Til Death Do Us Part

by Beverly Barton

  “Every time I’m around those two I feel totally unnecessary,” J.T. said. “It’s been like this ever since they got married five years ago. You’d think they’d be sick of each other by now.”

  “They’re in love,” Joanna said.

  “They’re in heat.” Grunting, J.T. shook his head. “I guess you don’t know what that’s like, do you?”

  There was nothing she could do to stop the flush from spreading over her cheeks and down her throat. She’d been cursed with a redhead’s pale complexion and a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose and over her cheekbones. When she blushed, it showed plainly.

  “I’ve embarrassed you.” He spoke the words in a tone of disbelief. “You can’t be that naive. You’re no teenager. You’ve got to be at least twenty-five or more. A woman your age is bound to have had several lovers.”

  “I’m twenty-nine.” Joanna deliberately glanced away from him and at the dancing couple. “And how many lovers I have or haven’t had is none of your business.”

  Elena waved at Joanna. “Why don’t you two take advantage of this fabulous music and that glorious sunset—” she nodded to the western sky, which was afire with orange-red flames “—and dance?”

  J.T. held out his hand. “Come on, Jo, let’s dance. It’ll make Elena happy, and that’s what this night is all about, isn’t it? Pacifying my little sister so she’ll leave us in peace for a while?”

  Joanna hesitated, then stood, walked around the edge of the table and placed her hand in J.T.’s. His grasp was light and nonthreatening. Stepping into his arms, she followed him into the dance. He held her loosely, his grip around her waist barely discernible. She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized that he intended to keep a reasonable distance between them. She’d been so sure he would haul her close to his big body and force her to endure the feel of him, hard and powerful, against her own body.

  If she’d been a bit taller or had worn heels, she might have been able to glance over his shoulder. As it was, she had to stare directly at his wide, muscular chest. He was so tall. Too tall. Too big. Too manly.

  Even though J.T. did nothing offensive, Joanna felt trapped. She wasn’t in control of this situation. He was. If he chose to pull her against him in an intimate fashion, she wouldn’t be able to stop him.

  Dammit, that wasn’t true. All she had to do was tell him to release her and she could walk away. Admit it, she told herself. You aren’t afraid of J. T. Blackwood; you’re afraid of yourself!

  “Are you always so stiff when a man holds you in his arms?” J.T. asked.

  “Stop goading me,” she told him. “You may find it amusing, but I don’t.”

  “Sorry about that, Jo, but you leave yourself open to my teasing.”

  Just as she started to respond, the music ended. Joanna pulled away from J.T. He clasped her wrist, halting her escape. She turned abruptly and faced him.

  “I’m tired. It’s been a long day,” she said. “I think I’ll head on home.”

  “Oh, Jo, don’t leave yet.” Elena, her arm around Alex’s waist, strolled over to Joanna and J.T.

  “The night’s still young,” Alex said. “It’s not dark yet. Hang around and we’ll play a game of Rook.”

  “Not tonight.” Joanna smiled at her friends, then glanced down at her wrist, still trapped in J.T.’s grasp. “Another time.”

  “Tomorrow night?” Elena suggested, her smile eager. “Come over for dinner again. Tonight was nice, wasn’t it?”

  “Not tomorrow night.” Joanna wished Elena would just let her go home and stop trying so hard to push her into J.T.’s arms.

  “The next night, then,” Alex said. “I’ll whip up some of my world-famous chili.”

  “I’m afraid dinner and cards will have to wait awhile. I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon to spend a week or so on the Navajo reservation.” Joanna kept her phony smile in place—just barely. She felt J.T.’s hard, cold stare boring into her. She wanted to scream, to tell him, yes, a thousand times yes, he was the reason she had to escape.

  “But why tomorrow?” Whining, Elena stuck out her bottom lip in a childish pout. “The reservation will be there a week from now. Please, wait.”

  “Leave her alone, Elena,” J.T. said, then released his hold on Joanna’s wrist. “She’s made her plans.”

