Jenny gave him a shove. He toppled in.
She didn't take him back to his truck. She ignored his arguments, his directions, his threat to jump out in the middle of Main Street
. She kept her eyes on the road and got back on the interstate, heading east.
Defeated, Mace slumped in the seat beside her.
They drove over the pass, then took the county highway north. The night was black. His mood was blacker. Jenny turned off the highway onto the asphalt. The road grew narrower, bumpier. It twisted and curved.
The three cups of coffee Rooster had poured into him began to have an effect. It wasn't the desired one. The truce it had reached with the tequila and beer back in the parking lot was being renegotiated.
He shut his eyes and clenched his teeth.
It was beginning to feel like the truce had been called off.
"Stop the car."
Jenny flicked a glance in his direction. "I will not. If you think for one minute I'm going to let you jump out here and head back up to hide in the woods after I've driven all the way down—"
"Stop the damn car!" He was fumbling the door handle open even as he spoke.
Jenny stopped with a screech.
Mace flung himself out just in time to be sick all over his boots and the side of the road.
He retched and retched and retched. Tequila, beer and coffee. Not a good combination at the best of times. But now … he groaned and retched some more. It didn't bear thinking about.
Finally he sank back against the car tire and shut his eyes. His stomach still clenched spasmodically. He held his head and sucked desperately at the cool night air and felt the breaths come shuddering through him.
A hand touched his forehead, tipped his hat back, brushed against his clammy skin. "Here." She wiped his face with a clean handkerchief. It was cool and dry and smelled like Jenny. He wanted to cry.
"Are you all right?"
He swallowed. "Swell."
He heard her sigh. He opened his eyes just far enough to see her as she knelt beside him, still stroking his face, brushing his hair away from his forehead. "Oh, Mace," she whispered.
He heard despair and dismay and a hundred other painful emotions in her voice.
Emotions he'd put there. Emotions he couldn't deal with. Not in her, not in himself.
"Don't," he pleaded. All his strength was gone. All his reserves depleted.
He couldn't fight her now. He shut his eyes.
"Please. Just take me home."
She took him home.
To their home.
"No," he said, when the car stopped and he opened his eyes again to realize that they were parked next to their ranch house. "Not here. I didn't mean here," he said desperately.
"Home, you said."
"I meant—"
"This is home." She got out, ignoring his protests, and went around to open the passenger door. She stood there, waiting.
"Jenny," he protested.
She reached in and took hold of his arm. "You're home, Mace. Come on."
He looked like hell.
She'd thought that the moment she'd seen him sitting there on the curb, hunched over, his hands dangling between his knees, his head bent, while Rooster hovered around, flapping and clucking and almost pathetically relieved when she showed up and he could turn the responsibility over to her.
Not that Mace wanted it turned over to her. That was abundantly clear.
Well, she hadn't been having very many kind thoughts about him lately, either. And she'd thought of a thousand pithy things to say to him on the way to Bozeman.
She hadn't needed to.
Rooster and the judo expert Mace had picked to tangle with—God forgive her, how she would have liked to have seen him flip Mace on his butt!—and Mace's own body had said it all.
Now, as she stood in their bedroom and stared at him, sound asleep on his stomach on their bed, one bare arm flung up, one jean-clad leg bent, she felt a stirring of sympathy for him.
Mace's head was turned toward her, so she could see the rough, black stubble on his face that told her he hadn't shaved in a day or two. A day or two's beard always gave him a certain attractively roguish look. But tonight, beneath the whiskers, she thought his skin looked sallow, his cheeks sunken.
There were dark circles under his eyes. And even now, in sleep, his brows were knitted and drawn down as if he was in pain.
She knew how he felt.
They were both in pain; they had been for a very long time.
She stepped closer to watch the steady rise and fall of his back. There was a bruise across his ribs, and she wondered how he had got it. If he'd been home, she would have known. She would have touched it and soothed it, and at night when she put her arms around him, she would have kissed it to make it better.
Tonight he had sent her out of the room while he got undressed.
"I can manage," he'd said gruffly, turning his back on her when he'd finally made it.
Jenny had started to unbutton his dusty shirt, but he had shrugged away from her. "I said, I'll do it." So she had left him alone.
He'd gone into the bathroom. She'd gone to the kitchen where she ran hot water to do the cups she'd left from coffee with Tom.
It seemed like a thousand years ago—Tom and the dinner and the wine and the movie, Tom kissing her, her wondering if Tom expected to take her to bed.
It didn't matter what he'd expected, she thought wryly.
Neither of them had expected this.
And now, with Mace sound asleep on the bed, apparently, despite his claims, not able to manage, because he was still wearing dirty jeans and socks—one with a hole in it—what was she going to do?
It was the middle of the night. There was only one thing to do: go to bed.
She got her nightgown off the hook on the bathroom door and slipped it on. She brushed her teeth and washed her face, scrubbing it well, because she could still catch a hint of the perfume she'd put on for Tom all those hours ago.
Then with one last look at Mace, she shut off the light and went into the spare bedroom. The children's bedroom.
