Hidden Fires

by Sandra Brown

  “Remind me to thank Gloria later,” Jared said as he bit into a tortilla. They ate until they were filled, and he removed the tray from the bed. They had opened the drapes earlier to enjoy the sight of the snow-covered hills. Now he went to the windows and closed the drapes, dimming the room.

  He stretched like a lazy mountain cat and yawned broadly.

  “Am I boring you?” Lauren asked mischievously as she twirled a curl around her finger then dropped it precariously close to a pouting nipple.

  His footsteps, hurried because of the cold, slowed as he came closer to the bed. He placed one knee on the mattress, eyed her provocatively, and drawled, “Could be. What are you going to do about it?”

  Lauren’s flushed face became impish as she retorted, “Nothing!” and flopped to the opposite side of the bed, providing him an unrestricted view of her smooth back, tapering to the gentle swell of her hips.

  He laughed before falling down beside her and grabbing a handful of hair. He wound it around his fist, pulling on it inexorably until she was forced to roll against him. Not quite sure how it came about, she discovered herself atop his chest, her legs straddling him.

  “Jared!” she exclaimed, trying to disengage herself from the arms that clamped across her back. Her struggles only widened his grin. He risked taking one arm away from her back to cup her head in his hand and force her face down to receive his burning kiss.

  At last, she pulled away from him and sat up. He was dazzled by the breasts that were enticingly suspended in front of him. With an index finger, he skimmed across the tops of her breasts, circled them leisurely, then teased the tips. He watched her immediate response in awe, intrigued and bewitched.

  “Jared, I… oh… what do I… please…”

  “Do whatever feels right,” he said before he lifted his head and raked his tongue over her distended nipples.

  “I—”

  “Whatever feels right, Lauren,” he breathed as his hands slid down her ribs to settle on her hips. His thumbs met at the dark nest in the center of her abdomen and impressed hypnotic circles onto it. Impossible to ignore, the hard shaft pressed up into her. His hands stroked her thighs as she rose to her knees, poised over him, then impaled herself on his strength.

  “My God,” he hissed through gritted teeth. His head tossed on the pillow. She rocked upon him, moving up and down, reveling in the feel of him inside her. She combed her fingers through the mat of hair on his chest, teasing the hard brown nipples. When she grew tired, she lay upon his chest. Her lips sought out the sensitive areas of his face and neck, nibbling, caressing them with light kisses.

  His hands clasped the backs of her thighs even as his fingers stroked the moist folds between them. Neither could stand any more, and the eruption came. He filled her with the lava of his loins, which seemed to flow into her veins and scorch each nerve ending until it exploded under the onslaught.

  Afterward, she knelt beside him, bathing the residue of their lovemaking from his body with a warm, damp towel.

  He yawned again as she dropped the towel to the floor. Laughing as she brushed her lips across his, she asked, “Bored again?”

  He smiled. “No, I’m sleepy,” he confessed. “Come here.” He pulled her down deep into the covers and snuggled against her. The hair on his chest tickled her back and his arm weighed on her waist. She moved closer still. He kissed her shoulder before they both slipped into dreamless sleep. Dreams had ceased to be necessary.

  * * *

  Jared knelt in front of the fireplace coaxing the dying embers into a red glow, adding small logs until they flared and ignited. He had wrapped the fur blanket around him to ward off the chill. Lauren could see no light seeping in around the edges of the drapes. It was after nightfall.

  She took up her discarded dressing gown and slipped into it as she stepped from the bed. Her bare feet touched the cold floor and she scurried to the hearth and squatted down beside Jared.

  “Hey, you’re going to freeze. Why didn’t you stay in bed?” He ran his hands briskly up and down her arms to warm her.

  “Because you weren’t there,” she replied honestly, her eyes reflecting the glowing fire. Impulsively she kissed him on the lips.

  He wrapped his arms around her and drew her down on the rug in front of the hearth. Staring into the flames, neither spoke for a moment. He stroked the length of her hair absently while his chin rested on the crown of her head.

  “Jared?”

  “Hm?”

  “You can’t imagine how terrified I was of you the first time I saw you.”

