As he neared, the thrill grew stronger, tighter... lower.
Okay, he was beautiful, dammit, she admitted reluctantly. Right out of one of those dusty, horsey, two-page Marlboro ads. Tall, dark, and lonesome. Too bad he couldn't ride worth a damn.
"By the way, " she said when he'd climbed the small hillock and reached the shade tree where she stood, "we call it spurring the horse, not goosing, though I don't actually use spurs. "
"We? Who's we? You and the Cowgirl Debutantes?"
She laughed and tossed the blade of grass away, glad she had him going. "Don't be cynical, Jack. It doesn't become you. "
He looked her over now, checking out her snug jeans and cropped blouse. She'd tied the madras plaid material in a knot at her midriff, exposing an inch or two of golden skin, and he seemed very interested in the secret doings of that knot. "What would you know about being cynical?"
"Plenty, I'd know plenty."
"What's that mean? Are you telling me your life hasn't always been modeling assignments and mansions?"
"I'm not telling you anything, Jack. " Her voice softened, and for a moment she was afraid she might stammer if she said anything more.
He stooped and plucked himself a piece of grass, still crouching as he peeled off the sheath and began to nibble on the tender white shoot.
The air above her was so sweet with honeysuckle, and the man below her looked so irresistibly male, hunkered down the way he was, that Gus was reluctant to break the mood. She'd brought him out here, where no one could eavesdrop, to ask the question she'd raised in Baja, the one that had gotten her into a great deal of trouble. This time she would word it differently.
"What would it take to buy your silence?" Her voice broke off, going faintly hoarse as she added, "And your absence?"
He raised his head enough so that she could see his eyes—black diamond eyes that bore into hers and always seemed to touch deeper than anyone else had ever reached.
"I'll go when I have what I came for," he said.
"And... what is that?"
"Information."
"Fine, " she said quickly. "Ask me anything. If I know the answer, I'll tell you."
"Well, you could start by telling me this." He popped the rest of the shoot in his mouth, his jaw flexing as he chewed. "Whose kid is Bridget?"
Gus made no attempt to hide her startlement. "Why do you want to know?"
He rose to his feet. "I ask. You answer. "
"All right, it's no secret. Bridget is the daughter of my stepsister, Jillian, who was Lake and Lily's younger sister.
Jillian died when Bridget was a baby, and she made me the child's guardian. "
She was surprised when he didn't ask her why. Everyone else did, including Lake and Lily. They had even threatened to fight Jillian's wishes in court until Ward McHenry convinced them not to. No one seemed to understand that Jillian had cared about her, that someone could actually care about Gus Featherstone.
"You treat her like she was your own," Jack observed.
"I love her like she was my own."
"Then maybe you ought to take a look at what you're doing to her."
Gus stiffened defensively. "I'm not doing anything except being the best aunt I know how to be. I wish I could be with her more, but she does have Frances, and things are going to change now, with the magazine. "
"I'm not talking about how much time you spend with her, I'm talking about what you do—"
"If this is a lecture about quality time," she said sharply, "please, spare me. "
He gazed at her as if he were studying her. "She's just like you, Gus. The kid's adorable, but she's only five and she's already got a chip on her shoulder the size of one of these oaks. She doesn't ask questions, she interrogates and demands answers. She throws fits to get her way. "
"Well, so do all kids." But Gus felt a ping of alarm. Was that true? Was she Bridget's role model and a terrible one at that? All she'd ever wanted was for Bridget to be happy and to thrive. She'd hoped to spare the little girl the heartaches she'd been through, which meant you had to be tough. She wasn't trying to turn her niece into a smart ass—she just wanted her to be brave and strong.
She met his eyes and saw pity there. Pity. If there was anything Gus loathed more, she hadn't run into it. Just as quickly as the alarm had sounded, it was gone, swept away by indignation. "What's so bad about me?" she snapped at him. "I'm doing okay. I'm doing just fine!"
