It took a full moment for Abby to register what those words meant. “I don’t understand. Your mother died in childbirth.”
“That’s what I’d believed. That’s what Sam had told me. For twenty-three years, I believed a lie. I thought she died when I was born.”
And had carried unnecessary guilt with him, Abby knew. What had Sam done? And why? Abby bridged the inches between them. Why would he put his son through such pain? “Jack, what did Sam say?”
“What could he say? He’d lied. She’d never died having me. He’d divorced her.”
Abby took care with her words. “Sam told you that?”
“I didn’t want to hear his explanation. But he claimed she left because she wanted a dancing career. I didn’t care to know what ended the marriage.”
She imagined his pain as if it had just happened. If only she’d been with him. How much he must have hurt to learn that the man he’d loved, idolized, had deceived him. “Jack, I don’t understand this. Why would Sam do that?”
Hadn’t he asked the same question dozens of times? There was no logical answer as far as he was concerned. “Who knows? You tell me why someone who claimed he loved me would lie to me, let me believe that I was responsible for my mother’s death?”
“I don’t think he wanted you to feel that way,” she said in Sam’s defense, recalling the loving father Sam had been. In fact, she wasn’t sure Sam ever knew that was what Jack had felt.
He started to step around her, but her hand closed over his. “I know what you’re going to say.” He stood still, close to her now. “It wasn’t my fault, but you know—dammit, you know, I always thought he lost her because of me.”
And he wouldn’t risk any woman’s life the same way. Yes, she remembered. That was why he’d in sisted on no strings, no commitment between them He’d wanted no children, never wanted to feel responsible for another woman’s death. So much of what went wrong between them had been because of what he’d believed about his mother, because of the lie his father had told.
Weariness crept into his voice. “I loved you.” Jack wanted her to know that. “But I’d convinced myself that I couldn’t give you anything permanent. Because of his lie, I never asked you to go with me.”
Abby pressed her palm against his cheek. She couldn’t speak. They should have never lost each other. Why had Sam done that? Don’t go there, she warned herself. How could she judge Sam for what he’d done when she’d deceived Jack, too?
“I left that night to find her,” he said.
“Your mother?” With his nod, her heart twisted.
“I really wasn’t thinking straight,” he stated. “All I knew was that I wanted to get away from him—as fast as I could.”
If only she hadn’t left the next morning. She would have been there for his phone call. “Did you ever find her?”
“Before I left, I got him to tell me where he’d thought she’d gone. So I drove all night to L.A.”
Abby could only imagine the harsh words, the hurt that had passed between the two men that night.
“I was supposed to be in a rodeo in Montana a week from then. But I went to Los Angeles. It took time to trace her. The only person I found with her maiden name was an aunt I’d never known I had. She wasn’t thrilled to see me. It seems my mother never mentioned she’d been married. And I guess my mother had hit her for some money, and never paid it back. But my aunt told me that she’d died in a car accident. So that was that. I headed for Montana.” He finally met her stare again. “She never pursued a dancing career. My aunt hadn’t even known she wanted one. I wondered then why they’d really divorced. I wondered if Sam had lied about that, too.”
Never before had she wanted so much to wrap her arms around someone. “I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say. For three years I didn’t come back here. I didn’t want to see him. I lived on the road, going from rodeo to rodeo. But hell, I couldn’t cut him out of my life. I realized I might never understand why he kept the truth from me, but staying away didn’t change what had happened.”
He stretched for a breath. “One Christmas I came home. We talked, Sam apologized. I assumed he’d deceived me because she’d hurt his pride by leaving him. So instead of telling me the truth, he made up a story to save face.”
Abby mulled over all he’d said. It occurred to her that he would never have been hers. Though he no longer dealt with the emotional baggage of causing his mother’s death, for another reason, he would never give her what she wanted. He didn’t trust Sam anymore, might never again. And he wouldn’t help with the ranch. All the facts added up to the same conclusion. He wouldn’t settle down now any more than he would have before.
