Pieces of Sky (34 page)

“Leave her alone, Jack,” a familiar voice called through the open door into the office.

Jessica bit back a smile. “I was talking to your dog,” she called back.

A moment later, Brady strolled onto the porch. Jessica watched him come toward her and felt that low flutter where the babies used to be. The man had a way of moving that was music to her eyes.

“Is Bullshot bothering you?”

She forced herself to look away. “No, he’s fine.” She hadn’t seen Brady since last night, when Jack made that outlandish suggestion. She wondered if it had embarrassed him as much as it had her. She wondered why his silence had hurt so much. Hurt still.

From the corner of her eye she watched him stop beside her chair. His legs seemed to go on forever. They didn’t, of course, and she knew if she turned her head the slightest bit, she would see exactly where they stopped. She looked down at his surprisingly large boots instead.

“He crossed the boundary line an hour ago.”

Her gaze flew to his.

He must have seen her terror, because he hunkered by the rocker so their heads were at the same level. Taking her clenched hand in his, he gently forced open her fingers and laced them through his. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”

God help her, she wanted to. She wanted to dump it all into Brady’s capable hands so she could pretend it had never happened, that she was safe and whole, and would never have to look into that hated face again.

But she wasn’t safe. Nor was she whole. And she never would be, unless she did look into that face one last time. That, or live in fear forever. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Good.” He released her hand and started to rise.

She caught his arm and brought him back to her side. “But I don’t want him to know about Adrian. It doesn’t matter who fathered him. Adrian is my son, not his. Crawford never need know. It might be safer for Adrian if he didn’t.”

“All right.”

She realized she still gripped his arm and pulled her hand away. But those eyes continued to hold her captive. Ancient eyes, like those of an old man who had seen more of life than he wanted to, or a young man who had seen enough to have few illusions left. They were the saddest and most beautiful eyes she had ever seen.

Without thinking, she reached out, wishing she could soothe those lines of worry on his weathered face. “Do you ever shave?” she asked, trailing a fingertip along the masculine perfection of his prickly jaw.

“I shaved yesterday.”

“With what? A rusty knife?” She could hear the scrape of his beard against her nails, see silver hairs in his sideburns. She wanted to touch the springy curls, brush the fall of hair from his brow, test the softness of the glossy waves hanging past his collar. The incongruity of silky curls against that powerful neck made her smile. “You need tending.”

“Any time, any place.”

The way he said it, the way his eyes seemed to pull her in, sent her thoughts in flight. Smiling at that fancy, she let her hand drop back into her lap. “I know you’re tired of hearing this, but once again, thank you. I wouldn’t be able to do this alone.”

“You’re stronger than you think.”

“Am I?” She gave a shaky laugh. “I have my doubts.”

“You shouldn’t. What other woman would try to geld a man with an umbrella?”

She frowned, confused. Then she pressed a hand to her mouth as the scene at the stage stop flashed through her mind. She tried not to smile, but couldn’t help it. “I thought I hit your face.”

He chuckled, an unfamiliar but welcome sound that brought a quiver of joy to her heart. “I figured it was worth it when you waved that lacy doo-dad and offered to tend my injury. I thought . . . well, finally . . . a woman who knows how to apologize. But you just wanted to tend my pretty face.” He said it like he didn’t know his face could drive a vicar’s wife to sin—or a twenty-six-year-old spinster to ruin.

A giggle escaped her, then another. She, who hadn’t giggled in over a dozen years. It felt good. “I thought you were attacking me, that you were a desperado.”

“I thought you were the finest thing I’d ever seen.” His gaze swept her face, came to rest on her mouth. “I still do.”

Laughter faded under a rush of heat. “You do know how to turn a girl’s head.”

“I’m trying,” he murmured, reaching up to pull her face down to his.

Oh, Brady
, she thought as his lips moved against hers.
If you’re thinking to distract me, you’re doing a marvelous job.

 

CONSUELO RUSHED INTO THE KITCHEN. “
¡SEÑORA!
HE comes!”

A jolt of fear almost buckled Jessica’s knees. Then Elena touched her arm and reason returned. She swept into motion, whipping off her apron as she spoke. “Elena, please take Adrian upstairs to the farthest room. I don’t want Crawford to hear him if he cries. Consuelo, would you please find Angelina in case he wakes for his feeding. Where’s Brady?”

“On the porch.”

She took a deep breath, released it, took another. She wiped her damp palms down her skirts.
You can do this
, she told herself as she left the room.

Brady stepped forward to take her hand as she came onto the porch. Behind him, Hank and Jack leaned casually against the posts at the top of the steps, watching a carriage coming down the road, escorted by two ranch hands.

“Looks like he’s alone.” Jack laughed. “Stupid bastard.”

Brady led her to the top of the steps. “Feeling mean?” he asked, giving her hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it.

“Scared.”

“Want me to get your umbrella?”

She tried to smile, but the muscles in her face felt frozen. Glancing around, she saw a dozen or more ranch hands drift into the yard. “What are they doing here?” If fear overcame her, she didn’t want to humiliate herself in front of all these men.

“Protection. In case you get out of hand.”

The carriage cleared the iron gate and turned toward the house.

Her legs began to shake.

The hound scrambled out from under the house and set up a racket until Brady told one of the men to lock him in the barn.

Scarcely able to draw breath, Jessica watched the carriage approach. Even at a distance, she recognized the arrogant tilt of Crawford’s head, the familiar posture of a small man trying to look taller. She pressed her palms against her rolling stomach.
If he touches me, I’ll die.

