“Not in my opinion, no, I’m not,” Gillian said firmly, vaulting out of the rocking chair as suddenly as she had settled in. She slapped both hands on her hips and went toe-to-toe with him. Her eyes, already hot, turned to emerald fire. “I want my space, Cisco. In fact, I want a lot more space than I had last night.” Cisco had thought Cody McKendrick was a loner! But this woman had more barriers around her—heart and soul—than a wild stallion. So much so that Max had been wrong to think this forty-eight-hour marriage would guarantee any real closeness between him and Gillian.
For Gillian to fall in love with him, Cisco mused, she was going to have to want to fall in love with him. And that was something easier said than done. ‘Cause the way he figured it, Ms. Gillian Taylor did not want to fall in love with anyone.
Gillian went back into the cabin and began to look around. “What are you doing?” Cisco watched her bend high and low as she opened one closet door after another.
“I’m looking for the rest of my belongings. I was hoping Max would have had them moved out here. Ah, here they are.” She brought out a single suitcase and a toiletries case.
Cisco blinked at the meager belongings. “That’s it? That’s all you brought to Montana?”
Gillian nodded as she carried both up the stairs toward the bedroom. “I told Susannah I’d take the job but I wasn’t really sure I’d stay,” she explained.
“So what’d you do with the rest of your stuff?”
Gillian shrugged uncaringly. “Nothing. It’s still in California.”
“Just in case you decide to go back,” Cisco ascertained as he lounged against the bedroom wall.
She nodded.
Disappointment sliced through Cisco, even as he tried to figure out how to get her to open up to him a little more, because without her confidence in him, there wasn’t much he could do to help her, long-term. He slid his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and rested his weight on the balls of his feet. “I could help you unpack,” he offered.
“No, thanks,” she said primly, putting her bags in one corner of the bedroom, stepping away from him as far as the space would allow. “I won’t be staying at the cottage all that long, so I probably won’t unpack all that much.”
It was a struggle to keep from reaching for her again, from taking her in his arms and making love to her until she melted against him in surrender once again.
But Cisco sensed he had already pushed her about as far as she was willing to go. If he overplayed his hand at this point, he could lose her forever.
Cisco walked with Gillian into the kitchen, stood idly by while she checked out every cabinet and counter and appliance with the look of a child on Christmas morning.
Max had figured right once again, Cisco thought Knowing how she loved to cook, they might have a chance of keeping Gillian around here after all.
And as long as she was here, he had a chance to win her heart—not just for the moment, but for all time.
“So what do you think?” he asked, still watching her peruse the home that would soon be theirs.
Gillian smiled and shook her head as she reached for a row of cookbooks on one of the shelves. “I have to hand it to Max. This kitchen is a chef’s dream. In fact the whole cottage, the clothes, everything, is simply spectacular.” Her lips curved ruefully as she met his eyes. “To tell you the truth, it makes me feel a little guilty, accepting all this from Max,” she admitted softly, penitently. She held up a hand before he could interrupt. “For you it’s different, of course. With your devotion to Max, the way you’ve attended to his every need, you’ve earned all this and more, I suspect. But as for me…I’ve done nothing to deserve all this…and I’m not sure I ever could.”
Unless of course you loved someone as difficult to love as me, Cisco thought, which was no doubt what Max had been thinking.
Without warning, his cell phone began to ring. Cisco took the slim, still-ringing phone out of his pocket and went into the other room to answer it. He was surprised to hear Lynda, the California private investigator, on the other end. “What’s up?” he asked matter-of-factly, hoping against reason she had only helpful information and nothing upsetting to offer him. Just enough information to get the ball rolling and spur Gillian to confide everything in him.
But once again, it wasn’t to be.
“I think you’d better sit down, Cisco,” Lynda said heavily. “I have some very sobering news for you.”
