Desperate Hearts (25 page)

Her breath caught in her throat at his
nearness. He smelled of clean rain and cold mountain air.
“Why?”

“
Because I think someone
besides Hardesty let you down, someone you believed in. I want to
know who.”

She lowered her eyes to avoid his intense
gaze. He had the unnerving ability to see into her thoughts, and
she felt a great disadvantage. Don’t ask this of me, she thought.
But when she looked up again, the walls she’d erected around her
heart shifted under the weight of the empathy she saw in his face.
His hand tightened slightly on hers, and he drew her to chair to
sit. Keeping her fingers in his, he sat cross-legged on the
blankets at her feet.

“
What did you hope for?” he
prompted gently.

Perched tightly on the edge of the seat,
Kyla sighed and looked at her lap. Threatening tears made her voice
a shaky whisper. “That my father would love me.”

A moment passed before he spoke. “You think
he didn’t?”

“
I know he didn’t. My
mother did, but she died when I was little.” She cleared her
throat. “After that, nothing I did pleased him. I felt like I
didn’t exist.”

“
Maybe he just missed your
mother.”

“
No, it was more than
that.” Once she began speaking, the hurt she’d kept locked up for
so many years poured out in a torrent. Finally, someone wanted to
listen to her. How odd that it should be the man she’d hired to
kill Tom Hardesty, that a cold-blooded bounty hunter should have
more compassion than her own family. “Pa wanted a son, an heir to
take over at the ranch—he told me that straight out. A daughter was
useless to him. But I learned to ride and I branded cattle, mended
fences, pulled calves—I worked as hard as the hands. Then Aggie and
Tom came along.” Tears streamed down her cheeks and she wiped them
on her coat sleeve. “Pa married Aggie and thought Tom was the
answer to his prayers. He spoiled him rotten. But Tom didn’t care
about the land the way I did, and he didn’t want to work. He just
wanted to chase girls and get drunk behind the springhouse. I saw
the disappointment in Pa’s eyes every time he let him down, so I
kept doing my work, and Tom’s, too. I don’t think Pa ever gave up
hope Tom would come around—he refused to see or hear anything bad
about him. And he refused to see or hear me at all. Tom knew he
could get away with whatever he wanted. Even murder.”

“
So you dressed like a boy,
not just to avoid Hardesty. You were trying to be the son you
thought your old man wanted.”

His voice was low and he sounded angry. She
nodded mutely, unable to look him in the face. Her story seemed
pathetic to her own ears. What must he think of it? His youth had
been much worse. His stepfather had beaten him just because of his
size, and he wasn’t whining over it.

But Jace recognized the pain in Kyla’s face
and voice, and wondered how so many fools could visit two
lives.

His own stepfather, who had never given him
chance to be a son . . . Kyla’s father, who ignored his own child
to embrace a worthless stepson . . . Tom Hardesty, whose day of
reckoning for his years as a black-hearted prodigal was fast
approaching . . .

Kyla had received so little love—he wished
he had it to offer.

Before, he had been satisfied with living
day to day—the future and its possibilities never entered his head.
But that afternoon at the Magnolia Saloon had changed everything.
Sometimes he was almost sorry that he’d found Sawyer Clark. The
search for him had kept Jace fixed on one goal, and gave him a
purpose that asked no questions. It hadn’t watched him with
turquoise eyes that touched the place in him that had once felt
dead.

Had he ever had a dream? Kyla had asked. No,
not until he’d met her. And he knew it could not be fulfilled. All
he could do was comfort a brave woman who deserved more than what
life had dealt her so far.

But when he looked up into her face again,
their eyes locked, just as they had over the lamp flame. Desire
surged through his veins, so hot and sudden and thick, it scared
him. His gaze darted over her coral lips that parted softly, her
small hands, her flame-colored hair. He wanted her, to touch her
smooth, bare curves, to feel her softness under his lips and hands.
That was no surprise to him.

He had to be hallucinating, though, because
he thought he saw the same yearning in her eyes.

