by Linda Conrad
Dang it, this was one very special woman.
Without considering the consequences, he bent closer, concentrating his focus on her slightly open lips. They were too tempting, and his brain hadn’t yet processed what his body was demanding.
He stopped a hair’s breath away and waited for her to pull back. Instead, she sighed his name. The trust implicit in that sigh spurred him forward.
He’d imagined a gentle kiss to make her feel better and forget her pain. But he soon got lost in the touch of satin under his lips and fell into the passion of the moment. Deepening the kiss, his mind blanked as their tongues tangled and their breaths mingled.
She reached out and laid her hands on his chest, while at the same time making tiny moaning noises deep in her throat.
The sensual sounds, the sudden rush of adrenaline through his veins… It scared him to death.
He broke the kiss and backed up a step. “I…um…don’t believe any of your cuts needs a bandage. The antibiotic ought to be enough to take care of it. There’s also a bottle of aspirin in the kit. Take two. And a nice, hot bath should help.”
She looked up at him with a bruised look in her eyes to match the bruise showing on her cheek. Damn it. He was such a jerk.
“I’ll have someone bring you dinner in a while,” he choked out past the lump in his throat. “And I’ll go sit with Sara so Kathryn can bring the baby in here. Anything else you need, just call. Otherwise, I’ll see you in the morning first thing. We need to talk.”
He rushed out of the bathroom and out the bedroom door so fast that he almost missed her saying “Thank you.”
Yeah, right. Thank you, Nathan, for screwing with my head.
What kind of moron would leave a vulnerable woman who needed him and had offered a momentary respite of pleasure? Could he be that far gone?
The whole idea of walking away from her that way sounded just as sick as those Devotee bastards with their kidnapping plans.
Nevertheless, he picked up the pace and disappeared.
Chapter 7
The baby was crying. Susannah rolled over, but her aching body kept her in bed. Oh, yeah, that had been only this afternoon. Being attacked by the Devotees was already becoming just a bad memory.
Using every bit of whatever willpower she had left, she forced her feet to the floor and pulled the baby into her arms. “Shush, darling. Mommy’s here. Are you hungry?”
What a good baby. Susannah was thrilled her child wasn’t one of those babies who cried all night and barely slept. At just over five weeks, she was waking up only once or twice a night.
Settling in against the pillows and adjusting the baby to her nipple, her mind began to wander back to a few hours ago when her breasts were aching for an entirely different reason.
Darn that Nathan. She’d wanted him to touch her so badly. And he’d wanted her as much as she wanted him. His need would’ve been impossible to miss. And the kiss…whew, boy. It was hot.
So what happened? Where had she gone wrong?
Closing her eyes, she visualized the kiss again. From the moment his lips touched hers, she’d totally forgotten about her aches and pains. She’d been longing for him to kiss her since the day he had rescued her and Melody. But she’d never thought she would have the chance.
He was every bit as good a kisser as she’d imagined. She just knew that the two of them would fit together—at least physically if not emotionally or intellectually.
Not once in the whole time that she’d lived in Cold Plains had any man interested her sexually. And she hadn’t been dead—only pregnant. She’d seen plenty of guys who were clean-cut, cordial and better looking than Nathan in a classic sense.
But as much as she had dreamed about making a home in Cold Plains for herself and her child, she’d never given one thought to spending that forever with any of the Devotee men—or any man for that matter until she’d arrived at the ranch.
Could she live here, raise her child and be happy with Nathan for good? Oh, heck, yeah.
She had yet to meet anyone on the ranch who wasn’t nice to her and the baby. Everyone, right down to the ranch hands, treated her like she mattered.
Well, on second thought, she took that back. Nathan only sometimes treated her like she was a real person with wants and needs of her own. Their spectacular kiss came to mind again.
Other times, he treated her like he thought she was the biggest drag and one more chore he had to deal with. She wished he would stop walking away from her. She was dying to find out what making love to him would be like.
Okay, so Nathan didn’t believe the two of them would ever make a couple. She got that. Maybe it had something to do with his ex-wife, Cold Plains and the Devotees. Or maybe it was because she would never be as bright and industrious as he was. She’d grown up knowing those hard facts about herself and had been told often enough to accept that they were true.
The baby fell asleep in her arms, bringing Susannah out of her little pity party. Wait a second. At least some part of Nathan wanted her. And she wanted him—for a night or two if that’s all she could ask.
She came to a decision. There was no reason not to try. They might be terrific together, and she wanted to find out.
Turning to her sleeping child, she whispered, “At least once before we have to leave here. Your mommy needs to stand up for herself for the first time in her life. I owe it to you to become the kind of mommy you need.”
“You’re harboring this Devotee and her child on the ranch? Do you really think that’s smart? I thought you of all people in Cold Plains would’ve had your fill of Devotees.” Hawk Bledsoe stood with hands on hips and hat pulled low to shade his eyes from the morning sun.
Nathan wondered how best to answer. “It started off simple enough. She was lost and hurt. No threat at all.” And now she was a threat? In one major way she was becoming a definite threat to his well-being.
