Heaven's Gift aka Kiss of an Angel

by Janelle Denison

  Caitlan watched J.T. slip out of the barn; then she moved to King's stall. She knew her comments about King's emotional abuse sounded strange to J.T., but she had no concrete evidence with which to back up her claim; only this strong sense she shared with the stallion.

  Looking through the slats, she met King's gaze and knew in that moment that the stallion trusted her. "Good boy," she murmured, smiling. "I have a feeling you and I are going to become good friends."

  Chapter Six

  At three in the morning, after two hours spent with King, forming a fragile trust, Caitlan slipped quietly into the ranch house and up the stairs to the guest bedroom. Everyone had been asleep for hours, and she was careful not to make any loud noises as she shrugged out of her jacket and pulled off her boots.

  Caitlan was pleased with the open way King had responded to her. With time and care J.T. would be able to fully enjoy the stallion's spirit, without the threat of the horse being dangerous. She couldn't help but wonder who was spooking King, and why.

  More exhilarated than tired, Caitlan changed into her nightshirt, grabbed her sketch pad and pencil from the dresser drawer, and went back downstairs to cozy up in her spot in the livingroom window seat. Drawing up her knees slightly for a table, she rested the pad on her thighs. Tonight she was too keyed up to lay down.

  Thumbing past the disturbing sketch of the young boy she'd drawn last night, Caitlan started on a clean sheet of paper, consciously sketching a picture of J.T. astride King to keep herself occupied. The contours of J.T.'s handsome face came easily to her, and as the image came to life, each feature at a time, a warm, shimmering sensation settled in her belly. Familiar images once again touched the edges of her memory. She closed her eyes to probe deeper, searching valiantly for the link to these visions.

  Strangely, the fragrance of a spring afternoon surrounded Caitlan, and the sensation of a warm breeze wafted across her skin. The sky above the beautiful meadow was cloudless. She heard the chirp of birds, and two orange butterflies fluttered past. The sound of giggles and boyish laughter reached Caitlan's ears; then she saw them in her mind. The boy she'd drawn last night was playfully chasing the blond-haired girl, deliberately allowing her to take the lead. Caitlan realized with sudden clarity that the boy was J.T., at about the age of fifteen. Why hadn't she noticed the resemblance in her drawing? And what significance did the girl hold to her visions?

  J.T. chased the girl, closing in on her as they neared a stream and a large shady tree. The girl taunted him over her shoulder, daring him to catch her. One last long stride and he tackled her gently to the soft carpet of grass, her squeal of surprise rending the air.

  "I gotcha!" he said, smiling down at her.

  She gave him an upswept look, much too sultry for a girl so young. "So what're you gonna do about it?"

  "This."

  Caitlan watched in her mind as J.T.'s fingers fluttered over every ticklish spot on the girl's body. Impossible as it seemed, Caitlan's body began to tingle, as if she was being tickled, and she had the strangest urge to laugh along with J.T. and the girl. The young girl's gales of laughter filled the meadow and she gasped for breath, begging him to stop the torture.

  "Say the magic words," J.T. coaxed, all the while his fingers were finding every vulnerable area-her neck, under her arm, her waist, just above the knee.

  "I love you," she said breathlessly, then grew serious when J.T. stopped tickling her. She stared up at him, eyes shining with adoration. "I love you, Johnny."

  "Much better," he murmured, a grin of satisfaction curving his mouth. All play vanished, replaced by a sensual hunger. "Now kiss me, Mandy." Lowering his head, he dropped his mouth over hers.

  The kiss the young lovers shared was passionate, like the one she'd shared with J.T. last night. Caitlan's breath caught as ripples of silky heat rushed along her nerve endings, and the sensation of being deeply, thoroughly kissed stole through her. She was being swept away, into her vision, taking the place of the blond-haired girl.

  J.T.'s feelings poured into her soul, an aching tenderness, an eternal love that twined around her heart, seducing her in the sweetest way…

  The creak and soft thud of someone coming down the stairs penetrated Caitlan's mind, banishing the images, but leaving the soft hum of awareness in her veins. Startled out of her thoughts, the pencil fell from her fingers and hit the wooden floor at the same instant that J.T. rounded the corner into the living room. He stopped abruptly, and even in the dim moonlight she could see his whole body go rigid and alert. Then a hiss of breath escaped him when he saw her form silhouetted in the window seat.

