by Rachel Lee
She wouldn’t hold him to it, but it still made her feel so good in places that seemed to have been empty her entire life.
For a brief space, just a brief space, it almost all seemed worth it.
* * *
Jake held her on his lap for a long time. Some part of him didn’t want to let go, as if he feared she’d slip away and never come back. Crazy way to feel. Maybe her fears were infecting him ever more strongly.
But finally he sent her up to bed, pausing to kiss her once more, gently, demanding nothing, asking nothing, even though he wanted to ask for everything.
It was an internal struggle, one she didn’t need to know about. She had enough on her mind, and plenty of healing yet to do.
But he stayed awake for a long time, busying himself with carrying the untouched mugs of cocoa out to the kitchen and emptying them so Rosa wouldn’t know they hadn’t been drunk, rinsing them for easier cleaning in the morning. He knew better than to go beyond that.
He smiled wryly at his reflection in the dark window over the sink. Rosa had taken him in hand, and he had no doubt about who ruled within the walls of this house.
Al, on the other hand, took no such position in dealing with the ranch. He was a good man, capable of a whole lot, tireless and eager, but he was always careful of the boss-employee positions. He hoped someday that Al would get as uppity as Rosa.
But all of that was distraction and he knew it. What had started as a native impulse to help someone in trouble, a need to atone for his actions of so long ago, was transforming into something much stronger, and maybe that wasn’t smart.
When they caught this guy, Nora would probably want to rebuild her life in Minneapolis. She hadn’t talked about it all that much, but he had gathered she liked it there, had liked her work. One crazy man had stripped it all from her.
Just as her father had stripped her of childhood. Damn, he got heartburn just thinking about Fred Loftis. Thoughts of Langdon filled him with fury, but Loftis gave him serious heartburn.
He couldn’t imagine the cruelties, both major and minor, that Nora had grown up with and concealed from the world. He wished there was some way to make up for it, but he was no magician with a wand to wave.
Nora had been repeatedly hurt, and no amount of wishing or any number of magical incantations could wash that away. Tonight he had held one of the most damaged people he had ever known, and it had forced him to face his every shortcoming. He could never take it away, probably couldn’t even make any of it any better.
No kissing away this boo-boo or putting a bandage on it.
But at the same time he’d faced his limitations, he’d recognized her inherent strength. God, she was strong. She had proved it beyond any question. He felt a huge admiration for her, and figured a lesser person might have been reduced to a puddle by all she had been through.
And now, as terrified as she was, she wanted to learn self-defense. She wasn’t running, although the thought must have occurred to her, but was standing firmly in place, facing her terror, facing the possible arrival of her enemy.
She was magnificent, and probably didn’t begin to realize it.
Nor was he going to ignore her evaluation of the guy. She alone knew him, knew the violence of which he was capable. She alone of anyone around here could evaluate that man. If she believed he wouldn’t give up, then Jake believed it, too.
He stared out the window, looking past his own reflection, and for the first time in his life saw threat in the darkness outside.
He knew what was out there, every damn inch of it. He’d been walking and riding over that land his entire life. He knew every knoll, every dip, every tree, bush and sapling. He’d watched some of those trees grow from mere sprouts on the ground. He’d raised hay and alfalfa and stored it for long winters. He’d tended calves, cows and steers, and more horses than he had in his corral right now.
By closing his eyes, he could choose to see any part of it in his mind’s eye, familiar as a photograph. And never had any of it seemed threatening.
The weather could sometimes be threatening, or a snake. Coyotes could be a pain. The wolves had left him alone and he doubted they were bothering some of the other ranchers as much as they complained. Coyotes and dogs were aggressive. Hell, he’d faced more trouble from feral dogs than the wolves.
But whatever problems had lain out there, from disease to predators, never had the darkness held a threat.
Now it did.
Darkness would provide the perfect environment for Langdon. As Nora had so correctly pointed out, no amount of law enforcement could make this county impermeable. These wide-open spaces, the endless square miles, could allow anyone to approach surreptitiously, either on foot or in a vehicle. If he avoided town, no one would notice someone who just appeared to be driving through. No one. Not even cops, unless Langdon came in his own vehicle. They could be on the lookout for that, checking every car of that description. But if he changed vehicles, and he probably had or he’d have been found by now... Well, he could sail into this county.
All his life he had thought of this as a safe place to live. Life brought the usual accidents and tragedies, but it was generally a safe place. Occasionally some creep would turn up, though.
A creep like Langdon, on a hunt. And when he thought over the cases he was aware of, he realized they’d been luckier than they probably had any right to be. None of these guys had succeeded in killing anyone.
Now they faced that possibility again.
Swearing, he turned and brewed a pot of coffee. He wasn’t going to sleep tonight, work tomorrow or not. He thought of that fragile, lovely woman sleeping upstairs, and his gut knotted so tightly that it hurt.
His male urges paled beside his need to protect her from any additional harm. He couldn’t make the fear go away, but he’d damn well die trying to protect her from that beast.
While the coffee finished brewing, he gave in to the need for action, pulled on his boots and jacket and stepped out into the frigid night. His breath blew clouds, and he stuffed his hands into his pockets.
