“That surprises you?” he bit out, unable to tell her the truth. If hurting her would make her let him go, then he would have to hurt her. He would never be able to bear the look in her eyes if she knew the real reason she had to divorce him. She might hate him for what he was doing, but he could live with that. Her hate would kill whatever love she had left and set her free of him. He could live with her hate. If she knew the truth, her pity would kill him.
But when her eyes filled with tears as she leaned over him, he wasn’t sure he would survive her pain.
“Yes, that surprises me.” With an angry swipe of her fist, she wiped the tears away, but more came to take their place. “You said you wanted the divorce so I wouldn’t waste my life on a cripple.” She sniffed and started working the next button on his pants. “I’m an idiot. I believed you. But it doesn’t change anything. If you don’t love me, you don’t love me. But I won’t have you using paralysis as an excuse to stay away from your son. You’re going to walk,” she added, gritting her teeth while she struggled to remove his pants, “if I have to hold a gun to your head to make you do it.”
Shaken and bemused, Pace didn’t know what to say to her. She thought he didn’t love her, and he couldn’t tell her any differently. He had to let her think that, or destroy them both. Just then he didn’t care what she wanted to do with his legs. He ended up helping her get his pants down over his hips.
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he told her.
She moved to the foot of the bed and grabbed a pant leg in each hand. “Do what?”
“Disrupt your life by showing up whenever I pleased to see my son.”
Joanna released his pant legs and slowly straightened. “Are you saying that you won’t be part of your son’s life? Because I’ll tell you straight, Pace, I plan on this child knowing both of his parents and being certain that both of them love him. If you’ve got other ideas, you tell me now and we’ll end this farce for good.”
“I’m trying to end this farce, dammit, but you won’t let me!”
“I’m not talking about our marriage,” she cried. “I’m talking about the baby. I won’t bring a child into this world to have him grow up thinking his father never wanted him. Damn you, don’t do this, Pace. Don’t make me do something I won’t be able to live with.”
Pace felt the blood drain from his face. “You wouldn’t,” he breathed in sheer horror. “You wouldn’t…abort the baby.”
“Hell, no, I wouldn’t,” she snarled. “I’d much rather be able to tell my son his father was dead than have to tell him his father just didn’t want him. So be warned. You better stay awake the whole time I’m here, because if you fall asleep you’re liable to wake up with your throat slit. I’ll murder you myself before I’ll let you hurt this child like that.”
Pace knew she didn’t mean it, even if she thought she did, but her words still shook him. He let his eyes fall shut. “A gun would be easier. You’d be doing us both a favor.”
Joanna clapped both hands over her mouth, sickened by her outburst, appalled by his response. Her legs turned to water. She slid to her knees at the foot of the bed and buried her face against the mattress.
“God, Pace, you’re making me crazy.” The tears, always so close to the surface these days, broke loose in a torrent worse than the day before in Spence’s office. “You know I didn’t mean it,” she sobbed.
“Ah, damn, Firefly.” Every one of her sobs tore a hole through Pace’s heart. He wanted to reach down and lift her into his arms more than he wanted his next breath, but he couldn’t maneuver himself to the other end of the bed. Damn these useless legs! “Come here, Jo, don’t cry. Come here.”
She made no effort to come to him. She knelt there at the foot of the bed and cried and cried.
“I hate…crying,” she sobbed. “I…hate yelling at you.” She doubled up her fist and started pounding on his shin. “You’re making me…crazy!”
“I know, baby, I’m sorry. Don’t cry anymore. Come on. You really will kill me if you keep crying like that. Hey, take it easy with the fist, will ya? That hurts. Come on, Jo, don’t—”
She jerked her head up an stared at him in shock. “What hurts?”
“My leg, dammit. What’d you expect? You’re beating me like I was an old rug.”
“You can feel it?”
