Gillian didn’t stop to think. She turned and ran. Out the back door, down the steps, toward the meandering ribbon of the Silver River, but still she could not escape the nightmare that had become her life. The footsteps pounding behind her…the sound of furious male swearing echoed in her ears…the hot breath on her neck…the feel of Cisco’s arms around her as he caught her around the waist and forced her to face him. Suddenly it was all so terrifyingly familiar, and all so much more than she could bear. She cringed at his touch, forgetting for a moment that it was Cisco, and not the man who had dominated her nightmares for years, coming after her. “Don’t,” she moaned, putting both hands up to shield her face. “Oh God, don’t hurt me!”
Her hysterical words ringing between them, Cisco let her go as suddenly as if she had burned him. His face was white with shock as he drew back. She had only to look up into the shocked contours of his handsome face to know he was devastated at the way she had reacted to his touch. And with good reason, she noted miserably, since he had never once done anything to harm her, since he wanted only to help. “Why would you think I would hurt you?” he asked softly. Hands jammed on his hips, he moved closer still.
Unable—unwilling—to answer, Gillian pushed past him as tears streamed down her face. Staring wordlessly at the mountains in the distance, she crossed her arms in front of her defiantly and brought them close. Heaven help her, she didn’t want to get into this with anyone, least of all him. She wanted only to forget, but with Cisco staring her down, determined to sort things out, to help her find some level of serenity and safety at long last, that was not likely to happen, she knew.
“That cowardly bastard beat you, didn’t he, Gillian?” Cisco guessed, his face tight with anger and distress as he stepped nearer still, not touching her, yet his warmth and his strength as tangible as his sandalwood and sage cologne. “Phillip didn’t just stalk you, he beat you, and scared the hell out of you. And the police either couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything. That’s why you took another identity ten years ago, isn’t it?” he continued compassionately, his eyes softening with understanding as he let out a long anguished sigh. “That’s why you’ve been running ever since, sleeping with a gun under your pillow. Why you’ve never become involved with another man.” His hand curled with reassuring gentleness over her shoulder. “Because you’ve been scared to death and running for your life.”
For a moment, Gillian let herself sink into the soothing reassurance of his touch. As much as she hated acquiescing to anyone, and staying here and talking this out with him against her wishes was acquiescing, she had to convince him to do things her way. She swung around to face him, knowing her face was strained and pale. “Please don’t tell Max. Please don’t tell Susannah. Don’t tell anyone,” she begged, all too willing to sacrifice her pride for the common good of everyone else on the ranch.
“Why not?” Cisco demanded, upset.
“Because I don’t want them involved. I didn’t want you involved, dammit.” But he was, by virtue of his own incurable nosiness, and there was nothing she could do about it now. Thrusting her hands in the pockets of her split skirt, she ignored the ever darkening hue of his gray eyes, and shivering uncontrollably despite the heat of the midafternoon sun, she paced back and forth in the soft green grass. She wasn’t as calm as she wanted to be, but she was still in control. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want anyone involved. It’s too dangerous!”
“That’s why you took on a false identity ten years ago,” Cisco guessed, his expression strained.
Gillian nodded, knowing she had no choice now but to give him the whole truth, knowing even as she dreaded doing so that there was some relief in confessing all. She raked in an unsteady breath. “I realized faking my own death was the only way out. So I parked my car on a bridge one icy winter night and left a suicide note there, saying I just couldn’t take Phillip’s abuse anymore. I made it look as if I had taken a death leap into the Kansas River and then I disappeared.”
A pulse throbbing in his neck, he continued to study her. “You have no regrets?”
“No, none,” she replied softly, forcing herself to meet Cisco’s sharply probing gaze, to take one step at a time, deal with it and move on. “Phillip was never going to let me live, if I wasn’t with him, and I couldn’t be with him.” She shrugged again, knowing on the one hand it all seemed like it had happened a lifetime ago, and in her dreams, like it was just yesterday. “I knew what I had to do.”
Still struggling to take it all in, Cisco took her hand in his. For several minutes, as she worked to get a grip on herself, they walked along the edge of the meandering Silver River. Finally, his hand tightened over hers, imbuing her with the strength to go on. “How did you get messed up with him in the first place?” he asked compassionately.