Wasted effort, he was sure, but that didn’t keep him from walking widening circles around the house, looking for footprints in the snow in places where he and Al hadn’t walked. Playing sentry against a killer who was probably nowhere near. But he couldn’t fight the need to make sure that this night, this darkness, was safe for now.
He even went into the barn, where the horses, surprised to see him at such an hour, opened lazy eyes to watch him. Would they alert at a stranger? He had no idea. They’d had little enough to fear in their lives.
Back outside, he looked up at a sliver of moon, then headed back toward the warm light falling from the kitchen window. In the morning he’d tell Al and Rosa to keep an eye out for strangers. They must have learned some of Nora’s story by now and wouldn’t ask questions. They’d simply take care.
He didn’t feel good about leaving Nora here while he was gone, even though he had great faith in Al, but he couldn’t see how it would be better in town. Every time he dropped her at the library to work, he knew that all that stood between her and trouble was Emmaline Dalton, the librarian. A brave woman, too, but a match for a crazy killer? He doubted it.
His only comfort was that if Emma called for help, half the sheriff’s department would descend within minutes.
He knew, too, that Nora had taken to walking to the diner for lunch. Did she feel safe walking those few short blocks? Maybe too safe? Or was this another act of defiance on her part, a reclamation of some normalcy for her life?
God knew she must need it. He certainly didn’t want to deprive her of any of the steps she was taking to reassert some control. While nobody was in control of everything, it was a basic need to feel you had some control. At least a little.
He shucked his boots and jacket, poured a coffee and headed back to his easy chair. He had a lot to think about.
Like what he was going to discuss with Gage in the morning. The sheriff must
have noticed how much time had passed without anyone finding the least sign of Langdon’s whereabouts. And while that might be good, they couldn’t risk it. Maybe he was already beginning to think about how they could beef things up to protect Nora.
Maybe he’d been living in a fool’s paradise, counting on this area’s grapevine and locals to notice anyone out of place. Maybe he’d counted too much on Nora’s being out here rather than at her former address with her father. Maybe he’d counted on her being hard to find out here. Maybe he hadn’t gone on high enough alert.
Damn Fred Loftis. He wouldn’t put it past the man, in his anger and self-righteousness, to tell a total stranger who knocked on his door in the late hours exactly where to find his daughter. Did the man grasp what was going on here? Had Nora even told him?
Somehow he couldn’t imagine Nora telling that man anything she didn’t have to.
So he’d talk to Loftis in the morning, too, make sure he didn’t reveal where Nora was. He just hoped he could do it without punching the man in the jaw.
The little things Nora had let slip, combined with memories from their childhood together, didn’t create a pretty picture of what she must have endured. A simmering anger had been building in him, and right now it was a white-hot flame in the pit of his stomach. How much could one person be asked to endure?
At least the flame of anger burned away the throbbing ache of desire in his groin that had been driving him crazy the whole time he’d held her on his lap.
That was going to have to wait. Maybe forever—he didn’t know. But now was not the time.
However, coffee or no coffee, as he began to get drowsy his thoughts drifted to the woman asleep upstairs, drifted to the way she felt in his arms, drifted to the growing hunger he felt for her.
He had no difficulty imagining carrying her to his bed, imagining her shyness, her tentativeness, her inability to believe he found her both beautiful and desirable.
What he’d tried to kill twelve years ago hadn’t died. Not for him. And sometimes in her eyes he saw that it hadn’t died for her, either.
Their bond might be hopeless, but it was powerful, and as he dozed, he let it consume him.
Chapter 9
Dressed in his uniform, gun strapped to his hip, Jake lingered in the kitchen, watching Nora nibble at the huge breakfast Rosa had made.
“You’re going to be okay?” he asked yet again.
This time the look she gave him was almost ruefully impatient. “I’m going to be fine. Rosa promised to keep me busy, and I need it.”
“I’ll take care of her,” Rosa said. She stood at the sink rinsing his breakfast dishes. She said it with such determination that Jake knew he’d better hush. The woman could have a real temper when she needed it.
So he grabbed his winter jacket and started pulling it on. Just then Al came in the back door.
“Boss? We got three pickups on the way up the ranch road.”
Jake stiffened. Three pickups wouldn’t be the Langdon guy, but it might be trouble in another form, because they weren’t expecting anyone.
“Stay in here,” he said to the three of them. “You especially,” he said, pointing at Rosa and Nora. “Al, you know where the shotgun is. Watch from the window.”
“What are you expecting?” Nora asked, her face suddenly pale and pinched. “An invasion?”
“Actually, no, but this is unexpected. It could be anything.”
“I’m sorry. Now I’ve got you uptight, too.”
“Quit apologizing, dammit. When you live this far out, it just pays to be cautious. That’s all I’m doing.”
Then he went out front to meet his visitors.
He waited at the top of the porch steps, leaning casually against a stanchion as he watched the three trucks approach, their tires crunching on the frozen ground. Ah, that was Fred Loftis’s truck, he realized when it got close enough. That explained the kind of trouble on its way.
