The lack of a physical resemblance between the two brothers and their disparity in coloring and temperament began to make sense to Casey. “Then Ross is your half brother?”
Jess nodded. “He wasn’t quite seventeen when they died. It was tough on him.”
“It had to have been tough on you, too,” Casey observed gently. “That’s an enormous responsibility for a twenty-two year old.”
“Twenty-four—I enrolled late. And,” he added with a shrug, “you do what you have to do.” Jess took a long swig of his coffee. “Anyway...yeah, Cy was a good friend once.”
“What happened?”
A frown touched his lips as the screening room in his mind seemed to replay old reels. “Well, let’s see. Shortly after I quit school, Cy got involved with a woman from Denver—a young journalist fresh out of college who’d landed her first job at a newspaper up in Bozeman. Pretty. Smart. But she was bright lights, big city, all the way. Cy thought they were going to get married, have a bunch of little Farrells and live happily ever after.”
“But something happened to derail his plans.”
“Yeah, it did,” Jess said quietly. “I got her pregnant.”
The news hit Casey like a thunderbolt, and her mind scrambled around the information. Surely there had to be more to the story than that. Surely Jess hadn’t bedded this woman with such blatant disregard for his and Cy Farrell’s friendship. Everything she knew about Jess said that couldn’t be the case. Yet, as an unexpected, illogical wave of jealousy struck her, she had to admit that five weeks was hardly enough time to know a man’s soul.
Frowning, Jess retrieved his hat. “Done with your coffee?”
Casey nodded numbly.
“Then let’s walk off some of our supper before we go back.” He inclined his head toward the wide, elaborately etched storefront window, where sodium-vapor lights disguised as kerosene lanterns glowed beyond the glass. “The rain must be on its way. It’s getting dark already.”
The weather? He could talk about the weather after making such a staggering announcement?
Wordlessly Casey waited until Jess had thrown several bills on the table to cover their meal and Sharon’s tip. Then she let him guide her past the thinning crowd, feeling the pressure of his hand at the small of her back. Questions swam through her mind: Where was the woman from Denver now? What had happened to the child? Did Jess see them? Was he a part of their lives?
But his closed expression told her it would do her no good to ask. Jess Dalton was a very private man. He would offer more information only when and if he was ready. Regardless of how badly Casey wanted to know.
As Jess had noted, the skies were prematurely dark when they exited the café and stepped out onto the sturdy wooden boardwalk. Clouds thickened the sky, and the sun’s sudden departure behind the high ridge of the mountains had left the quiet town shrouded in the moody grays of an early photographer’s daguerreotype.
Still, the night air was warm, the faux kerosene lamps dangling from weathered beams on the covered walk lent a century-old feel to the restored street, and Jess was obviously in no hurry to get back to the ranch. When he took her hand and laced his strong fingers through hers, she didn’t pull away.
“Pretty little town,” Casey said, trying to replace her unsettling thoughts with conversation. “I—I’m glad they kept the false storefronts on the buildings. They give it character... ambience.” The child would be about seven years old now. Was he a little boy, with serious brown eyes like his daddy? Or a little girl, with straight, silky hair the color of ebony?
Unaware of her thoughts, Jess spoke softly in the prairie quiet. “Yeah, I like them, too. A sense of who we’ve been and how we got here has always been important to me.”
Let it go, Casey ordered as Jess slipped into tales of the town’s early history. That was his past...and his present and future have nothing to do with you. Eventually, she convinced herself they would talk about it another time, and with great difficulty, she shifted her focus to what he was saying.
“Back then, Frontier Street was home to seven saloons, two restaurants, a public bath, a Chinese laundry and arguably the most notorious bawdy house in the state.”
“Oh?”
“Yep. Word has it that the churchgoing, Bible-thumping pillars of the community were some of Amanda Crawford’s best customers. In fact, it’s been said that the town fathers made so many trips upstairs to the cribs, they wore the treads on the wooden steps down to the thickness of a quarter.”