Pace felt his heartbeat slow to almost nothing as realization exploded in his brain. His eyes widened. “I can,” he said in shock. “I can feel it! Not just pressure, like I could the other day with Spence. I can really feel it!”
For a long moment, they stared at each other, grinning. Then Joanna threw back her head and laughed. “Spence was right!” she crowed. “You are going to walk again!”
Slowly their laughter died, leaving them with quiet smiles that each turned sad. Neither said it, but both remembered that this did not mean Pace would stay with her.
Joanna pushed the unsettling thought aside, just the way she pushed herself to her feet. First things first. Feeling wasn’t walking. “Okay then. We’ve got work to do.”
She gripped his pant legs again and tugged. “What in the world have you done to your drawers?”
“I cut them off.”
“I can see that.” His underdrawers had been cut off at mid-thigh, leaving the rest of his legs bare beneath his denims.
“Long drawers are too damn hot in the summer.”
Joanna thought about it a minute, then agreed. “It makes sense to me.” With a final grunt, she pulled the denims free of his legs.
Pace watched her struggle, but try as he might, he could not move his legs to help her. For the first time, he allowed himself to look at her, all of her. The changes in her body, now that he noticed and acknowledged them, stunned him. Good God, she was carrying his child.
“Should you be doing this?” he managed.
“Doing what?”
“Working like this. You’ve, uh, grown some. Shouldn’t you be sitting with your feet up or something?”
Joanna splayed a hand over the slight bulge of her abdomen and looked up at Pace. His gaze, however, was not on the spot where the baby rested. His eyes were glued to her breasts.
She snorted in disgust. “You’re the invalid. I’m merely going to have a baby. It’s not a debilitating disease. And I’m not carrying the baby in my chest, in case you’re interested.”
He at least had the good grace to drop his gaze to her belly. “I just don’t want you hurting yourself, that’s all.”
“Watch out. You might destroy all your efforts by making me think you care.”
“Dammit, Jo—”
“Just shut up, Pace. I was being facetious. I guess your sense of humor is paralyzed, too.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m flexing your toes. Then I’ll move to your ankles, knees, and hips. Then we get started on the real work.”
Joanna took Pace through all the exercises Spence had outlined. The first part, the flexing of Pace’s joints, was exhausting for her. After that, she had Pace concentrate on each muscle and try to flex it. He sweated, he cursed, and he gave it up as useless a dozen times. And every time, Joanna bullied him into trying again. By the time they finished for the day they were snarling at each other.
Joanna brought him a bowl of warm water, a rag, and a bar of soap.
“You’re not giving me a bed bath.”
“No, I’m not. There’s nothing wrong with your arms.” She dropped the bar of soap into the bowl. Water splashed across Pace’s chest. “Do it yourself. I’ll wash your back when you’re finished.”
She went out and left him alone. She needed time to get her emotions under control. She didn’t fool herself into thinking she would be able to change Pace’s mind about divorcing her, and it hurt worse than anything she’d ever experienced, short of thinking he was dying. When she’d thought he was dying, at least she’d known he wasn’t doing it deliberately simply because he no longer wanted her.
What had gone wrong?
Why didn’t he want her anymore? She would have sworn that his love had been deep and real. Pace wasn’t a shallow man. He had not tumbled into her arms lightly, nor she into his. Their one afternoon together in that deserted barn had been…powerful. Magical.
She closed her eyes and that day was there, sweeping through her mind in vivid detail. Every touch, every taste, every breath. The way her body had changed and stretched to accommodate his. At the memory, heat and dampness gathered between her legs and throbbed there, awakening all her physical longings.
With a sharp breath, she denied them. She couldn’t afford to remember the incredible intensity of their lovemaking. If Pace had his way, she would never know such feelings again.
“Damn him,” she muttered as she paced the front porch of Simon and Lucinda’s house. Why was Pace doing this? He loved her. Or, he had.
What had gone wrong?
