by Rachel Lee
Not that they would be able to do much good if Richard Jackson showed up. Her first instinct had been to turn to the police when she learned that he knew where she was, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized how useless police protection would be.
“Are you okay?”
Craig had come up beside her, and was looking down at her with concern.
“They’ll drive by here five or six times a day, maybe more, but it won’t do any good.”
“Why not?”
“Because they can’t watch me every minute. Because it never did any good in the past. They were never able to keep him away, or keep him from hurting us. He always came in the dark and—” She broke off sharply. “It doesn’t matter. If he’s made up his mind to get me, he’ll get me.”
She said it in a bleak way that ripped at his heart.
“No, he won’t,” Craig said flatly, his mind made up before he even knew it.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that you’re not going to be alone at night. I can sleep on your porch as well as I can sleep out in the pasture or at home. If you can handle the daytime, I’ll handle the nighttime.”
She looked at him with an almost painful swelling of emotion. Her breathing accelerated and her heart seemed to squeeze with yearning—yearning for the safety and caring she had never had. “I—I’m…I can’t ask that of you.”
“You didn’t. I offered. Like I said, I can spread my bedroll as easily here as anywhere. Now you just trot yourself inside and go to bed. Don’t worry about a thing. Anybody comes near this place, I’ll hear him long before he gets here.”
“Guin will bark.”
The dog, recognizing her name, whined through the screen door.
“Sure she will. But you won’t have to face it alone.”
She looked down for a few seconds, as if she might find an answer to the puzzle written on the planks at her feet. Then she nodded, giving him a shy smile, and reached out to touch his arm lightly. “Thank you. I feel awful about letting you do this but…”
“But you’re afraid,” he completed. “You certainly have reason to be. And until we scope this out and have a better idea of what your father intends to do, I’m willing to do anything I can to help out.” Taking a chance, he covered her hand with his as it lay on his arm. She didn’t pull away.
“If I could trust him—” She broke off again and sighed, lifting her head to look out over the moon-washed landscape. “If I could trust him, I could believe his letter. But he always lied. He was always promising Mom that he wouldn’t hit her any more, or that he wouldn’t hit me any more, or that he’d never take another drink—the list was endless. He broke every promise he ever made.”
“Not a good guy to trust.”
She looked at him, wondering if he was being sarcastic, then laughed as she realized he was trying to lighten the mood. “No, he never was a good guy to trust.”
Then, with no more warning than a strange light in his dark eyes, he slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her gently against his chest. For an instant she thought she would lose her balance as her full weight came to rest unexpectedly on her weak leg, but then she was steadied against his chest.
“Relax,” he said huskily. “I won’t hurt you.”
Funny, but that had never occurred to her. Any other thought she might have had was swept away by astonishing sensations. He was so…hard. She had never imagined that the feeling of her breasts being pressed to the hard wall of a man’s chest would feel so…good. Or that she would be so aware of his hardness. As if she were leaning against a wall of steel. A warm wall.
Impossibly, he was still smiling, looking down at her with that strange fire in his eyes as he said, “If you want to squawk, do it right now, Esther. Otherwise I think I’m going to have to kiss you.”
“Why?” Her entire vocabulary seemed to have shrunk to that one word. She couldn’t gather her thoughts to say another thing. Besides, there was only one thing in the world that she wanted to know, and that was why, for the first time at this late stage of her life, a man wanted to kiss her.
His smile broadened. “Count on you to ask. Because you laughed.”
She blinked, her astonishment growing. “Because I laughed?”
“You have an irresistible laugh. Because you were scared and you laughed anyway. That’s special.”
And suddenly she felt special standing there in the circle of his arms, pressed to his chest, while his exotic face lowered toward hers. Special, and warm, and…tingly in a way she had seldom felt in her life.
