by BJ James
The trail was an uneven track ever climbing, snaking past boulders and clumps of scrub and sparse cacti. As Marissa followed Jefferson, she could see that it was a route constantly changing. The soil was a mix of crumbling detritus, sandlike soil, or hard packed red earth. Some parts of it were wide, easily navigated, others were narrow, with jutting rock formations threatening a knee or ankle. But the threats never came to pass, thanks to Jefferson's guidance and softly called warnings.
When the idea of this ride had first been presented, she hadn't voiced her questioning of his choice of Black Jack over Gitano. Now, the black horse proved Jefferson's wisdom.
Black Jack was the most surefooted horse she'd ever seen. With The Lady coming in a close second. Only Satan, ranging ahead of them was surer. The filly she had worked with all morning hadn't been exposed to the trails, but there was something about the way she moved. "She could do this."
Jefferson turned in the saddle. "Something wrong?"
Realizing that she'd spoken her thoughts, Marissa shook her head. "Just thinking out loud."
"Care to share?" Beneath the brim of his hat, his eyes were stunning, as blue as the unclouded sky.
Eyes that could make any woman shiver in anticipation of the thoughts that clear steady gaze inspired. But certainly none she could, or should speak of. "I was thinking of the filly." Not quite a lie, not the full truth. "There's something about the way she walks. I can't explain it, but my intuition says she will make an excellent mountain horse. At least as good as The Lady."
Jefferson respected Marissa's horse sense. As much as anyone he knew short of Sandy Gannon, Steve Cody, or Jesse Lee. And Savannah was no slouch. He wouldn't presume to second-guess any of them. Especially Marissa. Threading his reins through his gloved fingers, he leaned on the pommel of his saddle, his gaze keeping hers. ‘‘When you think she's ready, we'll bring her into the canyon. It's a good test for mountain horses."
"When she's ready," Marissa agreed. "If I'm still here."
Jefferson tensed, Black Jack responded to the change in his bearing by dancing restlessly in place. With a touch of a hand and a softly spoken word, the stallion was calmed.
Marissa watched as he stroked the horse. As his long,' gloved fingers moved over Black Jack's sleek, black hide, there was gentleness in the stroke that controlled more than force or power. That was his way. As natural to Jefferson as breathing. A power greater than brute force.
His brothers had been brawlers. Known as boys, then men, who never instigated a controversy but were always standing in the end. Jefferson's one foray into battle ended with Adams Cade going to prison. Marissa knew Jefferson had been barely in his teens when he'd taken it upon himself to avenge an insult. He was too young, too inexperienced, to handle the issue. Adams had gone after him. What happened then lay shrouded in mystery for years.
Though she'd heard gossip, she'd been too young also. And too new to Belle Terre to understand all that happened. Except Adams was locked away and Jefferson banished himself in the swamp. In time the truth was revealed, Adams was exonerated.
All was forgiven. Except by Jefferson, who had never forgiven himself. In the time they'd spent together, pals, best of friends, roaming the land, this was the one subject of which he never spoke. Though it changed his life irrevocably, causing him to exile himself from his brothers, he had never explained.
She knew the truth. That the oldest and the youngest of the Cade brothers had truly saved each other that night. She'd never heard it from Jefferson's guilt-ridden perspective. She'd never questioned him, she never would. But she realized now, on a dusty trail far removed from the Carolina lowcountry, that she very much wanted to hear the story in his own words.
Then she would understand this good man. Because they were so alike. Because they both bore the brunt of tragedy, maybe in understanding Jefferson, she could understand herself.
She watched his fingers trailing over Black Jack, soothing the spirited creature. He'd done the same for her that final day in the swamp. He'd given her the accord she'd sought, courage to do what she must. He would again, if she'd let him.
His hands were magic, their caress a gift of courage and peace. His gift, honed by tragedy. Given to all but himself.
Dust that billowed in a red cloud beneath the stallion's hooves began to settle. The upheaval was finished, when Jefferson spoke again. "There's one bad patch left on the trail. But from there, barring a new slide, or a collapsing rock formation, it should be downhill and easy the rest of the way."