“I planned on giving her a little cash and sending them on their way. But the doctor said the child might die if I turned them out.”
Frustrated, he looked out toward the herd grazing in the distance. “Now the whole danged place is enthralled with the two of them. I couldn’t just shove her off the land, could I?”
Hawk stood quietly for a few seconds. “I see. She’s different than the others. That it?”
Nathan turned back and caught the amusement in his old friend’s eyes. “Well, she is, damn it. Besides, the baby has a birthmark covering half her face. Supposedly those Devotees would consider that a defect and take the child away if Susannah ever went back. I couldn’t let anything like that happen to an innocent.”
“Not you.” Hawk scratched his chin. “So has she tried to convert you to the Devotee ways yet?”
“Just the opposite. I’ve been giving her the exit counseling I would’ve used on Laurel if I’d had the chance.”
“Is it working?”
It was a good question, but Nathan wasn’t about to say that to an FBI agent—even one who was an old friend.
“Might be.”
Nodding, Hawk changed his position and straightened. “I’ve been meaning to stop around and talk to you about your ex-wife’s death. I wasn’t in on the original investigation.”
“I remember.”
“You mind running over it again for me?”
Nathan gave Hawk the basics, sliding past all the difficult emotions involved. The FBI agent listened patiently and asked a couple of pertinent questions.
Finally Nathan’s curiosity got the better of him. “Why are you delving into all this again? It’s been three years since Laurel died.”
“They found another body last month. That makes five we can connect to Samuel Grayson, but he’s covered his tracks brilliantly so far. Nothing leads back to him directly except those damned Ds. I thought I had a new lead, an informant of sorts, but that deal fell through.”
“What are you going to do? Give up?”
Hawk’s expression turned rock hard. “No chanc
e. I’ll keep at it. Someone else will turn up with new evidence. Someone like your runaway, but with inside knowledge, will decide they’ve had enough or be threatened one time too many by Samuel Grayson and be willing to talk.”
Nathan didn’t know what to say to that. But his fear for Susannah and Melody began crystallizing into something deeper.
“In the meantime,” Hawk continued, “I have a small field team nearby, and we’ll keep going over the body drops and rechecking evidence and witnesses. Something will turn up.”
Hawk hesitated and pinned him with one of those lawman stares he had perfected. “What are you going to do, Nate, when the Devotees come back out here again looking for their runaway and her child?”
“Protect my property from trespassers. Wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all if a couple of those bastards went one step too far and died for their trouble.”
Hawk made a kind of coughing noise and shook his head. “Can’t really recommend that course of action, old buddy. Though a few less Devotees to worry about wouldn’t hurt my feelings, either. But armed conflict is not a good way to go. The chief of police in Cold Plains might just decide to arrest you for something like that.”
“What would you do?”
“Well, that would depend on how much I cared about the woman in question. Exactly how much is that?”
“Hmm.” Nathan didn’t care to think about how he felt toward Susannah, let alone discuss it with Hawk.
“I see. Well, in that case, I’d pack her and the kid up and take a vacation out of town for a few weeks. Maybe stay gone for a couple of months while you think it over.”
“I can’t leave the ranch, Hawk. I have too many responsibilities.”
“I’ve heard that story before.”
“Yeah,” Nathan said. “I remember a time when your Carly felt the same way about her daddy’s dairy farm. Seems like that was what broke you two up a long time ago, wasn’t it?”
There was silence and another of those strained glances.
Hawk didn’t seem any more inclined to discuss Carly than Nathan had been about Susannah.
“My brother and my old man aren’t worth much around the ranch,” Nathan said by way of further explanation. “And my niece is special needs. I’m all she’s got. I won’t leave her.”
“I hear you.” Hawk resettled the hat on his head. “I’ve got another appointment. If you need any help here, give me a call. But think about what I said. If you can’t leave, at least send the woman and child away to be safe.”
“And where would that be?”
“Anyplace where there are no Devotees. They don’t own the whole world, you know.”
Nathan thanked his old friend for coming and saw him to his car. Then he turned his attention back to the stock and those downed fences in the eastern pasture. But while going about his business, he couldn’t help searching his mind and heart for a solution to Susannah’s problem.
Samuel Grayson and his gang were not going to win this one—not if he had one breath left to take a stand against the bastards.
“Good night.” Susannah lifted a sleeping Melody higher against her shoulder and prepared to make her way back to the bedroom.
Kathryn and Nathan’s brother, Derek, bid her good-night and each went their own way, too. All of them had been visiting with Sara in her room for the evening, and it was past the little girl’s bedtime.
As Susannah trudged across the garden, she thought about her day. It was one hell of a day. She’d so hoped this morning that Nathan would find a moment for her. He’d said last night that they needed to talk. But when she’d entered the kitchen for breakfast this morning, Maria told her he’d already left. He’d gone off to work in faraway pastures for the day.
Their kiss still haunted her. The feeling of his lips on hers continued to buzz through her veins. She wanted to talk to him about it but knew that was a lost cause. Nathan would never accept a nice long chat about intimate subjects. And besides, what she really wanted was to try another kiss. Ha! That didn’t seem likely, either—not if he wouldn’t come within shouting distance of her.
