King's Ransom (14 page)

"Please,
Jesse," he pleaded, and started toward her with outstretched hands.
"Don't cry, honey. Talk to me. Whatever it is, you know I'll help. Is it
something I've done? If it is, just tell me now! I can't stand to hear you
cry."

"Stop right
there!" she ordered, quickly wiping away tear tracks with the palms of her
hands. "I don't want you here." Her voice shook. She could barely
speak above a whisper as she continued. "You can't take away all my
problems, King. You can't change what has happened to me, and you can't solve
everything that goes wrong in my life. Besides," she accused, "where
were you for the last three years? I took care of myself, by myself. Where were
you King? Where were you?"

Her accusation
hit him full force, and left him standing speechless and oddly ashamed. Then,
he took a deep breath and threw the accusation back in her face.

"Where was
I, Jesse? Right where you left me, girl. And you tell me this . . . and you
tell me now," he said with a husky growl. "Why did you leave the Double
M, Jesse Rose? Why did
you
leave me?"

His question
staggered her, and she turned quickly away, unwilling for him to see her shock,
afraid he would read the truth in her eyes. She stumbled toward the stacked
bales of hay and started to climb . . . upward . . . anywhere . . . just as
long as she didn't have to face King with answers she wasn't prepared to give.

"No, you
don't, girl," he growled, grabbing both her ankles before she could climb
another bale. "Get down before you fall and hurt yourself."

Jesse stopped and
turned slowly, knowing full well that King wouldn't loosen the firm grip he had
on her legs. And so they stood, silently assessing each other's mood and
determination.

"You're hurting
my leg," Jesse finally said, and watched the pupils in his eyes darken and
dilate with emotion. She knew he was angry at her. It wasn't often that he was
met with the kind of resistance that Jesse kept throwing at him.

But it wasn't
anger that Jesse saw in King's eyes. It was passion, the likes of which he'd
never experienced. The feel of her skin beneath his hands was skyrocketing
through his brain. He knew that her skin would be even softer in secret places.

He looked up at
her tear-streaked face, and then down at his hands wrapped securely around her
delicate ankles and shuddered, struggling with the urge to let both hands roam
up the long, delicate curves of her calves, feel the little indentations he
knew were behind her knees, and test the softness of the skin on her thighs. He
couldn't get his mind off the thought of what lay above and beyond, and only
steel-rimmed determination kept him from following his dreams. The sound of
Jesse's voice drew him back, and he frowned at the disgruntled tone of her
voice.

"Are you
going to keep me here all night?" Jesse muttered, and struggled futilely
with the iron grip he had on her legs.

I'd like to keep
you here forever.
King blinked, and wondered if he'd just said the thought
aloud. He decided he had not, because Jesse seemed still to be waiting for an
answer.

"Come
here," he growled, and narrowed his eyes, daring her to move farther away.
He slowly released his hold on her legs and held up his hands. She still had to
descend from the stacked hay and King grasped her firmly under her arms and
lifted her down.

Jesse leaned
forward, knowing that he would catch her, and let him take the full brunt of
her weight. She felt the sides of her breasts brush against his outstretched
hands, watched his jaw clinch and the planes of his face harden as the muscles
tightened beneath his skin. Jesse felt breath leave her body as he pulled her
down against his bare chest. Every angle, every bulge, every heartbeat was
magnified, as her body slid slowly down his entire length. His feet were
planted firmly, using the strength of his heavily muscled legs to brace them
both. Jesse slid right down to the space between.

She couldn't
resist the urge to test the feel of the muscles encasing the heart she heard
beating against her cheek, and let her hand lightly caress the breadth of his
chest before she drew her hand away, letting her sense of smell and sight
continue to touch King in a way she dared not.

She saw a line of
moisture beginning to form in the cleft in the middle of his chest before it
gained in strength and became droplets that would slide toward his flat muscled
stomach, past the brass buttons on the waist of his Levis and beyond to . . .

She shuddered, then
inhaled, trying to regain her composure, and was inundated by the scents of
soap, a woodsy, pine fresh scent from his shampoo, the ever-present smell of
good leather, and the other, more indefinable scent of King, the man. She felt
his heartbeat, the pulse racing beneath her fingertips, and knew he was feeling
something, if only anger. She wanted to look at him . . . hoping . . . praying
that she would see more in his eyes than she felt under his skin. But she
resisted the urge and didn't move.

King forgot to
breathe. When he did, it came out in a low groan as she slid slowly, slowly
against every yearning, aching muscle in his body. When she put out her hand
and touched the heartbeat beneath his chest, every muscle in his body tightened
at once. He felt like a piece of coiled steel and knew it would take only the
slightest touch from Jesse before he came unwound. She looked so soft and
fragile, but King knew the strength and the power in her. She would be a match
for any man. He felt her hesitate and begin to pull away. The sensation was
actually painful.

"No,"
he whispered before he thought, and slid his hands around her waist.

"What?"
Jesse asked, her heart beginning to pound louder and louder in her ears. She
knew if she said more it would be too much. Then he would know what she'd spent
years trying to hide. She couldn't endure his rebuff. She wanted love from
him—not this . . . and not in anger. "No what?" she insisted.

"Don't
go." It came out somewhere between an order and a plea.

"Why?"
she persisted, her heart racing with every breath she took, her body trembling
beneath the possessive touch of his hands. "What
brotherly
advice could you
possibly have for me at this time of night, King McCandless?"

Her voice
taunted, the words teased, and King felt himself losing the fragile grip he had
on reality as their sibling-like relationship was thrown back in his face.

