by Karen Anders
“I’ll come right away. My horse?”
“Saddled and waiting, Ms. Horn.”
“Jennifer, do you want me to come with you?” Corey was filled with concern for her, his anger banked.
“No. That’s all right. You eat and work on the branding. I need you here. That’s why I hired you. You’re doing a good job. Thanks.” She avoided his eyes and he didn’t blame her.
She didn’t look back as she rushed out of the barn, and instinctively Corey knew that Jay Butler was involved.
He did as she’d asked. He ate and then returned to the branding. When the day was complete, he once again took careful care of his mount. When his chores were completed, the stallion bedded down and watered, he shucked his T-shirt and loosened his jeans. Leaning back against the stall he was surprised to find that the scent of her lingered in the air. He closed his eyes and remembered how the soft delicate perfume of Jennifer’s body had smelled their one enchanted night together. Remembered how her skin had tasted.
She wanted him to stay, maybe even wanted something more, but his mind closed down on that idea. He couldn’t let himself even contemplate becoming part of their lives, but he couldn’t help wishing for things that could never be. He groaned softly and raked his hand through his sweat-soaked hair. He wanted to wake up beside Jennifer every day, to face Ellie every morning over the breakfast table and watch her animated face as she talked about things that interested her in the fast way children did, jumping from one subject to the next. He wanted Jennifer to support him, love him. He wanted to make a child with her, to watch her stomach grow with his seed, to hold his child in his hands and look into those young, innocent eyes and know that this little life he created was his responsibility.
But how could he be sure the secret fear he carried with him wouldn’t turn into a horrible reality?
He couldn’t. In that second, the dream he’d just created and built died and with it went more of himself.
He exited the dim barn and walked to the outside hose. Turning on the tap, he raised it over his head, sighing as the cool water brought him some physical relief...
Jennifer was lost in thought as she came around the corner of the barn, heading for the tack room to deposit her saddle and bridle. She would have to talk to Jimmy about mending her bridle. It was getting frayed.
Surprisingly, she wasn’t thinking of how she’d arrived at the pasture to find her bulls, Happy-Go-Lucky and Sidewinder, down in the field, lowing in pain. They’d had to put down Happy-Go-Lucky. The bullet had shattered his leg and the vet had said there was no other choice. She had done it herself. Destroyed thousands of dollars of prime stock that her father had carefully and dutifully bred and nurtured. It had made her fighting mad. Her insurance would cover the loss, but the genetics and sheer promise of Happy-Go-Lucky were lost forever. He had been in his prime with a lot of young yet to be conceived. Thank God, Sidewinder’s wound had been superficial. She had told Jimmy to post a guard on the pastures where her breeding stock grazed. She had also told her suspicions to the sheriff. Fat lot that would do.
Instead she was thinking of how dark Corey’s eyes had turned when she’d asked him about his father. She thought about how much she wanted to soothe him and take away the pain and fear in his eyes. What was he afraid of? She now discounted the goring. At one time she was ready to believe that he was drifting because he couldn’t face his failure.
She’d had all afternoon to think about why he would hate his father, and she could only come away with one conclusion. Abuse. She’d recognized his pain when he first kissed her. And she knew there was something embedded deep down inside him that made him do what he did. Some reason that he wouldn’t allow himself to have children.
The sound of running water brought her thoughts back to the present. She looked up and stopped dead in her tracks. Corey was using the outside hose to cool off. He was rinsing off the worst of the day’s grit, she thought distractedly.
He faced her, his eyes closed, the water sluicing through his hair and over his smooth chest. Her eyes dropped down his powerful body, heat curling in the pit of her stomach. The water was soaking into the waistband of his unsnapped and low-slung jeans. He was breathtaking—even dirty, sweaty and wet.
As if he felt her presence, he stiffened and his eyes opened. His jawline tightened and his wonderful eyes flashed with the innate stubbornness that she had come to know so well.
“I thought you were down at the north pasture.”
