Second Chances Boxed Set: 7 Sweet & Sexy Romances in 1 Book

by Tracey Alvarez

  Jared’s eyes narrowed, but she met them fearlessly. She would never back down and compromise Lacey’s well-being.

  “You need to wash the stables from your face and hands, Lacey,” Quentin broke the tense silence. “Your mother is quite right. You can’t take Duke home until you can ride properly.”

  “Okay.” Happy with this partial acceptance of her dearest wish, Lacey skipped off in the men’s wake to the bathroom.

  Winsome continued laying the table, trying desperately to subdue her agitation. How dare Jared put her in such an awkward position? After dinner she helped Catherine with the dishes before they went into the lounge with coffee. The two men were already in a deep discussion. Jared took his coffee, absently stirring in sugar.

  “If you get in touch with the stock firms and the dairy company they’ll have the current rates. They also have lists of dairy farmers wanting heifer grazing.” Quentin looked from her to Jared. “Have you considered grazing brood mares? They’re more work than dairy cattle but do pay better.”

  “What do you think of that idea, Winsome?” Jared’s question caught her by surprise.

  “It’s up to you,” she said cautiously, trying to understand what was behind the question.

  “You’re going to make a very helpful partner,” he drawled, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  “I don’t know enough to make a valid assessment.” Colour bloomed in her cheeks but she met his eyes steadily. “Harvey trusted your judgment and I’m prepared to do the same.”

  “Why not be honest and admit you are scared to death of horses,” Jared taunted softly.

  She sucked in a swift breath, meeting his eyes, striving to keep her expression neutral. Jared was spoiling for a fight. Wary, she weighed her words “That’s not surprising. There were no livestock at the children’s home and I’d never been near a horse until after we were married.”

  “That excuse is getting mighty thin.”

  “Thin or not it’s the truth.”

  This wasn’t about her fear of horses, she realised with a clarity that unnerved her. This was the wounded cry of a man whose pride had been lacerated. It was about betrayal, hers, his father’s and now his mother’s.

  “With a partner like you, what man needs a handicap?” With a disgusted sound Jared scraped his chair back and stood up, his expression cold, amber eyes glittering with barely suppressed dislike.

  Embarrassed, Winsome flushed to the roots of her hair. It was not like the man she’d known to be so blatantly rude. Whatever must their hosts be thinking?

  “I never asked Harvey for a thing, Jared.” She held her chin proudly, addressing the real issue here, refusing to skirt around it. “I don’t know much about farming, but I’m prepared to help you as much as I can.”

  “Good for you, Winsome.” A lazy smile touched Quentin’s lips at her spirited self-defence. “Don’t let him get away with being a despot.”

  “I might have known you two would stick together.” Jared’s expression was disgusted. “You’re still as close as you ever were.”

  Catherine’s troubled expression and the angry glint that flared in Quentin’s eyes disturbed Winsome. Was Jared deliberately trying to upset his brother?

  The idea appalled her. The two brothers had always been close.

  “Don’t take your spleen out on me, Jared,” Quentin warned, a thread of steel in his soft voice.

  “Oh hell. I’m sorry.” Jared rubbed a weary hand around the back of his neck. “It’s been a tough few weeks.”

  Quentin laid a sympathetic hand on his brother’s arm. “I know. Why not go home, sleep on it and make a few enquiries.” He looked at Winsome, his expression unreadable. “There is another option.”

  “What’s that?” Jared asked, wary.

  “Winsome could sell her unit and put the money into livestock,” Quentin suggested. “Then you would be equal partners.”

  Winsome darted a swift look at Jared and knew by his expression he had already considered and dismissed that idea. She took a swift breath, apprehensive at the thought of losing the only refuge she possessed.

  Did she want to be trapped in this very shaky marriage?

  “We’ll see.” Jared’s reply was noncommittal. “It’s time Lacey was in bed.”

  Nothing more was said in the general goodbyes that followed. On the way back to Totara Park, Winsome was quiet, dreading her first night alone with Jared. Lacey was asleep and he carried her inside, putting her on her bed.

