Wanted!

by JoAnn Ross

  What if he decided to force his conjugal rights? As weak as he was, she had no doubt that he was still much stronger than she. Dammit, Trace was right again, Jessica raged at herself inwardly. It had been dangerous bringing a virtual stranger into her home.

  When she would have backed away, Rory's hands tightened on her shoulders. "You can't deny that there's been a connection between us from the beginning."

  "It's chemistry."

  "That, too." He lifted his hand and stroked her hair. "But there's something more important happening here, Jess. You know it—" he dipped his head "—and I know it." She watched, strangely hypnotized, as his mouth approached hers. "Like the way I know exactly how you're going to taste when I kiss you."

  "That's not so surprising," she snapped back, struggling to regain control of the situation. "Since we've already kissed." A kiss she'd instigated. A kiss that had been a horrendous mistake.

  "That was born of anger." His thumb brushed against her lips in a tender caress. "Which, while exciting in its own way, cannot equal a kiss that comes from the heart."

  "Dammit, Rory—" She pressed both hands against his chest and pushed, but she might as well have been trying to move nearby Mount Humphries.

  "You called me by my name." He exuded male satisfaction as he slipped a hand beneath her hair at the nape of her neck. "I've always liked the way you say my name, darlin'." His lips brushed against hers lightly, tantalizing, teasing.

  His breath was like a summer zephyr, soft and warm. His stroking fingers threatened to lull her into compliance. Wondering if this was how Chapmann's victim had gotten herself into that almost deadly fix, Jessica fought valiantly against temptation.

  "In this century, when women say no, men are legally required to listen."

  "That's an admirable law." He began nibbling at her tight lips, encouraging them to soften. "But I haven't heard you say the word." His tilted his head, changed the angle ever so slightly and skimmed a ring of fire around her mouth with the tip of his tongue.

  "Say no, Jess, straight out, like you mean it, and I'll stop right now." He kissed his way up her cheek. "But better yet," he suggested in a midnight-dark voice that wrapped her in velvet cords, "open your sweet mouth for me, and kiss me back."

  She was in danger of melting into a puddle of need right in the middle of her kitchen. In the distance, over the wild pounding of her heart in her ears, she heard the bubbling of the soup on the stove, the ding of the microwave, the sound of the still-falling rain outside the darkened windows.

  Her hands, which had started to push him away, gathered up bunches of the cotton shirt. Her lips parted, seemingly of their own volition, acquiescing to his husky request.

  "Ah, Jess." His relief was expelled on a deep breath that shuddered out of his mouth and into hers. "I promise, I won't hurt you. Not ever."

  But he would, she knew, as she allowed herself to be pulled into the misty world of desire he was offering her. Oh, not physically. His touch, as his hands roamed her back, was as gentle as his lips were tender. This man, whoever he was, was nothing like Eric Chapmann. He would never rape and plunder, but only take what she gave willingly.

  The problem, Jessica feared, was that she was perilously close to offering up her heart along with her body. And once she did that, she knew that the danger would be all too real.

  Even as she knew all that, Jessica couldn't stop her heart from fluttering or her lips from responding. The scrape of his teeth against her bottom lip warmed her blood and caused her to moan softly, inviting him to deepen the kiss. Which he did. Gloriously.

  And as his tongue engaged hers in a sensual mating, and his hands skimmed down her sides, his thumbs brushing against her breasts, she felt every joint in her body become fluid. No longer certain she could stand on her own, Jess clung to him, willing to go wherever he took her.

  She was trembling in his arms. Her lips had softened and clung to his, inviting so much more. Her body was molded so tightly against his that Rory was vividly, painfully aware of every slender curve and valley.

  Rory was surprised at how vulnerable she'd allowed herself to be. How defenseless. He wanted her. Lord, how he wanted her! But not this way.

  When she came to him, and Rory had not a single doubt that she would, he wanted her to come knowing exactly who he was. And, more to the point, who she was. He wanted her to come, he realized reluctantly, not out of desire, but love.