“I missed you, Abby, but I couldn’t give you the life you wanted,” he said. What could he have offered her? A life of chasing rodeos? She’d told him that she hated the constant moving, leaving friends when she’d been a child. Never being able to call anyplace home. He knew that’s what she wanted most. It was what she would still want.
Silently Abby inched closer to him. She’d needed him so badly back then when she’d been pregnant, working nights and trying to finish school. Ironically, he’d needed her just as much, only he hadn’t realized that.
Love controlled her. Sliding her arms around his waist, she stood close for a long moment, her cheek pressed to his as she longed to give him all the comfort she hadn’t been able to offer eight years ago.
Tenderly, Jack framed her face with his hands. He kissed her cheek, the tip of her nose, an eyelid.
Even if she could have only one more night with him, she wanted it. She ran a hand over the back of his head. Wasn’t his love what she’d craved all this time? It’s always been only you, she wanted to say.
Jack saw what he longed for—desire in her dark eyes, the invitation in her parted lips. He wanted to take her, rush her. Instead, he slowly let his fingers move down the buttons of her blouse. She deserved better from him. She deserved gentleness. He searched her face while he pushed her shirt aside, let it slither to the floor. His fingers, more unsteady than he’d expected, touched the silk of her camisole, and all he could think about was the flesh beneath it. “Come with me.” He caught her hand, led her toward the stairs.
At the bottom of the steps, he kissed her again, long, thoroughly, a man dying of thirst. She’d always been the only one for him. It had been her face haunting him, her touch he’d craved all these years. With her mouth clinging to his, he gathered her in his arms.
Abby knew they traveled the staircase that led to the loft. She knew when they entered the bedroom. She felt herself floating before she sank into the mattress. With his mouth on hers, dreams sprang alive again, and she pushed aside any niggling concerns. All that mattered was the moment. He murmured something. She didn’t need soft words. She sought his taste, his tongue, the warm recesses of his mouth. She only wanted the lips on hers that were moving slowly, stirring an ache through her.
She yanked at his shirt, freeing it from the band at his waist, and slid her hands under the cloth, splaying her fingers to feel as much of the muscles and the smoothness as she could.
Lifting first one shoulder and then the other, she helped him slide her camisole down. She heard the thunder of her own heart, the softness of his voice as it enticed and urged. Together they shoved down her jeans while their lips clung. Memories spun around her, memories once shared, memories about to begin.
She didn’t speak. She could barely think, his every caress binding them together again. A wanting she never thought she’d feel again consumed her as he hooked his fingers into her panties. She was wild beneath his hands, beneath his mouth, as he traced a slow, sensuous trail across her belly. When he slipped the last wisp of silk from her, a breathtaking urgency rushed fast and furious through her.
In the moonlit room, with the coolness of the evening caressing her skin, she wanted to capture every second of every night in a single one. She watched him, standing beside the b
ed now, shrugging clothes from himself, and all the emotion she thought she’d never feel again closed in on her. An eternity passed while he reached for the foil package. Then he came near again. In the shadowy room, his eyes were intense, exciting. She opened her arms to him, welcoming the hard strength of him against her.
Heat. Excitement. They spiraled through her. For too long she’d lived on memories. Now there was no yesterday. Maybe there would be no tomorrow for them, either. But if only for this moment, she wanted him to know she was his. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—worry about tomorrow. It was too far away.
Jack rolled her with him. Blood pounding in his head, he filled himself with her, with her taste, and her sweetness. But as her fingers grazed his hip, she took control.
A brush of her fingertip, a stroke that turned swifter, and like an inescapable force, desire took possession of him. He rode an edge of control until he thought he’d explode with it.
He drew her to him and her slender legs wrapped around him, urged him closer. His heart beating harder, he buried his face in the curve of her neck, and as she opened her body to him, he entered her. She arched against him and called his name. He’d longed for her, had ached to make her breathless like this. But he’d forgotten the madness she could soar him toward, the breath she could snatch from him. She was seductive, enticing, exotic.