If he only knew how many times she had asked herself that same question! Gillian felt tears blur her eyes as she brushed her pride aside. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got the time.” Cisco paused and turned her so she was leaning against a tree. He brought her into the warm, strong circle of his arms and looked down at her with unbearable gentleness. “Besides, you’ve already told me this much,” he said sympathetically. “You might as well tell me the rest.”
Knowing he was right, Gillian released a weary breath, and aware he was waiting, forced herself to work through the misery and go on. “I was a freshman in college when my parents died, way too young and inexperienced to handle such grief alone, and I was devastated by their deaths. And that’s when I met Phillip.” She let out a little breath. “We were both students at KSU. He was ten years older than I was, and unlike anyone I’d ever met.” She looked back, aware even now her memories of that time were a grief-filled blur. “It’s hard to explain, but from the time we started dating, he just sort of took over.”
Cisco caressed her cheek with his hand, understanding without her having to go into all the gory details, the way Phillip had systematically cut her off from all her friends. “When did the nightmare start?”
“About three months after we married,” Gillian replied, taking a bracing gulp of air. She shuddered, remembering. “I was late coming home from the university library and he didn’t believe that was the only place I’d been. He tried to get me to confess that I was running around on him, and I wouldn’t, because it just wasn’t true, and so he hit me to make me fess up. Later, when it was all over and he had calmed down, he cried and said it was the stress of grad school and living on a budget that was making him overreact like that.” Ice gripped her heart as she thought about the flimsy reasons. “I told him that was no excuse. If he ever hit me again, I was leaving. The next time he did, which was three months down the line, I packed my bags and left.”
“But that wasn’t the end of it,” Cisco guessed as he slid his hand down her arm until their hands were entwined.
Gillian shook her head grimly. She shuddered again, not understanding why she was suddenly so cold, just knowing she was. “The next day my car was vandalized while I was inside a shopping mall. He said he didn’t do it, and the police had no proof, so they couldn’t arrest him.”
“I take it the harassment didn’t stop there.”
“No, it didn’t.” Unable to bear the pity she was sure was in his eyes, she looked at the horizon. “I managed to get a divorce over Phillip’s protests, because I was so young and obviously grief-stricken and confused when we married, but the legal end of our marriage did nothing to convince Phillip our relationship was over. Over the course of the next year, Phillip broke into my apartment several times. He’d look through everything I owned, and leave just enough out of place so I’d know he had been there. When I tried to date someone else, the young man was mugged returning to his apartment late that night.” Gillian shuddered. “He never saw his assailant. I was sure it was Phillip, but again, nothing could be proved.
“Meanwhile, Phillip kept sending me flowers and candy and writing me notes that said I was the only woman for him, and he was the only man for me, and one day soon he would help me realize that.” Gillian shook her head, aware neither the warmth of Cisco’s body, so close to hers, or the sun beating down on them was enough to keep the chill away.
“I hired a lawyer to file harassment charges against Phillip, but his office was mysteriously broken into and he quit. I hired another. The same thing happened.”
“Phillip,” Cisco guessed.
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t prove it. All I knew was that the attorneys were sufficiently intimidated to want nothing more to do with me or my case. And that’s when I began planning my own death.”
Cisco gently touched her face, his heart going out to her for all she had suffered. “You’re still scared of him.”
“Yes.” Gillian hated that fact but knew it was true. “Very much.” She leaned into the warm comfort of his touch and shook her head in frustration. “That’s why I took on a false identity and lied about where I went to college, though I was scrupulously truthful about the type and amount of education I had. I didn’t want anyone connecting me to Kansas, for fear it would trigger something in a computer somewhere and alert Phillip to the fact I was still alive.”
Cisco paused. The rugged planes of his face softened in understanding. “You’ve never tried to find out what’s happened to Phillip?” he asked.
Her heart pounding at just the thought, Gillian shook her head. She clung to him, trembling. “No. That’s why I was so upset, seeing our photo in USA Daily on the Net. If Phillip sees that, and recognizes me—if he still wants revenge—he’s going to know exactly where to find me.”
