by Cindy Gerard
Tired of trying to sort out and justify, she climbed up on the chute, leaned over the rail and ostensibly checked on Yellow Jacket’s stance.
“He’ll pull left out of the gate,” she told him as he tightened his rope. “And he’ll try to spin you into your hand.”
He gave his rope one more tug then started his wrap. “Got it covered.”
She scowled to mask her concern. “Considering you haven’t covered a bull since Rapids City, that’d be a real welcome change, now, wouldn’t it?”
He just grinned and went on with the business of settling in.
Sloan’s frown deepened as she cued on every detail, like his split finger wrap and the fact that he’d pulled his rope a little too tight, which increased the risk of getting hung up; like the sinewy strength of his heavily muscled forearm disappearing beneath his riding glove; like the inverted U of faded denim that his black chaps, fringed in metallic blue, didn’t cover and unintentionally and quite wonderfully defined his masculinity; like the glint in his eyes that was a little wild, a lot focused, and settled, now, on the bull’s bulging hump.
Finally, it was time. The stepped-up beat of her heart told her that even before Jesse gave a clipped, go-ahead nod.
The gate clanged open, the crowd roared...and seven seconds later, it was over.
He hit the dirt just shy of the buzzer when one of her rankest bulls made throwing a Top Ten rider look like a tiptoe through a tulip bed.
She made sure he was up and on his feet before she let out a deep breath, shook her head, and headed for the next of her bulls in line.
She didn’t have the time, nor, she assured herself, the inclination to worry about Jesse and what the press was having a field day calling “the dark angel’s fall from grace.” She had work to do.
Even though the two wranglers she could afford did most of the physical work, as the contractor, she oversaw every detail where her stock was concerned. She was well into her tenth rodeo of the season, and prior to the bull rides tonight, she’d had four bucking horses and five saddle broncs in competition.
Bull riding was the last event of every night. As she did every night, she personally saw each one of them out of the gate and through the ride without harm to bull or bull rider.
The night’s competition would be over soon, but she still had a long way to go to make sure Yellow Jacket and the rest of her stock was bedded down for the night.
Jesse James, she told herself firmly as she headed down the alley, was on his own. Though the probability that he’d find comfort in someone else’s arms tonight stung a little more than it should, she was committed to the resolution that he wasn’t going to find it with her.
Sloan made it back to her motel at ten forty-five that night. Exhausted, she showered and went straight to bed. She’d just dropped off to sleep when the phone rang.
Her immediate thought was of Noah. Another hazard of missing him was worrying about him. Something must be wrong, she thought frantically as she groped for the switch on the bedside lamp then squinted against the burst of light.
No, she assured herself as she reached for the phone and made her heart settle. The red lights of the digital clock the motel provided with the room told her it was eleven-fifteen. Even though it had been a little more than a week since she’d seen Noah, she’d talked to him earlier today and he’d been fine, just fine.
“’Lo?” she murmured as she dragged her hair back from her face with one hand and the receiver to her ear with the other.
“I’ve got your goat.”
She frowned, shook off the lingering cobwebs, and tried to make some sense of the statement. “What?”
“Your goat. I’ve got your goat,” a deep, muffled voice drawled silkily into the silence of the room. “Meet me in fifteen minutes at the old river bridge at the south end of town and we’ll negotiate her return.”
“Negotiate? What... who is this?”
“If you’re smart, you won’t call anyone. And you’ll come alone.”
The gears finally clicked together. She swore under her breath. “Darn it, Randy, is that you?”
Silence.
She let out a frustrated breath. “Give me a break, huh? I’m too tired to deal with this nonsense tonight.”
And it was nonsense, she had no doubt about that. Somebody thought they were being real cute. By now, everyone in the rodeo world knew that without nanny, Baby wouldn’t load in a semitrailer or budge from his pen. It had become a standing joke on the circuit that any bull rider with a brain could effectively put Baby out of commission if they simply got rid of the goat. Since it was also common knowledge that bull riders didn’t have brains, it was also a given that none of them would think of kidnapping the goat to avoid a run-in with the bull. That’s why the grinning steer wrestler, Randy Johnson, with his juvenile and slightly warped sense of humor, came immediately to mind.
“Fifteen minutes,” the voice repeated before breaking the connection.
She stared at the receiver, then slammed it down.
“Jar-headed fool,” she muttered, and considered burying her head back beneath the covers until morning. But she knew Randy—and the rest of the people who traveled the circuit. They liked nothing better than a good prank and went to great lengths to carry one out. If she didn’t show, it was hard-telling how far they would take it.
Feeling as cranky as she knew Baby would be without his nanny, she jerked on her socks and jeans and shoved her feet into her boots. Tugging a summerweight denim shirt over the T-shirt top she slept in, she finger-combed her hair, then hastily knotted it at her nape with a leather tie. Snagging the truck keys from the dresser, she slammed out the door.
The oppressive heat of the August day had cooled to a pleasantly balmy evening. They were somewhere in nowhere, Wyoming, a small and picturesque rodeo town tucked in the belly of the Tetons. It took her five minutes to make the drive from the one and only motel to the stock barns and find that nanny was, indeed, missing. It took another ten to find the Old Mill Road and follow its meandering path out of town where it dead-ended at the river.
