The Perfect Outsider (18 page)

She dug her nails into his back, trying to grasp onto the pleasure, to make it last, but every muscle in her body went tight and still for a moment, and then she shattered with a soft cry as wave after wave of contractions rocked through her body.

Jesse’s control cracked. As she was shattering under him, he forced her legs open wider with his thighs and entered her with a hard, long thrust to the hilt. She was hot as molten metal inside, and he could feel the aftershocks of her contractions rippling over the length of his erection as he moved inside her.

She arched up her hips, gasping as he sank deeper and her fingernails dug into his neck. He moved wildly, bucking, grinding into her, deep as he could. She groaned in pleasure, rotating her hips, meeting him for every hard thrust he made.

Heat began to build. His vision turned scarlet. He could barely breathe. Every nerve in his body felt exposed, tingling, singing, right down to the hot tip of his erection. Every frustration that had been building in him quivered to the surface of his skin until Jesse felt he was going to explode. His muscles tensed as his vision darkened and his eyes rolled back in his head, and with one final thrust he released into her.

* * *

Breathing hard, body slick with perspiration, Jesse slumped down beside June, holding her close as she kept her legs wrapped around him. And as he gradually softened inside her, a memory began to return, like fire, crackling softly at the edges of his mind. The flames grew louder, bigger, hotter, coming closer. He began to panic as the sound became a roar of cracking and popping and spitting wood as his house burned.

Jesse froze inside.

His heart began to thud all over again.

Not now,
he thought.
Not right now.
But more images came fast, furious, slicing like a hot knife through his brain. He saw the woman again. This time he saw her face. She reminded him of Darcy. That’s why being with Rafe and Darcy had made him so edgy, angry, earlier.

But why the burning rage?

The dark-haired woman smiled at him. Her eyes were large and sparkling blue. In the next sharp image she was wearing white. A bride. He was sliding a smooth gold wedding band onto her finger.

Oh, dear God. Sweat beaded along Jesse’s brow.

He closed his eyes tight, holding on to June, not wanting to let her go, terrified of what these images might mean to him. To her.

He saw a gold band on his own finger and another image flashed through his head—the dark-haired woman, very pregnant. Jesse’s hand was on her stomach.

She was smiling. Anna…no, Annie. His throat turned dry. Her name was Annie.

But then she was crying. He was looking at the dark-haired baby in his own arms…or was it Tyler’s baby? No, not Tyler’s—Annie’s. His. Jesse tried to calm his breathing. It was all coming back—finally coming back. And he didn’t like it. Not one bit. The memory pieces felt like bad snapshots, harsh colors, from a family album that didn’t really belong to him, yet it did. And like a series of random snapshots they were confusing, still not a smooth, continuous picture.

Jesse saw himself on a horse, going away. Far away. There were mountains, snowcapped peaks all around. His horse was negotiating rocky trails and he was going into higher, wilder places in search of…peace, of…something he couldn’t put his finger on. The woman—Annie—his wife’s screams suddenly shattered the peace. Jesse could see fire again. The baby was crying, stuck somewhere in the dark, and the flames were coming. He felt terror grip his heart.

Then nothing. Just silence. Mountains. And guilt. Sickening black guilt. Fear rippled through Jesse. He’d done something to Annie, to the baby. He felt it in the core of his bones. Something bad had happened.

He fingered his naked ring finger and slowly he opened his eyes.

June was propped up on her elbow, watching his face. A fall of red hair curtained her cheek and firelight was soft on her alabaster features. Her eyes glimmered, and she smiled, a little tentatively at first, then it deepened. With surprise Jesse registered she had a dimple.

She could light up a room with that smile. His gaze drifted down to her breasts. The way she was propped up on her side deepened her cleavage and her nipples were dark rose.

He allowed his gaze to go lower. Her stomach was flat, muscles firm. The hair between her legs was the same color as the waves hanging soft over her slender shoulders. He began to stir somewhere deep and carnal all over again.

Her words sifted softly into his mind.

Jesse, please, don’t touch me. I can’t do this. It’s not going to work. I have no idea who you are. You might have a family or something waiting for you.

