Shattered

by Joan Johnston

  It was no wonder she felt tired and sore and sick at heart.

  She’d hurt Jack badly last night. Then she’d lain in the circle of Shaw’s arms actually regretting the fact that he hadn’t made love to her again. What was wrong with her?

  Maybe Jack’s not the right man for you. Maybe Shaw is.

  It was not a comfortable thought, considering everything she knew about the mob boss’s son. Nor was it comfortable to look at her behavior with Shaw in the stark light of day. She couldn’t keep giving in to his charm. Otherwise, she’d be begging him to make love to her before the week was out. She was going to have to grow a backbone—one so straight and strong it couldn’t be easily spooned into Shaw’s enticing embrace.

  16

  Wyatt kept a sharp eye out as they rode north from the stable through shortleaf and loblolly pines, post oaks and black hickory, toward the pond on his property. He trusted his men to do their jobs. But he wasn’t taking any chances with his sons’ lives. Or with Kate’s.

  It was hard not to get distracted. He was as fascinated by Kate now as he had been for a single night nine years ago. She was a riddle he planned to solve.

  The challenge was convincing her that he was the man of her dreams, when she believed it was some other guy. His charm wasn’t enough, though he could briefly enchant Kate. She enjoyed matching wits with him, though she gave in whenever the battle cut too close to the heart of their differences. He knew she was physically attracted to him, though she’d protested she was not.

  Today, he would find out the truth. There would be opportunities to touch when they were playing in the pond. The brush of his lips against hers. A breast grazed in passing. Or cupped with his hand. Each would tell a tale. He would let Kate’s body answer honestly, since he couldn’t trust her lips.

  He glanced surreptitiously at the woman riding across from him. She was poetry on horseback. And her sons—their sons—were well on the road to becoming good horsemen. Wyatt often rode horseback on his land when he wanted peace and quiet to think. But the twins bubbled with energy and excitement and their chatter competed with the morning calls of the bluejays and chickadees.

  “Don’t they ever wind down?” he asked Kate.

  “I’d be worried if they did,” she replied.

  When they reached an open field with an outcropping of rock on the opposite side, Lucky shouted to Chance, “I’ll race you to that rock!”

  He dug his heels into Big Doc’s sides as Chance shouted, “Go!” and both quarter horses leapt into action.

  Wyatt shouted, “Stop!”

  Chance reined his mount to a stop so fast the quarter horse was practically sitting on his rump. Lucky must not have heard his shout, or simply ignored it.

  Wyatt kicked his horse into a gallop that quickly overtook the boy. He leaned down and grabbed the reins near Big Doc’s mouth and jerked the animal to a stop so abrupt that Lucky was thrown forward out of the Western saddle halfway up the horse’s neck.

  Wyatt came off his horse before it had completely stopped, yanked a startled Lucky off his mount and dropped him on the ground, leaning over him to shout, “What the hell were you thinking!”

  Lucky looked back at him from wide, frightened eyes and burst into raucous tears. His horse whinnied and skittered away.

  A moment later, Kate came flying off her horse and put herself between Wyatt and her son, her teeth bared. “Leave him alone!”

  Wyatt balled his hands and stuck them on his hips because he didn’t want Kate to see how badly he was still shaking from the overdose of adrenaline that had fed into his bloodstream when he’d realized how much danger his son was in.

  His heart was still thundering in his chest, and the damned woman was giving him hell for saving her kid. By God, for saving his own damned kid!

  “The boy nearly got himself killed and his horse lamed,” he snarled.

  “Lucky’s a good rider. He can stay in the saddle just fine at a gallop,” Kate retorted.

  “That field is riddled with groundhog holes,” Wyatt said through gritted teeth. “One wrong step and the horse stumbles and breaks a leg and the kid goes flying and breaks his neck.”

  “Couldn’t you just have said that?” she shot back.

  “He should know better than to go galloping off where he isn’t familiar with the terrain.”

