Patricia Potter (21 page)

“I have to talk to you,” Lobo said quietly, ignoring the man next to him.

“Of course,” she said.

Brady growled in his ear, “If you hurt her…”

Lobo ignored him and started up the steps, leaving Brady frustrated and uncertain when Lobo closed the door in his face.

There was something about the gunman that surprised Brady, though he couldn’t say exactly what. But for some reason he didn’t feel that Willow was in danger at that particular moment. He satisfied himself by sitting on the porch steps within hearing distance of any outcry.

Once inside, Lobo looked around. “The kids?”

“All in bed. It was a busy day.” Her smile was even grander, like a sunrise, Lobo thought. Full of hope and innocence.

His tight lips didn’t relax. “I noticed.”

“I didn’t think so many would come,” she said, suddenly very nervous. He’d always looked hard and unyielding, but never as much as now. His eyes were incredibly brilliant, but they said so little.

“You aren’t going to leave here, are you, no matter what anyone threatens or does?”

Willow didn’t care for the frightening intensity in his voice. “Jess—”

Now was the time, Lobo thought. Now. “That’s one of my names, Miss Taylor.”

“One…of…?”

“The other is Lobo.” He knew nothing outward showed the tension that made his insides rigid with expectation. He knew he must look relaxed with his legs spread apart and his hands at ease at his sides.

“Lobo?” she repeated, dazed.

“I was hired to drive you away from here,” he said evenly, expecting an explosion of tears and outrage. And some fear anyway. There was always fear.

A moment’s silence passed as he watched her digest his announcement. Then, unexpectedly, the corners of her mouth turned up. “Are you usually better at your work than you’ve been here?” Despite the twitching lips, the question was posed quite seriously, as if she were really curious.

Much to his consternation, Lobo felt the sides of his own mouth quirking up. “Usually,” he said just as seriously, though a touch of humor warmed his eyes.

They both stood there, once more caught up in a whirlpool of something neither understood, carried along by the swirling, compelling currents that battered all reason, that pulled them together until nothing existed but the irresistible attraction between them.

Willow felt the touch of his hand against her neck, the fingers almost reverent against her skin, and the sensation was warm and tender beyond anything she’d ever imagined.

Her breath was gone, caught someplace between her heart and her throat, as she looked up into the incredible turquoise of his eyes. They weren’t cold and empty now, but raging with confusion and want and need, emotions she knew were mirrored in her own face.

Tentatively, almost fearfully, she lifted her hand, tracing the mouth that was so severe, so joyless, and moved up to his eyes, tracking the lines that spread outward. Pain lines. Not laugh lines. She almost cried as she sensed the hurt he had endured.

Her gaze met his, and she trembled with the knowledge that she was knocking at a room full of secrets and hidden dangers.

But she didn’t care. The warmth from his hand drifted down to her insides, causing small tremors and explosions in the strangest of places. She lifted her face in invitation, and his mouth touched hers.

His lips were smooth and strong, yet so gentle to belong to such a strong man. His kiss was tentative, almost as if he were kissing the wind, an illusion that would disappear.

That disbelieving wonderment stretched between them, arousing so many new, frightening, demanding feelings that neither dared to explore.

For the moment the kiss was enough. It bound them together more completely than any rope, any chain. His fingers moved from her neck up to her cheek, each touch posing a question that she answered with her eyes, as if words might shatter the incredible fragility surrounding them.

She felt the restrained passion and power and strength in his deliberate, gentle touches and in the rigidity of his body, and something intuitive in her told her not to rush him, although she wanted more than anything to feel the full force of his arms around her, the completeness of an embrace.

Willow was afraid to say anything, even his name, although it took every ounce of self-control not to do so. She watched his eyes close, as if in pain, and open again as his lips became harder on hers.

She trembled and opened her mouth. His lips moved hungrily against hers, as if seeking something….

Just as her very senses spiraled out of control, she heard him groan. Suddenly his mouth was gone from hers, and he was gazing down at her with such intensity that she felt she would catch on fire.

His hand caught a curl and touched it, reveling in its feel before he dropped it.

“I didn’t mean that to happen,” he said in a harsh voice, his face marked with anger. “Chrissakes, you don’t know what you’re doing,” he spat out. “I don’t know what
I’m
doing.”

He stepped back, shaking his head at his own folly, and paced back and forth across the room like a caged animal. “Didn’t you hear what I said? I’m Lobo. I’m your enemy, lady. Don’t you understand that?”

Willow felt the return of the giant lump in her throat. They were back to “lady” again. Her hand reached out, wanting desperately to touch him again, to share again that moment of belonging and…enchantment. But it fell to her side when he made no effort to approach her again. Instead, some unintelligible, guttural sound came from his mouth. She could only imagine its meaning.

She waited until he stopped pacing and turned back to her. The perplexity on his face made him look vulnerable, exposed, and angry. She could feel his anger radiating throughout the room.

“Then,” she replied in as common-sense a tone as she could manage, “why did you help us so many times?”

“Have you thought it just might be to gain your trust?”

“Like the…Trojan horse?”

“The what?” Exasperation deepened his voice into something like a growl.

“The Trojan horse,” she said. “It’s an old myth. A Greek army laid siege to a city with defenses so strong it couldn’t be taken by force. So the Greeks offered a gift, a giant wooden horse, which was accepted and pulled into the city. But the givers had filled the wooden horse with armed men, and at night, when the city was sleeping, they emerged from the wooden horse and attacked, taking the city. There’s a saying, ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.’”

