by Jill Gregory
Cole’s muscles tensed at the thought of Juliana in bed with another man. His arms tightened protectively around her. “But this was?” he asked with a slow grin. Damn, she was soft. Her body was all sensuous curves and silken flesh, arousing him with every breath she took, every tiny movement she made against his own rock-solid frame.
She struggled free, laughing up at him, batting her eyelashes in the adorable way that made his insides fire up.
“Whatever gave you that idea, Mr. Rawdon?” she teased, then giggled as he grabbed her around the waist and drew her down on top of him once again.
“Certain clues,” Cole said purposefully, his eyes gleaming into hers. His grin made her shiver all over with heady anticipation. “Reckon I’ll have to show you what I mean.”
“Is that really necessary?” she cooed, rubbing his calf with her foot.
“Absolutely necessary.”
They forgot they were exhausted. They forgot they were sore, battered, hurt by more than fists and boots, bruised by the emptiness of the past.
Each found what they sought in the other’s arms. An hour after dawn, with peach light edging across the sky, they slept at last, curled together in the narrow bed, cleansed of sorrow and pain, spent but whole, like sailors who have found safe harbor from the raging storm.
Cole woke several hours later, lying with Juliana snug in the circle of his arms, pondering that everything good he’d ever wanted or possessed in his life had been taken from him, thinking with taut fear in his chest that she was the best gift, the most prized treasure he had ever known.
* * *
Storm clouds gathered over Twin Oaks as John Breen reread the telegram from Plattsville.
“Sheriff Lucius Dane,” he spat, tapping it against his palm. “I reckon he’s hungry for the reward.”
“What’s that you say, darlin’?” Jet Reeves, the newest dance-hall girl from the Lucky Dog Saloon, purred from his bed.
Breen scowled at her, then folded the telegram and flung it on the Louis XVI bureau. “Nothing. I guess this weather has me talking to myself.”
“It’s that telegram that has you talking to yourself, honeykins. Ever since Bart brought it up here you’ve been ... different. On edge, all upset about Lord knows what. I guess it’s up to me to think of some way to relax you.”
Relax? That was the last thing on Breen’s mind. He felt fired up in a way he hadn’t in months—not since Juliana Montgomery first vanished from his life. Unbelievable that in all that time no one had found her. None of the bounty hunters had turned up with her in tow, none of his men had uncovered a trace of where she’d gone after she’d sold that mare in Amber Falls. It was as if the woman had disappeared into thin air—until today. Until that telegram arrived.
Well, Sheriff Lucius Dane—whoever the hell he was—would have his reward, if this tip proved valid. And if it led him at last to that gorgeous little bitch’s capture. That snotty little golden-haired debutante who’d turned up her nose at him right from the start. No one turned up her nose at John Breen—no one had dared in the past twelve years.
It rankled deep within that he’d been bested by a woman—but, of course, he hadn’t. He’d only been delayed by her. He’d have Juliana Montgomery back, he vowed to himself as Jet held out her arms to him. He’d have her in his bed, in his complete control, on his own terms, and before the month was out.
He was leaving for Plattsville himself in the morning, storm or no storm.
As if to challenge him, a blast of thunder shook the sky, and heavy splatters of rain smashed down against the leaded windowpanes.
“Sweetie pie, come to bed.” Jet’s black hair, from which she took her name, swirled over her shoulders and partially hid her large, drooping breasts. “I know how to keep you safe and warm,” she promised with a sidelong smile.
“Get out of here, Jet.” Breen had no patience with her. Just seeing Juliana Montgomery’s name in that telegram —after having had no sign of her for months—had him wrapped up in her all over again. She was like a fever in his blood. “I’ve got thinking to do,” he dismissed the dark-eyed girl curtly. Her perfume, as gaudy and overpowering as the dresses she wore in the Lucky Dog, was clogging his nostrils, making him want to retch. “And I need to pack. I’m going on a trip tomorrow.”
“But honeykins, it’s so early—not even eight o’clock—and it’s starting to pour. You can’t send me all the way back to town in this weather.”
