Soul Deep (12 page)

He couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m right down
the hall if you need me. You know which room is mine, right?”

“Yes.” She looked up at him, her gaze slowly
losing focus, then lay back on her pillows. “But Jack...”

“Yeah?” He drew the blankets and quilt up
over her.

She caught one of his hands with her much
smaller one, her eyes drifting shut. “Can’t you stay? Not for sex,
though I like the thought of having sex with you. It’s just that I
don’t think I’ll ... have bad dreams … if you’re ... with ...
me.”

He didn’t think she’d dream regardless, but
he didn’t say that. He reached up, brushed a dark strand of hair
from her cheek. “Sure. I’ll be right here.”

When he was certain she was asleep, he went
to grab a throw blanket off the sofa in his bedroom, then stretched
out on the chaise longue beside her bed. It was a chaise
not-nearly-long-enough, if you asked him.

He glanced over at Janet, thought about what
she’d revealed.

So, she liked the idea of having sex with
him, huh? Well, he couldn’t fathom how that could be true, given
how much older he was, but as they said,
“In vino veritas.”
It was a fortunate coincidence, because he liked the idea of having
sex with her, too.

On that thought, he closed his eyes.

# # #

Janet stretched and rolled over, feeling
wonderfully rested, her mind blank. She opened her eyes, looked
around the comfortable little room that had become her home away
from home, then glanced at the clock on her nightstand. She sat
bolt upright.

How could it possibly be 11:45 already?

She got up, brushed her teeth and her hair,
washed her face, then put on her makeup and got dressed, her gaze
falling on the chaise longue. It sat up against the bed, a blanket
she hadn’t seen before draped across it.

Can’t you stay?

She remembered herself saying those
words.

Jack must have slept there.

That couldn’t have been comfortable. He was a
tall man, well over six feet. Still, he’d been too much of a
gentleman to sleep in her bed when she was drugged on his hideous
concoction, so he’d slept in the chair.

The thought warmed her. What a caring,
unselfish man he was.

Not that she would object to sharing a bed
with him, but she’d prefer to be awake if and when it actually
happened.

I like the thought of having sex with
you.

Oh, God! Had she really said that?

Fantastic.

Even as she wrestled with her own
embarrassment, she knew Jack wouldn’t throw her words in her face
or use them to pressure her. He wasn’t that kind of man.

She checked her appearance and saw a light in
her eyes that hadn’t been there in a long time. She was
happy
. She was actually happy again. And it wasn’t a mystery
why.

She left her room and walked to the kitchen,
where she found a pot of coffee waiting for her along with a
handwritten note.

I’m out with the horses. Breakfast is
waiting for you in the buffet server. Help yourself. I hope you
slept well.

Yours,

Jack

She lifted the lids on the little electric
buffet server and found scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage links, and
cinnamon French toast. Her mouth watered at the mingled scents.
French toast had been a favorite of hers since she’d been a little
girl.

She piled her plate embarrassingly high, then
went to the table, where she found butter and—
yes!
—real
maple syrup. How anyone ate the other kind, she couldn’t say.

She’d savored the food, allowed herself to
eat an extra piece of sausage, and then another, then put her
dishes in the dishwasher and started the machine. She’d just poured
herself another cup of coffee, when Jack walked in.

He smiled when he saw her, and her heart did
a little flip. “Good morning, beautiful. How did you sleep?”

She felt heat in her cheeks. “I slept well,
thank you. Thanks for staying with me. Did you get any sleep in
that chair?”

“Oh, yeah.” He reached for a coffee cup. “I
can sleep pretty much anywhere—a benefit of having served with the
Rangers. If I get five hours a night, I’m good.”

She poured the coffee for him. “Is there any
news?”

“As a matter of fact, I just heard from
Taylor.” He sat at the table. “Police picked up Kip first thing
this morning.”

“Thank goodness.” A warm sense of relief
rushed through her.

The man was in custody and no longer a
threat.

