Blue Dalton

by Tara Janzen

  This time she was his; Walker felt the truth in the sheer simplicity of her response. He led; she followed. He took; she gave, until she took what he wanted most to give her, the rush of her release. His own climax came easily, so easily within her.

  After a long moment he brushed his mouth across her cheek. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning,” she whispered, and he felt the curve of her smile against his lips.

  Amazement brought his head up slowly, and as he looked down upon the shy brilliance lighting her dark eyes, a sense of wonderment built and spread throughout his entire body.

  He’d needed her smile as much as he’d needed her loving. To have one without the other would have left him incomplete, still wanting. He’d never asked so much of a woman, and yet he needed to ask more of Blue Dalton. He wasn’t going to lose her.

  “Stay put,” he said, rolling off of her and rising to his feet.

  Without his warmth surrounding her Blue felt the chill of the morning and the embarrassment of her nakedness. Neither of which seemed to bother him. He strode across the room, the muscles in his long legs flexing with every step, the beauty of him holding her gaze. His lower body was pale compared to the golden tan of his back and arms. She blushed, thinking of how she’d touched him in the night, of all the ways he’d touched her.

  He’d loved her and changed her life with the act. He’d spoken of love and changed her heart, but with the knowledge came the doubts. What did she know of the ways of men? Of the love of men? She’d given herself away in his arms, been captured by the magic he’d created with their bodies, and there was no going back to before she’d known him. She sat up and pulled the quilt around her shoulders, needing the slight protection it offered.

  Behind her Walker noted the defensive action, instinctively recognizing the gesture for what it was.

  “That won’t work, Blue.”

  Her head came around, her mouth parted on a soft breath, as if he’d caught her in a lie.

  “You can’t hide from me. I won’t let you.” He walked back across the room and sank to his knees in front of her, his arms laden with the treasures of Lacey’s Lode. Thick silver strands of squash blossoms hung from his wrists. Roughly carved fetishes covered his ketoh. Bracelets and rings filled his hands.

  And he gave them all to her, one by one.

  “For your first kiss,” he whispered, lowering the heaviest necklace over her head. The cool silver slid around her throat and down her chest until the crescent of sliver and turquoise nestled between her breasts.

  “And your second.” He followed the squash-blossom necklace with a delicate strand of greenish-blue nuggets.

  “For loving me last night.” A slow, sexy grin teased his mouth as he layered three more necklaces on top of the other two.

  “And for this morning.” He leaned closer, and she felt his hands slide around her waist, and she felt the weight of a concha belt settle on her hips and dip below her waist. “Never forget this morning, Blue,” he drawled, his breath followed by a lover’s bite on her neck, his teeth barely grazing her skin, his tongue following the path. “This morning you were really mine.”

  Blue didn’t know about other men, about other lovers, but she knew this man. Walker’s gifts overwhelmed her, filled her with a desire to love him without boundaries, to love him with the same generosity of spirit he so easily gave.

  “The letter, Walker. You saw the letter,” she said softly, her cheek brushing the side of his face.

  He lifted his head and met her gaze, and Blue became lost in the love she found in the amber depths shot through with green and gold. “I burned the letter. Whatever becomes of us is between you and me.” He lowered his gaze to the jewelry piled between them and chose three more pieces. “For my love, Blue, I want you to wear this bracelet.” His hand slid around her wrist, banding her with entwined ropes of silver and three oval stones of dark-green laced with matrix.

  “And with this one”—a grin flashed across his face as he raised a ring into the firelight—“with this one I’m paying in advance for the chance you’re going to give me.”

  Diamonds glittered in the fine circle of gold, icy hot against the roughness of his hand.

  “That’s not Lacey’s,” she said breathlessly, unable to take her eyes off the ring.

  “This is the only one that ever was Lacey’s. She left it to me, and I’m giving it to you, but you’re going to have to ask for the rest of it.” And so saying, he opened his other palm, revealing the matching wedding band. “When you’re ready, you come to me and ask for it. You know the right words, don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Let’s hear them,” he ordered softly.