  He pulled his head back. “Terrified of me?” he asked with mock-dismay. There was a glint of mischief in his eyes.

  “You were sprawled out, unconscious, in the back of that wagon. I had never been near a man who was so… virile… threatening… I don’t know. You intrigued me, though. And that day you sneaked into my room, I was afraid I was going to faint.”

  He laughed quietly. “I was intrigued by you, too, though up until then I hadn’t even seen you. Pepe told me later how I fell against you most ignominiously.” He chuckled and hugged her tight. “I wanted to put you on the defensive. You were just as threatening to me.”

  “I? Threatening? How?” She stared at him incredulously.

  Jared reached up to the small table where he had emptied his pockets the night before and picked up a cigar. He struck a match against the stones of the fireplace and lit the cheroot, drawing on it slowly and blowing the smoke over their heads.

  Now was the time. She had to know.

  “I resented you like hell, Lauren. Not you specifically, but any woman suddenly thrust upon me the way you were. The night Ben died, we had a fierce argument. I don’t think he intended to tell me his plan for our marriage at first. He started the lecture by reminding me of my responsibilities and warning me that my indiscretions would eventually catch up with me. ‘You’re a man now, Jared. It’s time you settled down and started behaving like an adult and not some wild bronco bent on destroying yourself and everything I’m leaving you as a legacy.’”

  Jared drew once more on the cigar and flicked the gray ash at its tip into the fireplace. Lauren didn’t speak. She wanted to know what had transpired that night, why Jared had hated her for so long.

  “Mostly out of belligerence, I countered every point he made, until he lost his temper and hit me with both barrels. Our houseguest, whom I had been commissioned to fetch off the train in Austin, was the woman he had selected for me to marry. Since I had dragged my heels, he had taken matters into his own hands, and provided me with a wife. He stressed the fact that you knew nothing of this when I referred to you as an opportunist, along with some very ungentlemanly epithets.”

  He tore his eyes away from the dancing flames and looked at her closely. His hand cradled the back of her neck as his thumb stroked along her jaw. “You see, Lauren, my whole life, my parents had used me as a pawn to hurt each other. If I did something to please one, it infuriated the other. If I came to Keypoint, which I loved, my mother would be on a rampage for weeks after I returned to Coronado. My childhood and adolescence were one big battle to see who had the most influence over me. The older I got, I just didn’t give a damn anymore. I sought to please myself and to hell with everyone else. I didn’t relish having a wife chosen for me, especially when I wasn’t sure what kind of relationship she had had with my father.”

  Lauren was suffused with love and pity for this complex man who was her husband. No wonder he had reacted to her intrusion with hate and resentment. “I think I see how confused you must have been by my coming here.” Then, with an insight that surprised him, she said quietly, “You want to know why I followed Ben here. Is that it?” He didn’t answer, but she sensed by his silence that this was the crux of the matter.

  She sighed and stared at her hands as they pleated the skirt of her robe. “Jared, there was never anything illicit between your father and me. You couldn’t be more wrong if you think there was. I was attracted to
him because he was dashing and exciting and interesting. To someone raised in a parsonage, living with a sweet, but naive couple interested only in their small world, he was like a character out of one of my books. Of course, accepting his invitation to come to Texas to visit was unthinkable, and I never would have done it except for something that happened within days of Ben’s departure.”

  Her lips trembled slightly as she remembered William’s attack. Quickly, nervously, she said, “Believe me, it… those reasons for my leaving were justified.”

  He cupped her chin in his fist and asked, “What happened to make you want to leave your home?”

  She tried to turn away, but he was adamant. He didn’t release her chin, but forced her to meet his probing eyes. “It… I… Does it matter so much?” she asked piteously.

  “Yes.”

  Again she tried to lower her eyes, and again he held her fast. “Please,” she begged in a whisper. Slowly he eased the pressure of his fingers and his hand fell away. She turned her back on him to stare into the fire.

  “There was a man,” she said. “His name was William Keller. He… the Prathers thought that we should marry. I told them countless times that I couldn’t abide him, but…” Her voice trailed away to nothingness and she breathed in deeply. Dare she tell Jared the rest of it? Would he turn away from her in disgust, blame her as her guardians had done? “Go on,” he said from behind her.

