Desperate Hearts (16 page)

Jace wasn’t used to this. For him, women had
never been more than an hour or a night that he’d paid for. Simple
physical satisfaction was all he wanted, the illusion of
tenderness. It had been good enough.

But now, with only a few feet and a thin
wall separating their beds, at night he could hear Kyla’s sheets
rustle, and he lay awake with the image of her fevered body
imprinted on his mind. Just now, in the cool kitchen her nipples
had pressed against her shirt, catching his attention. Lately he
had found himself imagining what she would feel like in his arms,
what her lips would taste like, how soft she was to the touch . .
.

And he could just stop imagining right now,
he concluded. He pushed himself to his feet and crossed the floor
to collect the horses’ feed bags. On the way, he paused to look at
the chicks pecking at tiny rocks embedded in the dirt. He could
tell Kyla, and on good authority, that a life spent sealed off from
human contact was a bleak one. But he knew the last thing she would
want was another man getting close to her, regardless of his
intentions. Jace wasn’t even sure what his intentions might be. He
looked up, and through the shop’s side door, he saw her at the
kitchen window, a solitary figure watching the open prairie beyond
the house. He dropped his gaze to the chicks again.

Maybe he wanted to prove to her that a man’s
touch didn’t always inflict harm, that it could soothe and comfort.
That it could be as tender as she needed it to be.

Maybe he even wanted to prove it to
himself.

God, what the hell was he thinking, anyway?
He strode to the sack of oats leaning against a stall and scooped
the grains into the two feed bags. He was no one’s savior. He
didn’t have anything to give to another person, and right now just
getting them to Blakely was as far ahead as he could see. He
glanced back at the dark, cold forge.

The trouble was, if he would not look back,
and couldn’t envision a future, what was left?

* * *

“
Fred, are you listening to
me? Put down that blamed whittling and pay attention. I tell you,
something funny is going on over at the Maitland house.”

Sighing, Fred Winslow dragged his boots from
the desk and tossed his knife aside. Mildred DeGroot’s corseted
bulk cast a shadow over his work anyway. The afternoon had been
peaceful enough until she showed up in his office with some
complaint that he was trying hard to shrug off.

“
Oh, now, Millie,” he
began, trying a placating tone. “We don’t know anything of the
kind.”

“
You sure won’t find out
from here, whittling your life away. You’re still the sheriff here
in Misfortune, even if there’s no one to put in the
jail.”

And that was exactly the way Fred liked it,
nice and quiet. A month had passed before the excitement died down
after the shoot-out last year with that McGuire feller and Jace
Rankin. Besides that incident, Misfortune was a good place for a
sheriff to work. He didn’t want any trouble, and stirring up the
bounty hunter was the surest way to find it. It had taken two
helpings of bicarbonate to settle his stomach after Albert told him
that the man was back in town.

Gathering up an old newspaper full of wood
shavings, he rolled his chair to the corner stove and threw them
inside. “Well, what in blue blazes do you expect me to do? Arrest
him?” The very thought made Fred’s dyspepsia rumble to life. “Chloe
isn’t here anymore to complain about Rankin using her house, so
there’s no one to file trespassing charges. Anyways, he’s kind of a
friend of hers and that McGuire feller she married. She probably
wouldn’t care.” No one in town had gotten past calling Chloe’s
husband anything more formal than “that McGuire feller.”

“
I’m not talking about
trespassing. Jace Rankin says he’s taking care of a sick boy in
that house, and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the young’un in all
the times I’ve been over there. He won’t let me have a look at him,
and everyone around here knows I can doctor almost as good as old
Miles Sherwood, God rest him. For all we know that boy could be
dead. Maybe he even murdered him!”

“
Murdered him! Oh, now,
Millie,” he repeated. Why couldn’t she and Albert leave things
be?

“
Have you seen those cold
blue eyes? He looks like a killer to me.”

Oh, Lordy-Lord this was getting worse by the
minute. The last thing Fred wanted to do was leave this office and
confront a blue-eyed killer. But Millie looked pretty threatening
herself. He dithered.

