My Heart's Desire

by Jo Goodman

  Jarret shook his head now. "Oh, Rennie," he said sadly. His fist opened up. His fingers threaded through hers. He gave her hands a little shake, willing her to listen to him. "It wasn't you. If you don't believe anything else I've ever told you, believe that. I was the one who withdrew, the one who decided there would be no satisfaction in it for either of us. My arm gave way, and I couldn't support myself any longer. When I fell on you..."

  "You didn't hurt me."

  "That's small comfort."

  "I didn't even know there was anything wrong."

  "That's because you are naive," he said. Her fingers were stroking his hand again. Her touch was like a warm breeze over his skin. "It isn't supposed to be like that. I just went a little crazy then. I already knew I couldn't depend on my hand to draw a gun or support my aim. Some mornings I could barely carry a coffeepot let alone an armload of wood. I concentrated on two things: lifting a bottle and bedding whor—women. My experience with you shortened my list of pleasures considerably." His attempt at humor fell short. The comment was too pathetically close to the mark.

  Rennie inched closer. "So at the cabin," she said softly, "when you kissed me, it was because you needed to prove something to yourself."

  "No," he said. "It wasn't like that. I kissed you because your mouth was damp, your eyes were closed, and your skin was glowing. If I'd wanted to prove something to myself, I could have paid for the privilege at Bender's."

  "You did," she said. The memory still had the bitter taste of betrayal. "Remember? You were with Jolene that night."

  He hesitated. Finally he said, "I was with Jolene, yes, but not in the way you're thinking. We played cards. Talked. Drank a little. She's a good companion and better friend. I've been with Jolene before in exactly the way you're thinking, but not since you came to Echo Falls."

  He offered the admission as if it had been torn from him. Rennie bent her head and kissed Jarret's knuckles. She leaned across the small space that separated them and kissed his naked shoulder.

  Jarret's breath caught at the back of his throat. He closed his eyes. "Rennie, don't—"

  "Let me," she whispered. "Please, let me."

  Her breath was like another kiss on his flesh. Still, he said, "I don't need your pity."

  Her lips touched the white starburst scar. "Of course you don't. It's not what I'm offering."

  Her mouth was at the curve of his neck. When she moved he could feel the heat in her through her cotton nightshift. The fullness of her breasts touched his chest. He lifted his hand and threaded his fingers through her hair. Her lips sipped on his skin, tasting him in a way that sent a fireball of heat down his spine. "What is it you're offering?" he asked huskily.

  "Me," she said. She raised her head and kissed the corner of his mouth. "I'm offering me."

  He turned without warning, capturing her splendid mouth with his. His hand held her head immobile. The kiss simply went on. And on. When the pressure of his hand eased, Rennie lifted her mouth a fraction and drew a shaky breath. Her heart was hammering in her chest. She stared at him, at the dark, liquid centers of his eyes, at the sliver of sapphire ringing them. She was drawn into his desiring.

  Rennie explored the planes and angles of his face with her mouth and fingertips. Her mouth traced his jaw, his chin. She nudged his nose with hers, teasing, then kissed him full on the mouth with almost savage passion. At her back she felt Jarret's hands slide up and down her spine, drawing her nightshirt higher by slow degrees. With characteristic impulsiveness she sat up suddenly, straddled him, and in a sweeping motion pulled the gown over her head. Jarret watched it sail over the side of the bed, and when he looked back at her he was smiling.

  At first it was light and shadow that cupped the upper and lower curves of her heavy breasts. Later it was Jarret. His smile faded. His fingers were a whisper across her skin. Her breasts swelled in reaction; the sensitive rose-colored nipples hardened.

  "You're lovely," he said.

  She shook her head. Her dark hair fell forward over her shoulders and lay against the back of his hands. "Don't say that," she said quietly, laying a finger across his lips. "Don't ruin it."

  Jarret held her wrists and drew her down to him. Gently he rolled her on her back. Her thighs cradled his arousal. "I won't say it if you don't want me to, but that doesn't mean it isn't true." Her tentative smile only confirmed his point. His kiss was tender. It touched a chord in Rennie, and she opened her heart.

