by Mari Carr
Her anger continued to build. “I have news for you, asshole. I have very little respect for men who feel like they have to use physical strength to scare someone who is weaker than them. Men like you think they can overpower women with sheer aggression, but I think it’s only fair to warn you that you won’t get that kind of response from me, and you can expect a fight every step of the way if you try.”
She left the bed, cursing the cold, crossing her arms for warmth.
Jack noted the passion behind her words and felt certain she was speaking from more experience than their battle the previous evening. He couldn’t help but wonder who had hurt her. He even felt sorry for his actions and flippant comment until her next smug words.
“Besides, you’re just mad, because if you take a look in a mirror, Black Jack, you’ll see that I kicked your ass.”
Rising on his elbow, he spoke through gritted teeth. “Adding offensive language to your list of charms does not endear you to me and if I look rough, it’s because I was too much of a gentleman to use my brute strength against a woman last night.”
Despite his annoyance, he reached out and tried to grab her hand as she paced beside the bed. Her impassioned speech had put color in her cheeks. He felt the now familiar tightening in his loins she seemed to inspire. He’d thought her attractive last night, but this morning, tousled and angry, she was absolutely lovely. He wished her warm body was back in the bed and there was absolutely nothing honorable about what he wanted to do to her.
As it stood now, he’d certainly done more than enough to compromise her should her story about being a friend of the mistress of the Grange proved true. That thought should be more unsettling to him than it was. In fact, he couldn’t seem to summon any remorse about his behavior. Instead, he longed for more.
She backed away from his hand, avoiding his touch. Irritated at her withdrawal and his body’s uncontrollable response to her, he retaliated. “Believe me, Hayley, you have nothing to fear from me. I like my women soft and willing. That was a hell of a fight you put up last night and, while I must admit I admire the effort you expended to protect your virtue, you didn’t have to try so hard, firebrand. It was never in danger.”
She flinched at his sarcastic use of the word virtue. He’d clearly left no doubt in her mind that he considered her to be less than virtuous.
His blatant insult infuriated her even more as she launched into a new tirade. “You insulting, arrogant, smug, son of a bitch,” she yelled. “How dare you insult me for defending myself? If your present charms are any indication of your typical behavior, I’d be surprised to discover that you weren’t a virgin.”
He was shocked by her crude language and insult to his reputation. “Well, if you weren’t such a shrew, I’d give you a demonstration of my charms that would leave you in no doubt of my experience.”
“Touch me again and I’ll blacken the other eye.” She stormed toward the cabin door.
She reached for the knob, but he caught her before she could make good on her escape. Jack caged her in with his arms while holding the door closed. Spinning angrily, she started to utter another string of insults. However, her scathing words never made it past her lips as he pressed his mouth hard against hers. Her threat had only served to incite him as he roughly grabbed her shoulders. His mouth was cruel and relentless on hers, but once again he was lost to the taste and smell and feel of her. His tongue forced her lips apart and invaded her mouth.
He planned to give her a lesson in dominance and control, but Hayley was too smart for him. Rather than struggle, she stood still against his assault. She didn’t participate this time, didn’t shyly touch him with her tongue. Jack’s frustration and anger grew as she stubbornly held herself aloof, apart from the kiss.
He cursed himself for a fool and knew power wasn’t going to scale the walls Hayley had built around herself. Last night, she’d responded to his kiss and he wanted that reaction again.
Changing tactics, he softened the kiss, but refused to release her. His hands moved from her shoulders to her face, touching her with soft caresses. Gasping, she tried to stop him, her hands pushing against his shoulders.
His mind briefly registered the strangeness of her responses. She stood still, braced and resigned to his hard kisses, while his kindness seemed to unsettle and upset her.
“Shhh, I won’t hurt you.” He spoke the words against her lips. Soon, the gentle touches and soft kisses broke her resolve and Hayley moved her hands to his chest.
