by Tami Hoag
“It weren’t your fault, miss,” Charlie mumbled as Alex piloted her old car back toward the farm. Painkillers had dulled her senses. She leaned back against the torn upholstery and gazed down at the pristine plaster cast on her arm. “It weren’t your fault a’tall.”
Alex said nothing.
When she had Charlie settled in the house, she went back down to the barn and stood in front of Terminator’s stall.
It was her fault. She’d known all along the horse was dangerous. Why, then, had she kept him? Her gaze drifted to the next stall where Duchess stood quietly munching hay, and she knew that Christian was right. This didn’t really have anything to do with the mare. She had told herself it did, because that had been a convenient and viable excuse—but it wasn’t the truth.
When she looked deep inside herself, past logic and rationalization, past all the defenses she brandished like a warrior’s shield, there lay the fear that she had somehow brought all her troubles down on her own head, that she was to blame and now she had to earn back everything she’d lost.
Maybe Christian was right. Maybe those fears had driven her to take the kind of risks she had with Terminator.
Despite the choking heat Alex shivered at the thought. Why hadn’t she seen it? Why hadn’t she realized how stupid she was being, how stubborn? Why hadn’t she seen what her past had driven her to? It was self-destructive and irresponsible. Now Charlie lay with a broken arm because of her. The girl might have been killed. She thought of the fall she’d taken and all the other injuries this animal had inflicted on her. She might have been killed, and for what? Because she had seen a need to punish herself.
“Madre di Dio,” she whispered, pressing a hand across her eyes as misery spread through her.
What had she become? What had she allowed Greg Reidell to turn her into? The rape had destroyed her life, shattered her support network, driven her to an obsessive need for self-reliance and a destructive need to punish herself. And now someone else had been endangered because of it. How long was she going to let Greg Reidell go on raping her life?
“Enough,” she whispered as she backed away from the stall. She was all through being a victim.
Feeling old and tired Alex went into the tack room and used the phone there to call Tully Haskell. She left a message on his answering machine asking him to stop by. Then she went back to her grooming and her thinking, letting her mind work on the best way to get Christian back.
Christian sat on the fence of the outdoor arena, staring off at the rolling pastures of Quaid Farm, feeling an odd sort of detachment. This was the only home he had ever known in the States. In many ways it had been more of a home to him than Westerleigh Manor ever had. But the sense of comfort and contentment he had always known here had drifted away. There was a restlessness inside him, a yearning that had been stirred to life by a tempestuous, amber-eyed minx. He suddenly found himself wanting all the things he had shied away from his whole life—ties, responsibilities, a wife, children.
Poor Uncle Dicky, he thought with a fond, sad smile, the last of the Atherton black sheep has gone respectable.
The storm of emotions that had raged inside him had played itself out. He felt calm, accepting of his fate. The role of bachelor rake could fall on some younger buck’s shoulders. Christian Atherton was ready for other, more important things.
The question was: How to convince Alex? In many ways she was as untamable as that horse she rode, fiery and spirited and full of distrust. He smiled at the thought. He was going to have his hands full trying to handle her, but he knew how sweet and loving she could be, how responsive she was to a gentle touch, how tender was her heart.
He ached with missing her. Walking out of that stall had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done. All night long he’d lain awake in his empty bed feeling as if a huge chunk had been snatched out of his life. And he’d known a fear that had chilled him to the bone.
Alex was so bloody stubborn, so full of pride—what if she never gave in? What if his speculation had hit too close to the truth? She might choose to distance herself from him, thinking it too uncomfortable to be around someone who knew all her deepest secrets and vulnerabilities.
He simply couldn’t let that happen.
He’d never been so consumed by a woman, so intrigued by all the facets that made up her complex personality. He was going to enjoy her riddles and mysteries for the rest of his life—provided he could make it over that final barrier of Alex’s stubborn pride.
Confidence welled inside him as he hopped down from the fence and started across the dusty ring. There hadn’t been a fence built that Christian Atherton couldn’t jump.
Alex shut the stall door and leaned back against it with a sigh. The grooming was finished. The stalls were going to have to wait until her students came out in the evening. She simply couldn’t manage the task herself. She felt as if she didn’t have a bone left in her body. They had all melted down into the puddle of dull pain washing through her.
Picking up her bottle of mineral water from the floor, she took a swig, then poured the rest of it down over her head, letting it cool her and wash some of the dirt and sweat away.
“Mighty hot, ain’t it?”
Gasping, Alex started back against the stall door. Staring at the open end of the barn, it took her eyes a moment to adjust to the bright sun that backlit the tall, bulky man. Her pulse raced, then slowed again. “Mr. Haskell, you startled me.”
“Don’t know why,” Tully said smoothly, his boot heels clicking on the concrete as he ambled down the aisle. His yellow western shirt was sweat stained in big patches, and his fleshy face was red and shiny from the heat. His big nose looked mushy and swollen from the blow Christian had delivered. As he drew close, his squinting eyes followed the water stain that soaked into Alex’s cotton work shirt, plastering it to her chest. “You called me.”