And then his mouth settled over hers, warm and surprisingly gentle. It wasn’t the kind of kiss she’d seen in movies, the openmouthed gulping kisses that had always looked repulsive to her. It was a soft touching of lips that somehow coaxed her to tip her head back and welcome him.
His lips moved against hers and she responded, trying to give him the same feeling he was giving her. The softest, lightest of caresses, like a butterfly’s wings, or the brush of flower petals. So soft she leaned closer, needing something more….
He gave it to her, a gentle, teasing touch of his tongue over her lower lip. It tickled and she pressed her mouth harder against his, wanting the tickle to go away, to never end…and as she pressed harder her mouth opened, inviting him inside.
His tongue slipped past her teeth, finding hers and frolicking. She had never before thought of her tongue as an erotic organ, but then she had never thought she would actually want an openmouthed kiss. A French kiss, the girls in high school had called it. But whatever it was called, she found herself thrilling to the wondrous sensations his caresses evoked.
Oh, my! The brush of his tongue against the inside of her cheek danced along her nerve endings, spreading to the farthest points of her body. Another touch against the inside of her lip and she quivered, sensing that there was something even more powerful than these touches just ahead, something she needed and wanted more and more as he drew her deeper into the kiss.
But just as she was about to sag against him, he lifted his mouth and looked down at her. He was shaking. She could feel it. And panting as if he had just run a great distance.
But so was she. With dim amazement she listened to her own rapid breaths.
“You’re so sweet,” he whispered. “You don’t just have an addictive laugh, you’ve got an addictive mouth.”
Then he swooped on her again, taking her back into the pleasurable hinterlands of his kiss, drawing her deeper into the circle of passion. His arms tightened and she let go, trusting him to hold her, trusting him to take care of her.
It felt so good to finally just let go!
Her arms slipped up, and her hands gripped his shoulders as if she might drown if she didn’t hang on. His hands began to rub circles on her back, a sensation that at once soothed her and aroused her even more. Her blood seemed to be turning warm and heavy, like molasses, and in the pit of her stomach there was a fluttery sensation, like nervousness only it felt so much better.
When he lifted his mouth from hers again, she followed him like a flower seeking the sun, wanting so much more than these brief, fleeting touches. And there was more. Her entire body shrieked it.
Instead of giving her another kiss, he cupped the back of her head in one big palm and drew her head onto his shoulder. “I don’t…I don’t think we ought to keep this up,” he said breathlessly. “We might go somewhere we’re not ready for.”
She rested against him for a long time, fighting a wave of disappointment that threatened to make her weep. This was the first time in her entire life a man had kissed her, and she didn’t want him to stop, especially since this might be the last kiss she would ever get.
But she had too much pride to force the issue, and it was as plain as day to her that Craig Nighthawk wasn’t really interested in her as a woman anyway. How could he be, when she was defective. God, she was nearly thirty years old and she knew perfectly well how put off men were by her brace and
limp. Not once in her entire life had anyone even asked her for a date, and the way she figured it, there was only one reason for that. She just didn’t have any sex appeal. Zip, zero, zilch, nada. It was as plain as the nose on her face.
Craig Nighthawk had kissed her because…because…oh, it was just because he felt sorry for her. Not because she had an “irresistible” laugh. Not because he was drawn to her. That just didn’t happen.
But heavens, was she attracted to him. Just the mental vision of him could make her knees turn to jelly. Long legs encased in worn denim, a tight butt, hard chest, broad shoulders…and his face, so sharply chiseled with high cheekbones, and those dark eyes that were surprisingly expressive. Dark pools into which she would joyously have leapt.
Except that he didn’t really want her. He was just trying to take care of her.
“You’d better go on up to bed, Esther,” he said huskily. “Don’t worry about anything. I’ll be right here all night.”
She nodded and drew away, wishing that those words meant a whole lot more.
Mop woke him in the morning. It wasn’t an unusual experience when he slept outside, so it was a few minutes before he remembered that he was sleeping on Esther’s porch and that Mop was supposed to be at home.
