Miracle Jones

by Nancy Bush

  The horse was down, its leg shattered. It lay on its side, restlessly moving its other three limbs. Moments before it had made pitiful wuffling sounds, but now its energy had been turned inward.

  “He’s gotta be put down,” Harrison told the sad-eyed rancher whose gelding had stepped in a chucker hole and broken his leg. “It’s the only humane thing to do,” he added. “You have no choice. It’s the best thing.”

  “Ah cain’t do it,” the rancher answered, swiping at his eyes with a rag. “Ah cain’t.” He gazed helplessly at Harrison.

  Harrison knew what the rancher was asking of him. The worst of his job. The absolute worst. “Get me a rifle,” he said emotionlessly.

  In his mind the shot rang on and on, louder and louder, like expanding ripples in a lake. And then Kelsey was there, so bright and beautiful it hurt to look at her, riding up on a black stallion whose flanks glistened with sweat.

  She climbed down lithely, gazing at him through those clear gray eyes that saw deep into his soul and knew he didn’t care for her the way a husband should. But even so she stepped nearer, her hair brushing against his flesh as she bent to look even closer into his eyes, staring at him accusingly even while her hands slid across his skin.

  “Kelsey,” he murmured in surprise.

  Her hair swung against him teasingly. It was straight and felt like satin. Desire shot through him, surprising him with its blood-hot intensity. He’d never felt this way about Kelsey before.

  He reached for her as her image wavered and faded. It wasn’t Kelsey. Nor was it Isabella. But he wanted her.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Miracle awakened at the sound of Harrison’s voice. It wasn’t a low mutter, it was a shout of anguish. She tried to turn, but his arms surrounded her like a vice. His face was in her hair, and his body was subtly moving against hers.

  “Kelsey,” she heard him say.

  “Blast,” she muttered, easing away from him, but he was most insistent, holding her down.

  The elixir was working its particular magic, she realized, aware that he was dreaming vividly, hallucinating. He obviously thought she was this Kelsey person. Well, she was going to smarten him up right quick.

  With a muscular twist that wrung a gasp from Miracle’s lips, he flopped her onto her back, dropping his full weight on her an instant later. Miracle drew a breath of outrage. She pushed against his chest with all her might. Damn and blast him! She was no use against his superior strength.

  His fingers curled into the fabric of her shirtwaist and pulled it away from her neck, ripping it. Buttons strained and tore loose, and suddenly the shirtwaist was circling her waist, leaving her breasts bare.

  “Harrison!” she yelled, hoping to rouse him from his dream.

  She doubled up her fist, concentrating on the cut on his jaw. One hit. It would take just one hit. Then she was distracted by the feel of his hardness against her thigh. Curiosity made her hesitate. He thrust against her, and a thrilling feeling seemed to spread between her legs. She wanted to lift her hips to meet him.

  Then his mouth claimed hers, his tongue sweeping the line of her lips before stabbing between them. Miracle’s nerves jumped. This wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening.

  Oh, Lord. This was not the help I begged for!

  “…want you,” he whispered fiercely, dropping his hot mouth to one breast. Miracle’s hand unclenched. Treacherously, deep inside her being, a sleeping beast stretched and yawned. Her body burned with longing. She fought it as desperately as she fought the hands that were now tearing off her buckskin skirt, pulling it down over her hips without care or caution, leaving only her drawers as protection against his tumultuous assault.

  “I’m not Kelsey!” she yelled, panicked. “I’m Miracle!”

  He groaned, low in his throat. His fingers cupped her breast and pinched and pulled lightly on her nipple. His mouth ravished hers, but his tongue danced at the edges of her lips until she pressed her own mouth more firmly to his to end the torment. His thrusting hips changed to a slow, circular motion that made Miracle’s limbs turn to water and her throat fill with soft moans of need.

  Hellfire! Out of his head or not, Harrison Danner was seducing her.

  He pulled his mouth from hers, but Miracle pulled it right back. He tasted… good. He felt good. She raised her hips involuntarily, then gasped when his hand slid between her legs.