She drew herself to her full five-foot
height. “Fred Winslow, you get up out of that chair and come with
me to Chloe’s house. We’re still paying your salary here, and I
guess I know what’s what. I know something is wrong over there. And
you’re going to find out what it is.”

“
Aw, Millie—” he groaned
and pulled himself to his feet with foot-dragging reluctance. He
suspected that if he didn’t move fast enough to suit her, she’d
have him by the ear. “You don’t need to come along.”

“
Oh, yes I do. It’s your
duty to protect the citizens of Misfortune, and I’m going to make
sure you do it. So stop your bellyaching, Fred,” she demanded,
marching him to the office door.

Thinking of the salty-tasting bicarbonate,
the sheriff figured his bellyache was just beginning.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jace lingered at the corral fence until dusk
fell. Now and then Kyla went to the kitchen window to seek him out.
He stood there for a long time, apparently deep in thought, his
arms resting on one of the rails. A brisk wind cut across the
yellow plain, borne down from the surrounding hills that were
frosted with early snow. It whipped his long hair and flattened his
tan shirt against his lean body, but he seemed unaffected by the
chill.

Her earlier alarm gave way to guilt blended
with anger as she stared at his back. Who did he think he was,
barking at her like that? She had only asked a couple of questions,
and he blew up as if she’d accused him of stealing from a church
collection plate. He had demanded a lot more information from her,
and she had provided it without as much fuss. It was cold out
there; she could feel it seeping through the glass. But if he
wanted to stay at the fence and sulk, so be it.

Then, as if feeling her gaze on him, he
turned and looked up. Their eyes connected for just an instant, but
the electric intensity that flashed between them stopped Kyla’s
breath in her throat. The wind caught the open edges of his shirt,
revealing the sturdy wall of his chest. Was it anger she saw in his
face? Regret? No . . . she sensed a yearning so powerful, a hunger
so fierce—was it from him or within herself?—she backed away from
the window, her hand at her throat.

It wasn’t fear that shivered through her, at
least not the kind of fear that Tom Hardesty roused. This was
different. It was the same sensation that she’d felt the other
morning while she watched him shave. One that spoke to the woman in
her she kept hidden from the world. The woman that no man—not
Hardesty, not Hank—had ever reached.

She closed her shirt collar and peered at
him from around the edge of the window frame. He had turned and was
walking back to the shop. His movements were fluid and deliberate,
his stride long and loose-jointed. When he was out of sight, she
leaned against the wall, slightly breathless and flushed.

Jace Rankin probably did not hear the word
“no” very often, she supposed. And suddenly, she could understand
why.

A few minutes later, Kyla was struggling to
put more firewood into the stove when she heard the door open
behind her. A piece of cedar in her hand, she whirled and found
Jace there. He carried the smell of cold, fresh air on his
clothes.

She regarded him with her brows raised but
said nothing. She didn’t expect an apology, but she wasn’t going to
be the first one to speak either.

Apparently he realized that. “I didn’t mean
to, you know—earlier—” he said, stumbling awkwardly around his
words. Reaching carefully into his shirt, he pulled out a ball of
squirming yellow fluff that he presented to her on the flat of his
hand. “Well, I thought you might like to see this.”

A chick peeped at her and flapped the tiny
buds of its wings.

“
Oh, the sweet little
thing!” she exclaimed, caught off guard. Dropping the wood, she
took the bird from him and cradled it in her palm, laughing
delightedly. “Where did you find him?”

He smiled, too, almost self-consciously. “An
old biddy has a nest in the corner of the shop with five or six
chicks.” He chuckled. “I risked my neck getting this one—she wasn’t
too happy about me kidnapping him.”

“
I love newborn animals,”
she said and touched the bird to her cheek, smiling again at the
feel of its soft down. “My favorite time of year at the ranch is
when the calves and colts are born. They wobble around knock-kneed,
trying to get their bearings. Then when they get a little older,
it’s fun to see them romping around the range.”

“
I grew up in town,” he
said. “If chickens ever roosted in my old man’s shop, he would have
set the dog after them.”