Breen reached her in three strides. The back of his hand caught her full across the face. She fell sideways across the bed with a scream.
“Don’t tell me what I cannot do, you two-bit slut.” His shout rang through the house like a steel gong. “I said get out and I mean it. Now. And if I call you back in an hour, you’ll come. You’ll come on foot, if I tell you to—you hear me?”
She started sniveling, her cheek blotchy where he’d struck her, the vivid fear stark in her narrow, painted face. Breen seized her by the arm and literally threw her out the bedroom door, then hurled her clothes after her.
Seething impatience pumped through him. He’d had his fill of Jet and her ilk. What he wanted was that eastern vixen with her snooty airs and emerald eyes so deep you could drown in them. He longed to see on Juliana Montgomery’s face that same fear Jet had shown. He longed to have her in his bed, doing what he told her to do.
And he would have her there, right where he wanted her. Unless this fool sheriff Lucius Dane was drunk or lying, he’d have his hands on her very soon.
19
It was a vision out of a dream, Juliana thought as she lay in the long grass of the valley beside Cole, watching as the wild white stallion grazed along the opposite stream bank with his herd of mares. “He’s magnificent,” she breathed, unable to remove her gaze from the proud figure of the snowy mustang, ghostly in the morning light. Beyond him was Eagle Mesa, and beyond that a series of rocky outcroppings dipping among aspen and sage, but along the streambed, junipers and piñón pines flourished, and the horses watered and grazed peacefully, momentarily vulnerable, in the open spaces beneath the tranquil opal sky.
The wind was blowing north, so the herd had not yet caught the human scent in the sage-tinged air. Juliana and Cole lay side by side for long moments, watching the shaggy-maned mares and the stallion keeping such careful watch over them.
A slight awkwardness had been between them until, after breakfast, Cole had taken her riding, showing her more of the rugged beauty and glorious isolation of this land he called Fire Mesa. The wild, indescribably gorgeous countryside somehow soothed both of them, forging an unspoken bond of appreciation between them. She hadn’t known what he was tracking at first, or why he kept switching trails and directions, until he brought her here to this lonely spot on foot, leaving the horses tethered in a rocky dell some fifty feet back.
They had settled down and not spoken until the wild band showed itself, and Cole had shared with her at last this miracle of the proud and tough wild horses who roamed among the valleys and buttes and lower canyons of Fire Mesa. Something inside Juliana quivered with awe at the sight of these hardy and brave creatures. There was no doubt that Cole, for all his toughness and experience, felt as she did about these fascinating creatures. His eyes glinted, and his face shone in the hazy light as he studied the watering band. Their shared pleasure in spying the herd and secretly watching its movements eased the remaining awkward feelings between them. Juliana could have stayed here forever, side by side with Cole, watching the horses in that near-mystical setting. But suddenly the wind changed and the stallion caught their scent. Instantly, his head came up, and he snorted in anger. He caught sight of them, low in the grass across the stream, and charged forward, stopping at the riverbank. Head up, he tossed his silvery mane and stomped the ground in fury. Then he reared up, forelegs pawing the air.
“Adiós, my friend,” Cole muttered under his breath.
Then, as if hearing him, the stallion gave a harsh, screaming whinny, alerting the ba
nd of mares to danger. Their heads flew up, and almost as one they scrambled toward Eagle Mesa, guarding their colts close, nipping, bumping together, streaming around the shimmering gray rocks toward the safety of the secluded canyons beyond. The stallion stayed behind, rearing up, screaming, giving the mares and foals time to flee. Only then did he wheel about and depart after them, his hooves flying over the grass like sparks of white fire. An old gray mottled mare, slower and weaker than the rest, waddled behind the pack, and the stallion nipped her rump ferociously as he caught up with her. That sent her galloping. As the sun sailed overhead through the cloudless arc of pale blue, they disappeared in a flurry among the rocks and brush and aspen.
“That was wonderful! Thank you for bringing me here,” Juliana exclaimed as he helped her to her feet. “That stallion was magnificent. Have you ever seen a horse as pure white as he?”
