Jacy stood riveted to the spot in the doorway. She felt like a calf Mari had lassoed and dragged to the branding fire. Frightened, lost, uncertain where to run for help. No place. No place to run now.
The room was small. Or was it Trevor’s all-encompassing presence that made it seem so? He stood on the opposite side behind the one small table, on which Mari had placed the basket. The only other furniture was two hard-seated, straight-backed chairs. Sunlight streamed through a window high above.
His eyes never left hers. She felt them even as she glanced around the room. They warmed her and trilled down her arms and spun in her head. And frightened her to death. What had she agreed to? She hadn’t agreed to anything yet. She wouldn’t—
“Welcome to my…” Trevor swept a hand to include the small room. “…cell.”
Cell? The word chilled Jacy. It was appropriate, although the real thing was probably even smaller. And Hunter still lived in one. The thought brought a semblance of sanity. Hunter. That was the reason she would agree to this dastardly scheme. If she agreed to it.
To save Hunter. She would go through hell to save Hunter. Focused on the cynical, emotionless man in front of her, she felt suddenly that she might discover hell firsthand before they returned. What was she thinking, going off with him?
She watched his gaze skim her then rush back to her eyes. She held herself rigid to conceal the surge of insidious attraction that always flooded her when she first saw him.
It had been so since the beginning. Since the day Hunter introduced her to Trevor. She would never forget that day. She had ridden up to the corral and slid to the ground suddenly aware of a hum in the air.
Then she realized the hum was inside her and caused by the man who stood beside Hunter, elbows hooked on the corral fence behind him, one bootheel propped back, too. Although he was uncommonly handsome in a totally rugged way, she knew instinctively it was not his looks that arrested her, but the man himself, his entire being.
As now, as always, he had filled the space around her. His eyes seemed to penetrate to her very core, spreading warmth and an aura of mystery even before he spoke.
“Meet Trevor Fallon,” Hunter had said. “Just hired on.”
“Hired on?” she remembered teasing. Flirting. That’s when it started. At the very beginning. “Hired on for what?”
Trevor hadn’t batted an eyelash, but scanned her riding habit, then glanced sideways at Hunter. “Whatever needs doing, Miss Fancy Pants.”
Later he admitted, “Damnit, Jace, you struck me like a bolt from the blue.”
Hunter had coined the term Miss Fancy Pants when Jacy was only a tike. Even then she had a penchant for fancy riding gear. But that day, spoken in that rumbling voice, the term was rife with implication. And Jacy Kimble was cocky enough to think she could handle such blatant sexuality.
“Miss Kimble, to you, cowboy.” Flipping her long blond braid over one shoulder, she strode into the house to talk to Mari. She learned then that all she had to do to really raise Trevor’s hackles was put on a cocky, haughty face and in effect tell him to go to hell. Not that it always worked. She prayed it would for the next few days.
But seeing him now, she wasn’t as worried as when she set out from home, for Mari was definitely wrong.
Trevor did not love her. Thank goodness. He stood in the middle of the small room with the arrogant stance he had perfected, hands loosely anchoring hips. His eyes were hard. Hot, yes, but hard with a familiar cynicism that would incinerate the smallest amount of love like droplets of water on a hot skillet.
Where had Mari gotten such a notion? Trevor love her? Mari occasionally gave way to fancy. It was no wonder. Seeing Trevor again. Mari and Hunter had been much closer to Trevor than she—
“Morning, Jace,” he prompted when she still hadn’t spoken to him. “Long time no see.” His voice rumbled through her with all its familiar reverberations. She swallowed back her trembling.
“Good morning, Trevor. Not long enough.” He hadn’t slept, was unshaven, rumpled, and devastatingly attractive. She wished Mari had never said those awful words. Love her? She could have kept her feelings in check if she hadn’t heard them spoken aloud. She knew she could have.
She still would. “I hear you have planned our demise.” She slung her head in a gesture of total haughtiness. Even without the braid, which she hadn’t worn in years, the gesture was effective. She could tell by the way Trevor bowed his neck and narrowed his eyes.