  “Will you marry me?” she whispered.

  He took the last word from her mouth with a kiss, a slow, searching exploration of what was his, then murmured against her lips, “Be warned, Blue Dalton . . . the next time I’m going to say yes.”

  Eleven

  “Fight, Blue. Fight!” Walker gripped her hand tightly, their forearms entwined, and she came half off the bed. “You can do it, sweetheart. Hold on to me.”

  The contraction subsided, and she sank back into the pillows. “You . . . did this . . . to me . . . on purpose,” she gasped between deep breaths, holding his gaze with the glazed fire in her eyes.

  “Yes, I did, and with a little luck I’ll do it again,” he admitted. He would have smiled if he’d had the strength, but the long day he’d spent at her side while she was in labor had left him ragged.

  “Ha! Your fun is over,” she moaned, and came off the bed again.

  “Breathe, honey, breathe,” he coached, and she panted back at him. Wild, blond hair tangled around her face and brushed her shoulders. “Breathe, breathe.”

  The pain relented, but she held on to him even tighter, looking him square in the eyes. “Take me home, Walker. Take me . . . home.”

  “I’ll take you both home, but you’ve got to give us our baby first. You’re close, so close.”

  “That’s what you said two hours—” She started panting, her eyes growing wide. It was his fault. It was all his fault, and she’d never forgive him. Her eyes snapped shut, and her teeth grated against each other as she fought her way through another tidal wave of pain.

  “You’re doing great, Blue.”

  What did he know?

  “You’re going to make it. You’re going to make it.”

  Easy for him to say!

  “Hang in there, sweetheart. It’s almost over.”

  No, it isn’t! The pain keeps coming, and coming, and . . . “Take one, Walker, please. Please just take one contraction. I’m so tired. Just one,” she babbled, desperate to make him understand before it was too late and the pain came again. “Just one, please.”

  “I’d take them all if—”

  “Don’t be practical. I don’t need practical. I want to go home!”

  She wanted to go home, with him. The words filled him with pride. He’d held on to his lady. She’d run twice during the summer, the first time she’d gotten all the way to Walden before love had brought her back to his side. The second time she’d gotten no farther than the end of the driveway. By autumn she’d started holding her ground at the front door, and when the snows of winter had come upon them, she’d been too tired and too big even to waddle that far in anger.

  Yes, he’d gotten her pregnant on purpose, but she’d let him. Even as a young buck he’d never let desire overrule common sense. No other woman had ever carried his child, but no other woman had been the other half of his life. She’d come to him on a rain-swept night high in the mountains, cold, hurt, frightened, and ready to take all comers in the fight for her own survival.

  And she’d come to him once more, on a cool autumn evening when the aspen leaves had danced golden and copper in the light of the setting sun, when her tummy had grown softly rounded, and she’d asked for his hand in marriage.

  His mouth quirked at the memory, at his versi
on of the facts. What she’d actually asked him for was the other half of Lacey’s ring. He’d been the one exacting promises of “ ’til death do us part.”

  “Walker, Walker, I need to push!”

  “Blow, honey. Blow.” He puffed his cheeks, showing her the way, and hollered over his shoulder, “Nurse!”

  An hour later he cradled a miracle in the crook of his arm. His other hand lightly caressed the woman who for the seasons of a year had taught him the depths and taken him to the limits of love. Now she’d pushed him completely over the edge, where his heart floated free. He’d never felt so light. The tiny, little female nestled against his chest filled him with awe beyond measure. Every breath she took amazed him.

  “Where did you get all that dark hair, sweetie? Hmmm? Has your momma been sleeping with the milkman?”

  “We don’t have a milkman,” Blue whispered, rousing from one of the dozen or so catnaps she’d been slipping in and out of since the birth. The deep masculine voice by her bedside had been softly murmuring to their daughter every time she’d awakened. She turned to him with a tired smile. “Let me hold her.”