  Although it was the hardest thing he'd ever done, he managed, just barely, to surrender the delicious taste of her lips and to put her a little away from him.

  "You didn't say no," he reminded her.

  "I didn't say yes."

  "Didn't you?"

  She yanked her hands from his chest and glared up at him, furious that he could remain so calm when she was not. "You think this is some kind of joke, don't you?"

  Her tone was icy, at odds with the fire in her eyes. That contrast between frost and flame was what had drawn him to his Emilie in the first place. It was what made him realize, more than ever, that somehow he'd been given a second chance.

  He took hold of her wrist and, pressing her hand against the placket of his jeans, gave her graphic proof of his rampant need.

  "This isn't any joke. I want you, Jess. There aren't any words for how much, although desperately comes close. And, believe me, although I've never been a man to make noble gestures, I'm making one tonight."

  She could literally feel his raw, masculine life force pulsing beneath her fingertips. It took every ounce of self-restraint Jessica possessed not to unbutton those jeans and take him in her hands, her mouth…

  "You know," he murmured, "if you keep caressing me like that, sweetheart, all my good intentions are going to fly right out the window."

  She jerked her hand away. "I'm sorry."

  "Not as sorry as I am." His voice and his eyes were filled with a lazy humor Jess found far too appealing.

  "I don't understand what's happening to me."

  "I felt the same confusion, in the beginning."

  "You're still confused," she insisted. "You think it's 1896, you believe you're Rory Mannion—"

  "I am Rory Mannion."

  Jessica ignored his quiet interjection. "You believe Eric Chapmann is some horrid nineteenth-century gunman who murdered your wife. And you believe I am your wife! Hell, next thing I know Rod Sterling is going to pop into the kitchen and welcome me to the Twilight Zone."

  "Who is Rod Sterling?"

  "I give up!" Jessica threw up her hands.

  Since willingly surrendering her virginity during her freshman year of college, Jessica had always managed to separate sex from love. Although she'd never thought of herself as promiscuous, she possessed the ability to treat sex as a pleasant recreational activity. She always felt warm affection for the men she went to bed with, including and especially Trace Callahan, and when the affair was over, they'd go their separate ways, most of the time remaining friends.

  But on some deep, instinctive level she knew that with this man it would be different. Rory Mannion would never settle for a piece of her life. With him, it would be all or nothing.

  Determined to regain control of the situation, she took two soup bowls from the cupboard, began filling them and was appalled that her hands were trembling so badly, the red broth spilled over the stove top and sizzled on the burner.

  "Perhaps I could help." He took the ladle from her nerveless fingers and began dishing out the soup with annoying composure.

  "How can you remain so damn calm?" she flared. "How can you make it seem so easy?"

  Rory knew they were not discussing filling the soup bowls. "It's not at all easy. But I'm not certain it should be," he decided. "I remember how we both knew the moment we met, when I showed up to arrest you—"

  "You were going to arrest Emilie? Why?"

  He smiled at the memory. "It's a long story. I'll tell you over dinner." Perhaps, Rory thought with satisfaction as he put the bowls on the table while she manag
ed to spoon the lasagna onto plates without spilling it onto the floor, the story would trigger her memory. And then, once she recalled who she was, Rory was going to take her up to that ultrafeminine bedroom and make mad, passionate love to her. Again and again until she remembered all the reasons they belonged together. For all time.

  6

  To Jessica's amazement and vast relief, she found herself enjoying Rory's story. The trick was, she decided, to treat it like a movie or book plot he was relating, and not an actual incident from some impossible past life.

  "Do you know," she said suddenly, "you've reminded me of a notice I saw in the Rim Rock Record a few days ago. There's a showing of old photographs and woodcuts at The Road to Ruin."

  "The Road to Ruin? Why would there be an art show at a brothel?"

