She flashed him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“Fine,” he assured her, wishing he could take the edge of fear out of her eyes. “I just spoke with Clint.” He quickly recapped the conversation he’d just had. “He’s a good man. He’d make a good foreman.”
She looked at him sharply. “But you aren’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon, right?”
“I’m not planning on going anywhere.” The lie left a bitter taste in his mouth. “Did you sleep at all?”
“For a little while,” she said as she sank down on the sofa. He sat in the chair opposite her, trying to forget how she’d felt in his arms, needing somehow to distance himself from her and trying to forget the lie he’d just told her.
He’d thought he was going to sweep in here, give her a taste of his charm and seduce her right into bed where she would spill the information he needed, and then he’d get Mickey and be gone.
He’d figured he could get into her bed, into her head and not get emotionally involved with her. What was going to happen to her when he left here? How would he be able to walk away from here if they hadn’t figured out who wanted her dead?
At that moment Esmeralda told them dinner was ready and they moved into the kitchen. The food was delicious, the conversation almost nonexistent. It was as if they had all retreated into their own heads, they were all talked out after the long, traumatic day.
Rhett wished he could tell both of the women that he had a clue as to who had shot at Caitlin, that he had a lead he could follow that would take them to the guilty party. But he was as much in the dark as they appeared to be. He didn’t mention Garrett Simms. There was no point discussing the man as a suspect until he heard back from his contacts.
Although he wasn’t completely discounting the man as a suspect, his gut instinct told him the drunken foreman didn’t have the brains or the follow-through to try to kill anyone, but until he was ruled out, he was still on the list—the very short list—of potential suspects.
It was as they were finishing up that Esmeralda mentioned she didn’t feel well, that the stress of the day had given her a sick headache.
“Go rest,” Caitlin said. “I’ll clean up the kitchen.”
“And I’ll help her,” Rhett said before Esmeralda could protest.
“Thank you,” Esmeralda replied quietly. “If you both don’t mind then I’ll just call it a night and see you in the morning.”
As she left the kitchen to head to her private quarters at the back of the house, Caitlin got up from the table and began to clear the dishes. Rhett jumped up to help.
“Hope she’ll be all right,” he said as he carried a couple of plates to the sink where she had started rinsing and placing items in the dishwasher.
“She’s worried and she always makes herself sick when she worries too much.” She took the plates from him and dunked them into the sink full of soapy water. “I just found out this afternoon that she and my father have been a couple for years.”
He raised an eyebrow. “How did that make you feel?”
“Surprised…and oddly relieved. I always worried about Dad, about him being alone when I eventually moved out of here. There’s a lot of comfort for me in knowing that through the years he’s had Esme to love and support him.”
They fell silent as they finished the cleanup. “You want coffee or something?” she asked when the kitchen was once again clean.
“No, I’m good,” he replied.
“If you don’t mind I think I’ll have glass of wine.”
He smiled at her. “I don’t have a problem with that.” It touched him that she’d thought of him, remembering that he’d told her there had been a time in his life when he’d drunk too much.
He watched as she poured a glass of white wine and then together they left the kitchen and went into the living room. She sat on one end of the sofa and he sat on the other, an uncomfortable silence growing between them.
He searched his mind for something to say, but seated this close to her his thoughts were dizzied by the sweet, clean scent of her. Her hair sparkled in the overhead light as if begging him to touch the silky strands. As he remembered the brief kiss he’d stolen from her he wanted another and another.
His desire for her was not only out of character, but damned stupid. He’d always had a guarded heart, but somehow Caitlin was pulling down the barriers and that both excited and scared the hell out of him.
“You want the TV on?” she asked, finally breaking what had become an awkward silence.
“Only if you do.” There was a formal politeness between them that felt unnatural, but he didn’t know how to fix it.
“I really don’t feel like watching anything,” she replied. She took a sip of her wine and then carefully placed the glass on the coffee table. “What I’d really like to know is who Rebecca is.”
Shock coursed through him as the familiar name fell unexpectedly from her mouth.
Caitlin gazed at Randall in curiosity. Even though she’d been half-wild with fear when she’d hit the ground to stop herself from being an easy target, she’d heard him call out the name Rebecca as he’d raced toward her.
There had been such anguish in his voice, such a depth of emotion, that it had resonated through her, and although she wanted the details, she suspected Rebecca was the woman who had made Randall decide to travel forever light and alone.
His eyes were dark as he held her gaze. “Rebecca was my wife. Eight years ago she died in my arms after being thrown from a horse.” His voice was flat, emotionless despite the emotion that shone from his eyes.
Although Caitlin had thought her own feelings were dead, she tasted his grief in her mouth, felt the ache of his loss in her heart. “Oh, Randall, I’m so sorry.”
He got up from the sofa and walked to the window and stared out, as if wanting to look at the shadows of twilight instead of at her.
“She was my high-school sweetheart. We got married two weeks after we graduated and moved into a tacky little apartment so we could save our money for the ranch of our dreams.”
