by Nikki Logan
‘Was your father that kind of man?’
She was silent for a moment. ‘She must have feared he was.’
He paused, wondering how much of this scab to scratch off. ‘Did he know?’
He felt her nod against his shoulder. ‘Always. Two little cuckoos in his nest.’
‘Ellie…’ He turned her chin up to look her in the eye. It broke his heart to see them full of tears. It made him want to wrap her in his arms and protect her forever.
Forever?
The intensity of that shook him. He pulled back a little. ‘He chose you. To raise you and to love you.’
Her shrug was sharp. ‘We were a package deal. He wanted my mother.’
Compassion settled in his gut. Who was he to say what motivated Cedric Patterson or didn’t, or what kind of a father he’d been to Ellie? What experience did he really have with parents? Ellie was the one who’d had to live the life, deal with it as best she could.
And it had nearly ruined her.
‘I guess I understand, then, why you feel such an intense need to control things.’
‘I don’t.’ But it was so patently ridiculous even her own protest was half-hearted.
‘Then why aren’t we naked in front of that fire right now?’ He needed to shock some life into those suddenly dead eyes. It worked, two green-tinged blue diamonds flicked up to him. Heat flooded her cheeks. But she’d been nothing but honest with him since they’d met.
‘That’s not about…control…exactly.’
Sure it was. ‘Then what’s it about?’
She smiled, a poignant sort of half effort. ‘I’m not sure you appreciate how rare it is for me to feel this way.’
He narrowed his eyes, a stone forming in his gut. ‘What way?’
‘Attracted. Comfortable.’ She took a deep breath and twisted upright against him. She locked gazes with his, though there was fear behind the bold words. ‘Desirable.’
Chemistry whooshed around them but it tripped and tumbled over heavy boulders of reality. Ellie wasn’t like other women. She didn’t operate on the same plane as everyone else. She had no real experience with men, from what he could gather, yet here he was offering her a good time but not a long time.
Jerk.
Yet beneath all the chivalry, a really primal part of him tipped his head back and howled that she trusted him with her soul and her body. Could he really walk away from that?
Regardless of whether or not he was worthy of it.
He shut that part of him down and refused to look closer. ‘Ellie… You know what you’re saying? Is this something you really want to do?’
She met his eyes. ‘I’m thirty years old, Jed. Old enough to make my own decisions. I’m ready.’
He knew he was. He’d been ready from the moment he met her out on the road to the Calhoun ranch.
He settled her more comfortably against him and cupped both sides of her face, staring into her eyes intently. They sparkled with provocativeness and defiance. So much so he almost bought it. But her own words echoed in his head in the half a heartbeat before he let his lips touch hers.
‘Fraud,’ he breathed against her lips. ‘You’re terrified.’ She was nowhere near okay with this.
‘A little.’ Her eyes smiled where her lips couldn’t. ‘But I feel safe being terrified with you.’
Unfamiliar emotion crowded in, wanting to awaken her and protect her at the same time. He knuckled a loose thread of hair away from her face. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Ellie.’
And he would. Because that’s what he did. He couldn’t be trusted with hearts.
She lifted her face. A dozen thoughts flickered across her expression and he wasn’t quick enough to grasp any of them. ‘I don’t want to be like this forever.’
‘Like what?’
She stared at him, long and silent. Then finally she whispered, ‘Broken.’
Compassion flooded up from that place down deep he wouldn’t look, washing away any hope of him doing the rational, sensible, smart thing. Part of him rebelled against that, stormed at him that healing her was not his job, that it was not conducive to the kind of short and sharp relationship he wanted. But the primal part shoved past those concerns and spoke directly to his soul.
Ellie needed him. Ellie wanted him.
And he wanted her.
He wasn’t a fool. He knew tonight wouldn’t be the night that he really got to know her. And he didn’t want it to be. With Ellie he wanted to take it slow.
They mightn’t have long but they could make it count.
The raging, warning part of him slammed itself against the casing of the box he kept it in way down deep. He ignored it. There were a dozen reasons this was a bad idea but, for the life of him, he couldn’t think of one strong enough to stop the motion of his body as he swung his legs off the sofa and pulled her upright with him.
For some reason—despite everything that happened in New York with Maggie and despite the kind of man he was—he’d been gifted this beautiful woman and her courageous soul.
He wasn’t going to throw the opportunity away.
Ellie saw the decision in Jed’s gaze the moment he made it and the reality of what she was about to do hit her in a flurry of sharp nerves. She swallowed hard. ‘How do we…start?’
His fingers against her jaw eased some of the flurries. ‘What about where we left off?’ he breathed.
Already she was half hypnotised by the new intensity in his heated gaze. The hunger. ‘The dance or the lake?’
‘The best parts of both.’ He took three steps towards the fire. Then he pulled her into his arms for another slow dance.
She tipped her face up. ‘We have no music.’ It was a pathetic attempt to head off the inevitable, even if she wanted it. And she really, really did.
His eyes softened. ‘Let go, Ellie. We’ll dance to the rhythm of the fire.’