  Haltingly, she related the full tale of William’s attack, his deception of the Prathers, her inability to persuade her guardians that the minister was lying. “After that, I had to leave,” she finished hoarsely.

  For at least a full minute, a heavy silence hung over them. She had raised her knees and rested her forehead against them. She didn’t want to know what Jared thought. Yet she had had to tell him the truth.

  His movement was so sudden that she started when he bounded to his feet. Whipping her head around, she saw him reach for his hat and clamp it on his head. Then, as she watched in stupefaction, he grabbed his gun belt with the deadly pistol safely ensconced in it and strapped it around his hip.

  “Jared? What… what are you doing?” she sputtered.

  He had reached the door by now and his hand gripped the knob. Glancing over his shoulder, she could see the rigid planes of his face set with determination. His amber eyes shone with resolve. “I’m going after that sonofabitch to kill him.”

  Despite the severity of his pronouncement, a smile twitched Lauren’s lips and then burst forth in delighted laughter. “Like that?” she asked, her eyes shining with new love. He cared! He wasn’t angry at her, but at William.

  Stunned by her laughter enough to shake him out of his fury, Jared suddenly realized the picture he must present. He glanced down at himself. The gun belt was his only garment. He smiled at her sheepishly from the shadows under his hat. “You reckon he’s worth going out buck naked in a snowstorm for?”

  Her eyes still twinkled, but she answered seriously, “He’s not worth going after at all.”

  He rid himself of the ludicrous attire and, before she realized, was beside her, gathering her into his arms. “I’ll kill anyone who touches you again. I swear it.” He spoke in a low rumble in her ear as he pressed her head against his chest.

  His mouth descended and captured hers in a blazing kiss that branded her as his own. Their mouths fused together hotly. Tongues sought, found, took, gave.

  Lauren’s fingers tangled in the curls lying in wild disarray around his head and pulled her mouth free. “Jared, you must believe that my attraction to Ben was not sexual. To me, he represented the affectionate father I never had. Since that day I saw you framed in the doorway of my room, looking like the meanest desperado ever to roam the plains of Texas, you have dominated my thoughts. Until you kissed me in the office that morning Olivia said we were to marry, I had no idea how a woman was supposed to feel toward a man.”

  He took her head between his strong, lean hands, sliding his fingers under her hair and drawing her mouth back to his. The kiss was tender, soft, and her lips yielded to the slight pressure of his. But, as all their kisses had done in the past intimate hours, the tenderness turned to passion, and when he lowered her to the fur blanket covering the floor, she was more than ready to comply. Her hair spread out like a dark fan behind her head.

  He slid his hands into the opening of her robe and separated the folds, revealing her breasts. His hands closed over them, gently, but with no question of his possession. His mouth gave them the high praise he thought them worthy of. First his lips closed around each crest, then his tongue paid them homage until they glistened wetly in the firelight.

  Lauren moaned ecstatically under his adoration while her own hands smoothed over the bunched muscles of his shoulders and back.

  His lips left a fiery path across her breasts, down her ribs, back onto her stomach, and then lower to her abdomen. He kissed her navel and then lower still until—

  “Jared—” She covered the dark thatch his lips had just reached with the palm of her hand.

  He raised passion-clouded eyes to hers, opened wide in alarm. “Lauren,” he said huskily, “you must know that I would never do anything to hurt you. Trust me.” When she remained silent, staring at him with fearful, pleading eyes, he repeated, “Trust me.”

  Slowly she nodded her head, and didn’t resist when he leaned down and kissed the back of her hand where it lay. His lips were warm. Pleasure-giving. In spite of her modest wariness, she felt her muscles surrendering to the diplomacy of his mouth.

  Without haste, he lifted her hand and pressed a kiss into the palm. Then he kissed her where it had lain on the dark delta. An intense heat washed over her and a cry of joy bubbled out of her throat. His mouth brought her a pleasure so exquisite that she was helpless to think of anything except his lips and tongue as they moved lower to explore, probe, and please.