His eyes still fastened firmly on hers, Cisco pointed out, “For all you know, Phillip could be dead now. For all you know, there’s no longer any reason for you to be constantly looking over your shoulder or lying about your identity.”
Gillian had never wished anyone dead, but oh, to be free again, to go through a day not having to look over her shoulder or worry her past would one day catch up with her again. She jammed her hands in the pockets of her denim skirt. “You’re saying you could find out for me?”
Cisco nodded. He looked hard and dangerous. “Through Max’s detective agency, yes.”
“And Phillip would never know?” Gillian pressed, her heart pounding in her chest.
“He’d never have a clue.”
Gillian wore a path in the grass on rubbery legs. “Suppose we do find him? Suppose he’s still alive. Then what?” She worried anxiously, twisting her hands together and feeling sick with a combination of relief—that this might one day be completely over— and dread—that it never would be.
Cisco’s lips curled in a dangerously feral smile. “Then, depending on what we find, we decide what to do next.”
“What do you mean, do?” Gillian demanded, for the first time fully aware—in her heart and her gut— of Cisco Kidd’s streetfighter past.
“To set you free,” Cisco explained, letting her know in a glance that if anyone knew how to effectively deal with her ex-husband, it was Cisco and indeed the whole McKendrick clan. Nevertheless, the fact remained that she knew what they were up against in Phillip; they did not. She folded her arms in front of her.
“I know you want to help, but I am not going back into that nightmare,” she announced.
Cisco stepped closer, gave her a pitying look, then said quietly, “You’ve never left.”
CISCO’S PROPHETIC WORDS still echoing in her ears, Gillian spun around on her heel and marched defiantly back to the cottage. She had known getting this close to anyone, never mind someone like Cisco, was a mistake, she thought as she charged up the stairs, tears streaming down her face. No matter what she did, no matter how far or how hard she ran, she could not escape her past.
“What are you doing?” Cisco’s calm voice, seeming to come out of nowhere, made her jump.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Ignoring her jittery state in the hopes that Cisco would, too, Gillian grabbed her suitcase and cosmetic case. “I’m doing what I should’ve done when Pete Lloyd thought I looked familiar. I’m getting out of here before anyone gets hurt on my account.”
Cisco remained in the doorway, rock-hard thighs girded, shoulders braced for battle, blocking the only exit out. “You don’t want to do that,” he told her quietly, still looking as if he would defend her to the death.
Gillian ground her teeth on a hundred feisty replies. “Don’t tell me what I do or do not want to do,” she announced with a haughty toss of her long auburn hair.
Cisco sighed but looked no less determined. He moved closer. “Haven’t you run from your past long enough?”
Gillian shook her head as tears of loss and longing blurred her eyes. Maybe it was unrealistic, but she had come to hope that they could work things out between them. Make this, if not a real marriage, a real romance, at least for a couple of wild and wonderful days. But that was not going to be, she realized sadly, and the truth was she had known that to be the case the moment she saw their photo in the Internet version of Monday’s USA Daily newspaper. She just hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself.
She held her ground and kept her distance. “Get out of my way, Cisco.”
Ignoring her directive, he closed the distance between them, gently took her chin in hand and tilted her face up to his. They stood near enough that she could see the lines of strain on his face and the old hurts from his past in his eyes. And along with that the determination that their future would be better. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, Gillian,” he told her, his expression hard, defiant. “Neither will Max or Trace or Cody or any of the men or women on the Silver Spur.”
That said, he pulled her against him. Gillian buried her face in the warmth of his shirtfront and put her arms around him despite herself. “You can’t protect me,” she murmured, her voice muffled against the solid wall of his chest
“Yes, I can, and I will.” Cisco buried his face in the sweet-smelling softness of her hair. “In your heart, you know that,” he whispered gently, tugging her even closer against his hard length. “That’s why you’re afraid.” She gasped in surprise and wanting as his hands ghosted up and down her back. “Because it might mean you’d have to start taking risks again.” His lips moved across her temple, down her cheek, to her lips, where they hovered over hers with tantalizing nearness and sent her heart slamming against her ribs. “It might mean,” he said softly, looking deep into her eyes, “you’d have to stay.