And so they did, shuffling left and right in the cozy space between the stove and the sofa. Jed trailed his fingers up and removed her combs, freeing a tumble of hair. She let herself enjoy the sensuality and anticipate his next touch.
‘Okay?’
Her heart pounded against her ribs. She nodded.
On they danced, Ellie sliding her arms around his waist and curling her nervous hands into his shirt. His fingers travelled up and down her spine, stroking her once again into the comfortable place she’d been back at the dance.
It didn’t take long.
Warm breath teased her jaw, her neck, as his lips dragged back and forth across her blazing skin. She leaned into his caress and slid one hand up under his hair, then—finally—turned her face towards his.
Their blind lips sought each other out.
And then they were kissing. Soft, sweet. Hot, hungry. Slow, lazy. Every part of her body throbbed with a mix of uncertainty and yearning. Sensory overload. Jed’s strong arms kept her safe and created a place where she could explore and discover without fear. Desire washed through her starved cells, fast and tumbling.
He breathed her air and fed her in return. She felt the hammer of his heart against her own chest and knew it wasn’t uncertainty, like hers. It was passion.
Jed wanted her. And he cared enough to take it slow.
He cared.
Guilt shoved its way up and into her consciousness just as he slid his hand around to her ribs so that his thumb sat just below her breast. Her skin tingled then burned where his skin branded hers. She tried to focus on the new sensations he brought.
Then his thumb brushed across the tip of one breast.
‘Wait…’ Ellie tore her lips from his. ‘Just wait…’
His breathing was as strained as hers. ‘Too fast?’
‘I need to—’ she stepped back and pressed her fingers to her sternum ‘—I need a moment.’
‘It’s okay, Ellie. Take your time.’
Distress tumbled through her. He was being so kind. ‘No. Not that. There’s something I need to… Before we go any further.’
/>
She had to tell him. She should have already told him. A dozen times.
He collected her frantic hands and brought them together, in his. ‘Take it easy, Ellie.’
‘I need to be honest with you, Jed. I owe you that.’
It was such a risk. She knew how he felt about—
‘Honest about what?’
She stared at him, wide-eyed. Her feet tipped on the very edge of no return. ‘Ask me who my father is.’
He blew out a strained breath. ‘Unless you’re about to tell me that we’re actually related, I really can’t see how—’
‘Ask me, Jed!’
Her bark shut him up. He stared at her, his mind whirring visibly amidst the confusion in his eyes. He took a deep breath. ‘Who is your real father, Ellie?’
She stared at him, sorrow leaking from every pore. Wondering if she was throwing away any chance of ever feeling normal again. Wondering if she was throwing away her only chance at happiness.
But knowing she must.
She took a breath. And told him.
CHAPTER TEN
DEPUTY slamming full into him couldn’t have done a better job at knocking the air clean out of Jed’s body. He stood, frozen, and stared at her.
‘You’re a Calhoun?’
‘It’s why I’m here in Larkville,’ she whispered.
Visiting Jess. He’d not let himself quiz her further on that once he got to know her. It was none of his business then. But now…
‘You’re a Calhoun.’
He stepped back, a deep, sick realisation growing in his gut. She was here to meet them. He knew the Calhouns; there was no way they wouldn’t ask her to stay, to bring her into their care. He regulated his breathing to manage the roar building up inside him.
She’d say yes; why wouldn’t she? He’d never met a woman crying out more strongly for somewhere to belong.
She’d say yes and she’d never go back to New York.
‘I wanted you to know, before we—’ Ellie swallowed ‘—went any further.’
Further? His body screamed. He’d gone quite far enough. Yet nowhere near where he wanted to be. He lifted his eyes and stared at her. ‘I thought you were only here for a few weeks.’
Her face pinched. ‘I know.’
‘But you waited until now to tell me?’
‘I didn’t know if…this morning was a one-off, an accident…’
‘You think my tongue just fell into your mouth?’
She winced at his crude snipe. ‘I’m sorry that you’re shocked but it wasn’t my secret to tell.’
‘So why tell it now?’
‘Because we were about to…’
‘What?’ Do something irretrievable?
‘Go further,’ she whispered.
He searched around for something to hang his anger on rather than hating himself for being stupid enough to let this happen. He knew how hard she was searching for something more meaningful in her life. Yet he’d let himself want her anyway. To need her. And that scared the hell out of him. ‘You could have told me this morning. At the dance. Any time before this.’
On some level he knew he should be grateful she spoke up now and not even later. But he just wasn’t capable of more than a raging kind of grief. Ellie was a Calhoun. That meant she wasn’t just passing through; she was about as forever as it came.
Her colour drained more. ‘Yes. I should have.’
His snort damned her. ‘You think?’
It was her wince and Deputy’s quick slink away around behind the sofa that told him his voice was too loud. His anger was really disproportionate to what she was supposed to be to him—a casual thing—but it was burbling up from deep inside him just like the soak did from the aquifer.
Confusion only made him madder. ‘That’s it, then. We’re done.’
The pale shock left Ellie’s skin, pushed aside by her own angry flush. ‘Why? Why does it make any difference to us now? Either way I’m out of your life in a week.’