  “But she can go to the reservation anytime,” Elena said. “You’re only going to be here another week and—”

  “I’ll stop by tomorrow afternoon and say goodbye before I leave.” Joanna’s smile drooped. She sighed, bit her bottom lip, then reached out and hugged Elena. “Please, understand,” she whispered.

  Joanna hurried off the patio, onto the inner porch and through the house. When she reached the front porch, she stopped suddenly, her vision blurred by a fine mist of tears. She sucked in a deep breath of crisp, clean air.

  She felt a big hand gently clutch her shoulder. Gasping, she turned quickly, bumping into J.T. and losing her balance. He grabbed her by both shoulders to steady her.

  “Elena’s all right,” he said. “I promised her that I’d walk you home and try to persuade you to stay on at the ranch.”

  “Which you won’t do, will you?”

  He rubbed her shoulders with his big hands. “You’re tight as a coiled spring, honey. What’s wrong with you? You act like you’re afraid of me.”

  “I told you once before that I’m not afraid of anything, most especially not you.”

  “Well, that’s good to know, because I’m harmless. I’d never hurt you.”

  Joanna longed to believe him, to take him at his word, but she knew better than to trust a man like J. T. Blackwood. Any man, for that matter. Joanna hadn’t trusted a man in five years. Not since a monster had sadistically raped her in her own apartment. Not since her devoted fiancé had walked off and left her to face the trial and months of therapy without his love and support.

  “I’d never give you the chance to hurt me, Mr. Blackwood.”

  “I thought we were finally on a first-name basis. Remember, I’m J.T.—” he released one of her shoulders and tapped his chest with the tips of his fingers “—and you’re Jo.” He pointed to her.

  “Please, don’t call me Jo.”

  “Elena calls you Jo.”

  “I know, but that’s different,” Joanna said. “She’s my good friend and you’re…you’re—”

  “Not your friend?”

  “No, not my friend.”

  “Then what am I?” He slipped his arm around her waist, urging her closer.

  She couldn’t seem to breathe. Her head spun. She clutched his arms, feeling firm muscles beneath her fingers.

  They both heard a man clear his throat. J.T. glanced over Joanna’s shoulder and saw Cliff Lansdell, his ranch foreman, standing in the yard. Turning Joanna around so that she stood at his side, J.T. kept his arm about her waist.

  “What’s wrong, Cliff?” J.T. asked.

  “Sorry to bother you, J.T., but you told me to let you know when Queen Nefertiti was about to foal. I’ve called Dr. Gray.”

  “Thanks, Cliff. I’ll come on out to the stables in a few minutes. After I walk Miss Beaumont home.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Joanna said at the same moment Cliff spoke.

  “I’ll be glad to walk Joanna home, if you’re in a hurry to get out to the stables, J.T.”

  “I’ll walk Jo home.” J.T. said her name in a sultry way, tightening his hold around her waist.

  Joanna had the oddest notion that J. T. Blackwood had just laid claim to her, that somehow he had warned Cliff that she was out of bounds to any other man.

  “I’ll see you over at the stables, then.” Cliff’s shoulders slumped. He glanced at Joanna. “Good night.” He tipped his hat, turned and walked away.

  “I can get home by myself.” She snapped out the words, not caring how she sounded.

  “Would you like to come to the stables with me and wait for the blessed event?” J.T. ran his fingers up and down the side
of her waist.

  Joanna sucked in her breath. “No. No, thank you.”

  “My Appaloosa, Washington, is the colt’s sire and this will be Queen Nefertiti’s first. It’s a special occasion.”

  “Then you should go on. Don’t waste time walking me home.”

  J.T. guided her off the porch and across the yard, not saying a word. When they reached her front door, she unlocked and opened it, then turned to him. “Good night.”

  “Goodbye.” He lifted his hand, touching her face with his fingertips; the caress was soft, hesitant and quickly over. “I’ll be back in Atlanta when you return from the reservation, so it could be months, probably Christmas, before I come back to the ranch.”

  “Goodbye, then. I—I won’t see you at Christmas. I plan to go back to Virginia and spend Christmas with my mother.”

