by B. J Daniels
“The other numbers are to O.T. Burton and the Williams Gallery,” Clay said, having done horse business with O.T. and consulting with Williams. “I have no idea why Raymond would call either of them.”
The sheriff’s smile never reached his eyes. “Funny, but that’s what both parties said when I talked to them. I understand Degas ran with one of the Burton boys—Odell? And that both were suspects in the jewel robbery, but Odell is dead. He was killed in a car crash not long after the robbery.”
Clay could feel Josie tense in the chair next to him.
“And Brandon Williams, the owner of the gallery, is a collector. It was his jewels that were stolen.” The sheriff’s gaze locked onto Clay’s. “He seems to think you’re up here looking for his jewels and the crooks.”
Clay didn’t bat an eyelash. Didn’t speak. Just waited, knowing the cop knew exactly what was going on here. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it without proof.
“Do you have any leads on Raymond’s death?” Josie asked into the brittle silence.
The sheriff held Clay’s gaze for a few seconds longer, then dropped it to the sheet of phone numbers. He slipped the paper back into the file and stood up to leave. “It’s still under investigation,” he said without looking up. “I may need to talk to you both again.” He gave them both a warning look. “Don’t leave town.”
CLAY STOOD AT THE WINDOW and watched the sheriff drive away, wondering about the scared look he’d seen in Josie’s eyes when she’d seen the map and the phone numbers.
What was it she was so afraid of? Not Odell Burton. He was dead. Then what? Damn the woman. What was she hiding?
He turned at the sound of her footfalls behind him, his head spinning. Maybe Raymond had called the O’Malleys to tell them he knew where Josie was. Maybe. It just didn’t feel right. Why would Raymond do that? Unless money was involved. Clay just couldn’t see Shawn O’Malley paying someone like Raymond, even for that kind of information.
But what bothered him most was why Raymond called the other two numbers. Odell’s father, O.T. Burton, had never had any use for Raymond. Nor much use for Odell, from the sound of it.
But it was the third number, the call to Williams Gallery, that shook him the most.
He’d dialed Brandon Williams’s number the moment the sheriff had left. No answer. He didn’t leave a message. This was something he wanted to discuss person to person.
As he watched Josie come into the room with Ivy he noticed her worrying her lower lip with her teeth. Was she upset about the calls Raymond had made or the map?
“So you didn’t recognize the map the sheriff found on Raymond?” he asked.
Her gaze jerked up to his and he kicked himself for sounding so suspicious. But damned if he wasn’t. Damned if he wasn’t getting more suspicious as the days went on.
“I told the sheriff the truth, Jackson. I have no idea what it was. It just—” She let out a sigh and put Ivy down with her toys before heading for the kitchen.
“It just what?” he asked, following her. “Sit down and talk to me. I’m cleaning this up.”
Surprisingly, she didn’t argue. She sat, kneading her hands nervously in front of her on the table.
“It just gave me a bad feeling, that’s all,” she said, and put her hands in her lap. “It scared me, but I don’t know why.”
She fell silent as he began to wash the dishes. “Let me dry, please. I need something to do.”
He nodded, studying her as she pulled a clean dish towel from the drawer. Ivy joined them to play in the toy drawer.
“Why would Raymond call Burton,” she asked after a moment.
He shook his head, wondering if Raymond had some reason to think Odell was alive—just as Josie had. Maybe Raymond really believed that Odell had been the one who’d shot him. Hadn’t Josie thought she heard him say “Odell did it”? Did someone want them to believe that Odell was alive? But why? And who would do that?
“Who identified Odell’s body after the crash?” she asked out of the blue.
“O.T. The identification was based on the watch and ring. The body was too burned for anything else.”
“Then dental records weren’t checked?” she asked.
He shook his head. “It hadn’t seemed necessary at the time. But Judge Branson said the records matched.”
She nodded and began to stack the clean plates in the cupboard.
He finished cleaning the kitchen with Josie’s help. A dense silence seemed to fall over the cabin as they finished.
“There’s something I need to do. Would you watch Ivy for me?”
SHE CALLED FROM OUT on the porch, dialing the familiar number, her fingers trembling.
It rang once, then another two times. No one was home.
Someone picked up. “Hello.”
Just the sound of her father’s voice choked her up. Tears welled in her eyes and her voice broke. “Dad?”
“Josie.” It sounded like a prayer. “Oh, Josie, thank God you called.”
She couldn’t speak.
“Are you all right?”
It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. She thought he’d be angry and upset about her leaving, about her not calling before, about Ivy.
“Yes,” she managed to answer, all her homesickness for Texas and her family flooding her with tears. “I’ve missed you.”
“Me, too, baby.”
They talked for a long time. She told him about Ivy and her horse training. He told her about the ranch and Texas and her brothers. Then her father grew quiet.
“Josie,” he said after a moment. “When your mother died and left me a little girl to raise, I was scared to death. What did I know about little girls? I thought if I was tough on you like I was with the boys…” His voice trailed off. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
“You did fine, Dad. This was something I had to do on my own.”
“It sounds like you’ve done all right.”
