Conflicted

  Desiree stepped closer, trailed a finger down his spine. She felt him stiffen against her seconds before he turned and caught her wrist in his strong fingers.

  “What are you doing?” His voice was lower, huskier than it had been mere minutes before.

  “I thought that was obvious.” Her voice was breathier, more teasing than it had been. She twisted her wrist in his hand, a small feminine gesture that accomplished her immediate release.

  She reached for the hem of her shirt, raised it to expose her flat stomach. She saw his eyes darken even more, an answering response roaring to life in him before he could stop it.

  “I thought you were angry.”

  “You’re alive and unharmed when I was imagining the worst. I’m grateful.” She spoke no less than the truth, though anger and hurt were still running a close second to the desire thrumming through her. She wanted to touch him, taste him, reassure herself on a purely primitive level that he was all right.

  “Jake called me.” He admitted it grudgingly. “One of his horses was sick and the doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. He wanted me to…” He stopped as she tugged her top over her head, revealing the hot-pink demi-bra she’d bought last weekend in the hopes of generating just such a response.

  He trailed hot fingers over her full breasts where they spilled over the top of the cups. “You’re so beautiful.”

  “So are you.” She arched against him, giving him better access, and he took it with a groan. His lips skimmed down her neck, over her collarbone, pausing at the hollow of her throat. She moaned as his tongue darted out, licking slowly, softly, turning her knees to mush beneath her. “Jesse—”

  “Desiree,” he murmured, his eyes dark and wicked even as he allowed his hands to cup her breasts, his thumbs to stroke the nipples barely covered by the lace of the demi-bra. He lowered his head and feasted, his tongue flicking over the hard nubs of her nipples again and again until she cried out, her knees actually giving way beneath her.

  He caught her, swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. “I’m sorry.” He breathed the words against her hair as he lowered himself on top of her. “I was stupid, an ass.”

  He felt so good above her—so hard and hot—that she couldn’t stop herself from moving against him, her legs widening as she sought a deeper connection. “It’s okay,” she heard herself gasp as she pulled his head down to hers. “The horse—

  “Didn’t need me as much as you did. I should have been here.” His lips brushed hers, once, twice, before skimming down to her breasts. His tongue followed the line where the top of her breasts met the bra in a teasing, tasting, tickling exploration.

  She laughed huskily, her fingers going to the waistband of his jeans, dipping inside to stroke him, reveling at how quickly he had become hard. He groaned and thrust against her questing fingers, even as his hands reached down to still them. “I need a shower,” he murmured. “I’ve been in the stables all day.”

  “I like the way you smell,” she answered truthfully, slowly unzipping his pants.

  He sprang free and she reached for him, running her lips and tongue along him in leisurely strokes. She loved how he quivered with each touch of her mouth, loved the power she had over this strong, tough man. She took her time, played with him, stroked him with her hands and lips and tongue until she felt his muscles tremble.

  His hands tangled in her hair and he groaned before he could stop himself. “Desi…” His voice was low and pleading, his hands urgent, and she knew she had pushed him to the limit. With a murmur of pure pleasure, she took him in her mouth and let her tongue swirl over and around him.

  All too soon Jesse was pulling away, ignoring her protests.

  “Jesse—”

  “Shh,” he murmured, slowly pulling off her jeans and hot pink panties. “I need to be inside you.

  “But—”

  “Relax,” he said as he flipped her onto her stomach. And then his fingers were everywhere, kneading the kinks from her lower back, from the top of her thighs, skimming closer and closer to the heart of her.

  She squirmed restlessly, arching into him. “Jesse, please!” she wailed, too far gone to be patient.

  “Now?” he asked, pulling her to her knees and stroking a finger along her silken folds.

  “Yes, now,” she whimpered, pressing her back to his front. “Please, now!”

  He positioned her, and with a groan sank home. She pushed against him, meeting each of his thrusts, more wild and needy than she could ever remember being. Tension built in her, coiling higher and higher until she was sobbing Jesse’s name. He circled her hips with his right arm, pulling her more fully against him as his thumb found and stroked the knot of her desire.

  She exploded, her body convulsing as wave after wave of pleasure slammed through her. She felt him stiffen against her, felt the pulses of his release move through her, intensifying her pleasure, making it last and last until she collapsed, all but comatose, onto the bed.

  Consciousness returned slowly and Desiree became aware of Jesse’s heart beating heavily beside her as his hands tangled in her hair. She turned her head and found herself staring into his worried, midnight-dark eyes. She wanted to soothe him, to stroke a hand down his cheek and tell him that it was okay. That she understood. But she couldn’t, because it wasn’t and she didn’t.

  She cleared her throat, found her voice. “Why didn’t you call?” she asked before she even knew she was going to ask. “I would have understood.”

  “I didn’t know what to say.”

  “What do you mean?” A chill swept through her and she reached for the comforter, her nudity bothering her for the first time that she could remember. “The horse—”

  “Was an excuse.” He sighed heavily, ran a hand through his untamed hair. “I knew what was wrong before I got there.”

  She studied him with puzzled eyes. “Then why…” Her voice trailed off. She was suddenly too afraid of the answer to ask the question.

