“Don’t stop, Rand,” she gasped. “Please don’t stop.”
With her legs wrapped tightly around him, Rand was finding it difficult to think. “Grace, I…wait…”
She shook her head, then surged upward, taking him deep inside her. She was so tight, so ready for him, and it was impossible not to move. Sweat beaded on his forehead; her fingers tightened in his. His entire body throbbed with need, a fierce pounding in his veins and his head that demanded release.
He moved faster, sheathed himself deeper still and she took him in, met him thrust for thrust, moan for moan. He felt her shudder under him, felt her inner muscles tighten and clench as she arched upward sharply on a cry. The shudder rolled from her body to his, intensified until he could hold back no longer. With a guttural cry, he drove into her. The climax shattered wildly out of control, as wild and primitive as the night surrounding them.
Her name on his lips, he gathered her in his arms and waited for his world to steady again.
Grace felt as if she were drifting, as if the breeze had swept her up and carried her away. Her head rested on Rand’s chest and she heard the still, heavy beating of his heart, felt his chest rise and fall with each breath. She’d never known such contentment, such bliss, and to think that she’d found it here, in Rand’s arms, on the edge of a steep canyon, seemed fitting.
“Grace.” He said her name softly as he tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She rose on one elbow and glanced down at him. He looked much too serious, she thought. “Tell you what?” she teased.
He frowned at her. “You know what.”
She lifted a shoulder, then traced circles on his chest with the tip of her finger. “You mean that I was…inexperienced?”
“I made an assumption that you’d probably done this before.”
“Well, that’s what you get for making assumptions,” she said, and nestled back into his arms. “And I’m in too good a mood to argue about it. If you have a problem with it, then it’s your problem.”
He rolled her onto her back, his eyes narrowed as he gazed down at her. “Did I say I had a problem? I’m just a little…surprised. You’re twenty-five years old.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re making me sound like an old maid, for heaven’s sake. Just because I waited a little longer than most women, doesn’t mean I qualify for senior citizenship.”
He stroked a hand over her shoulder and down her arm, his expression thoughtful. “So why have you waited?”
She shrugged, feeling a little foolish now. “It just never seemed quite right to me before, that’s all. That might sound old-fashioned to most people, but I wanted my first time to be special.” She reached up and touched his cheek. “You made it special for me. Thank you.”
Grace felt Rand stiffen, saw the mixture of uncertainty and hesitation in his eyes. She understood that what had just happened between them might not be special to Rand, that he’d been with lots of women before.
The thought felt like a knife in her heart, but she refused to let him see the hurt, and she also refused to let him spoil the moment.
She dropped her hand from his face and frowned at him. “Rand Sloan, whatever you’re thinking, stop it right now. I’m a big girl. I’m not asking or expecting anything from you, so stop looking as if I just locked the barn door behind you.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then sat and raked his hands through his hair. Certain that he was already turning away from her, Grace felt her throat thicken. She wouldn’t cry, dammit. She wouldn’t.
“Blackhawk.”
She looked at his stiff back, not certain she’d heard him right. “What?”
“My real name is Rand Jedidiah Blackhawk,” he said quietly. “My parents were Jonathan and Norah Blackhawk of Wolf River.”
Blackhawk. The name was so familiar to Grace, but she couldn’t place it at the moment. She pulled the sleeping bag up to cover her bare torso, then sat slowly.
“My brother was Seth Ezekiel Blackhawk,” Rand went on. “My sister, Elizabeth Marie.”
He had a sister and brother? She felt the tension radiate from him but said nothing, just waited for him to continue.
“I’d been told that they died in the accident that killed my parents.” He stared into the darkness, his gaze fixed but unseeing. “Seth was seven, Lizzie was barely three.”
“Are you saying they weren’t killed?” she asked incredulously.
“Three days ago I received a letter from a lawyer in Wolf River telling me that they’re alive,” he said tightly. “Twenty-three years and all this time they’ve been alive, living somewhere else, like I was, with other families.”