“I know how hard this is for you, Gillian,” Cisco said in a low husky voice that brooked no dissent as he lowered his head and kissed her with a rough possessiveness that stole her breath. “It was hard for me, too, when Max brought me here, but I gave it my all, and I’ve never regretted it. And.that’s what I’m asking you to do,” he whispered.
“Oh, Cisco—” The sound of longing in her throat was cut off as his lips covered hers once again. His arm clamped around her back and he lifted her against him; and she had no choice but to feel the depth of his need for her. Or hers for him. She’d been running scared and alone for years. And now a strong, caring man had come into her life. It might not be wise, it might not be safe, but she couldn’t resist the offer of a forty-eight-hour-long fantasy and marriage any more than she could resist Cisco’s tender kiss.
Groaning with a mixture of despair—that this couldn’t last—and exultation—that they’d found each other at all—Gillian returned his searing embrace with all her heart and soul. His hands moved to her breasts, cupping them through the fabric of her shirt. He parted her lips and slid his tongue into them, kissing her as if he had every right to do so, kissing her with a need that was deep and elemental and blatantly, unabashedly carnal. Melting into him helplessly, giving herself over as his wife, she took up the rhythm of his plundering lips and tongue, answering his hunger with a kiss that had him groaning, too.
He danced her backward, until he had trapped her against the wall and his body, and for that moment, there was nothing else between them—no promise of inheritance, no forty-eight-hour marriage—only this moment in time and the sweet, searing need. She wanted him. How she wanted him. And he wanted her, too.
His hands slid down the front of her shirt, unbuttoning as he went. His kiss grew wilder, more urgent, as he unclasped her bra and molded her breasts with his hands, drawing the nipples into pebble-hard tips. Her knees turned to putty. She melted against him, on fire and wanting…so much more….
“Cisco—” she whispered as another thrill swept through her.
“I know.” He kissed his way from her temple to her shoulder, and pulled her against him, his legs on either side of her, his arousal pulsing between her thighs. “If I’m going to love you, we’ve got to get these clothes off.”
Urgently they set about doing just that. Her body throbbing with unslaked need, they fell back on the queen-size bed, the sunlight spilling over them in a pool of soft golden light Gillian had not seen how beautiful his body was the night before. She had only felt it, hot and hard and undeniably male. This afternoon she saw it. Reveled in it. The satin-smooth skin and muscle, and whorls of soft dark hair. Unable to help herself, she touched his flat male nipples. The sweat-slick skin of his chest and sinewy legs. She trembled at the intensity of her desire and the consequences it could bring. No longer caring, her hand moved lower still, to curve around him. He pressed against her, letting her know just what she did to him. She let her knees part. Her head fell back. She let her eyes shut.
Moving so she was beneath him, he took her nipple between his teeth and flicked it with his tongue. She gasped and arched off the bed and increased the caressing pressure of her hand.
Groaning, as if her touch were more than he could bear, he touched his lips to hers. Kissed her deeply, evocatively. He feathered soft, slow kisses along her hairline then slowly, ever so slowly and deliberately, kissed his way down her body. Pinning her hands on either side of her, he moved lower still. Her whole body was trembling with the need to take him inside her, but he wouldn’t relent, not yet, not until she felt the searing stroke of his lips and tongue. She gasped as he found the feminine essence of her. And found it until it was all too much, until her heart was full and she shook with the force of her need. “Cisco, please. Let me…do…for you…what you’re…”
He moved swiftly up her body. Lifting her with his hands, he brought her to him. “This is what I want,” he whispered, staring down at her as he surged inside her.
Trusting as she had never trusted before, wanting as she had never wanted before, she gave herself over to sensation, over to him. This was a depth of feeling they didn’t want and couldn’t avoid. And as they moved together, surging up and over the edge, she knew it was a complication that was not likely to go away.
For long moments after, they lay locked together, breathing harshly in the silence of the room. “I’m not going to apologize for that,” Cisco said finally.
“I don’t want you to,” Gillian murmured back, burying her face in the solid warmth of his chest. For she knew better than anyone that there was no tomorrow, only today.
She had this moment, this man, this feeling of being protected and cared for and loved. And for the moment it had to be enough. Because it could all end tomorrow, she thought, waiting quietly for the reckoning to come.