“Then do it!”
Maggie’s smile as she backed toward the door should have warned her. Following her with her eyes, Lacey saw him. She looked from one to the other.
“Maggie,” she whispered, hurt that she had tricked her.
But Maggie shared a long look with Rafe before she gave him a shove and then slipped out the door.
Speechless, Lacey saw that he was leaning against the doorframe, his stance reflecting the wary look in his eyes.
She felt herself thrown back in time to the day he had first stood in this very room, his eyes assessing her and waiting.
Hungrily she drank in every detail of his appearance while they stared at each other in weighted silence.
His body looked leaner than when she had last seen him, and his boots were coated with dust, as if he had ridden long and hard. The fabric of his pants seemed strained by the tenseness of his leg muscles. He wasn’t wearing a gun, only a worn belt. A black shirt, open at the neck, emphasized the deeply tanned skin of his face. His hair was longer than she remembered, and the breadth of his shoulders was daunting. Time and again his dark eyes drew her gaze, and a knot tightened in her chest.
And Rafe, while nothing of his emotions showed in his face, stared as hungrily at her. He had learned long ago to school his features to show no more expression than that of a hawk arrowing out of the sky after prey.
The dark grave look in his eyes was possessive. The first sweet yearnings of desire burned inside her. Every nerve ending screamed out for her to go to him, but she couldn’t move. What if he didn’t want her? Desperately she found herself thinking that she had to do something, say something to stop him from just looking at her.
All she managed was an imploring whisper. “Why, Rafe?”
“Why what, princess? Why I stayed away or why I’m back?”
“Don’t call me that.” His voice had been low and harsh, filled with that impatient arrogance she remembered so well. He stood and seemed to radiate power and pride, making no move to take her into his arms and kiss away all the hurt and pain they caused each other.
“Does it matter why you’re here, Rafe?”
“I guess not.”
She still hadn’t moved, nor had he, yet a thousand memories of his lips and arms reached out from his eyes to capture her, to touch her and make her long to be beside him.
“Darcy was here,” she whispered and looked down at the desk. “He gave me the notes. Paid in full. And the judge was here. He left your money. And I…” She looked up and then away. But she couldn’t be denied the sight of him.
As if in answer to her unspoken plea, he sauntered toward her, stopping in front of the desk. She watched his hand reach into the pocket of his vest and remove something. He tossed it on top of the papers. “I came back to see if you still wanted this.”
The warm patina of gold glinted against the stark white. His mother’s ring … her wedding ring. How could she have forgotten it? Lacey stared down at it not trusting herself to meet his gaze. She didn’t dare pick it up. It would be too easy. Rafe would say something more, explain why … yet she despaired that he might be toying with her. That was a pain she could never live with.
“Lacey.”
She glanced up quickly and caught the pleading, almost expectant look in his eyes, but he masked it just as her own softened.
The reckless slant of his mouth tilted into a knowing smile, somehow making his voice all the more insolent. “I guess what I overheard between you and Maggie wasn’t true. I had a feeling it was a mistake to come back here. Told Maggie as much, but she’s thick-headed. Seems she had this feeling you wanted me back. I guess I had to know for sure.”
“And now you think you do?” she asked in a breathless whisper. He was really here. Rafe. She trembled at the thought of it.
“I figured to pack my gear and get out, since I know how you feel.”
“Running again, Rafe? You do that very well. And you’re wrong. You don’t know how I feel.” She couldn’t let him go. This time she knew it would be for good. “Rafe, where have you been?”
“Around.”
“Damn you! That’s no answer. I’ve a right to know. After all, I’m still your—” She stopped and couldn’t look at him. The word hung there unspoken between them. The word she denied he had a right to call her. Wife.
She sensed his movement and glanced up, but it was not toward the door—he was coming around the desk, and she stepped back.
“Afraid? Don’t be. You just reminded me that you’re my wife.” He cursed himself a thousand times for coming back, yet knew he could never stay away from her. She was a heated, haunted memory that left him without peace, no matter how hard he pushed himself to forget her. He had told her she claimed a man’s soul, and he knew she had his.
