Chasing the Sun (40 page)

The smile was completely gone now, and she knew she had tweaked his feelings. But really. The man was a drugged invalid, for mercy’s sake.

“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

“I know.” Stretching out on top of the covers beside Kate, she carefully tucked her skirts around her legs. “That’s why it was.”

Aware that he was leaning on one elbow, his head propped on his fist, looking at her, she stared up at the ceiling and tried to think of something to say to restore his good mood. The poor man had had a rough enough day. He didn’t deserve ridicule.

“How do you feel?” she asked in a kindly tone.

“Rejected. Hurt. But still willing.”

She looked over and found him grinning at her again. The man was unrelenting. “One-Track-Jack” indeed. “I meant how does your leg feel?”

“Rejected. Hurt. Still willing. Oh, that leg.”

He knew how to provoke her, he surely did. When she started to sit up, he chuckled and put his hand on her shoulder. “Relax. I’ll behave.”

She doubted it, but lay back anyway.

Silence stretched between them, and Daisy’s teasing mood became melancholy as she thought of all that had transpired over the last days and all that she owed this man beside her. With so many people around all the time, she hadn’t been able to talk to him about it and she needed to let him know how grateful she was.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “If you hadn’t sent us on—I keep seeing that tree heading toward you—and I—”

“I know.” Reaching over with his free hand, he tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “I keep seeing you and Kate running toward the end of the bridge. Until Brady told me, I didn’t know if you’d made it to the bank or not.”

His fingertips stroked down her cheek. Unable to stop herself, she turned her face into his touch, and found his smoky eyes studying her with an unfamiliar intensity. “If I’d lost you, Daisy ... either of you ...” His gaze moved over her face, following the path of his fingers as they traced the arc of her jaw and down the long column of her neck. “It would have killed me.”

She felt a clenching deep inside as his fingers moved across the front of her worn dimity dress to cup the swell of her breast. “You’re a wonder, is what you are,” he said softly. “You were made for my hands. Made for me.”

Closing her eyes, Daisy struggled to focus her mind away from the fingers that were slipping the buttons free. But sweet memories floated through her mind. And long-checked needs arose. And when he opened the front of her dress and pulled down the thin chemise and his fingers brushed the arc of her bare breast ... they left fire in their wake.

“Your heart’s beating as fast as the wings of a little bird. For me, Daisy? Because of this?” His fingers moved to stroke her other breast.

She arched into his hand. Her nerves sang. She wanted to melt into him. Taste his skin.

If only ...

Time spiraled backward. The empty years faded away and all the hurts and disappointments and pain of the past eased under his stroking hand.

“Ah ... Daisy,” he said. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed the feel of you.”

Sensing she was slipping back where she couldn’t allow herself to go, Daisy forced open her eyes. Sounding calmer than she felt, she said, “Elena is leaving.”

The gentle stroking stopped. His hand slid away as he rolled onto his back. She heard him take a deep breath and let it out in a long exhale. “When?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

“I’ll miss her.”

“As will I.”

She was aware that he’d turned his head to watch her refasten the buttons on her dress.

“I like her,” Daisy admitted. “She’s a lovely woman. A good woman. I can see why she means so much to you and your brothers.”

He looked up at the beams overhead. “Elena was the one beautiful, untainted thing throughout those long blood-soaked years. Keeping her safe was our salvation. I’ll always love her for that.”

“I know.”

“But like a sister. Nothing more.”

When Daisy didn’t respond, he turned his head and gave her a sad but open smile. “I should take her to Val Rosa to see her off.”

“Yes, you should,” she agreed, and realized at that moment, with those words, the decision had been made. He would go one way. And she would go the other. That was the only chance they had of escaping this tangled web of hopes and dreams and what-ifs. But already she was dreading the moment he and Elena rode out the gate—the last moment she would see him—maybe forever.

Anger curdled in her stomach. What a coward she was to slink away like a thief in the night. Surely she owed him at least a good-bye.

Abruptly, she sat up, feeling trapped by her weakness. She should have ended this earlier. She should have left the moment Jack gave her the money. Instead, she had let herself fall in love with him all over again.
Fool.

Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she sat with her back to him, her hands gripping the mattress beside her hips. When she saw the brown bottle of laudanum on the bed table, she looked back at him over her shoulder. “Have you taken your evening dose?”

“Just before you came in,” he said around a yawn. “But that’s it. I’m done with that swill so don’t expect me to take more tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.
The last full day before she left. Tears clogged her throat. Feeling herself weaken and fearing that if she didn’t speak now she might change her mind, she blurted out the words she had avoided all day. “I can’t stay.”

There, she’d said it. She’d found the strength to put her foot back on the right path. Now all she had to do was keep going.

“Stay where?” he asked behind her.

“Here. Kate and I can’t stay.”

“Sure, you can. You can stay here as long as you want.”

She looked back at him over her shoulder. “No. I can’t stay. I have to go.”

Frowning, he learned up on his elbow. “
Have
to go, or
want
to?”

She wouldn’t answer that. To do so would shatter the resolve she was struggling so hard to maintain.

“You can’t leave,” he argued. “You need to stay right where you belong. Both of you. With me.”

She looked away, her throat so tight she could barely breathe.

“Jack—”

“We’ll work something out,” he said, yawning again. “I promise.” She felt the mattress shift as he lay back down again. “Just as soon as I get back from Val Rosa, we’ll figure everything out. I promise.”

She should have spoken then. Told him about the dream and a lifetime of yearning and hope. But she couldn’t form the words. So she sat by his side and watched him as the drug took effect, memorizing the planes and angles and textures of his beautiful face, tucking the images safely away for all the lonely years ahead. When finally he slept, she wiped the tears from her cheeks, lifted Kate from his side, and tiptoed from the room.