Jack went on. “He denies shooting Chinook or
Luke, claims he was home drunk both nights.”

She poured milk into her coffee and stirred.
“Can anyone corroborate that?”

Jack shook his head. “They searched his place
and found three forty-fives, including a Kimber 1911. I don’t know
if it’s the same one that was reported stolen. They’ve sent off all
of the weapons for ballistics testing.”

“Was he up there with you the day you
confronted the hunters? I thought that happened a few days before
the blizzard. You said you fired Kip a few weeks ago.”

“You’re right. He was fired last month, but
that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. He knows the property like the
back of his hand. He could have followed us, hung back in the
trees, and taken the weapon while we were all distracted.”

She supposed that was as good an explanation
as any. “I guess we just have to wait for the ballistics
tests.”

Jack frowned, got to his feet. “I don’t want
you thinking about all of this. When you finish your coffee, we’re
heading out to those stables. Today, you’re riding Buckwheat on
your own.”

“You’ll help me mount and dismount,
right?”

“You bet—if you want me to.”

Thirty minutes later, she found herself
walking up the stairs of the mounting block without her cane, Jack
holding her right hand. Buckwheat watched her progress through a
gentle, dark eye, his stillness a contrast to her nervousness.

Jack handed her the reins. “You can do
this.”

She took the reins and the saddle horn in her
left hand, her pulse quickening. She looked down, lifted her left
leg high, tried to get the tip of her unresponsive left foot into
the stirrup once, twice, three times.

Buckwheat craned his neck to watch, but
didn’t move.

Janet tried again, resolved to ask Jack for
help if she couldn’t do it this time. She bent her knee again,
lifted her leg higher, and her left foot slid into the stirrup.
When she was certain her foot was where it should be, she
straightened her leg and shifted her weight onto it, then lifted
her right leg over the saddle.

She let out a relieved breath and found Jack
smiling up at her. She couldn’t help but smile back. “Okay,
Buckwheat, let’s go for a walk.”

# # #

Jack never got tired of it. He never got
tired of watching someone who’d been hurt in some way rediscover a
sense of joy riding on the back of a horse. Buckwheat had helped
his daughter-in-law recover from a hellish life, and now the
gelding was giving Janet back a piece of herself that she’d thought
she’d lost.

She walked Buckwheat around the riding barn,
then brought him easily to a lope, her face alive with happiness.
She rode with the skill of someone who’d been born to it, and
although she’d been raised riding in the English fashion, she’d
obviously become accustomed to riding Western style somewhere along
the way. Buckwheat responded to her lightest touch, horse and rider
seeming to move as one.

God, she was a sight. Just watching her made
his heart beat faster. Did she have any idea how beautiful she was,
or had a life of working in pantsuits and facing down society’s
violent assholes left her unaware of her own feminine appeal?

Can’t you stay? Not for sex, though I like
the thought of having sex with you.

He’d heard what she’d said last night, but he
wasn’t sure that was the direction she wanted to take things. She
had yet to kiss him. He’d promised not to cross that line again
until she did, and if she wasn’t going to do it…

Hell.

Well, at least he knew she’d thought about
it, and it was the thought that counted.

Keep telling yourself that.

She loped the horse again, then brought him
to a gallop, giving him his head. Her laughter rang through the
confined space, the sound of her joy bringing a smile to his face.
She let the gelding run off his restlessness before reining him in
and letting him walk it out. She smiled at him as she passed,
patting Buckwheat on his neck. “What a sweet big boy you are.”

She circled once more, then reined Buckwheat
to a halt beside the mounting block. She reached out, handed Jack
the reins. “Last time, I almost fell dismounting.”

He was pretty sure she could do this without
his help, but he wasn’t about to deny her. “Just take your
time.”

She grasped the saddle horn, looked down at
her left foot as if to see whether it was still where she’d put it.
Then she lifted her right leg over the saddle, dismounting
smoothly. Her gaze met his, surprise in her eyes as if she couldn’t
believe she’d done it on her own.

