by Nora Roberts
Yes, she could make him pay—she’d recognized the look of self-disgust in his eyes. She had only to get up and walk away to do it. She’d never considered herself a fool. Deliberately she rolled over on top of him. Aaron automatically put his hands on her arms to steady her. Their eyes met so that desire stared into desire.
“You’ll pay—if you don’t finish what you’ve started.” Diving her hands into his hair, she brought her mouth down on his.
Her shirt fluttered open so that her naked skin slid over his. Jillian felt his groan of pleasure every bit as clearly as she heard it. Then it was all speed and fire, so fast, so hot, there wasn’t time for thought. Tasting, feeling was enough as they raced over each other in a frenzy of demand. Her shirt fell away just before she pulled at the snap of his jeans.
She tugged them down, then lost herself in the long lean line of his hips. Her fingers found a narrow raised scar that ran six inches down the bone. She felt a ripple of pain as if her own skin had been rent. Then he was struggling out of his jeans and the feel of him, hot and ready against her, drove everything else out of her mind. But when she reached for him, he shifted so she was beneath him again.
“Aaron . . .” What she would have demanded ended in a helpless moan as he slid a finger under the elastic riding high on her thigh. With a clever, thorough touch of fingertips he brought her to a racking climax.
She was pulsing all over, inside and out. No longer was she aware that she clung to him, her hands bringing him as much torturous pleasure as his brought her. She only knew that her need built and was met time and time again while he held off that last, that ultimate fulfillment. With eyes dazed with passion, she watched his mouth come toward hers again. Their lips met—he plunged into her, swallowing her gasps.
For a long time she lay spent. The sky overhead was still calm. With her hands on Aaron’s shoulders, she could feel each labored breath. There seemed to be no peace for them even in the aftermath of passion. Was this the way it was supposed to be? she wondered. She’d known nothing like this before. Needs that hurt and remained unsettled even after they’d been satisfied. She still wanted him—that moment when her body was hot and trembling from their merging.
After all the years she’d been so careful to distance herself from any chance of an involvement, she found herself needing a man she hardly knew. A man she’d been schooled to distrust. Yet she did trust him . . . that’s what frightened her most of all. She had no reason to—no logical reason. He’d made her forget her ambitions, her work, her responsibilities, and reminded her that beneath it all, she was first a woman. More, he’d made her glory in it.
Aaron raised his head slowly, for the first time in his memory unsure of himself. She’d gotten to a place inside him no one had ever touched. He realized he didn’t want her to walk away and leave it empty again—and that he’d never be able to hold her unless she was willing. “Jillian . . .” He brushed her damp, tangled hair from her cheek. “This was supposed to be easy. Why isn’t it?”
“I don’t know.” She held onto the weakness another moment, bringing his cheek down to hers so that she could draw in his scent and remember. “I need to think.”
“About what?”
She closed her eyes a moment and shook her head. “I don’t know. Let me go now, Aaron.”
His fingers tightened in her hair. “For how long?”
“I don’t know that either. I need some time.”
It would be easy to keep her—for the moment. He had only to lower his mouth to hers again. He remembered the wild mustang—the hell he’d gone through to catch it, the hell he’d gone through to set it free. Saying nothing, he released her.
They dressed in silence—both of them too battered by feelings they’d never tried to put into words. When Jillian reached for her hat, Aaron took her arm.
“If I told you this meant something to me, more than I’d expected, maybe more than I’d wanted, would you believe me?”
Jillian moistened her lips. “I do now. I have to be sure I do tomorrow.”
Aaron picked up his own hat and shaded his face with it. “I’ll wait—but I won’t wait long.” Lifting a hand, he cupped her chin. “If you don’t come to me, I’ll come after you.”
She ignored the little thrill of excitement that rushed up her spine. “If I don’t come to you, you won’t be able to come after me.” Turning away, she untied her mare and vaulted into the saddle. Aaron slipped his hand under the bridle and gave her one long look.
