Authors: Sarah McCarty
“I’ve never told you no.”
“But you’ve never welcomed me, either.”
Except for that first night. He couldn’t get the memory of that first night out of his head, which went a long way to adding to his frustration.
She stared at him for a full minute, all the emotion churning inside visible in those big blue eyes. Fear, want, fear, frustration, fear, hunger and then that blank, protective nothing that she thought fooled everyone. “I can’t be the woman you want me to be.”
“You already are. You just need to accept it.” He reached for the salve.
“What’s that?”
He didn’t miss the way her eyes flicked to his cock before her lips slipped between her teeth. He sighed. “Salve for the cuts Cantankerous left, Gypsy, nothing more.”
Her shoulders visibly slumped with relief. And that ticked him off. She’d enjoyed her time with him. Why would she think the next would be different? “Don’t worry. When I get around to claiming your ass, you’ll get plenty of notice.”
He grabbed the jar and stood as she gasped at the crudity of his flat statement. All the color had leeched from her face, and her eyes were huge. He refused to feel guilty for it. “Don’t look so shocked. Underneath, all men are the same—just waiting to pounce.”
The small shake of her head disturbed the current of his rage. “Not you.”
“You have a strange way of showing it if you really believe that.” He directed her with of flick of his finger. “Move your hair out of the way.”
She pulled her braid over her shoulder. There was an angry scratch on her neck. He stopped himself a second before he touched her skin. As mad as he was, he didn’t want to inadvertently hurt her. “He got you good here.”
And that pissed him off more. She’d suffered because she wouldn’t come to him. “Next time you ask me when something doesn’t seem to be going right.”
Her whispered “I’m sorry” barely penetrated the anger hazing his thoughts.
“I’m spending altogether too much time making you safe for you to put yourself at risk out of nothing more than sheer stubbornness.”
The muscles under his fingertips tensed. Over Desi’s head, he could see her fingers curl around the spoon.
This time her tone wasn’t so soft. “I was doing what you told me to do.”
“Which was?”
“You told me to learn.”
“And that means you can’t ask for help when you need it?”
The salve melted into the heat of her skin, the light shine enhancing the vulnerability to her nape and the vivid red cut that marred it.
The answer rapped out short and sweet. “I did.”
“When?”
“In the barn.”
When she’d burst in hollering, scaring the bejeezus out of him and the stallion had busted loose and almost gotten to her. After she’d been cut up by Cantankerous. He touched an older scar just to the right. More than once. Nothing she did made sense. “Desi girl, this place you come from, what exactly did you do there?”
The fingers clenching the spoon tightened. “Nothing important.”
Judging from where Cantankerous had sunk his claws, she had to have been pecked on her head. Caine sifted through her hair with his fingertips, finding the spots easily. Tank had nailed her five times. He put the salve on the table and parted her hair. “Care to elaborate?”
“No.” The set of her chin was as mulish as her tone.
He smoothed the salve into the small puncture. “If I hazard a guess, will you be mad?”
Her immediate agreement stirred his humor into the crazy mix of his emotions. “Well, prepare yourself for a temper tantrum.”
She didn’t look up as she asked, just grasped that spoon, “Why do you do this?”
“Do what?”
“Push and pry at things better left alone?”
He placed salve on the last three peck marks. “Maybe because I don’t think they’re best left alone.”
“Because you’re not happy?”
He wiped his hand on the towel. “I admit the fact that you’re not making me happy has something to do with it.”
She turned and glared at him. “You’re not making me happy, either.”
He eyed the spoon she held in her hand like a dagger. There was a whole lot of rage in that tight grip. “There’s also that. Which would be why I’m always poking and prying, as you call it. And—” he poured the cream into her coffee “—why I’m going to hazard a guess that your main job was looking pretty.”
The spoon twisted and then speared into the coffee cup. “I did it very well.”
He replaced the mug of cream on the table. “Seeing as I could spend all day looking at you without wearing out my eyes, I’m going to bet you did, but that might have been something for you to tell me earlier.”
“Why? So you can convince yourself I’m even more useless?”
He turned his chair around and straddled it, resting his arm across the back as he studied her. There was a light flush on her creamy cheeks and her pulse was pounding in her throat twice normal speed. She was agitated, but damn if he could tell whether it was from fear, anger or desire. She took a sip of her coffee. The rapid blinking of her eyes could have been from the heat of the beverage, or it could have been tears.
He hooked his finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. Sure enough, her eyes were wet and this close, there was no missing the lines of strain radiating outward from the edges. “Ah, hell.”
She was upset.
Her eyes narrowed and her lips flattened to a straight line, and that fast, all signs of vulnerability fled her expression.
“Just because my family had a lot of money doesn’t mean I’m useless. I can learn.”
He just wanted to snatch her up and hold her close, but as prickly as she was, she’d probably slap his head off for the attempt. “I’ve never considered you useless, Desi.”
“But you’ve never considered me useful, either.”
She had him there. “And you need me to think of you as useful?”
“Yes.”
“So I won’t send you away when the time comes?”
She nodded as if that clarified everything.
“And this coming time, when is it?”
She didn’t answer immediately, and he didn’t let her hide from him by ducking her head. Which actually, beyond one little attempt, didn’t seem to be her main inclination. The spoon hit the table with a thud. “When they come for me.”
“You’re expecting them to come?”
“He won’t let me go.”