In the soft darkness of a half-moon night, she climbed out of the truck but kept the motor running and the headlights on high beam.
“Okay,” she announced into the shadows in her best no-nonsense voice. “I’m playing your game. I followed your orders. Now give me my goat so I can go back to the motel and get some sleep.”
No shadows moved. No reply breached the silence.
“Randy, so help me, if it’s you, I’ll make sure you never get a decent night’s sleep ever again.”
The quiet was broken only by the rumbling purr of her truck’s diesel engine.
Shaking her head in irritation, she reached back inside the cab and cut the motor, but left the headlights burning to see by.
“Nanny,” she called, the quiet now accompanied by the soft pings of the cooling motor and the muffled sounds of the night.
The gentle shuffle of a summer wind lightly fanned the aspens flanking the shallow-running river. Her breath settled, matched the rhythm of the nearby river current.
“Nanny, are you out there, girl?”
A not-so-distant bleating greeted her at last.
Marginally mollified that she was finally getting somewhere, she headed toward the sound.
The ground was fairly level. The fading light from her headlights helped her cover thirty yards in short order. But it was the moonlight that illuminated the scene she stumbled onto and stepped up the beat of her heart.
Relief was the first emotion that gripped her when she spotted Nanny standing in a pocket of prairie grass, nestled knee-deep in sweet hay, contentedly munching away. The sight of nanny’s kidnapper, however, stole that little oasis of calm and brought her up short.
Not two feet away from her goat, his broad shoulders silhouetted against the distant mountains, his reckless grin shadowed by darkness, Jesse James leaned negligently against a boulder, the goat’s tether clasped loosely in hi
s hand.
Four
“I should have known,” Sloan growled through tightly clenched teeth.
“Hey, Country.” Jesse smiled winningly as he tugged a blade of dried grass from the corner of his mouth and tossed it aside. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Of the emotions jockeying for top billing—surprise, anger, an unsolicited sense of excitement—anger seemed the safest and most direct route. “Fancy my aunt Sadie’s a—”
“Careful, careful.” He cut her off with a scolding grin and nodded toward the goat. “Nanny has tender ears.”
“Just turn her over,” she said stiffly when she’d reached his side in several long, ground-eating strides. “And I’ll be on my way.”
When she reached for the rope, he held it out of her grasp. Shaking his head, he chuckled softly. “Darlin’, I didn’t go to all the trouble of kidnapping her, making her comfortable, then luring you out here just to hand her over the minute you made an appearance. You and me—we’ve got a little negotiating to do.”
In the city, alone in the night, she might have been frightened by the dangerous look the night shadows cast across his face. In the mountainous West, in the middle of nowhere, and knowing who she was dealing with, she couldn’t call it fear that sent her heart leaping. Not fear for her life, at any rate.
Awareness, a forbidden sexual awareness of the man and the attraction that was getting harder and harder to keep under wraps, sent her heart tripping. She’d done everything in her power to avoid one-on-one confrontations with him and, damn him, he’d managed to corner her and flaunt her weakness in her face anyway. She’d also done her darnedest not to like him, but that hadn’t worked the way she’d wanted it to, either. He was a tease and a pest—but he was a kind, charming pest and her resistance was wearing thin.
To shore it up, she worked hard to make a show of impatience. “I’ve got a big day tomorrow, Jess,” she said with a weary sigh. “I don’t have time for this.”
He only smiled. “Kind of fits the pattern, doesn’t it?”
She flipped her hair back over her shoulder with an impatient toss of her head. “Pattern? What are you talking about?”
When he eased away from the boulder and moved toward her, every pulse point in her body burst to red alert.
“Oh, I’m just talking about the way of things.” His expression was a study in patience, his voice a slow, rumbling caress. “Like the draw that keeps me and Baby from meeting head-on. Like the way, unless you’ve got a crowd to protect you, you run the other direction every time I get within touching distance.”
He waited for a denial. So did she. But she couldn’t get the words out. She could barely get a breath out.
“Now, I’m a patient man...” he continued in that voice that mesmerized and tantalized and made her mouth go dry. “But I’ve got to tell you, I’m gettin’ sort of tired of watching you run.” A slight roll of his shoulder passed for a shrug. “Figured it was time to do something about changing that pattern—maybe get you running toward me instead of away.”
This was said with such sincere yet wily charm, that she almost gave in to the romance of his scheme and took that last step toward him. Almost.
Instead she forced herself to draw in a deep breath. To let it out. To watch the shadows break across his stunningly beautiful face in the moonlight as he dared her with his eyes.
“I don’t run,” she finally said, knowing as she said it that she lied. Knowing that he knew it, too.
He moved as silently as the night, dark and enveloping, until he was standing directly in front of her. His gaze intent on hers, he raised a hand, touched it to her hair.
“So prove it, country girl.” With a gentle tug, he loosened the leather tie at her nape, setting her hair free. “Don’t run away from me this time.”
He was so close that even in the dark she swore she could see that fascinating demarcation where the blue of his iris gave way to the midnight black of his pupil. So close that the musky scent of him swept through her senses like a dark, erotic dream.