He was thrilled by the touch of her fingers, even though they rested unmoving on his chest. He deepened his kisses, trying to drag out the moment, coaxing her passion slowly. Hayley was passion personified and he longed to strip off her mannish clothing to uncover the woman hidden beneath.
He barely moved as his lips rubbed lightly against hers, his tongue running softly along her lips and teeth, teasing hers to come out to play once more. He was starving for a taste. She rewarded him, lifting her hands to his face. Hayley ran her fingers through his hair as, at last, her tongue touched his. Time stood still as they explored each other’s mouths with the simplest and sweetest of kisses.
Their tongues danced together as he reached down and began to unbutton her shirt. His actions were so slow and deliberate he suspected she didn’t realize what he had done until she felt his firm hands touch her breasts. All the breath left her body as his hands caressed her.
“No.” She started to shake slightly, whether with cold, excitement, or fear, he wasn’t sure. Then, with more power, she shoved his hands away. “No! God no!”
Jack’s confusion about Hayley deepened. She’d responded to his kisses like a wanton, and then pushed him away as if the hounds from hell were chasing her. Despite his previous thoughts on the matter, apparently this woman truly did have her virtue to protect.
The idea she was still a virgin left him reeling. It felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice cold water over his head. Once again, he had let his body control him. Groaning, disgusted with himself, he stepped back. Her big brown eyes looked at him fearfully as though expecting him to continue his assault. Her lovely lips were puffy from the brutality of his first kiss and, even more distracting, he could see the tops of her firm, white breasts peeking out from the strange corset that left her waist and stomach completely bare.
He cleared his throat and looked away. “I’m afraid you’ve proven my previous statement false. You tempt my primal instincts to an alarming degree.” He forced his gaze to remain on the fire as she struggled to button her shirt with trembling fingers.
“It would be better if you simply told me who is involved in the smuggling ring and what part you play. The longer you and I remain in this cabin alone, the less likely I’ll be able to control my brutish impulses.” For the moment, he had regained control of his body, but the threat was valid nonetheless.
She looked at him with confusion. “Smuggling?”
“I’m afraid your tale of a walk at night in a storm doesn’t hold much weight with me.”
Her stunned face confirmed his earlier concerns. Perhaps he truly did have her confused with someone else. And now he had compromised her far beyond the limits of society’s strictures regarding appropriate behavior between unwed men and women.
“You brought me here. You’re the one holding me against my will. Shit. I should call the cops and have them slap you with assault and kidnapping charges.”
She gasped suddenly, her eyes going wide. “Oh my God. You.”
He sensed her own words had triggered some shocking thought. He watched in confusion as her expression turned to absolute outrage. Suddenly, she flung herself at him with an inexplicable rage.
“You took her!”
One night in Hayley’s presence had taught him to be on guard. The second she lunged for him, he was ready. Using her momentum and his quick response, he dodged her blows and forced her to the floor. Grimacing, he found himself in nearly the exact same position from the previous night. He held
her down, straddling her hips while his hands held her wrists above her head. Damn her. Why didn’t she realize she was no match for him?
“And just who is it I’m supposed to have taken?”
“Erin,” she whispered with a trembling voice. “Erin Delancy.”
Shocked by her mention of the name, he immediately released his hold and stood up. “You know Erin?”
“Of course, I do.” She rose furiously as if his question proved that he knew her too. “Why didn’t it occur to me before? You took her, just like you took me. You stole her away from us a year ago—you son of a bitch!” She began to hit him in the chest. “How could you? How could you?”
A stunned Jack felt her blows, though numbly. His mind was reeling. Erin had been kidnapped? Erin Delancy was the wife of his best friend, Alex, and she never gave any indication that she was anything but ecstatically happy with her life. Hayley must be mistaken. He grabbed her hands. “Stop!” She struggled to release herself from his grip, and when she failed to break free, she simply fell silent.