  "Jesus, Caitlan, you scared the hell out of me." He dragged his fingers through his disheveled hair. "What are you doing up at this hour?"

  Willing her pulse to subside, she watched him approach in slow, lazy strides, his bare feet padding on the floor. The only article of clothing he wore were his jeans, and Caitlan's mouth went a little dry when she remembered the hard warmth of his chest beneath her fingers last night. She swallowed and answered his question. "I, uh, I'm rawing." Flipping the pad closed, she concealed her private thoughts and images. "I couldn't sleep."

  He sat down on the other end of the seat, his thigh touching her toes. His smile was sleepy, warm and sensual, and did intimate things to her already aroused body. Somewhere along the way last evening, through a pleasant dinner and afterward, watching a video with Laura, a truce had been called silently between them. She liked being comfortable with him and hoped it would last.

  "Do you ever sleep?" he asked, moonlight glinting off the humor in his eyes.

  "Yes." Considering two nights in a row he'd caught her up in the early morning hours, his question was a valid one. "I function fine on a few hours."

  "I wish I could say the same." He leaned closer, looking over her jersey-covered knees to the sketch pad she held against her chest. "What are you drawing?"

  "Nothing." Her chest tightened with apprehension. Now that she knew the boy she'd drawn was him, she wasn't sharing her sketches with anyone. If she didn't understand all the crazy things happening to her, how could she begin to explain them to him?

  "Can I have a look at your nothing?" he persisted.

  He touched a finger to her ankle-just a butterfly touch, really-but after the vision she'd seen and experienced, her reaction was anything but mild. Pleasurable waves of heat lapped up her leg, making her conscious of a growing heaviness in secret places. He didn't seem aware of the turmoil he caused in her, and she wasn't about to let on to it by jerking her foot away.

  "I'm just sketching a picture of King, nothing spectacular." She surprised herself with the casualness of her voice.

  "Don't tell me you're self-conscious about your work." He smiled, that lazy, sexy smile that lit up his eyes.

  She shrugged. "I guess I am."

  His finger fell away from her ankle and he stared thoughtfully out the window. "I knew someone who was the same way with her drawings. She had this natural gift, yet she was so modest about it, like you." He glanced back at her, and the distant pain in his eyes gripped her heart. "Maybe someday you'll show me your sketches?"

  Someday. The future. There wouldn't be one for them. Why did that thought make her ache deep inside? "Maybe," she said, knowing it was a promise she didn't have half a chance of keeping.

  He stood and nodded toward the kitchen. "I was just going to get a glass of orange juice. Since both of us seem to have insomnia, care to join me?"

  J.T.'s invitation was one Caitlan couldn't resist.

  She wanted to be near him, for reasons beyond protecting him. For selfish reasons that could never really amount to anything. He made her feel reckless and bold, and she went with the moment before it was lost to both of them.

  "I'd love a glass of orange juice." Sliding off the window seat, she followed his form through the darkened living room.

  J.T. flipped on the light when they walked into the kitchen. Caitlan sat down at the table. Setting her sketch pad an
d pencil aside, she watched as he strolled to the refrigerator, opened the door, and peered at the contents. The smooth muscles across his back flexed as he bent over and reached inside.

  "I'm gonna wring her neck," J.T. grumbled irritably.

  "Whose? Paula's?"

  "No. Laura's." He brought out a glass pitcher with a ring of orange juice staining the bottom. "She always puts the pitcher back with only a few drops left in it. Does that look like enough to fill a glass to you?" He held the container up for her inspection.

  Caitlan laughed softly, suspecting he asked the same question, and used the same patronizing tone, when reprimanding Laura herself. " 'Fess up. I'm sure you did it when you were a boy."