He swallowed. He’d made a mistake, he’d overstepped the line. And now he had to end it, because Jesse knew with sharp and sudden clarity he could not continue this with June—he was married. And he could not do this to June until he fully understood his relationship with Annie and the baby boy in his memory. Or until he knew where they were now.

A sick wave of nausea crawled up his chest and into his throat. And he didn’t like the bitter taste that came with it.

“What are you thinking, Jesse?” Her voice was soft, sexy. She trailed her fingertips along his waist, feathering the line of a scar.

“About you.”

“They’re like a map, your scars,” she whispered. “A map to your past, carved with blood into flesh. If only I had the key.”

As she fingered the scar on his waist, another image slammed through him: his face hitting dirt, the taste of sand in his mouth. He heard hooves thundering, saw the horns of a steer flash past his eye. Then it was gone. But the taste of dirt and blood in his mouth seemed to linger.

“I think I could love you, Jesse Marlboro.” Her eyes gleamed with sudden emotion. “I wish you could be just him. Just Jesse.”

Her words cut. He felt pain in his chest, so raw. And with sudden clarity he knew it
was
his name—Jesse. The engraved belt buckle had been a Christmas present from Annie. He could see himself opening it by the tree, her smiling as he did.

He felt sick.

Self-hatred twisted into him.

He got up, went into the bathroom and closed the door carefully behind him.

He stood in the darkness for a moment, feeling his heart pound, listening to the rush of blood in his ears. Another image of Annie came to him. She was on a horse, riding behind him with other people. They were single file on a rocky trail in the mountains. Her short hair gleamed almost blue-black in the sunshine. She wore a Western vest and boots. Her laugh was like a wild brook. Sunlight, happiness, sparkled in her eyes. Another image bisected the first. He and Annie making love in a tent. In the mountains,
his
mountains. As abruptly as the vision had come, it was gone, like another night critter scurrying into the dark alleys of his brain.

Jesse flicked on the bathroom light and went to stand over the basin. He stared at his naked body in the mirror. There was no doubt about it, he’d been beaten up in the past, and the history of violence was written in a map of scars all over him, as June had said. His skin gleamed with perspiration and sweat beaded his lip. His eyes looked crazed. He turned on the tap and splashed ice-cold water over his face.

As he did, another memory washed over him. Adrenaline was pounding through his blood, it was hot, a cowboy hat was on his head, a rope swinging in his hand. Muscles burned and hooves thundered on hard-packed dirt.

Steer wrestling.

It hit him with the weight of a hammer—he used to wrestle steers. He’d been gored, stomped on by his horse. But…it felt distant, further away than the memories of the dark-haired woman, the baby. This memory came from a more distant and youthful past. A wilder past.

Jesse peered intensely into the eyes that stared back at him from the mirror.

My Jesse with the blue eyes.
He recognized the voice as his mother’s, from way, way back. He glared harder at his own image, trying to dig further, unearth the secrets still buried in his head.

Jesse swore viciously to himself.

Think, dammit, think!

What did he know about himself? He liked physical action, adrenaline. He abhorred confined spaces, needed the great outdoors. He’d hunted poachers.

He rode horses and had wrestled steers. He slept often under stars.

He’d married a woman named Annie, with laughing blue eyes, and there’d been a child.

Suddenly another image hit him. He was fighting with Annie—they were yelling at each other, really going for it. Jesse felt the rage of the memory in the muscles at his neck, in the clench of his fists on the basin. Annie was crying. Then suddenly they were having sex again—wild, hot, angry. Guilt hammered down on the image, black and ugly.

Jesse! Jesse! Help!

She was screaming suddenly, locked somewhere in his head, the fire raging around her. His fault. But instead of helping her and the screaming baby, he was riding away, on a horse. Far away from her, from the baby.

His mind went blank. He was breathing so hard he felt he might hyperventilate

He slammed his hands down on the edge of the basin, hung his head down, trying to slot the disparate pieces together.

But all he could think of was June, lying naked in the bed on the other side of this door, and how much he wanted
her
.