A few minutes later Pace was calling her to wash his back. Joanna steeled herself against the pleasure of feeling his flesh beneath her fingers again.
“You rolled over by yourself,” she noted when she reentered the bedroom.
“Yeah, I’m a talented slug.”
She ignored his comment and started soaping the rag. The wounds on his back, most of them caused by Juerta’s whip, were healed. The dozens of scars crisscrossing that beautiful bronze flesh were, to Joanna, crimes in and of themselves. Nothing should have ever been allowed to mar such beauty.
With a hand that suddenly trembled, she traced the length of the longest scar.
“What are you doing?”
Joanna jerked her hand away. “Nothing.” Shaken by the feel of the scar, the smooth flesh beside it, the warmth of his flesh and the strength of his muscles, Joanna slapped the wash rag onto his back and started scrubbing.
“Hey, leave me some skin, will ya?”
“Crybaby. I’m not hurting you.”
Joanna took her supper at the table with Simon and Lucinda. She wisely let Lucinda carry in the tray for Pace.
The next explosion came after supper when Joanna had Simon set up a cot for her in Pace’s room while she helped Lucinda wash dishes. Actually, the explosion didn’t come until the cot was up and Joanna, dressed in her nightgown and robe, finally returned to the bedroom.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to bed.”
“Why here?”
“Because, since I choose not to bed down in the barn, there is no place else for me to sleep.”
She busied herself straightening her bedcovers and waited for his comeback. When it didn’t come, she paused and looked over her shoulder and caught him staring at her backside.
“Dammit, what is it with you?” she demanded.
He blinked and jerked his gaze to her face. “What are you talking about?”
“A man who wants a divorce has no right to ogle his wife.”
“Then quit providing me with so much to ogle.”
“So much?” she shrieked. “Are you complaining about the size of my hind end?”
Pace’s eyes widened in exaggerated innocence. “I’m not complaining about anything. If you don’t want me to stare at it, don’t stick it out there for me to see.”
With an angry snap of her wrist, Joanna turned down the wick of the lamp on the dresser and plunged the room into darkness. “Just shut up and go to sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be worse than today.”
The next day was much worse, for both of them. In the morning and afternoon both, Joanna worked each of his joints, and forced him to concentrate on each muscle until sweat poured down his face and chest.
“It’s not going to work,” Pace told her for the dozenth time when they finished.
“If you say that again, I’m going to put that pillow over your face and smother you. You moved your toes and feet.”
“Big stinking deal.”
“It is a big deal,” Spence said from the doorway.
Joanna whirled. “Spence! What are you doing here?”
“Came to check up on my patient. After our talk the other day,” he told Joanna, “I had a feeling you might be here. Moved his toes and his feet? Both feet?”
Joanna beamed at him. “Both feet.”
“Let me see,” he told Pace.
“It’s not much,” Pace cautioned.
“Let me be the judge, if you don’t mind.”
Pace grudgingly complied by flexing his toes, then his feet.
“Just like that?” Spence asked, surprised. “No sweat, no effort?”
Pace shrugged, secretly pleased with Spence’s attitude.
Spence grinned and placed a hand on Joanna’s shoulder. “If he can do that much so easily, push him harder.”
“She can push me all she wants,” Pace said. “Just tell her to stop pushing herself so damn hard.”
Spence eyed Joanna critically. “Are you overdoing it?”
“Yes,” Pace said.
“No.” Joanna glared at Pace. “I know how hard to push myself, and I know when to rest. I’ll worry about me. You worry about yourself. Tomorrow we work harder.”
“You’re sure?” Spence asked her. “I can get somebody else to come out here. You could show them what to do, but wouldn’t have to do the work yourself.”
Joanna shook her head. “I’m fine, Spence.”
“Okay. I guess the next step then is this little project.” He pulled a sheet of paper from his inside coat pocket and waved it in the air.
Joanna snatched it from his hand. It was a diagram of some sort. “What is it?”