She lay down in the bed. But even though she was exhausted, she couldn't sleep. In the moonlight she could see the cowboy-and-Indian-border wallpaper they'd hung.
"So Becky will feel at home when she comes over. So Tuck can stay if he wants," she'd rationalized when they were doing the room.
"For our kids," Mace had said, cutting to the chase.
She remembered that afternoon as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. It was as if the ghosts of who they were—the happy, dreaming ghosts of an earlier Mace and Jenny—were there to play it out for her.
They were arguing about, of all things, the color of the curtains.
"Blue," Mace had said. "For our half dozen boys."
"Pink," Jenny had countered. "For our half dozen girls."
"A half a dozen hussies like you?" he'd teased, putting his arms around her and starting to tickle her. "How will I ever defend them from lecherous men?"
"Like you?" she'd said as he nuzzled her under the ear and nibbled her neck.
"We're doomed," he'd murmured as she pulled out his shirttails and tickled his ribs.
And then they'd loved each other—right there in the spare room.
"Maybe," Mace had said in the aftermath of their love-making, as he held her in his arms and kissed her tenderly, "we can tell our son he was conceived in this bed."
Jenny got out of bed. She could not sleep here.
Not tonight.
She started toward the couch in the living room. She never got there. A noise from the bedroom stopped her.
Mace was muttering in his sleep. Hurt, angry sounds. Painful sounds.
She peeked in. Mace had wrestled with one of the pillows, and now had his face pressed into it, while he clutched it against his chest.
He muttered again, and she moved closer to see if he was awake.
His eyes were closed. The hand that wasn't clutching the
pillow dangled over the side of the bed. His knuckles were scraped.
From his swing at the judo expert?
Probably. Mace had cowboy's hands—rough and callused, hardened by years of manual labor and bad weather. Sometimes their roughness embarrassed him.
"I shouldn't be touching you," he'd say when they lay together naked and touching. "You're so soft. I could hurt you, scratch you."
Then she would take his fingers one by one and kiss them. "You could never hurt me," she'd told him.
He never had—with his hands.
She reached down and touched them now. Instinctively his fingers curved around hers, and so surprised was she that she looked once more to see if he was awake.
Of course he wasn't.
If he had been, the last thing he would have done was touch her. On the contrary, he'd have yanked his fingers away at once.
In sleep he held on.
His muttering stopped. His breathing evened. When she started to pull away, he frowned. "Ah, Mace."
It was a plea, but if she'd been forced to, Jenny didn't know if she could have said what she was pleading for—that he let go, that he hang on?
She ran her thumb lightly over his abraded knuckles, then knelt beside him and touched her lips to them. He turned his head toward her, and a slow, soft sigh escaped his lips.
Jenny lifted her head and turned to study him.
She had thought she knew Mace inside and out. She'd thought she had seen him every way there was—but there was a new raggedness in his features now.
It wasn't just the shaggier hair, the shadows in his cheeks, the bruise on his ribs and fresh cuts on his hands.
He looked older. Leaner. More tired. He looked like Mace. And yet—not Mace.
He was both her husband and a stranger. A man she thought she knew as well as she knew herself, and even after all these years maybe, didn't really know at all.
That was what her mind told her.
But her heart? Ah, her heart was a different story.
She brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. He stirred, half smiled.
Jenny swallowed. She couldn't face that smile.
And yet she couldn't look away, either. So much of her life had been spent in this man's arms, in this man's bed, she wondered how a few hours ago, she could have contemplated sleeping with another man.
Had she actually considered it?
No. Not really.
It was only that she thought she ought to think about it, since she had been going out with Tom. But Tom was gone.
And if the fact that there was a man in her bed was surprising, that the man was her stubborn, hardheaded, determined, proud, idiotic husband was the biggest shock of all.
And, Jenny thought ruefully, she was apparently just as big an idiot as he was, because—despite the letter from his lawyer on her dresser, despite his anger and his pride and his refusal to let her share his pain, despite the fact that he would probably divorce her whether she agreed or not—she was going to slip out of her clothes and get into bed.
With him.
For the first time in ages he was warm.
His body, which seemed to have been clenched against the cold forever, sensed the heat gradually. It was close, but not close enough.
He edged back toward the source. Yes. Ah, yes.
He could feel it now, right next to him, against him. Wrapping around him, holding him, drawing him in.
Warming him—at last.
The tension in his body, so intense he'd forgotten what it was like to be without it, gradually started to ease. God, yes.
He moved, stretched, moaned. He rubbed his bare skin against hers. Hers? Yes. Hers.
She was the source of his warmth. She was the fire he had been missing. She was the blanket, the protection he needed from the cold.
He'd been cold. So cold.
And now he was warm again. Alive again.
He felt himself uncurling, opening to the heat of her skin and the tentative softness of her touch.
He murmured encouragement. Please, yes. Touch me. Warm me.
