Prologue Page 23

  "I can think of only one reason for you to stay." Slowly he held his hand out to her and took a deep breath. "I love you and I need you."

  She stared at him, awestruck. Blindly she put her hand in his. Travis McGuire had not only said he loved her, but that he needed her as well. "That's two reasons," she pointed out.

  "Not to me," he replied. "I need you because I love you." He examined her fingers as they lay across his calloused palm. They were still work-roughened, and he knew that he had contributed to at least a part of that. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me, Chloe."

  His words, words she'd never expected to hear from him, filled her with such piercing joy, she nearly feared it. But as she studied his face she realized that at last, the mask was gone. The feelings he'd so carefully hidden he now allowed her to see. Warmth and compassion and vulnerability, enduring love and loyalty—she felt them flowing from him. They rested like a benediction on her heart. He took Lester's reins and retied them.

  Chloe shivered in the autumn wind. He closed his arms around her and she raised her face to his. Her lips were close and they looked soft. That faint fragrance he remembered so well clung to her.

  She heard an anguished sound in his throat, then he took her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers in a desperate kiss. His tongue slid around hers and she yielded to the aching sweetness of the touch she thought she'd never feel again. In between the kiss that became many kisses were their whispered words of love.

  "I missed you so much, Chloe."

  "Oh, me too, Travis, me too. I felt so bad for what I said. I didn't mean it. I never meant it."

  "Shh," he soothed. "I know. I think I knew it then but I let it eat away inside so I could keep you out of my head. It didn't work, though."

  "I don't want to be separated from you again."

  "I wish I could give you everything you deserve." He shifted her to one arm, and walked her back to the fire. With his free hand he gestured broadly across the arc of the night sky, as though the world was theirs for the taking. "I'd catch the brightest stars in a net to make a necklace for you. I'd buy you a mountain of French milled soap to make you forget you ever stood over that washtub."

  She basked in the light of his ardent illusions. For so long, she'd felt as though her only worth to others was in the service she could provide them, while they gave little in return. In his withdrawn silence, Frank Maitland had taken for granted that she cooked and washed and kept house for him. Evan, she knew, had expected her to do all that and provide the home as well. Travis asked for nothing. She nestled deeper into the curve of his arm.

  The animation left his voice. "But I don't have anything to offer you if you come with me, except a life running from Jace."

  Again she noticed the first-name familiarity "It doesn't matter now, Travis. None of it matters if I'm with you."

  "Yes it does!" he said emphatically, startling her. He held her away from him by her shoulders to look her in the face. His expression was stern. "That part of this hasn't changed and it won't. He'll probably never be far behind me. I want you to know that before we make any choices or decisions. To face him would mean I'd have to kill him or let him kill me. I can't do that."

  "Why must it come to that? Will you let this man steal the rest of your life away from you? If you do, you're still a prisoner." There was a blank, a piece missing from his explanation. Suddenly, she remembered something he'd muttered earlier. "There's something you're not telling me. You said he knows how you think. Why?"

  Travis sank to the stump Chloe had occupied earlier and pulled her down to sit on his knee. He knew she had the right to demand the rest of the story from him. It was painful to talk about, though . . .

  “Jace Rankin was my best friend. And Celia's brother."

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The floorboards creaked under the weight of a figure that moved in stealth around Chloe Maitland's porch. Its wide overhang cast concealing shadows in the moonlight and the man took advantage of these as he crept from window to window. He looked in each one, trying to see beyond the lace curtains hanging over the glass. But the house was dark and he could detect no activity inside.

  He moved to the front door and opened the screen. Its hinges screeched in the late night and he froze, listening. No neighboring dogs barked, no lamp was lighted. The only response was the wind sighing over the prairie. He breathed again, certain the noise had gone unnoticed. His hand closed around the doorknob and slowly turned it. It was locked.

  He uttered a low, malignant curse.