  He squeezed her hand before relinquishing his precious bundle. “Babies do smell good, all soft and warm,” he said, brushing a kiss on his wife’s cheek.

  “She’s so beautiful.”

  “Like her mother.” He picked up her hand and held it between both of his, resting his elbows on the side of the bed. Light from the hall backlit the tousled disarray of his hair and the breadth of his shoulders beneath the pale-blue hospital gown. The square line of his jaw was dark with the stubble of his beard, giving him a rough and wild look, but nothing could diminish the gentleness in his eyes when he looked at her. “How are you feeling?”

  She touched his face with her hand, smoothing his hair behind his ear. “Wonderful and happy . . . and overwhelmed with responsibility.”

  “You don’t have to worry, Blue. I can take care of you, of you and Julie. With the sale of the North Star and Lacey’s Lode, we’ve got enough capital behind us to take David up on his offer.”

  “Capital?” She chided him with a grin. “You sound like a businessman.”

  He returned her smile. “I may live in the middle of nowhere and make my own hours, but, honey, I’ve been paying taxes like the rest of the world since I was eighteen and taking city boys up into the hills. And, hell, the two years before that, I had to give my old man a cut of my guide fees for hunting on his property.”

  “But David wants a full-fledged guide and outfitting service. We’re talking overhead and upkeep and advertising, and maybe even a lodge to house guests, not to mention partners.” She slanted him a quick glance from beneath her lashes. “You’re going to lose your independence.”

  “So are you, Blue,” he said, lifting her hand to his mouth for a kiss, his gaze meeting hers. “But, to tell you the truth, I don’t think we could rustle up an ounce of independence between us anymore. We’ve got Julie now, and I want to build something solid for the future, something solid out of the windfall of the past. We’ve got the land and the experience and the money to make something good, for all of us, for our family.”

  He’d never spoken truer words. He’d found the one thing worth holding on to the night she’d entered his life with a hissed warning and a missed shot. The only woman he’d ever gone after had turned out to be the only one he needed, the one woman who by her very nature had demanded more than half a chance. Julie was the sweet culmination of their passion, but he and Blue had found more than passion to bind them. They’d shared sunrises and alpenglow, nights under the stars and days tracking the high-country meadows. They’d made love in the breathtaking vastness of the northern ranges, and the sights, sounds, and scents of the forest had never infused his senses as completely as when they were sieved through Blue’s beauty and warmth, through her soft whispers and the sweetness he tasted with her every kiss. She’d been born with a will to match the wilderness she’d conquered, the one stretching up from the plains to the sky, and the one she’d laid bare in his heart.

  “I love you, Annabelle Blue,” he said, turning his head and tracing her palm with his lips, his voice husky with emotion.

  With his child in her arms, with his strong hands holding hers she believed him. He’d left her no doubts. The one man who’d caught her had stolen her heart and given himself in its stead. She’d tried running and had been unable to leave him behind. She’d tried keeping a part of herself untouched by his love and still had found him everywhere. His life had become hers with every slowly passing day, with every hurt he’d healed until she’d become whole. He’d given her the beauty of being female, the luscious sweetness of her body when coupled with his, and he’d given her a sanctuary for the tenderness she’d so long denied. He guarded her back when she felt vulnerable. He stood by her side when she faced the rest of the world.

  And then there was the magic and wonder of his love for her. He gave her the courage to love in return, and love him she did, with all her heart and soul. The emotional meshing of male and female remained a mystery to her, but a mystery she knew they’d explore together through all the changing seasons of their lives.

  “Thank you, Walker. Thank you for giving me Julie,” she said softly, then graced him with a sly smile and whispered even more softly, “Pretty boys make very pretty babies.”

  The teasing light in her eyes and the dare inherent in her words made him grin. “Yes, they do, Blue,” he agreed, laughing aloud. He hadn’t tamed her, not one inch of her, but he had made her his own.

