.”
His face remained expressionless. Was he made of stone? If not for the dark pain in his gaze, she would have thought her words hadn’t affected him at all.
“If this is about your marriage to Sara, then we need to talk about it. I don’t believe she would want you to punish yourself the rest of your life. Maybe you weren’t everything she needed in a husband. But if you’re half the man I know you are—”
“You know nothing about the man I am.”
“I know you’re kind, caring, maybe a little too head-strong—”
“Maddy, I killed my wife.”
Chapter Twelve
Madeline’s breath caught in her throat and she struggled to get air into her lungs. He killed his wife? No! The Jake she knew wasn’t capable of murder. “Look at me.”
Slowly, he shifted his gaze to her face, and what she saw made her want to burst into tears. Desolation. Anguish. Pain so intense she found it hard to believe he hadn’t crumbled to the floor. “You don’t have the eyes of a killer.”
A sad, faraway expression came over his face. “I didn’t stab Sara or shoot her. But what I did killed her just the same.”
“Tell me what happened, Jake. You can’t throw something like that at me and expect me to…to… I don’t know! Just walk away? I deserve an explanation.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what happened, Maddy. Nothing I say will change the fact that I’m not good enough for you. You deserve better than me.”
“Shouldn’t I be the one to decide if I deserve you or not?” Her legs threatened to give out on her, so she crossed the room and sat on the hay bale. She waited, listening to his labored breathing, feeling his pain press in on her.
“You won’t leave until I confess it all, will you?”
Her head came up. “No. I won’t.”
A rush of air escaped his lungs. “Fine. We’ll do this your way.” He stood with his back to her in the doorway and stared out into the barn’s interior. “I didn’t press Sara for sex while she was carrying Annie. I could tell she was still dealing with the rape. Every time I touched her arm, or grabbed her hand, she’d jump a foot off the floor.”
Madeline wanted to go to him. Hug him. Instead, she raised her feet and balanced them on the edge of the bale, then wrapped her arms around her knees and settled for hugging herself.
“After Annie was born, I waited six months. Then I tried talking to her about sex. I wanted her to understand I’d be careful. I’d go slow and stop if she wanted me to.” He cleared his throat. “She asked for more time.”
He shoved a hand through his hair and turned around, his eyes bright with emotion. “I waited two years, Maddy. Two years after Annie was born and I never cheated on Sara that whole time.”
Madeline’s h
eart clenched.
“Then one day I was filling the truck with gas and this pretty, young girl pulled into the station. It hit me that I hadn’t had sex in almost three years. I got mad. Mad at myself. Mad at Sara. Mad that I couldn’t control my body’s reaction to a pretty girl.”
Madeline was afraid to say anything for fear he’d stop talking. She sensed that he’d been holding this inside far too long, that it had eaten a hole right through his heart.
“I waited until Annie was sleeping that night. I asked Sara if I could just hold her in bed.”
Madeline ignored the tear that slid down her face and pooled in the corner of her mouth.
“At first she let me put my arms around her. But when I tried to kiss her, she pushed me away.”
Oh, Jake.
“I wouldn’t let her go. I kept kissing her. Telling her it would be okay. Telling her I couldn’t wait any longer.” He scrubbed viciously at the wetness on his face. “I swear to God, Maddy, I didn’t hear her tell me to stop. I didn’t even know she was crying.” He sucked in a ragged breath and punched the door frame with his fist. “I didn’t know!”
Madeline cringed. Jake’s misery went so deep he hadn’t even felt the blow against his hand.
“Sara panicked and grabbed the bedside lamp. She hit me on the head.” He rubbed the skin near his hair-line. “She accused me of being no better than the guy who had raped her.”
Madeline lost the battle with her emotions and cried soundlessly.
“I had to get out of there. I couldn’t trust myself around her. And the look in Sara’s eyes… I’ve never seen such fear in a woman’s eyes before. I packed a bag and took off. I didn’t know where I was going or how long I’d stay away. I just knew I couldn’t be in that house with Sara, not after what I’d almost done to her.”
“It’s understandable—”
He held up a hand. “I was gone two weeks, Maddy. During that time an ice storm hit the area. One of the horses got loose and ended up getting stuck in the stream behind the barn. Sara worked for hours trying to get the horse free. It was my first stud and she was aware that horse meant the world to me. She fell into the icy stream, soaking her clothes. But she stayed there until she got the horse out.”
Jake leaned against the wall and stared at the floor. “When I returned with my tail between my legs, she was sicker than a dog. She wouldn’t see a doctor. Then she fainted dead away at the sink a few days later and I rushed her to the E.R. She had severe pneumonia and her lungs were more than half full of fluid.”
He hung his head. “I begged her for forgiveness. Begged her to fight to live. Told her Annie needed her. Promised I’d never touch her again if she’d just get well.” He flung his head back, knocking it roughly against the wall. “She died two days later.”
Madeline couldn’t speak. She tried to swallow the lump lodged in her throat, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Can’t you see, Maddy? Sara trusted me to take care of her. I violated that trust in the worst way. Then I abandoned her.”
Madeline was off the hay bale in an instant. “You’re being too hard on yourself, Jake.”
His laugh sounded sinister. “I’m not being hard enough. Because of me, my daughter doesn’t have a mother.”
Madeline wanted desperately to touch him but feared if she did he’d storm off and she’d lose any chance at making him see sense. “Sara was an adult, Jake. Maybe things did get out of hand that night between the two of you. But your running off didn’t kill Sara. We all get sick at one time or another. Sara chose not to see a doctor when she became ill.”
“But I wasn’t there to drive her to the doctor.”