  "A brothel? Oh. That's right. You're still stuck in 1896."

  "Actually, I'm stuck in 1996," he corrected. "But my knowledge is a century behind the times."

  "I've heard that happens a lot in time travel," she said dryly. "Anyway, The Road to Ruin is a gallery owned by Noel Giraudeau."

  "Giraudeau?" The name was vaguely familiar.

  "Of Montacroix. Her brother is regent. She moved here a few months ago. She's a lovely woman. She and Mackenzie Reardon, publisher of the Rim Rock Record, are engaged to be married. Her family wants the ceremony in Montacroix, you know, with all the bells and whistles—"

  "Whistles at a wedding?"

  "I was speaking figuratively. I suppose I should have said pomp and circumstance."

  "Ah." Rory nodded. That he understood.

  "Anyway, since she's pregnant, Mac doesn't want her to travel all that way, although I have to admit there is something to be said for getting married in a palace."

  "Is that your desire?" he wondered curiously.

  They'd gotten married in the meadow behind the new home he'd built her. Although her attire had been deemed controversial, Rory had never seen anything as lovely as his young bride, looking beautifully ethereal in a gown of sheer white pin-dotted swiss and a coronet of wildflowers in her free-flowing blond hair. She'd reminded him of a fairy from one of Hans Christian Andersen's tales.

  "Actually, I have every intention of remaining single."

  Rory, who could not envision such a vibrant woman living without a man, thought that was about the saddest statement he'd ever heard. "Why?"

  "Because I have no intention of becoming a meek, quiet, accommodating woman who turns all her energies to various charities. Not that charity work isn't important," she allowed. "It's just not how I choose to live my life."

  "Not all wives become meek."

  "I suppose not," she admitted as Mariah Swann Callahan immediately came to mind.

  Jessica had thought that she'd escaped her father's influence on her life by coming west. Lately she'd begun to realize that all the men she dated—with the exception of Trace—were the kind of men willing to grant her entire control over their relationships. It was, she'd decided, the way she wanted it.

  "I do know that if I ever decide to get married, it will be to a man who lets me wear the pants in the family."

  "You look very nice in pants," Rory said, immediately recalling those tight wet jeans. "But you also look very appealing in skirts."

  His gaze was warm enough to melt both polar ice caps. As she found herself falling under its sensual spell again, Jessica reminded herself that with or without amnesia, this was not a man who could be easily handled. Which meant, she reminded herself firmly, that he was definitely not her type.

  "I think we should get back to Emilie," she said briskly, changing the subject before she found herself in water over her head. "Tell me more about her photographs ."

  Understanding what she was doing and deciding that her caution was warranted for now, Rory told her about how his wife's mother had died in childbirth, leaving her to the care of her father, a man not given to staying in any one place very long. He'd traveled the world, taking photographs of far-off places, and although he'd tried to keep his daughter safe in the care of various aunts, she would always run away to be with him.

  "Finally, when she was ten, he surrendered and allowed her to accompany him on his travels." Rory smiled, as he always did, when he pictured his bride as she must have been—a willowy child with a will of pure steel. "Emilie became his assistant on the trip where he photographed the worker driving the last spike into the track of the Canadian Pacific Railroad."

  "From Canada they went to South Africa to photograph the gold rush there, then to Greece for the first Olympic games, then up to the Yukon for that gold rush."

  "That's a lot of traveling for a little girl."

  "Her relatives fought against his taking her to so many remote locations, but there was no way she'd stay home. And while James Cartwright—that was his name—was supplying photographs for the Pulitzer chain, Emilie began selling her own photographs, giving readers a more personal view."

  "Her photo of Orphan Train children being practically auctioned off in Denver appeared on the front pages of the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch and New York City's World newspapers."

  "You sound proud of her."

  "Of course I am. She was the most traveled, intelligent woman I'd ever met. And, despite having witnessed so much of man's inhumanity, she managed to remain unrelentingly optimistic. And kindhearted." He smiled at the memory. At Jessica. "She would not hesitate to take a stranger into her house."