  * * * * * * * * *

  Thank you for reading Blue Dalton. Please visit my website, www.tarajanzen.com, and follow me on Facebook http://on.fb.me/mSstpd; and Twitter @tara_janzen http://twitter.com/#!/tara_janzen so you won’t miss the release of my upcoming eBooks.

  Read on for excerpts from Avenging Angel and The Dragon and the Dove, more great romances from Tara Janzen available now.

  Avenging Angel

  Undercover and on the edge, Dylan Jones has seen damn few things to give him hope, until he sees her, Johanna Lane . . . and when he risks his life to save her, she vows to never let him go.

  One

  The woman. He needed her . . . desperately. He needed her to drag him up, get him out, and set him free.

  Dylan drove with nerveless precision, tearing down the highway, burning up the road and the tires on his black Mustang. Wind whipped his hair through the open window and stung his face with the blast-furnace force of a summer gone crazy with heat. From Chicago, to Lincoln, Nebraska, to Colorado, the asphalt had shimmered to the horizon like the shadow of a mirage on the landscape.

  Without taking his eyes from the road, he lifted a Styrofoam cup to his mouth and drained it of coffee. He’d lost the other two times he’d broken his FBI cover to prevent disaster. He’d been too late, too slow, in far too deep to surface in time to save a life. He wouldn’t be too late to save Johanna Lane. He couldn’t be. He’d come up for good and three was his lucky number.

  A grim line broke across his face, an expression no one had ever mistaken for a smile. Since when did he know about luck? He had no luck.

  In the darkness ahead, a pickup truck pulled onto the highway. Dylan hissed an obscenity, his fist crushing the empty cup before he threw it to the floor. The man had to be blind not to see the Mustang hurtling toward him. When the driver didn’t even speed up to the limit, Dylan cursed him again, taking a lot of names in vain and ending up with half a dozen synonyms of dirty slang for sex.

  The oncoming traffic was heavy on the two-lane highway outside Boulder, but Dylan had no time and nothing left to lose except his pulse. Flooring the gas pedal, he roared up on the truck and at the last moment jerked the wheel, sending the Mustang slewing into the other other lane, taking a highly calculated risk and the narrowest of openings in the traffic. Cars scattered onto the shoulder. The truck skidded off the road.

  Hard-won skill, not luck, guided Dylan through the hundred-mile-an-hour
maze he’d made of a van, a station wagon, and two compacts. Dylan Jones had no luck.

  The fact was proved a mile down the road, less than a minute’s worth of traveling time. The flashing lights of a police car lit up his back window and rearview mirror like a Fourth of July parade.

  Dylan swore again and pressed harder on the gas pedal, willing the Mustang to greater speed. The city lights of Boulder were seconds away. He’d come too far, too fast, too hard to lose.

  He swept through the first stoplight on the north side of town, ignoring its red color. The Mustang barely held on to the ninety-degree turn he slammed it through. The tires squealed and smoked on the hot pavement. The chassis shuddered. Working the steering wheel one way and then the other, he missed hitting a car in the eastbound lane and shot between two westbound vehicles.

  The police car behind him missed the turn and came to a jolting stop in the middle of the intersection, siren and lights going full bore, snarling traffic even further. Dylan made the second left-hand turn he saw, then wound through the streets in a frenzied, seemingly haphazard fashion for more than a mile. Finally he slowed the Mustang to a stop on a side street, pulling between two other vehicles, a gray, nondescript sedan and a midsize truck.

  The summer night was quiet except for the pounding of his own heart. Expensive houses crowded this part of town. Porch lights were on, smaller, homier versions of the street lamps, but the interiors of the houses were dark. People were settled in for the night, safe, sound, and unsuspecting.

  He waited for a moment, checking the street before pulling his duffel bag across the front seat to his lap and slipping his left arm out of his coat. The bag was heavier than clothes would have allowed, the weight being made up in firepower and ordnance. It was the only protection he had, and it felt like damn little compared with what he was up against.