Slowly he rose to his knees before her.
“Kyla,” he whispered, trying to keep the anguish out of his voice,
“I don’t think I can love anyone. I don’t—it just isn’t in me
anymore.”

“
Yes it is.” Lightly, she
gripped the lapels of his shirt, her voice sounding as strangled as
his own, her expression intense. “I don’t want much from you—I know
you have enough in your heart to love me for now,
today.”

“
Don’t do this, honey,”
Jace warned, and it was the hardest thing he’d ever done, turning
her down. “You deserve more than what you’re asking for, and a hell
a lot more than me. You’ll hate us both for it later. You’re not
thinking straight right now.”

“
Jace, please . . . don’t
tell me no. I just want to feel close to you for a little while.”
Her voice was as small a child’s.

His heart clenched in his chest, and a
familiar ache, heavy and low, throbbed in his groin. He had spent
adult years cultivating a reputation that made him larger than life
to most people, to show the world he was not a man to be crossed.
That he was a presence to be reckoned with.

But in reality, Jace Rankin was only a
mortal man. And that which Kyla asked of him now, after weeks of
craving her touch, of dreaming about her, was more than he could
refuse. She beseeched him, but he was the one brought to his knees.
Right now, at this moment, she had complete power over him.

He rested his head against her leg, his
throat tight. He couldn’t speak the words to tell her that she had
humbled him with her request.

He didn’t know how to say that he hoped he’d
find his own soul again in her arms.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Firelight from the stove window cast tall
shadows on the rough-planked walls, mute witness to the struggles
of heart and conscience being played out in its dull glow. Rain
pelted the thin roof overhead, and outside the wind howled under
the eaves. But in the tiny foothills cabin heat radiated from the
stove, warming two people who circled each other warily, both
waiting for cues from the other.

Kyla sat cross-legged on the blanket
opposite Jace, her knees touching his. In the low light his eyes
glimmered with a flame of their own, and the powerful need she saw
in them made her hesitate.

Her devastating ordeal in the barn a year
earlier was her only knowledge of men, and she had no idea what
this night might bring. Fear battled with her desire for Jace. The
joining of man and woman was rough and violent, but she hoped that
it would be better with him.

So he surprised her when he simply reached
for her hand and took it into his own. He turned her palm up and
ran his fingertip lightly over its perimeter. Exquisite chills flew
over her arms and spine, making her shiver. She pulled away.

“
Do you want to stop?” he
asked, his voice sounding like warmed honey, low and throaty, as if
already knew her answer. Her gaze fell to his chest and flat belly,
revealed in the gap of his unbuttoned shirt. A dusting of dark hair
that began just below collarbones narrowed and disappeared into the
waist of his jeans.

“
N-no, I just don’t know
how—is this what—“

He pressed a finger to her
mouth. “Shh.
I
know. I promise I won’t force you and it won’t
hurt.”

That sounded impossible, she thought. When
he pushed her down and crushed her with his demanding body, how
could it not hurt and bruise? Her skepticism must have been
mirrored in her face.

Rising to his knees, he gripped her elbow
and pulled her up, too, then closed his arms around her. “I
promise.”

Hip to hip, thigh to thigh, their bodies
matched so well. It felt good to be held like that, to be touched
without being squeezed or groped, or made to feel dirty. His
embrace was solid, the wall of his chest, strong and unyielding.
With a soft cry she flung her arms around his narrow waist. He
cradled the back of her head with a gentle hand and stroked her
hair. He made it seem less important that her curls were gone.

Murmuring comforting sounds against her ear,
he chanted her name, vowing to make this right. Before she realized
it, she was lying on the blankets with his cast-off clean shirt
rolled up under her head.

He lay on his side next to her, braced on
one elbow, and let his eyes roam the length of her. Sinew and cord
swelled with his movements, and slats of rib and muscle were
defined in light and shadow. The firelight gleamed red on his bare
shoulders and arms. At that moment, she thought he was everything a
man ought to be, compassionate, strong, unbearably attractive. She
put out a tentative hand to sweep his hair behind his shoulder.