  Her eyes flew open. Oh, Lord, what was he doing? What was she doing? She grabbed his hand, but then he did something so extraordinary she would have swooned dead away – if she’d been the type. He put her hand on him!

  Miracle lost all sense. She didn’t move, but neither did she pull away. He rubbed against her for several moments, then suddenly reached down and yanked off his breeches, pulling them off in a swift movement that gave Miracle time to come to her senses.

  She tried to scramble away, but Harrison’s arms surrounded her, holding her so tightly she felt her bones might crack, rubbing his tongue hotly against the skin of her shoulder and the hollow of her neck.

  Then he lay atop her, positioning himself. She’d asked for this, she realized faintly as his fingers impatiently ripped down her drawers and she fought to keep them back up. Her will was sapped, however, and she lost the battle.

  His knee wedged itself between her legs. Get up, Miracle! Get up! she silently railed at herself, her flesh jumping at the probe of his manhood against her moistened skin. Panic filled her as he grasped her hips. She twisted violently, but it was too late. With complete disregard for her virginity, he rammed himself inside of her, and Miracle fought back a scream of pain and anguish.

  In Harrison’s distorted dream he was making love to a water goddess. He wound his hands in her hair, moving rhythmically, fighting back a tide of passion within his already overloaded senses. Her tight sheath made him moan with pleasure.

  Miracle lay motionless, shocked to her very core, humiliated. She tried to push him away, but he began to move inside her, and she braced herself for more pain. But the pain was less now. Low growls issued from his throat. Incredibly, a surge of pure pleasure shot through her, and she tentatively moved to meet his thrust.

  Momentum built. She heard his breath rasp in and out of his throat. She heard her own soft cries. He cupped her bottom and drove inside her, and she lifted to meet him. Miracle moaned with need, her head thrashing to and fro. Faster and faster, dizzier and dizzier. Her fingernails dug into his lower back, and she cried out, desire exploding inside her, sending shockwaves through her limbs, pulsating deep within her so that the aftershock of his own release only reached the dim recesses of her mind.

  He slumped against her, spent and it was several moments before Miracle realized he’d slipped back into unconsciousness. It had seemed like he’d been awake. How could anyone perform such a searing, intimate act without knowing it?

  But then she remembered the power of Uncle Horace’s elixir.

  Miracle went instantly cold inside. She pushed him away from her, gently, because she had no wish to hurt him even though with the return of her sanity she felt like running away as far and as fast as her legs would carry her. Snatching up her clothes, she clutched them to her shivering chest, staring down at his beautiful body, astounded and deeply moved by what had happened between them.

  Oh, God, she prayed, shattered. What have I done?

  Chapter Five

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Miracle came awake with a start. Someone’s hand was covering her lips and nose, nearly suffocating her.

  “I want answers,” Harrison’s voice declared tautly through the faintly moonlit darkness of dead night.

  Relief flooded her system, slowing her rollicking pulse to a more normal rhythm. She tried to answer, but his hand didn’t budge. Above her, his shadow was dark and menacing. He shifted his weight, and her arms were suddenly pinned down by a pair of hard masculine knees. The brute was sitting on her!

  Miracle, who’d dressed and moved back to the other side of the ca
mp, hoping to catch at least a few moments of sleep while her soul waged a war with itself over the way she’d given herself to him, was completely at his mercy. Gone was the seductive lover. He was furious, she realized with growing fury herself as she stared into a pair of intense, shadowed eyes. And he was obviously in full control of his faculties. He’d had the presence of mind to pull on his breeches again and his boots while she lay completely at his mercy.

  Her chin was jerked upward by tense fingers. She was helpless, straddled by the full weight of Harrison’s body. Her eyes flashed blue fire at him.

  “Who are you?” he again demanded icily. “Where are we, and what the hell are we doing here?”

  She tried to twist her arms against the pain of his hard knees. A rock dug into her shoulder. Annoyed, she glared back at him, and he thoughtfully removed his hand from her mouth.

