by Linda Conrad
She nodded and slipped a hand into his. The sparks exploded between them again. Every time he touched her, no matter how casually, he felt as though he had been branded. He wanted desperately to make her his own. To brand her in return so that everyone would know to keep their hands off.
Unfortunately, the ideas of what he should do and what he must do were beginning to merge in his mind. Right and wrong had always been clear before. Now all he could visualize was the gray lying in between the black and white. Lust was making him think in ways he’d never done before.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
The handsome and powerful man excused himself from the lavish party and slipped outside to the terrace. As he went, a dozen beautiful women watched him walk by with lust plainly apparent in their eyes. Too bad he couldn’t take them up on their unspoken offers. He had too much to lose right now to give it all up just because he couldn’t keep his fly zipped. No matter how tempting.
Checking his cell messages, he found the one from his hired man, Arnie, he’d been expecting. It was about time. After listening for a few moments, he lit an afterdinner cigar and returned the call.
“But, boss.” Arnie was hedging with a whine clear in his voice after being chastised for not completing his mission. “She’s staying with the sheriff himself. We don’t dare try to take her as long as she’s with him.”
“I said to make your move now. Before things get any further out of control. And I expect you to follow orders. I want that woman here within a few hours.”
“But boss…he’s the sheriff.”
“How many men does he have guarding her?”
“Just the sheriff.”
The boss tsked aloud and chewed on his cigar. He never had trouble controlling his irritation. That’s how he had gotten this far. But now he felt a pang of pure anger beginning to crawl up his spine. It made him weak. Unacceptable.
He blew out a breath and vowed to keep his cool this time, too. “Then do as I say. A small county sheriff in Texas is nothing to me. He won’t cause you any trouble. Do whatever you need to with him. I can fix it later.
“But I want her back here by tomorrow,” he added. “Or else. And no excuses this time. Do you understand me?”
Chapter 7
R osie waited in the back of the farm-supply store with Jericho’s father, while Jericho joked around and told stories with his brother. The two over-six-footers were standing in an aisle near the front windows. Afternoon sun hung low in an orange sky and flowed through the windows, bathing both men in a warm glow as they spoke quietly together.
No customers were in the store at this hour. Just the three Yates men—and her.
Jericho’s father made her feel comfortable. Like she almost belonged here. She didn’t mind waiting for Jericho and getting to know his father at all. At six feet tall himself, Mr. Yates was still in great physical shape. He wore his gray-streaked hair cut close to his head, and his tanned, leathered skin spoke of a lifetime of outdoor living.
“You sure have two fine-looking sons, Mr. Yates.”
“Call me Buck, please. Everyone does.” The older man shot a quick glance at his two boys and then turned to study her. “I always tried to raise them with strong values of patriotism and service, and that much seems to have taken hold. But raising good-looking, community-minded men hasn’t helped me a bit in getting grandchildren. I had hopes that Jericho might be on the right track with Macy, but…”
“Oh.” Did Jericho’s father blame her for getting in the way of their wedding? “Maybe it was all my fault that the wedding didn’t happen. But Macy said…”
“Hold on there.” Buck interrupted her with a grin. “I know those two weren’t really meant for each other. Not over the long haul. As a matter of fact, my son never once in his life looked at Macy the way he looks at you. It’s a good thing he didn’t ruin two lives by marrying the wrong person before the right one came along. I did that myself and have regretted it ever since.”
“The way he looks at me? He doesn’t even know who I am for sure. What do you mean?” She pulled herself up a little straighter and held her breath. It had always seemed to her that Jericho’s eyes were questioning her, so Buck’s answer seemed all-important. But she wasn’t entirely positive why.
Buck patted her shoulder. “He looks at you as if he could eat you in one gulp. As if the sun had never shone on the world until you showed up. It don’t matter how long two people know each other. That kind of feeling only comes along once in a lifetime. And my son’s got it for you.”
Did Jericho feel the same things for her that she’d been feeling for him? How could something like that happen so soon? And in the middle of such terrible confusion and terror.
“I…uh…” Buck started to speak, but his expression had changed from pleasant and hopeful to wary and sad. “That is…I didn’t do my sons any favors by not re-marrying after their mother left us. I was so sure I could be both mother and father to them that I didn’t believe we needed anyone else.
“Trouble with thinking that way, though, is that Jericho was too young at the time to do without a mother.” Buck shook his head and frowned. “He never understood why she’d left and never quite forgave his mother for not coming back. I’m sure he blamed himself, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I think he must still have a lot of anger inside him that needs to come out before he can ever be really happy. That’s why he’s never found anyone before now.”
Anger? But that certainly didn’t sound like the Jericho Rosie was beginning to know. All right, so maybe he thought of himself as a dedicated bachelor. But was he single because he wanted to be or single because he didn’t trust a woman not to hurt him?
Geez. Rosie suddenly decided she was thinking too much. Where had all these crazy amateur psychology ideas come from anyway? Was that what she had been in her real life? A psychologist?
No, that didn’t sound right at all. But on the other hand, how could she know anything anymore? Her whole life before Esperanza, Texas was a big fat blank.
