by Karen Anders
“I need that tonight, Jennifer. I need you,” he offered sincerely. “No pretenses or complications. I just need your touch.” He pulled away from her and looked into her face, the dim light throwing shadows across her delicate features. He never realized how much pleasure a human being could derive from a simple touch. He needed to feel her in his arms, to wrap her close and tight. The thought released the tension in him, diffused the bitter anger always seething below the surface, dissipated the restless energy that had him pacing in confusion.
She held such power in her small, delicate hands. He reached down and captured one, bringing it up into the light. He turned it over, studying the elegant fingers and soft skin. Gently he traced her life line and felt her shudder beneath his hands. He wanted to howl at the moon, so intense was the feeling her response evoked in him.
Jennifer looked into his face, noting the signs of strain even the laughter couldn’t melt away. “Well, isn’t that a coincidence? I need to touch you,” she said. She smiled, warmed by the grin that flashed across his face.
Run. The word echoed in her head and she remembered only hours ago she’d heeded his words and run back to the house. When she had reached the bright lights of home she had locked herself in her bathroom until her ragged breathing stilled. She had been up against the barn and if he had stripped her naked and taken her there, she would have let him. She had shaken from the memory of the amazing passion that sprang between them every time they were together. It was unnerving and just a little scary.
No. It was too late for her to run. Much too late.
She was on the verge of falling for him harder than she would have ever dreamed. She was committed, whether or not he wanted her to be, and sadly she couldn’t go back. She knew he was going to hurt her by leaving and she still couldn’t stop the need to give him all that she had to give. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.
She led the way back to the cottage. “Do you want me to touch you on the couch or the bed.”
His eyebrows rose and she laughed. “Now who’s being naughty?” she asked playfully.
“The bed will be fine.” He smiled, leading her up the stairs to his bedroom.
“So accommodating,” she teased as she went into his bathroom and got moisturizing cream out of the medicine cabinet. When she returned, she noticed the cloth-covered canvas and her heart contracted. She walked over to it. “Corey?” He glanced up, his eyes narrowing.
“No, Jennifer. It’s not ready for you to see yet.”
Was that panic in his voice? she thought suddenly. “Will it ever be?” she asked matter-of-factly.
He shrugged, clearly uncomfortable. “I don’t know. It’s a very special painting.”
“Corey, I noticed the destroyed painting in the trash. Are you trying to make this one perfect?”
He shifted from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable with her question. “This one is infinitely different than that one. I just wasn’t happy with the way the other one turned out.”
“Do you always slash them like that? It looks as if you did it in anger.”
She’d never seen his expression so closed, so remote and emotionless. “Do you want me to drop this?”
“Yes. I need you, Jennifer. I don’t want to talk. I want to feel your hands on me, touching me.” He turned so that he was in profile.
The deep blue-black of his hair gleamed from the overhead light in the room. It was one of his most beautiful features, like warm black silk heated from the inside out. Through the opening of his unbuttoned shirt, she could see the hard planes of his chest. She couldn’t stop her gaze from traveling down to his navel and to the dark hair that disappeared into his tight jeans.
His voice deepened. “I like it when you touch me.”
Abruptly he turned to face her, his expression stark with truth. “I enjoy talking to you and listening to your velvet voice. I love watching your face in passion and anger. You are one of the most honest people I know. I admire the way you’ve raised your daughter alone. And you’ve done a damn good job. Putting your life back together after the way you were betrayed couldn’t have been easy. The courage it must have took amazes me. I wish I had that kind of strength.” He put his hands on his hips and bowed his head. “Ah God, Jenny darlin’, I’ve been alone a long, long time. I never realized it until now. Until I met you.”
He sounded so weary, yet not defeated. Pride still burned in his eyes. He was a man who took charge and dammed all consequences. He was a maverick. A loner.
An outlaw.
Her outlaw.
His heartfelt declaration jarred something loose in her chest, and she realized all of a sudden that she didn’t even know the meaning of the word lonely. She couldn’t fathom what it was like to have absolutely no one to turn to. A huge wave of despair rolled over her. She understood how much it had taken for him to utter those words. She locked her jaw, the tenderness welling in her chest for this proud battered man. It was all she could do not to cry.
She stood awkwardly, fiddling with the top to the cream. “Do you want me to take your shirt off?”
For a full minute he stared at her, his eyes burning brightly in the darkness. His body language said loud and clear that he wanted her. His expression also spoke volumes of how much he appreciated her not voicing the tender emotions flittering across her expressive face. “No, I’ll do it,” he said gruffly. He took off his shirt and laid it over a chair. “Just one thing before you start.”
“What?”
“Don’t touch the back of my neck. I’m very...sensitive there.”
“You mean it turns you on?” The knowledge that the back of his neck was one of his erogenous zones explained the way he’d acted that day she was looking at his stitches. She’d aroused him with only a touch. The knowledge sang through her blood with fiery notes of passion.
He looked down and she could see the effort it took him to fight his need for her. His fists clenched and he took a deep breath. “I love it when you touch me there.” Taking deep breaths, he swung away from her.