  Carefully he made his way down the front steps and went around to the back porch. With cautious movements he climbed the stairs and tried this door. When it opened, he felt the exhilaration of success and crept into the kitchen. It would be impossible for her to escape. He had the advantage of surprise in his favor.

  Quietly, he closed the door behind him.

  * * *

  Travis smiled into the face of the woman sitting on his knee, enjoying the effect of his words. He'd never thought Chloe would be left with nothing to say, but now she stared at him, her jaw dropped slightly.

  "Jace Rankin is your brother-in-law? That snake?" she demanded, finding her voice and shivering again.

  He nodded, patting her backside to make her stand. He rose and went to his tent. "When I got to Salem after my family died, Jace was the first person I met." He disappeared inside the tent for a second and emerged with a blanket and his nail keg. "He was twenty-two or twenty-three, but he'd always looked younger than he was."

  He still did, Chloe thought, except for those eyes—

  "He was working for the sheriff. In fact, he'd just been made a deputy. He was a scrapper, mostly because bullies wanted to pick on 'the runt'. He's not very tall and it made him tough. In some ways, we were a lot like each other." He wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.

  "I'd better move your horse, just in case Jace trailed you here," he said, and she followed him to hear the rest of his story. He paused a moment, his ear turned to the night, while he listened for the crunch of gravel, for rustling brush, a horse's nicker.

  "Do you think he's here?" Chloe whispered guardedly. She stared into the darkness but couldn't really see much beyond the circle of firelight.

  Travis shook his head, satisfied that they were alone. "He would have shown himself by now." Lester pushed her nose against his chest in recognition and Travis chuckled.

  "Jace was the one who sent me to his stepfather, Lyle Upton, for a job. Jace was the closest friend I ever had." He pulled Lester around to a secluded place behind a rock outcropping, unsaddled her, and retied her.

  "And he believes you killed his sister?" Chloe asked. “This best friend?"

  Travis led Chloe back to the fire and sat her on the stump, then took a seat on the overturned keg next to her. He threw a few more chunks of wood on the fire, creating a shower of sparks and making it burn high. "Their mother died when Celia was born. He always protected her, watched out for her. Sometimes it seemed like he was her father instead of Lyle, and he was even more forgiving of her than I was. Of course, she was an expert at pulling all our strings."

  Another stiff night breeze blew through the camp and Chloe pulled the edges of the blanket closer. Travis appeared unaffected by the chill while he stared at the flames. "When she was killed, Lyle convinced Jace that I must have done it. That was really hard for me to take." He glanced up at Chloe and gave her a crooked little smile. "I like to think Lyle had some trouble doing it." Chloe returned the smile, wondering why life had double-crossed Travis so many times.

  "Later, after I'd been in jail for a couple of years, I heard Jace had become a bounty hunter and was making quite a name for himself." He took her hand and smoothed his palm over her fingers. "He started chasing me about a month after I was released. I spend a lot of time wondering if he's going to sneak up and blow my head off while I'm asleep."

  He said this so casually, it almost sounded like a joke.

/>   She'd met Jace Rankin and he'd frightened her. If she had the threat of him hounding her, she'd be petrified with fear. Travis had never been more than cautious and watchful.

  "You don't act scared," she said.

  He gave her an even look. "I am, though. All the time."

  Chloe gripped his hand and looked into his eyes. "Life leaves scars sometimes, and God knows we haven't been spared." Her voice grew earnest. "But if we're together, I know the old hurts will heal. I don't care about Jace Rankin. I don't care about anything but you. I belong with you. I never could have loved Evan. I'd always told myself he meant well, but now he's below contempt. You were right and I should have listened to you. He's weak and he's mean."

  "What made you see that?"

  She told him about both times Evan came to her house after Travis had gone. His eyes narrowed as he listened and she saw his temper begin to flare.

  "Don't bother with getting angry," she went on impatiently. "See, that doesn't matter. We're everything we've got, but Travis, it's so much."