“I...was...I came...finished...with...the...sheriff...” Her words trailed off and she was unable to pull her eyes away from him. She knew she sounded like an imbecile and she felt like an idiot.
“What happened?” he said tightly, the concern evident in his voice.
She couldn’t draw her eyes from his chest if her life depended on it. “I had to put down Happy-Go-Lucky.”
“I’m sorry, Jennifer.” There was true sadness in his words. “Do you think it was Butler? Just give me a reason, darlin’, and I’ll take care of him.”
“Yes, I think it was Jay, but I have no proof, and violence only begets more violence, Corey.”
“I know that. But, Jennifer, it’s the only thing he understands.”
Her dazed eyes traveled from his face down his body and she licked her lips slowly.
Corey took a deep breath. “Jennifer, turn around and get the hell out of here. For God’s sake, for my own sanity, stop looking at me like that.”
With an embarrassed groan, she wrenched her eyes away from his magnificence and turned away, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t seem to get her legs to move.
She heard Corey swear again and she heard him approach, her throat going dry. She could hear his raspy breathing and the sexy jingle of his spurs. She closed her eyes tightly. The sun had set and the darkness was complete except for the wan light from the barn and the quarter moon. She could feel his presence behind her, engulfing her, protecting her. His hands were like red-hot brands when they dropped to her waist, and without any urging, she dropped her tack and turned in his arms.
“Jennifer, didn’t we agree that we weren’t going to complicate matters?” His voice was a tortured rasp that sent heat and sensation skittering across her skin.
“No, you gave me an ultimatum. I don’t take threats well, and I can’t forget the way you made me feel. I don’t want to forget the most wonderful night of my life.” Her eyes focused on his lips, and to save her soul she couldn’t look away.
The stark look of pain flashed across his tanned face and for a moment she felt as if the ground had been wrenched from beneath her feet. “Jen,” he breathed, “you’re driving me crazy. I couldn’t sleep last night. I need you. I’m hurting so bad.”
She couldn’t help herself. Her finger came up and touched his mouth and he took it inside his own, suckling her with delicious sweeps of his warm, moist tongue. Closing her eyes against the powerful sensation of his wet velvet tongue against her skin, she groaned when his mouth left her finger and came down on her lips, hard, demanding, masterful. Jennifer made a low sound, surrendering to the urgency clamoring within her, her mouth softening beneath his seeking lips.
With a moan deep in his chest, he pressed her body against the wet heat of his, and her clothes soaked up the moisture on his skin. An urgent stirring sizzled in her blood, pumping through her body when he roughly clasped her hips and pulled her against his hardness. She moaned again when Corey’s hand moved up her body, cupping the back of her head, deepening their kiss, his mouth frenzied and wet.
With a force that knocked the breath from her lungs, he backed her right against the warm heated wood of the barn. Abruptly the kiss ended, and unable to let her go, he commanded hoarsely, “Run.”
“Corey,” she started to say between thoroughly kissed lips. But her words stopped when she saw the look in his eyes. She could push him into it. She saw that he was hanging by a thread, but suddenly she couldn’t do it. The power she held over him would be corrupted if
she forced him to break a promise. She could see that she was forcing him. His jaw was clenched, his eyes hard with something besides passion, and his body tense with his need and the inability to help himself.
A man at war with himself. It was breathtaking.
He closed his eyes as if in agony. “I don’t want to break my word, but if you don’t go now I’m going to lose it and take you right here in the dust and mud. Run. Now!”
An hour later, when a knock sounded at the cottage door, he expected to open it and find Jennifer standing there. Instead he found Ellie, breathless, clutching a sketch pad to her chest, her eyes bright with mischief.
“Shouldn’t you be in bed, little darlin’?”
“Yes. I should, but I’m not. I snuck out to see you. I haven’t seen you all day and I wanted to show you something.” She gave him a coy smile, which slowly disappeared from her face. “Is this a bad time?”