  Jessica couldn't help smiling back. "I suppose she stopped working after your marriage," she said, once again forgetting that this was just a fanciful story born in his poor damaged mind.

  "Why would she do that?" He looked at her with honest surprise.

  "I doubt many men of the time allowed their wives to have careers."

  He laughed at that, a rich, bold sound filled with humor. "I would have liked to have seen the man who could have taken Emilie's beloved camera away. As for wives working, every woman I ever knew worked side by side with her husband, helping to build a life for themselves and their families."

  He rubbed his chin. The stubble was beginning to get on his nerves. "Surely you didn't believe that it was only the men who won the West?"

  "Of course not. But from the way women have been systematically left out of the history books, I have to assume that the men of the time, who were writing those books, didn't believe in giving their accomplishments any true credit."

  "Not all the men of my time believed women to be inferior in any way. I certainly didn't."

  Their eyes met and held. And in that suspended moment, Jessica was forced to ask herself why she felt that strange sense of familiarity.

  Rory Mannion simply reminded her of someone she'd met in the past, she assured herself. That was the obvious—and logical—explanation.

  "Tell me about your work," Rory said as the silence lingered.

  "My work? Why?"

  "Because I'm interested. After all, we're both in the same profession, so to speak. I was a lawyer before I was a marshall. Then it was my job to bring criminals to justice, while yours, it appears, is to make certain they remain in jail."

  "That's the way it's supposed to work, anyway." Jessica frowned as she thought of Eric Chapmann.

  "Don't think of him," Rory said quietly, proving yet again an eerie ability to read her thoughts. "Not tonight. Not when we're having such an enjoyable evening."

  He was right. Although she still refused to believe that Rory had somehow traveled through time to this century, she could not deny the bond that seemed to have been between them from the beginning. The bond that was growing stronger.

  Conveniently ignoring the fact that he couldn't really be the marshall of Arizona Territory, which in turn meant that they really didn't have their work in common, she proceeded to tell him about her current caseload, which included the usual teenage vandalism like mailbox bashing and firecracker damage; some break and enters; the typical weekend drunk and disorderly; a drunk driving case which was be
ing heatedly challenged by the accused, a Hollywood Hunk of the Month who'd been filming a made-for-television movie in Whiskey River last month; and two domestic violence cases, which were two more than she would have liked.

  "As you can see," she said, "it's not exactly a big-city caseload. But we're starting to see crimes more typical to Phoenix or Tucson."

  Like the methamphetamine lab Trace had busted last month. Fortunately, neighbors accustomed to the pristine pine-scented mountain air had complained of the fumes, which resulted in the lab's being shut down before a customer base had been established.

  "Would you prefer working in a big city?" Rory had no doubt she was intelligent. And she seemed to be ambitious, which, he supposed, could only mean moving away from Whiskey River to more high-profile crimes.

  She surprised him by laughing at that. "Not on a bet. We had a high-profile case a few months ago. A senator's wife, Laura Swann, was murdered. The fact that she was pregnant at the time with her lover's child only added to the prurient interest in the case. Although Trace, as sheriff, got the majority of the press flak, I had enough to make me realize that I'd lucked out when I'd thrown that dart at the map and ended up in Whiskey River."

  "You chose your new home by throwing a dart at a map?"

  "It seemed as good a way as any. But I have to admit I cheated. I tore the map in two at the Mississippi River and threw the eastern half away."

  "Why?"

  "If you'd ever met my father, you wouldn't ask that question," she said dryly. But there was real affection in her tone. "He's a federal judge in Philadelphia. He's the most intelligent man I've ever met. Also the most domineering. He's always ruled his home, including his family, with the same iron hand he rules his courtroom. And although I do truly love him dearly, I knew if I didn't escape his influence, he'd try to run my career. And my life."