He paused, and she didn’t know if he expected her to say something or not, but she had no words to give him and he turned around to face her and continued.
“It took us five years to finally save up enough for a down payment. It wasn’t the ranch of our dreams, but it was a start.” Some of the darkness had ebbed from his eyes. “We figured we’d work the ranch, save our money and then in another couple of years buy a bigger place and start a family.”
“But you never got the chance,” Caitlin said softly.
He drew in a deep breath of air and shook his head. He returned to the sofa and sank down, his eyes going to the wall just above Caitlin’s head.
“It was our habit when the weather was nice to start the day with a ride around the pasture.” His gaze once again connected with hers and in his eyes she saw the sadness that she could only guess had become an intrinsic part of him. “That morning I challenged her to a race.”
The words held the hollow ring of guilt and Caitlin tensed as she waited for him to tell the rest of the story, as she waited to hear about the moment his life had changed forever.
“We’d raced a hundred times before—sometimes I beat her, sometimes she’d win.” A whisper of a smile curved his lips. “And when she won, she didn’t let me live it down. She’d crow about it for the rest of the day.” The smile vanished from his mouth and once again he got up from the sofa and moved back to the window as if unable to sit any longer.
“I took off galloping across the pasture, laughing as I realized I easily had the lead. I reached a grove of trees that was always the end of the race and turned around.”
She couldn’t see his face, but his back was rigid and his voice was filled with emotion suppressed so tightly she suspected an explosion was imminent.
“I don’t know what happened. I’ll never know exactly what happened. She never made a sound, never cri
ed out, but when I turned around I saw Rebecca’s horse running wild and Rebecca was crumpled on the ground not moving.”
He paused and drew a deep breath, and Caitlin realized that when he’d seen her on the ground that af ternoon his mind had flashed him back in time; that explained why he’d called his wife’s name.
“I ran to her and instantly I knew it was bad,” he continued. “She was unconscious and her back was twisted in a way that told me it had to be broken. I used my cell phone to call for help and then I crouched next to her and waited for help to come. It didn’t come in time. She never regained consciousness, and within minutes I felt the life leave her body.”
He fell silent, but didn’t move away from the window. It was Caitlin who found herself on her feet, her heart aching with his pain. She walked to him, for a moment afraid to touch him, afraid that if she did touch him he’d shatter into a million pieces.
And yet she couldn’t not touch him. They were alike—both with dreams of happily ever after shattered by events beyond their control. She’d never felt as close to him as she did at this moment, with the weight of his tragedy so heavy in her heart.
Hesitantly she reached out her hand. Did he need her touch as badly as she wanted to touch him? She splayed her hand on the center of his back and felt the taut muscles and the warmth of his skin radiating through his shirt.
He turned to face her and she allowed her arm to drop to her side. “That’s why I don’t stay in one place for too long. I swore the day that I buried Rebecca that I’d never allow myself to care that deeply about anyone again.”
Emotion thrust itself up inside her. His pain was hers, his shattered dreams mirrored her own, and she couldn’t stop the tears that blurred her vision. His story had made her feel for the first time since the jungle.
“Don’t cry,” he said softly. “It was a long time ago.”
She nodded her head, but the tears came faster and faster. She found herself pulled against his chest, his arms wrapped around her as she sobbed into the front of his shirt.
She felt ridiculous, but realized she was wildly out of control and didn’t know how to regain it. She knew she should step away from him, but instead she clung with her arms around his shoulders and her body pressed tight against his as she continued to weep.
She’d lost her very soul and he’d lost the woman he’d apparently loved as much as life itself. They were both tragic victims of a cruel fate. He’d survived his trauma and she was still struggling to survive hers.
Finally the tears slowed and then stopped and still she remained in the warmth of his embrace. She raised her head to look at him. “I’m normally not a weepy kind of woman. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
The sadness that had been in his eyes was gone, replaced by a warmth that torched through her. “Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you don’t know where your father is and somebody tried to kill you today. I think that would make me a weepy kind of man.”
A small bubble of laughter escaped her and once again she told herself she should move out of his arms, but her body refused to obey her mental command.
His eyes deepened in hue, becoming a smoke of desire as he continued to look at her. “Caitlin, I’m going to kiss you now.” He hesitated a moment, as if giving her time to protest what he was about to do.
A million butterflies took flight in the pit of her stomach and a tremor of anticipation swept through her. Tell him no, a little voice whispered inside her head. “Okay,” she heard herself say.
His mouth lightly touched hers in a tender kiss that swept away any protest she might have made. She didn’t feel threatened, she didn’t feel trapped. Rather, a sharp edge of desire rose up inside her.
She felt herself relaxing against him, her breasts sinking against his broad chest, her heart beating against his as she opened her mouth to allow him to deepen the kiss.
His tongue touched the tip of hers, tentative as if exploring his welcome. She swirled her tongue with his, a welcomed heat searing through her as the kiss continued.
