She opened her eyes. “What is it that you want to know, Sam?”
“I want you to tell me about Jonas. I need to know the truth, Jen.”
Chapter Eight
A shadow of alarm crossed her features. His eyes had taken on the shine of a hunting predator.
He raised his hand slowly, reaching out and stopping short of touching her. He dropped it to his thigh. “Jen, I didn’t mean to frighten you so. Don’t withdraw from me,” he whispered hoarsely, reaching out for her hand only to stop when she turned her head away. He smothered the anger that instantly raged inside him. In a barely controlled voice he asked, “Do I frighten you so much that I can’t touch you now?”
Wordlessly she shook her head, refusing to look at him. She wasn’t frightened of him. Not even now that she sensed the determination in him. Her fingers interlocked as she forced herself to think. She no longer doubted that Sam was going to wait until he had the answers he wanted, however he got them.
A shower of sparks from the fire behind her made her start. Gnawing her lower lip until she bit a ragged fragment of skin, Jenny again heard a deep sigh of impatience pass his lips, then the sound of a match striking stone. He lit another cigarette.
“Jen,” he said after a few seconds, “I thought it might be too much to ask you to simply trust me. There hasn’t been enough time for you to learn how. I can’t but wish to God there had been,” he muttered. “And I should have told you why I need to know about Jonas.” He dragged on the cigarette until smoke filled his lungs, warning himself as he slowly released it to be gentle.
“You want me to trust you?” she countered, fighting a wave of hurt that he hadn’t tried to understand her at all.
“Damn right I do!” he snapped, his control slipping a notch. Damn her! Jenny held the key to more than she knew. It was tied too closely to what was growing between them, and he alone knew how easily the line could be redrawn to put her on the other side. The side away from him.
“Jen, I’m going to be very honest with you. I didn’t ever want to tell you why I asked about him. I still don’t, but I know you well enough, pretty lady, to know you’ll sit there and not say a damn word to me until I do. Those men that met with the widow know him.”
‘They couldn’t!” Her head jerked up with the force of her words.
His jaw clenched. “Why? Why couldn’t they know Jonas?” he asked with bridled anger. “Tell me. What are you hiding, Jenny? How much do you know about Jonas and what he’s done?”
“What did they say? You’ve no right to keep that from me! You have no right at all!” she raged, softly conscious of Robby sleeping. One look at the chilling coldness of his eyes stopped her. He wasn’t going to tell her. She began shaking from the chill that encompassed her. Only where his body shielded her was there any warmth.
“Now, will you tell me about him, Jen.” It wasn’t a question; it was a soft-voiced demand. “Tell me. Now.”
She allowed him to lead her to the chair and sat. Refusing to think, Jenny was nevertheless aware of his own slight hesitation before he removed his hands and with that move, took all warmth.
“I said now, Jenny.”
In a deadened voice she began. “I grew up here in this cabin with my father. My mother died when I was born. I never minded it, the loneliness. Maybe because I never knew it was there. My father and I never talked about what would happen to me if he wasn’t around; the possibility never came up. Ben was here for a few weeks in the summer. You know my father worked the horses and taught me all he knew. It was in the fall, after Ben had left for his traps, that my father went into Folsom and met Jonas. Mac introduced them in the saloon. Jonas had a horse pull up lame and wanted another. I don’t know what they talked about after that, but they were drinking together and got up a card game with a stranded gambler. Back then Folson wasn’t the half-dead town it is now; there were still enough miners around to spend money and there were women to help them. There was even another saloon that has since burned down.”
Frowning and pausing, Jenny pushed back her straight length of hair and stared at the fire, golden lights half shadowing her face. And Sam caught his breath at her loveliness in that brief moment before she lowered her head. What was she thinking? Remembering? Had she loved Jonas? The thought tore at him. Did she still love him? Was that the reason she had held him at a distance?
“The gambler accused my father of having cheated him,” she said abruptly. “He shot my father before Mac or Morro moved, but not before Jonas did. They told me Jonas drew his gun faster than a snake striking and killed him. My father wasn’t dead, though, and Jonas brought him home. Ben wasn’t here and I didn’t know what to do.” She swallowed, but a cry slipped past her defenses. Pain at the remembrance of that day coursed through her.