Losing himself in the moment, he heard only her moans. They played in his head along with the hammering of his own pulse. Only she existed. Only she mattered. He gripped her hips, then on a muffled moan, he took her with him, letting the madness, the stunning madness, slip over them.
Chapter Nine
“Are you awake?” Abby murmured, opening her eyes to the gray light of dawn. Languid, tired, she wanted to stay beside him all day. Lightly she stroked the faint line of hair down his belly. How was it possible they could find so much again? It was as if they’d never been apart. They’d moved as one, anticipating the wants and desires of the other. They’d fit perfectly.
“I’m awake.”
She angled her head to look up at him and saw his eyes were still shut. Just as content, she nuzzled against him for a moment longer, lightly running fingertips down his lean ribs.
Sunlight cast the room in a warm golden glow. A rustic room, the bedroom contained a wall filled with bookshelves. He had eclectic taste, enjoying everything from autobiographies to western paperbacks. This was a side of him few people knew. Beneath the macho-cowboy image was an intellect. A Civil War buff, he could discuss not only battle sites, but also the strategies used by Lee and Grant during skirmishes. During the past year, she’d noticed that, like him, Austin had a tendency to become intense, learning everything he could about something that caught his interest
In their son’s case, his fascination was with Captain Cosmo. Austin had collected coloring books, comic books, posters and action figures of the superhero.
Unlike either of them, Abby collected nothing. It was a trait learned early in life. There had been no point in saving anything. Because she and her mother moved often, they traveled light. Possessions weren’t a part of their lives.
“Who’s making breakfast?” Jack asked, his voice slightly hoarse.
Abby shifted and kissed his chest. “If you make coffee, I’ll make breakfast.”
“Sounds like a deal.” Jack eased to his side and propped himself on an elbow. She looked sweet and young with her hair mussed from sleep, her face clean of makeup. Absently he toyed with a strand of her hair. “You’re beautiful.”
How easily he could make her believe in them again, she reflected. Letting her head drop back to the pillow, she gave his mouth freedom to explore her throat, and she shut her eyes. With the caress of his lips, she concentrated on sensations that the silent moment offered—the heat and hardness of him against her, the sound of his breathing, the sensitive touch of his strong hand roaming over her breast. “You weaken me,” she admitted softly. “I wish—I wish we could stay here all day.”
“We did that once,” Jack murmured in a slow lazy manner close to her ear. He wanted to stir the warmth between them again. He wanted her to feel everything in the brightness of daylight.
Abby smiled with the memory he’d aroused about the camping trip they’d taken. For four days, they’d been alone, and had spent most of it making love. “That was such a wonderful time.” It was also when she’d gotten pregnant. Austin had been a child of love.
He skimmed the soft roundness of her hip. “We have a few more hours.”
She really wanted to stay, not think about anything except how wonderful it felt to be beside him. “Never being satisfied is supposed to be good for the soul.” But what if Austin, for some reason, looked for her early this morning?
“Who says?” he mumbled in a husky morning voice.
As he molded her to him, she felt her body swell with the need for him again. “Me,” she said on a sigh. “This—” She heaved a breath. “I can’t do this. I need to go.” She laughed, and before she lost the will to leave his embrace, she shoved him to his back. Kneeling beside him, she bent forward and kissed smiling lips. “It’s comforting to know that you’ll be as miserable as I will,” she murmured against his mouth.
More, Jack mused. “Possibly.”
“Possibly?” Drawing back, Abby saw his grin and jabbed his ribs lightly. “Possibly?” she mocked again, then pushed at his chest to move away. “Don’t even try to deny it.” When he made a grab for her, she scrambled from the bed. “Beat you to the shower.” Behind her, she heard the mattress springs squeak as he bounded from it. When she was a few steps from the bathroom door, he fell in place beside her.
