He wanted to yell to Zeke not to open the gate. He wanted to go over and haul Sara off the back of the horse and cradle her in his arms, but he did neither of those things. He stood in the shadow of the barn and watched while Sara bent down to listen to a last bit of advice from Mary Lou, then smiled confidently.
“Let’s do it,” she told Zeke with gumption to spare.
Damn, but she was fearless, Jake thought. Normally, it was a quality he would have admired, but at the moment, it didn’t seem like a particularly admirable trait.
The gate opened, the bronco shot into the ring, bucking and twisting to rid itself of the annoyance on its back. It didn’t take three seconds to send Sara flying into the air. She landed with a thud in the dust, disgust written all over her face. If she was in pain, she ignored it.
“How long?” she demanded.
“Two point three seconds,” Zeke told her.
“Damn.”
“That’s longer than last time,” Mary Lou consoled her. She draped a comforting arm over Sara’s shoulders. “Now here’s where you went wrong.”
Her voice dropped to a confiding level that prevented Jake from hearing what she had to say. He realized that his hands were clenched into fists and his heartbeat had slowed to a dull thud.
It was worse than he’d thought. Sara just wasn’t cut out for bronc riding and all the lessons in the world weren’t going to change that.
Unfortunately, no one would be able to get that message across to her. She had too much riding on trying to best him. Determination, desperation and pride would force her not to accept the only rational advice: that she drop out now.
“You saw?” Zeke asked in a low voice.
Jake hadn’t even heard him approach, hadn’t even realized that Zeke had noticed him in the shadows. “Every agonizing second,” he told him.
“I’ll give her one thing, she’s got heart.”
“A lot of good that’ll do her, if she gets herself killed,” Jake retorted. “What am I going to do? I can’t let her take this kind of a risk.”
“You don’t have any choice,” Zeke said. “Not unless you aim to turn Three-Stars over to her without a fight. I’m not even sure she’d accept that. She wants that ranch in the worst way, but she wants it on her own terms. That’s plain enough. She’s got something to prove, to you, to that fool daddy of hers, maybe even to herself.”
Jake shook his head. “Well, I’ve got to come up with something.” He met Zeke’s worried gaze. “Don’t tell her I was here, okay?”
“Not a chance. Knowing you’d seen her would be worse humiliation than taking that fall. She’s gotten to taking those in stride,” he added dryly.
The frightening image of Sara slamming to the ground stayed with Jake all the way home. He shuddered every time he thought about it. Yet not one single, solid idea for avoiding tragedy came to him.
Even so, he found himself watching for Sara to come back from Zeke’s. Maybe he’d be struck by some brilliant answer once he laid eyes on her.
Instead, the only thing that struck him as she limped out of her car and headed wearily toward the house was how badly he wanted to drag her into his arms and hold her. Maybe take her into his place and run a hot bath for her to soothe her aching muscles, then rub her down with some of Mary Lou’s special liniment.
And, then? Well, it probably wasn’t smart to go imagining what might follow. He leaned back against the fence rail and struck a match to light a cigarette. Despite his intentions to quit, there were times when nothing matched drawing that smoke deep into his lungs.
The tiny spark of the match apparently caught her attention as surely as if he’d turned on a pair of high beam headlights. She turned his way.
“Jake?”
“Hey,” he called back softly. “Rough day?”
She made a valiant attempt to straighten up and put a little spring into her step. His admiration for her fierce determination grew.
“No rougher than the rest of them,” she said.
Jake suspected that was the gospel truth. “It won’t be too much longer. You sure you’re going to be ready?”
“Absolutely,” she insisted.
There was a cocky, confident note in her voice that he recognized as pure bravado.
“There’d be no shame in calling things off.”
She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said simply. “It’s the only chance I have.”
Jake knew all about only chances. He’d spent a lifetime grabbing on to them to haul himself out of the morass that had been his childhood. Owning Three-Stars was yet another one of those, perhaps the last and most rewarding yet.
Recognizing that the ranch was just as important to Sara and knowing that it put them forever at odds came closer to breaking his heart than anything that had ever happened to him.
He met Sara’s bleak expression and felt the sudden, surprising sting of tears. What the hell was happening to him? Nothing had moved him to cry in years.
Maybe if he’d been a different man, he could have given Sara her dream and walked away to find another one for himself. It would be the right thing to do, the noble thing.
But his own dreams had been tied up in Three-Stars for too long. He couldn’t see beyond it to any other possibilities.
That meant one of them would win and one would lose. With stakes that high, it seemed unlikely that the loser would ever forgive. No matter which of them came out the winner, Three-Stars would stand between them, as impenetrable a barrier as any fortress ever built.
And that struck Jake as almost unbearably sad.
* * *
Standing next to Jake with the first shimmering rays of moonlight cutting through the night sky, Sara was almost certain she saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. But, of course, that couldn’t be. A man like Jake never cried, never even acknowledged his emotions, as far as she could tell.
Unable to stop herself, she lifted her fingers to his cheek and touched dampness. Proof positive that something of enormous import had happened. Even as she wondered what on earth it could be, Jake shuddered and stepped away.
