by Cindy Gerard
All eyes watched the gate swing open.
All hearts stalled as a riderless bull charged victoriously from the chute.
And in the midst of it all, one man found strength in what he’d always perceived as weakness, found knowledge in the face of the woman he loved.
He’d barely climbed over the rail and hit the ground when Sloan was in his arms. And in his arms, he held everything that truly mattered.
“I love you,” he whispered into her hair, oblivious to the standing ovation the fans had seen fit to reward an act that had taken more courage than he’d thought he had inside him. “I love you.”
“I know,” she murmured, pressing sweet, healing kisses to his mouth, to his cheek, to his mouth again. “Oh, Jesse. . .Jesse. . .I know.”
Being cared for by Sloan was a novel and humbling experience. Jesse loved every moment of it.
No sooner had she rushed into his arms than she was parting the sea of people who were trying to get to him. With his arm over her shoulder for support, she cut a path straight through the throng, her determined expression daring anyone to even think about getting in their way.
She stopped for no one, including his very curious, very surprised and, judging by their double thumbs-up, very pleased big brothers.
He liked it. Liked the mother bear protectiveness. Liked the feel of her tucked against his side, the solicitous way she steered him out the back entrance of the arena and settled him carefully into her truck.
But above all else, he liked the look of complete and utter love in her eyes when she helped him into her bed and stretched her silky, naked body out beside him.
His head throbbed. His ribs gnawed and bit and ripped away at his strength—and yet he’d never wanted her more.
“I wish you hadn’t made me take that pain medication,” he murmured as he ran his hand up and down the warm, smooth length of her back. “It’ll knock me out.”
“Good. You need to sleep. You need to rest so you can heal.”
“I need to make love to you,” he whispered, knowing as he said it that for tonight, at least, that idea was based on pure wishful thinking. “Do you know how long it’s been?”
She shivered when his hand lingered low on her hip, pressed her closer against him. “We’ll make up for lost time—when you’re stronger.”
He lifted a hand, buried it in her hair. “I have never been stronger than I am when I’m with you.”
He closed his eyes, against an unfamiliar, burning pressure, swallowed hard and knew he had never spoken truer words. “You knew all along what I was doing.”
She settled a hand on his chest, curled her fingers loosely in his chest hair. “I knew you were running. I just didn’t know why.”
“Neither did I.” He tucked her head beneath his chin. “Until tonight. Until you forced me to figure it out.”
He drifted for a moment on the silence, indulged himself in her scent and her heat beside him, in the ease he felt laying himself bare for her. “In one moment it all became so clear. All these years. All these years I’d been driving myself for him. . . and running away from the pain of losing him.”
“He must have been a very special man.”
He rubbed the underside of his jaw against her hair, not surprised that she understood him so well or that she’d known intuitively he was speaking about his father. “I loved him. Worshiped him. Would have done anything for him.
“When he died . . . I don’t know. I guess - I never wanted to let go. I can see now that’s what I’ve been doing for years. Hanging on to his memory. Trying to be that outlaw he took such pride in . . . and running away from the pain. Thinking that if I tried hard enough, was reckless enough, I would always please him, somehow. Thinking that if I didn’t let anyone else get close enough, I’d never have to risk the pain again.”
“You always pleased him, Jesse. You couldn’t remember him with such love if you hadn’t. And you don’t have to run anymore.”
“Because of you. I couldn’t love you now—not the way you need me to, not the way you deserve—if you hadn’t shown me what this was all about.”
He cupped her chin in his hand, tipped her face to his. “You’re the one I want to please now,” he said, so full of love he couldn’t hold it all in. “First. Last. Always. You and Noah.”
He ran the flat of his thumb across her cheek, looked deep into the intelligent black eyes of his wild rose and knew he was the luckiest man alive. “Last night . . . you said you didn’t know what love meant to me. Last night, I couldn’t tell you. Tonight I can.”
He saw, in her face, what he’d been looking for all of his life. “Loving you means looking at you and feeling so rich and renewed that I ache with it. It means touching you and never wanting to stop. Loving you is everything good in my life . . . like breathing fresh air, sleeping on clean sheets, eating ice cream straight from the carton.” He smiled. “It’s watching sunsets . . .”
“Jesse. . .”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, drifting on a lazy, hazy sense of contentment, and tucked her head beneath his jaw again. “I’m getting loopy on pain pills. And I’m no poet. But I do love you. And I plan to spend the rest of my life showing you exactly what that means.
“Forsaking all others, Sloan,” he murmured, giving up and giving in to the sweet healing tug of sleep. Holding on to the woman who made his life complete. “Forsaking all else.”
Epilogue
While she loved and loved deeply, Sloan had never considered herself an emotional person. Never until she’d become Jesse’s wife, until he’d become Noah’s father. Now she found herself tearing up at the oddest times.
Like now. She sat in the cool spring twilight, with an early June sun about to make a spectacular descent behind the wild, high ridges of the Wind River Range. She sat in a rough-hewn chair on the wraparound porch of the log cabin Jesse’s father had built more than thirty years ago. She sat nestled in memories Jesse had shared during the past week she and Noah had spent here in his special hideaway with him.
