by Rachel Lee
He could feel the hammer of her heart with the palm of his hand, which rested just below her breast. She was frightened and excited all at once, and confused about it.
He had enough experience to tell, to read her, to know. The thought of all that experience sickened him a little, and he wished, too late, that he could capture a little of the innocence and excitement he'd once had. Wished he could remember the time when getting this close to a woman would have had his hands shaking and could forget all the game-playing women between then and now. He was kind of soured on women, he guessed, but Sara Yates didn't fit into that category. Tonight he would hold her a little and excite her a little, and maybe he'd remember, just a little, what it was like when life was still a miracle.
And she hadn't once tough-talked him in the last few days, he realized suddenly. That tough, little sheriff's deputy he'd met the other night in a dark parking lot hadn't been in evidence once since he'd started working with her grandfather. She was out of her depth with him, he realized. She knew how to handle people on the job, but she had no idea what to do with a man in a social situation. The understanding tickled him.
But he wasn't here to get tickled, he reminded himself. He was here to get a little hot and bothered by toying with something he could never have, and to get her to talk about Micah Parish.
"So I'm not the only half-breed Cherokee you know," he remarked a little later, when she finally seemed to have relaxed.
"No, I work with one. Micah Parish … I told you."
He lifted his head a little and leaned closer, so that his mouth was right beside her ear. When he sighed, she shivered in response. "I hope he hasn't given you a bad opinion of breeds."
"I'm a breed myself."
He gave a quiet laugh, a soft puff of air that tickled her ear and made her shiver again. "Being a quarter Indian is interesting, like having a cattle rustler somewhere in your family tree. It's safe and doesn't seem to bother anybody much."
"But being half-Indian does?"
"Believe it, lady. Believe it. Especially when it's stamped on your face like an old Indian-head nickel. I'll bet Micah Parish would tell you the same thing."
"Maybe he would. He's one of those silent types, though. Never says much—well, these days he talks more often, ever since he got married. You should see him with his wife."
"Why?"
"She's such a little bit of a thing, hardly much over five feet, and he's huge, taller than you, I think. And she's one of those fairy-tale blondes, with hair so light it's almost white, and these really blue eyes…"
He slipped his hand a little higher and let his lips brush lightly against the shell of her ear. "Don't tell me you want to be a fairy-tale blonde, Sara. Do you really think hair or eye color makes a difference?"
"Men seem to think so." And she was too aware of the man who held her to realize how much she had just revealed.
"Boys think so. Men know better." He let another warm puff of air pass from his lips into her ear and felt the minute, almost undetectable movement of her hips in response. For an instant he had to hold himself tense, so that he didn't respond as he wanted to, by rubbing his rapidly growing arousal right against that soft little rump. He'd known he was going to get hot and bothered, but he hadn't expected to ache quite this badly.
And he still had a mission to accomplish.
"So he married an Anglo," he remarked casually. His tongue swept across her earlobe. She shivered delectably.
"Mmm … it's not a dirty word, Gideon. And Faith loves Micah so much. Anybody can see it. She makes him smile a whole lot more, and he's so proud of the baby…"
"Baby?" He lifted his head a little. The investigator hadn't mentioned that when he'd said Micah had married in December. And wasn't it too soon?
"Well, it's not really Micah's baby. Everyone knows that. But it doesn't seem to make any difference to Micah."
This was a story he had to hear. "Do you know how weird what you just said sounds?"
She hesitated a moment, and then a soft laugh escaped her. "I guess it does. Okay, Faith's former husband was abusive, and she came up here to her father's ranch to escape him after he nearly killed her. They were divorced already… Are you following?"
"So far."
"Anyhow, the guy followed her up here, and Micah and Gage Dalton barely managed to rescue her from him. Micah married her a couple of weeks later, and it never seemed to bother him that she was already six months along with her ex-husband's child."
"That's unusual." Damn, he couldn't imagine doing that.
