Cowboy Swagger

by Joanna Wayne

  “I understand.” Tears slid from her eyes and ran down her cheeks. “I’m not even sure I can ever forgive him for robbing my mother of the love she deserved. I know I have to talk to him face-to-face.”

  “When this is over.”

  “No, Dylan. I can’t wait that long. I’m going to his house first thing in the morning.”

  “I can’t see him confessing to anything.”

  “But I’ll know,” she said. “If I’m there, looking him in the eye, I’ll know if he’s lying.”

  “What a disgusting web this has become,” Dylan said. “I thought I’d seen the worst of what life could throw at me when I was a kid and then again in Iraq. But it just keeps coming.”

  “Coming to my rescue certainly didn’t help you.”

  Dylan crossed the room to where Collette stood staring out the window. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back to his chest. “This isn’t our doing, Collette.”

  “Yet we’re entangled in it.”

  Dylan’s lips pressed into her neck, and the heat from the kiss sank deep inside her. But she couldn’t give in to the need for him that swelled inside her, not when so much anguish was pushing them apart.

  “Tell me about you,” she said, pulling away.

  “There’s nothing to tell. What you see is what you get.”

  “How did you earn your medal?”

  “Does that matter?”

  “I need to concentrate on something besides the family mess that we’re in.”

  “Fair enough.” He went back to the bed and perched on the edge, his left hand circling the bedpost. “We were on a search-and-rescue mission in a small Iraqi village where an earlier battle had gone bad.

  “We got trapped by the enemy and had to pull back and wait for more tanks and firepower. We were pretty much secure for the time being when a mother came running from a house shouting that her little girl had been hit by gunfire and begging someone to help.”

  “Was she bait to lure you into danger?”

  “We couldn’t tell, but when she got hit by a rain of bullets from her own people, she just kept yelling for someone to save her daughter.”

  Dylan averted his gaze, staring at the wall. “To make a long story short, I got what coverage I could get from my guys, went into that bombed-out house and carried the daughter to safety. While I was there, I found three American Marines in the wreckage, injured but still alive. By some miracle outside my doing, I got them out and back behind our lines.”

  Dylan was so much a man. He never saw himself as a hero. She’d never see him any other way. Her heart was so full of Dylan Ledger right now that she could barely breathe.

  She walked over, stepped in front of him and put her arms around his neck, pulling his face into the cushion of her breasts. “I can see now why you’re so tough.”

  “That didn’t make me tough, Collette. It made me human.”

  He stood and tugged the towel from her head, letting her damp hair hang free. “Tough would be offering to walk away from you right now.”

  She loosened the belt of her robe and let it slide off her shoulders, leaving her standing naked in front of him.

  “Let’s go for human.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dylan rocked back on his heels, crazy with the need roaring inside him. If he acted on his instincts now, he’d pick up Collette, throw her onto the bed and ravage every inch of her. And likely scare her away for good.

  He had to take this slow. Savor every delicious touch. Pleasure Collette until she ached to feel him inside her with the same rampant, agonizing hunger he was feeling now.

  He cupped her beautiful breasts, letting his thumbs pebble the nipples until they were hard and erect. He wrapped his lips around one, sucking gently and teasing with his tongue. She moaned softly and arched toward him. His erection grew so hard he thought it might burst from the worn denim.

  When he reached down to unzip his jeans Collette’s fingers intertwined with his. She reached her hand inside his briefs and slid her finger around the wet tip of his burgeoning staff. His control was losing steam. The rest of him was hotter than an explosion.

  Still, he held back. His first time with Collette had to be as near perfect as he could make it for her. It struck him then that he’d never felt this way about a woman before. Never thought about the future and that he wanted her not just now, but time after time, day after day.

  That should scare him. It didn’t. His brain was numb with desire.

  She stroked him as he shucked his jeans and shrugged out of his shirt. Passion engorged him and sent blood rushing to his already raging erection. He fell back on the bed, tugging Collette with him as they stretched across the crisp, white sheets.

  The sight of her naked body bathed in the filtered shimmer of moonlight touched his soul. The sweet, salty taste of her lips as he took her mouth with his set him on fire.

  “You’re the one thing I never expected to find in Mustang Run,” he whispered as they came up for air.

  “Is that what took you so long to get here?”

  He didn’t answer. He was too lost in the primal cravings that throbbed in his body and deadened his mind.

  COLLETTE CLOSED HER EYES, afraid to open them even to look at the enthralling hunk of a man who was touching her in the most private of places and sending spikes of pleasure deep into her core. She’d been intimate with men before. She’d never made love like this, never had a raw hunger for anyone possess her this completely.

  She trailed her hand down the length of Dylan’s erection. He captured her hand with his and slipped them both between her legs so that she felt her own slick heat. The uninhibited sharing of their bodies made her want him that much more, and when he lifted himself to straddle her, her heart began to pound like a primitive drum.

  Dylan put his mouth to her ear, nibbling and sucking her ear lobe. “Guide me in, baby. Make me yours.”