  Jarret's mouth left hers and trailed down the sensitive line of her neck, nibbling, teasing. The tip of his tongue swept the hollow of her throat. She arched her neck. His smile pressed against her skin, then faded as his mouth slid along her collarbone. He shifted lower. His mouth closed over her breast, and his tongue laved her nipple.

  Rennie's fingers curled in his hair. She stroked him with her fingertips. The rhythm was the same as the flicking of his tongue. She pressed harder when he traded teasing for the hot suck of his mouth. It seemed he drew fire right from the surface of her skin. His palm slid over her from rib cage to hip, touching the lower swell of her breast, then the long, gentle curve of her thigh. His lips touched the damp skin just above her heartbeat, then trailed slowly to her other breast. He heard the little catch in her breath as his mouth closed over the nipple and his fingers moved between her thighs.

  Rennie's legs parted slightly, urged by the insistent, intimate caress of Jarret's hand. She was not so startled by his touch there, but the sensation of it had the power to make her reel. Her fingers pressed hard into his shoulders as his exploration drew her skin taut. Tension arched her back, raising her to his touch. His mouth left her breast, alighted damply on her midriff, at her navel, then took the place of his fingers as his hands cupped her buttocks.

  She said his name, but it had no force behind it, no demand that he stop. Urgency was in her breathlessness, and it drove him on as it was meant to. Rennie's heels pressed into the bedding, and her fingers curled in the sheets. She closed her eyes, and the sparks of light behind her lids gave color to the heat that licked her skin. Jarret's caress made her reach for something outside herself, a pleasure that remained maddeningly elusive even while it shimmered just in front of her. When it seemed she would never grasp it, he gave it to her.

  Jarret felt her shudder, felt the tension spin out of her and into him. He drew himself up beside her, rolled on his back, and brought her on top. She lay flush against him, breathing shallowly, her head resting in the curve of his shoulder. His hard groin pressed against her belly. He stroked her hair. "Rennie?" he said huskily.

  "Hmm?"

  "You can return the favor."

  She tilted her head slightly and kissed the underside of his jaw. "Tell me what you want," she whispered. Her hands moved along the sides of his rib cage. She pushed herself lower, pressing kisses down the center of his chest. Her teeth pulled on the drawstring of his drawers.

  It was too agonizingly slow for Jarret. He pushed at his drawers, sent them flying with the same abandon that Rennie had shown, then positioned her astride him.

  She looked down at him, puzzled. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in a splendid fall of curls. Her beating heart seemed louder than her voice. "I thought you wanted my mouth," she said.

  Jarret pushed aside her curtain of dark hair and cupped the creamy swell of her breasts. "I do," he said, "but here." He pointed to his mouth. When she leaned forward to kiss him Jarret's hands slid around her back and palmed her hips. She lifted at his urging and let him guide himself into her. Her kiss was hard and hungry as her hips moved, taking him in. Her mouth slipped away from his as she straightened. She drew his hands to her breasts again and arched her back, moving sinuously over him as she rocked.

  His thumbs passed across her nipples, and the ache there cut the razor-sharp edge between pleasure and pain. Rennie stroked his thighs, the tight flat of his belly, and the taut length of his arms. She watched his face. The firelight cast his features in bronze. The lines at the corners of his eyes de
epened as his expression strained with tension. Desire had made the planes of his face tight, the substance of his stare as hard and hungry as the rest of him. She lowered herself over him, pressing her swollen breasts to his chest and the swollen outline of her lips to his mouth. She kissed him long and deeply, moving over him with sensual, feline grace that was the measure-for-measure match of her kiss. While the rise and fall of her hips stroked his arousal, it was her kiss that sent him over the edge.

  Turning Rennie suddenly, Jarret drove into her hard. Her gasp excited him; the tiny catch in her breath as she sipped the air made him thrust more deeply. Her arms stretched above her, reaching for purchase at the corner of the mattress. The blankets slipped. Rennie arched. The muscles in Jarret's back bunched. She cried out. He cut it off with his mouth. A pinwheel of fire burst in her belly, then his, and Jarret spilled his seed into her.