“Yes, I did.” She straightened away from the stall, plucking the damp fabric from her skin and clutching it in her fist. Dammit, when would she stop being so nervous in this man’s company? Probably never, but then she doubted she would be seeing much of him after today.
“I thought you might,” he admitted.
“Well, then, you know what I’m going to say.”
“Got a pretty good idea,” he said, his mouth twisting into a slow smile. “I was there yesterday when you sent Atherton packing. I was wondering how long it’d take for you to get sick of that British prig.”
Alex frowned, unease sifting through her. “Mr. Haskell, I don’t see what this has to do with my reason for calling you.”
“You don’t have to be coy with me, Alex. I know all about you.”
Those last five words shot ice through her veins. She looked up at Haskell, praying to God she had misunderstood him.
“I know what kind of woman you are,” he said, stepping a little closer, his gaze raking over her in a way that made her skin crawl. “I know what you need, what you’re after.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The denial came almost as automatically as the need to step away, to put some distance between herself and the man towering over her.
“Sure you do, honey,” Haskell insisted, his voice low and too friendly. Unperturbed by her retreat, he turned and followed her as she backed toward the tack room. “Doesn’t the name Reidell ring a bell?”
Another bolt of cold electricity jolted through Alex. She took another jerky step backward.
“Ol’ Jack and I have some mutual business interests,” Tully went on, his smile growing lascivious. “He told me all about you, darlin’.”
Alex felt her fear pool in her throat to choke her. She had been almost ready to let her guard down, to believe that no one around there knew or cared about her past. Now Tully Haskell was saying he’d known all along. The idea made her stomach turn. How many times had he looked at her, touched her, thinking heaven knew what?
“I know where Jack made his mistake,” he said. “He should h
ave paid you off and kept you at Wide Acre. You’d have done that snotty kid of his some good.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Alex said in one desperate effort to make him understand. But Tully Haskell was no more interested in listening to her than anyone else had been. She could see by the feral gleam in his eyes that Reidell had told him the worst version of the story and he had eagerly believed it.
“Don’t worry,” he said, backing her up against the wall beside the tack-room door. “I won’t make the same mistake. I’ll take care of you, honey,” he said, his voice dropping as his gaze settled on her mouth, “and you’ll take care of me.”
“No!” Alex shouted as Haskell lowered his head and tried to kiss her. She dodged his mouth, bringing her knee up hard into his groin.
Tully grunted and staggered back, his face turning burgundy as he clutched himself. “You little bitch!”
Alex turned to run, but he lunged out and caught her, his fingers digging brutally into her injured arm. The pain came in a wave that knocked her to her knees and dimmed her vision. Haskell’s hands closed on her shoulders, and he dragged her back toward the tack room.
Alex let her body go limp, and for one blissful second unconsciousness beckoned, but Haskell’s voice drew her back.
“Think you’re too good for me, don’t you? You’ll only spread your legs for men like Reidell and Atherton because of their high-and-mighty names. Well, I’ve got news for you, sweetheart, you’ll do it for me, and you’ll damn well like it.”
Galvanized into action, Alex jerked against his hold, her feet scrambling to make contact with the floor. He loosened his grip for an instant, and she bolted, only to be hauled back against him in a crushing bear hug. The smell of sweat and cigars choked her, and as she gasped for air, he tightened his embrace against her bruised ribs. She couldn’t help but cry out, not only at the pain to her already-abused body, but at the injustice. She had done nothing to deserve this. Nothing at all.
Christian turned his car in at the end of Alex’s drive, frowning at the sight of Tully Haskell’s pickup parked at the end of the barn. The insufferable swine. He hadn’t even bothered to come to the ambulance after Alex had fallen with his horse. The man was simply going to have to leave—now and forever. And Christian didn’t much care how forceful he had to be in getting that message across. He didn’t like the way Tully Haskell looked at Alex. The thought of him getting anywhere near her made him absolutely blind with jealous fury.
The cry that came from the dark interior of the stables as Christian climbed out of the Mercedes went through his heart like a knife. He ran for the barn, skidding to a startled halt at the sight that greeted him—Tully Haskell trying to force Alex into the tack room.
As Haskell turned his head to squint at the intruder, Alex managed to get one arm free. Her hand grabbed the first thing it found—a bridle hanging on a hook beside the door. Twisting around as best she could, she swung her weapon, and the heavy metal bit smashed into the side of Tully’s face. Then they all went crashing to the ground as Christian hit Haskell at a run.
Alex rolled to the side and managed to pull herself up along the wall, gasping for air and wincing at the pain racking her body. Half doubled over, she watched as Christian hauled her attacker to his feet and hit him with a solid right to the stomach and a left to the jaw. Tully swayed on his feet. He managed to take one wild swing at Christian’s head, but Christian blocked it and bloodied Haskell’s nose for the second time in two days. This time the resounding crack of breaking bone went through the stable like a gunshot. Tully went down on his knees, blood running through his fingers as he pressed his hands to his face.
“Get up!” Christian demanded, his fists still curled in front of him. “Get up, you bastard, and let me finish the job!”
