Breathless Innocence

by Lisa Jackson

  Telling herself to forget him, she walked back to the ranch house and swatted at a bothersome mosquito that was buzzing near her face. Muttso, a scraggly shepherd with one blue eye and one brown, was curled up on a rug on the porch near the screen door. He yawned lazily as she passed. Inside the kitchen, Mazie was washing a huge kettle she’d used to cook jam. The fruits of Mazie’s labor, twelve shining jars of raspberry preserves, were labeled and ready to be stored in the pantry.

  “How’d the lesson go?” Mazie asked as she twisted off the taps. The old pipes creaked and the faucet continued to drip. “Damned thing.” Mazie swiped her hands on her apron, then mopped her sweaty brow with a handkerchief. Her face was the color of her preserves and she was breathing hard.

  “The lesson? It was fine,” Heather hedged.

  “Turner take off?” Mazie asked. Without waiting for a reply, she shoved aside the muslin curtains and looked out the window to the parking lot and the empty spot where Turner usually parked his truck. Absently, she reached into a drawer for her cigarettes. “That boy’s got a lot to carry around,” she said as she lit up and snapped her lighter closed. Letting out a stream of smoke, she said, “His pa’s got himself in trouble again.” Mazie untied her apron and hung it on a peg near the pantry door, then turned toward Heather.

  “Booze. Old John can’t leave it alone, and when he goes on a bender, look out!” Mazie pressed her lips together firmly and looked as if she was about to say something else, but whatever secret she was about to reveal, she kept to herself. “It’s a wonder that boy turned out to a hill of beans. You can thank Zeke Kilkenny for that. Never had a son of his own—took his sister’s boy in when he needed it.”

  “So Turner went to meet his father tonight?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Long as I can remember, Turner’s been bailing John out of jail. Looks like nothin’s changed.” Mazie, as if suddenly realizing she’d said too much, waved toward the preserves. “Now, you put those jars where they belong in the pantry. I don’t have all night to sit around gossipin’.”

  Heather did as she was told, but she couldn’t help wondering where Turner was and when he’d be back.

  Later, she climbed into her bunk bed and picked up her sketch pad. Gazing through the window, she began to draw idly, her fingers moving of their own accord. Soon, Turner’s face, scowling and dark, was staring back at her.

  Sheryl, face scrubbed, walked into the room. She glanced up at Heather, her gaze slipping quickly to the sketch pad propped by Heather’s knees. Sadness darkened her eyes. “I heard that Turner left,” she said, flopping onto her bed. The old mattress creaked.

  “That’s right,” Heather replied.

  “Is he gone for good?”

  Heather’s heart froze. “For good?”

  “For the season. His shoulder’s healed up and I thought he’d entered a few more rodeos—that he’d be leaving soon.”

  “I—I don’t know,” Heather admitted, her insides suddenly cold.

  “Well, even if he comes back, he’ll be leaving soon. Believe me. He always does.”

  There was no riding lesson the next day, nor the following evening, either. Turner hadn’t returned, and Heather silently called herself a fool for missing him. Was Sheryl right? Had he just taken off without saying goodbye? Her heart ached as if it had been bruised. She hadn’t realized how much she’d looked forward to their time together.

  “You must really be bored,” she told herself on the third evening when Turner’s pickup rolled into the yard. Her heart did a stupid little leap as she watched through the dining-hall window and saw him stretch his long frame out of the cab. He looked hot and tired and dusty, and the scowl beneath three days’ growth of beard didn’t add to his charm.

  He spent the next hour with his uncle in the office and when he emerged, Heather, from the kitchen window, saw him head straight for the corral. Though she still was supposed to wipe down the tables, she tore off her apron and ran upstairs. Within minutes she’d changed into jeans and a blouse and was racing down the back staircase. She practically flew out the back door, nearly tripping over Muttso. The old dog growled and she muttered an apology as she flew by.

  But the corral was empty and her heart dropped.