“Corey, maybe I should go.”
“No.” He whirled and jumped forward, grabbing her arms as if she was going to flee. His response was immediate and heartfelt. “Don’t go, Jennifer. I need this.”
She smoothed her hand over his face. “Okay,” she said softly. “Whatever you want. You’re in total control of this. Just tell me.” She watched the taut look fade from his face.
He swallowed in relief. “Okay. I’m so tired, Jennifer.”
“Of course you are,” she murmured gently. “You’ve been on a horse all day manhandling bulls. Why don’t you lie down on your stomach?”
He sank onto the bed, releasing the death grip he’d had on her arms.
She straddled his lean hips, settling herself to give him the most comfort.
“Okay?”
“Okay,” he answered, his voice muffled.
When she’d gotten enough lotion on her hands, she stroked his back until he sighed deeply and relaxed into the mattress. She worked his muscles slowly until she was sure they were thoroughly released of tension. She took her time to touch him and let him know that touch didn’t have to be painful or cruel.
She knew why he hated his father. She’d thought long and hard about it while she sat on the window seat of her bedroom looking down at where he slept. Her chest had ached when she came to the conclusion that he must have been physically abused. Although she couldn’t be sure, it seemed the logical answer. He avoided relationships, was a complete loner and he was running from a painful past. It made her wonder about the deaths of his sister and mother and how that must eat at him, too. So much, she thought. So much to deal with. The tears built slowly behind her lids as she gloried in touching him, easing his soreness and bringing him comfort.
“Jennifer, you make me feel so safe.” His voice was relaxed and told her he was close to sleep.
Those words finally released the hot tears caught in her throat. They rolled down
her cheeks and every so often she wiped at her face so he wouldn’t know.
When he’d fallen asleep, she left quietly so as not to disturb him. At the cottage door she stopped and her heart twisted painfully in her chest. Another ruined and ravaged painting sat in the trash.
“Oh, Corey,” she whispered into the darkness.
Chapter 10
The days passed and Corey kept a polite distance, but he watched her with his hot devastating eyes. She watched him, too, while he trained the mare, taking time after a long hard day to work with both Ellie and the horse. He was so patient, so kind. There were days when Corey and Ellie would have tickling contests that Jennifer could hear from the house. And she watched each day as Ellie fell more in love with him and she ached for him and her daughter.
It was obvious that he enjoyed Ellie’s company. She’d find them on the cottage porch hunched over while Corey explained the intricacies of drawing and painting. The sheer stunning power with which he rode a horse and muscled bulls was magnificent, but this gentle, warm teaching was seductive in the way he glowed. There were times when she had to look away from them, finding herself wishing that this was real. That at night he would join them at the dinner table and he and Ellie would banter like father and daughter. She had dreamed that he would help her clear the table as he teased her. Then when all the chores were done and the lights were out, she could snuggle up in his sleek warmth and sleep with him until dawn.
On that big gray horse he looked every inch the outlaw, but when he was instructing Ellie, the outlaw dissolved into an approachable, gentle, truly special man. But this special man would go soon, leave their lives.
Tom between keeping her daughter from experiencing the pain of his departure and the joy of knowing what it was like to have a father, she simply watched and agonized.
Three weeks after he first started training the mare, Ellie was on the mare’s back racing around the barrels as if they were made for each other. Jennifer would stand at the window each day and watch. She could see Ellie bloom from Corey’s praise, and watched her work harder for him and for herself. With each passing day she watched a championship team emerge, as Ellie either won or placed in the competitions she entered.
Jennifer missed Corey terribly. The scent of him, the feel of his arms around her. She wanted to hold him, wanted to kick some sense into him. His eyes were so dark, still so full of pain and fear. She wished for the right words to touch all those bruised and battered places in him so that he wouldn’t feel he had to suffer with his secret alone.
But she didn’t want to say the wrong thing. She had no idea how long he’d been living in the shadow of silence. She kept her distance because the need in both of them was too volatile, a constant unrelenting ache, and even though she hadn’t said the words to him, she’d promised with body language that she wouldn’t make him compromise himself no matter how much she wanted him.
She’d found other canvases, broken, ripped and demolished. Her heart ached with the discovery of each one, because she believed that he was truly trying to work out something very personal and important, yet he was failing, torturing himself over and over again.
And painfully she didn’t know what to do or how to approach him. She felt so helpless wanting to protect him and understand.
She knew he felt trapped and she didn’t like that hunted look in his eyes. So finally she got in her truck and drove downtown to talk to Gus Waverly. She begged him to try to fix Corey’s motorcycle. She knew that Corey might just get on it and never come back, but she decided that was all right. She didn’t want him trapped. She wanted him free to go if he wanted to. It hurt just to think about a day without him, let alone the rest of her life.
This day wasn’t any different from other days. She stood at the window watching Corey entertain Ellie with rope tricks. She heard her daughter’s clear bubbling laughter when he swung the whirling rope around and jumped through it, his dark silky hair jumping around his shoulders, the genuine flash of his grin intoxicating.