He opened one eye and looked at the dog. “What are you doing here?” Dawn was barely a faint glow in the east, and dew had formed during the night, leaving his clothes feeling cold and damp. The last thing he needed was to be dragged out of bed at an ungodly hour by a lovesick dog. “You’re supposed to be at home.”
Mop groaned and licked his chin.
“I don’t want to get up, dawg.” What he wanted was never to move again. The worst part of being on the wrong side of thirty was that you began to notice that every broken bone, torn ligament or sprain you’d ever had really hadn’t healed. No, they’d only pretended to. On a damp, chilly morning like this every one of those old injuries lodged a protest.
Mop moaned and lapped his cheek. One big brown eye peered out between thick cords of fur.
“All right, all right.” He sat up slowly, easing his way back into his body. Morning stiffness was no big deal and he refused to give in to it—except for moving a little gingerly until the kinks worked out.
Apparently Mop didn’t think that sitting up was enough. He licked Craig’s cheek again and whined impatiently.
“Okay, okay. I’m coming. Slowly.”
The dog sat on his haunches and waited expectantly. Craig stretched widely, then rose to his feet. Cripes, even his ankles felt stiff this morning.
But, oh, what a beautiful morning it was going to be. The dim light of the dawning day flowed across the breeze-tossed grasses, making them look like a dark, mysterious sea. The mountains, rising up out of the blackness of night, were already rosy at their tops, kissed by the light of the sun he could not yet see. As he watched, the pink slowly descended the mountain slopes, vanquishing the darkness until the sun at last rose above the horizon and bathed the entire world in its warm glow.
“Good morning.”
He turned to find that Esther stood just inside the screen door, and suddenly he was glad he had dawdled to watch the day’s beginning. She looked adorable, he thought, her face still soft and flushed from sleep. Her hair was twisted into a single long braid that draped over her shoulder, but tendrils had escaped to create a soft nimbus around her face. In this light, her eyes looked soft and mysterious.
He wanted to kiss her. Instead he said, “I need to be going.”
“I just started a pot of coffee, and I bought some doughnuts in town yesterday. Can you stay just a few minutes more?”
“For coffee? You bet.” His lips stretched into a smile he didn’t really feel, because there was something about that woman and this morning that made him yearn—positively ache—to be in bed with her, holding her. Exploring her. Loving her.
Oh, man, he had lost his mind!
Esther looked at Mop. “How’d he get here?”
“I suspect he flew on the wings of love.”
Esther grinned, then chuckled delightedly. “Do you have any animals that behave normally?”
“That depends on what you mean by normal.”
“Well, you have a sheep that seems to be able to teleport through the fence. And now you have a dog that flies….”
His own smile relaxed. “There has to be a hole in the fence somewhere. I just haven’t found it.”
“Of course you haven’t. Both Mop and Cromwell have learned to fly. It’s quite obvious that there can be no other explanation.”
“But how did they learn to fly?”
She cocked her head pensively. “Clearly a wizard must have passed through the county at some time, and cast a spell of enchantment over your dog and your ewe.”
“But why not every dog? Or all my sheep?”
“Oh, that’s obvious! He only had enough magic powder to sprinkle two animals, and he quite naturally picked the two most enterprising animals he could find.”
“Makes sense to me, if by enterprising you mean that they’re pains in the doofus.”
She giggled. “Please, let’s be kind in our descriptions. I certainly don’t want Cromwell angry with me. She might devour something really important, like my paintings or that beautiful old cottonwood.”
“Please, she’s a sheep, not a goat. She has better taste.”
“I guess marigolds and geraniums qualify as better.”
“They’re certainly more expensive.”
Another gurgle of laughter escaped her. “Some people do seem to use cost as a measuring stick.” She looked down at Mop. “I feel awful about leaving you outside, Mop, but really, you can’t come in while Guinevere is confined to quarters. It would defeat the entire purpose.”