  Turner’s pickup was still parked in the yard, but she didn’t think he’d gone to the bunkhouse. “Damn,” she muttered under her breath. Why she felt so compelled to talk to him, she didn’t understand, and yet compelled she was. She hurried to the stables, flipping on the lights and disturbing more than one anxious mare.

  A sliver of light showed beneath the tack room door, and Heather hurried past the stalls and through the short hallway. Her boots rang on the concrete floor and she ripped the door open. Billy Adams, a boy of about nineteen, and one of the younger ranch hands who worked at the Lazy K, was seated on an old barrel and furiously polishing a bridle. He looked up and his freckled face split with a smile at the sight of her.

  “Have you seen Turner?” she asked, and tried not to notice that Billy’s boyish grin wavered a bit.

  “He just took off.”

  “To where?”

  “I don’t know. He just saddled his horse and headed into the hills.”

  “North?” Heather asked, her mind racing.

  Billy lifted one scrawny shoulder. “Guess so.”

  “Thanks!” She didn’t pause to hear if he responded, just headed back to the stables. Sundown was a range horse and wasn’t put in each night and Nutmeg was sadly missing, as well. But Heather wasn’t to be thwarted. Bridle in one hand, she ran back to the kitchen, slunk into the pantry and stole several sugar packets. Feeling like a thief, she raced back to the paddocks and spied Sundown lazily plucking grass in the pasture.

  “Come on, you old mule,” she said with an affectionate smile. “Look what I’ve got for you.”

  Sundown nickered softly and his ears cocked forward. His eyes were still wary, but he couldn’t resist the sweet temptation she offered, and soon Heather snapped the bridle over his head. “Your sweet tooth’s going to be your downfall,” she chided.

  She didn’t bother with a saddle, just led the big sorrel out of the pasture, and closed the gate. Swinging onto his broad back, she gave a soft command, and Sundown, bless him, took off. She didn’t know where Turner had gone, but she crossed her fingers, hoping that he’d returned to the bend in the river where they’d first met.

  Her heart was racing in tandem to the thud of Sundown’s hoofbeats as he tore through the forest, along the trail, guided by the fading light of a dying sun. She didn’t think about what she would say when she caught up with Turner, didn’t dwell on the disappointment of not finding him at the swimming hole. She knew only that she had to see him.

  The smell of the river was close, and the hint of honeysuckle and pine floated on the air. Heather pulled hard on the reins as the trail widened and the trees gave way to the rocky bank where Sampson was tethered.

  Heather’s gaze swept the river and she spotted Turner as he broke the surface near the rocky ledge that jutted over the water. His eyes met hers for a brief instant before he placed both hands on the shelf and hauled himself out of the water. Naked except for a pair of ragged cutoff jeans, he tossed the water from his hair and wiped a hand across his face.

  Heather’s throat went dry at the sight of his wet, slick muscles moving effortlessly as he shifted to a spot where he could sit comfortably. She noticed for the first time a purple scar that sliced a jagged path across his tanned abdomen.

  “You lookin’ for me?” he asked, his gaze piercing and wary, every lean muscle taut.

  She would have liked to lie, but couldn’t very well deny the obvious. “We, uh, we haven’t had a lesson for a few days.” Dismounting quickly, she tied the reins of Sundown’s bridle to a spindly oak and wondered how she was
going to reach Turner and why she bothered to try. He wasn’t happy that she’d shown up; in fact, he seemed to be trying to tame a raging fury that started a muscle leaping in his jaw.

  “Thought you hated the lessons,” he observed.

  “Thought you did, too.”

  The ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I’ve been busy.”

  “I heard.”

  He froze, and his eyes drilled into hers. “You heard what?” he said, his voice so low, she could barely hear it over the rush of the river.

  She wanted to squirm away from his stare, and yet she stood, stuffing her hands into her pockets for lack of anything better to do, trying to keep her chin at a defiant angle. “I heard you had some trouble.”