“
God, you are beautiful,
even dressed like this,” he said, wonder in his voice. “I never
wanted to kiss a woman”—he lowered his head to her lips—“so
much.”

The moment their lips met, Kyla moaned. His
mouth on hers was hot and slick and insistent, and his he probed
the soft recesses of her mouth. Her heart pounded with the spark he
kindled, not with terror. He pulled back to look at her with a
hungry, feral gaze, but still she was not afraid.

His free hand roamed her shoulder and arm,
and it seemed as if he left a trail of fire behind. Finally she
felt his warm palm slide up her ribs to her unbound breast. Her
breath caught, and he sealed it in her throat with another kiss,
this one more fevered than the last.

“
Kyla, God, honey,” he
groaned low in his throat, sounding like a man who was trying to
save his own life. With proficient dexterity, he worked open the
buttons of her shirt to find her bare skin.

Jace heard her formless whimper as she
timidly let her hands glide over his chest. Never had he known a
need so fierce. Still, the woman responsible for the grinding ache
in his groin required that he go slowly, carefully. The full weight
of his responsibility to was not lost on him, and he bore it
gravely. But goddamn, how would he hold on when even now, early in
their lovemaking, the throbbing low in belly was nearly unbearable?
Weeks of denial and unsatisfied temptation had reached a flash
point. It was the sweetest torture he’d ever experienced.

Her eyes were cobalt and heavy-lidded with
arousal. Just one shirt button remained and he reached for it as
though it were the lock on a treasure house. When he opened it, he
saw a metallic glimmer on her creamy skin. Looking closer, he
realized it was the gold locket he’d given her.

“
You kept your necklace
on.”

She looked up at him, innocent desire
suffusing her features. She took his hand and placed it over
heart-shaped pendant, and covered it with her own. “It’s the nicest
thing anyone ever gave me.”

That she’d left it on, wearing it close to
her heart, touched him in a way he would not have expected. He had
chosen that necklace just for her, and although the rest of her
things had been lost, the locket remained. He lifted her hand and
kissed her palm.

Opening her shirt then, he folded back one
side at time to uncover the smooth, ripe breasts he had glimpsed
the day she was shot. He had felt like a low down weasel for
looking at her then, and in the days that had followed while she
was sick. Now, though, she was healthy and yielding, and he gazed
upon her like a starving man at a banquet table.

“
May I take off your
shirt?” he asked.

She lifted her hand and gripped her sleeve
where he her arm bore the scar of her gunshot wound. “Oh, do you
have to?” Her voice sounded small and self-conscious. “I mean, my
arm looks . . .” The sentence hung unfinished.

Damn it, he swore to himself, so much had
been taken from her. He lifted her hand away and pressed a kiss on
her knuckles, then carried it higher to the scar his own
shoulder.

“
Hell, sweetheart, you’re
in good company.” He chuckled, trying to keep his tone light. Then
he added seriously, “I won’t see anything but you.”

For several moments, Kyla lay motionless,
her eyes his shoulder. Finally, she sat up and pulled her arms from
her sleeves, baring a curved alabaster torso that made Jace swallow
hard. The fullness of her breasts was accentuated by the curve of
her waist and flare of her hips.

“
Just as I remember,” he
admitted, fighting the urge hide his face against her breast and
inhale the scent her fragrant flesh.

The shiny red wound on her arm was an
outrage, a senseless defilement of perfection. But it was also a
mark of courage and honor, and she wore it well.

“
Beautiful Kyla," he
murmured, his gaze touching here there. She smiled shyly, and his
heart lightened.

Gently pressing her back to the bedroll, he
ran his hand over her flesh and felt her erect nipple graze palm.
At last giving into his craving, he dipped his head and closed his
lips on one firm coral peak.

Kyla gasped and arched against his mouth,
her spine curving away from the blankets. The light tug on her
nipple sent arrows of pleasure shooting do to her abdomen where a
pulse began to throb, hot and liquid.

This . . . was this how it was supposed to
between a man and a woman? The endearments, the caresses? This
tender fire that sent flames licking through every part of her
body?