by Ann Major
Hell. Jess certainly wasn't her usual prim and proper Puritanical self. She was badly shaken, soft and vulnerable. Indeed, she looked exactly like she'd stepped out of the centerfold of a man's magazine and come to life.
She sat up, this tabloid fantasy that he knew from past experience was no tabloid fantasy, and he closed his eyes with a faint groan, but not before he'd gotten a good look at her beautiful, anguished, tear-streaked face.
He wanted to hate her. He was determined to.
But it was hard to hate a woman, no matter what she'd done, when she was crying over you.
Instead of hatred, he felt the dangerous pull of that old indefinable power that had crawled inside him and eaten him alive—body and soul—until there had been nothing left. For years he had told himself he was glad she was out of his life, glad that whatever had been between them was finally over.
But memories of her had haunted him. Sometimes he'd dreamed of that night ten years ago, the one night he'd had her, the night that had made him want her forever—he'd dreamed hot, lascivious dreams in which Jess crawled all over him in wanton abandon.
He had married the wrong sister. Damnation! Was that why he disliked Bancroft even more than Deirdre?
The jungle was hotter and more oppressive than ever. There was a smell in the heated air that was very Australian, a thin, subtle odor of the scrub, an unmistakable pungency of aromatic oils stealing out from the trees. Tad began to perspire, and the faint breeze trickling through the trees from the ocean made his skin feel like ice.
Her fingers sifted through his golden hair and probed the burgeoning lump and the hot stickiness surrounding it. He groaned aloud, and she drew her hand away as if burned.
"Don't be such a sissy," she whispered. "I don't want to hurt you. I have to do this."
Sissy! It was all he could do not to grab her and make her pay for that one.
The hand came back, gently probing his eyelid open so she could check the dilation of his pupil. She opened the other eye. Then she ran her hands over every part of his body, examining every bruise, every scratch. It was hard for him to remember she was a doctor and that it was the doctor touching him, not the woman. When she finished, she observed his still face thoughtfully.
"Jackson..."
Her low, melodious voice wasn't nearly so bossy as usual. Yes, she had clearly been shaken off her know-it-all pedestal.
He felt her fingers touch his cheek. "Jackson, if you can hear me, would you please..."
She took his hand and gripped it again. He felt her other hand push his hair from his brow and remain there. Her cool touch was gentle, infinitely sweet, comforting.
"Jackson, your pulse is strong. I don't think you're hurt too badly.” She dug in a pocket for her phone. “Hang on while I call someone to help me carry you to the cottage."[JO4]
Her voice went on, but the sound seemed to drift in and out. He could only hear snatches of it. He tried to open his eyes, but when he did, he couldn't see her anymore.
Suddenly he wished he hadn't been so obstinate. He wished he'd spoken to her when he'd been able to. He was afraid that he was bleeding internally and that he might never get the chance again.
He wanted more than this abrupt finality with her, more than one of those endings without a goodbye. Without an apology. Suddenly he knew that he wanted much, much more than a goodbye with her.
But there was only a whirling blackness sucking him under. Only a numbing pain that seemed to engulf his whole being. Only her hand clutching his as she tried to pull him back.
"Jackson, you stubborn fool, why didn't you speak to me?" she screamed.
He could barely hear her, but he tried to make his lips form the words. "Because... because..."
Because he had wanted to so much.
*
When he came to again, he felt faint with agony. And yet relief.
He was still alive. He was in the cottage. Safe after an eternity of danger.
Here there were no guns. No one was stalking him. Only this woman.
It was night. The heat of the day had lessened. Moonlight slanted through the shutters. The air was dense and humid and smelled sweetly of rain and pungent, wet gum leaves. The jungle was alive with a riot of bird sounds. Above the bed, the blades of a ceiling fan stirred lazily and cast flickering shadows against the ceiling. Even in the darkness he could see that the room was neat, tidier than it had ever been when he'd stayed in it with Deirdre. Jess was a fanatic when it came to neatness. From downstairs came the scent of something cooking, something that reminded him of sweet long-ago things when his life had been simpler—Texas, his mother, home. Of being a little boy. Of happiness. Of that pleasant time before his parents had separated, before all the loneliness, before Jeb had taken over and made him feel like an outsider among his own family.