"Micah's an unusual man," Sara said. "I think … I think he's known some pretty hard times, but he has this inner strength, a kind of inward serenity—oh, I don't know how to describe it. You just know, somehow, that he's made peace with himself and life."
As his grandfather finally had, Gideon thought, recognizing her description as one that would have fit the old Cherokee medicine man who had forced him to wake up and take responsibility for himself. As he would like someday to do himself, if he ever figured out how. The older he got, the more he ached to find whatever it was that had put that look in his grandfather's eye. Sometimes, in the morning silence, he almost thought he touched upon it, but then it slipped away, elusive as a wraith.
"I think I'd like to meet him," Gideon said.
"Well, sure. I'll introduce you." She was having trouble hanging on to her thoughts, and she suddenly couldn't remember why they were discussing Micah Parish, anyway. Gideon's hand had wandered higher, finding the valley between her breasts, where it lay in perfect innocence, as if he wasn't even aware of where he was touching her.
And why should he be? she asked herself. She was overreacting, like the inexperienced woman she was. Her sexuality hadn't had the opportunity to grow or change very much since high school, but this man was long past high school. He probably didn't find anything at all erotic in the way he was holding her, and if he wanted erotic he wouldn't hesitate to touch her intimately. He was no uncertain boy in the back of his dad's pickup.
Besides, she didn't want to be touched intimately, so she was a fool to let it affect her at all. Nothing good could possibly come of losing her head over a man like Gideon Ironheart. The most she could ever be for a man like him was an amusing back-country diversion before he moved on. She couldn't survive that kind of humiliation a second time.
But before she could stiffen her resolve, Gideon's lips found an exquisitely sensitive spot behind her ear. A shudder of sheer sexual delight ran through her, and she caught her breath.
Oh, yeah, he thought, forgetting purposes and mixed motives and guilt. Oh yeah! She smelled so good, like baby shampoo and woman. Her hair was as soft as silk against his cheek, and he wished she hadn't braided it. The skin behind her ear was as smooth as a baby's, and fragrant, and the sound of her caught breath when he kissed her there was an aphrodisiac for a hungry soul.
And he was hungry. Oh, God, he was miles hungry, years hungry, lifelong hungry, for things he had never had and never admitted he wanted. All the things he'd been running from were trying to catch up, and he needed to find a warm, soft sanctuary.
Gently, knowing he shouldn't but needing to, anyway, he tugged her shoulder. There was no hesitation when she rolled onto her back, her head resting on his arm, and looked up at him. Her eyes were dark, catching a touch of flickering orange and yellow from the fire. Her bottom lip was caught between her teeth.
She wanted this, too, he realized. She wanted him. But she was afraid of her feelings and afraid of him, with good reason. He leaned over her on his elbows, taking care not to let his arousal brush against her.
"I'm a traveling man, Mouse," he said softly. "I ride the wind from one place to another, like a tumbleweed. No roots, no baggage. I've got nothing to give you but a few moments out of a lifetime. But you've got something I want very badly."
Her gaze had grown almost sad as he spoke, and now, surprising him, she reached up and lightly touched his cheeks with her fingers. "Wha
t's that, Gideon?"
"A kiss, baby. Just a kiss." Just a warm, soft kiss to put in his soul to keep the dying fire there alive. Just a touch of lips and tongue given freely to tell him he was still a man, and that a woman could still want him. Just a small, soft reminder of an innocence he'd never really had. Just something good in a life that had known so little.
She lifted her chin a little, reaching for him in consent, and he lowered his head until their lips barely touched.
Warm, thought Sara at the first touch of his mouth. Warm and soft, surprising in a man who looked to be essentially hard and cold. Gentle, unexpectedly gentle, as he touched, retreated, then touched again. His tongue, warm and rough, found her lower lip and traced it, causing another shiver of growing awareness to shudder through her. Instinctively, she tipped her head, reaching for a stronger pressure and a deeper touch.