"I'm not
your damn brother," he growled, and pulled her up against the aching
fullness of his body. "And, what I want to give you, Jesse, has nothing to
do with advice."

"Dear
God," Jesse whispered, and felt her legs beginning to give way at the
picture his words drew in her mind.

Jesse knew the
power between them was growing, and she knew that if she didn't stop this, he'd
take her here and now, on the dusty floor of the loft, and never forgive her
for letting it happen.

"King,"
she whispered, allowing his hands to venture farther and farther upward
beneath the worn softness of her shirt, to the warmth and fullness of the
soft, bare skin on her breasts.

"What?"
he muttered, barely able to focus and answer her. The sensation of holding
Jesse in such an intimate way was driving everything but need farther and
farther away.

"I asked you
first," she said, and felt his attention catch at the strangeness of her
words.

"Asked me
what?" he repeated, lost at the turn of conversation.

"Where were
you the last three years of my life? Why didn't you come to
St. Louis
, King?
Duncan
came . . . why didn't you?"

Her voice broke,
and the sadness of her words overwhelmed him. It was only after he found
himself standing alone in the pale beam of moonlight by the window, watching
from above as Jesse slowly made her way back to the ranch house alone, that her
last words soaked into his consciousness. And when they did, it was too late.
Too late to call her back. Too late to stop the jealousy and rage that sent him
to his knees.

A light gray,
nondescript sedan pulled into the narrow tree-lined driveway, and then stopped
suddenly as a young boy darted across the driveway on a bicycle.

The man behind
the wheel of the car and the boy on the bicycle looked at each other in stunned
silence, each thanking their own luck for the near miss. Then the man rolled the
car window down and frowned as a fly darted in through the opening.

"Damn!"
he muttered, knowing he'd ride with that fly the rest of the day. "Hey,
kid!" he called. "You better be more careful. You could get hurt
pulling a stunt like that." He took the wide-brimmed Stetson off his head
and wiped at the sweaty place along his forehead where it fit too snugly. He
needed a haircut. Then his hat wouldn't fit so tight.

The boy watched
wide-eyed, and then remembered where he'd been going in all his excitement.

"Thanks,
mister," he yelled. "I'll be careful." He pointed up the
driveway in an excited tone of voice. "You going up there with the other
cops?" he asked, deciding that this man was a sheriff because of his
cowboy hat.

"What
cops?" the man asked suddenly, looking around with extreme interest.

"The ones up
at the drunk's place. They been there since daylight. But Petey, who lives in
the house by me, says no one was inside when the cops busted down the door. I'm
going to see. I want to be a cop when L grow up." He puffed out his skinny
little chest with importance.

"Say,
kid," the cowboy called, but got nowhere since the boy began riding off on
his bicycle, yelling over his shoulder as he pedaled away.

"I got to
go. And I'm not supposed to talk to strangers."

Curses filled the
car as the man slammed the hat back on his head and shut himself in with the
fly. He backed carefully out of the drive and quickly drove away.

"At least he
was gone," he muttered, and wondered what to do next. He knew he had to
find Lynch before the police. Wiley Lynch would sell his mother for a drink.
There was no way he'd keep his mouth shut about the LeBeau episode. He headed
back to his motel to make some phone calls.

"This
was
the right
place," one of the officers said to Captain Shockey. "We couldn't be
more than six hours behind him." They were judging the time of Lynch's
departure by the state of food scraps left on the kitchen table.

Shockey nodded
his head, while his sharp little eyes scanned the place for something . . .
anything
...
to confirm his growing
suspicion that Lynch had not acted alone. He was a meticulous investigator,
thorough in details that were not always popular with his staff, but invariably
paid off in uncovering vital clues to his cases. Right now he had the men going
through every piece of clothing, every piece of garbage inside and outside the
house. Lynch had obviously not paid his city bills for several weeks and
services, including garbage pickup, had been disconnected. There was quite an
accumulation of the stuff, and it was hot as blazes inside the house. It stunk
to high heaven.

The search had
been in progress for nearly an hour when one of the officers outside the back
door shouted. There was something
...
a tone of voice Shockey recognized, and his adrenaline began to flow. He'd
known this would pay off. Lynch was obviously not a smart criminal. He'd
already made two serious mistakes. He was bound to make others. The second
mistake he'd made was getting caught on videotape after passing a hot check.
The first was ever breaking into Jesse LeBeau's house.

"Captain,"
the officer said, barely suppressing the excitement in his voice as he
carefully opened an old, stained duffel bag and pulled a crumpled piece of
paper from inside the torn lining. He held the paper with something that looked
like long tweezers to keep from damaging the evidence, and carefully handed it
to Shockey.

"Look at
what I found inside this bag. I wouldn't have even seen it, but I thought the
stains on the bag might possibly be blood stains. I checked closer, and this
was caught in the lining."

"I knew
it," Shockey muttered, as he turned the paper for a better look. The
carefully clipped letters from newspaper print spelled certain guilt for Wiley
Lynch. "I knew there was more to this than a random break-in! This is a
ransom note! He was trying to kidnap her. If she hadn't resisted
...
if she hadn't fought
..."
Then his train of thought
sharpened and he focused again. "Good work!" he said. "Get this
to the lab immediately, along with that bag. Now I know he must have had an
accomplice. This note was constructed with precision and neatness. There's not
a crooked cut on one of the pasted letters. Lynch couldn't cut his own throat
right. Someone else put this together. Let's find out who."