Mop wagged his tail then lay down with a “humph.”
Craig stepped into the house with Esther, half expecting Mop to slip right by him, or Guinevere to come charging out around his legs. But Mop kept his post on the porch, and Guinevere was once again leashed to the newel post.
“I hate to do that to her,” Esther remarked, “but it’s the only way I can be absolutely certain she won’t dash out the instant I open the door—even though she’s ordinarily a very well-behaved dog. I’m afraid some impulses are stronger than training.”
He glanced down at her, wondering if she meant anything by that, but the hazel eyes that met his were clear and without guile. No double entendre meant, he decided. Esther Jackson was apparently incapable of it.
He watched her limp ahead of him into the kitchen, and found himself wishing there was something that could be done about her leg. Not for himself, but for her. She couldn’t possibly like having to wear that brace.
The coffee was ready, and she poured two steaming mugs full. He carried them to the table while she retrieved the box of doughnuts.
“These are my worst vice,” she confided as she set out plates and napkins. “Every so often I just have to have a doughnut. A chocolate one with icing. Or one filled with strawberry jam. Or a blueberry one.”
A laugh burst out of him as she opened the box and revealed a full dozen doughnuts. “You were going to eat all those?”
She flushed and nodded. “I told you, it’s my worst vice. Once or twice a year I go crazy on doughnuts and don’t eat anything else for a couple of days.”
He couldn’t say why, but that touched him. “Then I shouldn’t eat any. I don’t want to shortchange you.”
She pushed the box toward him with a laugh. “Please. I’d be very grateful if you’d keep me from overdosing.”
“If I try real hard, I might be able to eat three.”
“Then by all means try very hard.” For herself she took only one, a chocolate doughnut with chocolate icing. “The bakery in town makes incredible doughnuts. And bread. I love their sourdough rye.”
“I’ll have to try them sometime.” Sometime when he could afford to buy bread, instead of Paula having to make it several times a week. �
�Are you going to be all right today?”
She colored faintly. “Yes, I’ll be fine. It’s…only at night that I have a problem. It was the only time I really had to be afraid of him. In the daytime he was either at work or sleeping it off.” She shook her head. “I guess it’s silly to feel that I have nothing to fear from him now in the daylight. I mean, if he wants to hurt me it’s because I put him in jail, and I don’t think that’ll change according to whether it’s day or night.”
“Probably not. If revenge is what he really wants. But have you considered that his time in prison probably dried him out pretty thoroughly?”
“I hear they make some kind of rotgut in prison.”
“I hear that, too. But that doesn’t mean anyone was making it in the prison he was in. Or that he got any even if they were. For all you know, he may have been on the wagon all this time. And he may have done some serious thinking.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of, that he’s spent the last fifteen years thinking seriously about how to get even with me.”
Craig backed off, biting into a blueberry doughnut to keep from pressing the issue. Esther wasn’t being perfectly rational about this, but there was no good reason why she ought to be. The bottom line was that the man had beaten her and her mother for years, and that he had killed her mother and crippled her. If Richard Jackson had turned into some kind of saint and did penance for the rest of his life, he doubted that Esther would ever be able to trust him again.
“Okay,” she said finally. “Maybe he’s quit drinking. Maybe he had even figured out that what he did was wrong. Maybe his apology is sincere. I still don’t want to see him. And I’m still going to be scared to death at night because he might get drunk again and come looking for me.”
She pushed her plate aside and looked at him. “He used to come looking for me, you know. There wasn’t any place I could hide. If I went to a friend’s house to spend the night, he’d call and order me to come home. I mean…when he wanted to beat me, nothing stopped him.”
His gut twisted with pain and sympathy for her. He’d thought he had it rough being a reservation Indian who like as not would get clobbered really good if he wandered into white folks’ territory after dark. Or if he had the nerve to ask a white girl out. Well, none of that amounted to a hill of beans beside being beaten again and again by your own drunken father.