  “If we’re very careful, we should be able to avoid ever seeing each other again,” he said.

  She nodded agreement. They stared at each other for a brief moment before J.T. turned and walked away. Joanna took a deep breath, thankful that he hadn’t kissed her, then went inside and locked the door behind her.

  J.T. WALKED BY the old bunkhouse on his way back from the stables shortly after daybreak the following morning. He hadn’t expected to see Joanna, dressed in jeans and an oversize shirt, sitting on her porch. He had thought—hell, he had hoped—he’d never see her again after last night. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was, but there was something about Joanna Beaumont that sent up red warning signals inside his head. She meant trouble for him, and J.T. never let a woman cause him trouble.

  “Good morning,” she called out to him. “Is everything all right with Queen Nefertiti and her colt?”

  J.T. walked over and placed his foot on the bottom step leading up to her front porch. “Mother and daughter are doing just fine. When I stopped by and told Washington he was the father of a beautiful filly, he acted as if he knew what I was talking about.”

  “Maybe he did.” Joanna clutched a large, tan mug in her hands. “Sometimes I think animals are a lot smarter than we humans give them credit for being.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right.” J.T. ran his right hand over his face, the overnight’s growth of beard scratchy against his palm. “I need a shower and a shave and about ten hours of sleep.” He eyed the mug she held. “But first I could use a cup of coffee.”

  She glanced into the pale brown liquid she’d been sipping on for the past few minutes, then looked down at J.T. “Come on up and have a seat. I’ll go inside and get you a cup. How do you like it? Black?”

  “Black, but with a little sugar. A teaspoonful will do.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right back.”

  While she went inside to get his coffee, he walked up the steps and onto the porch, then slumped down in one of the cane-seated rockers. God, he was tired. But it was a good kind of tired. Here on the ranch he could work hard enough to physically exhaust himself, but he didn’t have to face the stress and pressure of his job, which was far more exhausting—mentally as well as physically.

  “This is high-octane stuff,” Joanna said when she returned with his coffee. “If you’re planning on going straight to bed, the caffeine could keep you awake.”

  He accepted the cup she offered, being careful not to touch her hand in the process. “I don’t think anything will keep me from sleeping this morning.”

  Taking a swig of the coffee, he sighed. “Good. And just the right amount of sugar.”

  She sat down beside him in the other rocker and lifted her mug to her lips. She hadn’t expected to see J.T. this morning. She’d had no idea he’d stayed at the stables all night. But there was no reason to panic, no reason to be rude to him. By noon today, she’d be packed and ready to leave, and when she returned next week, J.T. would be gone.

  While she was away, she would have to come to terms with her foolish dream of finding real love and happiness in New Mexico. She had met the man who had inherited Benjamin’s ring as she had inherited Annabelle’s, and knowing J. T. Blackwood had opened her eyes to reality. There would be no fantasy lover come to life for her. There would be no happily-ever-after for a pair of present-day lovers, any more than there had been for the star-crossed lovers over seventy years ago.

  “Do you always get up so early?” J.T. asked.

  “What?”

  “It’s barely daylight and you’re up, dressed, and have already fixed coffee,” he said. “Is this your normal routine?”

  “Not always. But sometimes I get up this early and paint. There’s nothing more glorious than a New Mexico sunrise, unless it’s a New Mexico sunset.”

  “You’re really in love with this country, aren’t you? You’ve fallen under its enchanted spell like so many Easterners have done over the years.”

  “My great-grandmother fell in love…with New Mexico over seventy years ago, when she and her husband spent the summer here on an archaeological dig.” Joanna finished her coffee, placed her empty mug on the table between the two rockers, then looked toward the east at the morning sky.

  “Yeah, Elena told me the story, or what you told her.” J.T. took another swig of coffee, then placed his half-full cup beside Joanna’s. “Your great-grandmother was a married woman who had an affair with one of the natives, then left the guy and went back home to her safe, secure life in Virginia as the wife of a well-to-do college professor and renowned archaeologist.”