WHILE CISCO WAS BUSY on the phone in the other room, Gillian checked out the contents of the pantry and Sub-Zero refrigerator. Max had seen to it that they’d have a staggering and sumptuous array of fresh food to choose from. The wine racks were filled with an equally sophisticated selection of fine wines. No doubt about it. The cottage was beautiful, inside and out. It was everything she ever could have wanted in a home. But she would never live there with Cisco, she realized uncomfortably, not unless she told him the whole truth. And she could never tell him the whole truth. Not without putting him in danger, too.
Footsteps echoed on the pine floor, then stopped.
Gillian turned. Cisco stood in the portal, looking at her. And the accusing way he was peering at her made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. She knew abruptly by the grim set to his lips and the betrayed gleam in his pewter gray eyes that the fairytale quality of their time together had come to an end. She swallowed around the knot of apprehension in her throat and took a calming breath but it did not help. “What’s wrong?”
Cisco clenched his jaw and continued to stare at her with a combination of anger and hurt. “I’d have to say that’s a funny question, coming from someone who died ten years ago.”
As the impact of his low, furious words hit her, Gillian froze. Oh, God. She should have known Cisco would find this out. Should have figured. Cisco had not gotten where he was in this life without being thorough. Still, if there was any chance she could protect Cisco—and indeed all the McKendricks—by keeping them out of the mess that had become her life, she would.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, feigning innocence. There was a tug-of-war going on inside her, so fierce she was breathless from it.
His whole body simmering With suppressed tension, Cisco pushed away from the jamb abruptly. He was through playing games, through giving her the opportunity to come to him in her own time. “Your Social Security number. Your name. Everything about you.”
His goodwill exhausted, he crossed the distance between them in two long strides and clasped her shoulders tightly. “It’s a fraud, isn’t it, Gillian?” he demanded, his gray eyes glimmering with hurt.
She winced at the pressure he was exerting but did not dare drop her eyes from his grim, pinning gaze. “I still don’t—”
“Cut the bull!” He shook her slightly, then released her with an angry shove and paced a short distance away. “Ten years ago, you took and claimed a dead person’s identity as your own. So who are you, Gillian Taylor?” he growled, stepping treacherously near her once again. “Who the hell are you?”
Chapter Eight
Gillian didn’t stop to think. She turned and ran. Out the back door, down the steps, toward the meandering ribbon of the Silver River, but still she could not escape the nightmare that had become her life. The footsteps pounding behind her…the sound of furious male swearing echoed in her ears…the hot breath on her neck…the feel of Cisco’s arms around her as he caught her around the waist and forced her to face him. Suddenly it was all so terrifyingly familiar, and all so much more than she could bear. She cringed at his touch, forgetting for a moment that it was Cisco, and not the man who had dominated her nightmares for years, coming after her. “Don’t,” she moaned, putting both hands up to shield her face. “Oh God, don’t hurt me!”
Her hysterical words ringing between them, Cisco let her go as suddenly as if she had burned him. His face was white with shock as he drew back. She had only to look up into the shocked contours of his handsome face to know he was devastated at the way
she had reacted to his touch. And with good reason, she noted miserably, since he had never once done anything to harm her, since he wanted only to help. “Why would you think I would hurt you?” he asked softly. Hands jammed on his hips, he moved closer still.
Unable—unwilling—to answer, Gillian pushed past him as tears streamed down her face. Staring wordlessly at the mountains in the distance, she crossed her arms in front of her defiantly and brought them close. Heaven help her, she didn’t want to get into this with anyone, least of all him. She wanted only to forget, but with Cisco staring her down, determined to sort things out, to help her find some level of serenity and safety at long last, that was not likely to happen, she knew.