“Don’t bet on it,” he said quietly. He walked back over the boundary line to his own mount.
Chapter Seven
If you don’t come to me, I’ll come after you.
They weren’t words Jillian would forget. She hadn’t yet decided what to do about them—any more than she’d decided what to do about what had happened between her and Aaron. There’d been more than passion in that fiery afternoon at the pond, more than pleasure, however intense. Perhaps she could have faced the passion and the pleasure, but it was the something more that kept her awake at nights.
If she went to him, what would she be going to? A man she’d yet to scratch the surface of—an affair that promised to have more hills and valleys than she knew how to negotiate. The risk—she was beginning to understand the risk too well. If she relaxed her hands on the reins this time, she’d tumble into love before she could regain control. That was difficult for her to admit, and impossible for her to understand.
She’d always believed that people fell in love because they wanted to, because they were looking for, or were ready for, romance. Certainly she’d been ready for it once before, open for all those soft feelings and heightened emotions. Yet now, when she believed she was on the border of love again, she was neither ready for it, nor was she experiencing any soft feelings. Aaron Murdock didn’t ask for them—and in not asking, he demanded so much more.
If she went to him . . . could she balance her responsibilities, her ambitions, with the needs he drew out of her? When she was in his arms she didn’t think of the ranch, or her position there that she had to struggle every day to maintain.
If she fell in love with him . . . could she deal with the imbalance of feelings between them and cope when the time came for him to go his own way? She never doubted he would. Other than Clay, there’d never been a man who’d remained constant to her.
Indecision tore at her, as it would in a woman accustomed to following her own route in her own way.
And while her personal life was in turmoil, her professional one fared no better. Five hundred of her cattle were missing. There was no longer any doubt that her herd had been systematically and successfully rustled.
Jillian hung up the phone, rubbing at the headache that drummed behind her temples.
“Well?” Hat in lap, Joe Carlson sat on the other side of her desk.
“They can’t deliver the plane until the end of the week.” Grimly she set her jaw as she looked over at him. “It hardly matters now. Unless they’re fools, they’ve got the cattle well away by this time. Probably transported them over the border into Wyoming.”
He studied the brim of his neat Stetson. “Maybe not, that would make it federal.”
“It’s what I’d do,” she murmured. “You can’t hide five hundred head of prime beef.” Rising, she dragged her hands through her hair. Five hundred. The words continued to flash in her mind—a sign of failure, impotence, vulnerability. “Well, the sheriff’s doing what he can, but they’ve got the jump on us, Joe. There’s nothing I can do.” On a sound of frustration, she balled her fists. “I hate being helpless.”
“Jillian . . .” Joe ran the brim of his hat through his hands, frowning down at it another moment. During his silence she could hear the old clock on her grandfather’s desk tick the time away. “I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t bring it up,” he said at length and looked back at her. “It wouldn’t be too difficult to hide five hundred head if they were scattered through a few thousand.”
Her eyes chilled. “Why don’t you speak plainly, Joe?”
He rose. After more than six months on Utopia, he still looked more businessman than outdoorsman. And she understood it was the businessman who spoke now. “Jillian, you can’t just ignore the fact that the west boundary line was cut. That pasture leads directly onto Murdock land.”
“I know where it leads,” she said coolly. “Just as I know I need more than a cut line to accuse anyone, particularly the Murdocks, of rustling.”
Joe opened his mouth to speak again, met her uncompromising look, then shut it. “Okay.”
The simplicity of his answer only fanned her temper. And her doubts. “Aaron told me he was going to take a thorough head count. He’d know if there were fifty extra head on his spread, much less five hundred.”
It was her tone much more than her words that told him where the land lay now. “I know.”
Jillian stared at him. His eyes were steady and compassionate. “Damn it, he doesn’t need to steal cattle from me.”