Just then, Jericho and Fisher came up the aisle toward them. “You ready to go back to my place?” Jericho asked her.
The warmth Jericho caused by standing so close flamed across her skin and made her wonder if going back to his house was such a good idea.
Yes, she suddenly decided, it was. Getting closer to him was all she wanted. There was nothing she needed more than to plaster herself as close to him as possible. Had Buck been right about Jericho’s desire?
There were so many things Rosie couldn’t know because her mind had blocked them. But Jericho’s desire for her was one thing she had the power to discover in the here and now. And she vowed to force the issue if she had to.
Twilight had arrived. In the parking lot behind his father’s store, Jericho unlocked his pickup and turned to help Rosie climb into the passenger seat. But when she stepped closer, he was hit by a blast of yearning so forceful it nearly knocked him to his knees. He wanted her. Badly. Yet he’d known that before. This time, though, it seemed like something more than lust.
As he took her arm, he tried to come up with why this need felt different. Safe. That was the only word he could think of to define what he was feeling. He’d been trying so hard to keep her safe that it never occurred to him she might be the one to make him long for security. But as he looked into her eyes, it was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.
Family. For the first time in his life, someone besides his father and brother made him yearn to be part of a family. This lost woman and her unborn child needed him in a way no one else had—including Macy and T.J. On more of a primitive, survival level.
“Jericho?” Her eyes searched his.
He’d been standing here staring for too long. Abruptly, he threw his arm around her waist to help her into the truck’s cab. But he stumbled in his haste, and she reached for his shoulders to steady them both.
Inside, he was anything but steady.
Too close, the
ir gazes locked as a sudden change came into her eyes. She fisted a hand in his shirt and dragged him even closer, though the whole time her eyes stayed intent upon his. Automatically, one of his hands went to her hair, stroking, soothing, until it finally eased its way down to cup the base of her neck.
Time hung between them, like the magic first star in the night sky that hovered just above the horizon. Then came another change. She murmured something low, clamped her hands on both sides of his head and dragged him down for a kiss. Many kisses.
She nibbled and nipped. Licked and sucked with such desperation that Jericho could barely keep up.
His mind went blank. Nothing was making any sense. Nothing but the surety that if he didn’t return her kiss right now, this minute, he was going to die.
Giving in to his own desperation, he slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her as if it were the last thing he would ever do. But instead of the end of something, he wanted this kiss to be the first kiss she remembered. His kiss—not some dude’s from the depths of her murky past.
As he returned Rosie’s wild lust, he put his whole being into it. He ran his hands along her body, drinking in every curve. Soft. Yielding. Sensuous. Jericho absorbed the details, wanting to experience them all.
His hands burned as he touched her everywhere. His lips were set afire by her kisses.
“I want you, Jericho,” she whispered against his mouth. “I feel alive with you. What’s between us is right. I know you feel it too. Show me. Please.”
The sounds of her urgent pleas knocked the sense back into his muddled brain. Thankfully, just in time. Another minute and they would’ve been sprawled together across the front seat of his pickup. And though it was getting darker by the minute, they were still in the brightly lit parking lot of his father’s empty store.
Jericho gently took her by the shoulders and set her back from him. “This isn’t right.” He eased her up into his arms and slid her into the pickup’s front seat.
Striding around the cab, he slipped behind the wheel and started it up. “You must belong to someone—somewhere. If we give in to our hormones tonight and tomorrow your memory comes back, along with a husband, you would never forgive yourself—or me. I won’t take that chance.”
“What? But…” Her voice trailed off as he put the truck in gear and pulled out of the lot. She folded her arms over her chest and stared out into the night.
Gritting his teeth, Jericho silently fought an internal struggle with fluctuating ideas of right and wrong. And he also battled to bring his overheated body back into line.
Frustrated as hell. He couldn’t wait to get home and into a shower. A cold one.
The ride back to Jericho’s cabin through the dark countryside was long and silent. Rosie stared out into the night, wishing Jericho would say something. Every now and then, the lights from someone’s house shone in the distance. She took those opportunities to sneak a glance over at the man doing the driving.
He gripped the wheel with both hands, so tightly that even in the darkness she could see his knuckles turning white. He had wanted her. She didn’t know very much of anything right now, but that had been clear when he kissed her.
Perhaps his father was right and Jericho did want her in a way he’d never wanted anyone before. That knowledge would help her because she couldn’t even say the same for herself. She wanted him, all right—but had she wanted someone else the same way once before?
Damn, this was so frustrating. She began wringing her hands in her lap. Needing to think this romance thing through better, Rosie ticked off the few points in her favor as the black night flew by outside her window.
The two of them were attracted to each other. That was good. They seemed to have a definite chemistry. That was also very good. So what was stopping them?
Jericho had been about to be married when she’d fallen into his life. That could be bad. But then Macy and Jericho had both made it clear they didn’t love each other and the wedding was off. Good for her again.