Grace understood now why Rand’s mother had asked her if she were a lawyer and told her that she’d better give Rand a wide berth if she were. She could only imagine his shock at learning the sister and brother he’d thought dead were alive. “Who would do such a horrible thing?” she asked. “And why?”
“My uncle was filled with hate,” Rand said. “I saw it in his eyes that night when he handed me over to that woman. He wouldn’t have wanted his brother’s half-breed children near one penny of whatever small estate my parents had, and he certainly wouldn’t have raised us himself. So he farmed us out, sold us to the highest bidders and made sure each of us thought the other was dead so he’d never have to deal with any of us again.”
Appalled, Grace sucked in a slow breath and tried to absorb what Rand was telling her. Three small children had not only lost their parents, they’d been separated and told the others were dead, too. The injustice of it all sickened her.
“When I find my uncle,” Rand said coldly, “I’ll kill him with my bare hands.”
Rand turned and looked at her, and Grace shivered under the murderous glint in his eyes. It frightened her that he just might follow through on his threat. While she couldn’t blame him, Grace knew that no good would come of it. He stiffened when she laid her cheek on his shoulder, but he did not pull away.
“Your nightmare,” she said softly. “Was that what you were dreaming about? The accident and your family?”
He nodded. “We were all coming back from town and got caught in a summer storm. A lightning bolt struck the road in front of our car and my dad lost control. We rolled over and went into a ravine.” He closed his eyes. “My memory is spotty after that. I was cold and wet. There was blood on my shirt and pants. The sheriff pulled me out of the car, and my uncle was there with a woman. He never even spoke to me, just told the woman to take me away.”
“Who was she?”
“I don’t know. But she was the one who told me my family had died, that I had to go live somewhere else.” He stared at the red-glowing embers of the fire. “I wanted to die, too. I was angry that I hadn’t.”
Rand’s voice was so distant that Grace realized he truly wasn’t speaking to her. The muscles across his back and shoulders were tight, his jaw clenched. She pictured him as a frightened child, alone and hurt, without his family, and she had a sudden, fierce desire to seek retribution on that horrible, horrible man who’d done this to him.
She steadied her own emotions, and gently stroked his arm and back. Slowly she felt him relax and lean into her. “What are you going to do now?”
He shook his head and sighed deeply. “It’s been twenty-three years, Grace. Seth and Lizzie may not even remember me. They have their own lives now and I wouldn’t want to disrupt that. I don’t see where I can fit in.”
That had always been his problem, Grace realized. That after losing his family, he’d simply never fit in anywhere. He’d drifted from town to town, ranch to ranch. Never stayed in one place. Survivor’s guilt, she’d heard it called. He’d never felt that he deserved a real home, or even love, for himself.
“But what if they do remember you?” she asked him. “What if all these years they’ve missed you, dreamed about you, too? You were their big brother, Rand. How could they forget you? Once the
y know you’re not dead, they’ll want you to be in their lives.”
“Maybe.” He sucked in a long breath and let it out. “Maybe not. Hey, what’s this?”
He glanced down at her, at the tears that spilled from her eyes onto his arm. He turned and wiped at her eyes with his thumb. “Tears for me, Grace?” he said solemnly.
She shook her head. “For a nine-year-old boy who lost his family.”
He smiled softly and gathered her in his arms. “Thank you,” he said softly, tipped her face to his and kissed her tears, then brought his mouth to hers.
Grace tasted the salt of her own tears on his lips, the sadness, then, as the kiss deepened, the growing desire. When he pulled her into his lap, she slid her arms around his shoulders, wanting to give him so much more than her body. But as his kiss deepened, her body deceived her. The urgency to be close with him again, to make love with him and hold him inside her body, coiled tightly inside her. They were both breathing hard, their hearts beating wildly as he laid her back on the sleeping bag.
