Renegade Father (15 page)

And now to find that a piece of that life had been rightfully his all along was the most bitter of pills.

“I
am
sorry, Joe,” she went on quietly, sadly. “I thought I was protecting you and Leah but I can see now that I was wrong. You both had the right to know the truth.”

She rose from the table and took their dishes to the sink. He sat there for several moments, listening to the clatter of dishes as she washed them while he pondered her words and all the twisted events that had led them here.

Fate could be a real bastard sometime. He thought of that summer, how guilt had sent him running but how he had ultimately come back to make things right.

Her memory had haunted him through every single moment of the three months he worked at that ranch in Great Falls and he'd gotten to the point finally where he couldn't deny his feelings for her anymore.

He had somehow found the guts to come back and face her, to see if there was any way they could work out the vast differences between them, but fate had played a cruel trick.

The day he had planned to see her, he ended up in jail for killing his father, forever destroying any happily-ever-after he might have had with Annie.

He couldn't blame all of this on her. If he hadn't taken off, if he had been man enough to face the con
sequences of his actions, she wouldn't have found herself pregnant, alone and scared.

And if he hadn't been so adamantly determined not to allow her to see him while he was incarcerated—first in the county lockup and then in the state pen—she might have found a way to let him know she was expecting his baby.

He had shut everyone out during those dismal years in prison, especially Annie. When he was first arrested, before he'd pled out and been transferred, it had been self-preservation. He knew he couldn't have survived seeing her so vibrant and alive there amid the dregs of society, knowing she was now forever out of his reach.

He'd longed for her, dreamed of her, though. Even from a distance she had been his salvation, the one shining light in his life.

But then he had learned she married Charlie and he had ruthlessly done his damnedest to exorcise her from his heart.

It obviously hadn't worked.

She finished the last dish then came to stand beside the table, her green eyes troubled and sorrowful. She drew in a deep breath then met his gaze. “Can I ask you something now?”

He had to look away from the impact of those eyes. “What?”

“Why did you leave town after…after that afternoon out there by the lake? I tried to think what I might have done to drive you away and the only thing I could think is that you were ashamed of me, of what we did.”

He straightened as guilt swamped him again. “No. Not you, Annie. Never you.”

She twisted her hands together. “So why did you take some nowhere job in Great Falls without so much
as a phone call? I needed you. As my friend, if nothing else.”

His first instinct urged him to keep quiet—she had lied to him for thirteen years, after all. But then he thought of the girl she had been, how she had completely opened her heart to him the way no one else ever had, and helped heal a broken little boy.

He thought of how sweetly she had given herself to him on the banks of the lake, at how scared she must have been after her father's death, and how he had abandoned her just when she needed him most.

He owed that girl the truth, no matter how painful it was to admit.

“The only person I was ashamed of was myself. I was running from me. I took advantage of you when you were vulnerable and hurting. The day of your father's funeral, for Pete's sake. I should never have kissed you at all that day and I sure as hell shouldn't have made love to you. I didn't want to face you—I
couldn't
face you—and so I ran.”

She was quiet for several moments and the only sound in the cabin was the howling of the wind and the fire's murmur. Finally she spoke. “You didn't take advantage of me. I made my own choice long before you kissed me.”

He stared at her. “What?”

“Come on, Joe. You had to know. Everybody else did.”

“Know what?”

“That I loved you.”

Shock rippled through him as he scrambled to figure out how to answer that. Finally he cleared his throat. “We were friends. Of course you cared about me, just like I cared about you.”

Her laughter was harsh, caustic and completely out
of character for her. “See, there was the whole problem. To you I was always sweet little Annie, your buddy, your pal. You refused to see me as anything else.”

He didn't set her straight—what would be the point in confessing he'd had the same feelings for her? Thirteen years and a whole lot of miles had passed since. Everything had changed.

She met his gaze again. “That day of my father's funeral, I knew I had to put away that little girl for the last time and finally grow up. And if I was going to have to become a woman, I was damn well going to do it in your arms.”

Stunned, he could only stare at her. He had spent thirteen years ashamed of himself, always considering that afternoon the day had sunk to the lowest point in his life. He had much more to answer for in his actions that day than what had happened with his father three months after.

And now to learn that she had fully intended to give herself to him was almost as astounding as learning what had resulted from that one brief afternoon.

“So where do we go from here?” she asked, when he didn't reply. “What are we going to do about Leah?”

He looked up and frowned when he saw how pale she was. She looked completely hammered.

Little wonder, after the tumultuous day they'd been through. “We don't have to figure everything out tonight. I don't think that storm is going to quit anytime soon so why don't you try to get some sleep? We can discuss all of this in the morning.”

