Stay...

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Jefferson took the bread from her hands before she smashed it in her shaking fingers. “Don’t hate him, Emily. It would break the old man’s heart.”

  “What heart?” She swallowed the growing lump in her throat. “A man who tells his own son he’s not welcome in his home has no heart.”

  Jefferson set the bread on the table and closed his hands over her shoulders. “He’s the same man who read you bedtime stories and taught you how to hunt and fish. He’s the same man who sent you to boarding school, knowing that the education was the best thing for you, even while it broke his heart to send you away, crying. He’s got a heart all right.”

  “How can you defend him?”

  “I don’t always agree with Squire,” Jefferson said. “But I do understand him.” With his finger he touched the tear hovering at the corner of her eye. “His kicking me off the ranch was just a gesture, Emily. He knew I’d never allow us to get involved.”

  That stung. “Really? Then what’s he going to say when he learns about last night? What’s he going to say if it turns out that what we shared results in a child?”

  “We’ll deal with that if and when we have to.”

  “How utterly logical of you, Jefferson,” Emily replied caustically. She pushed herself away from him and grabbed up the pan of lasagna, hardly noticing the uncomfortable heat burning her palms. “Get the champagne, would you? After all, we’re celebrating.”

  Emily managed to keep herself in hand through dinner. She smiled and laughed and cleared the dishes and prepared coffee. Inwardly, however, she alternated between seething and wanting to bawl her eyes out.

  Maggie and Jaimie insisted on helping with the cleaning up, and Emily even enjoyed their company. But when the Greenes departed for the evening and Matthew had retreated to his office, when Sawyer and Daniel had headed for bed and Tristan was back at his computer, she dropped the front.

  She fixed herself a mug of hot chocolate and added a healthy dollop of whipped cream. She’d jog an extra mile, she promised herself. Then she went out the front of the house and sat down on the porch swing. Sandy wandered over and propped her golden head on Emily’s knee. “Hey, girl,” Emily scratched the dog’s silky head. “Why aren’t you somewhere dreaming about chasing rabbits, hmm?”

  The dog sighed and tilted her head.

  Emily took the hint and rubbed behind Sandy’s ears. When the dog was finally sated, she turned a few circles and settled herself at Emily’s feet. The swing chains gently creaked with a rhythmic, soothing sound.

  Emily thought about Tristan’s papers sitting in her bedroom.

  She thought about Jefferson defending his father, despite what Squire had done.

  And she thought about the fact that Jefferson had chosen to share that truth with her at all.

  Later, her hot chocolate long gone, she stopped the swing’s motion and went inside. Except for the thin line of light showing beneath Matthew’s office door, the house was still. Apparently even Tristan had called it a night.

  She made her way through the shadows to the kitchen and rinsed out her cup. Just about to turn to go upstairs, she noticed a movement outside. Peering out the window, she thought she saw a flash of something near the horse barn.

  Leaving the cup to drain dry, she quietly went back outside, carefully preventing the screen door from slamming shut. A single bulb burned in the horse barn, right over the door of the tack room. She looked inside. Jefferson was sitting on a stool, his attention bent over something. A tin of saddle soap was open beside him. “It’s a little late to be cleaning saddles, isn’t it?”

  He jerked in surprise and looked over his shoulder at her. In answer, he held up his boot, which he’d been rubbing the soap over.

  “Oh.” She recognized the boots he’d worn when she’d pushed him into the swimming hole. “Well, then isn’t it a little late to be cleaning boots?”

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “I know the feeling,” she murmured. “So, can you save ’em, doc?” She scooted beside him and saw the other boot, sitting on the floor. She bent over to pick it up. It felt unnaturally stiff.

  “Gonna try.”

  Emily picked up one of the clean rags folded on the shelf beside him. She dabbed it into the tin and started rubbing it into the boot.

  “Leave it. I’ll get to it,” he said, flicking a brooding glance over her.