She hadn't expected this seduction of her mouth. Dimly, she realized that the long-ago kisses she remembered had never been kisses at all. This was a kiss, this cautious touch and retreat, this exciting sweep of tongue over highly sensitive lips.
"Open for me, Mouse. Let me in."
The gruffly whispered command was as thrilling as anything in her life. On a softly whispered moan, she opened for him and felt her heart stop as his tongue found hers. He moaned then, as if he liked it every bit as much as she did, and she felt, for the first time in her life, the weight of a man's chest on her aching breasts.
He was forgetting, and he tried to call himself back, but he couldn't, just couldn't, draw back yet. Her mouth was sweet and fresh and shy, and that shyness was maddening him. He'd never kissed an inexperienced woman; he had never imagined that shyness could be so damn arousing. He had taken practiced gestures for the real thing for so long that he was stunned to realize they were mere parodies.
This was the real thing, he realized. This, a woman awakening to her own needs and not quite certain of them or herself. He had never realized what a turn-on it could be to have a woman get genuinely turned on by him. He'd had women who gave because it was expected, and women who gave because they needed it, and for any of them he could have been anyone at all. Sara wasn't making him feel that way. Oh, no. Sara was discovering her passion because of him, because he turned her on enough to make her forget whatever it was that had her hiding behind a facade of toughness.
The realization terrified him.
He was kissing her with unabashed eroticism, thrusting his tongue into her rhythmically, and she was responding as if … damn it, as if she was going to find satisfaction from his kiss alone. He felt the minute movements of her body as she lay half-beneath him, and they told him how close she was to the pinnacle and how easy it would be to take her right this instant. She wouldn't even whimper a protest. So hot. So fast.
Oh, God!
With more strength than he would have believed he had in him, he broke the kiss and rolled onto his back, separating them. After a few moments, when the chilly night air had cooled his head a little, he reached for her and pulled her close.
"I'm sorry," he said roughly. "That damned well got out of hand."
"That—that's all right." She didn't know what she was going to do with all these wild feelings he'd awakened in her, with the hard ache between her legs that needed something he wasn't giving. She wondered if it would go away, or if she was going to feel like this forever.
"No, damn it, it's not okay," he said angrily. "I made you miserable!"
A few minutes passed in silence, but finally he seemed to relax. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I ought to be shot. First I get you all wound up, and then I shout at you. Damn!"
Suddenly Sara sat up. "Let's put out the fire and go."
Gideon sat up, too. "Wait a minute. Sara, don't…" Don't what? Don't get mad at him? Don't feel hurt and rejected? Damn it, Ironheart, you're an ass! And that made him furious.
"Damn it, woman!" He was on his feet in an instant and took her by the shoulders so she couldn't escape. "What do you want me to do? Throw you on the ground and have my way with you? Do you really want a fantastic one-night stand? I could give you one, baby, but would you be able to look yourself in the eye tomorrow morning?"
At first she had glared up at him, every bit as mad as he was, but when he asked that final, damning question, she averted her face, and a tremulous sigh escaped her.
He heard that sigh, and his anger fled. "I'm sorry, Mouse," he said quietly. "I wanted you so badly that for a minute I forgot and let things go too far."
No woman on the planet could stay mad when faced with an excuse like that, she thought as she darted an uncertain look his way. He'd wanted her so badly that he forgot? Any normal, red-blooded woman would be glad to hear a confession like that, especially from a man like Gideon Ironheart, who looked as if he didn't forget much and could have his pick of women. But she wasn't a normal woman, and she knew better than to believe any man could want her that much, least of all Ironheart,
He caught her chin with his index finger and turned her face toward him. "Forgive me?" he asked.
It was like watching a mask slip over her face. The shy, uncertain woman who had come on this picnic with him vanished. In her place was the tough deputy he had met the first night. With a sick sense of his own iniquity, Gideon realized that he had driven her back into hiding.
"Sure," she said briskly. "No problem. Look, I need to get back. I've got to be on duty at 7:00 a.m."