She wanted to correct him and tell him she’d messed up. Big time. But she hoped that she could right her mistakes before she saw her father—just as she’d sworn on her great-grandmother’s memory she would do.
“You know Raymond Degas called here,” her father said. “He had some fool notion that Odell was still alive.”
Her heart thudded in her chest. “I know. But he was wrong.”
“That’s good.” He seemed to hesitate. “When the sheriff called, he said someone killed Raymond. They find his killer?”
“Not yet.”
Silence.
“Are you considering coming home, Josie?”
She desperately wanted to. Wanted her father and brothers to see Ivy. And Ivy to have her family around her. “I want to.”
“Good, I was hoping you’d say that.” He sounded relieved.
“I just need to finish what I started up here, Dad.”
“I love you, Josie. Be careful.”
“I love you, too, Dad.”
She hung up and let all the pent-up emotions flow, then she dried her eyes and went inside.
HE STUDIED HER as she entered the living room. She’d pulled on a sweater, jeans and boots when the sheriff stopped by. Clay missed the robe and the way the thin fabric hugged her curves.
“How did it go?” he asked, suspecting she’d called home.
She nodded and smiled through fresh tears. “Dad wants me to come home.”
Even a man as stubborn and hard-nosed as Shawn O’Malley had some sense, it seemed.
He wondered about his own good sense. Or if he had any when it came to Josie. He’d made so many mistakes. Last night she’d been in a confessing mood. She’d wanted to tell him something, had seemed desperate to unburden herself.
But he’d stopped her. He’d been afraid of what she was going to say. He knew he’d have to hear it eventually. One way or the other. But not last night.
“Where’s Ivy?” she asked.
He’d played with her until she couldn’t keep her
eyes open. “I put her down for her nap.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem. I enjoy her.”
He thought he saw pain behind her tears. Why did he fear he’d made more mistakes with her than even he knew about? Or worse, that he was about to make another one?
“We need to talk,” he said.
She nodded and brushed at the tears.
He reached out to cup her cheek in the palm of his hand, his thumb brushing across her lips, her soft, smooth cheek. “But first, I want to make love with you.”
Her gaze never wavered. What he saw in her eyes almost leveled him. She kissed the pad of his thumb, her eyes filled with a need that mirrored his own.
He swept Josie up into his arms and carried her up the stairs to the bedroom, across from Ivy’s, all reason and logic and suspicion discarded as quickly as he planned to discard their clothing. He wanted her. And he planned to have her. Right now. Later he’d deal with whatever she had to tell him, he told himself, as he closed the door.
She opened to his kiss, offering her mouth, encouraging him to explore deeper, as if he would find her every secret in the dark recesses. She clung to him, moaning softly as she kissed him back with a matching intensity that aroused and excited him.
This was nothing like the images that had haunted him. Nothing like the slow, sensual way she’d come to him that night in Texas in the dream. This was wild and hot and hurried. Filled with aching need. A fire that could only be put out with more fire.
She unsnapped his western shirt, jerking it open, flattening her palms to his bare skin as if she needed to feel him as desperately as he did her.
He released her lips only long enough to pull the light cotton-knit sweater over her head. His fingers unhooked the no-nonsense bra she wore, releasing her breasts to his waiting hands. He cupped them, thumbing the already-hard nipples, his desire heightening at just the sight of her.
She groaned and reached for his belt buckle. “Please, Clay.”
They joined, coupled in a frantic need for release. He filled her and she fulfilled him in a dance as old as life.
When the release came, he felt as if a dam had broken. Not just for him, but for Josie, too, as if this had been the first time in a long time for her as well. A very long time.
They lay holding on to each other as if in a windstorm. But the real storm had passed, hadn’t it?
He pushed himself up just enough to look down into her eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was break the connection between their bodies. He had hoped that having her would finally put an end to the years of yearning. But as he looked down at her, he knew he would never be free of her spell. He would want her again and again. He already did.
Her wide blue eyes stared up at him with a look of surprise and wonder and sated peace. Her blond hair curled wetly around her face. Her arms still locked around him as if she didn’t want their bodies to separate any more than he did.
He stared into her eyes. A trickle of sweat rolled down his chest to pool in the hollow of her belly button. The breeze from the open window drifted over him, chilling his exposed flesh.
As he looked down at her, one clear thought lodged itself in his brain like a splinter that refused to come out.
“We’ve done this before,” he said, his voice deadly quiet and just as deadly sure.
Chapter Eleven
Josie stared into his eyes. “You aren’t serious?”
He seemed dumbfounded, stunned. He was serious.
“You really don’t remember,” she said, staring up at him, as shocked as he looked.
Josie felt her heart lurch. She searched his gaze, wishing for the need, the desire, the fulfillment, the peace she’d seen just moments before. But all the warmth had gone out of his dark eyes. They stared down at her, hard, cold and accusing.
Her throat closed, her mouth dry as dust. He hadn’t moved. Their bodies were still united. Slowly, she unlocked her arms from his back, but still he didn’t move to let her up.
“Tell me,” he whispered.
