The Texan

by Joan Johnston

  “Oh,” she said with a moan. “Oh.”

  It felt so wonderful. Why hadn’t they ever done this before? She started to open her eyes, and his large, callused hand gently covered them.

  “Easy,” he said in a rough, gruff voice. “Easy.”

  She relaxed against his arm in the water, willing to trust him. “I want to hold you,” she said. “I want you to hold me.”

  He seemed to hesitate, then whispered, “Keep your eyes closed.”

  She smiled at the silliness of such a request, but was more than willing to play along with his game. “All right,” she whispered back.

  She was surprised at his strength when he lifted her out of the water, surprised at the hardness of his biceps under her hands, as she slid them up his arms and around his neck. The hair at his nape was soft and thick and luxurious. Her mouth searched for his and found it, warm and waiting.

  She groaned with satisfaction as his tongue probed deeply into her mouth. She felt him release the catch on her bra and pull it up out of his way, so he could reach her breasts. She let her head fall back and felt the dappled sunlight on her eyelids as he suckled first one breast and then the other. She moaned as the breeze hit her damp nipples and turned them into tight buds.

  “Oh, God,” he said in a low, guttural voice. “You’re so beautiful.”

  She couldn’t help smiling. She would have opened her eyes, but he put one large hand over them once more and murmured, “Don’t. This is a dream. Let’s play it out.”

  Oh, yes. It felt like a dream. A wonderful dream.

  She let him remove her bra and heard it hit the water with a small splash. She felt a raw curl of feeling deep inside, as her breasts brushed against the rough, wiry hair on his chest. She hadn’t remembered Jesse having so much hair on his chest, but she was feeling too much pleasure to question something so inconsequential.

  She pulled his head down so she could kiss him more easily, put her tongue into his mouth. Oh, the sounds he made! Carnal, lustful sounds. She felt desirable and desired.

  He pulled her roughly up along his body so she felt his naked erection against her belly. She was startled at first at the thought of him naked, but then she realized she was glad. She reached down to touch him, but he caught her wrist in an iron grip and put her hand back around his neck.

  “Not yet,” he rasped.

  He caught her buttocks in his hands and pulled her hard against him, so she could feel the heat of him pulsing against her.

  “I want to feel you inside me,” she begged. “Please.”

  A groan rumbled deep in his throat, a desperate, animal sound of need. She felt him rip her bikini panties in two and growled low and fierce in her throat as she realized he was going to give her what she craved. Her mouth latched onto his neck, biting hard as he lifted her and thrust inside, deeply, to the hilt.

  She felt full. Unbelievably full. But her body was too far gone to question the anomaly her mind had recognized. She bucked against his body, the water thrashing around them. He held her buttocks tight against him, releasing her only to thrust again. She clenched her inner muscles, as she felt him release his seed, milking him dry.

  Her head fell on his shoulder, and she linked her fingers behind his neck to keep her arms from sliding down. She felt his chest heaving against her own as he held her tightly against him, their bodies still connected to one another.

  “Oh, God,” she heard him say.

  And realized it wasn’t Jesse’s voice she heard.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, as she slowly lifted her head … and opened her eyes.

  His eyes weren’t dark like Jesse’s. They were stone cold gray. It wasn’t Jesse Creed she’d just made love with. It was Jackson Blackthorne.

  “Put me down.” She was amazed at how calm her voice sounded. Amazed at how bereft she felt, as their bodies disentangled. Amazed that she had no bones in her legs. And only belatedly felt the shame that flushed her cheeks and caused her to hide her naked breasts with her hands.

  She stiffened when he tried to help her stay upright in the shallow water and said, “Don’t touch me.”

  “Will you let me explain?”

  She was too wounded to listen. “How could you? You knew I thought you were someone else.”

  “Why didn’t you stop me?”

  She knew what he was asking. Why hadn’t she recognized the differences between one man and another? Why hadn’t she known it wasn’t Jesse who’d been making love to her?

  Maybe she had. Most certainly she had.

