Secrets and Lies: He's a Bad Boy\He's Just a Cowboy (45 page)

“So am I, Heather.”

“If I’d known you’d come back…”

In the half-light, he stared at her with disbelieving eyes. “What would you have done, Heather? Waited for me?”

“I—I don’t know,” she admitted, realizing that she couldn’t lie ever again. Tears glistened in her eyes and impulsively she threw her arms around the neck of her child’s father. She held him close, refusing to sob for the years they hadn’t shared together, forbidding the tears to drizzle from her eyes. Her lips moved of their own accord, gently kissing his cheek, and his arms wrapped around her—strong and warm and secure.

Without thought, she closed her eyes and tilted her face upward, molding her mouth to his. A tremor ripped through his body, and his kiss became harder, more insistent.

His arms held her possessively and her knees turned weak. Heat rushed through her veins and his mouth explored the hollows of her cheek and her ears. Desire spread through her veins like liquid fire. She trembled as his hands found the hem of her T-shirt and touched her skin. Sucking in her breath, she felt the tips of his fingers scale her ribs and move upward to cup her breast.

“Heather,” he whispered into the shell of her ear, and her legs gave way. Together they tumbled onto the hay-strewn floor of the stall, legs and arms entwined. Dust motes swirled upward and the horse in the stall next door shifted, snorting loudly.

A thousand reasons for stopping him crowded in her mind, but as he lay over her, his rock-hard body fitting against hers, the reasons disappeared and desire, long banked, burst into flame.

As he lifted her shirt over her head, he stared down at her and a small groan escaped him. He pressed his face into the cleft between her breasts and he sighed against her skin. Her nipples grew taut as he removed the rest of her clothes and kissed her flesh, sending shock wave after shock wave of delicious hunger through her.

Her own fingers stripped him of his shirt and trailed in wonder over the hard, sinewy strength of his arms and chest.

Turner’s mouth covered hers as he tore off her slacks and underwear and he kicked off his boots and jeans to lie beside her. She circled his chest with her arms and kissed the sworling mat of hair that hid his nipples. He groaned again and trembled.

“I’ve dreamed of this,” he muttered into her hair as he poised himself above her. “I don’t think I can…I can’t stop.”

“Don’t stop,” she whispered. “Please, don’t ever stop.”

His mouth slanted over hers and he parted her legs with his knees, hesitating just a second before entering her in one hard thrust.

“Turner, oh, Turner,” she cried. The sounds of the night faded, and Heather, driven by a desire so hot she was certain she was melting inside, moved to meet the rhythm of his strokes. She clung to him, her fingers digging into his shoulders, his muscles contracting and flexing as she soared higher and higher, like a bird taking flight, rising to some unseen star until the night seemed to explode around them. And Turner, his body drenched in sweat, fell against her, crushing her breasts and breathing as if he’d run a marathon.

“Oh, God, Heather, what’re we doing?” he whispered, kissing her naked chest. Hay and straw stubble poked at her skin and she almost laughed.

“Making up for lost time.” She held him close, kissing his crown, smiling sadly as she noticed the stubborn swirl of light hair at his crown—so like Adam’s. Her throat grew thick and tears once again threatened her eyes as she realized that she was now, and forever would be, a part of his life. His lover. The mother of his child. The woman he alternately hated and made love to. But she would never be his wife, would never be the woman to whom he would turn when he needed compassion or empathy or comfort.

He rolled off her and cradled her head against his shoulder. Together they stared through the darkness up to the rafters. Turner’s voice was still raspy when he said, “This was probably a mistake.”

“Probably.” Her heart felt bruised.

“But not our first.”

“No.”

“And certainly not our last.” He sighed heavily. “You’ve always been a problem for me, Heather,” he admitted. “I’ve never known exactly what to do with you.”

Just love me,
she silently cried, but knew her sentiment was foolish, the product of an emotion-wrenching day mixed with the slumberous feel of afterglow. “All I want from you is what you’ve already agreed to do,” she said softly. “You don’t have to worry about anything else.”

“But I will want my time with him. You’ve had him a long time. Now it’s my turn.”

