She shifted impatiently. “I’m a fairly intelligent woman, Jethro. I like to think that when I make a mistake, I learn from it. So I don’t make the same one again. I made a doozy of one with Nicholas, and as a result I think I’ve learned how to tell a good man from a bad one.” She covered her face with her hands, then shook her head as if to clear it. “Nicky was a bad man-I know that, now. He lied to me, J.J. I tried to tell you-that day. When it all happened.” She jerked in a breath. “It was Nicky. That’s one of the reasons I came. To tell you that…you have your witness. I remembered. It was when I saw you take your gun off of your ankle, I remembered Nicky did the same thing that night. He shoved me down behind the Dumpster, then he took a gun out of his ankle holster and started shooting. He killed them, J.J. My husband killed those two agents. I saw him do it. So…you can close your case. I hope-”
She broke off and looked away, swallowing tears. I hope it gets you your job back. I hope you get what you want, Jethro. I really do.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
Rachel stood up and brushed at the seat of her pants. His voice came again, buried in gravel now.
“Was that the only reason you came?” He paused, and when she didn’t answer, prompted, “You said Katie’s got Sean for the night.”
“Yes, I did.” She closed her eyes, then abruptly turned back to him. “I wanted to ask you a question.”
“Shoot. Oops-sorry, bad choice of words.” His teeth flashed white again. “Go ahead-ask.”
She blurted it out all in a rush, which was the only way she could. “Was that the only reason you stayed with me…took care of me…looked after me? Josie said you were in love with me. I sort of started to believe her. Then…you told me I was just a witness to the murders, and-”
“I never said just.”
Her heart skipped, then seemed to stop. Holding her breath, she said, “Then I have to know. Now that Carlos’s empire is collapsing…now that you have your witness…is there any other reason for me to stay?”
He looked at her for a long time, his face somber in the festive glow of the Christmas lights. Her heartbeats counted off the seconds. Then, “You’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you?”
She hitched a shoulder. “Say it, or show me.”
“Can’t very well show you if you’re way over there.”
She drew a shaking breath and felt a smile a-borning. “I don’t think that chair will hold both of us.”
“Then hand me those crutches, dammit. I think I’ve waited for you long enough.”
With a sobbing laugh, she thrust the crutches at him. Then he was upright, and she was pushing past impediments-bucket, crutches, chair-to get to him. With his back braced against the stair railing, he pulled her into his arms.
Words came, stumbling over each other, tangled in hot breaths and frantic kisses.
“I did, didn’t I? Wait…long enough-”
“Yes-yes-I just got the doctor’s blessing this morning. That’s why I didn’t come sooner. I wanted-”
“You could have come sooner. I’d have waited. It’s not just sex I want from you.”
“That’s what Josie said-she thought it was romantic. I couldn’t believe-”
“Believe it…”
She felt his mouth quiver. He pulled back and touched his own face. “I haven’t shaved-”
Small evidences of vulnerability that made her heart ache and grow too big for her chest. Tears she’d been trying so hard not to shed welled up and ran down her cheeks as she reached up to lay her hand on his. “Don’t,” she whispered brokenly, “you’re fine the way you are. I’m not exactly at my best, either, you know. I’m still fat, my stomach’s flabby, I have stretch marks and my breasts leak…”
“You’re kidding, right?” He held her face between his two hands and gazed down at her as if he were King Midas and she was made of pure gold. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”
He kissed her then, the way he’d always wanted to, cherishing her with his mouth, telling her that way how he felt because he couldn’t seem to do it with words. And then somehow the words came anyway, more easily than he could have imagined. “I love you, Rachel. God, how I do love you.”
She laughed, giddy with a kind of happiness she’d thought she’d never know. “And I love you. And…can we go inside now?”
Getting up the stairs and into the trailer was goofy and clumsy and exhilarating and frustrating, and by the time they were safely inside the trailer’s tiny bedroom, they were both out of breath and half-mad with desire. They stood beside the bed, kissing and touching each other, laughing, tugging ineptly at buttons and clothing like giddy teenagers.
J.J.’s shirt went first. He shucked it off and let it drop to the floor, then put his hands on Rachel’s shoulders. His body shuddered and he exhaled softly as she leaned into him, and he felt her wet cheek lay sweetly on his chest. Stroking her back, feeling her full breasts pillowed against him, he closed his eyes and for just one moment felt a wave of pure terror.