  She was right, they had a treasure. He took her face between his hands. The fire reflected itself in her hair and he exulted in the fierce loyalty and love in her eyes, so different from what he'd come to expect from people. He pulled her into his arms and embraced her desperately.

  "I came up here because I couldn't stay with you, but I couldn't leave you, either. Woman," he growled, "you kept me awake every night, thinking about you, missing you so bad." He put one hand at her waist and one on her back. "Tonight, I'm going to keep you awake."

  "How?" she asked, entranced by the sudden change in his voice, throaty and dark with increasing passion.

  "I could make love to you," he suggested and she shivered, this time in anticipation.

  He nuzzled her ear while his hand moved up her ribs, his palm sliding to a stop at the side of her breast. "If I were going to make love to you," he continued, kissing her jaw and temple, "I'd start by giving you lots of soft kisses."

  She sat like a mannequin, letting him do things to her that made her insides jumpy. She needed deeper breaths to get enough air.

  "Then I'd unbraid your hair, so I could feel it falling around me while I held you." He pulled the ribbon off the end of her braid and worked his fingers through the plait to comb it out.

  He took her earlobe gently between his teeth and sucked on it, covering her body and scalp with goose bumps. His breath was warm on her neck and she realized she was leaning toward him, sideways. When he put his tongue in her ear, she uttered a low cry and sought his lips with her own. His mouth moved over hers, greedy and feverish, his tongue slick and probing.

  He pushed aside the blanket and her old flannel shirt and unfastened the buttons on her blouse, and grazed her camisole with his fingertips. When he reached inside to fill his hand with her breast, his touch was flame-hot as though there was no fabric between and her nipple hardened under his palm.

  He slid from the nail keg to his knees in front of her and pushed her legs apart. Gripping her backside, he pressed his hips to her and even with skirt and petticoat and jeans between them, she recognized as never before the evidence of his arousal. The passion she had once believed she lacked ignited with a sizzling energy. She closed her legs around him, bringing him up as close and tight as she could.

  All the while he devoured her with frantic liquid kisses. His face was taut in the firelight, his eyes pale and intense. "Chloe," he groaned against her mouth. "Oh, Chloe, honey."

  That sweet, magic endearment. She'd never thought to hear it from him again. It was as common as any word in the language but when Travis said it, she felt as though he'd created it just for her.

  "What would you do then?" she questioned breathlessly.

  He stood, pulled her to her feet, and put a guiding arm over her shoulders. "Next I'd take you to the tent where it's warmer and undress you so I could taste you all over."

  Chloe was sure she would have fallen right then if he hadn't been there to lean against. "And who will undress you?" she murmured before he kissed her again.

  "You're going to do that."

  He held the tent flap for her and followed after her. It was a good-sized shelter, tall enough to stand in. The bright firelight cast their silhouettes. The floor was layered with two thick sheepskin robes and blankets.

  Travis sat her down on the robes and felt for her boots, pulling them off and throwing them in the corner. She began to unfasten her camisole buttons but he stopped her. "I'll do that." He redirected her hands to his shirt, but as soon as she'd unfastened it she was distracted by the feel of his warm fingers on her bare flesh. He pushed her back and stretched out next to her, one leg thrown over hers. Then he opened her clothes to expose her full breasts.

  "As smooth as rose petals," he intoned, gently squeezing the soft, fragrant flesh. She always smelled of fresh air and sun. If he were blindfolded in a roomful of people, he could find her by that sweet scent.

  His jeans became unbearably tight when he dropped his lips to her stiff nipple. Chloe sucked in a short breath with the first touch and as he suckled she buried her hands in his long, thick hair. He could feel her chest rise and fall rapidly with her breathing, and the moan that escaped her only served to fuel the heavy ache building in him. The days and weeks up here, lonely and thinking of her, had been torture. Nothing could satisfy the plaguing emptiness but her.

  Travis lifted his head and kissed her soft mouth again, reaching beneath her skirt. He ran his hand over the inside of her leg up to the place he longed for and remembered so well.

