Desperate Hearts

by Alexis Harrington

  As if she had no will or strength left, she leaned against him, comforted by the feel of his arms around her. This was not Jace Rankin, she thought with hazy surprise. Not the man with a reputation known throughout the territory. This was that other man, a handsome, warm-blooded stranger who smelled of soap and leather and horses, who offered reassurance and murmured a homey endearment. The one who had saved her life and had even washed her hair, and made her blood rush through her veins, hot and sweet, when he kissed her. A man to whom she could entrust her safekeeping—for a little while, anyway.

  “Can you travel?” he asked at length.

  She nodded against his chest, where her tears had dampened his shirt. “All right,” she agreed, loath to leave the security and warmth of his arms.

  Jace helped her stand and boosted her into his saddle. Then he climbed up behind her and wrapped her in his duster again. “Hold it closed around you,” he said and turned his horse toward the ridge. The animal shifted a bit under the extra weight, but he made the adjustment and moved forward to wade through the deepening drifts.

  Kyla’s feet were numb with cold, and she’d lost a glove somewhere during this debacle. She knew that they were in far more serious danger than she’d originally thought.

  But if anyone could save them, she knew Jace could.

  * * *

  “Oh, I think it’s starting to rain!” Kyla sat forward in the saddle, her hat askew from leaning against Jace.

  They were down to the last daylight. As twilight settled over the mountains, the snow began to change to rain. Jace felt the tight muscles in his shoulders relax a bit—they had crossed the ridge and now were near the bottom of the downward trail. Rain meant that they were out of immediate danger. But unlike snow, the rain fell in a heavy, cold torrent that soaked everything, including Kyla and him.

  “Yeah, but we need to find a place to stop for the night. And it doesn’t look like there’s a dry spot left in whole section.”

  An incongruous bright band of sunlight opened on the western horizon, just where the sun was setting. Jace scanned the terrain in the remaining light, searching for a likely place to make camp. But he saw no rocky overhangs, no dry, sheltering copses. He found only straggling scrub and drenched ground. If they had to camp in the open, they probably wouldn’t even be able to get a fire going.

  Being wet and cold, though, didn’t quite distract him from the soft female resting against him inside his coat. Oh, sure, she had dressed as Kyle again, but just as he’d anticipated, he no longer noticed her disguise. He only remembered the woman behind it who tantalized him more than he wished, who made him think that he might be able to begin his life again. Maybe here, maybe somewhere else. Kyla might even decide to leave the Vigilance Union to heaven and come with him.

  Now and then he got a glimpse of her profile when she turned her head. Her complexion looked like rich cream in the sunset light. It didn’t tax his imagination to envision her in his arms, soft and yielding, her warm, soft flesh surrounding him. With every day that passed, the picture became more intimate, more boldly urgent. He realized that even if he were to visit the upstairs rooms over some saloon, it would do no good. Only Kyla could extinguish the fire that burned in him. Only by losing himself in the sharing of their bodies would the ache be soothed, the wanting be satisfied.

  And the hell of it was, he knew that the chance for such an event was less than none. After Tom Hardesty, Kyla’s spirit had some healing to do before she’d invite the attentions of a man. Maybe Hardesty wasn’t the whole story, either. Someone else had hurt her, he suspected, long before that.

  “Hey, what’s that?” she asked then, mercifully interrupting his thoughts. She pointed at a rough structure ahead.

  “I don’t know,” he said, “but if it has walls and no one shoots at us from the door, we’re staying there tonight.”

  Riding closer, they discovered an abandoned cabin. It loomed in black silence in the rain, lonesome and forsaken.

  “Do you think it belongs to anyone?” Kyla almost whispered.

  “Not anymore it doesn’t. There are lots of deserted mining shacks like this scattered around these parts.”

  He pulled the Henry out of its scabbard and climbed down to investigate the place to make sure no animals, wild or human, had taken up residence. With the rifle braced diagonally across his torso, he kicked open the door, then jumped aside and waited for a reaction from within. But only the screech of rusted hinges cut through the rain.

  Inside the tiny cabin, he struck a match and held it high. He found a couple of pieces of rough, homemade furniture, an oil lamp, a stove, and some firewood. A veil of gray dust rested on everything, and a few dry leaves lay in the corners, probably blown in under the door.