“Jake, what is it?” she pleaded, stunned.
“Nothing, just a little dust in my eye, that’s all.”
Sara didn’t believe him, but knew that pursuing it would cost them both. She accepted the lie. Lying to cling to pride had gotten to be second nature to her lately. Jake had the same right.
“Want to go inside, so I can check it out? I have some eye drops.”
“Nope. It’s better already.”
She slanted a devilish grin at him. “Okay, then, how about just going inside?”
She thought she detected a muscle working in his jaw. He seemed to be struggling with himself. When he finally lowered his gaze to meet hers, his eyes were glittering with unmistakable desire.
“Your place or mine?” he asked, in what sounded to be part jest, part very serious question.
“Before I answer that, will you tell me something?”
“If I can.”
“What’s going on between us?”
A slow grin began to tug at his lips. “Darlin’, if you don’t know the answer to that, maybe you shouldn’t be playing the game.”
“Exactly,” she said vehemently. “Is that all it is to you, a game?”
“A very grown-up game,” he said.
Swallowing back the hurt that the cool reply stirred inside her, she asked, “Care to share the rules with me?”
Jake suddenly looked vaguely uneasy. “No rules, just instinct.”
“Whatever that means,” she snapped. She studied him thoughtfully. “Jake, don’t you ever get tired of games? Don’t you ever wish that everyone would just lay all the cards on the table and be direct? Haven’t you ever wanted just to be with someone who cared about you without any pretenses, without any emotional barriers?”
He muttered a curse and dropped his cigarette, crushing it beneath the heel of his boot. “You’ve been reading too many fairy tales,”
he replied. “In real life, there are always pretenses and lies.”
A chill seemed to settle over Sara’s shoulders. He believed that. She could see the bleak acceptance of it in the harsh lines of his face.
Before she could stop herself, she reached up and traced the downward curve of his lips. His skin heated beneath her touch. Sparks flared in his eyes.
“This is real,” she whispered. “The way you respond when I touch you is real, Jake. Surely, you believe in that.”
When he remained perfectly still and silent, she took his hand and guided it to her breast. “Can you feel the way my heart is pounding right now? That’s real. No pretense. No lie.”
She felt the shudder that ripped through him, heard his soft moan in the instant before he hauled her into his arms and crushed her mouth beneath his.
Sara had no idea if he understood what she’d been trying to say, if he even cared. She knew only that he wanted her with a desperation that matched her own. No pretense. No lie.
In fact, each time they kissed, the heat burned brighter and hotter than before. No one, not even the very cynical Jake, could deny the truth of that.
“Yours,” she whispered, her breathing ragged.
“What?” Jake murmured, his expression bemused.
“You asked before whether we should go to your place or mine,” she reminded him. “I want to go to yours.” In case that wasn’t emphatic enough, she added, “Now.”
Jake hesitated for the space of a heartbeat, his gaze searching her face for something. He must have found what he was looking for, because he nodded.
He had just folded her hand in his and started off toward the foreman’s cottage, when the front door opened, spilling light and shadow across the lawn. Sara knew without turning that her father stood framed in the doorway. Dismay flooded over her.
“There you are,” Trent said. “I thought I heard voices out here. Sara, I’ve been looking for you.”
She cast a look of regret at Jake, then turned. “Oh? Any particular reason?”
“Annie was wondering if you planned to be home for supper. I didn’t have an answer for her.” He glanced at Jake. “Why don’t I tell her to set the table for three? Jake, you’ll join us, won’t you?”
Jake was starting to shake his head, when Sara squeezed his hand. “Please, Jake. Join us.”
He looked as if he’d rather be caught in a blizzard, but he forced a smile. “Sure. I’d be a fool to turn down Annie’s cooking.”
Trent gave a nod of satisfaction and went back inside to pass along the word to Annie, leaving Jake and Sara alone.
“You do like to play with fire, don’t you, sweetheart?” Jake inquired.
“That’s a given, sweetheart.” Sara beamed at him. “Besides, a little delayed gratification is good for the soul.”
“It’s not my soul I’m worried about,” Jake said dryly.
“Maybe you should be.”
“At the moment, I have more pressing matters on my mind,” he told her. He moved her hand to the front of his jeans. “See what I mean?”
Desire ricocheted wildly through Sara. Only an image of her waiting father dampened it. “If you hurry, I suppose there’s time for an icy shower before dinner,” she said considerately.
“Only if you intend to share it with me.”
“That would more or less defeat the whole purpose, wouldn’t it?”
“If the purpose is to do something about my little problem, then I can almost guarantee having you with me would do the trick.”
She grinned at him. “You are bad, Jake.”
“And you love it,” he guessed.
“You are broadening my horizons, that’s true.”
“Glad to oblige.”
“I’m sure.”
The taunts might have gone on if Trent hadn’t bellowed from inside, “Get on in here, you two. Annie’s got supper on the table.”
“So much for that shower,” Sara said with regret.
“That’ll teach you to waste time talkin’, when we could be doin’,” he responded, winking at her as they went inside. “I surely do hope your daddy is a less observant man than I always took him to be.”