  “Lucky and Chance have been doing all their riding in an arena in a city. You’re the one who brought them out here in the middle of nowhere,” she pointed out. “And they’re only eight years old!”

  “Yeah, well at this rate, they’ll be lucky to make nine.”

  Kate made a frustrated sound in her throat, turned her back on him and went down on one knee to pull the crying boy into her arms. “It’s all right, Lucky. Dry your tears.”

  Lucky wiped his tears with the tail of his T-shirt, then swiped at his runny nose with his arm and wiped that on his T-shirt as well. Wyatt had a monogrammed handkerchief in his back pocket, if the boy had asked. But with Kate on a tear, he wasn’t about to say anything.

  To his amazement, Kate said, “Of course, Shaw is right, sweetheart. You need to be more careful when you’re riding in country you don’t know.”

  Wyatt felt his gut wrench when the boy hiccuped away another sob. “I could gallop anywhere at GeePa’s ranch.”

  “That’s because GeePa has waged his own private war on gophers at Bitter Creek,” Kate said, wiping away the last of the tears with her thumbs. “Now go get Big Doc.”

  She turned the boy and headed him in the direction of his horse, which had stopped a short distance away to munch on some buffalo grass.

  “I’m sorry I yelled at him,” Shaw said to Kate as he watched the boy’s slump-shouldered shuffle to his horse.

  “Don’t tell me, tell him,” she said as she remounted. “Come on, Chance,” she said as she kicked her horse into a trot and headed back along the trail they’d been following.

  Chance frowned at Shaw over his shoulder, shot his brother a sympathetic look, then hurried to catch up with his mother.

  Shaw grabbed the reins and threw himself into the saddle. He stuck his feet in the stirrups and walked his mount over to Lucky, watching to see if the boy could get back on his horse on his own.

  The kid looked over his shoulder once at Shaw, his expression pretty much the same sour look as his brother had worn, then stuck his foot in the stirrup and climbed his way up into the saddle.

  Shaw said nothing, just turned his horse and followed after Kate and Chance. Lucky caught up and rode beside him.

  The boy’s cheeks were still flushed and his eyes were red from crying. “I’m sorry, Shaw,” he said.

  Wyatt was surprised to hear Lucky apologize to him when Kate seemed to think he needed to apologize to the boy. “You didn’t know about the groundhogs,” he said gruffly.

  “Yeah, but I heard you shout to stop and I kept on going.” He glanced up at Shaw to see what effect his confession would have.

  Shaw struggled not to smile. He’d been a lot like Lucky growing up, never taking no for an answer. “I’m sorry, too,” he said.

  “What are you sorry for?” Lucky asked.

  “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”

  “My dad used to yell at us all the time and he never apologized.”

  Shaw clamped his teeth to keep from telling the boy what he thought of a man who yelled at his kids “all the time.” Especially when the kids at whom that son of a bitch J.D. Pendleton had been yelling were his sons.

  “There’s an old wagon trail near the pond where it’s safe to run your horse,” Wyatt said. “When we get there, you and your brother can have that race.”

  Lucky shrugged, apparently no longer interested in racing.

  Shaw realized he would do just about anything to bring back the excitement and joy in his son’s demeanor that this incident seemed to have quelled. “If it’s any consolation,” he said. “I think you might have won that race.”

  The boy brightened. �
�Do you really think so?”

  “You were first off the mark. And you’ve got a good seat. You just need to hang on a little tighter with your thighs. But those muscles will get stronger with time.”

  He watched as his son tested the muscles in his thighs with his free hand and said, “Yeah, they’re getting stronger every day.”

  “Come on,” Wyatt said. “Let’s catch up with your mom and your brother.”

  They loped their horses along the path until they caught up with Kate and Chance, who’d slowed their horses to a walk.

  “Is that the pond?” Chance asked Wyatt, pointing to a shiny pool of water in the distance.

  “That’s it,” he confirmed.

  “Can we ride ahead to look?” Lucky asked.

  “Go for it,” Wyatt said.