So now how about her own past? She was pregnant with someone’s child. And of course, that had put a serious damper on Jericho’s desire a few minutes ago. But deep down Rosie didn’t feel that there was anyone else, even though someone had obviously been with her—at least once. She’d thought and thought, scoured her feelings, but the only emotions she felt from the fog of her past were scary. Fear. Not love.
And if there had been someone, why hadn’t he reported her missing? That was the number one unanswered question making her feel positive she was alone.
“Hell.” Jericho took his foot off the accelerator and peered through the windshield down his own long asphalt driveway as the outside lights from his cabin burned through the darkness before them.
Rosie looked up, too. “What’s the matter? Is something wrong?”
Jericho left the truck idling for a moment. “Everything looks fine. But…” He rolled down his window. “The dogs aren’t barking. And there’s just something—not right.”
He put the pickup into neutral, flipped off the headlights, and reached around to eye his rifle, which was hanging in a rack in the back window. “I’m going to turn the pickup around, drive to the main highway and leave you there parked and locked in the truck. Meanwhile I’ll call the deputy to come meet you while I hike back here to check things out.”
He turned forward without unracking the rifle. Instead, he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket—just as a loud ping sound hit the truck’s front bumper. Dropping the phone, Jericho rammed the truck into gear, hit the gas and spun in a one-eighty.
“Someone is shooting at us!” Rosie shouted above the noise of the engine revving.
“Right. Get down!” He flipped open her seat belt and shoved at her back.
She slid all the way to the floor and covered her head with her arms. Rolling into a tight ball, she squeezed her eyes shut and prayed.
Jericho cursed under his breath as he straightened the wheel and stomped on the accelerator again. He wished for the cell phone that was now out of reach on the floor somewhere. They needed help.
Hoping he could escape, he raced wildly down his own driveway. Good thing he knew every inch of this asphalt drive. He’d built it with his own hands.
But just when his pickup was within a hundred feet of the highway, moonlight picked up the shadow of a massive SUV pulling into the driveway from the road and blocking their exit.
Slamming on the brakes, Jericho came to a stop. Sweet mercy. They were surrounded.
Another series of blasts, sounding like they must be coming from an assault weapon of some sort, exploded through the air. The shots completely missed them, but Jericho didn’t figure they’d be so lucky a third time.
“Yipes!” Rosie screeched from the safety of the floor.
How many were there? At least two. One in the SUV and one nearer to the house. Jericho was fairly sure they hadn’t managed to break through his carefully constructed security and gotten into his home. But he needed to get inside there himself. Inside was a way to call for help and plenty of firepower to hold them off until help arrived.
Reaching over, he grabbed a handful of Rosie’s shirt by the back of her collar. “Take your seat again and buckle up tight,” he ordered.
“What are you planning?” she asked shakily as she rose to her knees.
Even though he didn’t answer, when he jerked upward, she pushed herself back into a seated position. Then he waited one more second to make sure she had the safety belt tight enough.
“Hang on and stay low.” Without considering other consequences, he swung the wheel to the right and pointed his truck off the driveway toward the empty fields. Then he hit the gas. The pickup jerked and roared ahead, breaking through a wooden fence he’d only just finished building last month.
Jericho plowed his truck through the rangy field. With the headlights still off, he prayed silently that none of the pickup’s tires would hit a recently dug prairie-dog hole. Damned varmints never stop
ped digging, no matter how he had tried to stop them.
He and Rosie were lucky on this night. He heard the pickup’s four-wheel drive cutting in as needed, and on a few occasions, the tires spun in the dirt before he slowed and allowed them to catch again. It didn’t matter that they were bashing through prickly pear cactus and past tall, spindly wildflowers. His good ole truck made short work of it. He refused to think about what this wild ride might be doing to the paint on the sides and fenders. What was a new paint job when it came to saving Rosie’s life?
At last they’d almost crossed the open field and reached the tree line beyond. There was only a half-moon tonight, but he wasn’t having any trouble seeing where he was going. He knew it all by heart.
“Stop! Watch out for the woods,” Rosie shouted from her seat next to him.
Apparently she wasn’t having much trouble seeing in the moonlight, either. Jericho hoped to hell the bad guys’ positions had been far enough away that they weren’t seeing their escape route quite as well. And God help them if these goons had night-vision goggles.
He slowed the truck just a little at the tree line and drove right between two tall ebony trees. Hearing Rosie gasp, Jericho wished he had time enough to explain. But for his plan to work, he had to keep concentrating on his driving.
If the bad guys were smart enough to listen, they would certainly be able to hear the pickup’s engine, even though the truck would be hidden by the woods. Because of that, he should turn the pickup off as soon as possible. But fortunately, he knew that people unfamiliar with rural areas would not think to step outside their vehicles and pay attention to the noise. He had to hope these perps were city boys.
Dodging through the sparse trees, Jericho judged their position and decided it must already be close to his destination. Sure enough, another few feet and he felt the front tires making contact with caliche. The ancient road through the woods that ran from an abandoned homesite—situated maybe a few hundred yards behind his cabin—to the main highway might be overrun with weeds and pockmarked by the weather. But it would take him where he wanted to go.