She stepped away as if to leave, but he caught her arm and brought her back. "Yeah, you're doing just fine. "
"So, why shouldn't she be like me?" Glaring at him, she dared him to tell her why she wasn't good enough to raise a child, dared him to tell her why she wasn't good enough period. She knew the reasons and there were plenty of them, but who had set him up as Guidance Counselor for the Masses?
"Because you're a bitch."
"You bastard—" She couldn't push him away! He'd made that impossible by gripping both her arms as if she were about to haul off and slap him. How had he known?
"Relax, Gus, I just paid you a compliment, okay? You work hard at being a bitch, and you're good at it, a rousing success. But is that what you want for Bridget? Do you want her to be as hard as you are? Think about it. "
Hard? He truly was a bastard! A filthy scumbag bastard. One good whack would show him exactly how hard she could be! She struggled to get free so she could haul off and slap him. She wanted to pommel him with her fists until he was bloody. But a terrible pain was welling up in her throat, a terrible, burning pain that threatened to choke her.
She ducked her head as the tears brimmed. Oh, God, no! This was so utterly childish. How could she be crying when she was furious? She would rather die than let him see what he'd done to her, but the flaring pain was so sharp she could barely breathe, and she didn't understand why. It wasn't possible he could have devastated her this way with a few words. She'd been called hard before. She'd been called far worse.
"Why are you d-doing this?" she asked him hoarsely. "You said you wanted information. You said you'd let me go if I answered your questions. "
"No, I never said that."
"Then what do you want?" She glanced up at him and spat out the question before realizing it was the very thing she'd been trying to avoid saying. "Forget it—"
"Gus—" His voice had gentled.
"Forget it!"
"There is something I want."
"Ask me if I care!"
He released her, and the pressure of his grip left hot pink bands on her arms. She shoved her hands in her jeans pockets and stepped back, refusing to look at him. The powerful scents of man and horse and leather were whirling around in her head, mingling with the honeysuckle, making her dizzy. "I want to go back now. "
"Okay, sure... but give me a minute first? I want to carve our initials in this oak tree. "
"Our... what?" She couldn't help herself. She had to look up to see his expression. What in the world was he talking about? His dark eyes sparkled with some kind of energy that she couldn't read, so she assumed the worst. He was making fun of her. There was a part of her that truly hated him for making her feel this way, like an aching adolescent! Why did she care what he did? She must look like a red-nosed wreck.
"Right, " he said, pulling a pocketknife from his jacket. "Our initials, you know... your name, my name, and a heart. Jack loves Gus. Is that okay with you?"
Gus couldn't respond. She simply stared at him in disbelief as he opened his knife, stepped around her, and began to chip pieces out of the bark. His quick, expert moves reminded her that he'd carved a castle in the desert, and that he really was going to do this. He was going to carve their names in the tree.
Why...?
Don't ask, she told herself. Get on your horse and ride out of Dodge. He's making a fool out of you right in front of your eyes, and you're letting him do it! He might as well be carving those names in your heart. Besides that, she realized, no one had ever carved her name in a tree before, and if that
were ever going to happen, she wanted it to be real. She wanted it to mean something.
As the moments spun by she kept telling herself to leave, but she couldn't. Her pulse was pounding fearfully. It riveted her to the spot. "Why are you doing this?" she asked him. "You don't love me. You said yourself I was a bitch. "
He continued to work, etching out both their names first, and then putting the final touches on the last letter of hers. "Maybe I like bitchy women. "
"Oh, please, you can barely stand the sight of me. You didn't want anything to do with me in the desert. You couldn't even let yourself... finish when we made love. "
He had just started to carve the L word, but he stopped midstroke and looked over his shoulder at her. His expression said that she'd caught him by surprise, that he didn't believe what he'd heard. The sounds of the creek below them, of swift water swirling and gurgling through rocks, accentuated his silence. They were almost sad, those sounds.
"Ah, Gus, " he said softly. "Is that what you thought?" He stuck the knife in the tree and turned to her. "Is that really what you thought? That I couldn't let myself?"