He kissed with a masterful command, as if he enjoyed kissing and was determined that she would, too. And she did. She loved the way his mouth felt against hers, the hot hunger that sparked in his lips.
Maybe she wasn’t as damaged as she’d thought. Hope buoyed inside her at the thought. Maybe she could make love to a man and not feel sick, not experience the bone-chilling terror of that agonizing time in the jungle.
When he finally broke the kiss his gaze remained hot and hungry. “I want you, Caitlin.”
The stark, simple words evoked a new shiver of apprehension…and of want…inside her. If she was going to find out whether she was capable of making love again, she wanted it to be with him.
Even though she’d only known him for a brief period of time, she felt she knew him as well as she’d known anyone she’d ever made love with before. She knew the kind of heart he possessed, a wounded one that still had the capacity to care for a traumatized horse, that still had the ability to offer himself up as bodyguard to a woman in trouble.
“I want you, too.” The words whispered out of her and she didn’t know if she was frightened or excited. She only knew her words had placed into motion something she wanted…needed and yet was ultimately terrified of what might happen.
“Are we going to do something about it or are we just going to stand here and talk about it?” he asked. He dropped his arms from around her and took a step back. “It’s your call, Caitlin. I don’t want you to do anything that you don’t want to. You know that I’m not the kind of man to stick around forever.”
For some reason that made it easier on her. He wouldn’t be around forever, and if things went terribly wrong neither of them had anything invested in each other.
He held out his hand to her and she knew that if she placed her hand in his he’d lead her upstairs to her bedroom. She wanted that…and she was afraid of that.
Still, there was a softness in his eyes that reassured her. This was a man who knew gentleness, a man she trusted implicitly.
She placed her hand in his and together they headed up the stairs. Between the stairs and the threshold of her room, she changed her mind a hundred times. But by the time they entered her room and he pulled her back into his arms and took her lips once again in a kiss, her desire had overridden her fear.
It’s going to be okay, she told herself as the kiss grew deeper, hungrier. Even when his hands slid up beneath the bottom of her shirt and splayed across the skin of her back, she felt no panic.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered as his mouth blazed a trail down the length of her neck. “From the moment I laid eyes on you, I wanted you.”
She could feel his desire for her in the heat of his gaze, in the beat of his heart against hers and in the arousal that was made evident by the closeness of their bodies. Even that didn’t cause any panic to rise up inside her. She felt in control, fired by the desire for him and the need to be okay with this.
His mouth found hers again and without breaking their kiss he guided her to the bed and they tumbled onto the mattress, arms and legs tangled together.
Still no thrum of panic filled her. It was going to be all right. She was going to be all right, she thought. And then he rolled them so he was half on top of her.
Suddenly things weren’t all right. The scent of the jungle filled her head. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed, willing away the odor, the horrid memories that tried to grab her by the throat.
She was here in her bedroom with Randall, not in the jungle with those men. Randall would never hurt her, he’d never take from her what wasn’t his to take, what she didn’t willingly give.
As the weight of his body increased, a deep tremble began inside her. It wasn’t desire, it was the rising panic…the feeling that she couldn’t breathe that portended a full-blown panic attack.
As his mouth once again left hers and his hand moved to her stomach, she felt as if she were suffoca
ting. Despair welled up inside her as she realized she couldn’t fight it any longer.
“I can’t.” Her voice was half-hysterical as she pushed against him.
Instantly he rolled off her and sat up. Caitlin remained lying on her back, her eyes tightly closed as she listened to the sound of his rapid breathing.
“I’m sorry,” she finally said, She refused to open her eyes. She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to see the expression of disgust that surely rode his features. “I thought I could do this. I wanted to do this, but I just can’t stand the weight of your body on mine.”
“You want to talk about it?”
Tears burned behind her eyelids. Tell your father his old friends say hello. The memories cascaded through her. “There’s nothing to talk about,” she finally replied. “It’s just the way I am.”
She felt his gaze on her, but she refused to look at him. She was devastated, ashamed of her lack of control over her own emotions, and she felt once again as if she were nothing more than a shell of a woman…a dead woman.
“Caitlin, it’s okay,” Randall said softly.
“No, it’s not okay.” She finally opened her eyes and sat up. She wrapped her arms around herself, seeking some source of warmth. “I wanted you, Randall, but there’s something wrong inside me. I feel trapped when I’m weighed down.”
A small smile curved his lips. “There are other ways to accomplish the goal. I mean, I don’t have to touch you. I don’t have to be on top.”
She shook her head, afraid to try again only to be further humiliated. “I think maybe I just want to go to sleep.”
He nodded and started to stand, but she realized she didn’t want him to go. “Randall, I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you sleep in here with me?”
“No problem,” he agreed easily. “Caitlin, I’m here to give you as much or as little as you need.”
She stared at him for a long moment. In another life, in another time, she could have fallen in love with a man like Randall Kane. But she was stuck in this life at this time, a wounded woman half-crazy about a cowboy who had vowed never to love again.
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