  Ren frowned, confused by her own actions. There had been so many differences. She’d noticed them all. Why hadn’t she opened her eyes? Because then the dream would have ended. Why hadn’t she stopped him? Because it had felt so right.

  “Why didn’t you stop?” she countered.

  “Because I wanted you,” he said boldly. “I saw you floating there, so beautiful … so desirable … so utterly irresistible.”

  Ren wasn’t immune to flattery. Especially when she’d received so little of it from Jesse. Jesse didn’t seem to think she needed to hear those sorts of things. But she did. Every woman did.

  “Is there a chance I’ve gotten you pregnant?” he asked.

  Ren gasped, as she remembered why she’d been so anxious to have Jesse meet her at the pond. The news she had to tell him. That she was pregnant with his child. She looked at Blackjack with stricken eyes.

  “If I’ve gotten you pregnant—”

  “No,” she interrupted. “There’s no chance of that.”

  She didn’t know why she hadn’t told him she was already pregnant. That she would most certainly be a married woman as soon as she and Jesse could arrange the wedding.

  “Can I see you again?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  The Blackthorne arrogance she’d heard so much about was evident in his demanding voice. Ren discovered she didn’t mind it so much, when what he wanted was her. She’d wanted her dream lover to seduce her. She’d loved every moment she’d spent in his arms. But that was all there could ever be between them.

  He leaned across the distance that separated them and touched her lips with his.

  And she was lost. She stepped into his embrace and felt his arms tighten around her.

  “I have to have you again,” he said, as he lifted her up and carried her out of the water and onto the bank.

  They’d spent the rest of the afternoon together, loving and talking and then loving again. She hadn’t questioned the insanity of what she was doing. She’d only known that it felt right, no matter how wrong it was. He was another part of herself. They belonged together.

  She wished she’d known then what she knew now. That her conscience would force her to give up Blackjack and marry Jesse, whose child she carried. And that even when she realized, within a year of marrying Jesse, that she’d made the wrong choice, it would be too late. Because Jackson Blackthorne had already married Eve DeWitt and had a child of his own on the way.

  But that was then. And this was now. New decisions had to be made, new choices that would affect the rest of her life. She focused her gaze on the stallion and mare in the adjoining corrals.

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  Ren jerked as Blackjack touched her shoulder. “Just remembering—” She cut herself off, but not before a light flared in his eyes.

  “It’s been a long time, Ren. Too many years. I want you. I always have, and I always will.”

  Oh, he was a wily-tongued devil. How did he know just the right thing to say? She walked away from him and slid open the gate between the two corrals, watching as the stallion, head up and tail flowing, danced into the corral with the mare.

  Ren felt Blackjack join her as they watched the two animals circle one another, felt his big body tense as he watched the violent, bestial coupling.

  The mating of stallion and mare was never civilized. To someone unschooled, it might even seem brutal, a fierce, p
owerful animal claiming its mate. But sex was necessary for the survival of the species. And while people might want to mask the ferocity of the act, animals never did.

  The stallion’s teeth bared and clamped on the mare’s throat as he mantled her, his front hooves finding surface on her gleaming coat, their manes flying in the wind as he plunged into her. Their bodies glistened with sweat and their eyes rolled wildly, as he demanded she take his seed.

  Ren grasped Blackjack’s forearm, her fingernails biting hard into his flesh, as the stallion neighed in triumph. She was shivering, shuddering, when the animals finally uncoupled. She didn’t resist when Blackjack pulled her into his arms, and she burrowed her face against his powerful chest and slid her arms around his waist and held on tight.

  “I didn’t kill Jesse, Ren,” Blackjack said. “You have to believe me.”

  She had only his word for it. Even his own son suspected him. He’d threatened to kill Jesse only three weeks before her husband had died. Ren remembered his exact words: I should have killed you a long time ago, Jesse. What if he’d done it? She’d seen enough examples of Jackson Blackthorne’s willingness to make hard choices when he was after something he wanted.