“That cowardly bastard beat you, didn’t he, Gillian?” Cisco guessed, his face tight with anger and distress as he stepped nearer still, not touching her, yet his warmth and his strength as tangible as his sandalwood and sage cologne. “Phillip didn’t just stalk you, he beat you, and scared the hell out of you. And the police either couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything. That’s why you took another identity ten years ago, isn’t it?” he continued compassionately, his eyes softening with understanding as he let out a long anguished sigh. “That’s why you’ve been running ever since, sleeping with a gun under your pillow. Why you’ve never become involved with another man.” His hand curled with reassuring gentleness over her shoulder. “Because you’ve been scared to death and running for your life.”
For a moment, Gillian let herself sink into the soothing reassurance of his touch. As much as she hated acquiescing to anyone, and staying here and talking this out with him against her wishes was acquiescing, she had to convince him to do things her way. She swung around to face him, knowing her face was strained and pale. “Please don’t tell Max. Please don’t tell Susannah. Don’t tell anyone,” she begged, all too willing to sacrifice her pride for the common good of everyone else on the ranch.
“Why not?” Cisco demanded, upset.
“Because I don’t want them involved. I didn’t want you involved, dammit.” But he was, by virtue of his own incurable nosiness, and there was nothing she could do about it now. Thrusting her hands in the pockets of her split skirt, she ignored the ever darkening hue of his gray eyes, and shivering uncontrollably despite the heat of the midafternoon sun, she paced back and forth in the soft green grass. She wasn’t as calm as she wanted to be, but she was still in control. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want anyone involved. It’s too dangerous!”
“That’s why you took on a false identity ten years ago,” Cisco guessed, his expression strained.
Gillian nodded, knowing she had no choice now but to give him the whole truth, knowing even as she dreaded doing so that there was some relief in confessing all. She raked in an unsteady breath. “I realized faking my own death was the only way out. So I parked my car on a bridge one icy winter night and left a suicide note there, saying I just couldn’t take Phillip’s abuse anymore. I made it look as if I had taken a death leap into the Kansas River and then I disappeared.”
A pulse throbbing in his neck, he continued to study her. “You have no regrets?”
“No, none,” she replied softly, forcing herself to meet Cisco’s sharply probing gaze, to take one step at a time, deal with it and move on. “Phillip was never going to let me live, if I wasn’t with him, and I couldn’t be with him.” She shrugged again, knowing on the one hand it all seemed like it had happened a lifetime ago, and in her dreams, like it was just yesterday. “I knew what I had to do.”
Still struggling to take it all in, Cisco took her hand in his. For several minutes, as she worked to get a grip on herself, they walked along the edge of the meandering Silver River. Finally, his hand tightened over hers, imbuing her with the strength to go on. “How did you get messed up with him in the first place?” he asked compassionately.
If he only knew how many times she had asked herself that same question! Gillian felt tears blur her eyes as she brushed her pride aside. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got the time.” Cisco paused and turned her so she was leaning against a tree. He brought her into the warm, strong circle of his arms and looked down at her with unbearable gentleness. “Besides, you’ve already told me this much,” he said sympathetically. “You might as well tell me the rest.”
Knowing he was right, Gillian released a weary breath, and aware he was waiting, forced herself to work through the misery and go on. “I was a freshman in college when my parents died, way too young and inexperienced to handle such grief alone, and I was devastated by their deaths. And that’s when I met Phillip.” She let out a little breath. “We were both students at KSU. He was ten years older than I was, and unlike anyone I’d ever met.” She looked back, aware even now her memories of that time were a grief-filled blur. “It’s hard to explain, but from the time we started dating, he just sort of took over.”
Cisco caressed her cheek with his hand, understanding without her having to go into all the gory details, the way Phillip had systematically cut her off from all her friends. “When did the nightmare start?”
“About three months after we married,” Gillian replied, taking a bracing gulp of air. She shuddered, remembering. “I was late coming home from the university library and he didn’t believe that was the only place I’d been. He tried to get me to confess that I was running around on him, and I wouldn’t, because it just wasn’t true, and so he hit me to make me fess up. Later, when it was all over and he had calmed down, he cried and said it was the stress of grad school and living on a budget that was making him overreact like that.” Ice gripped her heart as she thought about the flimsy reasons. “I told him that was no excuse. If he ever hit me again, I was leaving. The next time he did, which was three months down the line, I packed my bags and left.”
