Just a Cowboy

by Rachel Lee

  “Smart.” But maybe not smart enough. “Where was the last place you showed your ID?”

  “To Ben, when I rented this place.”

  He swore. Shoveling his hand into his breast pocket, he pulled out his cell phone. “Ben, this is Hank Jackson,” he said to voice mail. “Get your ass over to my rental house now.”

  Kelly’s eyes had widened. “He wouldn’t have done anything with the information, would he? He said it was just for skip-tracing if I didn’t pay my rent.”

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out anyway.” Seeing the fright in her gaze, he tried to be soothing. “There’s no reason he should have done anything with the information. I mean, you paid cash, right?”

  “Yes, I did. He just made a photocopy of my license and said he wouldn’t need it as long as I kept paying rent.”

  Kelly jumped up from the floor and started pacing. “This is awful, Hank. Maybe I should just get on a bus again.”

  “The problem,” he said tautly, “is one you already pointed out. People keep wanting ID from you. So if someone is looking for you, it all comes down to whether you can stay one jump ahead. And since you’ve been here for a few days now, you’ve already lost some of your jump. Assuming Ben did a background check on you. If he didn’t show your info to anyone, you’re still ahead of the game. Where was the last place you had to use it?”

  Her face seemed almost white as she looked at him. “In Laramie.”

  Too close for comfort. Too damn close. He had a sudden urge to hammer his fist on something, and call himself all kinds of names. First he hadn’t believed her. Then he’d checked on her background. Of course, he had thought it would be safe to check through a friend in Denver. After all, Denver was a big place, and far enough away not to pinpoint this town. But Denver and then Laramie could narrow a search quite a bit. Too much maybe.

  “You’re gonna hate me,” he said.

  She stopped pacing and looked at him with some amazement. “Why?”

  “I emailed a friend on the Denver Police Department to check into your mugging.”

  She froze, and if anything she grew paler. “Why?” she asked hoarsely.

  “Because I wanted to know what they’d done. What had happened.”

  “Because you didn’t trust me.”

  “I mostly did trust you. I just…needed to know.”

  Her face tightened until she almost looked old. “You didn’t believe me.” Flat, unemotional. Cold. “Well, of course, why would you? Even I know how crazy it sounds.” Now her voice began to rise. “So you let them know I was near here?”

  “I didn’t let anyone know. I just asked him to check on the mugging. And on what the cops did. And Denver is hours from here. It’s not like I went to the local police. I could have done that.”

  “Yeah. Right.” She started to glare, but the glare quickly flashed over to panic. “I’ve got to get out of here now. Get on a bus and get out of here.” She began to look around wildly, like a frightened rabbit. “I can’t stay here! How could you do that after what I told you?”

  Ignoring the pain, he shoved himself to his feet. “Kelly, listen. I asked my friend to be discreet, and I’m sure he was. There’s no reason to think your husband could access a request between police departments for information.”

  “There’s no reason to think a lot of things, like that he would try to have me killed. My God, Hank, I trusted you!”

  That cut. That really cut. But what cut most of all was that she was right. Some niggling sense of disbelief had made him check her story out. And because of that there was a possibility, however remote, that he’d led a killer closer.

  “Don’t you get it, Hank? Dean has money. Lots of money. The kind of money that can buy information. Hell, he probably wouldn’t even have to pay for it. He could just call the cops and say he’s worried because I disappeared, and then some nice police officer could tell him there’d been an inquiry about me from Denver. Do you honestly think that couldn’t happen?”

  He clenched his fists, furious at himself. But he was also a little angry with her. “It would have been meaningless if you hadn’t given ID in Laramie.”

  “Are you going to blame me?”

  The anger drained from him as if a balloon had been punctured. “No. I’m not blaming you. God knows, I’m not blaming you. I’m blaming myself.”

  That seemed to draw her up short. Some of the tightness left her face. “No,” she said after a moment. “No. There’s no point in blaming yourself. I know how crazy it all sounded. There were plenty of times I thought I was crazy myself. But now…now I think I’d better pack.”

  That ripped at him somehow. Without thinking, he reached out and caught her arm gently. “No,” he said.

  “No? What if Ben did a background on me? They’ll find me. Am I supposed to sit here like a half-dead duck?”

  He shook his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is, here you have someone who’ll look out for you. If the guy traces you here, you won’t be alone. But what about the next town where they want your ID? And the next? I think I should talk to the sheriff. And then I think you shouldn’t be alone again, not until this divorce thing is settled.”

  He could see the struggle on her face, see the yearning not to be alone with her fear battling an equal, if not greater, terror of being alone.

  “I don’t know,” she said finally on a breath. “I don’t know.”

  He dared to step closer, still holding her arm gently. “You don’t have to face this alone,” he said firmly. “I may be just a cowboy, but I can help.”

  Slowly her blue eyes lifted to his again. “Why do you keep saying you’re just a cowboy?”

  “Because that’s what I am, now, and I’m happy with it.”

  Then she said something that tore at his heart. “I’d like to be happy with who I am, someday. Right now, that someday looks a long way away.”

  “It may be closer than you think.”