His voice was rough with regret, and the catch in it made her throat tighten. He was shaking his head as he walked toward her, and Gus prayed that he wouldn't touch her, or that she would be strong enough to stop him if he did. But there was little point in even trying, she knew. She wasn't strong enough, or perhaps she didn't want to. Whatever it was, when he reached out and caressed her face, she shuddered and her arms dropped to her sides.
She looked down, painfully aware of him as he moved up very close to her. His thumb glided along her face, whispering to her aching heart. His fingers slipped into the dark tangle of hair that had fallen free from her ponytail. "If you're thinking I didn't want you, " he said, stroking her, murmuring to her, "you couldn't be more wrong. If anything, I wanted you too much. "
Gus breathed in deeply, causing her senses to swim with honeysuckle and the soft thunder of the rushing stream. Or was that her heart? He was making her want to believe him. God, how she wanted to. It was madness. He was a diabolical man, yet in many ways he was everything she'd ever imagined a man could be, and now he was carving hearts that said he loved her when no one had ever loved her that way. It was almost perfect, or it would have been... except that nothing was perfect. There was no such thing.
Her heart twisted bitterly. He was lying through his gorgeous white teeth. He had to be. He had some perverse reason for trying to soften her up and make her susceptible to him. Any second she would realize what it was. Nobody ever loved you just because they loved you.
"Only one of those things you said about me is true, " he was telling her. His fingers flirted with her lowered eyelashes.
"Which one?"
"I didn't finish what I started. I didn't get to finish making love to you. I want to do that, Gus. Right here under this tree with our names. "
His smile was rough and sensual. It was tender, but his eyes weren't. They were crystallizing at the center, growing diamond hard with desire. He began to work with the knot of her blouse, undoing it, and Gus knew she had to stop him. His hands were warm on her skin, his knuckles tantalizing as they brushed the underswells of her breasts. Pleasure shuddered through her. If she didn't put a halt to this soon, she wouldn't be able to.
"We're married, and I want to make love to my wife. Is that so hard to understand?"
She closed her eyes and heard his words echoing in her head. But instead of fading, with each repetition the volume increased, haunting, like an echo in reverse. "We're married, and I want to make love to my wife—"
"I'm getting hard for you, Gus," he murmured. "I want to do all those things men and women do—couple and consummate and come. 1 want to do all of that with you. " His lips touched her temple, and he whispered the rest as if his intention was to arouse rather than shock her. "You know what I want, " he said, his breath warm against the delicate scrollwork of her ear. "I want to fuck my wife. "
Gus felt as if something had struck her. But it wasn't the four-letter word he'd used, it was a much longer one. Consummate?
He cupped her face, and her eyes flew open just as he bent to kiss her. Was that what this was all about? He was carving hearts in trees and vowing his desire to have sex with his wife, but not out of love. That idea was ludicrous. He wanted to consummate their relationship, to make it official. He was trying to block her from having it annulled.
"I'm going back," she said, astonished at the fresh pain that welled within her. She had to get away from him, to escape the feelings that he kept triggering. God, she was nearly helpless against those feelings. He made her long for things he had no intention of giving her. It was cruel what he was doing.
"Wait—"
"No!" She broke away with such ferocious determination that he let her go. Her eyes were wet with angry tears as she ran for the horse. Stupid, stupid tears.
She was atop Sapphire and galloping away before he'd moved from the tree where the names were carved. Afraid he would follow her, she headed for the canyon, for the gorge she knew his horse couldn't jump. She couldn't think of any other way to free herself, and she desperately had to get free of him. She hadn't jumped a horse in almost as many years as she'd been on one, and she wasn't at all sure she could do it. But Sapphire could. Lily had trained her as a hunter-jumper. Sapphire could clear mountains.
Moments later as she crested the ridge that led to the ravine on the other side, she glanced behind her and saw him coming up the hill. His riding had improved greatly in one morning. He was moving up on her! She urged Sapphire down the incline at a gallop, crouching down and hanging on. The force of gravity and the horse's jolting power sent Shockwaves through her, jarring her senses.