  Joanna’s spine stiffened; she clutched the arms of the rocker. “There was a great deal more to their affair. They were truly in love. It broke her heart to leave him. She loved him as long as she lived.” Joanna thrust her right hand in front of J.T.’s face. “She wore his ring until the day she died.”

  “If she loved him so damned much, why didn’t she leave her husband and stay here in New Mexico with him?” Grabbing Joanna’s hand, J.T. twisted the silver-and-turquoise ring around and around on her finger. “I’ll tell you why. Because Benjamin Greymountain was good enough to take as a lover, but not good enough to marry. He wasn’t good enough for her to give up everything and spend her life with him. That’s not love, Jo, that’s—”

  Jerking her hand out his, she jumped to her feet. “What would you know about love? Listening to you talk about our great-grandparents in that way is a sacrilege. If you had read Annabelle’s diary, you wouldn’t say such things. You’d know how deeply she loved Benjamin, and how completely she trusted his love for her.”

  J.T. stood, grabbed Joanna and whipped her around to face him. “You’re right. I don’t know the first thing about love, but I know all about lust, all about how good it feels to scratch an itch that’s driving you crazy.” Lowering his head, he nuzzled the side of her face with his nose.

  No, no! her mind screamed. She wasn’t going to let him do this. She wasn’t going to let him reduce the beautiful love Benjamin and Annabelle had shared into some meaningless sexual affair. And she wasn’t going to let him prove his point by showing her that the two of them felt those same animalistic urges.

  She struggled against his hold, a feeling of panic building inside her. J.T. clutched her waist, pulling her up against him. She gasped when she felt his arousal. “We could have what Benjamin and Annabelle had, if that’s what you want. We could spend the next week making love night and day, and then I’ll go back to Atlanta and you can write in your diary about how exciting it was, having an Indian lover.”

  “Let go of me.” She glared at him, hating him. Hating him for making light of their great-grandparents’ love. Hating him for stirring passion to life within her.

  “You don’t want the kind of affair your beloved ancestress had?” J.T. taunted her. “Are you saying you didn’t come to Trinidad—” he yanked her hand up, entwined their fingers and pulled their hands between their faces so that they could see their matching rings “—with all kinds of romantic notions of a Navajo man fulfilling your sexual fantasies?”

  “You don’t know anything about me. About
my dreams. Or my fantasies.”

  He lowered his head. She held tightly to his hand, trying to keep their clasped hands in front of her face. He pulled their hands down, leaned closer and brushed a light kiss across her lips. She stiffened.

  “I know you want me—as much as I want you,” he said.

  She didn’t fight him, made no protest when he kissed her. She had thought the kiss would be harsh and cruel and savage. But it wasn’t. He took her lips with force, but it was a sweet, tender power that swept through her body like a strong but nondestructive wind.

  She returned the kiss, opening her mouth, allowing his invasion. Tingling warmth spread from her breasts to the core of her femininity. When he cupped the back of her head with one hand and caressed her hip with the other, pushing her firmly against his hard sex, she slipped her arms up around his neck. She had never known anything like this raging hunger inside her, this overwhelming need to possess and be possessed.

  Just when her knees weakened and she trembled with passion, J.T. pushed her away. He stood several inches from her, his breathing ragged, sweat beads dampening his forehead.

  Reaching down, she gripped the arm of her rocker for support as she stared at him, not knowing what to say or do. She wanted to lash out at him, accuse him of something horrible, but she couldn’t. She had been a willing participant, her need as wild as his.

  “Go to the reservation, Jo. Paint your noble savages and your magnificent sunrises and sunsets. But find yourself another Indian to take as a lover. I’m not in the market for a summer fling with a bored debutante.”

  He glared at her. She stood ramrod straight, unmoving, her face an unemotional mask. When he turned and stomped down the steps, out into the yard and toward the main house, Joanna stayed on the porch, silent and still, until he disappeared from her view. Then she released the tight control she’d been determined to keep over her emotions. Tears filled her eyes. The unbearable pain in her chest burst free when she gulped in a deep breath of air and let out an agonized moan.