“Don’t burden yourself with optimism, Jace.”
“If I go, your plan had better work,” she added, hoping to gain steadier ground by building a foundation of anger. “Papa had better not get into trouble while we’re gone. My absence will put an awful strain on Mari. You should have—”
“No strain at all, dear.” Mari took Jacy by an arm. “I’ll be getting back. Todd won’t let you down.”
Mari was leaving? Jacy’s knees went weak. Of course Mari was leaving. She had duties, responsibilities, responsibilities Jacy had hammered into her all morning. But when Mari left, she would be alone. She dragged her eyes away from Trevor. Alone with him in this tiny, enclosed, private—
“Jacy, are you all right, dear?”
Jacy shook herself.
“She’s fine, Mari.” Trevor’s voice was tinged with mockery. At length, he crossed the room and took Mari by the shoulders. He planted a chaste kiss on her forehead, like she had done earlier on his. “Run along. We’ll do our best, so don’t worry about us.”
“If you’re sure.”
Jacy shook off her befuddlement. “I’m fine, Mari. Trevor’s right. Don’t worry about us.” She inhaled a deep draft of dusty air, calling on her old ally, pretentiousness, to hide the fear that emanated from deep within her. “If I decide to go, I promise not to kill Trevor until after we’ve saved Hunter.”
“Thank you for going, dear.” With a soft kiss to the cheek, Marielena was gone. The heavy door closed behind her, the metal latch clanged into place, the sound rang through the silence. It hummed in Jacy’s ears, while her heart beat like she had just run to the top of Mount Franklin.
She was alone with Trevor. The metallic sound continued to reverberate through the small room. Suddenly it enclosed her. Suddenly the walls seemed to sway, as if they were caving in. She glanced around. Cell, Trevor called it.
Was this what prison was like?
Trevor watched Jacy succumb to uncharacteristic nervousness. She was nervous? Hell, his legs felt like they might buckle if he moved a muscle. And his heart. The thing beat like it was going to the gallows. How the hell could they accomplish the task ahead entangled in this much raw emotion?
“Jace?” Although he spoke quietly, the sound bounced off the walls like church bells. She glanced up. He took a step, watching terror freeze her expression.
Suddenly she was moving. She crossed the room, put the table between them, glanced this way and that. He watched, fascinated, while she tried to gain control. Chess was never as intriguing as flirting with Jacy Kimble.
She found her voice. “It’s so close.” Her gaze darted from his chest to the wall behind him, bounced off, skipped past him, alighted on the door. “I mean the walls.”
Amused, he stepped closer. She moved farther away.
“Is this what your cell was like? I mean, the size. It must have been awful. I mean, I guess you had a bed…” The word whooshed out on the last of her breath.
“Jace, shhh.”
Her head snapped around. She glared at him.
He raised both hands, held them palms out. “Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you. Have I ever?”
Had he ever? Hunter and Drummond and Ana Bowdrie and five long miserable years of misery struggled for recognition inside her, but failed. All she could think about was Mari’s incredible claim.
Trevor Fallon loved her? Of course he didn’t.
Yet even faced with the facts, the words had been spoken. Spoken, they became real. Not true. Real. No longer part of
her imagination, of her nighttime dreams and daytime fancy. The sounds of the words being spoken had toppled the most crucial barrier in her mind. The barrier that separated fact from fiction; reality from fantasy. Without the barrier she was vulnerable, lost.
Challenged by an advancing Trevor, she felt more vulnerable than she had ever felt in her life. As though she would never again be able to muster the strength she needed.
“Don’t, Trevor,” she whispered. “Please, don’t.”
He stopped and extended a hand. “Then you come to me.”
Never, she thought, but all she could do was shake her head.
“Come on, Jace. We have to get this out of the way. You know it. It has us witless. It’s been eating us up ever since I stepped into that stage station the first morning back.”