“
Back home, there’s beauty
to every season. The green hills in spring that turn golden in
summer, poplars along the river turning color in October. The clean
white blanket of the first snowfall.” She closed her eyes for a
second, and a shadow of melancholy made her voice quiver slightly.
She missed the place so much. “I can see it all so clearly. I can
even remember the smell of the first fire of autumn in the
fireplace. I’d be lighting it about now.” She opened her eyes, and
heat rose in her cheeks. “I guess it sounds kind of dull and mushy
to you.”

“
No, it sounds nice.
Homey,” he admitted. He didn’t smile exactly, but she saw one in
his eyes.

“
Ranch life is all I’ve
ever known. I was probably no more than six or seven years old the
first time my father perched me in front of him on his horse—I rode
around with him all morning.” She sighed and her grin faded. “That
was before Aggie came with Tom . . .”

He nodded and moved closer to her while they
studied the chick, close enough that his chest touched her
shoulder. She pulled away at first, recoiling automatically. But
then cautiously, tentatively, she let her shoulder brush him again.
His heat penetrated their shirts and she felt the warmth as if
there were no fabric between them.

Why, why, why was she drawn to him? she
wondered with annoyance. She didn’t want to have anything to do
with any man; she just wanted to see justice served and to get her
home back. There was no room in her plans for anyone else, and
certainly not for a man like Jace. Yes he was handsome, in a way
that she’d never encountered before—with those unnerving eyes that
made her feel as if he could see into her soul. But that wasn’t
enough to explain why she listened for his footsteps in this house,
or what had pulled her to the window again and again while he
lingered at the corral.

He was known for his reputation, menacing
and fearless, but behind that reputation lurked a man with
self-doubts and regrets. It was easy to respect his tough
indifference—his very attitude demanded it—and just as easy to
dislike him for it. But his uncertainty, she feared that most; it
was what could touch her heart.

Jace knew he should do something, anything,
besides hang around here with Kyla. She didn’t shy from his touch
against her shoulder—he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. He had
brought her the chick as a roundabout apology for snapping at her,
but the sweetness it brought out in her made him stay. Except for
her clothes and hair, all traces of the boy Kyle were absent. Maybe
a stranger would be fooled, but he wasn’t. He saw what he believed
was her true self—a tender, feminine woman.

Slowly she looked up at him. Though the
kitchen had grown dusky with the fading light, he saw the fear in
her turquoise eyes. But he also saw longing, perhaps for a touch
that soothed and comforted.

Oddly, he felt as uncertain as he sensed she
was. The tip of her tongue appeared when nervously she wet her soft
coral lips. Putting a finger under her chin he tipped her face up
to his. There was a world of hurt and courage in that face.

“
Kyla . . .”

A kiss. Maybe a kiss would redeem them both.
Was it possible—could it be that simple? Would it fill the
emptiness he sometimes felt and temper her bitterness? Touching
only her chin, Jace slowly lowered his head to hers. She smelled of
sage and new fabric and some other faint indefinable scent that was
all her own. He heard the slight catch of her breath and her eyes
fluttered closed as his mouth hovered just above hers. He grazed
the corner of her lips, lightly, easily. She was softer than he had
dreamed. His pulse pounded in his ears; he heard nothing but his
own breathing mingled with hers. Sweetness, God, the sweetness—

Then the kitchen door burst open.

“
Merciful
heavens!”

Kyla jumped back, gasping in utter surprise
at the strange voice. Jace broke away with a violent start. In a
purely reflexive action, he pulled his revolver before he drew
another breath and trained it on Mildred DeGroot where she stood in
the open back doorway. Her hands were at her throat in horror. The
man he remembered to be Misfortune’s sheriff hovered just behind
her.

Swearing under his breath, Jace lowered the
gun and pushed Kyla behind him. The chick in her hand peeped like
an alarm clock, adding to the confusion.

“
Lady, you nearly got a
bullet between the eyes,” he said to Mildred, his voice like a
whip. That fact seemed to make no impression on the woman,
however.