“No. Come on in and show me.”
She walked in with Two Tone on her heels. He just trotted in as if he owned the place and sat down near Corey’s feet, looking up at him with those dark, intelligent eyes. Corey reached down and petted him, smiling at the pig’s pleasure-filled grunt.
Ellie sat down in one of the brown leather chairs and opened the sketch pad. “I’ve been working on this since you showed me what I was doing wrong. I wanted to know what you think.”
He came around and sat on the arm of the chair. “Ellie, this is beautiful. That little mare never looked so good.”
“I watched her a lot before I tried sketching her.” Her voice was filled with pride.
“Have you ever tried to add any color?”
“Once, but it came out awful. So I’ve stuck to pencil. Besides,” she said, laughing, “you can erase when it turns out wrong.”
He smiled and smoothed his hand over her soft hair. It was loose, lying on her narrow shoulders. A feeling came over him, one that was tender and painful at the same time. And to think her father hadn’t even seen her. “Ellie, I think it’s time for us to begin gentling that mare. What do you think?”
She caught her breath and looked up at him, the expression on her face rapt and full of joy. “You really mean it? You’re going to train me to barrel race?”
“Sure I am, darlin’. When I promise something, I don’t take it back.” He took her little hand in his and squeezed. “Start by taking care of her tomorrow. Feed her and groom her. Spend as much time around her as possible. Let her get used to you. Talk to her, feed her treats.”
She nodded knowingly. “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, huh?”
“Yeah, something like that. Now scoot before your mother finds you gone and panics.”
“That would never happen.”
“What? She never looks in on you?”
“No, silly, she never panics.” Ellie picked up her sketch pad and walked to the door. “Corey?”
He smiled at her tentative tone. “What now?”
“I want to tell you something, but I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.”
“I can take it. Shoot.” He got a subtle warning, a tiny shiver up his spine, a shattering pain in his chest before she spoke. Not fully prepared for the words, they gouged into him with stiff fingers.
“Well, I’ve never had a dad to compare anyone to, but you sure would make a great one.” In her young heart, Ellie knew it was true and she also knew that Corey Rainwater would not stay. She wasn’t blind, and although she was thirteen years old, she understood about adult love. She guessed that her mother was in love with this guy and Ellie knew how easy it was to fall in love. She knew how easy it would be to love a dad. She’d wished a long time for a dad and if she had her choice, she’d choose Corey.
A long time ago she had found out what her father looked like. She knew his name was Sonny Braxton and she’d decided that when she was on the circuit she was going to find him. She hadn’t decided what she would say to him, but she was determined to tell him how much he had let her down, and her mother, too.
“I mean that you’re so understanding and willing to help me,” she said. “Even some of the cowhands older than you don’t have the time of day for the boss’s kid. I guess what I’m trying to say is, thank you.”
With a satisfied smile Ellie innocently opened the door to leave, unaware of the blow she’d just dealt him.
His throat constricted and he suddenly found things blurring in the room.
He couldn’t answer, so he nodded. He didn’t raise his head until the door clicked shut. He didn’t know how much more he could take before he was broken completely in half. Maybe he had been wrong to come here and stir up her feelings for a father she’d never had. He was going to hurt her when he left and suddenly he couldn’t bear that.
Raw gut-clenching pain racked him and he rose from the chair and went to the easel near the window. He’d painted the forbidden picture again. He removed the white cloth he’d draped over it last night. Some of the paint had rubbed off onto it. He hadn’t slept, just painted at a frantic pace. Just looking at it was as painful as Ellie’s words. It was his fondest wish brought to life. Deliberately he picked up the knife lying on the table and made the first cut. It hurt physically. Each stroke burned in his heart, scarred his soul. But he didn’t stop until the destruction was complete. The destruction of himself. The destruction of his dream. And without dreams there could be no hope.