  “If I can survive the next couple of months.”

  He hesitated, then gave up his last shred of resistance. Fran had been right. He always went up into the tree. “I’ll help you,” he said. “Whatever it takes.”

  Though he made the promise sincerely, only moments later he mentally kicked himself, wondering if he were a grade-A jackass. Look at him, crippled with pain and unreliable legs. What was he doing holding himself out as a protector?

  Maybe setting himself up for another terrible failure, like going into that burning building. Another terrible loss on his conscience.

  He almost took the promise back, qualified it, warned her that he wasn’t the strongest person to rely on.

  But it wasn’t in him. The woman needed help, and he didn’t see anyone else around to stand in round the clock.

  Always the first one up into the tree. His downfall. He just hoped like hell it wouldn’t be Kelly’s as well.

  Kelly was horrified to feel herself crumbling. The kindness of this man, his willingness to take on her problem, his words of concern… God, it had been so long since she felt that anyone at all really cared about her. The caring weakened her, and tears came to her eyes.

  The next thing she knew, she was wrapped securely in strong arms, and pressed comfortingly against a hard chest. A hand stroked her hair awkwardly, and a rough voice murmured soothingly.

  “Somehow we’ll deal with this, Kelly.”

  We. The world’s most beautiful word. It opened up a great gaping wound in her that she hadn’t even realized existed until that moment. To have someone actually care.

  “You don’t have to,” she said brokenly, although there was nothing she wanted more in the world than not to be alone. “I can just go back to hiding.”

  “Shh,” he said. “We’ll start taking major precautions to protect you. But if you still really want to run, well…I’ll go with you.”

  Astonishment rippled through her. This man, this cowboy, had just offered to uproot himself and go wandering to protect a
woman he hardly knew. How many people like that could there possibly be in the world? Surely they were few and far between. She hadn’t met anyone before who would make an offer like that.

  Inevitably, she thought about what it would be like to go on the run with him. He’d use his own ID, not hers, and she had enough left from her inheritance to pay for both of them so it wouldn’t be a financial burden on him.

  But then she realized two things. First, it would be unfair to ask that of anyone. And second, she was sick to death of running. That’s why she’d rented this ramshackle house in the first place. Yes, she thought she would be safe here, but she’d also been so tired of running. So very tired.

  Two more months of buses and hitchhiking and seedy motels? Always looking over her shoulder? She couldn’t do that anymore. She just couldn’t. It had been awful in every sense of the word. Constantly feeling like a hare just ahead of the hounds, death on her heels somewhere but no idea just where, the filthy motel rooms where she hadn’t even wanted to take off her clothes, the Laundromats that slowed down her flight and made her feel exposed, the grabbing of quick food at a lunch counter to eat as she kept on running?

  Her stomach tightened into a painful knot at the thought, and then the pain wrapped like a noose around her throat until she could barely breathe. It hit her—all of it—in an instant, and she started to sob, except she couldn’t quite get breath around the garrote that seemed to squeeze her throat.

  “Breathe,” Hank said sharply. He held her a few inches away. “Breathe, Kelly.”

  Her head seemed to be swimming. She hardly felt the hot tears rolling down her cheeks. He gave her another shake, and it seemed to loosen her throat enough to suck in a huge, painful breath.

  “That’s better,” he said soothingly, and pulled her close again. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, okay? Just try to let go of the panic.”

  She dragged in another breath, and the tightness began to ease. Just a bit. But the tears continued to flow as if they’d been held behind a dam that was now crumbling. She hadn’t cried much since she’d left Dean. Not even after the attack. Until this moment she hadn’t even realized that she had wanted to cry.

  “I just thought of something,” he said as he patted her shoulder and rubbed her back.

  “What?” The word barely squeezed out.

  “You gave your ID in Laramie before my friend in Denver requested info from Miami. That should lead this guy in exactly the wrong direction.”

  “Yeah. If there is a guy.”

  “Stop that. You’ve been doing the right thing. You can’t afford to just assume it was a random mugging. You’re right about that. Better safe than sorry, as they say. I’m with you on that. If that means running, just know one thing. I’m not letting you run alone.”

  Her tears turned to hiccups, the sobs that hadn’t been able to escape. “No. I can’t ask that of you.”

  “You didn’t ask. I offered.”

  “Still.” She tipped her wet face up and looked at him, thinking that for some inexplicable reason in just a few short days his face had become the most beautiful she’d ever seen. Just looking at him eased some deep pain inside her. “If you think I can be safe here, I’ll stay. I can’t face it again, Hank. It was awful, just awful.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “That’s part of the reason I decided to stay here. I couldn’t take it anymore. I needed a break.”

  “Perfectly understandable.” He reached up a hand and brushed her cheek with his palm. Then he sighed. “I suppose you’re sick of hearing how beautiful you are.”

  The non sequitur pulled her out of the dark place she’d been inhabiting for the last few minutes. She sniffled, and managed a small smile. “Depends on who’s saying it.”

  “How about if I do?”

  “Then it sounds wonderful.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted. “You’d better keep an eye on me, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want you like hell. I’ll bet you hear that all the time, too.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve never heard that before.”

