Hours later, with the gelding lathered and blowing and barely able to stumble another step, Jess drew up at a deserted cabin and slid from the saddle. His own legs aching from the ride, he watered King, hobbled him within reach of the new spring grass, and stripped off the saddle.
Then Jess dropped to the ground beside him and stared up at the moon, eyes gritty with unshed grief. He had hoped that time away from the family would have blunted their anger. Each holiday had been an aching void—he, who reveled in being in the midst of the garrulous, affectionate brood, had spent those family times alone.
And seven years after he had hurled insults at his father, his uncles, his brothers, his sisters’ husbands, he remained the outcast. By his own actions, true, but still the outcast. Only Teddy had forgiven him.
Pride stood between him and the others. Their pride and the insults he had spewed. His pride and the rejection that followed.
His sisters and mother had never known the whole story and, to their credit, their men had never forbidden them to converse or correspond with him. A tightness encircled his heart at the thought. Much as he decried the female interference in his life, without it, he would have been truly lost.
Perhaps, years ago, at the beginning, his words might have been forgiven . . . if he had asked. But he had been young, disillusioned, and sickened by the depths of hell he had witnessed. He had seen no way but his own. He had not asked then.
He could not ask now.
King nuzzled him, drawing him from the past. Jess stroked the horse’s head, soothing his mind with the familiar ritual. A rift existed between him and the Garrett men, but the women and Teddy were willing to cross it. For now, that would suffice.
Otherwise, he was alone.
With an exhausted groan, he closed his eyes. An image rose in his mind of a pair of velvety brown eyes and a smile that woke the morning. As he slipped into sleep, the constriction around his heart eased.
No matter what came of the family schism, he would never be alone again.
“Jess,” Corrie called for the millionth time from a throat gone hoarse. “Jess Garrett.”
Buford the mule flicked his ears back and forth and snatched a mouthful of grass on the fly, sending Corrie onto the saddle horn and almost onto the ground. Hauling on the reins to bring the animal’s head up, she ground out, “Damn it, I told you to stop doing that.”
She dragged him to a halt and dismounted, neither elegantly nor gently. Any thought of ladylike behavior had deserted her two minutes into this ride from hell.
Careful to keep hold of the cheek band—she’d spent a good half hour last night chasing Buford before she learned that necessary piece of mule trivia—she stomped to his head to reason with him. Again. He curled his lip at her and brayed. By this time, Corrie knew he was laughing at her.
“Do the words ‘glue factory’ mean anything to you?”
He mouthed his bit and returned her glare with a satisfied brrrtt of his lips. Corrie jumped back. Too late.
Slimed again.
Buford, one eye on her, let loose a laughing neigh.
As she tied the comedian to a bush and dug into the saddlebag for a cloth, she muttered, “I don’t know who’s the horse’s ass around here, bud, you or me, but I got a sneaking suspicion it ain’t you.”
She moved out of slime range and pulled the map Rupert Smith had given her from her pocket. The Chesterfield folks had been helpful—Rupert gave her the map, and Sean Quinn provided her with Buford, although that had proven to be a mixed blessing. Even the Major wished her the best. But once it was clear that Jess was nowhere in Hope Springs and had headed into the mountains of his own volition, none would join her search.
Unless she counted the slimer there, she had spent the previous night in the woods by herself, wrapped up in a scratchy wool blanket. Camping was for good old boys in gimme caps with coolers of cheap beer in the back of their dented pickups, not for a five-star chef. The closest she wanted to come to bugs was escargot.
Instead, she was up close and personal with bugs and mule spit.
The anxiety that had driven her from the café, up the hill to the hotel, and into the mountains had decreased during the cold, long hours of the night with all its creeping and crawling and—oh, God—slithering.
I’ll never have rattlesnake on the menu again.
But the memory of the sorrow in Jess’s eyes drove her on, in spite of the cold and bugs. And Buford.
Laying down the rough map and weighting the corners with rocks, she walked around it and compared it to the terrain. She advanced up the trail a short way on foot and returned to study the map again. A compass might have helped, but since she didn’t know how to read one, probably not. Slowly, she circled the map, finally squatting down and admitting defeat.