It was the longest, most tedious dinner Sara had ever sat through. She couldn’t look at her father for fear he’d guess what was on her mind. She couldn’t look at Jake, because he knew darned well what was on her mind. As for concentrating on dinner, it might as well have been sawdust for all it mattered to her. She made an effort to at least note what was on her plate, so she could compliment Annie on it later.
Was she turning into some sort of sex-starved wanton? Or was it just Jake and the fact that she’d been falling in love with him since the first day she set eyes on him? The last few weeks had been a dream come true.
What they had right now might not last. In fact, if Jake had his way, it probably wouldn’t. That made these hours and days all the more precious. She couldn’t have walked away from what he was offering if she’d wanted to.
She was so lost in her thoughts that she almost missed her father’s announcement to Jake that the bank had promised to set the closing on the ranch for the following week. Naturally he didn’t spell it out in front of her, since she was supposed to be in the dark on the plans, but the enigmatic remark he made was clear enough for her to interpret it.
If she hadn’t figured it out on her own, the quick, worried glance Jake shot at her would have been enough to clarify it. She feigned a sudden fascination with the untouched mashed potatoes on her plate in the hope that neither of them would see the tears shimmering in her eyes.
When she had herself thoroughly under control, she pushed her chair back from the table. “If you two will excuse me,” she said cheerfully, “I have some calls to make before it gets to be too late. I’ll say good-night now.”
She rushed from the room before either of the men could say a word to stop her.
In her room, she shed her clothes and jumped into the shower, an icy one she hoped would cool the angry thoughts coursing through her.
It was all slipping away even faster than she’d expected. The closing would make the loss of the ranch real, no matter what happened after. It would be the official signal that her father truly didn’t understand her at all.
Up until now, she supposed she had harbored some slim hope that he would wake up and come to his senses before the deal was finalized. The last of her illusions had been wiped out at the dinner table tonight. Getting Three-Stars for herself really was going to be up to her.
Her spirits sank even further as she thought about the disastrous lesson she’d had that afternoon. She’d been fooling herself about having any chance at all against Jake. Even though the eventual outcome was all but certain, she would go through with the challenge, because she had to.
And if Jake won, as expected? Would he really hold her to the marriage? She doubted it. The dare he’d made had just been part of the diabolical game he liked to play. She was certain he never intended to claim her.
But what if he did? Could she go through with it? Their conversation earlier tonight merely confirmed what she’d known all along. Jake didn’t trust anyone except himself. What kind of marriage could two people have, if there was no trust? How could she bear to be tied to a man she loved, knowing that he didn’t love her?
“Damn them both,” she muttered, then added for good measure, “Damn all men.”
“Your mood’s certainly taken a nosedive,” Jake commented lazily.
Sara’s startled gaze flew to the mirror, where Jake’s reflection stared back at her. She tugged the towel she was wearing a little tighter and prayed the steam would hide her flaming cheeks.
“How the hell did you get in here?” she demanded.
“I knocked. I guess you didn’t hear me.”
“I was in the shower.”
Jake’s eyes glittered dangerously. “I thought we were going to do that together.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Changed your mind, huh? I suppose I have your father’s little announcement to thank for that.”
She thought she detected a note of sympathy in his voice. That grated on her nerves almost as badly as his intrusion into her room.
“Don’t waste time feeling sorry for me,” she said. “It’s a little hypocritical under the circumstances.”
She glanced over her shoulder and added, “I think you’d better get out of here before my father figures out where you are.”
“Your father’s gone into town,” he said, a note of triumph in his voice. “A poker game, I believe.”
“Oh,” she said, suddenly sounding a little too breathless. She found the instinctive reaction extremely irritating. “I still think you should go.”
“That’s your trouble, darlin’. You use your head too much. Stop thinking and tell me what you really want.”
“I really want you to get the hell out of my room,” she insisted stubbornly, praying he wouldn’t see through the blatant lie.
Naturally he didn’t pay the slightest bit of attention to her. Even as she waited for him to go, she saw him move slowly forward, one lazy, insolent step at a time. She could feel his heat even before he slid his arms around her waist from behind. When his lips brushed the back of her neck, she weakened.
When his hands slipped past the edge of the towel to cover her breasts, the last of her resolve melted away. The reflection in the mirror as the towel slid to the floor turned her knees to jelly.
“Damn you,” she muttered, but without much vehemence.
It was the last thing she said for a long, long time. She turned in his arms and lifted her lips to his.
Tomorrow would just have to take care of itself, she thought, as she gave herself up to the intensity of his caresses. All that mattered was here and now. No pretenses. No lies.
Chapter Ten
Jake slipped out of Sara’s room before dawn. He wasn’t sure if he was more terrified of being caught by Trent or by Annie. Neither of them was likely to cheer this incredible, unexpected affair he was having with Sara. Trent’s aim with a shotgun was lethal, but Annie was capable of doing significant damage with a mere broom, to say nothing of the way she wielded kitchen utensils.
The Bridal Path: Sara Page 11