He spun around as Alex laid her hand on his arm. The adrenaline was humming through him. He’d never felt so furious or so primitive or so ready to kill. His cool veneer of sophistication had fallen completely away in the instant he’d realized Haskell’s intent.
“I’ll call the sheriff,” Alex said, her voice trembling so badly, she could manage nothing more than a whisper. She looked up at Christian, at the tautness of his face, the fierce intensity in his eyes, and a shiver went through her. “Let him deal with it.”
Christian glanced back down at the man bleeding all over the concrete floor, and disgust coiled inside him like a snake. “Let’s wait outside,” he said, wrapping an arm around Alex’s shoulders and steering her toward the door. “I can’t stand the sight of him.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Christian asked again as he parked the Mercedes at the end of the barn.
Haskell’s pickup was gone, having been driven into Briarwood by a deputy. They’d made a queer little motorcade winding down out of the hills to the quaint little college town—a sheriff’s car, a truck, and a Mercedes, all of them headed for the courthouse. It hadn’t been a pleasant experience, walking up the wide steps with the eyes of the curious following them. Nor had what followed been enjoyable. Christian had watched Alex give her statement as calmly as she could. He’d watched her fight back the tears and the fresh memory of what had happened to her, and it had made him thirst for Haskell’s blood all over again.
That a man could treat a woman with such contempt, with such violence, sickened him. And to think that Alex had suffered through it all before, that she had suffered through it under the weight of disbelief and suspicion, tore him apart inside. He had never hurt for another person before in quite the same way. He had always considered himself compassionate, but only so far as his selfishness would allow. His own needs had come first. That was no longer the case.
“I’m better than I would have been if you hadn’t shown up,” Alex said, trying in vain to lighten the mood. She felt on the brink of shattering as she climbed out of the sports car and leaned back against the roof, stiff and trembling as she watched Christian round the front of the car.
“My God, Alex,” he whispered, his voice strained.
He pulled her gently into his arms, careful of how he handled her. He needed to hold her, to reassure himself that he had indeed gotten there in time. If he’d had any reservations left about wanting to be responsible for another person, they had vaporized the instant he’d seen Alex struggling to get free of the man who would have raped her. He wanted never to let her out of his sight again, never to let her out of his arms again.
“I could have killed him for putting his hands on you.”
“Me too,” Alex said, tears fighting their way out of her tightly closed eyes and soaking into Christian’s torn blue T-shirt. She let them come for a minute, let some of the pressure release. It seemed all right now that they were away from watchful eyes.
There was a peacefulness about the yard now. The sun had slid past its hottest point. A breeze stirred down through the woods, bringing a breath of fresh air and the lush scent of the forest. The calm of early evening hung around them, and Alex tried to absorb some of it into her, but she felt too dirty and too battered to accomplish it. Her skin crawled at the memory of what had happened and what had nearly happened.
“I hate that he touched me!” She snarled the words through her teeth, angry at the liberty Haskell had taken, at her inability to stop him, at the knowledge that the memory of those moments would stay with her forever.
“He won’t touch you again, darling. We’ll see to that.”
Alex shuddered at the thought of another trial. Memories of the last one were too fresh in her mind—the humiliation, the futility of fighting on her own, the broken faith of the people she had needed most. She couldn’t go through that again.
Christian easily read her mind. “I’ll be right there with you, love. I’ll be beside you every step of the way.” Bending his head down, he pressed a kiss to her temple.
“Ouch.”
Christian jerked back and sent her an accusatory look. “You are hurt.”
“So are you,” Alex pointed out
, sniffing back the tears.
She raised her good arm and brushed a fingertip against an abrasion on his left cheekbone. He winced. Stepping back, she looked him over for further damage. Both knees had torn out of his faded jeans. There was blood splattered on his blue T-shirt, but it wasn’t his. His knuckles were raw where they had connected with Tully Haskell’s face.
Her own blouse had torn at one shoulder, and her jeans were dirty. Blood from a scrape on her knee had soaked a stain through the denim. “We should go to the house. Pearl will put some antiseptic on those scrapes for you. She’s thinking of turning the place into an infirmary.”
“In a minute. We need to talk.”
Alex tried to muster a nervous smile. “It can’t wait until we’re more presentable?”
“It’s waited long enough already.”
Taking her by the hand, he led her to the simple wooden bench that sat along the end of the barn and motioned for her to sit down. Alex lowered herself gingerly, her eyes on Christian as he paced back and forth in front of her. He looked like a man with a mission. Her heart pounded as she wondered whether that mission was good or bad.
In her mind there was a good chance that he would bow out of her life. Look what she’d embroiled him in! He had come looking for a woman to date, to have a few laughs with, and instead had gotten caught up in the web of her past, a past that showed no signs of fading away.
Finally, Christian stopped and turned to stare down at her, his eyes bluer than the summer sky above them. There was a tension in his chest that made breathing painful. He knew this was probably not the time or the place. He would have preferred a romantic setting. But what they had been through in the last twenty-four hours had shaken him to the core and spurred him now to say what was in his heart.
“I love you, Alex. Everything I said yesterday still holds true, but the fact of the matter is, I can’t stand to be away from you. I love you, and I want you to be my wife.”