She folded up the map and tucked it back into her pocket. Not really expecting an answer, she yelled, “Jess! Jess Garrett!”
Buford snorted in response.
With another hard stare up and down the hill, she released and mounted the mule. No matter that her saddle sores had saddle sores, she would find Jess. The mule turned his head and hawked a big one on her boot. “Son of a—” She dug her heels into the animal and directed him uphill.
Oh yeah, she was going to find Jess.
And give him Buford.
She stood up in the stirrups and called, “Jess. Damn you, Jess Garrett, where are you?”
Off to one side, she thought she heard something. She hauled at the reins. “Whoa,” she commanded in a deep voice, as Sean had instructed.
Buford kept plodding along, oblivious.
“Whoa, damn it,” she said and kicked her feet from the stirrups. The animal slowed but continued up the trail.
Swearing under her breath—it was all she could manage as she had worked her way to drape belly down across the saddle—she slipped to the ground, where she raced to wrap the reins around the nearest tree and braced one foot against it. This, too, she’d learned late yesterday.
Perpetual motion, thy name is Buford.
Coming to a halt and releasing a long-suffering sigh, the mule blinked at her.
“This”—she tugged on his rein—“means stop.” Then she remembered her mission and stepped to the edge of the trail. “Jess?”
“Corrie?” Although far away, the voice was unmistakably his.
Heart tripping, she yelled his name again, then plunged into the trees. Her feet flew over the leafy ground and she arrived in a sun-drenched clearing as he entered it from the other side.
No one ever looked as good as he did at that moment, two days’ growth of beard and all.
In a breath, he reached her, crushed her against him, kissing her hair, her face, murmuring her name over and over. She lifted her mouth to his, imbuing the kiss with all the heart-wrenching fear of yesterday, all the relief of today.
Dear God, all the love of forever.
For love Jess she did. Completely. As she had never loved another.
As she had feared to love anyone.
Her mind retreated from the thought. She didn’t know how to love anyone, much less a treasure of a man like Jess. She didn’t want to love anyone.
And certainly not Jess.
The summer solstice loomed like a massive storm on the horizon. In only a couple of months, she would be back in Dallas at the Bistro if Paul could forgive her for an unannounced six-month leave of absence. But Jess would still be here in Hope Springs in 1887. How could she have forgotten that detail?
He lifted his head and gazed at her with those summer eyes, and her heart turned over in her chest. No, she didn’t want to love anyone. But she did love Jess.
Only Jess.
“I—I—” she tried to get out the confession, but her throat tightened around the words. She had no right to tell him—not when she would be thrown back to her time in June and never see him again. Oh, God.
“Shhh,” Jess whispered and eased her down in the softness of the thick spring grass and framed her face with his hands. A nimbus coruscated around his head in the sunlight, which dazzled her eyes and provided an excuse for her tears.
With his thumbs, he wiped them away, then followed that with his lips. Heat shimmered through her as he stroked her face and neck with first his fingers, then his hot, knowing mouth. The very air in the meadow pulsed with their breathing, vibrated with their moans of pleasure.
Then the heat of the sun caressed her skin as he dragged her suspenders down her arms, capturing them against her sides while he unbuttoned her shirt and pulled up her undershirt. Arching upward, she begged, “Please, Jess. Oh, please.”
In reply, he slid along her length until his mouth found her right breast and he drew deeply on its aching peak. Her core grew molten and she heaved her torso up to meet his, seeking the filling of her void, craving the precious heaviness. His erection brushed her inner thigh through their clothes and she strained to urge him closer, much closer to the ache building inside her.
He switched his attention to her left breast and drove her deeper into the spiral of desire. Wordless protests rose in her throat but died into whimpers as he suckled more strongly and his teeth grazed the tender tip. His hands gripped her arms, allowing his thumbs access to the sensitive undersides of her breasts. As the roughness of his fingers gently—maddeningly—added to the tumult of sensations, she flew closer and closer to climax.
When she cried out, “Please,” again, Jess merely drew her more deeply into his mouth and flicked her nipple like a hundred hummingbird wings. Her core tightened and she cried out as she plummeted into a breath-robbing climax. Again and again the contractions rocked her until she thought they would never end.
And she never wanted them to . . . except to have Jess join her in this ecstasy.