  * * *

  It was the tiny, teasing kisses being pressed against her cheek and at the corner of her mouth that woke Rennie. She was wrapped in Jarret's arms, and except where she was covered by him, she was naked. So was he. They lay diagonally across the bed in the abandoned position of their lovemaking. All in all it was a satisfactory arrangement.

  She smiled at him, turning so that his kiss took her mouth. It was long and leisurely, desiring but not urgent. "I fell asleep," she said.

  "So did I." His hand lay just below her breast. He stroked the underside with his thumb.

  "What woke you?"

  "You."

  "Me?"

  He nodded. He raised his hand and brushed the side of her face with his fingertips. "You. I woke up wanting you again."

  She reached between their bodies. Her fingers folded around him intimately, but her caress was shy, not bold. "You do want me," Rennie whispered. "And I want you." Her shyness vanished, replaced by a siren's smile and eager exploration. She moved lower and took him with her mouth. Jarret sucked in his breath. The deft manipulation of her lips and tongue drew out his selfish passion, doing for him what he had done for her, carrying him to the edge of the precipice more than once while the rush of pleasure lay just beyond his fingertips.

  His abdomen contracted as he gave himself up to Rennie's desiring; the line of his jaw tensed. His breathing was harsh and uneven, and when Rennie kissed him on the mouth it was as if he had to draw on her for air. "My God," was what he said when she curled against him as replete as he.

  "I know," she said. There was a hint of forlornness in her voice. "More skilled than a practiced whore."

  Jarret's words came back to haunt him. He closed his eyes, feeling her pain as his own. "I should have never said that." His fingers sifted through her hair. "Forgive me."

  Rennie sat up, pulling the sheet at her feet high enough to cover her breasts. "There's nothing to forgive," she said. Not when you know the extent of my sins. She searched his face. "You know you're the only man I've been with, don't you? Even when I..." She blushed and looked away for a moment. "I've never done that with anyone."

  "I know that," he said gently.

  "Do you? Then, you believe me?"

  "Why is it so important?" he asked. He reached over the side of the bed and rooted around for a blanket. He found one and hitched it around his hips as he sat up. "You know I can't make the same claim."

  Rennie sat up on her knees as Jarret climbed out of bed. She touched his elbow, and her eyes implored. "It just is," she said. "You can't know..."

  Frowning now, Jarret took her hands. "What's this about, Rennie? Are you embarrassed about what you did? Pleasuring me that way?"

  She shook her head. "No," she said quickly. "No, but I don't want you to think that—"

  He gave her hands a little shake. "What I think is that you're the most alive woman I've ever known. You have nothing to apologize for. Nothing. You try so hard to be reticent and respectful and humorless, but when that surface is scratched, all hell breaks loose." He grinned at her and raised her rare smile. "Frankly, Rennie, I wouldn't have it any other way. I like what happens when you scratch back."

  She threw herself into his arms, almost knocking him off his feet. "I suppose you know I love you."

  Jarret's embrace tightened. His cheek rested against her curling hair. "There were hints," he said.

  Rennie told herself not to expect an echoed declaration, reminded herself that she didn't deserve one. She, more than he, had done things that would forever affect their happiness. These were stolen moments. Still, when the words were whispered against her hair, close to her ear, when they drifted warmly to her consciousness and touched her soul, she felt her heart swell, her throat close, and tears gather at the corners of her eyes. He seemed to know she couldn't speak, that her composure was held together by a slender silk thread, that emotion made her tremble, and that the best thing he could do was hold her in the loving circle of his arms.

  It was everything she wanted in that moment.

  * * *

  Rennie was stretched out along the length of Jarret's body. Her head rested in the crook of his shoulder. The flat of her hand lay against his heart. Her nightshift was bunched around her thighs, and her feet were buried comfortably under his calf. Layers of blankets sheltered them from the cold. The fire in the stove blazed warmly, and light filtered through the iron grate. Ribbons of orange light crossed their cocoon of blankets.

  She was regretting telling Jarret she loved him. That hadn't been fair. She had wanted him to know more than anything, but she hadn't been fair. Rennie stared blankly at the far wall.

  "What are you thinking?" he asked.

  She couldn't tell him the truth. She lightly massaged his chest in a circular motion. "How did you become a bounty hunter?"

  "That's what you've been thinking?"