  His fierce frown dissolved into a guilty grimace. "Actually, I was worse. I drank the juice directly out of the pitcher, then put it back in the fridge empty. Now I know why my mother used to get so upset, because it annoys the hell out of me when Laura does it." He set the pitcher in the sink, went back to the refrigerator, and grabbed the container of milk. "How about a cup of hot cocoa instead?"

  "Sounds good." Standing, she walked to the counter where Paula had left the tarts. She pulled the plastic wrap off the plate, and the sweet yet tangy aroma of cherries drifted up to her. "Would you like one?" she offered. "I made them. You didn't have one after dinner, and if I do say so myself, for a first attempt they aren't half bad."

  Filling the pan on the stove with milk, he glanced at her, his eyes glittering with a teasing light. "I'll risk eating one. Warmed, please."

  She smiled. Setting two on a plate, she popped them into the small microwave, set the timer, and let them warm. Leaning her hip against the counter, she watched as he scooped sweetened cocoa into two mugs and then stirred the milk so it didn't scald.

  Interested to know more about his family, and him, she asked softly, "Has your mother been gone for long?"

  The surprise her question triggered was quickly replaced by a distant sadness in the depths of his gaze. "She died from cancer when I was eight."

  His long-ago grief touched her. "You were so young." The microwave buzzed. Removing the plate, she took it to the table and sat back down.

  "Yeah." He sighed, pouring the milk into each of their mugs. Bringing them to the table, he sat in his usual spot across from her. "It was tough when Mom died. Debbie and I were both close to her."

  "Your father never remarried?"

  "Nope. He loved Mom so much, he said he didn't even want to try and find someone as sweet as her." He grabbed one of the pastries and took a huge bite.

  Caitlan smiled to herself, instinctively knowing that, with a love as binding as the one his parents had shared, they were joined in heaven. "So you grew up without a mother around," she went on, taking the other pastry and nibbling on the corner of it.

  "Yeah." He stared thoughtfully at the filling oozing from his pastry. "I missed her, but I still had Dad for guidance. Mom's death was hardest on Debbie." He transferred his gaze to her, distant emotions shading his eyes. "Dad wasn't all that comfortable explaining 'female' things, and even though Paula was around, Debbie got cheated out of that closeness mothers and daughters seem to share. That's probably why Deb is so protective and extra loving with her own girls. She wants to give them everything she missed out on."

  Caitlan swirled the cocoa in her mug, deciding to take a gamble with her next question. "What about Laura's mom?"

  Glancing at her sharply, he swallowed the last of his tart, chasing it down with a drink of his cocoa. "What about her?"

  His tone and expression didn't encourage further questions, but Caitlan was too curious about this mystery woman. "Will you tell me about her?"

  "What are you more interested in hearing?" he began, bitterness deepening the timbre of his voice. "That Stacey was a gold digger? That she deliberately got pregnant so I would marry her? Or maybe you'd like to hear about how she got bored with ranch life right after Laura was born and started sleeping with the hands before she divorced me to marry some rich guy from Texas?" His mouth stretched into a grim line, and there was a challenge in his gaze. "Not a pretty story, is it?"

  Caitlan didn't allow his bluntness to dissuade her from wanting to know more. "Did you love her?" For some reason his answer was important to her.

  He stared at her for a long moment, the air charged with turbulent emotions. Dragging his palm down the side of his face, he released a long breath burdened with regrets. "I tried, Caitlan. I really did. I wanted so badly to forget Aman-" He stopped abruptly, as if catching himself revealing too much. Then his jaw hardened. "It's difficult to love a woman who traps you into marriage for her own selfish means. I cared for Stacey. She gave me Laura, and for that I'll always be grateful."

  "But you never loved her," she stated softly.

  He shook his head. "No. I've already told you, I've only loved one woman and she's dead."

  Caitlan understood his loneliness and pain so much better. What she didn't understand, however, was why her own heart felt exposed as a result of his lost love. Crazy. Unexplainable. Staring at the dregs of cocoa in the bottom of her mug, she channeled her thoughts down a different avenue. "Does Stacey ever see Laura?"