“
He
already has. We’re married.”
The look she gave him was pitying, as if he didn’t understand something basic. “That won’t matter to him.”
“Sweetheart, in your mind he might be the biggest, baddest hombre to cross the San Antonio, but in reality, he’s just a man.”
If she’d argued, he would have felt better. Instead, she just stared at him. Clearly, she felt the mystery man was invulnerable. He tucked a tendril of hair off her cheek and came at her from another angle.
“What makes you so sure, even if he comes, that I’ll let you go?”
She didn’t flinch from the question, didn’t flinch from his stare. She just watched him in that unnaturally quiet way and said, “Because he’ll hurt those you love until you do.”
He could see she believed that to the bottom of her soul. He let the knowledge sink in, sorted through it, weighed it. Tried to imagine how such terrifying certainty would color the way he saw things. How he did things. The decisions he made.
He picked up her coffee and handed it to her. “He’ll come after Tia and the others?”
She blinked, as if just realizing he was there. After staring at it for a second, she took it. He waited two sips for her comeback, and when it came, it about broke his heart with the courage it displayed. “It would probably be better if you sent me back now.”
The “so no one else gets hurt” went unspoken, but he heard it nonetheless. He digested that. She was willing to sacrifice herself so Tia and the others didn’t get hurt. She’d tried to sacrifice herself so her sister could get away. He stood. And every night she sacrificed herself in his bed. The reason for that he wasn’t sure of yet, but he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer when he got it.
“I think I’ll hold off on that, though I do appreciate the offer.” He slid his chair back under the table, took the cup from her hand and placed it beside his. “Give me your hand.”
“Why?”
“I’ve a need to hold you without giving myself a crick.”
She placed her palm in his. “I don’t need to be held.”
He pulled her to her feet. “I didn’t say you needed to be.”
As soon as she was tucked against him, the violent waves subsided, coalesced and he could think. “You’ve been wrestling with some pretty big monsters, haven’t you, Gypsy?”
No response. “Monsters you’ve been afraid to tell me about for fear of who might get hurt.”
Still no response.
“And maybe fear of what you might lose?”
The warmth of her breath stuttered to a halt. Her ribs pressed against his arms as she went rigid. If it wasn’t for the nails digging into his chest, he might have thought she’d had a fit. But those nails were pressing deep, spasming with the fear shuddering through her.
He brushed a kiss over the top of her head. “I bet you couldn’t believe your lucky stars when you married up with me. A man with my reputation would certainly give any threat pause, and with my connections, had a lot to offer in your hunt for your sister.”
“It wasn’t like that.” The whisper rushed out on the breath she’d been holding.
“What was it then?”
She shrugged. “Things just happened.”
He nipped her attempt to push out of his embrace in the bud.
“And you took advantage of them.”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
He opened his hand across her back, centering his palm between her shoulder blades, the delicacy of her build reinforcing the narrowness of her options. She was a resourceful woman. “So you did the best you could. You used me.”
She cringed as if that were a bad thing. “I’m sorry.”
He tipped her face up. Her eyes were dark with worry. “You fretting my feelings are hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Well, don’t. People have tried to use me before for a whole lot less reason.”
“But I never wanted to be one of them.”
“But you were, and now you owe me.”
He let the “again” hang unspoken between them.
“What do you want?”
“Five minutes of honesty.”
W
hat did he think five minutes would gain? Desi stared up at him as he rubbed her back. He was always touching her, tempting her, caring for her, and it always made her feel so bad, because she didn’t deserve it.
He was a good man. Hard enough to survive in this land, but good. He deserved better than to be used; better than what she’d become. He deserved a woman like she used to be. Innocent, uncorrupted. Unknowing. Considering all that, the least she could give him was honesty.
“I can spare five minutes.”
She pulled out a chair. He didn’t say a word as she sat. Just watched her in that way he had, assessing every inhale and exhale, probably every involuntary twitch of her muscles, cataloging it all so he’d know if she lied. Unreasoning resentment flowed through her at the suspicion in his look.
“I can tell the truth, you know.”
He reached across her for his coffee, his scent and strength enfolding her, making her want to reach up and cling. “I don’t recall saying you couldn’t.”
“You didn’t have to. Your stare said it all.”
His lips quirked as he straightened. “That’ll save on conversation in the future, but today, just in case I’m reading you wrong, like you have a habit of reading me wrong…” He took a sip of coffee. “I think I’ll take advantage of my five minutes.”
“There’s only four now.”
“You had the clock running while negotiating?”
“Yes.” She wasn’t big on inquisitions.
Caine leaned his hip against the table. “You don’t play fair.”
He didn’t say it like it was a bad thing, which made her more suspicious. “I never said I did. You’re the one who keeps making me out to be more than I am.”
“So you keep telling me.”
The brush of his thumb on her cheek was soft, even comforting. She wanted to push it away, but to do so would lead him to look for the reason, and she didn’t want him looking any deeper than the surface, because truth be told, she was too vulnerable to him and the fairy tale he liked to paint that the past didn’t matter, that he could keep her safe, that he would even want to once the newness wore off and he started thinking about what he’d truly been shackled to. After a couple seconds, his lips quirked.
“Did you come from back east?”
“Yes.”
“Did your people come from money?”
She thought of the house, the conveniences, the servants, the ease of having everything she wanted without any worries. “A lot of it.”