He almost smiled, expecting to enjoy this.
The trucks pulled into a semicircle in front of him and stopped. Loftis was the first to climb out, and soon five others joined him, three men and two women dressed in the same drab way he’d made Nora and his wife dress, like something left over from the thirties and captured in a black-and-white photo. Both women had the same worn-out look he remembered from Nora’s mother. The guys, on the other hand, looked like natural brutes.
What was it about this church? he wondered. They’d always stayed on the fringes locally, socializing only among themselves, but generally leaving their neighbors alone. Causing no trouble, but never really fitting in. Kind of interesting when you considered that Loftis himself was one of the most prominent businessmen in town. Jake wondered idly if he wasn’t most of the force in this group, controlling it through the power of the purse. God knew the rest of them could probably barely meet their bills.
He waited until they were arrayed in front of him. No weapons that he could see, so it was a good start to whatever.
“Howdy,” he said. “Something I can do for you folks?”
“I want my daughter back,” Loftis said. “She’s bringing shame on me by living with you.”
“No shame,” Jake said easily. “She has her own room, and she has a chaperone, my housekeeper.”
“People are talking!”
“Maybe you are. I’m not hearing a thing from anyone else.”
“She’s my daughter and you have no right to keep her here, sin or no sin. And it looks sinful to me.”
Jake straightened, careful to appear relaxed, although his anger was winding up again. “I don’t recall that you were elected judge and jury. What’s more, Nora may be your daughter, but she’s an adult woman and can do as she chooses. You lost your right to say anything the day she turned eighteen. Get used to it.”
“That’s not the way we believe,” Loftis thundered. “An unmarried woman should be in her father’s care.”
A murmur of agreement came from the chorus of crows he’d brought with him.
“Regardless of what you believe, I’m telling you the law. Didn’t have a problem when she left home and made her own life, did you? No, you’re just worried about gossip, and that disgusts me.”
“You have no right!”
“No right to what? Offer my spare bedroom to a guest? Look after a woman who’s been seriously wounded?” His pretense at relaxation seeped away, and his hands balled into fists he would very much have liked to use.
“I was taking care of her!”
“You weren’t even giving her time to heal, you old jackass. You were insisting she come to work for you immediately.”
“She was well enough. She took another job.”
“Sitting at the library, not stocking your shelves. Now get out of here, all of you, before I get the sheriff to cite you for trespass.”
“Not until I see my daughter!”
“Over my dead body.”
Loftis took a step toward him, as if he were going to turn this into a fight. Jake was spoiling for it, but he didn’t want to give Nora the inevitable grief. Damn, a rock and a hard place. The law would be on his side, but how would it affect Nora?
Then he heard the front door creak open behind him. He turned, half expecting to see Al armed with the shotgun, but instead Nora stepped out, wrapped in her jacket.
“Drop it, Dad,” she said in a voice as flat and hard as steel. “Don’t come any closer.”
“Girl, you know better than this. I brought you up right, and you know the appearance of sin is as bad as the sin itself. A stumbling block to others. You come home with me now.”
“I wouldn’t come home with you if it were the last place on earth. I’m tired of you and all the misery you inflict. Go away and leave me alone. Don’t ever come near me again.”
Jake’s heart swelled with pride in her, but his anger was still trying to take control. He stared icily at Loftis. “You heard the lady. Now get off my property and don’t ever come back.”
That was when Al decided to make an appearance with the shotgun. Perfect timing, Jake thought. Nora had had her say, and now they’d deal with the trespassing.
Loftis glared at Al, then included Jake and Nora in his fury. “You’ll pay for this, girl.”
“I’ve paid for sins I’ve never committed,” she said quietly. “I’ve paid more than you’ll ever know, some of it at your hands. Leave me alone.”
Loftis took one step toward her. Jake threw back his jacket to reveal the weapon strapped to his hip, but made no move to unsnap the holster. It did have the effect of making Loftis pause.
“Now,” Jake said quietly, “I’m giving you a second warning that you’re trespassing. I’ll speak to the sheriff about it today. Trust me, you won’t get another warning.”
If furious glares could kill, Jake figured Loftis’s would have turned him into a cinder on the spot. The man stood there a moment longer, as if unwilling or unable to cede anything, but then he turned sharply and climbed into his truck. Like silent puppets, the rest followed him.
Jake remained where he was until the last dust of their passage made it clear the trucks were headed back to town. Then he turned.
“Let’s go inside. I’m making a call before I go anywhere.”
* * *
Nora had begun to shake. Even now, facing down her father frightened her. Like the man who had attacked her, Fred Loftis wouldn’t tolerate defiance. He might not make another move out here on Jake’s ranch, but what about when she was in town? What if he came after her in the library or walking down the street to get lunch?
That frightened her almost as much as being pursued by her attacker from Minnesota, even though she didn’t think her father was capable of the same level of violence. He could be violent, yes, but that had usually been slaps and blows with a belt, not an attack with deadly weapons of any kind.
She tried to assure herself she could deal with it, but her rubbery legs barely carried her to the table before she collapsed back in the chair in front of her breakfast.