“And cribs were...?”
“Tiny rooms, only a little bigger than a baby’s crib. But business was booming, Amanda had ten to twelve girls working for her, and if the cribs were a little cramped... Well, they didn’t really need a lot of space in their line of work.”
Casey laughed softly. She would not let unanswered questions spoil this time they had together. She would enjoy the warm night and the hard, callused feel of Jess’s hand in hers. Enjoy the faint smell of his aftershave and the soft, lazy thud of his bootheels on the covered boardwalk.
As they approached the end of the walk, Jess gripped her hand more firmly and led her across the uneven bricks to the matching boardwalk on the other side of the street.
Casey could almost hear the agitated whinnies of horses... the clank and chink of buckboard harnesses and the sound of iron hooves on packed dirt. “I don’t suppose the local bawdy house is still in operation?”
Jess chuckled. “Nope. After a few of the town fathers developed a rather itchy infestation, the town mothers shut it down. Although there is still Babylon. That certainly fits the description of a brothel. Everyone knows where it is and what goes on down there, but they like to pretend they don’t.”
They were walking past Hardy’s Mercantile now.
“Hardy’s used to be the bathhouse,” Jess said, “conveniently located two doors down from that white clapboard building up ahead. That was Amanda Craw ford’s place. Her great-great-granddaughter, Belle, still owns the building, but Belle’s business is a little more on the up-and-up than Amanda’s was.”
Casey sent him a teasing grin. “As opposed to the up-and-down, you mean?”
Jess stopped dead in his tracks and looked down at her, heavy brows lifting in droll surprise. “Well, I declare. The society lady has a naughty sense of humor.”
“Well, I am a nurse,” she returned with mock seriousness, unembarrassed by her earthy remark and wondering why. “We know these things.”
“You do, huh?” Jess’s voice grew husky, and he paused to study her. “What else do you know, Nurse Casey?”
Casey’s lips parted to speak, but suddenly she couldn’t say a word. She felt the subtle shift in the air that signaled awareness, saw his lean outlaw features turn sensual and serious. The moment stretched out on tenterhooks as he waited for her to break the edgy silence. But she didn’t. She didn’t want to. She wanted to steep in this moment, let every muscle, cell and nerve in her body experience the breathless cravings that seemed to wrap the night around them and plunge them more deeply into the risqué setting of a bygone era.
Jess moved his broad, warm hands to her waist, then backed her away from the lanterns and into the shadows of Hardy’s recessed entryway. Casey couldn’t get any air. There had been too much talk of the carnal happenings between men and women...too much time since a man had visited her crib.
Staring silently, Jess took her wrists, then placed her hands on his chest.
Heart hammering, Casey began a slow, trembling exploration of his upper body. She slid her hands over the powerful muscles and sinews of his shoulders...stroked his biceps... ran uncertain fingertips over his chest.
What was it about darkness that allowed people to do things they would never risk in the daylight, she wondered? Was it the thought that if no one saw, no one knew, it could be denied? Pretended away, like those kisses they had shared? Was it the thought that a brief, cautious step into intimacy—not too large a step—could be brushed aside and forgot
ten when the sun reappeared in the morning?
“Tell me,” Jess repeated softly, his shadowed face all grave lines. “Tell me what else you know.”
Casey’s heart pounded, and her reply was rife with a strange combination of fear and expectation. “Not nearly enough. Not for a man like you.”
“Why?”
“Because... because there was no one before Dane.”
Jess’s gaze went heavy-lidded and dangerous beneath the brim of his black Stetson. “No one? There wasn’t one Chicago schoolboy who wanted to show you the back seat of his daddy’s car?”
Casey swallowed the dryness in her throat. “There were a few. And they wanted to... but I didn’t.”