  “That damned Mazie,” he growled. “Doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.”

  “Seems as if it’s common knowledge.”

  “Or common gossip. Christ, I hate that.” He picked up a smooth stone and flung it so hard that it flew across the river and landed with a thunk against a tree trunk on the opposite shore. Throwing his arms around his knees, he glowered mutinously across the rushing water. “What is it you want, lady?” he said without so much as tossing her a glance.

  “I just thought you might want to talk.”

  “I don’t.”

  “But—”

  He swiveled around so fast to stare at her that she nearly gasped. “You made it perfectly clear what you thought of me the first time we met, and every day thereafter. Now you’d better climb on that damned horse of yours and ride out of here or I might just show you how much of a gentleman I ain’t.”

  “You don’t scare me,” she said, though her insides were quivering.

  “Well, I should.”

  “Why?” She walked up to the ledge where he was sitting and stared down at his wet crown. Drops of river water still clung to his hair, causing the gold streaks to disappear. He leaned back, his eyes focused on her so intently that her heart nearly stopped. With eyes that smoldered like hot steel, he studied her for a long, breathless moment.

  “Because,” he said, rising to his more than six feet and taking his turn to stare down at her. “Because I think about you. A lot. And my thoughts aren’t always decent.”

  Oh, God. Her knees threatened to crumble.

  “So, what’re you really doing here, Heather?” Reaching forward, he touched the edge of her jaw, drawing along the soft underside with one damp finger. She trembled and swallowed hard as his gaze searched the contours of her face. “Because we both know that you and I, alone, can only mean trouble.”

  Her heart was pumping, its erratic beat pounding in her eardrums and her skin, where he touched it, felt on fire. Knowing she was stepping into dangerous, hot territory, she decided to plunge in further. “I came here because I care, Turner.”

  He snorted in disbelief.

  “Mazie said that you were having a rough time of it, and I thought I…I hoped that I could help.”

  He barked out a hard laugh, and the finger that was traveling along her chin slid lower, down her neck, pausing at the slope of her shoulder before sliding down between her breasts. “And how did you think you’d do that, eh?” he asked, but his own breathing seemed suddenly as uneven as her own.

  She grabbed his wrist and held his hand away from her. “Don’t try to cheapen this, okay? I’m here as a friend.”

  “Maybe I don’t need a friend right now. Maybe I need a lover.”

  Her stomach did a flip. Sheryl’s warning flitted into her head then disappeared like morning fog. “Maybe you need both.”

  He eyed her silently, his gaze moving down her body slowly, then up again. “I think you’d better get on your horse and leave, little girl, while you still can.”

  “I said it before, Turner Brooks. I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Then you’re a fool, Heather.” Reluctance flared in his eyes for just a second as he grabbed her and yanked her body hard against his. Before she could utter a word of protest, he pressed his hot lips to hers, molded his wet body against her own and kissed her with such a fevered passion, she thought she might pass out. His arms were strong and possessive, his body as solid and hot as she’d imagined.

  Closing her eyes, she swayed against him. The river seemed to roar in her ears and the thunder of her heart was only eclipsed by the sound of his, beating an irregular tattoo. His tongue pressed hungrily against her teeth, and she opened her mouth, feeling the sweet pressure of his hands against the small of her back. She felt weak and powerful all at once as emotion upon emotion ripped through her.

  She thought of denial, of surrender, of love and of hate, but she was powerless to do anything but return his kisses with her own awakening passion which exploded like a powder keg at his touch. One of his hands lowered, cupping her buttocks, lifting her from her feet so she could feel his hardness, his desire. Still she wasn’t frightened, and all her doubts seemed to float away into the twilight. She was a virgin, a girl who had never experienced the thrill of a man’s passion and for the first time in her life, her virginity seemed no longer a virtue, but a prison.