“I can’t—”

“Shh.” He said, kissing her again and stoking the long-dead fires to life once more. Heather couldn’t stop herself, and saw no reason to. She’d leave a little later, resume her life in San Francisco and deal with the aftermath of making love to Turner then. But for now…she pressed her lips to his.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
URNER THREW A CHANGE OF
clothes into a battered old duffel bag and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He didn’t look any different than he had a week ago, and yet now he was a father…or at least it was beginning to look that way. And he was involved with Heather Tremont—make that Heather Leonetti—again. Even now, at the thought of her lying in his arms, his loins began to ache.

He forced his thoughts away from her lovemaking and concentrated on her tale about him fathering Adam. He couldn’t see any reason Heather would lie, no angle she could play for her own purposes. He still didn’t trust her, but he did believe that she was telling the truth about the boy—and that, yes, he was a father. He also didn’t doubt that she loved the boy very much. He’d recognized the fire in her eyes when she’d talked of saving Adam’s life, seen the fear tighten the corners of her mouth when she’d thought Turner might try to take the boy away.

He’d considered it, of course. For hours on end. His initial shock at having learned he was a father had given way to a quiet rage that swept through his bloodstream and controlled his mind. She’d had no right,
no friggin’ right,
to keep Adam’s existence from him.

And then to marry Leonetti and pass the kid off as his. He’d thought a lot of things about her in the past, but he hadn’t really blamed her for their breakup. He’d been the one who had taken off, and though he’d been furious to find out that she’d gotten herself married before he returned to Northern California, he’d felt as if he’d asked for it.

He had felt a little like a fool, for he’d half believed her when she’d vowed she loved him six years ago. She’d seemed so sincere, and she’d given herself to him without any regrets, so he’d been confident that he’d been first in her heart.

Then she’d refused to answer his letters or return his calls and within weeks married the boy she’d sworn she didn’t care a lick about. It had seemed, at the time, that she’d only been experimenting with sex, sowing some wild oats with a cowboy before she turned back to the man and the lifestyle she’d always wanted.

But he’d been wrong. Because she’d been pregnant with his kid. Her pregnancy didn’t change the fact that she hadn’t wanted anything more to do with him—hell, she admitted it herself that she would have kept Adam’s parentage a secret for a long time if it hadn’t been for this illness. This damned illness. He’d read up on leukemia and it scared him to his very soul.

It seemed too cruel to believe that he would be given only a short time with the boy and then have him snatched away.

Turner didn’t believe in God. But he didn’t disbelieve, either. He’d been raised a half-baked Protestant by his mother, but had developed his own reverence for the land and nature after her death, blaming God as well as John Brooks for taking his mother from him. In the past few years he hadn’t thought about religion much one way or the other, but now, when his son’s life was nailed on the hope of a team of doctors in San Francisco, Turner wanted very much to believe in God.

Frowning at the turn of his dark thoughts, he grabbed his duffel from the bed and tossed it over his shoulder. He shot a glance to the sturdy oak frame of the double bed he’d slept in for as long as he could remember and tried to picture Heather lying with him on the sagging mattress, beneath the faded old patchwork quilt his grandmother had pieced. Heather with her calfskin shoes, diamond earrings and expensive suits. No, that mirage wouldn’t come to life before his eyes. He was just being foolish.

He walked down a short hallway to the kitchen where Nadine was scrubbing an old kerosene lamp he used when the power went out. She’d tied her hair back into a ponytail and her cheeks were flushed from working on the floor and counters. Seeing his reflection in the brass works of the lamp, she smiled. “Thomas Fitzpatrick called while you were in the barn.”

Turner’s jaw tightened. “Some people just don’t know when to give up.”

She looked at him quickly, then her eyes fell on his duffel bag and her lips turned down a little at the corners. “Sometimes, when people want something desperately, they can’t quit.”

“Fitzpatrick never gives up.”

“So they say. So…you’re all packed?”

“I guess.”

Turning, she attempted to hide a sliver of sadness in her eyes. “You’re going to the city?”

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“There must be a reason.”

Turner offered her his lazy grin. “Maybe it’s time I got more sophisticated.”

She swallowed a smile. “Well, be sure to tell me all about the opera and the ballet when you get back.”