He was quiet for a moment before he answered her. “Not for many years.”
She wondered at his grim tone, then rested her gaze on him questioningly. Unsure what had brought that tight line to his lips, she regarded him in silence and waited.
“A man I used to know had a white horse much like that one. No dark markings, pure white. A mustang, hardy as even that stallion, though he was a gelding.”
“You didn’t like this man very much, I gather,” Juliana commented as he cupped a hand beneath her elbow and led her down the path to where their horses were tethered.
“Oh, I liked him well enough, until he and the woman he was working with—a woman I imagined myself in love with—shot me in the back and left me for dead in the desert,” came his casual reply.
She stopped, staring at him in horror. “Who was this man?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s dead. So is Liza. Not by my hand,” he added quickly. “Though if I’d found them alive, it would have been my doing. They died in San Francisco, killed over the gold they stole from me, and from some poor old prospector left murdered in the hills.”
His eyes were haunted, despite his calm tone. She sensed that this hurt and the old hate that accompanied it ran very deep within him, as deeply perhaps as his grief over the atrocities committed at Fire Mesa. “Why did they try to kill you?”
He lifted a hand as if to dismiss the question, then saw the soft compassion in her eyes. Something about that tender, intent look stopped him from avoiding the discussion, as he had intended to do. He had not talked about this with anyone in twelve years. So why, now, Juliana?
Maybe because last night had been the first night of peace, true peace, he ever remembered. Maybe because her kisses, her voice, her silken arms tight around him made the shadows retreat, the stone-cold loneliness he had taught himself to live with, even to enjoy, go away—if only for a little while. No one except Sun Eagle, who had saved him in the desert and allowed him to live among The People for a time, a brother among brothers, knew the story of how Jess Burrows had betrayed him. But he told it to Juliana now, on that quiet hillside, seated beside her on a slab of red rock beside the yuccas and agave. While the sun shone bright as fool’s gold, and a tiny wild geranium poked its scarlet head between two small boulders at Juliana’s feet, he told her the dark tale of murder and betrayal that had haunted him for the past twelve years of his life.
He had met Jess Burrows in California about a month after he’d hunted down Barnabas Slocum. Burrows was a strapping, good-looking fellow, congenial and generous, for all that he was as dirt-poor as Cole. It was Burrows who introduced him to Liza, working at the time as a dance-hall girl in one of the hundreds of saloons that had sprouted up in the wake of the gold rush. And it was Burrows who introduced him to Abe Henley, the flinty-eyed old prospector Burrows was supposed to protect but eventually murdered in order to steal his gold.
Henley had hired both of them, Burrows and Cole, to help him work his claim near Yuma, Arizona, and to help him protect it from claim-jumpers. He promised them a share in his treasure if they were lucky enough to hit a rich find. They struck gold, plenty of it, but Burrows double-crossed the old man. He murdered Henley while Cole was away from their camp. And Liza, who had left her saloon job to journey with them across the wilds of Arizona, told Cole a story about bandits who had raped her before murdering Henley, convincing him that Burrows was away from camp as well when the murder took place.
Cole had wanted to set out after them right away. Liza remembered their saying something about Bear Pass. But she hadn’t let him go alone. With no sign of Burrows’ imminent return, she had clung to Cole and begged him to take her with him. She was terrified, she said, of being attacked again and would only feel safe with him. In the tumultuous emotions of that scorching, bloody afternoon, she had told him it was really him she loved, not Jess Burrows.
“And I was just young and stupid enough to believe her,” Cole told Juliana dispassionately as they sat together while prairie grouse squawked overhead. “Only it wasn’t me she loved after all. It was Henley’s gold, and my share of it. She led me into a trap at Bear Pass, where Burrows was waiting to ambush me. He shot me in the back, stole my horse, and left me to die in the desert, at least fifty miles from any town. I would have died if not for Sun Eagle. And that’s another story.”