‘You’re part of my town’s biggest and most influential family. You couldn’t be more off-limits to me.’ He clung to that like a lifeline. It was better than risking exposing the truth.
‘Why? Just because of your rule…?’
Her pain burned him harder the more he tried to ignore his body’s response to it. She had no idea what she was stumbling towards. ‘My values, Ellie.’
She frowned, half confusion, half distress. ‘I thought…’
He threw his hands up, frustration eating at the body that just moments ago was humming with sudden and long-absent life. ‘What? That you were different? Special?’
Her gasp was like a reverse gunshot.
She did—he could see it in the hurt awakening in her eyes. She thought he might make an exception for her. For them. She didn’t understand that it was bigger than whether or not he wanted to make an exception.
Deputy peered out from behind the sofa at the sudden silence, the whites of his eyes betraying his anxiety.
‘You know how big a deal this was for me, Jed,’ she whispered. ‘To get myself to this point.’
Shame gnawed hard and low. But so did the raging frustration of who she was. And what that meant. And the fact she’d effectively lied to him. He flung open the door to the stove and stabbed at the crumbling coals.
But this wasn’t really about her keeping secrets. This was about grief. His grief that Ellie was now so thoroughly and permanently out of the question. There was no way he was risking her in any way. And since he couldn’t be trusted…
His body screamed at the denial and his soul echoed it softly.
That betrayal of his own heart outraged him even more.
He didn’t want to look into her eyes and see the growing emotion there, her growing connection. The dream of the cartload of kids they’d have tumbling over a greying Deputy or Ellie grown round and healthy with new life inside her. Even if secretly—desperately—he did.
He’d been down this road before and it didn’t lead anywhere good. A woman wanting more. A man wanting less.
He needed her to walk away. Fast. And she wasn’t going to do that unassisted.
He mentally brought out a revolver.
‘Why did you tell me now?’ he gritted, loading an emotional bullet into the barrel.
‘Because it was the right thing to do,’ she whispered.
‘It was the safe thing to do.’ He loaded another for good measure. ‘That way you wouldn’t have to step outside of your comfort zone at all. When things got heavy.’
‘Jed—’
Her chest rose and fell faster and he forced himself to forget how the curve of that flesh had felt under his fingers just moments ago. Soft and innocent. Vulnerable.
He’d betrayed someone else’s vulnerability once…
Her eyes glittered dangerously. ‘Why are you being like this? After everything I told you, did you seriously imagine that my past wouldn’t still raise its head? It’s going to take some time—’
‘We never had time, Ellie.’ He spun the barrel and snapped it into place. ‘That’s what you didn’t understand.’
‘I know. But it’s a start.’
‘The start of what?’
Confusion bled from her beautiful eyes.
His voice dropped. His pulse throbbed in the lips that were about to hurt her so badly. ‘What we were about to start would mean more to you than any other woman I know.’
Her nod was barely perceptible.
‘That’s not something you’d do lightly. Yet you were willing to do it, with me, for just a few short days?’
‘I… Yes.’
‘Because you hoped for more?’
‘No. You’ve been very clear.’
Liar. He could see the hope even now, shining brave and bright. And terrible. She wanted more. ‘Then, why?’
Her entire body stiffened. ‘Because I thought that it might just be the only chance I ever have. To feel like this. I wasn’t going to give that up.’
; Her only chance. Forever? The responsibility of that pressed its force outward from the dark place inside. He didn’t do forever.
He lifted the emotional gun and fought to keep his hands steady.
‘Right man, the right conditions,’ she went on. ‘I can’t imagine that happening again. Not for me.’
Anxiety twisted up live inside him. ‘What conditions?’ What was she expecting?
Ellie’s arms crossed her body. ‘Trust. Patience. Commitment.’
Panic tore its way out of that box deep down inside. Somewhere distant—far, far away from its angry tirade—he knew that she didn’t deserve this. But he couldn’t stop it.
He lined her up in his sights. ‘I haven’t offered you a commitment.’
‘I know. You’ve been painfully clear.’ Her voice thickened. ‘Why is that?’
She was going to fight back. Intense pride warred with disbelief, but he pushed it away. ‘Commitment doesn’t come on tap, Ellie. I have to feel it.’
Her face blanched and those slim arms tightened around her torso, steeling herself for the blow. ‘You don’t feel anything?’
‘I feel something.’ He wouldn’t lie to her but he wouldn’t string her along, either. He was no one’s Prince Charming. It didn’t matter how much he felt. Nothing good could come of her wanting him. ‘But it was never going to be happy ever after.’
She withered before his eyes and breathed, ‘Is that so inconceivable?’
And there it was.
The disappointed awakening. Hope dashed. Fear realised. Heart broken.
All the things he was best at. Self-loathing burned in his gut. ‘I know myself, Ellie. I’m not the committing type.’
‘Ten days ago I wouldn’t have said I was the kissing type. Yet here we are.’
Did she need it spelled out? He disengaged the safety on the gun she had no idea she was facing. ‘I don’t do commitment, Ellie.’
‘You’ve committed to Deputy. To Larkville,’ she argued, holding her own. ‘So you’re clearly capable of it. Is it just women?’
Ready…