Brady stood behind her right shoulder, not near enough to make contact, but so close she could feel the tickle of his breath against the hair on the top of her head. “Mmm. You smell good. What is that?”

“R-roast beef. Onions.”
Oh God oh God.

The carriage pulled to a stop in the yard.

“Don’t leave me.”

She didn’t realize she had spoken aloud until Brady whispered close to her ear, “I won’t. Now breathe.”

She tried, but her chest felt so tight and her throat—

Brady’s hand slid up her spine. At his touch, the constriction eased. For a moment, she leaned back against him, drawing in his strength as she gulped in air. The dizziness faded. She found her balance and straightened. His hand fell away.

Crawford climbed down from the carriage. He made a show of brushing dust from his trousers and jacket, then looked up at her with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Jessica, my dear.” He walked toward the steps. “I have found you at last.”

Her heartbeat roared in her head.

He looked smaller than she remembered, narrower through the shoulders. Had he always been of such insignificant stature? She studied him, terror giving way to shock and confusion, seeing things about him she had never noticed before.

His hands were almost womanish. He was portly, his bottom-heavy form perched like a giant egg atop legs no sturdier than her own. He dressed like a dandy and moved with that same prissy saunter she had seen in Stanley Ashford.

How had she ever allowed this weasely little man to overpower her?

Because she thought he was just trying to scare her and would eventually listen to reason. Because she thought their familial relationship would protect her. Because once she realized what was happening, it was too late, and the silk ties were around her wrists.

Rage engulfed her. She thought of all that this little maggot of a man had taken from her, all that she had suffered and still suffered because of him, and she wanted to scream her outrage. She watched him stop at the bottom of the steps and willed him to come closer so she could hit him, kick him, claw that smug look from his face.

“Dear Jessica.” His eyes flicked over her. He bared his teeth in a parody of a smile. “You are looking well, I must say. This pest hole of a country must agree with you.”

“The bruises are gone, if that’s what you mean.”

His smile faded. “May we talk privately?”

“No.”

“I had hoped we—”

“What do you want?”

Fury sparked in his pale gray eyes before he masked it behind an expression of mild regret. “You received Annie’s letter? You know why I have come?”

“I know your wastrel ways have put her and the children in jeopardy, so you have come begging to me like the craven dog that you are.”

Anger flashed, was again quickly veiled. “Now, Jessica.” He put a foot on the bottom step.

Immediately Hank and Jack came off the posts. The circle of cowboys in the yard tightened.

Blinking in surprise, Crawford glanced from the brothers to the living fence of hard-faced men crowding his back. “What is this?” He turned back to Jessica and, in the silky whisper of her nightmares, said, “Are you afraid of me, Jessica?”

Acid rose in her throat. Was he so convinced of her cowardice that he thought just the threat in his voice would bend her to his will? Had she made it that easy for him?

“Afraid of you?” She pressed a shaking hand to her throat, unsure whether to weep or run shrieking down the steps. “I saw your face in every man I met, felt your cruelty in every touch, every glance. But I was wrong.” She gave a strangled laugh. “Look at you. You’re nothing. An insignificant popinjay of a man. A joke. How could I ever be afraid of you?”

Crawford’s face turned an alarming shade of red. For a moment his mouth worked as if he chewed on his own tongue, then words spewed out of him like bile. “Do not use that tone with me, you slut! I will not stand for it!”

Brady was around her and down two steps before she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “You promised Rikker,” she reminded him. “And me.”

She watched him struggle with it, saw it in his clenched fists, felt it in the tautness of the muscles beneath her hand.

But Crawford was too stupid to see the danger. He gave a harsh laugh and waved a hand at the men surrounding him. “Do your brave defenders know what they are protecting? Do they know you fornicated with your sister’s husband? Or have you spread your legs for them, too?”

This time a team of oxen couldn’t have held Brady back.

Too late, Crawford saw his peril.

Brady caught him by the seat of his pants and the back of his jacket, and yanked the much smaller man off the ground and over his head. For an instant he stood, magnificent in his frustration and fury, Atlas undecided. Then with a curse, he heaved Crawford into the rose bed.

Cheered by hoots and laughter from the men in the yard, he turned and came back up the steps, teeth flashing in a smile that would make the Devil sweat. “Rikker didn’t say not to throw him,” he told his grinning brothers as he once more took his place at Jessica’s side.

Her hero. How she loved him for it.

Fighting a smile, she sent an arch look over her shoulder. “I said I would handle it.”

“Sorry,” he said without even the pretense of remorse. Then he leaned down and against her ear added, “I think I wrenched my shoulder. Maybe you could rub it for me later.”

She didn’t want to laugh, sensing she was too close to the edge of hysteria. But with Brady standing guard at her shoulder and John Crawford rolling in thorns at her feet, how could she not?

To the vast entertainment of the onlookers, it took quite a while for Crawford to extricate himself. When he finally stood before her, bleeding from a dozen scratches, his clothing torn and mussed, his face contorted in a rictus of rage, she had to remind herself that despite his comical appearance, this man was capable of great evil. She knew not to underestimate him. She also knew that he was a coward and a coward always responded to a threat. Especially if that threat was real and substantial and frightening. Like Brady.

“Heed this, Crawford,” she said once he had his breathing under control. “You will never get the Hall. Ever. And as long as you live, I will see that it never belongs to Annie either.”

Crawford dabbed at his bloodied cheek with a handkerchief. “You can’t do that.”

“I can and I have.” She smiled, reveling in the rush of power that swept through her. “The documents have been filed. If you doubt it, check with my agent in Posten Cross.”