True darkness had descended, and a peek of moon found its way out of the clouds as they stood angled in the corner of the doorway, breathing unevenly. They were in trouble, and they knew it. They shouldn’t be here alone—they shouldn’t be anywhere alone, after that lapse of judgment last night on the porch. But his body was pressing into hers, long and warm and hard, and its heat radiated a need to show her things those schoolboys had been too immature and fumbling to teach her. Things the polished Dane had been too genteel to try.
Casey began to tremble in earnest as Jess’s hands slid to her hips, bringing her more squarely against him. But there was an eight inch difference in their heights and the parts of their bodies that craved the contact were left unsatisfied. Nevertheless, their eyes locked and, breathing shakily through his parted lips, Jess bumped her softly.
He bumped her again.
Casey threw both arms around his neck, and Jess pulled her to him, crushing her breasts against his chest as his hot, hungry mouth covered hers and she said goodbye to common sense.
His tongue was a welcome ravager, seeking out every corner of her mouth, running over her teeth and leaving nothing unclaimed. His hands... his wonderful hands... were everywhere, one of them under her sweater now, stroking her rib cage, grazing the side of her breast with his thumb. Then he was lifting her, clamping her bottom with an arm as she clung to him, eliminating that frustrating difference in their heights. He kissed her deeply again, pulled her into the hard saddle of his hips...and they were dancing... dancing ...
A truck roared out of the narrow alley beside Belle Craw ford’s jewelry store, the sound jerking them apart and eliciting a curse from Jess. He put Casey down and whirled to see the truck swerve out onto the street. It was mud-spattered and traveling without headlights, a long CB antenna waving obscenely in the air.
The night air, though warm, was cool against her wet lips, and Casey shivered as the realization of how far they’d taken the kiss registered in her mind.
Jess turned back to her, muttering something about hell-raising red necks from out of town, then grabbed her hand and started leading her out of the dark entryway. Their loss of control on a public street seemed to have occurred to him, too.
“Come on,” he said in a breathy, husky tone that said his blood was still running hot and high. “Let’s take this back to the ranch, where we can have some privacy and we don’t have to worry about getting arrested.” But the words were scarcely out of his mouth when he pulled her back into his arms and kissed her again. And Casey kissed him back, matching his ardor, because she couldn’t make herself not kiss him. Still, a kiss was a kiss...an affair was something else.
“I can’t sleep with you, Jess,” she gasped when they’d broken from the kiss, her legs feeling like rubber. “I don’t have affairs.”
“You don’t want to sleep with me?”
She was still trembling in his arms, so she could hardly lie. Especially when sharing a bed with him was all she could think of right now. “I think you know better than that.”
“Then why can’t we enjoy each other while we have the time? No promises of forever, if that’s what’s holding you back. I don’t want a commitment any more than you do.” His eyes fell to her mouth again, then to the soft swells shaping her sweater. “We’re both adults, Casey. Adult relationships don’t stop with some quick petting and a good-night kiss.”
Disappointment settled like a hundred-pound anvil in Casey’s chest, though she couldn’t have explained her reaction. Because he was right; she wasn’t looking for an involvement. At this point in her life, her goal was to reestablish her independence, and committing to another man was a sure way to lose that. She swallowed. “What if things get out of hand and someone gets hurt?”
“That’s not going to happen. I’m finished with emotional entanglements, and you’ve got a very different life and a family waiting for you back east.”
“So what you’re suggesting is a few rolls in the hay. Fun and games for as long as I’m here.”
Jess’s brow furrowed, and he hastened to set her straight. “No,” he said gently, “it wouldn’t be like that. I care about you. It would be two people who share a very strong attraction to each other...making the nights a little less lonely. And no one has to know about it. We can be discreet.”
She might have laughed, if the situation wasn’t so serious. Considering what had just happened in Hardy’s doorway, if she and Jess slept together, the whole county would know about it. They would never be able to keep their hands to themselves once they had crossed that line. She backed out of his arms and spoke quietly. “No. I can’t. I don’t want an affair.”