Hazily, she opened her eyes and whispered, “Oh, my. That was good.”
With a laugh, he stripped off his clothes and tugged her pants down to her ankles, untied her hiking boots, then finished undressing her. Before she was able to draw more than a few recuperative breaths, he rejoined her on the grassy bed and settled his welcome weight upon her.
“If you thought that was good, this will be even better,” he said, easing into her as he once more possessed her mouth in a kiss hot and deep as their joining.
She rose to meet him, his hardness to her softness, and closed her eyes as they settled into the rhythm of give and take like old lovers, accustomed to each other and eager for more. Clasping him tighter, she silently pleaded for completion, her muscles rhythmically tightening around his shaft as he plunged and withdrew and plunged again into her core. The dark curls on his chest abraded her nipples, already tortured so wonderfully by his mouth. Now, the friction arrowed an exquisite tension to her depths. His lips added to the spiraling need with their mesmerizing glide over her neck and face, ending at one earlobe with a sharp pull and that hummingbird flicker.
His breath rasped in and out, then held as he moaned, the sound reverberating through his chest and driving her over the edge. The heat of the sun and of their bodies united, the sounds of the forest retreated, the wind stilled. Their souls mated and became one.
Corrie whirled into the maelstrom where they were together forever in a love without place or time.
On a sigh of satisfaction, Jess raised his chest from hers. Had she sensed the enormity of their joining? Had she known how her touch had soothed his pain and quieted the ache of separation?
And eased the torment that had sent him flying into the mountains?
Her eyelids fluttered, then opened to reveal golden-spangled depths of brown. She grinned, a slow, satisfied widening of her luscious lips that beckoned him, and he succumbed, taking her mouth again in a kiss that had his head buzzing for air.
Gasping, he lifted his head and said, “Wow.”
Her laughter sparkled like diamonds in the glade as she echoed, “Wow.”
He rolled to one side and tucked her against him, throwing an arm over his eyes and hers to block the sun. No fire could have been as warm as the sun, no bower so sweet as this bed of green grass, no wildflowers so fragrant as Corrie.
This was how he wanted to stay. As long as they could be together, he could endure the Garrett men’s ostracism.
As long as he and Corrie could be together. Forever.
From under his arm, he studied her face with its sprinkling of freckles and dark lashes against golden cheeks. What had made her follow him into the mountains? None of his sisters had done so, which said something about the deterioration of those family ties. Not even Teddy.
Tracing her profile with one finger, he asked, “Why did you come after me?”
“I was worried.”
“I had to be alone for a while . . . to think things through.” He dismissed the hours of unbearable soul-searching with a lift of one shoulder. “I’m sorry you were worried.”
“I’m not good at this worrying stuff. I never had to before I came here.”
“You never worry about your family?” Estranged as they were, he still craved news of his family members—especially all those men in law enforcement.
She shrugged. “No family, just the people I fostered with. And we don’t keep in touch.”
“Fostered? What’s that?”
“You know—foster care. Folks who take in kids who don’t have parents or family to take care of them. The court appoints them.” Her tone made it sound routine.
In Jess’s experience, people just took kids like that in with no court action needed. But maybe they did things differently in Texas. Or they had in Corrie’s case. “So you’re an orphan.”
“Used to be.” Her chin firmed and the bleak expression deepened in her eyes. “Now I’m my own woman.”
Masked by the glib phrases, a wounded heart dwelled, and his own heart contracted with grief for Corrie, the woman. And more for Corrie, the child.
“When did your parents die?”
“I was eight.” She yanked up a handful of grass and sifted restless fingers through it. “My father wasn’t in the picture. Apparently, he didn’t see himself as the father type and split before I was born. No big loss, believe me.”
“Split?”
“He left.”
Several strands of her hair teased her face, and Jess curled them around one finger as he watched remembered pain flicker over her face. What sort of husband deserted a wife who carried his child?
“Your mother must have been a very strong woman,” he murmured, “like you.”
“I’m nothing like my mother.” Corrie flung away the torn grass. An angry flush crept up her chest to her cheeks as she sat up and started dressing. “Her own family didn’t even come forward to take me in after she died. I was sent to strangers.”