  The storm mounted and ebbed as he alternately teased and demanded. The pressure within her increased, and when it crashed around her, she called to him plaintively and was gratified when his body covered hers to protect her from the assault of emotions and senses. Still, she wasn’t satisfied until he was inside her, deep, hard, fulfilling, touching her womb with the essence of himself.

  Her fingers dug into the flesh of his hips as his own passion peaked. His face was buried in her neck and her skin felt his rapid, moist breath as he chanted her name.

  He didn’t leave her. He couldn’t forsake the paradise just yet. Nestled within her body, he raised himself on his elbows and looked down at her. Tenderly he kissed each feature of her face.

  “Is this possible?” she breathed, referring to the enormity of her rapture.

  “Yes, yes,” he murmured against her lips.

  He raised his head and his eyes searched her face once again. His expression was difficult to define, but it closely resembled love.

  Chapter 22

  The next morning, everyone looked up in surprise as Jared and Lauren strolled arm in arm into the dining alcove for breakfast. Lauren flushed in embarrassment under the curious stares, but Jared assumed his casual, aloof attitude and questioned why there were no place-settings in front of their chairs. Gloria immediately ran toward the kitchen.

  Jared held the chair for his wife as Rudy asked him teasingly, “Hey, Brother, why did you risk a snowstorm to get here when all you’ve done is spend the entire time closeted in your room?”

  He took the plate from Gloria, filled it to his satisfaction, and only then answered, “Well, I’d been away a long time. When I got to Coronado and saw that Laur… I… uh… just figured that it was time for me to get back out here to check on things. I was worried about Keypoint.”

  “Your concern is touching,” Rudy teased. His black eyes flashed wickedly as he said, “It couldn’t be because you were, uh, restless, and wanted to see Lauren, could it?”

  “Rudy! You’re going to embarrass Lauren,” Gloria scolded.

  Jared laid his fork in his plate. “You know
something? I think you might be right.” He grabbed Lauren and leaned her backward over his supporting arm so quickly that she didn’t have time to protest. He kissed her full on the mouth with exaggerated passion. The children began squealing with laughter and were soon joined by their initially startled parents and a delighted Maria, who smiled on them fondly.

  Breathlessly Jared released Lauren and they joined the laughter. Eventually Gloria resettled the children and everyone resumed eating.

  A few minutes later, Jared caught Lauren’s eye, winked at her, and, finding her knee under the table, squeezed it.

  * * *

  The snow melted quickly under a crystal-blue Texas sky. The brothers rode out each day to check on various sections of the ranch. The snow had been heavy and wet, and some of their fences had suffered damage. Vaqueros, restless for something to do, were sent out to repair them and to keep an eye out for animals that had not survived the storm.

  Lauren rode out with them one afternoon. They were only a mile or so from the main house when they came upon the carcass of one of the finest Lockett beeves. It had been mutilated. A few chunks of meat had been carved out. The rest had been left to rot in the warming temperatures.

  “Goddammit!” Jared cursed. “Who in hell did this?”

  “It couldn’t have been Crazy Jack. He never wastes any part of a carcass.” Rudy said.

  “No. Mr. Turner wouldn’t do this,” Lauren said quietly.

  The men looked at her in surprise and she told about meeting the hermit. Humbly she recounted how she had taken the trap off his foot when he had been injured. “Fortunately I took him some food, too, before the weather got so inclement. But he was in no shape to do a thing like this even if he had been so inclined.”

  “You mean you actually saw him? Had a conversation with him?” Rudy asked in astonishment. He had never seen the hermit, only traces of him.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve learned that my wife has a great capacity to get involved with people, usually the desperate and helpless.” Jared spoke teasingly, but there was respect in his eyes. During his brief stop in Coronado, Olivia had filled his ears with a tirade against Lauren’s charity work in Pueblo. Little did she know that she was making her son all the more lonesome for his wife. He had been shocked and disappointed to learn that Lauren had gone to Keypoint. His eyes warmed as he looked at her now and said, “If anyone could worm their way into Jack Turner’s life, it would be Lauren.”