Black Jack stamped a foot, eager to move on. The Lady responded with a toss of her head. Jefferson smiled, reading the message they sent "Ready?"
"I'm ready." She wasn't quite sure for what, or when. But something inside her was changing, shifting. Something that couldn't be hurried. "Or I will be." Her words were quiet, lost in the clatter of hooves on rocky ground. "One day. Soon."
* * *
Confident of her ability, and The Lady's, Jefferson set Black Jack into a gallop. With dust flying again, they rode in silence, enjoying the moment. At the crest of this last rise, the trail began a sharp descent. Twisting, nearly looping back on itself, it descended again into the protective shade of canyon walls. Brush thrived and thickened, nearly blocking the narrow, little used trail in places. And as they moved deeper into this secluded part of Sunrise Canyon, the sound of tumbling water was a welcome intrusion into the quiet of the trail.
One strand of wire stretching across the trail turned the arroyo into a natural corral. Jefferson's quick dismount, a shift of fencing, then when she'd ridden past it leading Black Jack, the reconnection of wire, and they were in. Secure in a tiny world of every color of the spectrum. A feast for the senses.
"Take a look around," Jefferson suggested. "I'll check the horses, then meet you by the stream." He looked down at her, struggling against the compelling urge to touch her. Against the need to kiss her. With his look tracing the shape of her mouth, he asked, ' 'Have you worked up an appetite?"
"Yes." Her answer was automatic. But she discovered she was looking forward to eating, as she hadn't been since the day her family died. "I'll set out what I put in the saddlebag. I'm sorry it isn't more. Where would you like it?"
"Anything will be fine. Anywhere you choose will be fine." Backing away while he could, he hurried to the horses. Leaving her questioning the sudden edge in his voice.
In this tranquil place, after a challenging ride that should have worked off lingering tension, he seemed ill at ease. He was striding past boulders that would hide him from her sight, before she turned to the stream to seek out a place for a picnic.
The site she chose was shaded by the spreading limbs of a cottonwood. There were only biscuits and bacon from the morning, along with a thermos of the strong, black coffee he liked. With another of the cool, sweet water from the stream for her. Makeshift fare, spread on a tattered blanket. But neither he nor she were prone to great feasts in the middle of a hot, dusty workday when it was thirst, not appetite that needed quenching.
When she finished, she sat down to wait for Jefferson's return, and a sense of peace surrounded her as she listened to the whisper of a breeze in the cottonwood. A perfect accompaniment for the babble of the stream. Jefferson's footsteps sounded behind her, but she didn't turn. With her gaze ranging this unexpected place, she murmured, "This is beautiful."
"Yes," he said simply. But he only had eyes for Marissa as he came down beside her.
"The horses?"
"No problems. The grass here is good, but we should consider moving them in a week or so."
We. He spoke to her as his partner. "Will we need help?"
"They've done this enough that they know the trail. One hand could do it. Two makes it easier. But that's enough."
"Hungry?"
"Am I?" He laughed, a rare husky sound touched by strain. Dear heaven, yes he was hungry. Hungrier than he'd ever been or thought he could be. He was too hungry here in this secluded p
aradise. But not for food. "Yeah," he muttered. "As a bear."
"A bear?" Her speculative gaze ranging over him not helping his situation, "A wolf maybe, or a tiger, or even the bobcat like before. But I could never see you as a bear." The beginning of a smile faltered as she saw the bloody bandage on his left hand. "Jefferson, you're bleeding again!"
"It's nothing." Her fingertips barely brushed his wrist when he jerked away. "Don't! Don't touch me, Marissa. Not here. Dear God, not now."
Her hand hovered between them, then dropped to her knee. The flush of color the ride had brought to her cheeks faded. The pleasure she'd found in this wild and wonderful place that matched the aura of the lowcountry vanished. "I suppose I deserved that." Her voice was raw, brittle. "I'm sorry."
Wishing he'd bitten his tongue rather than spoken to her as he had, he searched for a way to make her understand.
