He could hear her screams of terror, feel her pain. The torment of those last moments hounded him like an evil spirit.
All this had happened to his wife because of him. Because of what he was and what he did.
A shuffle of footsteps attracted his attention, and Cain looked up to find Murphy standing just inside the doorway. He walked across the room and sat down next to Cain.
“Enrique’s henchmen have been rounded up,” he announced.
Cain regretted that he hadn’t had the pleasure of killing the sons of bitches himself. “What about Jack?”
“He’s been better.”
“Is he going to make it all right?”
“Sure. Give him a month or two and he’ll be good as new.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Murphy leaned forward and braced his elbows against his knees. “What about Linette?”
Pain tightened his chest, and Cain found he couldn’t answer. He shrugged. She’d been badly hurt, but it could have been much worse. He felt helpless to reach her, helpless to comfort her. The guilt of knowing he was the one responsible for what had happened ate at him like sharks in a feeding frenzy.
The two men sat side by side without speaking for the next hour. No sooner had Murphy left than Linette’s physician stepped into the room.
Cain stood, his eyes connecting with the other man’s. He instinctively squared his shoulders, dreading the worst.
“I’m sorry, but we couldn’t save the baby. We did everything possible.”
“My wife?”
“She’s resting comfortably for now.”
Cain’s legs felt as if they’d gone out from under him, and he slumped onto the chair. The physician sat next to him, going over the extent of injuries. The prognosis for a complete recovery was excellent.
“When can I see her?”
“Soon. Let her sleep for now, that’s what she needs most. Her body’s been badly battered. The seat belt and air bag saved her, but the shock of losing the baby has taken its toll. I suggest you let her sleep.”
Cain would have agreed to anything just then. “Fine. I’ll be here.”
A few more hours later Linette squinted against the bright light and rolled her head to one side. She discovered Cain sprawled on the red vinyl chair next to her hospital bed, asleep. His head drooped to one side and his arm dangled over the cushioned armrest, his knuckles brushing the polished floor.
She stared at her husband for several moments. The memory of everything that had happened flooded her mind. She’d lost the child. Nothing mattered but her baby. Not the men who’d attempted to murder her, not the fate of the occupants of the other vehicle. Nothing. Only the death of her child.
It was easier to close her eyes and sink back into a drug-induced sleep than deal with reality.
The next time Linette woke up, Cain was standing at her bedside, her hand cradled between both of his.
“Hello, honey,” he whispered.
She blinked up at him, finding the lights inordinately bright. “The baby,” she said. There was no question in her voice, only certainty.
His response seemed to require a long time. “There’ll be other children,” he said gently.
“I wanted this baby,” she said, choking on a sob.
“I wanted this baby, too.”
His words were meant to reassure her, but she felt no comfort, only pain, only grief, her old friends. After Michael’s death, Linette had given up the hope of remarrying and having children. Then she’d met and married Cain, and it seemed that she’d been given a second chance at love and life. Now she realized it was only a second chance at grieving. A second chance of dealing with loss and pain.
Cain raised her hand to his face and pressed it against his cheek. “The sooner we get you home the better.”
“Enrique?”
“Dead.”
She bit into her lower lip, amazed at the amount of hate she felt for the dead man. “I hope he rots in hell.”
“I don’t think there’s any question of that.”
“The other people in the accident?”
“They weren’t hurt. As for the men who ran you off the road, they’re sitting in a jail cell, and I sincerely doubt that they’ll see anything on this side of the bars for a good long while. It seems they’re wanted for a long list of offenses.”
“Good,” she said without much enthusiasm. “What about the men you hired to protect me?”
“It doesn’t matter, honey, nothing does but you getting well.”
“Tell me,” she said, louder this time, draining her strength.
Cain’s eyes became dark and fierce. “Their bodies were found yesterday.”
Linette closed her eyes. “Dear God.”
“You don’t need to worry. It’s over now. Neither Enrique nor anyone else is ever going to hurt us again.”
All this was more than Linette could take in at one time. She felt as though the world were caving in on her.
Physically Linette healed, but the emotional scars cut deep grooves into her heart. She grieved for the loss of her child the way she’d grieved for the husband who’d been taken in his prime. She had no energy, no will.
Cain was at her bedside every day. The room was crammed full of flowers, stuffed animals, gifts galore. Linette thanked him, but none of the trinkets he brought her meant a thing.
“Linette, please,” he said the night before he was scheduled to take her home from the hospital. “What is it?”
She shook her head. The world felt gray and cold, and even the warmth of Cain’s love couldn’t chase away the chill.
“Tell me.” He squatted in front of her and gripped her hands in his. “I can make it right, whatever it is.”
“You can’t fix this,” she said through her misery.
“I can’t bear to see you so unhappy. Are you in pain?”
She shook her head. She was in pain yes, but not the kind that a kiss and a Band-Aid would cure. This agony was familiar, one she’d lived with those first weeks and months after losing Michael.