She’s so vulnerable…I can’t hurt her. How can I do this? What if I screw it up?
“Rachel…honey,” he whispered brokenly, “do you want me to turn off the light?”
He felt her sigh. Then she lifted her head and looked up at him, lips already swollen, eyes shining bright and shook her head. “This is me,” she said, with a shrug so simple and sweet it made his heart ache. “I think you’d better see what you’re getting.”
Silently laughing, filled with pain and emotions too overwhelming to bear, he kissed each eyelid…then her mouth. Then he lifted his head, and made it a point to look only into her eyes while he undressed her, trying to tell her without words that he knew exactly what he was getting, and that the way he felt about her had very little to do with her body or her face, as lovely as they were. When she was naked, he folded her into his arms, all but overcome by the feel of her body against him, and whispered, “I wish…”
But he couldn’t finish it. He would have to get better at this business of sharing his innermost thoughts, hopes and desires, he supposed. He planned on spending the rest of his life learning how.
She helped him take off his pants and one shoe and sock, and they laid each other down on the bed, the giddiness and laughter done with now, touching with gentleness and care, exploring each other’s body’s with tenderness and wonder. Time ceased to have any meaning for him; his only reality was her mouth, her hands, the soft, sweet mystery of her body. They body he’d seen in such different circumstances, and yet, had no knowledge of at all. He felt he could go on like this forever, if that was what she wanted, just touching…exploring…letting her do the same.
Then…he knew he couldn’t. Not now.
As if she felt his urgency, without his having to ask her, she slid over him and astride his body with a kind of innate grace he realized he’d seen before. And he found it was intensely erotic, remembering the way she’d mounted the black appaloosa and ridden like the wind…
Looking down into his eyes, Rachel saw them darken with heat and passion, and felt a surge of power and confidence such as she’d never felt in her life before. She eased herself onto him and felt him thrust deep, deep inside her, and wanted to throw back her head and shout with purest joy. Instead, she drew a shaken breath, looked down at the man she’d somehow come to love more than life, twined her fingers with his and whispered his name. “Jethro…”
In the humid darkness, Rachel stirred against his side.
“Will you come back with me?” she murmured.
He kissed her damp hair. “To the ranch, you mean?”
He felt her nod. “Since you’re on leave anyway…”
He laughed softly. “Oh, yes, I’d like to come back. For one thing, I’d really, really like to meet the guy. I've never seen anything like it-outside the movies, anyway.”
She sat up in the bed, her shadow tall beside him. “What guy? What are you talking about?”
He raised
himself on one elbow. “Don’t tell me you missed it. The one-man cavalry charge?”
She went very still. “You mean…you saw him, too?” Her breath left her in a rush. “I thought I imagined him. I thought-being in shock and all-I thought I’d conjured him from all those old movies I saw when I was little. That, and the old man I saw at the creek-I thought it was him, you know, mixed up somehow with John Wayne.” There was a rustling as she settled back into the curve of his body. “I guess it really was him-the old man, I mean, not John Wayne. I wonder who he is. I’ll have to ask Josie-I’m sure she must know. We need to thank him for saving our lives.”
“You mean…you really don’t know?” J.J.’s voice was hushed with wonder. “You still haven’t met him?”
“Know…what? Met who?”
He laughed and kissed the top of her head. “Sweetheart, I don’t know how to break this to you, but that old man, the one who saved your life and probably mine and Sage’s as well-that was your grandpa, darlin’. Sierra Sam Malone.”
Epilogue
From the memoirs of Sierra Sam Malone:
Ah, Elizabeth. I was too young and stupid to know it then, but you were the real thing…the treasure I had in my hands, that I threw away to go chasing after Fool’s Gold.
In my defense, I will say that she was beautiful, more beautiful than anything I’d ever seen. As beautiful, I thought then, as an angel.
Elizabeth, you were the earth, the world, practical and real and as vital as food and drink to me. But…they say a man can’t live on bread alone, and she…well, she was the food of my spirit. My soul. Her name was Barbara Chase, and I flew to her, and for a time, God help me, I did believe I’d found heaven.
KATHLEEN CREIGHTON
has roots deep in the California soil but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old-timers’ tales, and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today, she says she is interested in everything-art, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and history, but people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines all her loves in romance novels.
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Sheriff’s Runaway Witness Page 20