He started to say something encouraging, but
then she was in his arms, her mouth on his, her arms locked behind
his neck.

He dropped Buckwheat’s reins, wrapped his
arms around her, crushed her against him, the need he felt for her,
need he’d suppressed, rising fast and wild in his blood. He let her
take the lead, answering the flick of her tongue with his, tasting
her lips when she tasted his, breathing in when she exhaled. God,
she tasted sweet, her body soft and precious in his arms.

Somewhere very nearby, a horse snorted, and
he felt something nibbling at his coat. Reluctantly, he ended the
kiss and found Buckwheat nipping his pocket to check for carrots.
“Hey, knock that off.”

Janet laughed, patted the horse’s neck. “I
suppose he wants attention, too.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure as hell not kissing
him.”

She laughed again, her gaze meeting his.
“Thank you, Jack.”

“You do realize you kissed me, right? You
know what that means.”

She smiled, the seductive glint in her eyes
making his heart skip a beat. “I guess you have no choice now but
to kiss me back.”

He had no choice. No choice at all.

CHAPTER NINE

Jack wasn’t on vacation like Janet was. With
Luke recovering and Nate still in Denver, he had a full afternoon
of work cut out for him in the stables. Janet stayed with him as he
went from stall to stall, checking on the health of the mares and
yearling foals, turning them over to Chuck to exercise in the
riding barn, then shoveling manure and dirty straw into a large
wheelbarrow while the stalls were empty.

She had a feeling he could have asked one of
his men to do this but chose to do it himself. It was part of the
way he held their respect. There was probably no job on the ranch
he hadn’t done, no job he felt was beneath him. How could any of
his men shirk their duties when he worked so hard?

“I don’t know why a woman with as much sense
as you wants to stand out here in the cold watching me shovel straw
and horseshit,” he said.

But Janet knew that he
did
understand.

She wanted to be near the horses, near the
way of life she’d known as a child, but she also wanted to be near
him
. It didn’t matter what he was doing. She just wanted to
be close to him. In truth, she couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t
get enough of his voice, his wit, couldn’t get enough of watching
him, of watching the way his body moved.

Of course, what she
really
wanted was
to kiss him again. She was pretty sure he knew that, too. But now
wasn’t the best time, and the stables certainly weren’t the
place.

She helped as much as she could, distributing
clean straw and fresh hay, holding a skittish yearling colt by its
halter while Jack dealt with a problem with the stall door latch.
They talked about horses, about his service in Vietnam, about her
new position.

“It sounds like a promotion.”

“Technically, it is.”

“Are you excited to get started?”

“No. I’m dreading it. I never wanted to work
a desk job. I like being outside. I know being on the city streets
probably doesn’t sound to you like being out of doors, but it’s a
lot better than sitting on your butt in a big glass and concrete
box, breathing canned air and staring at a computer all day.”

“I’d have to agree with you there.” He pushed
the very full wheelbarrow to the next empty stall. “Have you
thought about retiring early?”

“I’ve thought about it. I would lose a fair
amount of my pension if I did. Besides, what would I do with
myself?”

“You could work for me.”

“Work ... as a ranch hand?” She laughed,
genuinely amused by the image of herself in a cowboy hat cutting
cattle that popped into her head. “I can’t even walk in the snow
without help.”

He glared at her. “You’re a fantastic
rider.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you truly
offering me a job?”

He stopped shoveling, rested on the hay fork,
gave her a lopsided grin. “I would if it would keep you
around.”

Something about that felt more romantic to
her than a dozen red roses.

“Jack West, you are a charming man.”

“Me?” He shook his head, got back to
shoveling. “I think you need to look that word up in the
dictionary, angel.”

He stopped once to chat with one of his men,
who was driving up to Scarlet Springs to pick up a few things. He
handed the man a slip of paper. “Here’s my list and explicit
instructions. Get my credit card from Chuck.”