"After the way I behaved on the drive to the canyon, I can't blame you for not wanting me to touch you, Jefferson."
"Not wanting you to touch me? Is that what you think this is about?" He wanted to lift her face to his. But he dared not. Instead, he said, "Look at me, Marissa. Look in my eyes, see for yourself and believe that I want your touch. See and believe that I want far more. More than you're ready to give."
"You're not angry about what I said?" Her dark eyes searched his, and saw no condemnation.
"I was never angry. Puzzled, yes. Then, after a while, I understood. You've a long way to go in resolving your grief. But, just so you understand, I want you, Marissa. I want your touch, your kiss. I want the love, and yes, the lust. I want it all, Marissa. Everything. But not before its time.
"I don't want to rush you, sweetheart. But if that day in the swamp didn't mean what I thought it meant, if you didn't love me then, tell me now."
There it was. Dragging in a long breath, Marissa closed her eyes. Shutting out everything, but the one thing she couldn't deny. Right or wrong. Reprehensible or not—the truth. "I can't."
"Can't?" he prompted gently, patiently, leaving countless questions unasked.
She turned to him, staring up at him. "I can't tell you that you were wrong. I can't tell you I didn't love you."
Forgetting his hand and breaking rules that no longer applied, Jefferson reached for her then. Folding her into his embrace as she came willingly to him, he held her. "That's a beginning and enough for now." His lips brushed her hair as he whispered a promise. "We'll work it out. Maybe sooner, maybe later, but we will work this out.
"All of it," he added grimly as thoughts of Menendez turned his tenderness to anger.
Six
"Ah-h." With that groan of relief, dusty, soaked with sweat, body stiff and refusing to obey, Marissa fell out of the saddle. More a gangly landing than her usual easy dismount. Her legs nearly buckling, with another groan she straightened, discovering the exhilarated pleasure in every taut, aching muscle.
Her day had begun as days always began on the ranch. Awake by five. Breakfast by five-thirty. In the barn tending and feeding horses by six. Next a session with the pretty mare she'd begun calling Bonita. A session that had run long today. Not because the surefooted horse was having difficulty, but because Marissa sensed her agile and cooperative mount was enjoying the routine. Bonita was proving to be a unique horse. A hard worker, a quick learner. Patient. A mount that shared a rapport with its rider.
When the session ended the sun was high, the early summer temperature soaring. It was time. Time to ride again with Jefferson to the cienaga. This, he had explained at the end of their first trip farther into the land of the Broken Spur, was the name Savannah Henrietta Benedict Cody had given that distant part of the canyon when she was still a young girl. A very young girl called Hank, not Savannah, who found it a respite from the often impossible burden of being Jake Benedict's only child.
The most isolated part of the canyon would never by any stretch of the imagination truly be a marshland. But, for Marissa, in mood and spirit, the Spanish name fit.
She'd come away from it the first time with the beginning of a better perspective. Nothing concrete. A change sensed rather than understood. A cornerstone for building toward a new outlook, a new life. A paradoxical feeling of history repeating itself as Jefferson shared the healing serenity of a desert paradise as kindly and gently as he had in the lowcountry.
The first ride in had been a time of exploring the canyon. A part of a normal workday coupled with the pleasure of discovery. Today had been strictly labor. As a team they'd worked together, Jefferson and she, driving the herd pastured there back home.
Though the roundup was strenuous, keeping the horses on the trail as a whole hadn't been difficult. But there was always the wanderer that would stray past an outcropping of boulders or through a copse of brush. Or straight up an impossible incline. But The Lady was always willing to follow, and Satan helped.
Through the day, Marissa whistled and called until her throat was parched. She'd stretched and strained, riding her stirrups until her legs trembled. Her hat and her hair, drawn back in a ponytail, were covered in a film of red dust. Her face was marked and streaked with that same dust mingled with sweat. When she clenched her teeth grit ground between them.
As she stripped the saddle from The Lady and led her for a short drink, she was as hot and exhausted as her mount. As she took off her hat, dragged the tie from her hair and wiped the back of her gloved hand over her forehead, she'd never felt so good.