  “I’m Miracle Jones, and we’re by the lake,” she told him coldly. “Do you remember the barn burning?”

  Moments passed slowly. Miracle heard the light wind sough through the branches of the trees, and the chatter and rattle of dried leaves. She realized that until this clear-eyed moment, she hadn’t even seen him stone-cold sober and fully conscious. Who knew what kind of man he was? Good Lord! Had she really given herself to him?

  “No,” he answered flatly. “But I do remember – you.”

  Her heart nearly stopped. She didn’t even want to consider what that meant. “I helped you escape from the barn. You were – um – injured.”

  Now was the time to tell him she hadn’t meant to stab him, that it had been an accident, that she’d just been defending herself from a man she’d assumed had come to rape her. Her cheeks flamed. Hellfire, how could she have protected her virginity so savagely, just to throw it away two nights later? It defied belief.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was scared! I didn’t know who you were!” Miracle burst out. She struggled to free herself. Her arms were numb, and the tender skin beneath his hard knees was going to be bruised and swollen. Injustice swept through her, and she glared up at him through now blazing eyes. “Let me up!” she demanded. “Or I’ll… I’ll…”

  “What?”

  “I’ll make sure you regret it!”

  Her blouse was asunder, and her wriggling had loosened the neck, exposing her entire left shoulder. He moved his knees but still straddled her. Miracle instantly rubbed her inner arms, each with the opposite hand, making no attempt to hide her blinding anger.

  “Miracle Jones,” he repeated on a note of discovery. Then, “You stabbed me!”

  “It was an error of judgment,” she corrected tightly.

  “Indeed,” he commented dryly. “I seem to make a habit of running up against the wrong end of a knife. I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t finish me off.”

  “You should be thanking me that I got you out of that barn alive! You were disgustingly drunk, and you – you kissed me!” She cringed inside at what a hypocrite she was. She was complaining about one kiss when it could hardly matter now.

  “I’ve been drunk before and kissed other women, but this is the first time one took such offense as to try and carve out my heart,” he said mildly.

  “If I were after your heart, it would be gone,” Miracle flashed. “And I would have entered the knife through the front, not the back!” she added, poking at his chest.

  “Then it seems I’m lucky I didn’t try to do more than kiss you.”

  The inarticulate sound that escaped her throat made him regard her with sharp curiosity, but he didn’t say anything more. Instead, slowly, and with an effort, he climbed to his feet, releasing Miracle. The moment she was free Miracle jumped upward. But then Harrison swayed on his feet so dramatically that she grabbed his arm with real concern.

  “Are you all right?” He might be fully conscious, but he was far from completely recovered.

  “Damn – miserable – weakling,” he muttered through his teeth.

  She guided him back to his blankets. There was pain in his voice, but there was anger, too, and that was a good sign. As he collapsed back down, she saw fresh blood welling along the edges of the poultice. Miracle was encouraged nonetheless. The poultice – and Uncle Horace’s elixir – had worked their magic; his fever had broken. Now the tissues simply needed mending. Time would take care of that.

  “I’ll get you a drink,” she said somewhat awkwardly, then hiked up her skirts and ran to the edge of the lake. She’d stuck the canteen in the cooling waters, and inside the water was fresh and cold.

  Harrison was still half sitting when she returned. He looked up at her warily. She could see the cut on his chin, dark against his shadowy, moonlit face. She was glad now she hadn’t smashed her fist into his jaw, although it would have saved her from…

  She remembered the feel of him plunging inside her, and her mouth went dry. She wouldn’t think about that now.

  She held out the canteen, and he reached for it greedily, pouring the liquid down his throat and over his face.

  When he’d finished, he sighed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, handing her back the emptied canteen. “Thanks,” he muttered.

  “You’re welcome,” Miracle answered sardonically.

  “I guess I should be grateful you spared my life, but right now I feel like hell.”