With the fading of her anger had come humiliation. There was no one to blame for this but herself, Sara thought. She'd broken every promise she'd ever made to herself and tangled with a man. Of course she felt like a fool. He had coaxed her into revealing things—needs, desires, yearnings—that could only be embarrassing when exposed. And then, having exposed her vulnerability, naturally he pulled away. A man had done that once before. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…
Grimly, she helped Gideon pack up the picnic. At least he didn't give her any more hassles about forgiving him.
It was small consolation with tears of humiliation burning in her eyes and throat, and her heart aching for what could never be. Sara Yates now knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that she was a failure as a woman.
* * *
Chapter 5
« ^ »
It was nearly ten o'clock when they pulled up beside the house. Afraid that Gideon might speak, Sara hurried to open the truck door. "Thanks," she managed to say. "It was fun. See you tomorrow." She wished she never had to see him again.
"Sara—"
She slid quickly out and turned to give him a brittle smile. "Good night."
"Sara, wait!"
But she turned again and headed toward the house. She couldn't stand another minute, she thought. It was too humiliating.
And then she froze, staring at the back door of the house. Her heart seemed to stop.
"Sara." Gideon reached her side. "Let me go in first."
He'd seen it, too, she realized. The way the back door was crooked on its hinges and not quite closed. "Nonsense," she said tensely. "I'm the cop."
"But I've got the only weapon."
She turned and looked at him. In his work-gloved hand was a two-foot-long steel bar with pointed ends. It looked deadly.
"I know how to use it, too. I'll go first."
This time she didn't argue, and when he handed her a long wrench with a handle that tapered to another point, she hefted its weight gratefully. These must be his connecting tools, she thought. Her weapons were locked in the Blazer, and the keys were upstairs in her bedroom. But who the hell carried a sidearm on a date in Conard County? she asked herself almost wildly.
She was scared, she realized. Terrified of what she was going to find. Her grandfather— She couldn't even stand to wonder about it. He had to be all right. He had to be.
Gideon touched her arm briefly. "If anyone is in there, they know we're here," he warned her.
Of course. They would have heard the truck drive up. She nodded without
looking at him. "I know." She stared at the house, forcing herself to think, despite her nearly paralyzing fear for her grandfather. "We go in together. It might allow them to get away, but they won't be able to overwhelm us as easily."
He nodded and spared her a long, intense look. Tough, he thought. Despite the fact that she was scared to death. Admiration flickered in him again.
"But I go first," she said, stepping forward. "I'm trained—"
His hand closed on her upper arm, almost painful in its grip. "I'm trained, too. Marines." So what if it had been a long time ago? He'd had plenty of opportunity to keep in practice in holes like Happy's Bar the other night.
Relief touched Sara like a gentle breeze. She was glad to know he had some training. Glad for both of them. Glad for her grandfather. Glad that they could back each other up.
Angled as it was, the screen door would no longer swing open. Sara stood to one side as Gideon lifted the sagging end and moved the door out of the way. The interior door was open a couple of inches. They stood on opposite sides of it, their backs to the wall, as Gideon reached out with his connecting rod and shoved it open.
After a heart-stopping moment of apprehension, Sara leaned to the side and peered into the kitchen. Seeing nothing in the shadows, she reached slowly around the door frame and felt for the light switch. The fluorescent bulb hummed, flickered and sprang to blinding life.
Nothing.
Gideon slipped past her into the room, and after a quick look around headed immediately for the dining room beyond. Sara's heart lodged in her throat, but she was right behind him, giving him just enough lead space so that they wouldn't walk into a trap together.
The dining room was a mess, the chairs knocked aside from the table as if someone had run through here too fast to avoid obstacles. The sight caused her heart to skip a beat, and the absence of any normal sounds filled her with dread. Her grandfather…
"Sara?" Gideon's voice came from around the corner of the living room. "Sara, Zeke's hurt. Come watch over him while I check out the upstairs."