  Rennie turned her head enough to touch his musky-scented skin with her mouth. "It's what I want to know," she said.

  Jarret breathed in the sweet fragrance of her hair and said quietly, "It was more by accident than design. When my parents were murdered I went after their killers."

  "You were just a boy then."

  "Hardly. I was twenty-two. A man's age by anyone's ruler."

  "Did you find the men?"

  He nodded. "It took six months, but I found them. I brought one in alive, the other dead. Daniel Border was the first man I killed. I was sick for three days."

  "But you didn't give it up."

  "I never got used to it either. I bring most of my men in alive."

  "And the women?"

  "Dee Kelly was the first woman I ever had to track. Next time I'll be smarter. Women don't fight fair."

  Rennie rubbed one foot against his calf. Her fingers walked across his abdomen and fiddled with the drawstring of his drawers. "I thought you liked it that way."

  "Sometimes," he said, stilling her busy hand. "Sometimes not."

  "Have you ever wanted to do anything else?" she asked.

  He shrugged. "I was going to save some money... try my hand at ranching. I thought about breeding horses, cattle." Jarret stroked her fingers. "What about you? Have you always wanted to run a railroad?"

  Had she? she wondered. "I've always thought so."

  "Only..."

  She shifted, settling more comfortably against him. Her knee rested on his thigh. "Only lately I've been thinking I just wanted to be close to my father."

  It was quite an admission, Jarret thought, and he understood that Rennie was only thinking aloud, testing the words and motives, searching for reasons of her life's devotion to a railroad. He remained silent, waiting.

  "He was always around," she said after a moment. "He never forgot a birthday or a holiday. He was attentive and loving, and none of us have ever doubted how he adored our mother. But it seems to me that Jay Mac was a force in our lives, rather than a presence. He rarely asked anything of us; Jay Mac had a tendency to issue directives."

  Rennie smiled now at the memory. "Mary Francis always accepted them to his face, then did exactly as she pleased. She was so sere
ne in her opposition that Jay Mac barely noticed her defiance until it was a done thing. He was apoplectic when she announced she was joining the convent."

  Jarret guessed. "Moira brought him around."

  "That's right." She glanced up at him briefly, pleased that he understood. "People often think Mama is completely influenced by Jay Mac, but nothing could be farther from the truth. She's fierce about her convictions, and though she's stayed with Jay Mac all these years, knowing that marriage wasn't possible, I don't think Mama's ever deferred to him on any other issue."

  "She's the diplomat."

  Rennie nodded. "Always. Skye's been arguing about going to college this past year. She wants to travel first. I doubt Papa would be so adamantly opposed if Skye wanted to travel somewhere he considered reasonable. He'd probably permit a tour of Europe; but Skye's got it in her head she wants to see Africa, and Jay Mac says absolutely not. Of course, Skye's been just as inflexible about her wishes."

  Jarret chuckled, imagining Moira in the middle between intractable Jay Mac and fiery Skye. "So your mother's negotiating with both of them."

  "Exactly. It's the sort of thing that happens all the time. Maggie mostly goes her own way. She's quieter than the rest of us, almost always an observer in any fray. She talks about being a doctor, but Jay Mac hasn't been very supportive. He's always wanted us to be independent, but when we are he's a little uncomfortable with our decisions."

  "He couldn't have been pleased with Michael's position at the Chronicle."

  "God, no," Rennie said vehemently. "Michael and Papa have always been at loggerheads. She resents him almost as much as she loves him. It's the very rare occasion that she asks him for anything. It wasn't until she met Ethan that she began to have some appreciation for how Mama feels about Jay Mac. Before that Michael was quick to judge them both." Rennie's faint smile was poignant. "You saw them at Michael's wedding. It's plain to anyone with eyes in their head how much they love each other."

  Jarret agreed. If Jay Mac hadn't been married when Moira came to work in his home, if she had been Protestant or he had been Catholic, if they had cared a little less about certain conventions and a little more about others, perhaps they would have had a last name in common and five daughters who did not have to struggle with the brand of illegitimacy. He remembered what his own parents had shared, and he felt something inside him stir, a certain longing for permanency and commitment drift through the edges of his thoughts. "What about you and Jay Mac?" he asked quietly.