“This foster family you spoke of,” he prompted to clarify his own jumbled thoughts as he also dressed. A family deserting an eight-year-old child tasted bitter in his mouth.
“More than one. Once they’d experienced my nightmares, a lot of them sent me back. They couldn’t take my screaming.”
The sadness in those few words knifed through him, and Jess drew her into his arms, regardless of her initial stiffness. She struggled against him, then exhaled a tiny sob and clutched his waist with both arms.
In the few seconds they remained that way, Jess felt he came to know the true Corrine Webb. His little brown duck had been deserted by all who should have loved her and had grown up without the roots he took as his natural right. Despite that, she had emerged strong and loving—though she obviously did not see those qualities in herself.
He laid his cheek against her hair as she sighed. Seems it’s up to me to show her just what sort of loving woman she really is.
And maybe show her what a family could be.
Determined to quell this growing tendency to leak like a sieve at every turn, Corrie allowed little time to elapse before heading back to town. The walk up the hill to the trail started out uneventful and quiet.
Until they reached Buford.
“I’m not riding that demon-possessed bag of spit even if I have to walk all the way back to Hope Springs.” Corrie planted her fists on her hips and glared at Jess, whose well-behaved King waited patiently behind him.
Buford aimed his evil eye at her and gave a loud brrrt, narrowly missing her foot with more mule spit.
When she looked at Jess again, he was hiding a grin behind his hand.
“This is not funny, Chief.”
He leaned his head back and howled. “I can’t believe they gave you Buford.”
“Well, since it’s so funny, you ride him.”
Instantly, he sobered. “Not if I had two broken legs and he was the only way home.”
“Then you understand exactly how I feel.” Corrie looped her arm through his and batted her eyelashes at him.
“No.” Jess gave the animal a look of pure loathing, then frowned down at her. “And you’re no simpering society miss, so keep those eyelashes in check. It won’t work.”
Corrie stuck out her tongue at him, and his eyes blazed.
“That’s the Corrie I know,” he said and, giving her no time to protest, tossed her into King’s saddle. With obvious distaste, he tied Buford’s rein to the gelding’s saddle horn and mounted behind Corrie.
After the mule’s cantankerousness, King proved a breeze to ride. Even Buford behaved while linked to the big horse.
Still, they were well on their way when Corrie finally eased her grip on the saddle horn and patted the horse fondly on his neck. “I don’t know why I was ever afraid of this old guy. He’s a pussycat.”
“I wondered about that,” Jess said next to her ear, sending distracting shivers down her spine.
“I’m not the country sort. Not much call for horses in Dallas.” Then she kicked herself mentally as Jess straightened behind her in obvious surprise.
“Not much call for horses?”
Uh-oh. You’ve done it now, Webb.
Corrie scrabbled for a reason. “I lived in town? Never went very far?” Even to her ears, the comments sounded tentative. And lame.
“What sort of town doesn’t have horses?”
“One with a really strong homeowners’ association?”
Again, he puzzled over her flippant response and repeated, “Homeowners’ association? Sounds like a union.”
She shrugged. “Something like that.”
They rode on in silence for a few minutes while she berated herself for her smart mouth. Reaching an old orchard, he slowed King to a stop and dismounted. The sun touched Jess with gold as he stood at her knee and gazed up at her with myriad questions in his eyes.
To her relief, he merely shook his head and turned away to search in the grass beneath the trees. A short time later, he stooped and picked up a gun. Distaste soured his features as he stared at it before sliding it into his shoulder holster.
When he noticed her scrutiny, he closed his jacket to cover the firearm, then strode back to where she waited with King and Buford, both lipping at the fresh spring growth. With an economy of motion that had him back in the saddle before she could ask a single question, Jess settled in behind her and directed King down the mountain to Hope Springs. The tension vibrating through his body communicated better than words his reluctance to discuss anything at all.
As they approached the café, she could stand it no longer, and slewed around until she could see his face. “You’re not going to explain how you knew about that gun in the orchard?”
His gaze slid from hers, but not before she saw pain and regret cloud his blue eyes with gray. He pulled to a halt and released a pent up breath. “You have your secrets, Corrie. I have mine.”
She opened her mouth, but she bit back her instinctive denial. Jess was right. She had secrets. Some even she didn’t know.