She understood. Her touch wasn't as tentative now. It became surer, firmer, yet still gentle. Her hands sliding like silk along his back, making him arch against her. The subtle shift as they stroked and slipped and moved around to caress his chest made him breathe deeper so he could intensify the feeling of her fingers hard against his ribs.
Yes. Oh, yes.
Her breath was hot against his spine. Her mouth was wet as she kissed him. They were small fiery kisses that kindled corresponding fires wherever they touched.
Down his spine she went, one vertebra after another and then back up. She nuzzled the nape of his neck, nibbled him with her teeth, licked at him with her tongue.
He groaned. Desperate. Burning suddenly.
Not with heat, but with longing. He longed to become one with her, to absorb her heat and make it his own.
Without her he was cold. Without her he was lost.
With her—only with her—he was whole.
He turned and touched her then, tangled their arms and legs together. He rolled beneath her and drew her on top of him. There he let his hands play over her soft skin, skimming over her arms, framing her narrow shoulders, tracing the curve of her back as he drew her down against his chest and wrapped himself once more in her warmth.
Her lips touched his face—his forehead, his eyelids, his nose, his cheeks. His mouth.
He'd never realized how thirsty he'd become. Never understood how parched his life had been. Until their lips met. Until her tongue touched his—mated with his—the way his body needed to mate with hers.
No longer cold. Now he was hot. Hot and hard.
No longer relaxed. Taut again. Tense. But with a different kind of tension.
At her touch his body had surrendered the hard shell of defensiveness, melting his feeling of his isolation, soothing his loneliness.
She warmed his soul and made it soft. She heated his body and made it hard. But this new hardness would not defend him, but expose him.
He was afraid. For a moment he knew a split second's hesitation, an instant's withdrawal.
And then it was gone. Swamped in the need to be a part of her, to share the warmth and the oneness that only the two of them could make.
He eased himself inside, feeling the welcome wetness that both eased and excited him. He wanted to slide out, to feel it envelop him again. He wanted to stay there forever, wrapped in the heat of her body, trembling in this most intimate embrace.
He had been so lonely and so cold and so empty.
And now he was not.
He loved; he was loved.
His body spoke words he'd forgotten how to say. Her body told him over and over again words he had never hoped to hear again. And when he shattered in her arms, when he felt her shatter in his, he knew peace and wholeness at last.
He stroked her sweat-slick back. He kissed her eyelids, wet with tears. Tears?
"Don't cry," he whispered. But oddly, inexplicably, he felt like crying himself.
He didn't understand it. Couldn't get his mind around it. Should have been able to. Couldn't.
It didn't make sense. Nothing made sense—except having this woman in his arms.
He drew her tight against him.
They slept.
* * *
Chapter 11
« ^ »
Becky felt like somebody's mother.
She sat in her bedroom and looked out the window and watched and waited … and watched and waited … for Uncle Tom to come home.
And while she waited, she checked the clock and paced her room and hoped he wasn't doing what she was afraid he might be doing.
She thought long and hard about petitioning God for His intervention. After her prayers for Mace, years ago, she was leery of making any requests that might be misconstrued. But she finally decided she would have to.
She wasn't going to be able to handle this on her own.
&nb
sp; Of course she might have been able to. At least she would have been able to do her best to see that things didn't get too romantic during Jenny's dinner with Uncle Tom, if her father had cooperated.
As usual lately, he did not.
Noah was still going over the last set of bronc rides, and Mace was still working with Jed, when she decided Uncle Tom had been with Jenny undisturbed long enough.
She tracked down her dad out by the corral where he was feeding Noah's school broncs and said she needed to borrow a book from Jenny.
He said, "No."
"But I need it!" Becky said. "You're always telling me to be responsible, think ahead. Like rememberin' to feed Digger. An' here I am, trying to, and all you say is no!"
"Jenny has company." Taggart didn't even turn his head. He went right on pitching hay.
Becky knew that, but she couldn't explain it. Not to her father. She liked Uncle Tom a lot—and if it were anybody else's almost-ex-wife, Becky would've been cheering him on. But a girl had certain loyalties.
Becky's were to Mace.
"It won't take long," she said. "Please." She gave him her best pleading look.
"Call and ask Tom to bring it home to you."
"But I need to talk to her."
He looked over at her. "Why?"
"Er, well, 'cause. Um … she knows how to card wool an' spin it an' weave it and stuff." Trust her dad to ask a question like that.
Taggart leaned on his pitchfork. "And…?" He wasn't making it easy.
Becky shrugged helplessly. "And that's what the report is about."
"So you're angling to get her to do it for you." He sounded disgusted.
Becky didn't know if she'd rather he thought that—which wasn't true—or if she'd rather he knew the real reason. She thought this might qualify as one of those situations where her grandpa had said, "You're damned if you do and damned if you don't."
"You have to do your own work," Taggart said firmly.
"I only wanted to talk about it. Do like Felicity says—consult a firsthand source. We don't have to go now. We could go later. After you're finished. I'd help you finish feedin'."
Later might be better, anyway. More chance they'd be interrupting something Mace would want interrupted. "No."
"But—"
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