  “Seems only fair,” Emily answered softly. “Since I’m the one that pushed you in the water.”

  His lips quirked. “True.” He started to hand her the boot he’d been working on. “Do them both.”

  Emily tried not to laugh. She loved his unexpected spurts of humor. “Dream on,” she said, her tone tart.

  He shrugged, casting her another look. “You shouldn’t be out here. You’ll get cold.”

  At that, Emily did smile. “Jefferson, we slept outside last night, and I was wearing far less than what I’m wearing now.”

  Jefferson didn’t need the reminder. He’d been having enough problems putting away thoughts of their night together. It was the reason he’d not found any sleep waiting for him in his bed and had sent him, ultimately, out here to try and resurrect these boots.

  “It can’t ever happen again, you know.”

  She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Why?”

  “Because I have nothing to offer you,” he answered, as if she were dim-witted. “Because nothing good will come of it.”

  “I disagree,” Emily said, staring blindly at the long boot in her hand. “Particularly with the nothing good part.”

  “I hope you’re not referring to a pregnancy.”

  “I’m going to ignore that,” she replied. Her fingernail traced the detailed stitching in the brown leather. “Besides, who said you had to offer me anything?”

  “Angelface, you were made for till death do us part.”

  “I didn’t ask you for that, so what’re you worried about?” Cranky all of a sudden, she globbed more saddle soap on the rag and rubbed it into the boot with a vengeance.

  “Leave some leather,” he reached for her hand to slow her movements.

  Emily froze when his fingers covered hers.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said gruffly.

  Her tongue slipped out to moisten her lower lip. “Like what?”

  “With your eyes all wide.” He took back his hand and picked up his rag once more. “Filled with want.”

  Cheeks pink, she looked down at her own work. Swallowing, she folded over the rag and continued rubbing the leather. “Then stop looking at me as if you want me,” she retorted, her voice husky.

  He made a strangled sound.

  “What?”

  He swore softly and tossed the boot onto the floor. “It’d be easier to ask me to stop breathing,” he growled, and reached for her.

  She willingly abandoned the boot. His arms circled her waist and pulled her between his thighs. She lowered her head and molded her lips to his. “I love you,” she said when the need for air finally broke their kiss.

  “Em—”

  “I can’t keep the words inside, Jefferson. It’s no use asking me to try.” She ran her fingertips over his forehead, smoothing the frown between his brows. “It’d be easier to ask me to stop breathing.”

  He gently tunneled his fingers through her long hair. “Smart mouth,” he murmured.

  “I’ve learned from the best.” Her lids felt heavy as she fingered a button on his loose white shirt. It looked like the same shirt he’d worn that first day in San Diego. “Oops, look at that.” She looked at the button that was no longer safely through its matching hole. “Somehow your button came loose.”

  “Imagine that.”

  “Mmm. Look at that. The problem is spreading. All your buttons are jumping out of their holes.”

  “Must be a button revolt.”

  “Must be,” she agreed faintly. Her fingers slid beneath the collar of his shirt. His throat was warm and brown. And she felt his pulse thro
bbing beneath her fingertip. Her lips parted slightly.

  His fingers tangled in her hair. His jaw locked and he closed his eyes, calling on a hidden reserve of control.

  A tiny sound emerged from deep in Emily’s throat. Her palms slid over the hard angle of his shoulders, and the shirt slipped down his back. “I love your chest,” she murmured the thought aloud.

  He pulled her head toward his. “Not as much as I love yours,” he muttered darkly before kissing her senseless.

  He set her from him long minutes later and stood.

  Emily bit her lip, wanting back in his arms. His arms flexed, muscles moving with coiled strength. But all he did was turn away and pull his shirt back up over his shoulders. “Get yourself to bed,” he suggested, his attention fixed on the array of riding gear hanging on the wall.

  “Come with me.”

  He breathed deeply, hands fisted on his hips. “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Are you tempted?”

  He snorted. “Beyond reason.”