“I didn’t kidnap your friend. I know Erin Delancy. Actually, she’s Erin McCormick now. She’s the wife of my friend and I can assure you I would never kidnap or hold her against her will.”
Hayley snorted with disbelief.
“You were somewhere you shouldn’t have been last night. I need to know why you were there. No proper lady walks alone at night without an escort, dressed as a man, without a reason. Were you meeting someone? Are you involved with smugglers?” Damnation. He’d made a terrible mistake. The more time he spent with her, the more he was convinced she wasn’t involved in any illegal activities.
Her accusations, however, concerned him. Had Erin been kidnapped by Alex? A cold chill came over him as he considered the possibility. At the time Erin appeared, Alex was desperate to find a bride on very short notice in order to keep his inheritance. Shaking his head, he dismissed the thought. Alex was no kidnapper and he and Erin were one of the few couples he’d ever met who were truly a love match.
“I’m not a smuggler and I’m a grownup, you idiot. I can walk alone at night whenever the hell I feel like it.” Her hands shook as she brushed red curls out of her face. “Where’s Erin?”
“Last time I saw her was at Fernwood Grange,” he answered quietly.
“When was that?” Her eyes glared with accusation.
“Six months ago.”
“Now who’s lying? If Erin were at the Grange, someone would have seen her. She would have called us.”
Again, he attempted to make some sense of her words. Erin had lived at the Grange for the past year. He was certain she was there right now. Again, he had doubts about Hayley’s veracity. Hell, he was starting to worry about her sanity. Was she attempting to confuse him with this farfetched tale or were her words genuine? Looking at her sad eyes, he couldn’t find her guilty of such a strange subterfuge.
Either this lady was the world’s greatest actress or he’d made a mistake of mammoth proportions. Kidnapping a virtuous young woman, a friend to the marchioness, no less, and holding her hostage overnight in a secluded cabin without the benefit of a chaperone was a serious offense, and one he doubted Alex would take lightly.
“Hayley, how do you know Erin?”
She gave him a cold, malicious look. “She’s my best friend. I’ve known her since we were ten. She disappeared a year ago and she was last seen under the same tree where you grabbed me. We searched for her for weeks. The police told us she had probably met with foul play and been killed. As the weeks passed, they said the chances of her returning home alive were slim. It was my fault because I left her alone under that tree. I should have stayed with her.”
He could hear the pain in her rambling speech and he wondered if she would have revealed so much if she hadn’t been so tired and overwrought. She blamed herself for Erin’s disappearance and had lived the last year of her life with the weight of her friend’s supposed death on her conscience. He didn’t doubt the sincerity of her reply, although most of her words were unfamiliar to him. Cops? Police? Foul play?
“I’ll take you to her.” Something was wrong and he had a feeling only Alex and Erin could explain it. Nothing this woman said made sense.
“You will?”
“Yes, right now. We’ll go right now.” Right or wrong, all he wanted was answers.
“If you’ve hurt her, if you’ve done anything to her, I’ll kill you.”
He had no doubt her threat was genuine. What he’d said earlier was true; he had never met a woman like Hayley in his life. She was brave, beautiful and loyal to her friends. He’d tried charm, intimidation, and even violence to break her fighting spirit, but she hadn’t given in.
Then it dawned on him, she’d never cried. Any other woman would have been reduced to tears no less than a dozen times in the last several hours and yet she’d refused to shed a single one. He couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to her that made her fight so hard?
“I’ll get the horse.”
Chapter 5
Nervously, Hayley tidied the room, while Jack went to saddle his horse—a horse, for God’s sake. Where was his car? For the thousandth time, she considered running away from this cabin as fast as her feet would carry her and escaping the entire, bizarre scenario. She was actually beginning to think she had stepped into some parallel universe, or been abducted by aliens who’d transported her to their mother ship with a lightning strike.
Oh yeah, Hayley. Real good theories.