“But that wasn’t the end of it,” Cisco guessed as he slid his hand down her arm until their hands were entwined.
Gillian shook her head grimly. She shuddered again, not understanding why she was suddenly so cold, just knowing she was. “The next day my car was vandalized while I was inside a shopping mall. He said he didn’t do it, and the police had no proof, so they couldn’t arrest him.”
“I take it the harassment didn’t stop there.”
“No, it didn’t.” Unable to bear the pity she was sure was in his eyes, she looked at the horizon. “I managed to get a divorce over Phillip’s protests, because I was so young and obviously grief-stricken and confused when we married, but the legal end of our marriage did nothing to convince Phillip our relationship was over. Over the course of the next year, Phillip broke into my apartment several times. He’d look through everything I owned, and leave just enough out of place so I’d know he had been there. When I tried to date someone else, the young man was mugged returning to his apartment late that night.” Gillian shuddered. “He never saw his assailant. I was sure it was Phillip, but again, nothing could be proved.
“Meanwhile, Phillip kept sending me flowers and candy and writing me notes that said I was the only woman for him, and he was the only man for me, and one day soon he would help me realize that.” Gillian shook her head, aware neither the warmth of Cisco’s body, so close to hers, or the sun beating down on them was enough to keep the chill away.
“I hired a lawyer to file harassment charges against Phillip, but his office was mysteriously broken into and he quit. I hired another. The same thing happened.”
“Phillip,” Cisco guessed.
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t prove it. All I knew was that the attorneys were sufficiently intimidated to want nothing more to do with me or my case. And that’s when I began planning my own death.”
Cisco gently touched her face, his heart going out to her for all she had suffered. “You’re still scared of him.”
“Yes.” Gillian hated that fact but knew it was true. “Very much.” She leaned into the warm comfort of his touch and shook her head in frustration. “That’s why I took on a false identit
y and lied about where I went to college, though I was scrupulously truthful about the type and amount of education I had. I didn’t want anyone connecting me to Kansas, for fear it would trigger something in a computer somewhere and alert Phillip to the fact I was still alive.”
Cisco paused. The rugged planes of his face softened in understanding. “You’ve never tried to find out what’s happened to Phillip?” he asked.
Her heart pounding at just the thought, Gillian shook her head. She clung to him, trembling. “No. That’s why I was so upset, seeing our photo in USA Daily on the Net. If Phillip sees that, and recognizes me—if he still wants revenge—he’s going to know exactly where to find me.”
His eyes still fastened firmly on hers, Cisco pointed out, “For all you know, Phillip could be dead now. For all you know, there’s no longer any reason for you to be constantly looking over your shoulder or lying about your identity.”
Gillian had never wished anyone dead, but oh, to be free again, to go through a day not having to look over her shoulder or worry her past would one day catch up with her again. She jammed her hands in the pockets of her denim skirt. “You’re saying you could find out for me?”
Cisco nodded. He looked hard and dangerous. “Through Max’s detective agency, yes.”
“And Phillip would never know?” Gillian pressed, her heart pounding in her chest.
“He’d never have a clue.”
Gillian wore a path in the grass on rubbery legs. “Suppose we do find him? Suppose he’s still alive. Then what?” She worried anxiously, twisting her hands together and feeling sick with a combination of relief—that this might one day be completely over— and dread—that it never would be.
Cisco’s lips curled in a dangerously feral smile. “Then, depending on what we find, we decide what to do next.”
“What do you mean, do?” Gillian demanded, for the first time fully aware—in her heart and her gut— of Cisco Kidd’s streetfighter past.
Spur-Of-The-Moment Marriage Page 13