Twenty-three

THE NEXT MORNING, JACK AWOKE A NEW MAN. IT WAS amazing what a warm, dry bed; a full belly; and a bottle of laudanum could do for a fellow. He’d even managed to get through another gouging and poking examination by his new sister-in-law and now here he was standing on both feet and shaving all by himself without his hand shaking or that woozy feeling from being drugged and kept in bed so long.

It was going to be a grand day.

He paused, the straight razor poised above his jaw, and wondered if Hank knew his pretty little wife’s hands had been all over his injured leg. His injured
upper
leg.
And
sore chest. Grinning, he resumed shaving. He’d have to tell him.

He was limping out of the water closet when Brady came in, wearing his usual scowl. “Good. You’re up,” he said distractedly. “I need you to take Elena to Val Rosa and take care of the horse sale.”

“When?” Hopefully not today. He might be feeling better, but not well enough to take an eight-hour buggy trip to town and back.

“The horses go this afternoon. You and Elena will meet Langley in Val Rosa tomorrow. As soon as the fellow from the Army hands over the money, hunt up Blake and pay him off. Be warned, he may have Ashford with him.”

“Ashford? The railroader?” Jack remembered him well. A small man with a cold smile and the manners of a schoolmarm. He also remembered that he’d seemed taken with Jessica. Maybe that was the reason for Brady’s scowl.

Brady explained about Ashford and Blake coming out to the house. “Jessica thinks he’s after the ranch, so be sure to get everything signed and marked ‘Paid in Full’ so he’ll have no reason to come after us. If there’s any problem, talk to Lockley at the bank.”

Jack snorted. “The same guy who sold our loan to Blake in the first place?”

“Don’t worry. I’ve spoken to him. He understands he did a wrong thing and he’s anxious to show he’s sorry.” Brady smiled as he said that. It was the kind of smile that made men back up a step. “He’ll cover any shortages.”

Brady started for the door, then stopped and turned back. “How long are you staying?”

“In town?”

“At the ranch.”

Jack blinked, taken aback by the question. He’d expected it would come sooner or later and should have been prepared with an answer, but he wasn’t. That familiar smothered feeling rose in his chest. “I don’t know,” he hedged. “Depends on what Daisy wants, I guess.”

“And if she wants to stay?” Brady pressed.

Stay here? Forever? Surely not.

Suddenly Jack found it hard to breathe. “I don’t know.”

“That’s not much of an answer.”

“It’s all you’re getting. Where is Daisy, by the way?”

Instead of responding, Brady studied him from the doorway, his gaze intense and intrusive. “How’s it going with you two?”

Jack’s guard went up. “Why?” Brady was a meddlesome sonofabitch, and Jack knew better than to freely give out personal information.

“She decide yet if she’s going to marry you or not?”

Jack forced a laugh. “I’ve been sort of busy the last few days.”

“So that would be a ‘no’?”

Jack’s smile faded. He leveled his gaze at his brother. “For now.”

“She’s in the garden.” Turning, Brady left the room.

It took Jack a while to get down the stairs, and he was glad no one was watching because with every step he had to cling to the handrail like an old lady with a bum knee. By the time he made it to the bottom, he was regretting he’d foregone use of the crutch he’d brought all those weeks ago when he’d arrived at the ranch with a busted foot. Pride could be a burdensome thing.

After a brief rest to shore up his waning strength, he worked his way out through the kitchen and into the garden.

No rain today, thank God. In fact, a month without rain would suit him just fine. But the storm had definitely brought on spring. Distant hillsides were tinted yellow with mountain balsam flowers, and the pockets of aspens trailing out of the canyons showed the pale green of new leaves. Spring roundup should be starting soon, always a busy time at the ranch, and even though it involved a solid week of noise and dust and backbreaking work, it had always been one of Jack’s favorite times. There was an excitement about it as the tally mounted and each pair of riders vied with the others to earn the bonus Brady paid for the team who flushed the most cattle out of the canyons. But once the cattle were gathered in huge milling throngs, the real work began—cutting, branding, culling. That wasn’t as much fun, and Jack definitely wasn’t looking forward to the flies and stink and bawling of the calves.

He found Daisy bent over a raised garden plot, thinning something green. Pausing by the gate to watch her, he admired the way her light brown hair shone in the sun, and how that calico dress showed off her round little butt, and how when she bent over, the hem rose and exposed her slim calves. Strong calves, too. He smiled, remembering how they had once felt locked around his waist, pulling him in.

Tonight,
he promised himself. Tonight he’d feel that again, by God.

Kate squatted beside her, talking up a riddle and digging in the dirt with a bent spoon. They were a pair, his ladies. And so beautiful they took his breath away. Smiling, he limped toward them.

He wasn’t sure when it had happened, but they’d both moved right into his heart. He had thought he would never feel about another woman the way he’d felt about Elena. But with Daisy, it was ... different. Stronger. More comfortable. And he wanted her in a way he had never wanted Elena.

Stopping beside her, he waited for her to notice him and look up. When she did, he smiled and said, “Stand up.”

Hesitantly, she did.

Capturing her face in his hands, he leaned down and kissed her. Kissed her like he’d been wanting to since he’d come home the evening before last, so relieved to see them safe and unharmed he’d almost unmanned himself. Like he’d wanted to when she’d looked at him over their sleeping daughter last night. And like he planned to tonight after the house was quiet and he laid her out like a feast across his big four-poster bed. He’d give her a kiss then like none she’d ever had before. Because this time he wasn’t drunk, and this time he knew what he was doing and who he was doing it with, and because this time it would mean a whole lot more to him than it ever had before.