Chicken soup.
Jess always knew how to get next to him. Deirdre had never cooked chicken soup. But Jess, for all her faults, had a couple of saving graces. Those breasts... He pushed that thought aside and concentrated on the delicate aroma of chicken soup. She could cook better than any woman he'd ever known and liked to comfort people with food. And he had a weakness for the comfort of good cooking.
He watched the blades of the fan; he watched their shadows on the ceiling. He tried to concentrate on the faint throb of music drifting from the hotel's bar at the far side of the island. Then he heard Lizzie's laughter downstairs mingling with Jess's stern voice.
Lizzie... Remembering that Jess had kept her from him for a year, he struggled to sit up, but he was too weak to manage it. Slowly he became aware of his circumstances. He was lying upstairs in the master bedroom, and he was naked between crisp white sheets.
Naked. The she-devil had stripped him. At the thought of her touching him he went hot all over[JO5].
She had no right to touch him, but knowing she had made him rock hard.
Vague memories, like those from some barely remembered dream haunted him. Long, slim fingers, cool fingers, had slid over the hot skin of his body, touching him everywhere. He remembered scissors snipping away at his trousers. Cold points, needle sharp, had teased his burning skin. He remembered icy cloths being pressed against his forehead, against his neck and shoulders. He remembered a gentle Indian girl in a scarlet-and-gold sari. Most of all he remembered Jess's voice. She had talked to him in the darkness, talked to him until the hushed sound had lost its soothing quality and had become raspy with weariness.
With the help of someone she’d called on her cell phone[JO6], Jess had managed to get him to the house, to carry him up the stairs, to undress him, to put him to bed. As always—when she put that very determined mind of hers to it—she was a whirlwind of efficient, competent energy.
That same whirlwind of energy had kicked him and sent him whirling over that cliff.
God, he needed a cigarette! But where were they? She had taken everything.
Not her fault. You quit, remember!
How long had he been here? Hours? Days?
He heard her footsteps on the stair, and a child's lighter, faster steps dashing in front of her.
The door burst open and banged against the wall.
He closed his eyes.
Jess's urgent whisper across the darkness. "Lizzie! Careful!"
Then a breathless silence.
A knot of suspense formed in his gut. He didn't know what to say to either of them.
He was a man used to the vast expanses of the outback, a man who could go for days sometimes without talking as he traveled from cow camp to cow camp, a man who did not mind such long silences.
Everyone in the room waited. There was only the whir of the ceiling fan rotating lazily.
Then a tiny, impatient hand with cold, sticky fingers curled tentatively, gently around his little finger.
The nightmare of the past year was over. Lizzie had never been in danger. She’d been with Jess, who’d taken very good care of her. Still, she should have told me she had Lizzie. Why
hadn’t she?
He opened his eyes, hardly daring to believe the angelic vision of bright red curls tied back in a lopsided purple bow. Big, dark eyes glowing with joy and yet mirroring his own uncertainty.
"Daddy!" The uncertainty was in her voice, as well.
This bright-eyed waif was wearing a crinkly green-and-yellow dinosaur raincoat and holding a half-eaten grape ice bar that was melting all over her hand. She brought this dribbling delicacy to her lips and licked greedily.
His child.
He was not a sentimental man. His grip tightened on hers.
"He's awake," Lizzie squealed, jumping up and down.
"It's about time," Jess murmured drily. She, too, looked excited, pleased, proud that he was better, though she was attempting to appear stern.
"Aunt Jess!" Lizzie whirled, then turned back to her father. "Aunt Jess, he's crying." Lizzie's eyes were wide; her low tone awestruck.
"Nonsense, darling," came Jess's crisp, firm tone, removing the ice bar and giving her charge a much needed tissue. “He’s perspiring.”