Backing her into a corner so she couldn’t run, he stood before her but did not touch her. The memory of the last time they had been together, the violence, the hate that had raged and its ending was still between them. It was a wound that Rafe knew would not heal, and one he would live with forever.
“Rafe? Why have you really come back?”
“It ended wrong between us,” he answered softly, noting the dark shadows beneath her eyes. He tried to still the trembling in his hand as he reached out and brushed one finger under her eye. “You haven’t been sleeping, have you? I’m sorry if I caused that.”
“Are you?”
“Questions, always questions, Lacey,” he snapped as his resolve to be calm disappeared with every frightened look she gave him. “Don’t fear me. I swear I won’t hurt you.”
“No. No, you won’t. I’ve had no peace with you and less without you, Rafe. I don’t know what you came back expecting to find.”
“Don’t you, Lacey?”
She sensed her time was almost gone. “I’m not sure how to answer you. I don’t know what you want to hear me say. I love you. I haven’t felt alive without you.” Such softly whispered words that she never meant to say. But they had been spoken. She cradled his cheeks between her hands and rose on tiptoe to brush her lips against his own. Pride and everything else be damned! She wanted him as he was. This time, this time she would give him her love without reservations, or she would lose him forever.
His kiss was fleeting. “Lacey,” he breathed against her mouth, “do you know what you’re saying … doing? I won’t leave you again. I swear that.”
Her lashes were dark smudged crescents before she lifted them and looked into his eyes. “We’ve made so many promises, Rafe. We’ve broken them, too.”
He leaned his forehead against her hair, placing his hands flat on the wall to either side of her. He was afraid to touch her. “You haunted me,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I wanted you and needed you. So many times I wanted to come here and found myself knowing fear for the first time in my life that I had lost you.”
She brushed his lips, shaking. “I wanted to find you. I didn’t know where to look, and the nights were so lonely without you. How will you forgive me for the cruel things I said to you?”
“No! The guilt and the blame are mine for what happened.”
She pressed her fingertips against his mouth, silencing him. Slowly Lacey shook her head, her gaze locked to his. “No, Rafe. I won’t accept that. I pushed you over the edge that night. I know that now. I pushed you because that’s where I was, and I was too frightened of you to admit it. I didn’t know you anymore. I wondered if I ever had, and the hold you had over me was too powerful. But it’s only in your arms that I find my world begins and ends.”
Very gently she placed each of his hands on her shoulders. “I want you to hold me. I need you to do it.” She agonized over the seconds that passed before he gathered her into his arms.
“I shared your fear, Lacey. You take everything that I am and leave me with n
othing unless I have you.” Her eyes were filled with softness, fired with love and desire, but he needed the words to end his torment. “Say that you forgive me.” His eyes glittered with pain and the words tremored forth.
“If I forgive you, I need to forgive myself for driving you into hell. I can’t do that alone.”
“The nights were empty without you,” he murmured, kissing away her tears. “I want my wife.”
“As she is? I can’t promise to be sweet and docile, Rafe. You have a knack of setting my temper to simmer.”
“And you don’t do that to me?” He pulled back slightly and found laughter in her eyes. Hugging her close, he knew he needed to share this as much as everything else she had to give him. Her kiss of tender promise stole his breath, and he returned it with all the love that welled inside him.
Sweeping her up into his arms, he gently pressed her head to his shoulder. “You’ll learn to trust me again. We’ll share the Reina the way Sy wanted us to. We have what he lost, Lacey. I swear that I won’t make his mistake and lose your love.”
She closed her eyes as they walked out into the sunlight, only to open them at his soft laughter. Maggie stood, broom in hand, Fletcher at her side with his shotgun.
“There’s no need for that,” she chided. “Rafe’s come home, and we have promises to cherish.” Lacey sealed her words with a kiss, making a vow that the Reina would be home, with all that Rafe dreamed of, all that he wanted. They had love, and soon she would tell him about their coming child.
More from Raine Cantrell
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Desert Sunrise
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Western Winds Page 32