  The bank he controlled refusing loans to struggling ranchers. Flooding the market with beef and lowering the price, causing more disaster, and gobbling up small ranches when they went belly-up.

  She wondered if he’d been so ruthless when she’d met him thirty-five years ago, or if he’d only become that way as he’d fought against adversity over the years to survive and succeed. Would Jackson Blackthorne have become a different—more compassionate—man if she’d relented and married him?

  Over the years, the Bitter Creek Cattle Company had become a gigantic ranching empire, until the only property within a hundred miles that Blackjack didn’t own was Three Oaks. Had he murdered Jesse to get it? Or was she what Blackjack had wanted? Was he guilty, as his son had accused him of being? Or as innocent as he professed?

  “Oh, God,” she whispered. “I have to believe you. I can’t give you up. Not now that we’ve found each other at last.”

  “You don’t have to,” he replied. “I’m yours, Ren. Always and forever.”

  She forced herself to step back and look at the man she loved. Had always loved.

  He’d aged well. At fifty-five, there were crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes and harsh lines drawn on either side of his mouth. His jawline was still straight and firm, probably from the arrogant thrust of it all these years, she mused.

  He was only an inch or two taller than Jesse, but his shoulders were broader, more powerful. His waist was still trim, and he was as lean of hip as he’d ever been. He looked weathered, like a piece of wood that had met wind and sun and only been polished to a brighter sheen. She still wanted him. Lusted after his body, as only teenagers were supposed to do.

  It was foolish for her to be feeling all the hopes and dreams of youth. She was fifty-one. Her periods were irregular. She had gray hair at her temples and in other places she wished she did not. If she were a brood mare, she’d already have been put out to pasture. And yet, inside, she still craved the feel of his body on hers, still wanted to join with him, still yearned for the savage need, coupled with tenderness, that he’d shown her that long-ago day.

  But she wasn’t a teenager. She was a mature woman, who’d lived a long life and learned lessons from it.

  Ren felt a place inside her shrivel up, as though it had been touched by fire and burned to ash. She imagined years of lying in bed at night untouched. It didn’t bear thinking about. But what other choice did she have? Blackjack wasn’t free to love her. He had a wife.

  “I think it would be best if we kept our distance from one another until your divorce is final,” she said.

  “That could take years!” Blackjack protested. “Every day is precious. And life is too damned short!”

  Ren hadn’t forgotten the heart attack that had nearly killed Blackjack two years before. “Are you all right?” she asked, laying her hand on his heart.

  “My heart will be fine. So long as you don’t break it.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t bear sneaking around like this. I won’t openly commit adultery with you. That isn’t fair to my children. Or to yours.”

  She could see the struggle on his face to find a reason she would accept to continue the clandestine meetings that had begun only a month before. So far, she’d managed not to have sex with him. But she didn’t think she could resist much longer. Quite simply, she didn’t want to resist.

  “This is crazy, Ren. I won’t give you up.”

  “Then hurry up with that divorce,” she said with a smile meant to ease the pain she could see in his eyes.

  “Eve wants too much,” he said. “She wants it all,” he amended.

  “Is Bitter Creek so important to you?” She knew the answer to her question before he gave it.

  “I wouldn’t know who to be without the ranch,” he said. “And I can’t pay Eve what she wants without selling it.”

  He leaned over and touched his lips to hers with so much gentleness that she couldn’t help but feel his desperation.

  “I’ve got a hunting cabin where we could meet,” he urged. “It hasn’t been used since Trace left for Australia. No one would know. Please, Ren. I’m fifty-five,” he reminded her with a self-deprecating grin. “Who knows how much longer I’ll be a virile man.”

  She laughed, as she knew he’d intended. She wanted to give in. She wanted to be with him. But she wanted more than just sex. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

  She laid her palm on his cheek and said, “I want more, Jackson. I want to share the joy of living day to day with you. I want the right to sleep beside you at night. And I want to grow old with you, the two of us sitting in rocking chairs on the back porch, when our bones are too brittle for sex.”