  With Turner, she could be freed of the bonds. She ran her fingers down his shoulders, feeling the corded texture of his skin, tasting the salt on his lips, smelling the powerful scents of maleness and river water.

  Lifting his head, he stared down at her for a second. His eyes were no longer angry but glazed. A red flush had darkened the color of his skin. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “I don’t care….”

  “This is insane—”

  She kissed him again, and with all the strength he could muster, he grabbed her forearms and held her at arm’s length from him.

  He was breathing hard now and his lips were pale with strain. “Listen to me, damn it! We’re playing with fire, here, and one of us is gonna get burned.”

  Her senses were spinning wildly out of control, but slowed instantly as she realized that he was rejecting her. She, who was ready to offer him her body as a means to balm his wounds, was being told that he didn’t want her. Tears, unwelcome drops of misery, suddenly filled her eyes. “Turner—”

  “Don’t you see, Heather? I’m just using you!” he said, though the pain in his eyes wouldn’t go away.

  “I don’t believe—”

  “I don’t want you, I just want someone. Got it? Any woman would do.”

  Her heart crumbled into a million pieces; he couldn’t have hurt her more if he’d thrust a white-hot knife into her chest. “You don’t mean—”

  “We’re not the same, you and I. Men don’t think like women. So if you want me just because you want to experiment with sex, or you don’t really give a damn and just want to get laid, then we’re okay. But if you think that what’s happening here has anything to do with love or romance, then you’d better get on that damned horse and hightail it out of here.”

  A small cry escaped her lips.

  “I mean it, Heather,” he said, squeezing her arms so hard that they hurt. Pain swept through his eyes, but he didn’t back down.

  “I…I…I just wanted to help you,” she whispered, tears drizzling down her face.

  “Don’t sacrifice yourself. I’m not worth it,” he said bluntly as he dropped her arms. “No one is. Save yourself for your boyfriend back in Gold Creek.”

  “I don’t—” she said, but bit off the rest. Somehow he’d heard about Dennis. “We broke up.”

  “Then don’t use me to get even with him.”

  Without thinking, she raised her hand and slapped him so hard the smack echoed through the canyon. “I’m not using you.”

  “You’re right about that, darlin’,” he drawled, rubbing the side of his face.

  Emotions all tangled, her vision blu
rred, she ran and stumbled blindly. The horse was where she’d left him, and she threw herself across his back, swung one leg over and kicked with all her might. Holding back sobs of humiliation, she headed back to the ranch house.

  * * *

  TURNER WATCHED HER GO, with a mixture of anger and relief. He’d almost lost himself in her. It wouldn’t have taken much more to forget about his father, forget about his problems and make love to Heather Tremont.

  It had taken all of his worthless upbringing to be able to say the cruel things—the lies—that had forced her away. He kicked at a stone and swore under his breath, not sure that he’d made the right decision. His face still stung where she’d hit him. He may have hurt her, but he kept telling himself he’d done the right thing. She was a small-town girl with dreams of the good life, a cute little thing who was bored to tears on the ranch. He’d become her distraction, and though she might have had the best intentions in the world, he didn’t trust her. No more than she trusted him. And he wasn’t going to treat her like a whore, not even if she wanted it. Because, deep down, when all was said and done, he did believe she was a lady.

  CHAPTER THREE

  HEATHER, HER PRIDE WOUNDED beyond repair, managed to avoid Turner for the rest of the week. She heard the gossip surrounding him, knew his father had been hurt in a barroom brawl and tossed in the local jail. Turner had been absent several days, without explanation, but the gossip was that he was trying to help his old man dry out and avoid another jail sentence.

  Only Sheryl didn’t buy into it. Peeling apples at the sink, the water running slowly, Sheryl shook her head. Her lips compressed and she attacked the apples with a vengeance. The Rome Beauties were on the soft side—having wintered over in the fruit cellar. While Sheryl worked to remove the Romes of their skins, Heather was at the next sink, slicing the apples into thin slivers for the pie filling.