  She’d never wanted anything more.

  Wrapping her hand around the hard length of him, she led him to her, holding her breath until she felt him thrust deep inside her. Exhilaration vibrated through her, sending her pulse skyrocketing and creating a river that flowed from her core with liquid fire.

  Dylan’s thrusts became a crescendo, the rhythm building until there was no holding back. He rocked her with him as she exploded into an orgasm so intense she thought her heart might burst free of her body.

  Only then did she feel Dylan let go of the tight rein he’d held on his body. Calling her name, he let the orgasm overtake him, his erection throbbing within her. She milked him with her hips, drawing out every last drop of pleasure. Reveling in the moment, she let her hands trail down his back to his buttocks, memorizing every muscle and sinew.

  Moments later, Dylan rolled over and pulled her into his arms. But even as the golden symphony of afterglow began to hum through her, it was still difficult to breathe. The words I love you echoed in her mind, though she didn’t dare say them out loud. She shouldn’t even think them this soon, but she knew they were true. Maybe a woman always knew.

  The euphoria wouldn’t lessen the problems that waited for them at the first light of morning. But for now, she found heaven here in Dylan’s arms, and no matter what the future brought, she’d hold these memories for the rest of her life.

  MORNING CAME TOO SOON and even the sweet ache in Collette’s thighs wasn’t enough to ward off the anxiety about facing her father with the letters and accusations.

  “You could still wait to do this,” Dylan said, as he followed her directions to the small house her father had moved into after his wife’s death. “Confronting the sheriff might be easier on you after the stalker is behind bars.”

  “I’d consider postponing the inevitable if Dad wasn’t trying to run my life and ruin yours.”

  “Don’t make me the issue here, Collette. This is between you and him. I have my own issues with your father, but I’ll deal with them my way when the time is right and I have all the f
acts.”

  “I just want an explanation. I know it won’t change anything, but I have to brazen out the confusion.”

  “Don’t expect too much,” Dylan said. “Men don’t always grasp all the emotional implications the way women do.”

  “I don’t expect a defining resolution, but I deserve to know if he ever loved my mother or if he destroyed her for the sake of some cruel charade.”

  “Do you want me to go in with you?”

  “No. I have to face him alone. The house is on the right, second one from the end of the block.”

  “I don’t see his car,” Dylan said.

  “He parks it in the garage.”

  She reached for the door handle as Dylan stopped in front of the two-bedroom brick in one of Mustang Run’s older subdivisions. Dylan reached across the seat, put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close for a kiss. It was tempered with restraint but still she felt the impact curl around her heart.

  He brushed a lock of curls from her forehead. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  She marched up the walkway, her fingers clutching the strap of the handbag that held the letters. She pushed the doorbell twice and waited. Seconds later she pushed it again.

  “Hold your horses,” her father shouted. He was barefoot and buttoning his shirt when he opened the door. “Look who’s here and dying to get in.” He stood back for her to enter. “Come to your senses, did you?”

  “I came to talk.”

  “If it’s to convince me Dylan is an innocent saint, you can save your breath. I have no use for the Ledgers. Never have. Never will.”

  “And now I know why.” She unzipped her handbag and took out the letters.

  Her father bent over for a better look, then staggered backward. “Where did you get those?”

  “Mother gave them to me a few weeks before she tried to leave you.”

  He murmured a low curse and pressed his fingertips against both temples. “How in tarnation did she get her hands on those?”

  “She found them in the attic, in an old chest of yours. The question is why did you keep them instead of destroying them?”

  “Who knows why I did anything back in those days? I was a know-it-all college student with a chip on my shoulder.”

  She wasn’t convinced he’d changed all that much.

  “There’s no telling what was up in that attic,” Glenn stammered. “None of it means anything anymore. Mildred, of all people, should have known that.” He padded back to the living room, not seeming to notice or care if Collette followed him.

  When she got there he’d dropped into his worn recliner and was cradling his head in his hands.

  If he thought she was going to drop this, he was wrong. “Do you remember what you wrote in those letters to Helene Ledger?”

  “I don’t care what’s in the damn letters. And she was Helene Martin back then. She wasn’t married. Neither was I at the time I wrote them.”

  “But my mother was pregnant with Bill.”

  “From a stupid mistake one night when—”

  Anger roared through her with such force she had to grip the back of the couch to hold steady. “Don’t call my mother a mistake.”

  “I never have.” His voice cracked. “The pregnancy was a mistake. I married Mildred. We made it right.”

  “But you were still in love with Helene.”

  Glenn threw his hands up in frustration. “I loved another woman thirty years ago, Collette. She dumped me for Troy Ledger. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “No, I want to know if you ever loved my mother.”

  “How dare you ask me that?” Glenn raked his weathered fingers through his thinning hair. His eyes were moist, his lips pulled tight. “I loved your mother from the first day she laid that red, squalling brother of yours in my arms. She had to know that.”