“Yes, we did this before.”
She felt cold suddenly. From his gaze. From the breeze. She could feel him pulling away from her, although he still hadn’t moved.
“When?”
“The night by the creek.”
“Which night?” His gaze locked with hers.
All these months she’d thought he’d regretted their lovemaking—and he hadn’t even remembered it! How could that be? The fall he’d taken from Diablo? Or the booze he’d consumed? Or had he not wanted to remember it, just as she’d originally thought?
“You got into a fight with Odell,” she said, watching his face, “and took off on Diablo. You’d been drinking.”
He pulled away, leaving an emptiness inside her, heart-deep. The cool breeze rushed over her bare, sweaty skin, chilling her.
Hurriedly she struggled to get into her clothing, needing something between her and the unbearable look in his eyes. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him dress, his fingers working methodically while hers fumbled clumsily.
“You really don’t remember,” she said to his rigid back.
“No.”
He sounded as cold as she felt. He didn’t remember and now he thought she’d lied to him. Kept it a secret. If their lovemaking had been the only secret she’d kept these past two years, maybe then he could understand why she’d done what she had. Maybe then he could forgive her.
But as she finished dressing, pulling on her boots, she looked over at him. He sat on the end of the bed, his face set in granite. He jerked on his boots, the muscles in his arms bulging with the effort. Then he sat, staring straight ahead, his hands gripping the edge of the bed, his jaw set.
No, she thought, understanding and forgiveness were the last two things she could expect from Clay Jackson.
He fought to rein in the rush of emotions. Betrayal. Shock. Hurt. Anger. All bombarding him at once. Blurring his thoughts. Making him sick.
He stared at the wall, gripping the mattress as if it was all that was holding him together, unable to look at her. Unable to corral his thoughts any more than he could the turmoil of emotions.
Realization came slowly, awkwardly. It hadn’t been a dream.
He loosened his grip on the bed as he looked over at her. Memories of the night by the creek flashed as bright as falling stars.
“You rode Diablo.”
She nodded. “I’d been working with him, trying some of the techniques I’d seen other trainers use, techniques I’d read about.”
And those techniques had worked. He remembered the way she’d ridden. No wonder he hadn’t been able to believe it. She’d been able to ride a horse he had fought, a horse that had finally defeated him.
“Why didn’t you say something the next day?”
Her brow shot up. “I just assumed you preferred to forget it as if it never happened.”
The memory of that night had haunted him for two years. But he hadn’t believed it had happened for so many reasons. Why was that?
He stared at her. Because he’d refused to believe she could ride Diablo. Refused to believe she could ride that well. His lack of faith in her shocked him.
But he knew it had been more than that. If he’d admitted to himself what had happened between them that night, he’d have had to admit how he felt about her.
He raked a hand through his hair, sick inside. He looked at her, her face still flushed from their lovemaking, it all coming back. Everything.
“Why did you come to me that night?” he asked, his voice sounding as tortured as he felt.
She looked away, but not before he’d seen the pain in her eyes. “Surely you know that I’ve always wanted it to happen.” She shifted her gaze back to him. “When Diablo came back without you, I figured you’d been thrown. Without thinking, I got on the horse and rode out to find you.”
“And you found me.”
She nodded. “You looked so desolate, so hurt, I—”
“You felt sorry for me,” he said in disgust.
Her eyes filled with tears and a mixture of emotions that pulled at his heart as she shook her head. “I wanted you,” she whispered.
The honesty in her words stunned him. He wanted desperately to reach for her, to take her in his arms, to make up for all the hurt and pain they’d both suffered.
But a memory tugged at him, a feeling of dread at its heels. “That night by the creek, you were a…”
“A virgin?” Her gaze narrowed; tiny sparks flashed in the blue of her eyes. “That was another reason you didn’t believe it happened, wasn’t it? You refused to believe you might be wrong about me. That I might not be as wild as you were determined I was.”
Her accusation hit its mark. Bull’s-eye. He had believed the worst of her, but he realized now it had been less from her spirited antics and more to do with his own hurt. He’d wanted to believe the worst about her. Because he’d felt vulnerable around her. He’d known instinctively she was the one woman who could get to him.
He stared at her proud profile. “It wasn’t you. It was me. I was…” The words didn’t come easily. “I was scared. After Maria— I didn’t want to get involved.”
“I know.” She turned slowly to look at him, but instead of anger in her gaze, he saw deep sadness.
His chest constricted, his throat went dry. He swallowed, afraid to ask the one question he now desperately needed answered. “Did you and Odell ever—”
“No,” she said, anticipating his question. “I never had sex with Odell. I’ve never made love with anyone…but you.”
The realization slammed him back, knocking the wind from him. He gripped the bed again and held on. It took him a moment to finally form the words. “Ivy is my daughter,” he said, hearing the truth as he said them.
“Yes.”
JOSIE WANTED TO RECOIL from the horrible pain that twisted his handsome face into a mask of despair. He threw back his head and let out a cry that froze her blood. A cry of pure anguish.
She reached for him, needing to comfort him. But he moved away from her before she could touch him.