  The knowledge brought a curious kind of ease to her. She moved over behind him and set her hands lightly on his clenched hands. She kissed his back through the shirt, right over the spot of that horrible scar. “Does it hurt?”

  “It’s killing me,” he groused.

  “The scar.”

  He shook his head. “Not anymore.”

  Pressing her forehead against his spine, she felt his fists loosen and her fingers slipped between his. “It hurts me,” she told him. “It hurts to think of you injured. Away from your family, God knows where. Away from the people who love you.”

  She slipped her hands around his waist and hugged herself to his back. Closing her eyes, she rested against him, feeling every breath he took. Feeling the muscles he held so tightly in check gradually relax beneath her touch.

  Her arms tightened around him for a moment, then slipped away.

  Sensing her presence by the door, he looked over his shoulder.

  “Come with me, Jefferson. Come to bed.”

  “Not in his house.”

  She seemed very small in her peach-colored clothes. It occurred to him that she looked thinner than she had when he’d arrived in San Diego. Another sin on his conscience.

  “Walk me in, at least?” She couldn’t bear to think of him sitting out here. Alone.

  What harm could that do? He covered the saddle soap and left the boots on the shelf. She snapped off the light, and darkness enshrouded them. He headed for the dim square of moonlight shining in the wide doorway. His feet, in a borrowed pair of Matthew’s boots, snagged something and metal clanged. “Dammit, what’d you turn off the light for?”

  Emily took his hand in hers. “Follow me,” she said. “I won’t let you run into anything.”

  Jefferson felt the suffocating hint of claustrophobia dissipate the moment her fingers slipped between his. A few more yards and they were out of the dark barn, standing beneath the midnight sky. Clouds obscured the moon and stars as they headed for the house. “Smells like rain,” he said as he held open the screen door for her.

  “Summer’s almost over.”

  Jefferson quietly followed her through the house and up the stairs. His hip ached with a dull, throbbing ache. They stopped in the doorway of her bedroom. He saw the inviting expanse of her bed, warmly illuminated by the dim glow of the small lamp on the nightstand.

  She tucked her hair behind her ear. “I won’t push you about what happened, Jefferson,” she said quietly. “It’s your business, just like you said. I won’t pry anymore.”

  She stretched up and sweetly kissed his cheek.

  Had she been standing before him wearing nothing but a smile, he couldn’t have been more unbearably aroused. There must be a particularly vile place in hell for men like him, he decided. Her hair was a ribbon of silk over the shoulder of her dinky little sweater. He reached out and ran his fingers through the rain of hair.

  The sheen of her dark eyes beckoned.

  He stepped into the room, and the door closed behind them with a soft click.

  She moved over to the nightstand, reaching for the lamp.

  “Leave it on.”

  “All right,” she hovered by the side of the bed.

  “Where are your pajamas?” The tip of her pink tongue touched her lower lip momentarily, and he felt the effect clear to his toes in the barely-fitting boots.

  “Here,” her hand blindly searched under the pillow and she pulled out a froth of white.

  He abruptly turned and sat down on the wicker chair in the corner of the room, vaguely surprised when it didn’t collapse beneath his weight. “Put it on,” he suggested, studying the toes of Matt’s boots.

  She hesitated a moment and he wondered if he was going to have to endure the sight of her undressing. But she headed for the modest-size bathroom connected to her room.

  “You won’t leave?” she asked softly.

  “I won’t leave.”

  She went into the bathroom and closed the door.

  Jefferson sighed hugely and raked his fingers through his hair. After a moment, he heard the water running in the bathroom and reached for a boot. The twinge in his back brought an oath to his lips and he sat back, deciding the boots weren’t worth the effort.

  The bathroom door opened and Emily stepped into view. He recognized the ruffled nightshirt from that night in Tristan’s kitchen. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but could’ve been counted in days.

  The light from the bathroom illuminated the lines of her slender waist through the white fabric. For the brief second when she half turned back to shut off the light he imagined that flat belly swollen with child. Her breasts full. Heavy with milk.