  “How would she, Dad, when all you did was scowl and complain? When you constantly issued orders like a drill sergeant and made light of her wishes?”

  “That’s who I am. She knew that. I loved her. I didn’t tell her enough, but she knew. She had to know.” His shoulders shook. “If she’d only come to me with those stupid letters. If she’d only given me a chance to explain…” He dabbed at his eyes with the cuff of his shirt.

  Seeing her father like this hurt more than Collette would have ever imagined. It was as if they were burying her mother all over again. She ached to go to him and tell him that she believed him, that in spite of all the antagonism of the past, she still loved him.

  But the hurt went too deep to just sweep it away like yesterday’s dirt. And there was still the matter of Troy and Dylan Ledger.

  Glenn stood and finished buttoning his shirt. “I’ll burn the letters,” he said, “the way I should have done thirty years ago. It’s all I can do.”

  “I just have one more question,” she said.

  Finally he met her gaze straight on. “You seem to be the one in control here. Ask away.”

  She didn’t need the control, not anymore. She’d learned more about her father in the past few minutes than she had in the twenty-seven years of her life. He was a blustering bear, but there was more to him. The tender and loving part of him was just hidden so deep inside that few people ever saw the real him. She prayed her mother had, for her sake and for his.

  Unless…

  The remaining question twisted inside her and tore at her heart.

  “Did you frame Troy Ledger for his wife’s murder?”

  The transformation in her father was immediate and dramatic. His features hardened to granite. His eyes became a fiery storm.

  “I put my life on the line any time it’s needed in order to keep the citizens of this county safe, Collette. I don’t back off from criminals, the politics or the media. I might have bent the strict restraints of the law from time to time, but by God, I have never framed any man or woman to get a conviction.”

  “Not even a man you admit to hating?”

  “I didn’t have to. The evidence did that. A jury sent Troy Ledger to prison for brutally murdering his wife and the mother of his children. I would have given him a death sentence. Feel free to tell both Dylan and Troy that.”

  Her father turned and walked out of the room, leaving Collette to deal with his response any way she saw fit. She believed he was telling her the truth, but any chance of reconciliation between them would have to wait.

  The would-be killer who spoke of love and soul mates but dealt in death wouldn’t.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tommy Jo Benoit stared out the window of his grandson’s room on the third floor of Carlton-Hayes Regional Hospital and for the first time in his perverted life contemplated death. Forced to watch his eight-year-old grandson slowly lose his grip on life, Tommy Jo no longer saw death as a vague stagnation existing in grays and black, but as a predator who rode in on a blazing chariot in violent shades of red.

  Tommy Jo would have gladly given his scarred, broken body and devil-owned soul to save the boy’s life. But fate didn’t bargain. Neither did the insurance company.

  Now time was running out and Tommy Jo’s well-laid plans were swirling down the toilet. When the clock was running down with the team behind and the time-outs depleted, someone had to come through with the game-winning play.

  It didn’t have to be pretty. It didn’t have to be safe. It just had to work.

  Tommy Jo reached beneath his jacket and touched his hand to the .45 resting in his shoulder holster. He’d made the deal. He’d see it through, though all the odds were against him now.

  One life for another.

  The pretty daughter of the sheriff would have to die.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The sixth floor was a din of clattering breakfast trays and rolling carts when Collette and Dylan stepped off the elevator.

  “A new guard,” Collette commented, as they neared Eleanor’s room. “The nurses will be disappointed.”

  “He looks like he can handle th
e job to me.”

  “But he’s not nearly as cute as the one on duty yesterday.”

  “I never noticed.”

  “I’d worry if you did.”

  Collette had been shaken and fighting tears when she’d climbed inside Dylan’s truck after talking to her father. He’d let her talk, listening as he always did without passing judgment on her or her father. Though she still had a lot to sort through on that emotional front, Dylan had drastically improved her mood.

  She had to admit now that it was possible that finding those letters had simply ignited a bout of insecurity in her mother, a meltdown that she would have recovered from without killing the marriage once she and Glenn had talked.

  True, her parents hadn’t had the kind of mutual esteem and equality in their union that Collette wanted, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t worked for them. She’d never know for sure, but it helped to realize that in his own way the domineering, stubborn and sometimes downright arrogant sheriff had loved his quiet and compliant wife. She just hoped her mother had found some happiness in the relationship, as well.

  Eleanor’s door opened and a man in a lab coat walked out followed by two nurses. Collette picked up her pace. “I hope that’s just routine physician rounds and not a sign of complications.”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” Dylan replied. “Did you mention to your father that you were planning to show Eleanor our hardware-store suspect’s picture?”

  “It didn’t seem the ideal time for that. He doesn’t like even a hint of us usurping his authority.”

  “As he made clear to me last night.”

  They stopped at the guard and Collette presented her ID.

  “You’re on the all-clear list,” the guard told her.

  “Does the patient have other company?”

  “Melinda Kingston. She’s on the list. Another guy stopped by here not ten minutes ago and tried to talk me into letting him in.”