  Lucky gave a yip, and the two boys loped off down the trail toward the pond.

  “It looks like you and Lucky made up,” Kate said.

  “I was scared he was going to get hurt,” Shaw admitted. “That’s why I yelled at him.”

  “I’ve done the same thing myself.”

  “You have?”

  “Sure,” Kate said. “As much as you promise yourself that next time you’ll be calm, you lose it all over again. Parenting is a hair-raising proposition.”

  “I’m beginning to see that.”

  When Wyatt and Kate arrived at the pond, the boys were already off their horses exploring the flora and fauna.

  “Can we swim now?” Chance asked.

  “If it’s all right with your mom.”

  “Are there any dangers we should know about?” Kate asked, cocking a brow.

  Wyatt smiled ruefully and said, “Just one that I know of.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The pond’s spring-fed.”

  “So it’s cold,” Kate said.

  “Icy,” he replied with a grin. “It feels good though, when it’s hot, like it is today.”

  “So can we swim or not?” Lucky asked.

  “Have fun,” Kate said.

  The boys hurriedly unstrapped the saddlebags on their horses that contained swimsuits and towels and stripped down where they stood. As soon as they yanked up their suits, they raced into the pond, shrieking as the cold water turned their skin into gooseflesh.

  Shaw noticed Kate made a point of picking up their clothes and folding them and setting them on a nearby rock. “I thought they were supposed to pick up after themselves.”

  “There are exceptions, like now, when I know these clothes will end up soaking wet if I don’t move them. They won’t care. But I’ll worry that they might catch a chill later.”

  “I see,” Shaw said. “So you’re doing this for your own peace of mind.”

  “Exactly.”

  When she made no move to change her clothes he asked, “Aren’t you going to swim?”

  She eyed him sideways from beneath lowered lashes. “I can’t remember the last time I put on a swimsuit.”

  “But you brought one?”

  She nodded.

  “I will, if you will,” he said with a coaxing smile.

  She looked around and said, “Where can I change?”

  He pointed to some thick blueberry bushes and said, “Plenty of cover, and you’re safe from bears until the berries ripen.”

  Kate laughed and headed behind the bushes.

  Wyatt stripped down right where he was. He saw Kate sneaking peeks at him from behind the bushes but noticed she kept herself well hidden.

  He waited for Kate because he thought she might sit on the banks of the pond rather than joining him and the boys in the frigid water. He whistled in appreciation when she came out from behind the bushes.

  Kate’s arms were up over her head as she finished putting her hair in a ponytail. The black tank swimsuit was designed to reveal a woman’s flaws, but Kate didn’t have any that he could see. The suit hugged her hourglass figure, and the high cut emphasized the slender length of her legs.

  “Wow,” he said softly.

  “You’re remembering the way I looked a long time ago. My waist isn’t nearly as small and—”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  He wanted to touch. But he wasn’t really sure that he could touch without wanting a whole lot more. And with the boys here, that couldn’t happen, even if he could coax her into asking him to make love to her. So he just looked. And imagined what it would be like to hold her in his arms.

  There was no hiding the moment her nipples peaked beneath the skintight swimsuit. He tried to meet her gaze, but she wouldn’t look at him. Maybe it wasn’t going to be as hard as he’d thought to get her to say yes to making love to him.

  “Let’s swim!” she said, suddenly turning and heading for the pond.

  He followed after her, enjoying the sexy sway of her hips—and her tight ass—in the swimsuit.

  When the water reached her waist she glanced at him over her shoulder, her teeth chattering, and said, “I’m freezing!”

  “Better to get in all at once.” Wyatt put his hands on either side of her waist, lifted her high and threw her toward the center of the pond. He dove into the water after her, caught her by the waist again underwater and threw her up into the air a second time.

  The boys shrieked with laughter as their mother erupted from the water, her arms and legs akimbo, and came splashing down.

  Wyatt was paddling in the water beside the boys when Kate came up spluttering water and scrubbing her eyes.