“Jillian, you lose five hundred head now and your profit dwindles down to nothing. Lose that much again, half that much again, and . . . you might have to start thinking about selling off some of your pasture. There’re other reasons than the price per head for rustling.”
She spun around, shutting her eyes tight. She’d thought of that—and hated herself for it. “He would’ve asked me if he wanted to buy my land.”
“Maybe, but your answer would’ve been no. Rumor is he was going to start his own place a few years back. He didn’t—but that doesn’t mean he’s content to make do with what his father has.”
She couldn’t contradict him, not on anything he’d said. But she couldn’t live with it either. “Leave the investigating to the sheriff, Joe. That’s his job.”
He drew very straight and very stiff at the clipped tone of her voice. “All right. I guess I better get back to mine.”
On a wave of frustration and guilt, she turned before he reached the door. “Joe—I’m sorry. I know you’re only thinking about Utopia.”
“I’m thinking about you, too.”
“I appreciate it, I really do.” She picked up her worn leather work glove from the desk and ran it through her hands. “I have to handle this my own way, and I need a little more time to decide just what that is.”
“Okay.” He put his hat on and lowered the brim with his finger. “Just so you know you’ve got support if you need it.”
“I won’t forget it.”
When he’d gone, Jillian stopped in the center of the office. God, she wanted so badly to panic. Just to throw up her hands and tell whoever’d listen that she couldn’t deal with it. There had to be someone else, somewhere, who could take over and see her through until everything was back in order. But she wasn’t allowed to panic, or to turn over her responsibilities even for a minute. The land was hers, and all that went with it.
Jillian picked up her hat and her other glove. There was work to be done. If they cleaned her out down to the last hundred head, there would still be work to be done, and a way to build things back up again. She had the land, and her grandfather’s legacy of determination.
Even as she opened the front door to go out, she saw Karen Murdock drive up in front of the house. Surprised, Jillian hesitated, then went out on the porch to meet her.
“Hello, I hope you don’t mind that I just dropped by.”
“No, of course not.” Jillian smiled, marveling for the second time at the soft, elegant looks of Aaron’s mother. “It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Murdock.”
“I’ve caught you at a bad time,” she said, glancing down at the work gloves in Jillian’s hand.
“No.” Jillian stuck the gloves in her back pocket. “Would you like some coffee?”
“I’d love it.”
Karen followed Jillian into the house, glancing around idly as they walked toward the kitchen. “Lord, it’s been years since I’ve been in here. I used to visit your grandmother,” she said with a rueful smile. “Of course your grandfather and Paul both knew, but we were all very careful not to mention it. How do you feel about old feuds, Jillian?”
There was a laugh in her voice that might have set Jillian’s back up at one time. Now it simply nudged a smile from her. “Not precisely the same way I felt a few weeks ago.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Karen took a seat at the kitchen table while Jillian began to brew a fresh pot of coffee. “I realize Paul said some things the other day that were bound to rub you the wrong way. I have to confess he does some of it on purpose. Your reaction was the high point of his day.”
Jillian smiled a little as she looked over her shoulder. “Maybe he’s more like Clay than I’d imagined.”
“They were out of the same mold. There aren’t many of them,” she murmured. “Jillian—we’ve heard about your missing cattle. I can’t tell you how badly I feel. I realize the words if there’s anything I can do sound empty, but I mean them.”
Turning back to the coffeepot, Jillian managed to shrug. She wasn’t sure she could deal easily with sympathy right then. “It’s a risk we all take. The sheriff’s doing what he can.”
“A risk we all take,” Karen agreed. “When it happens to one of us, all of us feel it.” She hesitated a moment, knowing the ground was delicate. “Jillian, Aaron mentioned the cut line to me, though he’s kept it from his father.”
“I’m not worried about the cut line,” Jillian told her quietly. “I know Aaron didn’t have any part in it—I’m not a fool.”
No, Karen thought, studying the clean-lined profile. A fool you’re not. “He’s very concerned about you.”