His eyes never left hers as he spoke, and she read in them the truth. His voice was as solemn as in the park when he threatened Drummond about his vulgarity. Drummond. She thought of the tears that had run down her father’s face only hours ago.
“I talked to Papa,” she said.
“Come here, Jace.”
“He told me all about—”
“Later.” Trevor dropped his hand and came to her.
She let him come, standing stock still, trembling like a schoolgirl, while he rounded the table, hell-bent on discovering her deep and dreadful secret.
The first touch of his hands on her shoulders elicited a shudder. He grinned. A stiff, lopsided grin that bespoke of the tenseness she felt.
“You wanted me to talk to Papa,” she tried.
One hand went to her face. Gently, he tipped her chin. Up close, she saw that his eyes were smoldering. They stoked the flames that blazed in her belly, woman-low.
“We’ve got to get this out of the way, first, Jace.” His lips touched hers. “You know it.”
“Don’t.” The contact sizzled, causing her voice to crack.
“Why not, Miss Fancy Pants?” His voice was as tender as a parent singing a lullaby. But that’s where the comparison ended. She wasn’t a child, and he wasn’t trying to lull her to sleep. “This used to be your favorite sport.”
Had it ever! Kissing Trevor. But it had never seemed dangerous before. Life threateningly dangerous. For she had never had such a secret to hide. “Not here. Please.”
“Yes, here.” His lips grazed hers softly, showering her with sparks. She felt like a log being dragged through a fire bed. Threading his hands up through her hair, he held her face steady. “This may be the only place it’s safe.” But even as he spoke, Trevor wondered whether there was a safe place in the world? With Jacy in his arms, the Jacy from his dreams, who wanted safety?
“Ah, Jace…” His voice broke with emotion. Then he kissed her. Lips open, tongue plunging, heart thrashing. He felt like he had jumped into a lake of fire and the fire turned out to be stars, a sea of stars, an ocean of stars, a velvet sky filled with trillions and jillions of tiny shiny stars and every one of them was lapis blue.
Her favorite sport. Now she knew why. With Trevor’s arms holding her tightly against his rock-solid body, the ache in her heart seemed magically healed. His lips were hot and wet enough to wash away every trace of care, everything except the stirring, compelling need she had to be closer.
She pulled his face to hers and was startled by the familiarity of the shape of his head against her palm. She hadn’t been kissed in five years, and now she was glad. No one kissed like Trevor; no one fit like Trevor—the bunch of his shoulder muscles beneath her arms, the thrum of his heart where her breasts burrowed, clamoring for their turn at ecstasy.
As if he heard, he slipped a hand around, cupping her through the peasant blouse. Her heart hammered against his hand, while her nipple strutted in his palm. His lips left hers.
“Ah, Jace…” His voice cracked again.
She looked in his eyes, feeling herself lost in the longing and passion she saw in their amber depths. “You’re right about one thing,” she whispered. “I always did like to kiss you.”
He winked. “And to be kissed by me.” Lowering his face, his lips grazed her neck and chest, finally closing over her nipple, drawing on it, searing her with sensations so long craved.
She thought she might die of sheer pleasure, while at the same time, she came to life; for the first time in all these years, her body felt alive, not only with passion and want, but with something intrinsically more important.
Hope.
She pulled him closer, felt the familiar probe of his body seeking hers. She pressed against the thrust of it, recalling how she had begged him to consummate their passion. Now she knew why she begged. She wanted him. At this moment, she wanted him as fiercely as she ever had.
Slipping her fingers through his hair on both sides of his head, she lifted his face from her breast. His expression weakened her. She leaned forward and licked the wetness from his lips, savoring the intoxicating experience.
“I was right about another thing, wasn’t I, Miss Fancy Pants?”
She inhaled a deep draft of dusty air and Trevor. Even after five years, he smelled the same to her. “Yes. We had to get this out of the way.”
He grinned. “Is it? Out of the way, I mean?”
The truth of the matter stunned her. Instead of outright acknowledging her feelings, she settled for a smaller truth by shaking her head. She slipped her hands around his face, felt his day-old beard.