  "Not since the day she left the ranch ten years ago. She had visitation rights, but she never exercised them. She didn't want the complications of a kid messing up her life with her rich Texan." He shrugged. "Actually, I'm grateful, because Laura doesn't need to be in the middle of a tug-of-war between Stacey and me. I know it has to be difficult for Laura without a mother around, but I try and do the best I can."

  Caitlan heard the doubt threading through his voice, and without really considering her actions, she reached across and placed her hand on his arm and gave him a light squeeze. The contact of his warm flesh against her palm radiated up her arm like a ray of sunshine. "She's a wonderful girl. You should be proud."

  He smiled, a genuinely proud grin that reached his eyes. "Yes, she is, and yes, I am."

  Caitlan grinned back and reluctantly withdrew her hand from the solid strength of his arm. He stared at her, his smile slowly fading into something more curious. His gaze gradually lowered to her mouth, making her suddenly conscious of her lips, and the way his had felt moving over hers. Like heated silk and, deeper, the taste of man and earthy desire. A light, fluttery sensation settled within her.

  "What about you, Caitlan?" he asked, turning the tables on her. "Ever been married?"

  "No."

  He studied her closer, a scrutiny that made her uneasy. "How old are you?"

  "Thirty-four."

  "An old maid." He grinned, humor creasing the skin around his eyes. "That clock of yours is ticking."

  "Yeah," she agreed for his benefit. She pressed her hand to her stomach, an unexpected, vast emptiness consuming her. For the first time since passing on, she resented not having had the chance to have children, the love of a good man, and a full life. Why did that bother her so much now?

  "Ever been close to getting married?"

  She glanced at J.T., his question evoking all kinds of feelings in her. Elusive sensations, and even more distant, wispy emotions. "Yes," she automatically answered. "Once. A very long time ago. Things didn't work out." She frowned, wondering how she knew she'd been close to getting married at one time, but unable to fully grasp the answers she sought. Vague images danced in her mind, and she closed her eyes to bring them into focus, ignoring the sudden heat of the medallion against her skin.

  J.T. as a young man knelt in front of the blond-haired girl. His eyes openly displayed his love for her as he slipped a ring on her finger. "Will you marry me, Amanda Hamilton?"

  "Are you sure?" the girl whispered in a voice mingled with happiness and insecurity.

  "Absolutely. You've always been mine, Amanda… "

  Caitlan sucked in a sharp breath as a brutal pain seized her head and the images dispersed. Pressing her fingers to her temples, a distressed moan rolled from her throat. Heaven help her, what was her connection to these stran
ge visions?

  J.T. watched Caitlan squeeze her eyes shut, her face pale. She drew in a deep, steady breath as she rubbed her temples, as if warding off a sudden headache. "Caitlan, you okay?"

  "No," she said on a low moan, blinking her lashes open. Confusion and pain glazed her eyes; then they cleared. "I mean yes, yes, I'm fine," she quickly amended, avoiding his gaze. "Just tired, I think."

  Nodding his agreement, he gathered up their plates and stood. "Considering it's nearly five in the morning, you should be." He rinsed their dishes, wondering at how easily she'd pried personal confessions from him, how easily he'd whiled away over an hour with her. What surprised him the most, though, was that he'd enjoyed every minute of being in her company.

  He turned back toward her, noting that the color in her cheeks had returned, and she looked more in control of her senses. "Come on; I'll walk with you upstairs."

  Grabbing her sketch pad and pencil, she slid from the bench. She passed him on the way to the door, giving him a facsimile of her normal bright smile. He shut off the light, throwing them into shadowed darkness. Quietly, side by side, they ascended the stairs. At the landing he grabbed her elbow and stopped her when she would have veered off toward her room.

  She glanced at him, and he saw the questions in her eyes. Her tongue slid along her bottom lip, a nervous gesture he found endearing, and arousing. His gut tightened and heat flared like wildfire inside him.

  For a reason he couldn't explain he didn't want to let her go, even though he knew he should. What he wanted was to lead her into his bedroom, lay her down on the bed, ease deep inside her, and stay in that paradise forever. He wanted to fill her up the same way she filled him when he was near her. Completely. Unequivocally.