She glanced toward the door and decided against running. She felt the slightest glimmer of hope she would find Erin and decided any risk was worth discovering the truth. It probably wasn’t wise going anywhere with Jack. Everything about him from his clothing to his mode of transportation to his speaking was off. Hell, even the cabin was bizarre—no running water, electricity, or bathroom. Her head may be telling her to run, but her instincts continued to insist he wouldn’t harm her.
When he returned with the horse, she was waiting at the front door, arms tightly crossed. His strong hands grasped her elbows and lifted her into the saddle in front of him with ease. She gasped at his sheer brute strength.
With a powerful arm locked around her waist, he gripped the reins and the huge horse took them toward Fernwood Grange at a slow, but steady pace. She grasped the saddle horn tightly. She’d never ridden a horse before and it was more frightening than she’d imagined. She had no idea how high off the ground she would be.
“Are you well?” he asked, sensing her fear.
“Yep, just fine. I’ve never been on a horse.”
She sensed she’d surprised him with her words. “Truly?”
“Not a lot of riding trails in the inner city,” she joked, but he didn’t laugh. They continued riding in silence.
Apprehensive about the strange circumstances of the night, she soon forgot about the horse and wondered if she could trust Jack to take her to Erin. While cleaning the cabin, she’d found his knife and, using a torn piece of cloth she found lying on the table, she had tied it securely to her lower leg, under her jeans. She had expected him to ask about it when he’d returned to the house, but he seemed to be brooding and apparently his weapon had slipped his mind. If necessary, she was perfectly prepared to use it to defend herself.
Regardless of the potential danger, she had to take this chance if it meant discovering what had happened to her best friend. The last year without Erin had been pure hell. She’d never stopped looking for Erin’s face in crowds, never stopped blaming herself for her disappearance.
The nightmare ends now. It all ends now.
At the outskirts of the woods, Jack stirred. “What the hell?”
Pulled from her thoughts, she glanced up and saw the old oak tree where they had encountered each other the previous evening. It was whole again. It looked as it always had and there was no evidence of the deep tear the lightning had rent the night before.
Hayley struggled to grasp what she was seeing. “I don�
��t understand. The lightning—”
He pulled back on the reins and the horse came to a stop a few feet from the lowest branches. With surprising grace for a large man, he dismounted. “Stay here.” He handed her the reins. She grasped them firmly in her hands as he walked away toward the tree.
Spellbound, she watched as he circled the entire perimeter of the tree. He ran his hands around the trunk, looking at the bark very closely. After several minutes of close inspection, he returned to the horse. Without taking the reins and without much conviction, he looked up at her. “It must have been another tree.”
She shook her head. “No, this is the tree. I know it is. I don’t understand. What’s going on, Jack?” Her hands began to shake, the reins falling loose.
Without responding, he grasped them quickly and pulled himself back into the saddle. Instead of starting out again, he wrapped both arms around her waist and lightly rested his chin on her shoulder. His breath tickled her ear as he whispered to her. “We’ll figure this out. It’ll be fine.” She relaxed in his embrace before remembering herself. She stiffened at his touch.
He took Erin.
Sighing heavily, he released her, jerked the reins and continued the short journey toward the Grange. She couldn’t understand what made her act so familiar with him. Typically, she was distrustful and suspicious of strange men, an occupational hazard born from working in a women’s abuse shelter.
When they arrived at Fernwood Grange, a young groom ran out to greet them. Where the hell did he come from? He took the reins and held the horse steady as Jack dismounted, then reached up to help her down with his strong hands upon her waist.
As they approached the front steps, she paused, studying the grand house. While the structure and frame were certainly the same, the house was actually quite different from the one she had left the previous evening. The stone walls were a newer, light gray, the windows large with many panes, and the shutters a much older style—made of wood and painted white.
The Grange she knew sported smaller, more economically sound windows with freshly painted green shutters. The stones were darker and weather-beaten. In fact, there was an entire addition—a three-car garage—missing and the paved driveway was now a smaller, graveled path.