Still feeling bruised and achy from yesterday’s attack, like someone had run her over with a truck, Susannah stayed in the main house nearly all day. In the morning, she’d spent more time than usual with Sara and Kathryn. And in the afternoon, Nathan’s brother had shown her how to work his computer. She wished she’d had more time to learn from him. He was a great teacher, and someday she might need to get a job that required a minimum amount of computer knowledge. Up to now, she’d barely touched a computer except at the library for high school projects.
Her day had gone by quickly, but Nathan never returned to the house, not even for lunch or dinner. She missed him.
But deep down she’d secretly worried that what he’d wanted to talk about was her time being up on the ranch. Maybe it was for the best that she hadn’t seen him all day—another twenty-four-hour reprieve.
On the way back to her room, she walked past the guest room Nathan had been using. It was right down the hall from hers. And every time she went past she hesitated, hoping he would be coming or going and that she would have a chance to see him.
This time she stopped and put her ear to the door. There was nothing, no sound. Sighing, she tried to convince herself that if he needed her he would make a point of finding her.
Fat chance. The only reason he would have for finding her would be to tell her to get out.
Turning on a deep sigh, she slipped into her room and eased Melody into her baby bed. As she gazed down at her wonderful child, she realized her little girl would soon outgrow the tiny crib.
Wasn’t it time that she made new plans for the two of them? Somehow, she was sure the fantasy of living on the ranch and being in love with her rescuer would soon be over anyway. Maybe she should save some pride and try making a plan to leave on her own. But it was hard to do when all she could think of was Nathan.
An hour later, Melody had been fed and put back to sleep, and Susannah’s hair was nearly dry from her shower. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling in the low glow of the night-light, thinking about her situation.
She’d been so overwhelmed by finding a man like Nathan that she’d gotten caught up in the romance of it all. Yes, she did like it here on the ranch—a lot. But she didn’t have the experience to make a career out of ranch work.
And yes, she’d fallen in love with little Sara, but she didn’t have the knowledge or experience with special-needs children to make a career out of that, either. In fact, she wasn’t trained for any career. The only honest jobs she’d ever held were babysitting and waitress work. Neither of those would provide enough for her to make a living and take care of her child.
Staying with the Devotees had sounded like heaven for an inexperienced single woman with a baby. They’d promised to take care of her every need, and all she had to do was believe what they told her and do the jobs they gave her.
From nearly the beginning, she’d had a gut feeling that things weren’t as rosy in Cold Plains as the Devotees made them out to be. But, like her time on the ranch, she shoved aside her reservations and went with the flow.
Not anymore, though. Never again.
Nathan had changed all that. He’d awoken her to reality. He’d made her see things as they really were and stopped her from fantasizing.
Actually, she had to wonder how a person with her background could’ve gotten herself into such a position in the first place. She should’ve been street-smart at least. Her childhood had not been exactly a dream. It was far from it.
Perhaps she’d subconsciously trained herself to blank out reality and live in a fantasy world full-time. That seemed rather likely from this new perspective of hers.
In fact, the whole disastrous affair with a deadly drug runner that had left her pregnant and destitute in Cold Plains had been just another kind of escape. She could see that now.
Nathan had given her the means to think more clearly. She
loved him for that and for so many other reasons.
A single tear leaked from the side of her eye, but she ignored it. She was deeply and fully in love with a man for the first time in her life. But what did love mean? At no time in her background could she think of knowing a single couple who’d been truly in love.
People used each other, for comfort, for protection, for money, for stability, for power and for sex. But what was real love all about?
Digging deeper, and actually dredging up some of Samuel’s seminars about family, it came to her. Being really in love meant you cared more about the other person’s welfare than you did about yourself.
Did she? Is that the point she’d arrived at with Nathan?
An image of him standing in the sunlight with his clear blue eyes gleaming brightly and his light brown hair ruffled by the wind entered her mind. What would she give up for him?
Nearly everything, she supposed—everything but Melody.
Wasn’t that an amazing fact? They hadn’t even made love yet, and here she was truly in love. So what could she do to make him happy? Besides disappear? She’d already decided to take steps to that end.
What else?
Burrowing deeper into her sheets and relaxing, she tried to think about what would please Nathan the most. What did he want?
An image of Samuel came to mind, and she realized getting rid of the Devotees would go a long way toward pleasing Nathan. Yes, that would be a wonderful present. But she didn’t have a clue how to go about doing that. The policeman who’d come to the ranch said he was investigating, but he knew how to do that sort of thing.
Darn that Samuel. He’d made a sorry mess out of so many lives.
A picture of his face, looking benevolently down at her with those vivid green eyes, reminded her of how stupid she’d been to believe his lies. Thank heaven for Nathan.
Another picture swirled in her head, dreamlike. Blue eyes, gazing at her with such intensity, she felt prickly all over. They were Nathan’s eyes.
“I want you, Susannah.” It was Nathan’s voice, rough and intense.