Juliana thought of the way Uncle Edward and Aunt Katharine had betrayed her, selling her in marriage to a man she detested. She remembered how hurt and disillusioned she had felt, realizing that they cared so little for her happiness that they could dispose of her to the highest bidder, regardless of her feelings. But all that, painful as it had been, could not compare to what Cole must have suffered at the hands of this pair. Betrayed by both his friend and the woman he thought he loved, left to die a horrible death, she wondered that he was not hopelessly embittered to the rest of the world. And to women in particular. What was she like, this Liza? How much did he love her? she wondered, but couldn’t bring herself to ask. It seemed that there would always be things about Cole she would not know or fully understand; his past had been too tragic, too crammed with violence and the dark side of human nature. Maybe if she had time, she would eventually learn more, but she sensed it would take years and even then there would probably always be something held back. It didn’t matter. All she wanted was to be with him, to erase that tough, iron-hard expression from his face for just a little while, to bring him away from the pain of the past and to heal his hurts in whatever small way she could.
It was time for him to find some happiness, Juliana thought, reaching for his hand. She wasn’t sure what to say about Jess Burrows and Liza, she could only say what was in her heart.
“It wasn’t wrong to love that woman, Cole. What she did was wrong. You mustn’t blame yourself or ... or fear love.”
His hand closed over hers, but his grin widened, making his face suddenly boyish. “What makes you such an authority on the subject, angel? I suppose you’ve been in love a hundred times.”
“No. Never. Men used to chase me all over ballroom floors to dance with me, court me at picnics and parties, flirt with me over tea and in the park and in drawing rooms over champagne and candle-lit suppers. But I never cared a fig for any of them,” she said matter-of-factly. Her tone changed, and her hand crept up shyly to touch his cheek. “Until now,” she said in a low voice he had to strain to hear.
Cole stared at her. Her beauty was so intense, it took his breath away. Only that impish dusting of freckles saved her from icy perfection, imbuing her with that delightful, sensuous warmth that was such a vibrant part of her charm. But it was her words that hypnotized him. What did she mean by until now?
Juliana swallowed and forced herself to go on, to get past the shyness so uncharacteristic of her. But she’d never spoken these words to any man before, never even imagined the powerful emotions that would summon them forth. But those emotions compelled her now to speak to Cole of what was in her heart.
“I love you, Cole,” she said simply. “And I promise you from the bottom of my heart that I will never hurt you.”
He dropped her hand and stood up. “There’s something you need to understand. I’m not like any of those men who chased you around ballrooms.”
“I know that ...”
“I’m like that stallion we saw by the stream. Wild, Juliana, needing to be free. I can’t romance you with candle-lit suppers or waltz with you around fancy ballrooms—and I can’t make any promises. None at all. Do you understand that?”
Because I don’t want to hurt you either. But he kept that part to himself.
“I understand, Cole,” she said, rising alongside him, gazing up at him with naked hope in those vivid green eyes. “But I’m not talking about promises. I’m talking about love.”
Love. It scared him more than Apaches, prairie fires, cornered outlaws, and a rattler’s bite all rolled together. He’d rather face a Texas norther or a mountain flood than the expectation in Juliana Montgomery’s all too vulnerable eyes. Nothing he had loved had ever survived. How could he let himself love this beautiful, kindhearted girl?
“I’ve got to ride over to the ranch house at Fire Mesa today to see Joseph Wells,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Time we headed back.”
He moved away from her before he could wrap her in his arms. He didn’t look back. What she was thinking, he didn’t know, he only knew that he had to stop this madness growing between them before he destroyed her.
She followed him to the horses, silent, hurt. Well, better she feel a little hurt inside than end up dead like everyone else he cared for. Cole held the bridle for her and helped her mount, then without a word sprang onto Arrow.
They headed back to the cabin with only the drone of insects and the rustle of the breeze breaking the silence between them.
* * *
“I’ll be back before sunset. Stay inside the cabin.”
Juliana rubbed her palms on her trousers, squinting in the brilliant afternoon light. “But didn’t you say there was a stream down there in the valley? I won’t go a step farther.”