And she sat surrounded by love.
Jesse had shared this valley with her, as Garrett had shared it with his wife, Emma. As Clay has shared it with Maddie. It was a James boys’ tradition now. What had once been a male-only domain, a getaway Jonathan James had created for his sons to play out their youthful fantasies, had been revisited the last couple of years as a touchstone for the men and their wives and their children.
Five days ago when they had arrived on horseback, Sloan had seen the love in Jesse’s eyes when they’d crested the last ridge and he’d surveyed the valley spread out before them. The cabin was an absolute in his past. It was as entrenched in his psyche as the river that trailed like a silver ribbon not thirty yards away was entrenched in the valley.
He’d been a boy here. And as she watched him and Noah, their two dark heads bent together over a fish Jesse had made sure Noah thought he’d caught, she could see the boy in him still.
She knew she should call them up to the cabin. It was getting dark. They hadn’t eaten yet and if this day played out like the others before it, Noah, exhausted and as happy as she’d ever seen him, would practically fall asleep over his dinner plate. But she left them there, by the river together, father and son, and held the picture close to her heart.
She felt enriched. She felt secure. And later that night with Noah sound asleep in his bed, she snuggled next to Jesse in front of a fire that burned warm and slow in the huge stone fireplace. And she indulged in the total feeling of completeness.
“You seem to be feeling pretty smug there, Mrs. James.” There was a smile in his voice as he settled his arm over her shoulders and pulled her closer to his side.
“Yup,” she said on a sigh. “And with good reason. It’s not every woman who can tame an outlaw.”
He grunted. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
“No, sir. That little line has miles to go before I put it to rest.”
The press had
had a field day with their wedding. It had gotten almost as much play as the photo-finish finale of the bull riding championship. Jesse wasn’t the only one who hadn’t gotten a score in the tenth round. They’d heard early on the morning after Jesse had turned out Nightmare that Cole Davis, the rookie who had caught up to Jesse in points, had taken a header into the dirt just before the whistle.
So after twelve months of hard riding, thousands of dollars and thousands of points won, Jesse had edged out the field by a mere seventy-six-point margin to finally win the title he’d been chasing for seven years.
The headlines had been as spectacular as Jesse’s smile.
Jesse James—Rodeo’s Favorite Outlaw Steals Title In Tenth Round Showdown!
It was the headlines that followed the next week, however, that had Sloan grinning and Jesse groaning every chance she got to remind him of them.
Stock Contractor Of The Year Gets Her. Man.
Sloan Gantry Weds Jesse James, The Outlaw No
Woman Could Tame.
He’d offered her a big wedding in the spring. She’d opted for a chapel in Vegas—telling him she wanted to take advantage of him while, he was ripe for the picking. With their families at; their side, and Elvis crooning softly in the background, she’d become his wife and even before the adoption was final, he’d become Noah’s father in every way that counted.
He’d healed physically since then He had his priorities straight now, too. When he rode—and he’d started riding again in March—he rode for the fun of it, for the sport of it, not because he was trying to prove anything to anyone but himself.
Back home at Snowy River, she’d caught him more than once with. his forearms folded over the top fence rail and that look in his eye as he’d watched Baby. It was a look that said he planned on riding that bull someday. She figured he would. Someday. And someday was just fine with her.
Right now, though, the only day that mattered was this one. And the only man that mattered was warm and strong by her side.
“Tell me the story again,” she said lazily. “The one about the James Gang’s gold.”
“You’re as bad as Noah.”
“Humor me. Emma and Maddie have me intrigued.”
“That’s because my two sisters-in-law are dreamers. And romantics.”
“And too intelligent to get hooked on believing the gold exists if there wasn’t some solid evidence to pin some hope on. So run it by me again, cowboy. There’ll be a little something in it for you if you do a good job,” she added with a sultry grin.
“Promises like that,” he murmured, tipping her face to his and doing some indulging of his own with a long, deep kiss, “will get you just about anything you want. But how about we tell tall tales later and cut straight to the little something for me right now?”
She laughed. “Because the more time I have to think about it . . .” She undid the top three buttons on his shirt and slipped her hand inside. “The more ways I’ll be able to come up with to—reward you.”
“I brought my chaps,” he suggested with a wicked glint in his eye that managed to make her blush.
“You’re never going to let me forget that are you?”
“Are you kidding? As long as I live, I’ll never forget that night.”
“The gold,” she reminded him when he started working on some of her buttons.
He made a great show of sacrifice and let her have her way—something she’d found he enjoyed doing as much as he enjoyed being a husband to her and a daddy to Noah.
“Okay, country girl. Pay attention because you’re only going to hear this once—and then I’m collecting my reward.
“From the time I can remember,” he began, settling deeper into the cushions and keeping her close, “my father would tell us about Jesse and Frank James and how their last great hurrah was a train robbery in Arkansas. According to Dad’s story, they headed west with the gold, settled here at this bend of Wind River, intending to lay low until the heat was off.”