“It’s a set of rails for Pace to brace himself on while he’s learning to walk again.”
Pace snorted. “I learned how to walk before you were born, college boy.”
“Yeah, and you’ve laid on your backside for five months. Your muscles have forgotten how to walk. They’re going to have to learn from scratch.”
Simon took Spence’s drawing and built what Pace termed the most useless contraption he’d ever seen. Two parallel rails slightly lower than hip high ran from the side of his bed to the cot where Joanna slept. The rails were wrapped tightly with an old quilt, for his comfort, he was told.
Pace thought it was all a waste of time. If he was going to walk again, he damn sure wasn’t going to need that contraption. And he wasn’t going to walk to Jo’s bed.
A week later, however, when Joanna badgered him into sitting on the edge of the bed with his feet on the floor—damnation, the woman could nag!—he found the railings useful enough. He had to grip them to keep from falling right off the damn bed. It was humiliating as hell. He’d nearly thrown up his breakfast.
A couple of days later, when Joanna badgered him into standing up for the first time—she wrapped a belt around his waist and pulled with both hands, or he would never have made it—he discovered the true value of the rails. He could not stand on his own. He had to place all his weight on his arms to remain upright, and it was only by the grace of God that he didn’t pass out, throw up, or both.
Jesus H. Christ! Nothing had ever been so hard in his entire life as remaining on his feet for less than a minute. His arms were weaker than he’d suspected and started trembling. Joanna gripped his belt and tried to help ease him back down to the bed, but his arms gave out, and he fell backward onto the mattress, accidentally taking her with him. With her hands still wrapped in his belt, she couldn’t catch herself. Pace let go of the railing and wrapped his arms around her to keep her from being hurt.
Breathless, he sprawled on his back on the bed, with Joanna draped across his chest. “Are you all right?”
“I think so.” She was as breathless as he was.
Pace couldn’t help himself. She’d been touching him, working his legs, bathing his back, and sleeping in the same room with him for more than a week. She’d been driving him out of his mind. Now here she was, lying between his legs—and he could feel her there, by God. Against his abdomen he felt the slight bulge of the child they had created. He
r breasts, larger than before because of the baby, pressed against his chest. As he watched her green eyes turn dark, he felt through his clothes and hers as her nipples hardened.
With a low groan of defeat, Pace’s willpower crumbled. He raised his head from the mattress and kissed her. At first, shock held her lips stiff, but only for a moment. Almost instantly they softened and parted against the pressure of his.
Pace cupped the back of her head in one hand and held her close, savoring the sweetness, the heat. God, he missed kissing her. He missed holding her, touching her. Loving her. It had been so damn long since he’d felt her body moving against his, felt her soul-sweet yielding, her softness giving way to his hardness. He had yet to so much as kiss her without getting hard.
Except since she’d rescued him from Juerta.
He should be hard and aching right now. The heat was there, and the hunger, the need. The desperate, terrible need. But nothing was happening. It was useless. He was useless as a man. He couldn’t get an erection.
Goddammit, he thought, holding her tighter, his legs were healing. Why not the rest of him? Why, goddammit, why?
In sheer frustration, he thrust Jo away and off his chest.
Dazed by the hunger—hers, and his—Joanna blinked to clear her vision. “Wha—?” Pace’s closed expression cut off her words. In the days that she’d been here with him they had been careful to nurse their animosity and avoid any hint of intimacy. Until now. Now he pulled her to him and kissed her as though he were condemned and she was his last meal. Then he pushed her away?
Anger, sharp and fierce, rose in her chest. In a deliberate gesture, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then rose from the bed. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“Don’t worry,” he said coldly. “I won’t.”
Chapter Twenty
Don Rodrigo Juerta looked down at his left arm and leg in growing horror. “This is it?” he roared. “Why do they not straighten? How am I to walk, to draw a gun, with an arm and leg bent like this?”
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