"Lizzie..." His voice was so deep and hoarse, he hardly recognized it. His hand closed over the smaller one, careful not to crush it.
Very gently Jess lifted the child up so that she could put her arms around him and press her face against his grizzled cheek.
"Daddy, I missed you something awful." Green-and-yellow plastic crinkled as she squirmed closer. Jess stepped back.
His fingers tangled in her curls. "I missed you, too..."
Did those words convey the emptiness of the past year? The helplessness? The sick, gnawing fear? On top of it all, everything he'd loved had been under attack. "You look wonderful," was all he said.
Jess seemed to be staring out the window as if she, too, were deeply moved. He remembered she'd always tried to hide her sentimental nature.
"Daddy, why didn’t Mommy come back to take me home? Why did she take me away? I wasn't scared of the bad men. I told her I’d shoot them."
Jess's head pivoted sharply. "Not now, Lizzie darling," came Jess's voice, still raspy with exhaustion. "Remember what I told you about not upsetting him."
Lizzie lapsed into silence. As though bored, the child brushed a finger through his beard and pulled it back. "Sticky. I don't like it. You didn't have it before."
"Then I'll shave it," he muttered, unhappy that anything about him should displease his Lizzie.
Lizzie touched the bandages on his head. "How'd you get hurt, Daddy? Aunt Jess said..."
His eyes rose to Jess, who had become rigid behind Lizzie. Jess was prim and proper now, dressed in a white poplin blouse with a high collar. The blouse buttoned practically all the way to her nose. She wore navy slacks, and her hair was neatly bound at the nape of her neck. The hairstyle couldn't have been sleeker if every hair had been glued in place.
The schoolteacher look! He didn't like it. He'd liked her better in the clinging, wet blouse with her hair streaming down her neck. With her body hot and breathless against his. With tears of passionate concern for him streaming down her cheeks.
At Lizzie's question, the look of excitement and shining pleasure in her aunt's eyes died. A guilty flush came into her face.
"What did your Aunt Jess tell you?" He kept staring at Jess until the color in Jess's cheeks deepened.
The line of Jess's mouth tightened. "Tell her whatever you want."
"Oh, I will." His voice was husky. "I will." His velvet tone went softer. "All in good time. But first, I'd like to hear your Aunt Jess's version."
Lizzie got down off the bed and eyed her aunt dubiously. Jess's cheeks remained as bright as a pair of beets.
"She said you fell off that cliff with the big drawings where she keeps telling me to be careful."
Tad's eyes slanted toward Jess, who seemed to be holding her breath as she looked past him out the window. A sliver of moonlight molded the lovely curve of her neck. He smiled crookedly.
"I fell, did I? What an interesting...er...interpretation of events."
More blood seemed to gush into Jess's face. She started to back away from the bed, but he lunged forward and seized her wrist.
They screamed together—she in surprise, he in agony. One glance at his white face, and she stopped fighting him.
Pain shot from his hips and thigh, but even as he sank back into the bed, he clung stubbornly to that tiny bit of female flesh and bone, pulling her closer.
The scent of orange blossoms and soap enveloped him. Her scent, treacherously pleasant. He fought to ignore it.
What he couldn't ignore were those two temptingly soft parts of her anatomy that spilled over his chest.
"Send Lizzie away," he croaked hoarsely into Jess's ear.
A golden tendril came loose from her stern hairdo and blew softly against her cheek.
"You need to lie still, Jackson," Jess murmured, not in the least intimidated by him. "You're too hurt and weak for this idiotic macho behavior—as if it hasn't already gotten you in enough trouble."
This reminder of how easily she'd bested him with her skill at martial arts only served to make him madder.
"Get Lizzie out of here. I have to talk to you alone."
His eyes burned into Jess's for what seemed an eternity.
At last Jess averted her gaze and whispered softly, "Lizzie, darling, would you be a little angel and run down to the kitchen and tell Meeta to heat the soup I made for your Daddy? I'll come down for it in a minute. I need to check him first."