When she heard the heavy-stock truck come up the driveway, she noticed the way he immediately put down the rope, transforming into that steely-eyed man who her ranch hands quietly respected.
She saw him rub his hip absently as he watched the truck maneuver into place. He took the reins of the big gray horse and vaulted into the saddle. She would never get enough of watching him move—all sleek muscle and sinew over a breathtaking body, a warm caring heart inside. Suddenly she hurt more intensely than she could ever remember.
She glanced away from the window and picked up a book from the window ledge, the one she’d been reading before she’d heard Ellie’s laughter. She brushed her hand over the title and sighed, tears coming to her eyes. Adult Children of Abusive Parents: The Long Journey Back.
While she had been in town to plead with Gus, she’d gone to the library, meager as it was, but was unable to find the book she needed. Desperate to understand, desperate to make him understand that it meant a great deal to her what he had gone through, she’d contacted a friend in Houston who had purchased the book and sent it to her. Jennifer had spent evening after evening going through each word. She now thought she knew what had replaced the absent love and security in Corey’s life. The rodeo.
She swallowed the tears and once again looked out the window. Corey was rounding up the stock she had sold. She watched him herd the bulls competently, but she saw the tension in his body, the stiff way he held himself. The need to flee was written all over him.
Heartsick and hurting for the small boy he had been, Jennifer gritted her teeth together, her vision blurring again. She reached up and wiped away the tears.
When he had been gored, when he had lost his pride and his livelihood, he had once again lost his base, the foundation from which he dictated his life. And to top it all off, his mother and sister had died shortly after he’d been injured. God, no wonder he was running. Floundering in confusion and chaos, everything must have crumbled for him. He’d had to deal with the fear of the bulls and the guilt of his family’s deaths. No wonder he’d wanted to get away from her and Ellie.
And with a chill she knew that she was tempting fate by bringing that motorcycle back within his reach. At the first sign of how much she needed him, she knew instinctively that he would run.
She put the book in the chest under the window, hiding it under some colorful Navajo blankets. She decided to play it by ear for now. No confrontations about his abuse. He would have to be the one to tell her and until he did she wouldn’t push for a physical relationship unless he approached her. His silence bound her as tightly as it did him.
When she stepped onto the porch, she saw they had finished loading the truck. Ellie was playing fetch with Two Tone, one of his favorite games. She smiled at the way the little thing trotted after the stick Ellie threw him. With love filling her up, she looked at her daughter and was so thankful for her. Ellie, in her innocent way, was teaching Corey as sure as he was teaching her.
Her gaze moved from her vivacious daughter to seek out the man who had become as important to her as breathing. He was pulling down the handle of the truck to lock the stock inside for transport. She saw him lean his head against the doors, breathing heavily. He rubbed his hip again with anger and agitation, his posture rigid. Jennifer hurt all the way down to her soul. God, how hard this must be for him.
He turned and slid down and sat on the bumper, his hands shaking as he folded them together to stem the tremors.
After a few minutes he finally got up and headed for the cottage. When he reached the porch, he leaned against the pole still breathing hard, his eyes closed, fists clenched.
She stepped down off the porch with every intention of soothing him.
Corey was just getting his breathing under control when he heard the tread on the steps. His eyes flashed open and Jennifer filled his vision. He swallowed hard thinking about dreams coming to life. He had avoided her so much these past three weeks that his hands itched to
touch her to make sure she was real.
“You’re something else,” she said.
“How’s that?” he asked, hating the way his voice came out hoarse with longing.
She stepped closer to him. “You’re terrified of them, aren’t you? That’s what you meant when you were telling me about Widowmaker. You aren’t terrified of riding them and falling off. You’re terrified of them.”
He ducked his head, a flush staining his face when he heard a small sound escape from her lips. She took his hat off and threw it on a nearby chair. Cupping his face in her hands, she made him look at her. “There is nothing to be ashamed of. Corey, look at me,” she demanded when he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Look at me.” When his eyes shifted to hers, he knew they were full of the anguished shame he felt.
She spoke carefully. “You went through a traumatic, life-threatening event. You’d expect some of that fear to linger. There’s nothing wrong with that, Corey.”
In a voice hushed with anxiety, he said, “I hate this fear, Jennifer. It makes me feel powerless.”
“Listen to me, you’re not powerless. Look at what you’ve just done. You loaded those animals. You overcame your fear enough to actually be in the same vicinity.”
He looked deeply into her eyes and smiled. He pulled her close and whispered in her ear. “Thank you, darlin’.”
She pulled away from him and stepped back. “There is something I want to ask you. It’s very important to me.”
“What is it, Jen?”
“I promised I would take Ellie to the junior championships next week, but unfortunately I have to make a trip to Phoenix on business.”
“Can’t you postpone it? Jennifer, this will devastate her. You can’t do this to her. She’s worked so hard. That buckle is practically hers.”
“I know that. I want you to take her. You’ve been so good with her, and you’ve been with us on all the other competitions. Please.”