  “Then you should get some sleep,” Miracle said, turning away. She didn’t want to be reminded of her savage attack on him, nor the fact that he had the power of gathering the forces of the law against her. “It’s hours until daylight.”

  “I assume you were the one who took off my clothes. Where’s my shirt?”

  “Ruined. Tomorrow I’ll get you another one.” Miracle crawled back under her blanket.

  Harrison sighed and said in a tired voice, “Tomorrow…”

  Silence followed. Miracle waited tensely, but he was asleep. For her, however, sleep was impossible. There was a tender throbbing in her most intimate spot, and within her soul a shock as wide as the Oregon wilderness. She couldn’t begin to understand herself. And damnation, but she didn’t think she’d change things even if she could!

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  The blackened timbers of the old barn stuck skyward, gray morning mist clinging mysteriously to their charred edges. Jace Garrett glanced around the area with a sense of distaste. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to forget Harrison Danner and every miserable moment they’d spent at this godforsaken place. He wanted to forget the indignity of being accosted by those filthy criminals at the Half Moon, forced to hand over some of Garrett Industries’ hard-earned cash.

  He wanted to forget everything.

  Sheriff Raynor and his men were dutifully scraping through the ash. Five bodies – or parts of bodies – had been recovered since the night of the inferno. It was possible some of those grotesquely charred limbs and one of the torsos belonged to Harrison. In fact, it was highly probable.

  Jace shuddered and fought back a gripping nausea. How could Raynor and his men stomach this?

  A shout sounded from the far side of the devastation. One of Raynor’s men signaled excitedly. “One we missed,” he yelled. “Caught under the rubble.”

  Jace stepped back, propping one arm against the nearest tree. He gagged several times, then drew his monogrammed silk handkerchief from his pocket, covering his nose and mouth. He’d never smelled burned human flesh before today, and it was a scent indelibly etched in his memory.

  “Nah, it’s a woman,” the same man said moments later, as Raynor helped him uncover the corpse and drag it from the rubble.

  Jace turned his back to them and indelicately heaved up his morning’s breakfast.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Harrison awakened with a god-awful pain in his back and a dull throb to his head. At first his confused senses sent him back in time, to that awful moment of awakening after his brother had stitched his right arm together. Then he’d thought death preferable to the teeth-gritting pain and the desolate future of having a useless l
imb.

  But Tremaine’s surgical skill had saved his arm and even given him some use in it, enough to practice his craft as a horse doctor anyway. He could lift it straight out, nearly even with his shoulder, if he really tried, and surprisingly his fingers seemed to function just fine. In fact, most of the time he forgot about its partial dysfunction. Ten years was a long time in which to forget.

  But this moment’s searing pain brought it back in sharp focus, and Harrison sucked in a tight breath, his eyes flying open in shock.

  He was on his stomach, stretched out on the brightly colored wool blanket strewn with tiny bits of orange and brown cedar fronds which had scattered from the stately trees surrounding him. The soft lap of water reached his ears, and he turned his head. Facing him was a small lake. He frowned. He’d been here before when he was a boy, hadn’t he? Wasn’t this the lake between Rock Springs and Malone? It was far enough from the main road and deep enough in the woods to be almost inaccessible. How had he gotten here?

  Miracle Jones.

  Memory of the black-haired woman made him jerked involuntarily – and he let out a yelp of agony as the muscles of his back stretched, nerves screaming in protest.

  No one came to his aid.

  After a moment he tried to move again. Grinding his teeth against the pain, he struggled to his side. Now he remembered the thrust of the knife in his back. The wretched little savage had actually stabbed him.

  “Lucky to be alive,” he muttered furiously to himself. Vaguely he remembered a conversation with her, too. She’d said something about if she’d wanted to kill him, she would have stuck the knife in his chest.

  Harrison inhaled carefully, lest the expansion should strain the mending wound too much. He glanced around and saw the remains of a campfire outlined by river rock, the ashes cold and black. There were tins of food lying about, some open and some not. The thought of food sent his stomach into low growls. Where was this savage Miracle witch? Had she just left him to die after all?