The gorge came careening toward them at breakneck speed, and Gus held her breath, hardly believing what she was going to do. If Sapphire stopped, if she refused to jump, Gus was dead. She would catapult over the horse and into the gorge.
She tucked her body into the horse's and tried not to cry out. Her face was buried in Sapphire's mane. The leap when it came was explosive. She could feel the coiling power beneath her, the muscles gathering, the massive discharge of action, and the next thing she knew they were flying.
Chapter 16
Jack pulled up on the reins, trying to slow his galloping mount, but Ruby snorted and surged ahead. Gus was out in front of him by a couple hundred feet, and she was heading for what looked like a ravine. A latticework of towering California oaks crisscrossed the horizon just beyond her, making it difficult to track her as she shot through a clearing in the trees. But her horse was galloping at breakneck speed, and the way she was hunched over the animal, it looked as if they were going for it. Christ, she was. She was going to try and jump the gorge!
She had to be crazy. It must be twenty feet across.
Jack bent forward to lessen the wind resistance as he urged Ruby on. Gus's horse may have run away with her, and there was still a slight chance he could get to her and cut them off before they hit the ravine. The animal beneath him was fighting to catch her stride. Ruby lunged awkwardly, sending jolts up his spine, but as her gait finally flattened and stretched into a full, rolling gallop, he felt himself melting into her surging momentum. He was getting a crash course in riding.
He'd already closed half the distance between him and Gus, but by now she had nearly reached the gorge, and she showed no signs of turning out. There was no way she would ever make it across, and a fall to the bottom could kill both her and the horse. Jack felt as if Ruby's hooves were thundering inside his chest. He virtually had no chance of overtaking her now, but he had to try. Leaning in deeper, he urged the snorting animal on.
As Gus reached the edge of the ravine, her horse recoiled with massive force and sprang like a trained jumper. "Jesus, " Jack breathed, watching them arc through the air and come down safely on the other side. The animal might as well have sprouted wings! Its hooves barely raised any dust when they touched. How ha
d Gus done that? Crouching forward, he gripped the reins, hugged Ruby with his body and prepared himself for takeoff. An explosion of pain told him the horse had other ideas.
As the depth of the ravine came into view, Ruby stiffened her forelegs and put on the brakes. Jack slammed into the brick wall of her neck like a speeding car, agony jarring down his spine. The horse skidded to a stop inches from the edge, propelling him forward like a human rocket. His hand was tangled in the reins, but his body lifted out of the saddle as if he'd been launched. The last thing he saw was the hard, sunbaked ground coming up at him as he did a full twisting half-gainer over the horse's shoulder. His last thought was that horses should come with seat belts.
When Gus summoned the courage to look up, all she could see was an enormous cloud of dust where the man and horse had been.
"Oh, my God, " she breathed. Dread nearly burned away the lining of her mouth as she eased Sapphire closer to the edge of the ravine. The gully was heavily overgrown, which made a visual search difficult, but as she craned around, she could see nothing that looked like a fallen man and horse.
By the time she'd convinced herself he wasn't there, the dust cloud across the gorge had settled into a sparkling golden haze, and the man she'd expected to see broken and bleeding at the bottom of the ravine had miraculously materialized. He hadn't gone over the side! He was sitting on the ground, facing away from her, shaking his head as if there were something rattling inside. Ruby stood beside him, calmly munching a patch of crabgrass.
Astonished, Gus rose up in the saddle, straining for a better look. He was facing away from her, and she couldn't see any evidence of serious injuries, no grotesquely twisted limbs or blood, though she wasn't close enough to be absolutely certain he wasn't hurt. She was still shaking inside, still horrified by what had happened. No one had ever triggered such confused, impassioned responses from her, and she couldn't begin to make sense of them. If she was desperately relieved that he was all right, she also still wanted him out of her life. Desperately!
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