“I roughed you up,” he said. “Sorry.”
She kissed him in response, then rubbed her cheeks over his.
“Oh, God, Jace, I’ve missed you.”
With her heart lodged somewhere in her throat, she kissed him again, softly, then ran her tongue around his lips, savoring, letting the deep need build and crest, like waves at sundown. Each wave was bigger, each sensation stronger. She never wanted it to end.
“I’ve missed you, too.” She grinned. “And I haven’t even stopped hating you, yet.”
“We’ll have to work on that, sweetheart.” But when he tried to gather her closer, she slipped her hands back up his head, and there it was.
The scar.
Everything inside her recoiled at the sight.
The brand. Despair mushroomed in her chest, spread to her throat. She thought she might strangle on it.
The scar. She stared at it as if it were the mark of the devil. That damnable, identifying, marking, branding scar. With her heart pounding like church bells, she ducked her head and tried to wriggle out of his embrace.
When he held on, she became desperate. “Turn me loose,” she cried. “Just because Hunter is in prison, you are not released from your promise.”
Eight
She might as well have slapped him. Trevor released Jacy the minute her words registered. Storming across the small room, he put as much space between them as possible. It was the dream. That damnable dream had entangled him like a misthrown lasso.
Mari’s outrageous suggestion hadn’t helped. Jacy Kimble love him? Preposterous. Impossible. Jacy Kimble didn’t love anyone. Peasant clothes and hard work hadn’t done a thing to change her. Thank God. One of them had to retain their senses.
It was the cell. And the dream. This cell-like room brought back the dream. That’s all it was, a dream. All it ever could be. The sound of a key turning in the heavy metal lock startled him. He swirled to face it, heart racing. Settle down, Fallon. Settle, by God, down.
Across the room, Jacy watched, fearful that he might have guessed her secret. Her body was still flushed from his caresses, even as her heart began to chill with dread of what lay ahead. How would she resist this man in the days to come? Already she was sorry to have rebuffed him.
He stood with his back to her, facing the far wall. As she watched he lifted a fist and pounded it once against the adobe wall, holding it there, head hung, lungs pulsating, heaving his bunched muscles. She had never seen him so angry, yet it was a strangely pensive sort of anger, unlike the behavior she was used to from him. She would have
expected him to strike back, to trade insult for insult. That he didn’t, tugged at that vulnerable spot inside her, releasing another small dose of hope, unwanted as it was.
When the metal key turned in the heavy lock, Trevor jumped like he had been snake bit. Then she knew. She had been right earlier. This small room reminded him of the cell. Five years in a lonely cell, he said. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like. Even the “dormitory” wasn’t confining by comparison.
“It’s probably Todd,” she offered quietly, watching him. At her words his gaze swung to hers. She watched him swallow once, convulsively, saw the instant of abject terror in his eyes before he realized where he was.
“Jace.” The name escaped on an expelled breath, confirmation of who she was, as though he had awakened from a dream, a nightmare, and couldn’t quite shake it.
Of course he couldn’t shake it. Hadn’t he said he would probably always have nightmares about guards coming for prisoners in the night? Why hadn’t she realized? Remorseful and wanting to help, she reached a hand to him.
He stared at it. Then lifted his eyes to hers. Mesmerized by the tender moment, neither moved. The door burst open.
“Uncle Trevor!” Todd’s exuberant shout broke the spell. Trevor turned just as the boy dropped the basket he carried and hurled himself into his arms.
Todd was all boy now. No pretending to be older, wiser, tougher. His and Trevor’s pleasure was mutual and instantaneous. It flashed across Trevor’s face and straight to Jacy’s heart. She hurried to close the door behind the boy, lest someone hear, then picked up the dropped basket.
“Todd? Can it be? Let me look at you, son.” Trevor held the boy back. “Dang, you were only knee-high when I…the last time I saw you. Look at you.” He held a flat hand even with the top of Todd’s head. “A day or two more and you’ll be taller than me. You’re no boy, now. You’re a man for sure.”
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