She swallowed hard, fought to remember why she didn’t want this.
But all she could think of was why she did.
It had been so long.
So long since a strong hand had touched her so, with such gentleness, such need. So long since she’d been whispered to in the night, stroked by a lover’s touch, stoked by a lover’s needs.
Jesse was no stranger to need and she sensed the moment he recognized hers. Her breath stalled, short and shallow as he knotted a fistful of her hair in his calloused hand and gently tugged her toward him.
The broad brim of his hat shadowed his eyes even as the moonlight shaded the hard set of his jaw, defined the firm, sensual lines of his mouth. Their breaths met, two whispers in the night; one making promises, one struggling with the want to believe.
She’d forgotten how much it hurt to want this way. To want to take what was so unconditionally offered and to know it would be disastrous if she gave in. And still she wanted to melt into him. Turn herself over to him. Let him kiss her and take her and lead her anywhere he wanted her to go.
But the instinct to protect herself was strong. The need for control, vital. Both had been born in another man’s arms, nurtured by her need to survive and the necessity of doing so alone. None too soon, it warned her back to reality—with a grim and harsh reminder that danger danced in the lure of this outlaw’s smile.
“What do you want from me, Jesse?” she whispered, more breath than substance when his lips—cooled by the summer night, softened by a gentleness she had never imagined was inside him—touched the outside corner of her mouth.
“Whatever you think it is,” she continued while she still had the will, “I don’t have it to give.”
Her words, and the solemn, valiant surety of them had Jesse hesitating then reluctantly pulling away. He looked into her eyes, saw her determination as well as her struggle there, and took his own turn drawing a deep breath. Took his turn to step back, to try to get a handle on exactly what it was he did want from her. And to convince himself he wasn’t affected by the little catch in her voice that hinted at fear.
Not a physical fear, he assured himself. She wasn’t afraid he would harm her. But there was fear—tangible, undeniable—just the same. Of getting involved? he wondered. Of getting emotionally wounded? Or was she afraid of letting herself give in to a need he knew would be as wild and reckless as his own?
Reluctantly, he let his fingers slide through the silk of her hair, thinking as he did so that it was even more vibrant than he’d imagined. Like her, it had life and substance and an exotic, elusive allure that drove him crazy thinking about how it would feel trailing across his body.
In deference to her, he dug deep for control, turned his back to her, and stared toward the wash of moonlight dancing across the surface of the shallow river.
What do you want from me? she wanted to know. Well, hell, he thought he’d been making that clear enough. He wanted her in his bed. From the beginning he’d wanted her there. Wanted her to distraction—and that sorry fact, he reluctantly admitted, was throwmg him for a loop.
He hadn’t wanted any woman but her since that night almost a month ago in Rapids City. Hadn’t had another woman, and it wasn’t for lack of opportunity.
Until this country girl had shown up on the scene, he’d had a strong, healthy sex life. He was careful. He was considerate. And he liked to think that he was kind. No woman went to his bed who didn’t know the ground rules that started and ended with no strings.
And he never—ever—got involved with an affair of the heart.
It wasn’t Sloan’s heart he was after now. It was her body, he assured himself. Trouble was, the body belonged to someone he’d grown to like and respect. It held the heart of a forever kind of woman—and that certain knowledge was the basis for a little fear of his own.
He shook his head Let out a deep breath. He’d never had a need for that kind of woman. He’d never had
a need for anything but the softness of a woman’s smile, the laughter in her voice, her sweet curves and tender hands. He had a need for the pleasure he could give and take and the warmth a woman could bring to his bed. A need to be reminded that at least, from time to time, he didn’t have to be alone.
He closed his eyes, not wanting to analyze why that pitiful thought had snuck up on him. Just as he didn’t want to think that maybe Sloan felt that same hollow sense of loneliness sometimes, too, or that it bothered him to think that the distance she tried to maintain may have been perpetuated by pain.
He knew about that, too, and he sure as hell didn’t want to open that door. Not tonight or any other night.
And yet here he was. Wanting her. Knowing she was the kind of woman who needed something he couldn’t give, and still, he hadn’t been able to get her off his mind. When his schedule took him in the opposite direction of hers, he missed seeing her. When they ran into each other, he just couldn’t make himself leave her alone.
Suddenly he was aware of her dark eyes watching him with a wary hesitance—and of a silence that had settled like a big black question mark. When he couldn’t come up with the words to break it, she did it for him.
“We need to get some things straight, Jess.”
He rolled his shoulders, a little out of sync, a little out of sorts. “Oh, I think we’re straight enough,” he said, just grumpy enough with himself for letting this get so complicated that he was feeling none too benevolent. “I’m attracted to you. And if you’d stand still long enough to let it catch up to you, you’d admit that you’re attracted to me, too.”
He thought she was going to deny it, but she surprised him with a reluctant nod instead. “All right. If it will make you happy, I admit it. I’m attracted. But attraction is just physical. It’s basic, elemental biology. And just because it’s there, doesn’t mean I’m going to act on it.”
Before he could consider the impact of her admission and what it meant to him, she told him exactly what it meant to her.