“Your body’s saying something else.”
“That doesn’t mean I’ll indulge it.” Casey met his steady gaze, holding her breath until Jess’s rigid expression finally relaxed, but only fractionally.
He nodded, almost as though he were getting the rules straight in his own mind. “All right. It’s your call. But if nothing more is going to happen between us, we’d damn well better stay out of dark doorways.” Then he gestured toward the far end of the street, and the parking lot where he’d left his truck. “Let’s go.”
This time as they walked, there was no guiding hand at the small of her back.
Chapter 9
The next morning, the alarm clock woke Casey to a heavy downpour. She and Jess had planned to work outdoors, but the low rolls of thunder and flashes of lightning in the pale gray dawn seemed to have effectively curtailed that plan. Jess had said they needed rain, so it probably wouldn’t upset him all that much.
After dressing in jeans and a red T-shirt, then pulling a brush through her hair, Casey exited her room. Jess came out of his room at the same time. The small night-light, through the open bathroom door, cast enough light to reveal his shirt hanging open and his jeans zipped, but not buttoned. He was barefoot, and his belt dangled free.
Casey met his gaze warily in the dusky hallway. He looked tired, but that was no surprise, since she knew he hadn’t gotten much sleep; she’d heard him tossing and turning most of the night. Overnight stubble shaded his face, giving him a gaunt, almost menacing look. Already, the tension between them was a palpable thing.
“Good morning,” she said, trying to work up a smile. “Doesn’t look like we’ll be doing much outdoor work today, does it?”
Jess grunted a low “Guess not” and went into the bathroom.
And that was it. No good-morning, no hint as to what she might expect to be doing all day, no expression of anything close to cordiality.
Well, fine, she thought, hurt feelings making her spiteful. If he wanted to act like a spoiled two-year-old, he could do it. She had no intention of giving him what he wanted just to sweeten his mood.
Jess had been in and out all day, tramping inside and shedding his rain slicker, then donning it again and going back out. Once, she had attempted conversation and learned that he had been down at the barn straightening up and feeding the horses. Later, she had asked where he was off to, and he had said—curtly—that he was going downstairs to a basement room his father had partitioned off to reload rifle shells.
Then she’d made the mistake of asking if she could help him with anything. Jess had sent her a look that clearly said that if she wanted to “h
elp” him, she knew how to do it.
Casey decided to put some space between them. They couldn’t stay cooped up in the house together all day, not with this unrelenting tension crackling between.
Twenty minutes later, she descended the cellar stairs and walked hesitantly into the elder Ross Dalton’s claustrophobic little hideaway, feeling Jess’s presence more heavily than ever, because the room was so small. He was sitting at a worktable, tapping measures of gunpowder into brass shell casings. The small portable radio to his right played low country music; a skinny roll-away cot was wedged tightly into the width of the room, hugging the wall.
“I’ve always hated guns,” she said, coming up behind him. “There’s so much crime and heartache because of them.”
Jess turned slowly on his stool, his pale blue work shirt straining across his broad shoulders. He smelled of rain and leather, a hint of soap and shampoo lingering from his morning shower. That dark stubble still shaded his jaw.
“That’s understandable,” he allowed. “You worked in a large metropolitan hospital, and I imagine you saw some disturbing things. But this is grizzly country. Most people around here don’t venture far without a high-powered rifle.” His somber gaze swept her from head to toe. Then he asked, in a low, provocative voice, “Did you come down here to help me?”
Casey felt an involuntary quiver low in her stomach. “No, I came down to ask if I could take your truck to town. My mother’s birthday is coming up, and I thought I might find something in that little jewelry shop we saw last night.” The mention of last night darkened his eyes and tightened his craggy features. “I...I’d like to buy a ring for her. Nothing too expensive, but something unique to this area. Turquoise and silver, maybe.” She paused, waiting for him to comment. When he didn’t, she added, “Unless you can think of something else.”
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