  “Would you like a hot chocolate?” She nodded. “I’ll make it while you tuck her in.”

  Winsome undressed the sleepy child, who grumbled and protested throughout, then taking advantage of being alone, she undressed, showered and slipped into a warm flannel night dress and dressing gown before returning to the sitting room where Jared had hot chocolate waiting. He raised his eyebrows, his smile sardonic as his gaze swept over her from head to toe.

  Winsome cursed the unruly colour that flooded her cheeks. Head bent, she accepted a mug of steaming chocolate, settled in one of the comfortable armchairs and stretched her toes towards the fire burning in the grate.

  Jared sat in the closest chair. She shivered, a shiver that had nothing to do with the chilly, late-autumn night. “You have to remember Lacey,” Winsome’s hesitant words broke the brooding silence. “It’s not fair to quarrel in front of her. She’s not used to it.”

  “She’s never learned the normal give and take of family life.” Jared turned her words back on her. “You deprived her of that when you ran away and short-changed us all.”

  Appalled, she stared at this harsh stranger. How could she clear up this misconception? Explain that by leaving she was protecting herself and her unborn child?

  “I never ran away.” Her chin lifted as she was forced to say the words. “I left, sure. But I never ran away.”

  Her words sat in the pulsing silence.

  “Explain the difference, Winsome.” Jared leaned closer and she felt the warmth of his breath on her chilled skin. “Explain the nuance of meaning that differentiates running away from leaving? For the life of me I can’t see it.”

  Put like that, there was no difference.

  She nibbled on her lower lip struggling for words to explain the inexplicable. She took a deep breath and caught his scent, heady, familiar and totally intoxicating. Her heart rate picked up and her breath quickened as a traitorous desire scorched through every cell of her body.

  Oh hell, she did not need this.

  “What’s the matter?” Jared’s eyes held a predatory gleam as he stood up and leaned across to take the mug, perilously close to spilling, from her weak grasp.

  Hurriedly, she stood and took a step backwards, her hands lifted and then fluttered downwards in a helpless movement as colour bloomed in her cheeks. Nervous of him and the gleam in his eye, her tongue darted out wetting parched lips.

  Jared came closer, lifting a hand and trailing calloused fingers down one hot burning cheek. The gesture as gentle as it was intimate.

  “Don’t, Jared,” she pleaded.

  He chuckled, a wicked, knowing sound that scraped nerve ends raw.

  “Don’t what?” He asked, his sensuous whisper wrapping her fraught emotions in silken bonds. “Don’t take you to my bed and sate a hunger that’s been five years in the growing?”

  Her mouth dry, Winsome stared at him and whispered, “I’m not ready for this.”

  “Aren’t you?” He leaned closer, whispering, “Not ready for what Winsome, the feel of my skin against yours? The solace and peace from the torment of sleeping alone for five damnably long and lonely years?”

  Her lips trembled and with a muttered imprecation, Jared lifted a finger and rubbed it along her full lower lip.

  “Go on,” he whispered edging his tanned finger further inside her parted lips. “Take it inside. Suckle it. How you used to.”

  Caught in the sensuous web of his words, she began to weaken. Was Jared using desire as a weapon in her defea
t? Distressed, she pulled away breaking their tenuous connection. She wheeled towards the window resting her hot face against the cool glass, her breathing ragged.

  “What’s wrong?” Jared asked sharply, resting his hands on her shoulders and turning her to face him. He put a finger under her chin and lifted her face.

  Helpless, Winsome looked up, meeting his searching gaze.

  “You’re afraid.” His expression was genuinely appalled. “You think I’d hurt you?”

  “No,” she said her voice trembling. “I’ve never been afraid of you Jared. Never.”

  “Then what?”

  What could she answer? How could she make him understand?

  “It’s been a long time,” she said hesitantly meeting his searching watchful gaze.

  “Well you’ve certainly got that right.” He laughed and the mirthless sound grated on her nerves. He continued to look at her with those searching amber eyes, trying to penetrate the secrets of her soul. “If you’re not afraid then what is it?”