Sam didn’t think about brushing the tears that slid down her high cheekbones. He took their heat and pain and soothed her with a tender touch.
“Jonas did all he could for my father, but the wound festered. After two days my father knew he was dying. When I saw him, he … he said he talked to Jonas. I wasn’t to worry ‘cause Jonas promised to marry and take care of me. I was … fifteen.” She faltered a moment, then continued. “So Jonas swore he would care for me. My father made him do that on the Bible. He managed to write our names together below those of his and my mother’s. He used his last breaths to say the same simple marriage vows over us. Jonas didn’t know they were worded simply because my father found it difficult to convey the same meaning as the Indian words,” she said in a brittle voice. “I often repeated them when times were bad. But before then, I didn’t know my father had told Jonas about the money. He—”
“What money?”
“He had almost two thousand dollars saved from the sale of horses over the years. He told Jonas where he hid it. I didn’t know. We buried him that afternoon, high in the mountains, the way a white man is buried,” she added coldly, not bothering to explain away his bewilderment. “Jonas said I needed to be away from here to forget what happened. We left for Boise City that same day. They had saloons aplenty. They also had a preacher, which Jonas hadn’t counted on, I later found out. But I had.”
Her voice broke and she had to fight with herself to say the rest. With an almost defiant toss of her head she looked up, facing him. Her eyes met his with blackened fury. “I had never been with a man before. Jonas wasn’t … he…” Dear God! Why was he looking at her like that? Hate glittered savagely in the amber depths of his eyes, replacing all warmth. Yet his hand cupping her cheek was gentle, his voice a whisper of soft coaxing for her not to say any more. Jenny heard him but pulled back and away.
“Afterward Jonas left me alone in the hotel room above a saloon where he spent most of his time drinking and gambling the money away. When he was done, he came back for me. I … I left him the next morning to come home. It took two weeks before he followed.” She stood up, pacing, her hands clenched tight around her waist, moving back and forth in front of the fire. Never once did she look at him while she told of how Jonas would leave her for weeks at a time. But always—and here her voice was the barest of whispers—always he came back.
“And you never once questioned him?”
She shook her head violently, sending her hair rippling over her back. “No. I didn’t want to know what he was doing. It was enough to hear talk. I didn’t go to town much after that. I … I was carrying Robby and the work here was hard for me. When he came back one time and saw I was with child, he swore he was going to settle down. That was before he met Maybelle Hadly. I couldn’t chance riding the mountain, so he went for feed. For months I knew he was seeing her every afternoon, but by then I didn’t care. I had my child inside me and he couldn’t take that joy away.”
“And Ben? Wasn’t he here? Didn’t he try to talk to him or beat some sense into him?” he asked in a restrained voice. “Didn’t he try to stop Jonas from leaving you alone?”
“Ben tried. Jonas wo
uldn’t listen and I … I was afraid Jonas would hurt him, so I told Ben to stop. It really wouldn’t have done any good. I wanted Jonas to go away by then. I didn’t think I could ever love him. But when Robby came, Jonas changed. He tried.”
“You sound like you’re still trying to convince yourself of that. Are you, Jen?”
She ignored his bitter question. “I don’t expect you to understand what it was like for Jonas and me. I found him changed and he was treating me differently. Like a wife and not … well, I believed him when he said no more women, no drinking, no gambling. I needed to believe him,” she added simply and truthfully. “But it didn’t last. He came back here one afternoon, raging about wanting the truth from me. I didn’t know what he was talking about when he said I’d lied to him, trapped him, and that my father had fooled him. He accused my father of bribing him like only a sneaking half-breed bastard could. He said my father was a man without honor to hogtie him to a squaw. He was filled with hate for being called a squawman in town. And he hated me.”