“Grace,” he said on a ragged whisper, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Did he mean physically, she wondered, or emotionally? Either way, it was too late, she knew. She answered him by dragging his mouth back to hers and arching her body upward to meet his. When he slid inside her, she nearly sobbed with the joy of the moment. There was no pain, only pleasure. Sweet pleasure that grew stronger with every thrust, with every kiss, with every whisper. For this moment he was hers, as she was his.
She held on to him; he held on to her, both of them driving toward that blissful end with a desperation that staggered the senses. When it came, they tumbled breathlessly, hopelessly, over that steep, jagged cliff together.
Grace woke early the next morning to the song of birds, a cool breeze on her face and the smell of a campfire. She was alone in her sleeping bag, but she could hear Rand close by, talking to the horses. She’d pulled her clothes on before they’d finally gone to sleep a few hours ago, and she snuggled in the warmth of her covers for a moment, letting herself enjoy the memories of the night before. A smile slowly spread on her face.
Rand had been a wonderful, exciting lover, and Grace knew she would always cherish the night they’d spent together. She’d be a fool to think that their relationship would ever be more, but she’d already been a fool once, so she couldn’t stop herself from hoping. Wisdom and intellect seemed to take a back seat to matters of the heart.
She rose on one elbow, then stretched. She was sore, but not overly so considering the night she’d had. She glanced at Rand, watched him lead the horses back from the creek where he’d taken them to drink the cool water. He wore a chambray shirt today and a pair of faded jeans. His dark hair was mussed, his beard more than a stubble. She could picture him with a star on his shirt, a Western marshall, on the hunt for escaped bank robbers.
The wave of desire that shivered up her spine startled her. Already she wanted him again, wanted her hands and mouth on him and his on her. When he glanced at her, leveled those black eyes on her, her breath caught.
Her heart pounded furiously when he dropped the horses’ reins and started toward her. She felt her blood race through her veins.
The crackle of the two-way radio inside his truck stopped him. She saw the regret when he changed direction and walked toward his truck to answer the call. He kept his back to her as he talked, and when he turned to face her, his expression was somber.
“What is it?” she asked, already afraid of his answer.
“There’s a storm on the way,” he said, keeping his gaze on her. “We have to go back.”
Seven
“Go back?” Grace repeated. “You mean leave?”
“That was your brother on the radio,” Rand said evenly. “He and Marty are stuck in a thunderstorm at the base camp.”
The rosy blush that had been on Grace’s cheeks only a moment ago vanished. Her face turned pale as she stared at him. “Are they all right?”
“Everyone’s fine, but the storm has them penned in for now. They have no idea when they can get out.”
She was already out of her sleeping bag and tugging her boots on. “So we’ll go without them.”
“Like hell we will. Even if we find those horses, and that’s a big if, darlin’, you haven’t got the strength or the experience to bring them in.”
“I’m stronger than I look, Rand,” she said, pulling her jeans down over her boots. “And I’m a fast learner.”
She stood and closed the top button on her jeans, but not before he caught a flash of her flat belly. His heart slammed in his chest, remembering how he’d slid his hand over and kissed that smooth, soft skin. He was hard instantly, wanting her again with the same urgency as the night before. She was a fast learner, all right, he thought as he recalled how she’d felt in his arms and the way she’d brought him to a fever pitch.
It took a will of iron to force his thoughts back to their conversation. “Dammit, Grace, this isn’t a Sunday ride in the park. This could be dangerous. You could get hurt, and if that storm does come in while we’re in the canyon, you could even get dead.”
“We can do this, Rand. I know we can.” She reached for the blue denim shirt she’d laid out on a rock the night before, shook it vigorously, then pulled it on over the T-shirt she wore. “There’s not a cloud in the sky. We don’t know the storm will come this way.”
“We don’t know that it won’t.”
“I swear to you,” she pleaded, “if it starts to look risky, I’ll turn back without an argument.”