“Only the posse found them.”
He tucked his chin. Looked down at her. “Who’s telling this story?”
When she gave him an innocent smile, he went on. “Anyway, when the posse found them, they ran, and as the story goes, left a fortune in gold behind, which was never recovered.”
“And you boys used to spend your summers looking for it.”
He smiled. “Hours. We spent hours combing the valley, the mountains. But we never found a cent.”
“Until Emma and Garrett found a gold coin in the river and a treasure map.”
“And Maddie and Clay figured out how to read the map later and found another single coin in an otherwise empty strongbox.”
“Empty except for the note,” she added.
He frowned, thoughtful. “I’d forgotten about that. Hold on a second.”
Untangling himself from her arms, he rose, walked to an old oak desk nestled in the corner of the room. She could hear him rifling around in the drawers
“Here it is.”
Crossing back to the sofa, he sat down on the edge, an age-yellowed sheet of paper in his hands.
Curious, she scooted forward, read the note over his shoulder.
“A fool’s treasure is gold. A wise man’s treasure is sweeter. It starts and ends with home.
J. James.”
“What do you think it means?”
“Not a clue,” he said, thoughtful for a moment before he dismissed the note and tossed it onto the low table in front of them. Settling back into the sofa, he tugged her with him, pressed her into the soft cushions. “Now. Reward me, woman.”
She laughed, snuggled closer and gave in to the lure of her present-day outlaw as his mouth descended unerringly to hers.
His kiss was long, wet, and deep, stirring yearnings, igniting fires, enhancing love. She cupped her hand to his head, guided it to her neck, leaned back in utter compliance as he flicked buttons, bared her breast.
“Sweet,” he murmured. “You are so sweet.”
She blinked, slow and languid, lost in love, swimming in sensations and let Jesse do what Jesse did so very, very well.
Later, much later, when the fire had burned to embers and they were both drifting on the latent currents of complete and total release, Sloan let her gaze drift to the massive stone and mortar fireplace that Jonathan James had built with his own hands. To the mementos of the past—photos of the boys, and an old rifle that must be an heirloom, to the Home Sweet Home sampler hanging to the right of the mantel.
There was something touching about the feminine and family sentiment in the midst of the utter maleness of the cabin’s decor. And as she read it again, suddenly there was something more. A delicate little frisson of awareness snaked down her spine. A niggling little flicker of anticipation had her heart rate accelerating.
“Jesse,” she whispered, rousing him as he lay half asleep, wholly spent beside her on the floor. “Jesse, wake up.”
“Hmm,” he murmured, and pulled her closer, slinging a long, muscled leg over her thighs.
“Jess. . . Jesse, listen to me.”
He raised his head, his dark hair tousled and mussed, his expression stalled somewhere between concentration and concern. “What? What’s wrong?”
“That sampler,” she said, looking from him to the mantel where it hung. “Did your mother stitch it?”
He frowned, ran long fingers through his hair, roused himself enough to follow her gaze. “Ah. . . yeah. I think she did. Wait, I know she did,” he amended. “As a matter of fact, now I remember the fuss Dad made when he hung it up there.”
“Fuss?” Her heart rate kicked up a little higher. “What kind of fuss?”
Again he scowled, tried to remember. “I don’t know. Something about ‘never forget those three words, boys . . .’ Something like that.” He raised up on an elbow. “What’s got you so intrigued by that sampler all of a sudden?”
“I don’t know. It’s . . . it’s just a feeling that came over me. . . t
he words. ‘Home Sweet Home.’ And that note. . .what did it say again?”
Prompted by her curiosity, Jesse sat up, snagged his jeans, pulled them on, handed her his shirt. As she shrugged into it and wrapped it around her, he reached for the note.
“A fool’s treasure is gold, a wise man’s treasure is sweeter. It starts and ends with home.
J. James.”
He looked from her to the note. “‘Starts and ends with home,’” he repeated, looking from the note to the sampler that started and ended with the word “home.”
“‘Home Sweet Home,’” they said in unison, and knew they were on the brink of a discovery.
On bare feet, he walked to the mantel, reached for the sampler. When he lifted it from its nail embedded in the mortar, he immediately spotted the loose rock behind it.
“Jesse.” She clutched his arm, held her breath as he worked a rock roughly the size of a softball, loose from the wall of stone.
She held her breath as Jesse reached into the hole. His expression was guarded when he withdrew his hand, a folded velvet pouch clutched in his fingers.
Together, they sat on the sofa and stared at the velvet-bound package.
After a long moment he held it out to her. “You open it.” His voice sounded rusty, his eyes had turned dark.
She hesitated until he nodded, assuring her he wanted her to be the one.
With trembling fingers, she unwrapped the folds of velvet, then stared in wonder at yet another sheet of aged paper and the single gold coin that they had both known would be nestled inside.
She met his eyes, saw both wonder and warmth as she pressed the gold piece into his hand.
“Read it,” he urged her. “Please.”
Anticipation clogged her throat as she carefully unfolded the paper and started reading out loud.