The corner of his mouth moved slightly. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Something like that.”

“But the Greeks didn’t warn their victims.” He scowled at her irrefutable logic, and Willow couldn’t stop the small victorious smile that curved her lips.

Just then they heard the sound of a buggy outside, followed by a pounding on the door.

She looked at Jess.

“The sawbones,” he guessed aloud.

Willow looked perplexed as she went to the door and opened it to Sullivan. He looked at her as if to assure himself she was all right, and then his gaze went to the man standing relaxed in the kitchen.

“Lobo?”

He leaned lazily against a wall and nodded.

Sullivan’s gaze went back to Willow. “Are you all right?”

“Of course,” she said, as if entertaining a notorious gunslinger who had been hired to get rid of her was an everyday occurrence.

“Do you know who he is?”

She nodded, her eyes going from one man to the other. They were both bristling like dogs protecting their territory.

Sullivan stared at her in frustration, and then turned again to Lobo. “What are you doing here?”

“That’s none of your business,” Lobo said coolly.

“It’s very much my business. Willow is my friend.”

Lobo raised an eyebrow. “Friend? You do get around. Was that another friend you just took home?”

Sullivan bristled. “I asked what you were doing here?”

“I’m visitin’,” Lobo replied with a drawl. “And you?”

“You came from Newton’s.” It was an accusation rather than a question.

“For a sawbones, you have good eyes.”

“What do you want here, dammit?”

“That’s between the lady and me.” Lobo wasn’t used to questions, and he damned well wasn’t going to take them from this man.

Willow looked at the two men in stunned amazement. Then she noticed that Brady now stood in the doorway, obviously ready to add his bit. The room was full of tension, needing only a spark to explode.

As if on cue, Chad, clad only in long underwear, appeared from his room, one hand rubbing his eyes. “Wha’s the matter?” His eyes sparkled when he saw Lobo. “You came back,” he said with undisguised delight. Sullivan and Brady scowled, and something like embarrassment crossed Lobo’s face at the open hero-worship.

“Go back to bed, Chad,” Willow said evenly.

“But I want to stay….”

“Please.”

Chad looked at Lobo. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

Unable to resist taunting Willow and the two men, Lobo nodded, the slightest smile curling one side of his lips.

“You won’t go away again?” Chad asked.

“Not for a while,” Lobo replied, his tone softening a fraction, Willow noticed.

“Go to bed now, Chad,” she insisted in her most authoritative voice.

“All right,” Chad said reluctantly. Turning to Lobo, he added, “If…you promise to stay.”

Lobo nodded, and Chad retreated, glancing quickly at the others. “G’night.”

As soon as he was gone, Sullivan turned to Willow. “He’s not staying!”

Since Jess’s statement came as much as a surprise to her as it did to the two men, she could only look back at him. She realized that even though she now knew the stranger was the man called Lobo, she could think of him only as Jess. Her Jess. Their Jess.

She turned the full power of her blue eyes on him now. “Are you going to stay?”

“Is that offer of a job still open?”

“Yes.” Nothing had changed as far as she was concerned. Jess or Lobo, he had helped them repeatedly at the risk of his own life. She would trust him with her own life now.

Lobo nodded almost imperceptibly as a gleam flashed in his eye, an open challenge to the other men in the room.

“Willow!” Sullivan protested.

“It’s crazy,” Brady declared.

“It’s done,” she told them. There was the smallest hint of victory on Lobo’s lips, and Willow wondered whether he’d taken the job to provoke the other two.

But she didn’t care. Her heart had started pounding faster when he’d answered Chad, and now she could barely breathe. Her gaze met his, and electricity flashed between them like lightning on a summer night.

“I’ll bed down in the barn,” he said, sauntering arrogantly through the door and out of sight.

“Willow, do you know what you’re doing?” Sullivan’s face was creased with worry. “He just left Newton’s. They probably hatched some scheme together.”

“I think he was about ready to tell me before you two came in,” she said.

Brady looked down at the ground, his face a mask of humiliation and helplessness, and Willow felt a jab of regret. “He won’t take your place, Brady. You’re family.”

But Brady didn’t say anything. He just stared at her for several moments, then followed Lobo out the door, leaving Willow alone with Sullivan.

“Willow, he’s a very dangerous man.”

“He’s more than that,” Willow said. “He’s much more than that.”

“You can’t keep taking in every lost soul you see, especially a predator like that.”

“You didn’t see him with Chad,” she said.

“I know about wild animals. You never know when they’ll strike.”

“Sullivan…”

“Not this time, Willow. I won’t support you this time. Not with him.”

Willow bit her lip.

“You turned down Gar Morrow’s offer of a gunslinger. Why not now?”

“Because…Jess is…he’s…well, he’s a friend.”

“Goddammit, Willow, you might as well have a rattlesnake as a friend. They’re both just as predictable.”

Willow had never heard Sullivan swear before, and she knew it was a measure of his concern. But she also knew she was right about Jess. “Even Estelle isn’t afraid of him,” she tried again. “And you know yourself she doesn’t trust easily or without good reason.”

He sighed. “Everyone else in the world is, and
with
good reason.”

“He wouldn’t hurt Chad or the twins or Sallie Sue.”

“And you?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“The hell you can. Look at what’s been happening.”

“Nothing’s happened. Because of Jess.”

“Lobo, dammit. His name is Lobo, and the name suits him.”

“I don’t think so,” she said stubbornly.

“Tell him to leave.”

“No.”

“Listen, Willow. You know the way the town felt about Estelle, and even Chad. If Lobo stays here—”