He shook his head. “We’re not going.”
She moved toward him, those long legs of hers encased in snug denim, and his pulse jumped. He clenched his jaw, refusing to let her see how strongly she affected him. How badly he wanted her. No woman had ever had that kind of power over him before, and he was determined no woman ever would.
“I mean it, Grace.” He folded his arms, steeled himself against the look of determination in her eyes.
“We’ve come all this way, Rand,” she said softly, and slid her arms around his neck. “We can’t turn back now.”
Damn her, anyway, Rand thought irritably. She wasn’t playing fair at all, here. “Grace—”
She silenced him with her lips, and he felt the last of his resistance melt away.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
“Please, Rand,” she begged him. “I promise I’ll do exactly what you say. We can’t just leave them there to die.”
She was right, dammit. In spite of everything he’d said, he knew she was right. He couldn’t leave them. Not without trying.
On an oath, he took her arms and pulled them away from him. He felt a muscle jump in his temple as he stared down at her. “Be ready in two minutes or I’ll leave without you. If we haven’t found them within an hour, or at the first sign of bad weather, we’re coming back. If you argue, I swear I’ll dress you up like a Thanksgiving turkey and you’ll ride back on your stomach instead of your butt. You got that?”
She nodded, a smile on her lips, but an edge of fear in her eyes, too. Good, he thought. He needed her to be afraid. It would keep her alert and focused and ready to move quickly.
He released her and turned on his heel. While he saddled the horses, he alternately cursed her and himself. He was a damn fool, he knew, but he couldn’t refuse her. She could have asked him to take down a charging bull with his bare hands and he would have done it.
She’d gotten to him, he realized with dread, and resolved that by the time this day had ended, he’d be back in control and Miss Grace Sullivan would be on her way home where she belonged.
It took them thirty minutes to get down the steep path to the bottom of the canyon. Dawn crept over the high cliffs in ribbons of pink and blue while a pair of hawks circled overhead and desert cottontails darted in and out of low-lying shrubs of mesquite and cottonwood. Rand searched the sky for any sign of clouds moving in. So far, so good, he thought with a sigh of relief.
<
br /> Now if only they could find the horses that smoothly.
They hadn’t spoken on the ride down, and he was thankful for that. He was still reeling, still unbalanced from the night they’d spent together, and he had no idea what to say to her. Thanks Grace for letting me be your first, and see you around.
How could he have known she was a virgin? She was a grown woman, for crying out loud. It had never entered his mind that she hadn’t been with a man before.
But she hadn’t. And though he wasn’t proud of it, there was a part of him, that primitive male arrogance, that was actually glad he was her first. She’d said he’d made it special for her, but she’d made it special for him, too. Special in a way it never had been before.
He’d always been careful when it came to sex. Not only for health reasons, but he’d never wanted to worry that he’d left a woman pregnant behind him. The thought of a child—his child—without a father, was unthinkable for him. If he had gotten a woman pregnant, he would have had to settle down, get married, even. He never would have let any kid of his grow up without a father or be raised by another man. There were too many Edward Sloans in the world, and the thought of his own son or daughter living under that kind of harsh control made his chest tighten.
And what kind of father would he make, anyway? Rand thought. What did he know about babies and cuddling and bottles? Babies terrified him. They were so tiny and helpless. He’d rather bare-hand a rattlesnake than change a diaper.
He glanced over his shoulder at Grace when they were on level ground again. She rode maybe fifteen feet behind him on the pinto mare and had managed to keep up with him all the way down the trail, even when it had narrowed and grown steeper. She did know how to ride; he’d give her that much. She looked comfortable in the saddle, completely at ease. The white Stetson she wore was a sharp contrast to her dark, auburn curls. Her cheeks were flushed, her deep-green eyes alert and sparkling.
Something slammed in Rand’s chest. Lust, most definitely. But something more than that. Something that made him sweat.
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