Her voice was so cold, so lacking in emotion as she faced the fire to lean her head against the stone mantel. He couldn’t stop himself from coming up behind her and slipping his arms around her slender waist. The backs of his hands felt singed from the flames, but where his palms rested against Jenny there was cold. As he moved his lips wordlessly over the back of her bent head, the subtle scent of wildflowers teased his senses. Involuntarily his hands tightened, he felt the instant rigidity of her body, heard her sharp intake of breath, and pleaded with her not to say more.
Banging one clenched fist against the stone, she twisted from his grasp. “No! You wanted to hear it. Jonas ran off again. He stole the large herd of mares I had and ran off with one of the women from Folsom. And whenever he was in a mean mood, or broke, he came back. Over and over … he came back.” Shattered by her confession, Jenny was left with tears streaming down her face, a broken whisper coming from her lips, and yet she brushed his hand away.
But he wasn’t buying it this time. Roughly he took her into his arms, clamping his hands like a vise around her. “Damn you, Jenny! Stop fighting me. Stop … I only want to hold you. I’m not Jonas!” he raged when she tried to pull away. “I don’t want to hurt you. Can’t you believe that much? Jenny … Oh, Jen, I want…” It came to haunt him then, staring down at her head as she twisted and fought to escape him. He saw that blurred face, a smile forming, and it nagged the edges of his mind for it was chillingly cold. And the name Jonas came again. He hadn’t realized his grip on her had tightened until she was whimpering with pain for him to let her go. He was lost in remembered certainty that he knew the man that stood as a ghost between them. Then her pleading tore into him.
“Go away … go now before you hurt me and my son any more than you already have. I can’t live with that again. I don’t want to. I can’t.” Her tears soaked his shirt.
He cautioned himself to be gentle, rubbing her back. “I swear to you that I won’t be like him, Jen. I won’t hurt you. I need you to believe that. I only want … Oh, Christ, Jenny, don’t look at me like that,” he pleaded. “I have no right to want you. I have no right to need you either, but God help me, Jen, I do.”
His lips captured hers with a soft promise. That was all he meant to give her. A kiss that was tender and showed how much he cared. One kiss that asked and promised a time of waiting. It was one kiss too many, raging out of control like the fury of a sudden mountain storm.
Jenny denied him, tearing her lips free.
“Yes, Jen. Yes, this time,” he insisted, whispering, “Kiss me.”
“I can’t. I can’t let you hurt me again. And you,” she pleaded against his mouth, “you can do that.”
In answer his lips ravaged her mouth with a hunger that swirled and sucked her into its maelstrom. Desire spread inside her, hot and sweet, heady enough to subdue every overwrought emotion with its fierceness. And Jenny found thoughts fleeing like the doe before the hunter, mindless with the need to be safe and away. He held her for long minutes, rocking her until her body was warm beneath his hands and ugly memories no longer chilled her. His mouth softened slightly, her small cry dissolving the tension of her confession but also bringing to light the passion exploding through him. She leaned into him in a gesture so trusting, he wanted to cry out in protest. And his mouth cherished her as she moved her head from side to side, offering more of herself in a silent plea.
To the gentle but insistent pressure of his tongue, Jenny parted her lips, his tenderness filling her senses. She felt plundered, but welcomed the invasion, drinking the sounds of his pleasure and need. Restlessly her hands moved from his shoulders, fingers threading into his hair, clinging when she felt her own body mirroring the tiny shudders of desire rippling over his powerful body.
“Jenny,” he whispered, kissing her eyelids, finding the curve of her cheek. A wildness shook him at the way she clung to him, his lips weaving a heated pattern over the soft shell of her ear. Nibbling at the fleshy lobe, he blew gently against the moisture his tongue left behind. Her soft, moaning cry of surprise had him whispering again.
“Jenny, you’re so damn warm…” Hunger hammered in waves through his blood. “Be warm for me now … Let me love you.”
She heard his shaken voice. Even lost in the heat of him, she heard that. Her eyes opened, lashes half veiling them, inky blue eyes, luminous, searching his. Beneath her hands his skin felt fevered as she traced the hard, etched planes of his face.
“I’m so afraid,” she admitted.