“He needn’t be.” She swung open a cupboard door for cups. “It’s my problem, I have to deal with it.”
Karen watched calmly as Jillian poured. “No support accepted?”
With a sigh, Jillian turned around. “I don’t mean to be rude, Mrs. Murdock. Running a ranch is a difficult, chancy business. When you’re a woman you double those stakes.” Bringing the coffee to the table, she sat across from her. “I have to be twice as good as a man would be in my place because this is still a man’s world. I can’t afford to cave in.”
“I understand that.” Karen sipped and glanced around the room. “There’s no one here you have to prove anything to.”
Jillian looked up from her own cup and saw the compassion, and the unique bond one woman can have with another. As she did, the tight band of control loosened. “I’m so scared,” she whispered. “Most of the time I don’t dare admit it to myself because there’s so much riding on this year. I’ve taken a lot of gambles—if they pay off . . . Five hundred head.” She let out a long breath as the numbers pounded in her mind. “It won’t put me under, I can’t let it put me under, but it’s going to take a long time to recover.”
Reaching out, Karen covered her hand with her own. “They could be found.”
“You know the chances of that now.” For a moment she sat still, accepting the comfort of the touch before she put her hand back on her cup. “Whichever way it goes, I’m still boss at Utopia. I have a responsibility to make what was passed on to me work. Clay trusted me with what was his. I’m going to make it work.”
Karen gave her a long, thorough look very much like one of her son’s. “For Clay or for yourself?”
“For both of us,” Jillian told her. “I owe him for the land, and for what he taught me.”
“You can put too much of yourself into this land,” Karen said abruptly. “Paul would swear I’d taken leave of my senses if he heard me say so, but it’s true. Aaron—” She smiled, indulgent, proud. “He’s a great deal like his father, but he doesn’t have Paul’s rigidity. Perhaps he hasn’t needed it. You can’t let the land swallow you, Jillian.”
“It’s all I have.”
“You don’t mean that. Oh, you think you do,” she murmured when Jillian said nothing. “But if you lost every acre of this land tomorrow, you’d make something else. You’ve t
he guts for it. I recognize it in you just as I’ve always seen it in Aaron.”
“He had other options.” Agitated, Jillian rose to pour coffee she no longer wanted.
“You’re thinking of the oil.” For a moment Karen said nothing as she weighed the pros and cons of what she was going to say. “He did that for me—and for his father,” she said at length. “I hope I don’t ever have to ask anything like that of him again.”
Jillian came back to the table but didn’t sit. “I don’t understand.”
“Paul was wrong. He’s a good man and his mistakes have always been made with the same force and vigor as he does everything.” A smile flickered on her lips, but her eyes were serious. “He’d promised something to Aaron, something that had been understood since Aaron was a boy. The Double M would be his, if he’d earned it. By God, he did,” she whispered. “I think you understand what I mean.”
“Yes.” Jillian looked down at her cup, then set it down. “Yes, I do.”
“When Aaron came back from college, Paul wasn’t ready to let go. That’s when Aaron agreed to work it his father’s way for three years. He was to take over as manager after that—with full authority.”
“I’ve heard,” Jillian began, then changed her tack. “It can’t be easy for a man to give up what he’s worked for, even to his own son.”
“It was time for Paul to give,” Karen told her, but she held her head high. “Perhaps he would have if . . .” She gestured with her hands as though she were slowing herself down. “When he refused to stick to the bargain, Aaron was furious. They had a terrible argument—the kind that’s inevitable between two strong, self-willed men. Aaron was determined to go down to Wyoming, buy some land for himself, and start from scratch. As much as he loved the ranch, I think it was something he’d been itching to do in any case.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No.” Karen’s eyes were very clear. “Because I asked him not to. The doctors had just diagnosed Paul as terminal. They’d given him two years at the outside. He was infuriated that age had caught up with him, that his body was betraying him. He’s a very proud man, Jillian. He’d beaten everything he’d ever gone up against.”