“What can I do to help you?”
Linette closed her eyes. “I want my baby.”
Defeated, Cain buried his head in her lap.
Home offered little solace. Linette sat and stared into the distance. She ate only because it was easier to give in to Cain’s urging than to argue. Each day she gained a little more strength, but she hadn’t the will or the conviction to pull herself out of the lethargy that trapped her emotions.
At night Cain held her in his arms. He hadn’t attempted to make love to her since the accident, in the beginning for practical reasons, later because she had no desire. It had died with their unborn child.
Their once active sex life came to a grinding halt. She shied away from his kisses, and soon he stopped offering them. Linette suspected Cain was losing patience with her, but she couldn’t help herself.
Then one afternoon, about three months after the accident, when spring seemed to burst overnight onto the countryside, Cain came into the house for dinner.
“You’ll never guess what I found this afternoon,” he said conversationally, sitting down at the table and reaching for the bread. “A stray calf. It looks like her mother’s dead. I brought her into the barn for the night.”
“Her mother’s dead?”
“John says this sort of thing is common. I’ll bottle-feed her for a few days and then sell her at the auction.”
After dinner dishes, Linette wandered out to the barn, thinking she’d find an adorable calf to pet. It might be fun to watch Cain feed it a bottle, she mused.
Instead of a cute, cuddly calf, Linette found a scroungy-looking thing leaning against the rail, its head drooping to the ground. It was ugly and filthy with cuts and mud caked all across its back side.
“You poor baby,” Linette murmured.
Cain came out of the shed with a milk bottle, looking none too pleased to have to deal with a stray after a long day on the trail.
“John said this should work.”
“I’ll do it,” Linette found herself offering.
Cain looked at her as if he weren’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “You’re sure?”
Linette offered him a small smile and reached for the makeshift bottle. Although Cain made an excuse and left her, Linette knew he wasn’t far away. More than likely he was waiting to come running when she called.
“Hello there, Funny Face,” she said gently, moving into the pen where the calf waited. She patted her hand against the top of its head. Not having been around live-stock much, she wasn’t sure what to expect.
She certainly didn’t anticipate feeding a calf from an old milk bottle to be as easy as it turned out. Funny Face took to the improvised method as if born to it. She drank the last drop and then raised her ugly face to look at Linette with big brown eyes.
The following day, just before Cain had left with John Stamp, Linette asked, “What about the stray?”
Cain muttered something under his breath. “I forgot to feed her. Could you give her another bottle for me?”
She nodded, when that was what she’d wanted him to ask her all along. Why she should be so shy about it, she didn’t know.
After the men were gone Linette wandered out to the barn. Funny Face rushed to the gate to greet her. For the next few days the calf mewled and came running the instant she caught sight of Linette.
Despite her depression, Linette found herself smiling at the ugly heifer. The calf wasn’t so much interested in her as she was in the milk bottle.
After a week, when Funny Face had finished her morning feeding, Linette decided to give the heifer a long overdue bath. The entire back side of the stray was caked in thick, dark mud.
By the time she finished, Linette was convinced all she’d done was transfer the mud from Funny Face to herself. Cain found her like that, on her knees on the barn floor, brushing the snarls out of the calf’s tangled hair, talking to the disgruntled stray in soothing tones.
“Don’t you dare laugh at me, Cain McClellan,” Linette warned. After wrestling with a stray calf for the last two hours, she was in no mood to be teased over her appearance.
“I have no intention of laughing at you,” Cain said, letting himself into the gate. “If anything, I was thinking of kissing you.”
“Kissing me…when I look like this?” Linette gazed down upon her mud-speckled shirt and water-soaked jeans. “Either you’re desperate for a kiss or blind to my many faults.”
“Both,” he assured her.
Deliberately he removed the brush from her hand and set it aside. Then he gathered her in his arms and slowly, in painstaking inches, lowered his mouth to hers.
It had been weeks since he’d touched her this way. Weeks since she’d wanted him. But she desired him now with a strength that left her shaking.
Cain took her mouth fully, slanting his lips across hers, giving her his tongue. The hot rush of sensation took the starch out of Linette’s knees, and she clung to him.
“You left me,” she whispered, trembling. “You broke your word and left.”
“I was wrong,” he whispered huskily. “I’ll never do it again.”
“How can I believe you?”
Cain gently relaxed his hold on her. “I can’t give you a single reason why you should. I’ve been so afraid I’ve ruined everything with my selfishness. It’s because of me that we lost the baby. It’s because of me that you were in the car accident. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to forget that.”
“It’s over now.”
“But it isn’t,” Cain said bitterly. “Each night I hold you in my arms and wonder if our lives will ever be the same again. If I were any kind of man, I’d release you, but I haven’t got the courage to let you go. I need you too damn much.”
“I need you, too.”
“I’m asking for a second chance. God knows I don’t deserve it, but I’ve learned my lesson, honey. I discovered what Mallory did when he realized he was in love with Francine. I didn’t have the heart for fighting anymore. I left it with you.”