“Sure you’ll beat me.” He gave her an ungentlemanly shove with his shoulder to step in front of her.
“I’m first,” Abby yelled at his bare backside. Trailing him, she laughed as he disappeared into the bathroom. By the time she reached it, water was running. “You cheat,” she insisted, and flung back the shower curtain. As an arm snaked around her waist and lifted her off her feet, she squealed.
“I know,” Jack mumbled. With water rushing over them, he pressed her against the wet wall of the shower and closed his mouth over hers once more.
Abby realized that she’d never expected a morning like this again. In the bathroom, drying her hair, she listened to Jack in the other room whistling “When a Man Loves a Woman.” The sound grew softer, indicating he’d left the room and was on his way down the stairs.
As she clicked the switch to turn off the hair dryer, the silence around her forced thoughts on her that she’d been dodging. She wanted to tell him the truth. She wanted them to put the past behind them. But she kept imagining the moment, Jack’s shock, his anger, his disgust with her for keeping such a secret. And she wanted a little longer.
As she wandered down the stairs from the loft, she saw him on a stool near a wall of windows. He didn’t look up from the sheet of paper he was reading. In passing, Abby saw one word. Entrant. Was he already preparing for another rodeo? Last night she’d traced the scars he’d collected since he’d begun following the rodeo, the one along his rib cage, another on his forearm, and the most recent one stretching from midthigh to his kneecap. All reminders of what she wanted to forget. He had a life that she and Austin couldn’t be a part of.
That wasn’t easy to remember. Because she was here? she wondered. Hadn’t she known this was the danger in coming here?
Standing in the middle of the kitchen with everything where it used to be, she felt as if eight years had never passed.
She moved to the coffeemaker, which was hissing now. Jack had dumped last night’s dinner before she’d come downstairs. If she was hungry this morning, he must be starving.
A quick check of the refrigerator revealed necessities to start the day—eggs, milk, butter, even bacon. Abby quickly whisked eggs, and had them cooking in a pan when he moseyed in.
“Want anything else for that?” he asked, gesturing toward the omelette she was making.
“Cheese.”
“You know, I’d forgotten how loudly you snore.”
Abby paused in moving the spatula through the eggs in the frying pan and swiveled a look over her shoulder to see him shrugging into his shirt. “Excuse me, but I don’t snore.”
He thought that she looked adorable. Her hair tousled, she stood before him in one of his shirts, the sleeves rolled up into bulky cuffs. “I told you before that you did.” Jack opened the refrigerator and bent forward to hide his smile. “I’ve got an onion but no tomatoes.”
She heard the trace of humor in his voice, and didn’t rise to the bait again. “Cheese?” she repeated.
“No cheese.” Watching her moving around the kitchen was almost painful. She’d leave first this time, he knew. And forever, whenever he stepped into this room, he’d see her standing there.
Satisfied at the way the omelette looked, Abby slid it from the pan to a plate. “Breakfast is ready.”
Behind her now, Jack slipped a hand across the front of her waist He’d dreamed of a moment like this. “I’m crazy about you.”
With all she’d longed for within her reach, she could almost believe, Abby realized. Turning in his arms, she smiled, kissed a corner of his lips. For right now, this had to be enough. “I’m crazy about you, too.”
“You always did know how to start the day.”
With you. Only you. “Here.” Abby handed him a plate.
Appreciatively, Jack eyed the fluffy eggs. “You also make one hell of a great-looking breakfast.”
“Thank you.” She followed him to the table. “I don’t get a chance to do this often. Austin hates eggs.”
Jack set down his plate, then crossed to the coffeemaker when it released a final hiss. “A cereal man, huh?”
Abby turned back to the counter to retrieve napkins. “Pancakes.”
“He’s a great kid, Abby. I like him.” More than once when he’d been in a foul mood, Austin had come up to him, and with a few words from the boy, or with one of his questions, he’d made Jack smile.
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