Leaving the horse to rest, she walked to the corral fence. Leaning against the top rail, she watched the new herd mill among the old. A result, in part, of her efforts. Body-battering, unglamorous work. She laughed, a contented sound.
‘‘A pretty sight, isn't it?'' His own mount unsaddled and watered, Jefferson had come to stand beside her. He was as dusty, perhaps as exhausted, but in him there was a glow of fulfillment. Together they watched the herd.
Standing beside him at the end of a day of accomplishment made the concerted effort even more satisfying. Turning her gaze from the herd, absorbing the look of him— the dark blond hair, streaked with silver and barely visible beneath his hat. Broad shoulders made broader by work and life and time. A lean torso, flat belly, powerful thighs and long, muscular legs, all blending into an arresting and beautiful man.
It was all a part of Thomas Jefferson Cade. A man who had come for her when she needed him. Who shared this moment with her. "I can't think of anything or any place prettier."
"Rough day?" he asked, though there was no question in his tone. "Have I demanded too much of you, sweetheart?"
Sweetheart. He called her that routinely now. But she'd never gotten accustomed to the endearment. Even in her grief and guilt, a warm sensation never failed to settle in the pit of her stomach. Though she'd learned to keep her hands and gaze steady, with that single word, he made her serene demeanor a lie.
"Rough, but good." Brushing a sweat soaked strand of hair from her cheek, she saw his concern. "You haven't demanded too much of me, Jefferson. You never have. It feels good to be useful. I rode often when Paulo and my parents were alive."
"But, as the wife of a wealthy man only for pleasure," he finished for her. "Rarely grueling work like this."
"No." The Lady had come to snuffle at her shoulder. Marissa stroked the mare and sighed a contented sigh. Rarely like this. Of course there were occasions when I got away to the estancia. Beyond prying, watchful eyes, I rode less sedately."
"Especially with Juan."
"With Juan I could be myself. Rissa, as he has called me since my fifth birthday." Her hands clenched one over the other in painful remembrance. "My mother's illness had just been diagnosed. My father was wrapped up in her and in his business problems. I was always in the way. An energetic child who was too much for an ailing mother and a busy father.
"My father decided to channel the energy into a new passion. Horses was the obvious solution. Juan was young, but the best rider on the estancia. I was given into
his care on that day."
"Not a bad choice." Jefferson had never met the Alexandres and he could never forgive them for bartering their daughter for wealth and security for themselves. But in their self-absorption, they'd given her a lifelong gift in Juan.
"Even with Juan's help, I wasn't the perfect daughter my parents needed," Marissa continued her reminiscence. ‘‘In my waywardness, I was a burden. But never for Juan. He expected no more or no less of me than that I be who I really was. He knew me as well as I knew myself, and understood me better than anyone else."
Her head turned, her eyes lifted to Jefferson's, seeing again the man who was everything she ever wanted. Everything she'd been denied. There was an ache in her voice for things lost as she whispered softly, "Better than anyone, except you."
Jefferson didn't move, he didn't respond. Though it took every iota of his willpower, he didn't reach for her. He didn't draw her into his arms, shushing her, soothing her anguish as he would have with any other hurting creature. But this was Marissa. As painful as her revelation must be, as painful as it was for him to let her endure this, it needed to be said.
When it was done, from the exorcism of guilt and pain would come healing. In silence that was agony, he waited.
The Lady butted Marissa's shoulder again. With leather-clad fingers moving in slow strokes over the horse's nose, she began again. ' 'When I returned to Argentina to marry Paulo, no one but Juan understood that I needed to stay busy. Like the blind seeking light, or the renegade seeking peace, I needed drudgery. Grinding, grueling labor that punished my body and numbed my mind. He understood that only then could I find an ease for grief that wouldn't go away."
"Were you grieving for us, Marissa?" Jefferson's own gloved hands were fisted to keep them at his side. She was a strong woman, her troubles were her own to bear. Troubles she'd hidden from the world and him. Their last day in the swamp had been the first crack in the dam of hidden emotions. Today was the second rift in that wall.