  Plainly, no one had lived here for quite a while, although not so long that the wood had begun to rot. At least the roof didn’t leak, and it had a puncheon floor instead of dirt, an extravagant luxury in a cabin like this.

  “All right, come on,” he said, and walked back to his own gear. “It’s not fancy, but it’s better sleeping in the wet.”

  Stiffly, Kyla swung a leg over the saddle and followed Jace into the shack. She hadn’t done any serious damage in her fall, but some of her muscles were beginning to creak.

  Jace laid the Henry across the table and touched a match to the oil lamp. She gazed over the top of the flame and encountered his ice blue eyes that held her without touching her, called her to him without words. Every detail of his appearance sprang to her notice—the length of his dark lashes, the mahogany and ebony stubble in his beard, the curve of his mouth. Heat and energy ricocheted between them in instant, making her draw a deep breath.

  Had it been only last night that he’d taken her into arms and kissed her? Suddenly the rough, one-room cabin seemed even smaller.

  He broke the contact first, tossing his rig into the corner. He unrolled his blankets, pointedly reminding Kyla that her own bedding now lay at the bottom of ravine.

  “Where will I sleep?” she asked, fearing the answer.

  “Well, since your things are lost, unless you’ve got better idea I guess it’s going to be right here with me.”

  Being weary and cold hadn’t robbed Kyla of ability to blush, and she felt her face flame with heat. She knew Jace had slept next to her at least once back in Misfortune, but she’d been sick then, and he’d been nearly dead with exhaustion. That was not the case now.

  Stripping off his soaked duster and hat, he gestured at the stove. “I’ll see if I can fire up that old thing so we can warm up and dry our gear.” He eyed the pipe. “I hope that chimney will draw.”

  Kyla noticed that his shirt was wet, too, and clung damply to his skin, sculpting every detail of muscle and tendon beneath. Protected by his coat and the shelter of his body, she had fared much better in the rain.

  Forcing her attention away from the flex of his shoulders as he collected the firewood, she threw her hat and coat on the table and glanced around the dark room. It had just one small window, and its glass was broken. A narrow rope-strung bed stood against one wall, and a single shelf that still held a couple of tin cans with faded labels served as a kitchen. A little table upon which the lamp rested stood against the opposite wall.

  “Someone must have had a hard life here,” she said, running her fingers over the battered tabletop. “This place isn’t much bigger than a closet. And it would be so lonely.”

  Jace crouched in front of the open stove, feeding the dry wood into its belly. “These shacks were built by men who chased some addled, moonstruck dream about striking it rich on gold in the hills. I guess they didn’t realize how rarely that happens.”

  She looked at him over her shoulder. “Did you ever have a dream? Something you longed for?” Despite what he had revealed about his past, he didn’t talk about himself.

  His back was turned to her, but she thought she him sigh. “Yeah—I got over it.”

  She gazed at the open range through the broken w
indow. “That’s too bad. Everyone needs hope.”

  “Yeah? What are you hoping for?” he asked. She faced him again. Tall, bright flames that leapt in the stove cut his silhouette.

  “You know what I want—to get the ranch back, to even with Hardesty.”

  “And what did you want before that?” Shutting the stove door, he pivoted on his knee to look at her. Somehow he had become the questioner, and she one on the spot.

  She shrugged uncomfortably. “Oh, I don’t remember now.”

  He stood and took off his wet shirt, draping it over back of a chair that he turned toward the fire. “I think you remember just fine.”

  She backed up a step, confounded by the length and breadth of his bare upper torso, and his long dark hair that brushed his shoulders. Undone by his assertion, her gaze dropped to the waist of his jeans hanging low his hipbones. “Well, maybe I do remember. But it ain’t none of your business.”

  Much to her relief and vague disappointment, he reached into his gear and brought out another shirt, threading his arms into the sleeves. Not bothering with the buttons, he moved one step closer and reached for her hand. His fingers, warm and strong, closed around hers, and her heart fluttered in chest. She thought she ought to pull away, but had no will to do so.

  “Come on, Kyla, we’ve seen a lot together. Come out from behind that disguise and tell me about it,” he murmured.

  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.