  “I didn’t want to face you.” He stood abruptly, went to his dresser where he pulled on a pair of sweats with his back to her.

  “I love you, Desiree.” The words seemed ripped from him.

  “Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?” she asked, crossing the room to wrap her arms around him from behind. “I love you, too.”

  He turned, his eyes dark and worried as he studied her. Then he was moving away, reaching for a T-shirt and tugging it on as he headed for the door.

  She stared at him, bewildered. “Where are you going?”

  He shook his head, opened the door. “I can’t do this now.”

  “Do what?”

  “Go to bed, Desi. I’ll be up later.” He closed the door as he slipped from the room.

  She stared after him for a long time, then walked to the bathroom and cleaned herself up before slipping into a nightgown and crawling into bed. Her mind spun with questions but she refused to chase after him. So she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep but too emotionally exhausted to do anything else.

  When Jesse finally came to bed, hours later, she was still awake. She wanted to reach for him but couldn’t find a way to span the sudden distance between them. She waited for him to turn to her, to wrap her in his arms and pull her against him as he had every night for twenty-five years.

  When morning came she was still waiting.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  TEARS LEAKED FROM THE corner of his eye despite himself as he surveyed his daughter in her wedding dress. The fact that Desiree remained dry-eyed next to him only made his lack of control more annoying. The music started—a Spanish guitar version of some love song that sounded familiar but he couldn’t place—and he watched the bridal party get into position.

  “Are you ready?” his daughter asked, clutching his arm with one cold hand.

  “As ready as I’m going to get,” he answered, watching first his wife, then Willow’s bridesmaids, precede them up the aisle.

&n
bsp; When Anna finally got to the front, the melodic strains of the guitar switched to the bridal march. He felt Willow tense next to him.

  “We can still duck out the back,” he whispered to her, even as he straightened and prepared to take that first step forward.

  “Too late,” she giggled as she took a deep breath. “I love you, Daddy.”

  Jesse’s heart clenched, skipping a beat or two before he could steady himself. “I love you, too, baby.” He tried to be surreptitious as he wiped at his eye, but he looked up just in time to see Willow smiling indulgently at him.

  “All right, all right,” he muttered. “Let’s do this thing before I change my mind about giving my only daughter away.”

  The walk up the aisle was a fusion of faces and memories. He couldn’t help remembering the day his daughter was born. The first time he held her. The first time he put her on a horse. The first time she’d ever had her heart broken. She’d been his for so long—his baby, his little girl—that giving her away now was a lot harder than he’d ever anticipated.

  Then they were at the front and all he could do was kiss her cheek as he handed her off to another man. He made a wish for her happiness then took his seat next to Desiree, trying his best to look as if it wasn’t the last place he wanted to be.

  Desiree reached out a hand, laid it on his knee. “She looks beautiful, doesn’t she?”

  Waves of heat spread through him, radiating from his knee, warming him in a way that made a mockery of his anger. He stared, transfixed for a moment, at the delicate hand that was as familiar to him as his own. She’d done something to her nails—they were long and half-white and seemed out of place on her strong but delicate fingers.

  He clasped for her hand, savoring the feel of her soft skin as it rubbed against his tough and callused palm. She had such small hands—palm to palm, her fingers barely reached the knuckles of his own—it amazed him still that she could hold a bucking horse or a crooked businessman in the palm of them. She’d always done a hell of a job of holding him in them, as well—wrapping him around her little finger, keeping him under her thumb.

  The familiar fury burned through him and he stiffened, dropping her hand as if it had suddenly burned him. How could she do this to him with just a word, just a touch? How could she make him wish things were different, even after he’d found out how deeply her betrayal ran?

  “Jesse?” Her voice was low, her cheeks red as she stared at him with dismayed eyes.

  “Yes, Desiree. Willow looks very beautiful.” The words were stilted, almost painful, but he couldn’t do any better. Not with everything that lay between them. Not with that damn newspaper article burning through his brain like a wildfire.

  He turned away before she could say more, angling his shoulders so that his back was almost completely toward her. She gasped, but he resisted the temptation to look, just as he resisted the instinctive need to apologize. She was the one who had hurt him, he reminded himself. She was the one who had spent the last five, ten, even fifteen years of their life together giving everything she had to the ranch so that there was nothing left over for him, for them.

  The ceremony passed in a blur. He stood at the right places, sat when everyone else did. He heard his daughter take her vows, watched her new husband lean down to kiss her, but nothing seemed real. He watched it all from a distance, as if a glass wall separated him from everyone else in the garden.

  Then it was over and they were heading to the ballroom for the reception. People were stopping him, congratulating him, chatting him up, and for the first time in his life he was grateful for the need to socialize. It made the distance between Desiree and himself less noticeable.

  The hours passed quickly. Food and liquor flowed freely, laughter and joy even more so. He had no appetite, but ate and drank because it was expected of him. Because Desiree’s eyes were on him and his stupid pride wouldn’t allow her to see how much he was hurting. The divorce had been his idea, after all.

  He danced the first dance with his wife, the second with his daughter. As he held Willow in his arms and looked down at her glowing face, some of the ice that had formed around him melted.