  “Now you’re in trouble,” she said. “Get him, boys!”

  Both twins launched themselves at Wyatt, one grabbing each shoulder and shoving him underwater. He was tangling with the twins when he felt a jerk on his swimsuit and realized it was now hanging around his ankles.

  Kate came up grinning, and she and the boys shared high fives.

  Wyatt laughed and ducked underwater to pull his swimsuit back up. But he didn’t immediately resurface. He swam over to the twins and threw first one, and then the other laughing boy, high into the air.

  He came up beside Kate while the boys were still swimming their way to the surface, pulled her nearly naked body against his naked chest and stole a quick kiss.

  “Don’t!” she said, shoving at his shoulders. “I told you I don’t want to confuse the boys.”

  “They didn’t see a thing. And you liked it. I can tell,” he said with a grin meant to charm her.

  Her eyes sparkled with laughter, but she bit it back and tried to look stern. She couldn’t chastise him further because the twins had bobbed back up.

  Chance swam over to him and said, “Shaw, can you teach me how to float on my back? Lucky can do it, but I can’t.”

  “Sure,” Wyatt said.

  “Why don’t you and I play a game of Marco Polo?” Kate suggested to Lucky.

  “Yeah!” Lucky agreed, swimming away as Kate closed her eyes and yelled, “Marco!”

  Lucky shouted, “Polo!” and swam away from the location where he’d been, so his mother couldn’t find him in the water.

  Wyatt was amazed at how skillfully Kate had maneuvered the situation so he and Chance would have time alone. He was going to have to remember that trick.

  “What seems to be the problem?” Wyatt asked Chance.

  “When I float on my back, I think I’m going to sink,” he explained.

  “Give it a try, and let’s see what happens.”

  Chance turned onto his back, lifted his head out of the water and began frantically splashing with both hands and feet to stay afloat.

  Wyatt put his hands under the boy to support his back and said, “Relax. I’ve got you.”

  He was surprised when the boy didn’t immediately relax.

  “I’ve got you,” he repeated.

  He saw the mistrust in Chance’s eyes, which questioned whether he could rely on the man holding him not to let go.

  He put a little more pressure on his hands under Chance’s back, so the boy could feel his support, and he started to re
lax. But he kept his head out of the water.

  “Relax your head.”

  “I’ll get water in my ears,” Chance said.

  “Is that a problem? Do you get earaches or something?”

  “I just don’t like it,” Chance said.

  “Well, that might be part of your problem,” Wyatt said. “Kind of have to get your head in the water to be able to relax and float.”

  Chance grimaced. “Do I have to?”

  “I’ll tell you a secret,” Wyatt said. “I don’t like getting water in my ears, either. But everything sounds kind of neat once I do.”

  Chance leaned his head back slowly until it was floating and made faces as his ears filled with water.

  “Can you hear how funny my voice sounds now?” Wyatt said.

  “Yeah,” Chance said.

  Once the boy wasn’t struggling to keep his head out of the water, he was able to relax his arms and legs, which helped him to float.

  “How are you doing?” Wyatt asked.

  “I’m floating!” Chance said with amazement.

  “Try waving your arms and legs a little bit to move yourself around,” Wyatt said.

  The boy waved his arms and scissor-kicked his legs and went floating away.

  Wyatt stayed beside him, ready to catch him if he started to sink.

  “I’m floating,” Chance said with a grin.

  “And I sound funny, right?” Wyatt said with a smile.

  “Yeah, you do,” Chance agreed. He turned himself over and swam freestyle to his mother shouting, “Mom! I can float!”

  Wyatt swam after him and ended up joining the game of Marco Polo. Kate called an end to the game when Wyatt caught her—actually, one of her breasts in the palm of his hand—underwater.

  “Time for lunch!” she said.

  She had a tight grip on his wrist underwater when she spoke, so he stayed behind when the boys swam like crazy for shore.

  “You have to stop this!” she hissed. “I don’t like it.”