“Not of me,” he said, his voice rough, feeling her over every inch of his body. He rubbed his head against her hands, telling her he wanted more of her touch, and then his voice echoed his motion. “I remember the feel of your hands, Jen. All the time I was out of my head with fever, I kept remembering you touching me, taking the pain and the cold away.”
His hips caressed her slowly, the unmistakable hardness of aroused male flesh making her ache for his touch. Her blood raced, singing its song of need until her skin grew tight and she thought she’d burst without ease. Tiny hot claws spread a fever inside when his hands spanned her waist. One by one his fingers tightened around her waist so that she felt the full power of him, power he held back. Each motion was a deliberate one, each touch dragging her closer.
She rubbed the palm of her hand over the hard muscles of his chest, the line of his square jaw. Lovingly, his teeth caught the flesh at the base of her thumb, making desire race hotly. “Sam … oh, Sam, you want too much of me.” But her cry ceased when his thumbs kneaded the full undercurves of her aching breasts.
“You don’t know how much I’ve wanted you.” His voice was harsh. He filled his hands with her flesh, lightly brushing her already taut nipples. Like velvet then, his voice soothed her, murmuring reassurances.
He made her name a fervent litany, lips, teeth, and tongue grazing her skin, and he wanted to discover and claim all her warm, soft curves. The small, erratic pulse beating in the shadowed hollow of her throat drew his mouth. He played, warming it, dipping and teasing, wetting the skin before his mouth claimed it with a gentle suckling motion that drew the very breath from her.
Jenny strained her hips against him when he once again took the hot, wild honey taste of her mouth. He held her tight, one hand curved over her hip, and hunger blazed high with his need to bury himself within her. He didn’t think he’d ever have enough of her. A shower of sparks flew up the stone chimney as the logs settled deeper into the red-hot coals. As they blazed in the grate, he moved to cradle his maleness against the damp, waiting heat of her. His heartbeats were all the sound he heard above her sudden plea for him to stop.
“No, Jenny. Don’t ask that. Not now. I can’t let you go now,” he murmured against her mouth. Kissing her until she couldn’t deny him, he cupped both her breasts, seeking to bring her blood raging as hotly as his did inside him.
A broken sound escaped her lips. His fingertips teased her nipples until th
ey were hard, pointed pebbles begging for his touch, his kiss. His coiled male strength took her full weight as he backed against the chair, bringing her with him, pulling her between his spread thighs. He buried his head against the swelling softness his palms contained. He was so afraid of hurting her, rushing now when he had dreamed so long of slowly loving her. He rubbed his head against her, wanting to be touched, and once more his voice followed his action.
“Touch me, Jen,” he ordered huskily. “I need to feel you touch me.” Grazing the small full softness of her breast, he drew one cloth-covered hardened peak into his mouth. Suckling gently, his teeth and tongue lavished a fierce heated feasting that had her trembling against him.
Fear of what he was doing and making her feel came rushing along with an intensified fever raging inside. He had battered every wall she had tried to erect between them. Emotionally now she was defenseless but for the fear of committing herself physically, leaving her open to the pain and loneliness that would be her only company when he left her. And she drew on that fear until she heeded its demand to be voiced. Her hands were soft but insistent on either side of his face, forcing him to stop and look up at her.
“I’m asking you to stop, Sam,” she whispered. “I can’t do it. You know I’m not that strong. You’ve known that all along.” Her slender fingers still held his face, while her eyes searched his gold-flecked ones now fired into hot amber. Molten hunger denied her words. His brows seemed drawn and waiting, thick lashes steady, and under her hands, his facial muscles tensed too, in waiting. The powerful body inches from her own shook with the torment of holding back.
“I can’t do that, Jen,” he finally said. “Don’t ask that of me. And you don’t want me to stop. Here,” he murmured, brushing his lips across one taut breast, “and here,” he whispered, trailing his finger down to the flat tightness of her belly, “most especially here,” he softly and huskily murmured, cupping the slight swell of her woman’s fire, which brought a soft, low moan from her lips. “Tell me again you want me to stop, Jen.” He watched the restless move of her head shaking back and forth, sending the straight fall of her hair, with all its golden brown shimmer, to flow down her back. “Now, tell how you don’t want me.”
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