  “Amazing.” He gave the slightest shake of his head. “I’d have thought guys would have been after you all the time.”

  “Not since Dean. Not even really before that. I didn’t want it.”

  “Why not?”

  She shrugged one shoulder, and let her cheek rest against his chest. She could hear the strong, steady beat of his heart, and the sound comforted her. “My dad left when I was little. I didn’t know him. Mom managed, but it wasn’t always easy for her. I made up my mind that I wanted to be independent, able to take care of myself, before I got knocked up.”

  “Knocked up?” The words came out on a surprised laugh.

  “That’s what happened to my mother. I grew up with plenty of cautions about letting hormones rule me, and making sure I didn’t have kids until I found a man who would stick around. So I didn’t even date much.”

  “No wonder you were such easy prey for Dean.”

  “You think?” She released a sigh, and with it the last of her tension.

  “Well, that pretty much puts you off-limits,” he said.

  She looked up. “Why?”

  “Because I wouldn’t want to be the guy who put you on the trajectory for ruin.”

  “Would you really do that?”

  He didn’t even hesitate. “No. I couldn’t live with myself.”

  “I didn’t think so. Here you are willing to run off with me to protect me when you could just shrug it all off and agree that I should leave.”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  “Exactly.” Her face still wet with tears, she continued to look into his eyes, and finally no matter how he argued with himself, he couldn’t mistake the yearning he saw there. She wanted him, too. Maybe not as much or in the same way as he wanted her. Most likely she just needed the comfort of being needed.

  If he had half a brain, he’d let her go now. But there were times when even half a brain wasn’t enough.

  “Kelly…”

  “Kiss me?” she asked on the merest whisper. “Please? Just a kiss?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely.”

  How could an ordinary cowboy argue with that? A kiss was a mere trifle. People kissed all the time. As long as it was just a kiss….

  He lowered his head until their lips touched. The lightest of touches, just a shivery silky contact. She didn’t recoil. In fact, he felt her lips part, felt her warm breath on his mouth. A shudder of raw longing ran through him. It had been too long, so achingly long since he had kissed a woman, and somehow Kelly wasn’t just a woman to him. What she made him feel just then he was sure no one else could have made him feel.

  That should have terrified him.

  Instead, it warmed a cold place in his soul. Protectiveness surged in him along with yearning. Another fraction of an inch closer, and their lips met firmly. He couldn’t have stopped then to save his life.

  He deepened the kiss carefully, slowly, waiting on tenterhooks for any sign of rejection. None came. Her mouth moved gently against his, as if she were trying it out, too. Uncertain but hungry.

  That hunger undid him. He ran his tongue over her lips until her mouth fell open to him, then he slipped his tongue into her warm moist depths, tasting her, letting her taste him.

  Just a kiss. The understatement of his life.

  His blood began to pound urgently, and he could feel himself hardening against her belly, an ache that had only one answer, an answer he couldn’t take. Clinging to the last shred of his self-control, he went on kissing her, adjusting his hold on her to settle her more comfortably against him, letting her head fall back into the crook of his arm as he explored the gateway to passion.

  When her arm lifted to encircle his neck, he almost lost it. He was experienced enough to know when a woman was totally open to him, and Kelly had just opened like a fresh rose. She wanted him every bit as much as he want
ed her. There wasn’t an ounce of resistance in her, only welcome.

  Thunder seemed to pound in his head, but something else grew, too, a softening he hadn’t ever felt before, a weakness like melting. It poured through him, like heat on a winter day, easing old aches. All he wanted to do was sink onto the floor with her and become a puddle.

  He struggled for sense, even though every bit of him wanted to carry them both away to the ultimate intimacy.

  It wasn’t his sense that saved him. It was the doorbell.

  “Oh!” Kelly gasped. An instant later she was standing a foot away, blinking as if she’d just awakened expectedly.

  He recognized the look because he was feeling the same way. She looked at him with sleepy eyes that nonetheless contained astonishment.

  Well, he was pretty astonished himself.

  That had been one hell of a kiss.

  The doorbell rang yet again, and he shook himself. “I’ll get it. You stay out of sight.”

  Protecting her already. Well, he’d asked for it, and there was no way he was going to change his mind.

  He opened the door and found Ben standing there looking concerned. The real estate agent wore the local costume of Western shirt, jeans, boots and cowboy hat, with the addition of a sports coat. It actually worked.

  “What the hell is going on?” Ben demanded. “I got this not-exactly-nice message on voice mail. Dammit, Hank, all I did was rent the place. That’s what I’m supposed to do.”

  With a jerk of his head, Hank motioned him inside and closed the door. “What did you do? I told you this place wasn’t ready to rent. The tenant and I have spent the last three days trying to make it safe for her.”

  “Oh, come on, you said the cutoffs on the stove were working. And you pulled the fuses on the bad circuits.”

  “But you didn’t tell her there were problems. And you didn’t warn her about the weak spots on the floor.”

  Ben flushed. “She’s just renting for a couple of months. She didn’t mind the condition of the place.”

  “She could have gotten hurt.”