His eyes burned.

He was falling in love with her. Absolutely no doubt about it. But he had another life and in it was a woman named Annie.

So why was he here in Cold Plains, with no ID, just a pack on his back and the name Samuel Grayson in his mind?

Was Annie in Cold Plains somewhere? With their child? Was she trapped by Samuel and his cult?

He had to find out.

And he had to do it without June.

Jesse needed to know how Annie fitted into his life before he could even begin to think again of June. He had to walk away, now, and it cut him to the core. Because he knew it was going to hurt her. And it was going to hurt him.

He’d hike out of Hidden Valley into Little Gulch before dawn broke. From Little Gulch he’d find an FBI field office. He’d ask the feds to help trace his identity.

If he’d done something terrible to Annie, he
had
to have done it for a reason, because Jesse couldn’t believe he was an evil guy, a bad guy. Sometimes, he thought, a good person could be forced into an act the law might not deem justifiable. And sometimes the legal system itself was morally indefensible.

With a heavy and painful heart, Jesse took a quick shower.

He stepped out of the bathroom with a white towel around his waist.

June was lying on her back on the bed, a sheet covering her body. Her hair was splayed out in a soft halo of waves on the white pillow. She’d fed more logs onto the fire and the room glowed orange. Her eyes were wide, skin pale, and a nervous tension tightened her features as she watched him exit the bathroom.

“Are you okay?” she said quietly.

He raked his hand over his damp hair. “June…I…”

Christ, I don’t know how to say this.

She sat up, gathering the sheet tightly around her chest, and he hated what he was about to do to her. He told himself he was not running away. He was doing this with the faint hope he could find his way back to being with her—if she’d still have him by then.

Taking a deep breath, he jumped.

“June, I need you to understand—” He swallowed. “I need to go away, leave the safe house. Now.”

“Why?” Her eyes crackled suddenly, hands tense on the sheet, her face tight.

His heart hammered. Jesse came up to the bed and sat on the edge.

“I’ve decided to leave before sunup and hike over the mountains to Little Gulch. From there I’ll find an FBI field office and ask them for help in tracing my ID.”

She was silent for what seemed an eternity. Her eyes began to water.

“I…don’t understand, Jesse. I thought you said you didn’t want to involve the feds until—” It hit June suddenly and she sat up, stiff.

“You’ve remembered.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Not all of it. Just slices. But I need to fill in the rest. I have to find out why I am here. I…think someone I know, from my past, might be in danger in Cold Plains.”

“Who?”

He reached out to touch her and she pulled away, got out of bed, wrapping the sheet tightly around her.

“June—”

“Who, Jesse!”

“I’m not sure.”

“It’s a woman, isn’t it? Someone you’re involved with.”

He swallowed. Then nodded.

Her face went white as the sheet.

“What’s her name?” Her voice came out hoarse.

“Annie,” he said, bitterness filling his mouth, his eyes burning. “I…married her.”

An almost imperceptible shock rippled through her body.

“June—”

She pulled back from his touch.

“I don’t
feel
married. I have no ring.” He hesitated. “We had a baby. I can remember a baby in the house.”

Her eyes filled with moisture. A single tear shimmered down her pale cheek.

“Did you know any of this before…before—”

“Before I slept with you? No. I had snippets, but they made no sense. They suddenly seem to be slotting together.”

“Do you know who you are, your name?”

“It is Jesse—the name on my belt. My surname still eludes me. I—I know things that I’ve done, June, not good things. They’re just disjointed pieces, sensations, floating around my brain, and I still can’t put them together in a whole picture. Which is why I’m going to ask the feds to help me.”

“You were afraid of the FBI before. So why now?”

“Now there’s you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Now I will take whatever knocks are coming, because I want to see if I can clear the way to be with you, June.”

He reached for her hand, but June pulled away. She stared at him.

The hurt on his face was visceral. It cut like a knife through her stomach. She felt herself starting to shake inside. “Wait for Agent Bledsoe, please. He’ll be here tomorrow. You can talk to him. You don’t have to go.”