“Did you leave her without a vehicle to drive?”
“No. There was an old truck in the barn that was drivable.”
“And she could have called Gladys for help. Don’t you see? Your abandoning her didn’t make her lose the will to live. Sara wanted to die. Sometimes people are so frail inside that no matter how much you help them or love them, they just can’t go on.”
“I wish I could believe that, Maddy. God, how I wish I could.”
“I’m nothing like Sara. I’m not frail, Jake. I don’t need your protection. I don’t need you to take care of me. I just need you to love me. Don’t throw away what we have because you think you deserve to be punished for the rest of your life.”
“It’s not that easy.”
She felt anger slowly replace sympathy for Jake. Why couldn’t she make the stubborn cowboy admit how wrong he was? “Do you still want me to go?”
He gazed at her face as if trying to memorize her features. “Yes.” His voice rasped. “I want you to go.”
She dug deep down inside herself and found the courage to keep from falling at his feet and begging him to change his mind. “Promise me one thing.”
His eyebrows dipped.
She gently touched his face. “Promise me that one day you’ll find a way to forgive yourself. For your sake, Jake. And for Annie’s, too.”
He tore his gaze from her face. “What do you want me to tell Annie?”
“Tell her that her father needs to learn that love can heal even the deepest wounds.”
Feeling close to tears again, Madeline left the barn and returned to the house. Seattle was a long way away. She might as well get on the road tonight.
“YOU’RE LATE.” Jake jammed the Stetson on his head and clamped his lips together to keep from spewing a mouthful of obscenities.
“You said eight o’clock, Mr. Montgomery.” Harriet Blecker’s niece, Tiffany, glanced at her watch. “Oops.” Her glossy watermelon-colored lips curved in a smile as she dipped her head to one side, causing her long blond hair to slide over one eye.
At first, her blunt attempts at seduction had amused Jake. He’d chalked up the girl’s behavior to teenage hormones. But after a week of dodging accidental touches and rubs, seeing her arms and legs turn blue because her clothes were so tight, of Annie complaining that she didn’t play with her the way Madeline had, he’d about had it.
Tiffany was fifty minutes late, and he didn’t have the time or the patience for her adolescent sex games. He told himself the little rodeo-groupie-in-training was the reason for the dark cloud hanging over his head this morning, but he knew it was a lie. His grumpy mood had nothing to do with Annie’s new sitter and everything to do with missing Maddy.
She’d been gone two weeks, but it felt like a hundred years.
“I’ll be fixing the fence this morning.” At 5:00 a.m., a hand from the Winston ranch had called to give him a heads-up on a break in the fence line running along Jake’s property. The cowboy had chuckled and said the section was the exact spot Jake had found his barbed-wire bride.
Well, Maddy wasn’t his bride anymore.
He dreaded going back to the place he’d first met Maddy. The pain of her leaving was still too fresh, too acute. If not for Cyclone roaming that pasture, he’d have let the downed fence lie until he was good and ready to fix it. Like, fifteen years from now. But he couldn’t afford a lawsuit if the mangy bull got it in his thick skull to take off and terrorize the good citizens of Ridge City or some unsuspecting tourist passing through. He snatched the truck keys from the hook by the back door. “Annie’s watching TV. Keep her in the house until I get back.”
He didn’t wait for Tiffany’s usual “You be careful now, Mr. Montgomery,” before storming out the back door. He must have a ton of dead brain cells to have hired the girl to care for his daughter the rest of the summer.
But what was he supposed to do when he had a corral full of horses to train, and Maddy had run out on him and Annie? Whoa there, buddy. She didn’t run out on you. You ran her off.
He hopped into the truck, gunned the engine and sped down the road, tires spitting up gravel. He knew he couldn’t have forever with Maddy, but why hadn’t she fought him harder? He’d wanted her to refuse to leave. The fact that she’d left without much of a fight told him where he stood with her.
&nb
sp; His eyes burned at the memory of seeing her stow her few belongings in the rental car that night. She hadn’t bothered to search him out to say goodbye. So he’d stood in the barn doorway, feeling as though the world had stopped revolving, as she drove out of his and Annie’s life. He remembered grabbing on to his anger and holding it close. Not until Annie came down for breakfast the next morning did he almost fall apart.
The pain didn’t lessen with each passing hour, passing day, as he’d thought it would. He’d been worried as hell ever since she’d driven away. For three days he’d wondered if she’d made it back to Seattle safely. He’d called Directory Assistance and discovered there were over one hundred and fifty Tates in the Greater Seattle Area. Then he’d remembered the name of the ad agency she worked for. The uppity receptionist had answered the phone, but wouldn’t give out any information on their employees.
What would he have said to Maddy if he’d been able to talk with her? I’m sorry? I need you to watch Annie? I want you back, but not forever?
He’d thought of calling her father’s law firm but chickened out twice after dialing the number. In truth, he’d been afraid to find out that she’d gone back to her idiot ex-fiancé, Jonathon.
Jake reached the end of the road, turned right onto the highway and headed north. The break in the fence was a ten-minute drive away.
He eyed the land around him, waiting to feel comfort in the vast nothingness that had drawn him here years earlier. He’d found refuge for himself and Sara in the miles and miles of open space. But Sara was gone now. And suddenly all this nothingness felt more like a prison than a haven.
Sara’s death had gutted him emotionally. Years of pretending that eventually everything would be okay had come crashing down on top of him like a rockslide. He’d wandered around in a daze for a week. After the first seven days, the numbness had worn off and the guilt had threatened to suffocate him. Then Annie had quit talking, and blaming himself, he’d fallen into deeper despair.
The Cowboy and the Bride Page 19