Chapter 9
Lying here in the dark, hungering for Jennifer, wasn’t doing him a damn bit of good. He threw back the covers and got out of bed. He should have gotten on that bus. He would have been in San Antonio now—doing what, he didn’t know. Wandering aimlessly, hungering for Jennifer. He didn’t have money or transportation. He needed this job as much as she needed him.
He picked up the picture of his mother and sister that he kept near his bed wherever he went. He looked into their faces and saw the haunted eyes of his mother and the wise old eyes of his sister. If only his mother had listened to him and left his father. If only. He put down the picture and pulled on his jeans. Barefoot, he exited his room, padded across the living room and opened the door. Stepping outside, he took in the crisp night air.
Ellie’s words seemed to hush around him like the soft promise of beauty in a woman’s sweet smile, the sudden laughter of children and the sharp sound of a baby’s first cry. He wanted to reach out and take what she had so innocently offered him. To be her father would be a privilege, an honor, a blessing, but he couldn’t do it. He had failed too many people already.
His inability to save his mother and sister was just another failure in a long line of failures. Why was loving so difficult? he wondered. He stepped off the porch and headed toward the barn. The pungent scent of horses and hay greeted him as he stepped inside. He walked down the row of stalls until he got to the one where the mare, Limelight, was bedded down for the night. He draped his arms over the stall and spoke a soft word of beckoning. He’d made some progress with her. She was used to his voice and his scent. Even so, she approached cautiously and he knew how she felt.
He’d learned it was always better in any type of relationship to be cautious. Letting someone touch was risky because touch was the first sensation he remembered hating. Touching hurt.
He closed his eyes, the silence of the barn ringing with his father’s vile curses and accusations—and the sound of a hand hitting already bruised and stinging flesh.
Without warning, warm soft hands traveled over his back and wrapped around his waist. He jerked from the gentleness of the caress. Jennifer’s touch was like a salve to his soul, cooling the stinging pain of things that could never be. She was teaching him that touch could feel so good. Good enough to die for.
“So did Ellie show you her picture?”
“Yes,” he whispered, not wanting to destroy the fragile peace that she had just woven around him, a buffer to the destruction that had him leaving his bed in the middle of the night.
“She’s d
rawing beautifully. Whatever you told her seems to have sunk in,” she said.
“I should have known you would know where she was.”
“I guess I’m too overprotective.”
“No, you’re not. Children are precious and need to be watched every second. It pays to be cautious.”
“Tell me why you hated your father,” Jennifer said after a few moments of silence, her arms still wrapped around his waist, her face against his back.
He’d never talked to anyone about his abusive father. His typical reaction had been to deny. He could remember the lies he’d told friends, doctors and teachers. I fell. Or I tripped. He used to break out in a cold sweat at the thought that anyone would find out he wasn’t from a normal family. Even now, as an adult whose father couldn’t hurt him anymore, he hesitated and agonized, still trapped in the dark nightmare.
As if sensing his distress, she kissed his back and her hands moved, stroking his ribs. He sighed, marveling at how soft her touch was, how good it felt to be caressed and held. The hunger that ate at him every day seemed to abruptly abate. He soaked up the essence of her, craving for more of her touch. “I don’t want to talk about him tonight, Jennifer.”
“I’ll help you to sleep then if you want.”
“Jennifer, please,” he said in a begging tone that told her how close he was to the end of his endurance.
“I promise, Corey. I’ll just help you to sleep.”
He turned around and met her thickly lashed, tormented eyes. Sincere eyes, loving eyes, knowing eyes. Something broke within him, but instead of substance rushing out, something beautiful and strong rushed in and filled him up. His voice was hoarse and wry when he finally spoke, “No funny business.”
She smiled, a look coming over her face that was very much like Ellie’s sly expression. “Even if I promise to respect you in the morning?”
He laughed, a great wonderful bubbling inside of him. She returned his smile and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close in the warm, pungent barn. The heat of her seeped into his body, warming cold and lonely places—places he thought were out of reach from any human touch.