“I will.”

She set the lamp on the windowsill and snipped off the extra leaves of three roses she’d left in the sink. “Why do I have the feeling that your trip has something to do with all those calls from Heather Leonetti?”

“I don’t know. You tell me,” he teased, then regretted the words when she pricked her finger on a thorn and avoided his eyes as she muttered something under her breath. She placed the roses in a vase and set them on the table—her last chore before she left each week.

“You don’t really have to bother with those,” he said, motioning to the heavy-blossomed flowers. “I’ll be gone—”

“I like to,” she cut in. “You could use more of a woman’s touch around here.”

“You think so?”

“I know it.”

“Then why am I happy with the way things are?”

“’Cause you’re a bullheaded fool, Turner Brooks, and if you think you’re happy, I strongly suggest you take a good long look in the mirror.” She grabbed her bucket and supplies and swung out the door.

Turner watched her leave. He should’ve told her the truth, explained about Heather and the boy. But how could he, when he barely understood it himself? It was his problem, keeping things bottled up, never sharing with anyone, but he didn’t figure now was the time to tell Nadine his life story.

Right now, all he could worry about was the son he’d never met. And there was other, unfinished business he had to deal with. As he watched Nadine’s dusty Chevy pull out of the yard, he picked up the phone and dialed the number of the Lazy K.

Mazie answered on the third ring. After a short discussion on the fact that she hadn’t seen Turner for too long a period, she told him that Zeke was still in Montana, scouting up livestock, where he’d been for the past week and a half. If Turner would like, Mazie would give him a message.

“I’ll call back,” Turner replied, as he had the other two times he’d called. He didn’t want Mazie or anyone else from the Lazy K involved. If Zeke had lied way back when, if he hadn’t bothered to tell Turner that Heather had been looking for him six years ago, Turner wanted to hear it from the older man himself.

Heather wasn’t lying about Adam. Turner had determined that she loved the boy and would never have sought Turner out unless she was desperate, which she was. No—he was certain now that the boy was his, but he still didn’t trust her—not completely.

But if she only wanted Turner for his bloody bone marrow, then why make love to him—nearly seduce him? It didn’t fit. He wanted to believe that she still cared for him, but he’d been fooled once before. No. Heather wanted something from him, something more.

He glanced at the acres of ranch land he owned free and clear. Thomas Fitzpatrick was more than interested in the land—the old man had called him just yesterday with another ridiculous offer, but Turner had held firm. A strange, uncomfortable thought crossed his mind and drew his brows into a knot of concentration. Jackson Moore, the man Heather’s sister was planning to marry, was Thomas’s son, his firstborn, the only decent male descendent left since Roy had been killed and Brian had bilked his father out of part of his fortune. Was it possible that Heather was trying to get close to Turner to get him to sell his land to Fitzpatrick? Maybe the old man had offered her a cut of the profits. Turner wouldn’t be surprised. Fitzpatrick would stoop as low as a snake’s belly to get what he wanted, and Heather—well, her track record proved how she felt about money and what it could buy. If Fitzpatrick had gotten to her… But that was too farfetched. Or was it?

Bile rose in the back of Turner’s throat as he climbed into his pickup. First things first. He’d do what he had to do for his boy, and then he’d deal with Heather, find out just exactly what made her tick.

* * *

“
H
E WON’T SELL.”
B
RIAN
F
ITZPATRICK
pulled at the knot of his tie as he flopped into one of the plush chairs near his father’s desk on the third floor of the old hotel that now housed Fitzpatrick, Incorporated. “For some reason, Turner Brooks has decided to keep hold of that miserable scrap of land for the rest of his damned life.”

Thomas studied his son carefully. Brian had never been his favorite; in fact he’d once, years ago, referred to the boy as a “backup” for his firstborn, golden boy, Roy. Although Roy hadn’t really been his eldest. Thomas’s firstborn had been a bastard, born out of wedlock to a woman Thomas had never been able to forget. Oh, he’d stopped his affair with Sandra Moore thirty years before, but he couldn’t kid himself. Never once in all his years of marriage to June did he feel that same exquisite passion he’d had with Sandra.