  “Shouldn’t we take some time to get to know each other,” she said in a trembling rush.

  “Once, I thought I knew you as well as I did myself.” Expression sober, he shook his head. “And look how that ended.”

  Helpless, Winsome stared at him.

  In a moment of clear perspicacity, she knew she wanted nothing more than to tumble into his arms and let passion sear away all the pain, the guilt and the aching loneliness but Jared deserved more. He deserved the truth. He would be wounded, but for the first time, she accepted it was inevitable.

  There’s always hurt before the healing can begin. She sucked in a sharp breath and stiffened her spine, wishing could silence that gruff voice. The decision wasn’t hers, nor was the hurt. That was Jared’s to deal with as he saw fit.

  “Jared,” she began hesitantly. “Gaelen—”

  She got no further. Jared placed a calloused finger over her lips, his expression hard and unyielding. “My mother has no place in our bedroom.”

  She’s always been there, Jared. An obscene ménage a trois. The words trembled on her lips but looking into this familiar stranger’s eyes, she saw a hardness that made her courage fail.

  For long, timeless moments, they challenged each other. Jared was the first to move, stepping forward he swept her into his arms.

  “There’s no way we can live together without this,” he muttered, his lips swooping down to claim hers.

  One touch of those familiar lips and she was lost. They kissed with the ravenous hunger of lovers too long denied. The heat, the need, the overwhelming sensation of homecoming scorched clear through to her soul.

  He swept her into his arms as if she weighed no more than Lacey.

  Crushed close, his earthy, woodsy smell overwhelmed her senses. Without conscious thought she buried her face in the hollow of his neck drinking in his scent, his closeness. She’d been like a woman dying of thirst in a desert.

  When they reached his room, he slid her down his body to stand on the floor and she couldn’t mistake his hard arousal or prevent the runaway race of her heart. She stared at him; heat surged through her threatening to burst her skin. Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth as she met the challenge in his molten amber stare.

  And I thought I could control my response to this man.

  She could never live so close and not succumb to this rapture. He lifted a hand, and ran a tanned finger along her lower lip and the simple gesture sent fire surging through every cell in her body until she was a quivering mass of sensation.

  “Do you want to sleep alone?”

  Unable to speak, she shook her head. It was all the consent he needed and yet, she knew in her deepest heart that had she said no, Jared would have allowed her to leave.

  No matter what it cost him.

  And this knowledge warmed a chilled place in her soul.

  He took a step back and Winsome watched him begin undressing. The buttons of his shirt slid undone revealing the thick tawny gold hair on his chest.

  He reached out and caught her trembling hand, lifting it and laying it on his exposed skin. It was hot and tight and she felt his heart pounding under her sensitised fingers.

  She tried to pull away, scorched.

  “Don’t be afraid.”

  But she was afraid.

  Afraid of the passion, afraid of the lies, afraid of the ugliness in her past, afraid of the ugliness in their shared past, afraid of all the other things Jared didn’t know.

  Seeing the shadows in her eyes, he slid his hands up her arms until he cupped her face between work-roughened hands. “Let it all go, Winsome, this is just for us.”

  Her mouth suddenly dry and her heart hammering a frantic tattoo as she met his blazing amber gaze. Her eyelids drooped concealing the haunted shadows in her eyes.

  Just this once, what can it hurt, chanted a seductive inner voice.

  “I’m hungry for the feel of your silky skin,” he murmured his voice deep and husky. “I want to kiss every inch of you then bury myself inside you so deep until I’m sated, and then begin all over again.”

  His sensual words made her heart hitch and race, filling her with helpless yearning. So often, in the long years of exile, she’d dreamed of this man’s lovemaking with an intensity that made her ache. But that was as nothing compared to her arousal at his earthy, sensual words. Her tongue again peeped out to wet parched lips and a helpless little moan escaped.

  “I’ve never hurt you. You have no need to be afraid.”

  Suddenly impatient, Jared pushed the dressing gown from her shoulders, his eyes smouldering as he saw the thick flannel nightgown.