  She saw the bleak look in his eyes and almost gave in. But there was too much at stake. “You’ll have to choose,” she said. “Between her and me.”

  But what it really came down to was a choice between Bitter Creek and Ren. She could see the struggle on Blackjack’s face. He knew exactly what she was asking. Is a piece of land—all right, eight hundred thousand acres of land—more important to you than I am?

  “You’re the one who married Jesse, when I begged you not to,” he said angrily.

  It was hitting below the belt. Fighting dirty. She should have known he would. He was fighting for his life. She wrapped her arms around herself and said, “You know why I did that. I was carrying his child. It wasn’t his fault that I did what I did with you that day at the creek.”

  “I love you, Ren.”

  She swallowed hard. “I know.”

  “But that isn’t enough for you, is it?” he said in a harsh voice.

  “No,” she said softly. “It’s not.”

  “You can send Smart Little Doc home when he’s done here,” he said.

  And then he was gone.

  Ren gripped the top rail of the corral with both hands to keep from running after him. She was doing the right thing. She had to keep believing that. Especially over the long, lonely nights to come.

  BILLY HAD FELT SICK TO HIS STOMACH AS HE WATCHED Owen Blackthorne drive away. He had immediately turned to Summer and said, “You should be going.”

  “He won’t say a word to my father,” she said. “Owen isn’t like that.”

  “You should be going anyway. My mother will be home soon with Emma.”

  He watched as Summer wrinkled her nose like a child smelling burnt toast. “What have I ever done to make your mother dislike me so much?”

  “You’re rich,” Billy replied.

  “That’s not fair.”

  Billy snorted. “Who said life was fair?” He slid his arm across her shoulder like a brother might. He yearned to make the touch a caress, but he didn’t dare.

  He had nothing to offer her as a prospective husband. He’d n
ever been to jail, but he’d come close too many times to count. And he had a steady job, though it was the worst kind of menial ranch work. Yet he did it, to keep his mother and sister fed and to make what few repairs he could on the ranch with the limited funds he had left.

  In the year since his father had died, he’d been a model citizen. But it was way too late for anyone in Bitter Creek to see him in another light. He was “Bad” Billy Coburn. Always had been and always would be.

  Which was why he had to get out of here. Anywhere else would be better. He hated his home. Hated the memories he had of growing up here. He would have left a long time ago to seek his fortune, but he hadn’t been willing to abandon his sister while she still needed him. Once Emma graduated from high school in the spring and could get herself a job, he’d be gone. One year. He had one more year to wait.

  If he was ever going to have a chance to make something of himself—to make himself worthy of becoming Summer’s husband—he had to go. But he was afraid, with good reason, that Summer wouldn’t be here waiting for him when he got back. Her father was intent on selling her to the highest bidder, and Billy lived in fear that one of these days Blackjack might offer her a suitor she took a hankering to. And then she would be lost to him forever.

  But he couldn’t ask her to wait. She had no idea his feelings for her went as deep as the ocean. She thought they were just good friends.

  “You have to go,” he repeated.

  She slid her arm around his waist and laid her head on his shoulder. He forced himself to relax, so she wouldn’t feel the sexual tension caused by her closeness. He couldn’t help breathing in the smell of her shampoo, something flowery and feminine. He let himself kiss the top of her head, because that was the sort of thing a friend might do.

  She wrapped her other arm around him and turned to put them body to body. He edged his hips away, so she wouldn’t discover his reaction to her touch was a great deal more than friendly.

  She sighed and said, “I wish you didn’t have to go away next year. I don’t know how I’m going to survive once you’re gone.”

  They’d talked often about their plans for the future. It was her dream to run the Bitter Creek Cattle Company one day. That had become a lot more likely when her eldest brother Trace inherited a huge cattle station from a distant relative and moved lock, stock, and barrel to Australia. Neither Owen nor Clay had any interest in running the ranch. Which left her as her father’s only choice.