That sweet, hypocritical, ladylike voice that made him want to snap her head off fooled Lizzie, who dashed out of the room.
When they were alone, his grip relaxed ever so slightly upon Jess's wrist, but he kept on holding her. "Bancroft, just what do you think you're doing?"
"For the last twenty-four hours—nursing you. Believe me, that was hardly a prize assignment. Like most men, you were no use in an emergency. You've been very difficult. First you refused to walk. We had to carry you. Uphill. You're heavy as lead."
"Good!" His blue eyes glinted with savage pleasure at having put her to trouble. "You probably broke both my damn legs when you pushed me."
"You're exaggerating—as always."
"All I know is that I was in perfect health until I met with you."
She snorted. "Perfect health! Ha! Jackson, you had a case of walking pneumonia. A fly could have pushed you over that hill."
That stung. "I had a cold!"
"Pneumonia. You probably kept working and smoking."
"Naturally I kept working." Since she disapproved of smoking, he didn’t tell her he was quitting since that would please her.
"More of that idiotic machismo you take such absurd pride in! Even a fool such as yourself should have had better sense than to attack me. Of course, I would defend myself.”
He frowned.
“It was clear someone had to take charge of you. It was equally clear there was no one but me to do so. For your information, I tore up both of the packs of cigarettes you had in your pocket."
Even though he was quitting, he resented her interference. She was just like his older brother, Jeb, who was always telling him what to do. Even now, he had Kirk checking up on him.
Tad felt apoplectic. "You what?"
"They're the last thing you need in your weakened condition. You were on the verge of collapse."
Her smug superiority was more than he could endure. What did she know of his hardships? "No, you're the last thing I need." He yanked her closer so that her soft body fitted intimately to his. She felt cool to the touch—ah, too pleasantly cool; his body was racing with heat. "You tried to kill me, you witch!"
"A fate you brought on yourself when you attacked me!"
"I was trying to prevent you from going over the cliff with the mower."
"Well, it doesn't matter now," she said softly.
"Doesn't matter?" he exploded.
"For once, you might surprise me and try thinking rationally," she continued in that cool know
-it-all tone of hers that would have been a needle in any man's ego. "We can't alter what happened, can we? Besides, you're not hurt all that badly, despite the way you're carrying on about it. Like most men, you're a big baby when it comes to illness."
"A big baby!" He'd been fighting a guerrilla war all by himself. If he was sick, it was because he'd driven himself so hard for months on end.
"A few bruises, a slight bump on the head, and you carry on like it's the end of the world."
"A slight bump! I'm seeing two of you. Believe me, that's more than any man could stand!"
She went on. "A slight bump, a very mild concussion, a pulled muscle in the groin—that's all that's wrong with you."
"My groin!" This time it was he who was blushing. "For God's sake, I hope you didn't examine me there."
"Naturally I examined..."
The thought of her fingers probing around there made him go hot beneath his beard.
"Jackson, the reason you feel so rotten is because of the pneumonia, and you brought that on yourself. You've been burning up with fever. I had to pump drugs into you to get it down. I bathed you with cold cloths all afternoon and last night. Then this morning, your fever went back up and we had to do it all over again."
For the first time he saw the dark shadows beneath her eyes, the lines of weariness etched into her face. Somehow, this evidence of her dedication toward him made him want to berate her with an even greater ferocity.
"Don't expect gratitude or an apology from me," he jeered.
She pursed her lips.
If she had felt a glimmer of doctorly compassion toward him because she'd nursed him through a crisis, his lack of appreciating annihilated it.
Her eyes were cinders. "Common courtesy, dear brother-in-law, is the last thing I'd ever expect from you," she replied coolly, in a miffed tone. "Not that you should feel you owe me anything. I would have done the same thing for a sick dog."
His fingers tightened around the slim wrist. "I want Lizzie, you man-hating witch, whom you kept without my permission and without informing me for an entire year. When I asked you if you knew where Deirdre was, you lied.”