  The light snapped off and the momentary illusion was gone. She approached him, a silver-handled brush in her hands. She stopped a few feet away and ran the brush through her hair. “Sleepy?”

  He shook his head, visions of Emily, pregnant with his child taunting him. “Here,” he held out his hand for the brush. “Sit on the floor.”

  “You’re going to brush my hair?”

  “Got a problem with it?”

  “No,” she said faintly. She handed him the brush and sank down in front of him, tucking her legs beneath her.

  Jefferson was glad she couldn’t see the way his hand trembled before he lifted the brush to run it through her luxurious hair.

  “Ah,” she sighed pleasurably. “That feels wonderful.”

  “I remember this brush,” he realized eventually. “It was my mother’s.”

  “Mmm-hmm. Squire gave it to me a few years ago.” Her head fell back against his knee. “The bristles have gotten softer, but it’s still a beautiful brush.” She fell silent as he continued stroking her gleaming hair. After a while she yawned, and he set the brush aside.

  She looked back at him, her lids heavy.

  “Come on,” he said, standing up and pulling her to her feet. “Bed for you.” He tossed back the bedclothes and tried not to watch her long legs climb onto the mattress.

  He covered her up to her chin and snapped off the light.

  “Jefferson? You said you wouldn’t leave.” Her hand caught his.

  There was only one way he’d get through the night, he decided. “Scoot over,” he said.

  The sheets rustled while she moved and he lowered himself atop the bedding. With the pillows on the other side of her, and his weight pinning the blankets on this side, she was more or less cocooned.

  “Jeff—”

  “Shh,” he whispered. Unerringly, his arm scooped around her waist and, blankets and all, tucked her backside against his front.

  “You’ve still got your boots on,” she protested.

  He adjusted a pillow underneath his head. “Never mind. Go to sleep.”

  She shifted a bit. A pillow tumbled softly off the bed and a moment later, her hand slipped about his. She lifted it to her lips and kissed his knuckles. Then tucking their hands close to her heart, she slept.

  Chapter Twelve />
  The dim light of dawn was peeking into her bedroom when Emily awoke. He’d been watching her sleep for quite a while. He’d memorized the cadence of her breathing. He’d known she’d awakened, even before she pushed the hair out of her eyes and peered up at him.

  “Didn’t you sleep at all?” she asked.

  “For a while.”

  The bed creaked slightly when she turned toward him and propped herself up on her elbow. “Another bad dream?”

  Surprisingly, he hadn’t had his typical nightmare. He looked at her, sleepily rubbing her face. Perhaps not so surprisingly, after all. “No bad dream.”

  “I’m glad.” She yawned and turned over, snuggling back against him. She yawned again and pulled his arm over her once more. “What’s bothering you then?”

  Jefferson adjusted the pillow beneath his neck. He closed his eyes and absorbed the sweet warmth of her. It helped that she wasn’t looking at him. He was the worst kind of coward, but if he was going to get this out, he didn’t think he could do it with her pansy brown eyes looking up at him. Where he would see all that warmth inside her drain away. “I was a hostage in Lebanon for six months.”

  The only sign that she heard him was the tightening of her fingers over his and the cessation of her soft breathing.

  He was glad for her silence. If he tried hard, he could pretend that she was sleeping. Not hearing him at all. He swallowed, lifting his hand to push on the knot of pain between his eyes. “My partner and I were there to arrange the escape of a political prisoner,” he continued eventually. “Before Kim and I managed to get back out again, we were caught. Officially, we weren’t there, so there could be no official action to get us out.”

  Emily sank her teeth into her tongue. “You don’t have to tell me this.”

  He was quiet for so long she thought perhaps he’d decided he agreed, after all. “We planned our own escape.” He made a rough sound. “Nineteen successful missions in a row, then two miserable failures. We failed going in. We failed coming out.”

  He’d done this sort of thing nineteen times? “But you’re here.”