  “You look happy, baby,” he murmured as he pulled her close.

  “I am, Daddy, happier than I ever thought possible.”

  “Then I guess I’ve got to get used to the fact that you’re not my little girl anymore.” He kissed her cheek. “Things are changing so fast.”

  A small frown appeared on Willow’s face. “She really loves you, you know.”

  He stiffened. “I’m not discussing this with you, Willow.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and for a moment she looked so much like her mother that it took his breath away. “Well, I’m discussing it with you. You hurt her, Daddy. I know you didn’t mean to, but you did.” She looked over at Desiree, who wore a broad smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Can’t you see how devastated she is?”

  “My relationship with your mother is none of your business.”

  “It is when I see how sad you both are. Whatever you’ve done, it can still be fixed.”

  “Whatever I’ve done?”

  She sighed heavily. “Yes, Dad. Whatever you’ve done. I know she isn’t the easiest person to live with, that she’s obsessed with the ranch and the horses and the stupid Triple Crown. But…” She paused.

  “Don’t stop now.”

  She eyed him with unconcealed frustration. It was the same look she’d been giving him since she was two and he’d refused to let her ride one of the champion Thoroughbreds. He couldn’t help smiling at her impatience.

  “I wasn’t planning to. You’ve got to remember she was raised by Big John. A lot of who she is and what she wants comes from him, whether she wants it to or not.”

  “Willow—”

  “All right, all right. I won’t say anything else.” But her eyes gleamed when she reached into a hidden pocket on the side of her dress. “But in exchange, I need you do me a favor?”

  He eyed her warily. His youngest was not above subterfuge if it would get her her way. “What do you want me to do?”

  Her smile was brilliant as she handed him a blue book. “Give this to Mom for me. I’m afraid I’ll forget and it’ll get lost.”

  His eyebrows pulled together as he examined the book more closely. “What is it?”

  “She’ll know. Just tell her thank-you and that I didn’t want to lose it.”

  The music stopped. “I’m going to go find my husband.” She giggled. “My husband,” she repeated. “I really love the way that sounds.”

  His smile was indulgent while he watched her walk away, but the indulgence quickly faded to puzzlement as he studied the book in his hands. There was no title on the front, nothing on the spine. What kind of book was it and what could be so important about it that Willow was carrying it around on her wedding day?

  He cracked the cover and started in surprise when he saw the sloping perfection of Desiree’s handwriting. Eyes narrowed, he skimmed the first page, barely noticing the hollow feeling suddenly invading his stomach. Someone bumped into him and he shoved the book guiltily into his pocket before moving as far from the dance floor as possible.

  He wanted to escape from the crowded room, leaving the festivities far behind as he settled down to read the words his wife had written so many years before. He wouldn’t, of course. Willow would kill him if he ducked out of her wedding festivities before she and her husband did. But the journal was burning a hole in his pocket despite his best intentions, commanding his attention when he should be focusing on socializing and making sure that everything was going smoothly.

  He went through the motions for the rest of the evening, laughing with old friends and acquaintances. Talking a little business when he couldn’t avoid it. Dancing with his daughter and hanging with his sons when he could.

  But eventually Willow and James left on their honeymoon amid showers of bubbles and good wishes. The guests slowly began to leave until only the clean
ing and catering staff and his family remained.

  “My God, my feet hurt,” Desiree muttered, slipping out of the four inch heels she’d been wearing for the last six hours.

  “Mine, too,” commented Brooke, as she followed suit.

  “Then why wear shoes like that?” asked Rio. “There must have been ones with lower heels you could have gotten.”

  “But they wouldn’t have looked nearly as good,” answered his mother with a mock frown. “And you know us Rainwater women—we’re all about vanity.”

  All five of them burst into laughter. “You’ve been a lot of things in your life, Mom,” commented Dakota. “Vain has never been one of them.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?” Desiree inclined her head ruefully. “Of course, that’s probably because I’ve never had anything to be vain about.”

  “That’s not true.” The words burst from Jesse before he could stop them. “You’re beautiful. You’ve always been beautiful.”

  Desiree’s eyes widened as they met his. Electricity arced between them, powerful and intense, and her laugh, when it came, was awkward. “Yeah, right. I’m a regular cover model—all six gangly feet of me.”

  Rio cleared his throat, disturbed more than he wanted to admit by the sudden tension streaming between his parents. “Do you need any help cleaning up, Mom?” he asked.

  Jesse watched as she broke their contact and focused on their son. “Go on to bed, all of you.” She included Jesse in her sweeping motion. “I’m just going to stay and make sure the caterers get things packed up and get off all right. The rest can be cleaned up tomorrow.”

  “We can stay and help,” Brooke offered, though she swayed with exhaustion. “With all of us working—”

  “Rio, take your wife up to bed. She looks like she’s going to drop,” Jesse interrupted. “You go, too, Dakota. Your mom and I can handle this.”

  When the kids had left, Desiree turned to him. “You don’t need to stay. I can handle things, really.”

  He studied her, noticing her pallor and the dark circles under her eyes for the first time. “You look exhausted.” His tone was more accusatory than he liked.