  “Was this meant to be a deterrent?” he asked, a darkly amused smile creasing his lean face. “You look incredibly sexy covered from head to toe, a present waiting to be unwrapped.”

  This was so accurate Winsome felt a tide of heat surge up her cheeks.

  He chuckled, undoing the buttons one by one and slipping the gown down over her shoulders to pool in a heap on the floor. His gaze roamed her slender figure, the desire in his eyes igniting a fever in her blood. His challenging gaze ignited a primitive response in Winsome.

  She was no shy novice. Stepping forward, she unbuckled his belt. His eyes widened with surprise. She pushed his jeans and boxers over his lean hips, drawing forth a hissing breath as she stroked a hand down his arousal in a gesture any as blatant as the way he’d run his eyes over her.

  He caught her close, his mouth covering hers, demanding and possessive.

  Winsome matched him kiss for kiss, igniting a conflagration, white hot and intense.

  Hard and merciless, this was no gentle wooing.

  Winsome was equal to his passion, lifting her hips as he sought to prolong the tormented teasing, she pulled him closer until his body melded with hers in one powerful movement. His eyes were alight with a fierce, feral glitter, his teeth bared in a primitive grimace as he plunged into her tight, silky sheath.

  Thrusting her body up, she met him thrust for hard thrust until neither had any control over the primitive mindless passion that enslaved them both. The tension built until with one huge starburst she crashed over the edge into free-fall. She heard his harsh groan.

  For long enervating moments neither of them could move. Jared lay heavy on her in the aftermath, before moving his weight to one side.

  She looked at him and inexplicably burst into tears.

  Turning away, she buried her face in the pillow, sobbing as if her heart would break.

  “Winsome, did I hurt you?” Shaken by the dreadful, wracking sound of her weeping, he pulled her close, soothing a hand up and down her back. When her tears showed no sign of abating, he became alarmed.

  “Hush, Winsome, you’ll make yourself sick. Oh God, don’t cry so, please.”

  Chapter Five

  JARED’S PLEADING WORDS went unheeded as gripped by the blessed luxury of tears, Winsome sobbed, releasing an intolerable burden of grief and anguish.

 
Eventually she slipped into an exhausted sleep.

  A cup rattling in its saucer awakened her. She opened gritty eyes to see the winter dawn had filtered, grey and cold, into the deepest shadows of the room.

  “Why are you sleeping in Daddy’s bed,” Lacey demanded shrilly.

  With an arm over her eyes, Winsome lay motionless, not yet ready to face this momentous new day.

  “Because that’s where Mummy sleeps,” Jared answered Lacey’s question as he placed the tea on the bedside table then turned to the child. “Go and get dressed. Put on something warm. We’re going down the farm later.”

  Lacey obediently returned to her bedroom, leaving her parents alone in the fraught silence.

  “Thank you.” Winsome glanced up at him then swiftly lowered her eyes, though not before he saw the recognition of their fierce lovemaking in their depths.

  Just remembering the intensity of their passion made him hard, and too hot for his skin. Never had they made love like that. And then she had cried. Jared saw her evasive glance and sat down on the edge of the bed and put a hand under her chin and lifted her face.

  “Did I hurt you last night? Was that why you cried so bitterly?”

  “No,” she admitted huskily.

  He watched her restless fingers worrying the soft percale of the sheet as if she was seeking comfort from the luxury linen.

  “Then why those god-awful tears?” He ran an unsteady hand through his hair desperate to understand this woman he thought he knew so well.

  “I’ve never been able to cry easily,” she admitted hesitantly, her expression nervous. “I had no one to wipe my tears, so I never cried. Those were my first tears since Harvey died.”

  Jared watched her, his brow furrowed in a deep frown.

  During the long reaches of the night, when dry sobs had disturbed her breathing, he had been frantic to understand the reason for such bitter tears.

  They disturbed him. He could never remember her crying, no matter how upset she’d been.

  Now, her hesitant words deepened the sense of dread.

  Something wasn’t right, but he was unable to finger a cause for his apprehension.