  As soon as she felt his touch brush her drawers, Chloe’s hips began to move restlessly and Travis was enticed by her squirming. He wanted to take things slowly, to make this reunion last, but he feared it wasn’t to be. This time his need was even more powerful than the first time they made love. Now he knew for certain the delicious pleasure waiting for him. When he pressed his palm to the juncture of her legs, high and sweet, Chloe pressed back hard and he could feel the dampness gathering under the fabric there. His heart beat like a drum as raging hunger licked through him.

  She parted his shirt and pulled him down to her buy its edges, anxious to press his bare skin to hers and feel the silky hair on his chest.

  As soon as their flesh made contact, dire urgency ignited in them and their hands were busy at the rest of the fastenings on each other’s clothes. Chloe felt his fingers at her waist, quickly opening her skirt and tugging it down. She pulled the ties on her petticoat and kicked it off.

  Travis sat back on his knees and impatiently yanked off his shirt, then paused to gaze at her pale form, naked and ethereal against the robes.

  “I love you, Chloe,” he said, and it sounded like a prayer.

  Broad shouldered and beautiful, he knelt next to her. “I love you too, Travis,” she responded and held her arms open to him. He leaned over her and laid of line of fiery kissed from her throat to her navel, while her desire burst into flames.

  She wasn’t afraid like before. Now she wanted to give him as much pleasure as he gave her and she boldly reached for the buttons on his jeans. Through the denim she felt a furnace-heat, hard and full, and her fingers tentatively brushed over that hardness.

  Travis uttered some wordless sound and sat up to pull off his boots. She heard his belt buckle open and knew he was pulling off his pants.

  “Oh,” she said in disappointment, but he took her hand and pressed to himself to prove his point.

  “Sorry, honey,” he said. “I can’t wait to feel you around me.”

  Thick and hot, he pulsed against her fingers. She closed her hand around him and heard his groan in her ear. He lay down with her and thrust a slow push-pull in her grasp while he put soft, damp kissed over her breasts and stomach. Finally he took her hand away.

  “It’ll be over before we can start,” he whispered raggedly. “But you, I want to touch you . . . ”

  He let his hand drift to her hip where it smoothed and massaged her in an ar
c over her abdomen and down her other thigh. The he opened her legs to gain access to the heated, sensitive flesh between them.

  She was engulfed in the exquisite sensation of the hot, slick strokes as his fingers moved over her and within her, bringing her to the very edge of fulfillment. Then he withdrew his hand and Chloe moaned in equally exquisite frustration. "Travis . . . don't stop. Please don't," she begged.

  But he needed her now, this instant, to feel her close around him. He was full and aching and at his flash point. "I'm right here, honey. It's all right." He hovered over her for an instant, preparing to join her body with his.

  She looked up at him and knew such joy her throat closed with emotion. "Tell me again, Travis."

  "I love you, Chloe. I love you so much." He slid one arm under her shoulders and the other under her waist and held her to him as he entered her with a smooth powerful thrust.

  Chloe drew a sharp breath as he filled her, again overwhelmed with a sense of wholeness and communion that nothing else in life had ever given her.

  Travis sank into the tight, warm glove of her. His strokes were hard and urgent, swelling the yearning that made her heart thunder in her chest and her breath come in short gasps. The fire, oh, the fire he kindled. God, this couldn't go on. There would be nothing left of her but cinder and ash. She sobbed his name once, twice, in her frenzy.

  But he already knew what she needed. He had always known. His thrusts became almost savage in intensity, compelling her body to surrender to him in a series of contractions that began low in her abdomen and reached to grip him within her. Her high, thin cry floated away on the night.

  The wild fever of her response burned in his blood and a deep, low-throated moan rose in him as he strained forward in one last powerful thrust. His release exploded in him, so strong he gripped the robe in both fists. His body was rigid over hers, his breath stopped in his throat. Finally he relaxed against her, resting his head on his forearm next to her, his breathing labored.