“You’re sure this time?”
“Positive. There’s nothing more I want in this life than to settle down on this ranch with you at my side. I like it. Even John’s surprised by how well I’ve taken to managing a herd.” He laced his hands together at the small of her back. “But it means nothing without you. Are you willing to give me a second chance?” He brushed his lips close to her ear. “I promise to make it worth your while.”
Linette snuggled close into her husband. “I’m willing to put the past behind us.” All at once the future looked clear and bright.
“Let’s go inside,” Cain said, breathing hard and fast.
“I’m a mess.”
“You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.” He captured her lower lip between his teeth and sucked gently.
“Do you mean to have your way with me, Cain McClellan?”
“Without a doubt.”
“It isn’t even noon.” She didn’t know why she was putting up arguments when she was as eager for her husband as he was for her.
“I don’t care what time it is.”
“Eleven-fifteen.”
Cain chuckled. “You know what they say about striking when the iron is hot.” He kissed her again and it was wet and wild and Linette swore the two of them sizzled together.
Their mouths were fused together when Cain hoisted her into his arms and carried her across the barnyard and directly into the house.
“Take off your spurs,” Linette cried as he started across her kitchen floor.
Muttering under his breath, Cain set her back on her feet and removed his spurs. Then, for no reason she could think of, he sat down and with some difficulty removed his cowboy boots as well.
“Anything else?” he asked.
Linette laughed. “Oh, yes, lots more.”
Cain grinned and lifted her into his arms once again. He couldn’t seem to make it more than two or three stair steps before he’d stop and kiss her. Their lips mated, and he used the time to unfasten another button of her western-style blouse. By the time they reached the top of the stairway, she was half naked, embarrassed someone might see her in her skimpy underwear.
“I need a bath,” she protested.
“Later,” he promised, and carried her into their bedroom. He laid her on the bed and stared down on her. His eyes were bright with need, bright with love.
“I’ve missed you so damn much,” he whispered.
Linette helped him undress, her hands aggressively removing his clothes. His hips were taut and lean, and the evidence of exactly how much he’d missed her was all too evident.
Linette drew her husband on top of her, and wet, warm feelings of welcome erupted inside of her. He slid between her legs and with restrained savagery sank into her.
Linette cried out at the unexpected rush of pleasure.
Cain emitted a low, guttural sound. His hips began an immediate rhythm, the beat strong and steady. Linette followed his lead, her body surging up to meet his eager thrusts. It had been so long. She’d forgotten how good the lovemaking was between them, how good they were together.
She needed him now as never before, as she might possibly never need him again.
Her release came like an explosion. She cried out and whimpered and clung to him, crying and laughing both at once. Cain followed her shortly and seemed to share the same cataclysmic experience.
Cain’s breathing was hard and fast as he lay sprawled across her. He was heavy, but she needed the heavy feel of him. Needed him. It felt good to say that, if only to herself.
Linette smiled up at her husband.
He smiled down on her, then kissed her long and sweetly with an uncharacteristic lack of haste. Tunneling his fingers through her hair, he raised his mouth a mere inch from hers.
“What changed?”
She knew what he was asking but wasn’t sure she had the answer. “Funny Face needed me,?
?? was the only explanation she had to offer.
“Hell, woman, I’ve been walking around like a wounded calf for three months, and it didn’t so much as faze you.”
“We’re going to be all right now,” she said, brushing the hair from his temples. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“I’ll never leave you again,” Cain promised, and he said the words as if speaking a solemn vow.
“I know.” She became thoughtful, thinking of the men of Deliverance Company. “Murphy’s not so bad, you know. He’s just a poor misguided soul. What he really needs is a wife to straighten him out.”
“Is that what you’ve done to me? Straightened me out?”
Linette had to think about that. Smiling, she shook her head. “No. All I had to do was love you.”
Cain buried his face in her neck and linked their bodies. “Let me love you again.”
“Yes,” she whispered, placing her arms around his neck. Soon her body sang and her breathing stopped, only to start again in startled gasps of ecstasy. All that was necessary was love. She had the feeling it would be all they needed the rest of their lives.
Acknowledgments
I loved writing this story. Most of you realize that no book is a single person’s effort. Each endeavor has a multitude of contributors. From the beginning of this project I have felt incredibly blessed. I’d like to thank those who helped along the way.
I deeply appreciate Karen Solem and Carolyn Marino for allowing me the freedom to write something completely different. Mercenary and angels. It’s a wonder they aren’t pulling their hair out over me.
My agent, Irene Goodman, is the best cheerleader any writer could ever have. Thanks, Irene, for sticking in there with me.
My family deserves special thanks, too. Especially my husband, Wayne, who after nearly twenty-seven years still loves me, even though I make him pack his own lunch. My children, Jody, Jenny, Ted, and Dale—I’m so proud of you, I could just burst. Now all you need do is supply me with grandchildren.