She opened her mouth as if to argue, then she nodded.

Long after she finally drifted off, he stayed awake in that splintery, hard-backed chair, revisiting the past and reconsidering the future.

H
e awoke cold and aching before dawn after just a few hours of fitful sleep.

The only sound in the cabin now was the wind, down to a muted moan instead of the shrieking fury of earlier. The woodstove no longer popped and buzzed and the cabin lay in frigid darkness.

The fire must have burned itself out like the storm, he realized. With a fervent wish for the comforts of an automatic furnace, he slipped out of the cot to the icy floor, moving slowing and carefully so he didn't awaken Annie, then quietly added a pile of kindling to the few remaining embers.

The kindling caught quickly and it only took a few moments for him to have the blaze again burning brightly.

He hadn't bothered with the lantern and the only light was the red-orange glow from the glass door of the woodstove. Still, it was enough for him to see her sleep
ing in the narrow bed with just her face sticking out of the blankets—the fringe of dark eyelashes fanned out on her cheeks, the little dusting of freckles on her nose, the soft curve of her mouth.

He rested a hip on the scarred old table and studied her. Only for a moment, he promised himself. Only because he wouldn't have many more opportunities like this, just less than two weeks before he would be gone.

She was beautiful, even tousled by sleep and by the emotionally ragged day they had just been through. She didn't have the kind of drop-dead sex appeal of some women. Annie's beauty was softer, gentler.

Like the first frost on the trees in the fall or the pure, radiant blue of a patch of columbines.

He knew she didn't think she was very strong, but he recognized her for what she was—a survivor. Whether she realized it or not, she faced each day with a quiet kind of courage he couldn't even begin to match.

He had always thought she was the prettiest girl he knew but part of her appeal had always been her spunk, that willingness to follow him and Colt into any adventure the older boys might lead.

And her fierce loyalty. There was definitely that. She had befriended him when most of the other kids at school sneered at his threadbare clothing and his Shoshone heritage and his drunk bully of a father.

He could remember exactly the day she'd first taken him under wing, despite the fact that he had been four years older and twice as big.

She was in kindergarten, he was in third grade. He had been the oldest boy in his class since he had missed so much school while his dad moved from job to job that he couldn't keep up with his own grade and had been held back a year.

The first day of school had been lousy to begin with. Al had taken the belt to him before the bus came because he'd forgotten to put the cap back on the toothpaste.

His new teacher, Mrs. Latham, had been an old bat, with a white beehive hairdo and cat-eyed glasses and a mouth that looked like it didn't know how to smile. She'd taken an instant dislike to him, maybe because he was so big and stupid or because he was a dirty Indian or because he'd wiggled and squirmed so much on the hard plastic chair, trying to find a position that didn't hurt his raw backside.

Finally she'd told him that since he didn't know how to sit still, he needed to go spend some time with the rest of the babies in the kindergarten class.

He could vividly recall the shame of walking into that classroom, with its little kid desks and its little kid playhouse and its little kid toys.

He could still feel the remembered ache of tears in his throat, tears he refused to surrender to. He was too big to cry, and besides, his daddy taught him early that bawling only made things worse.

Annie had been sitting in a corner playing trucks with a couple of other boys. She'd looked pretty silly in a ruffly pink dress with bows and lace that clashed terribly with her red hair. Without a wife around to guide him, Sam Calhoun probably thought the dress was just the ticket for a little girl's first day of school.

He smiled now. Annie had probably hated it but she would have dressed in tights and a tutu if she thought it might win her dad's approval.

In her spun-sugar dress and pink ribbons hanging every which way in her hair, she watched him come in and sit by himself on the floor then wrap his hands
around his knees and bury his head in his arms. In typical Annie fashion, she had ignored all his “back-off” signals and hauled her toys over next to him.

She must have sensed he didn't want her there but, undeterred, she played quietly next to him for a moment. And then she'd done something that still amazed him. She'd reached out, grabbed one of his hands and squeezed it tightly.

“Don't be sad,” she said softly in her sing-song little kindergarten voice. “I'll play with you.”

That was probably the moment he first fell in love with her.

Joe straightened from the table, angry at himself for letting the thought sneak through his defenses.

Fell. Past tense. He didn't love her anymore. He was still attracted to her, but that's absolutely all there was to it.

Who was he kidding? He blew out a breath. He still loved her. He'd probably never stopped, even though he'd done his best to convince himself otherwise after she married Charlie.

It didn't matter. Nothing had changed. If anything, he was more determined than ever to leave Madison Valley. All his same reasons for leaving still stood. He needed to move on, to find his own place in the world.

And Annie deserved better than another no-account Redhawk who couldn't even walk into town without whispers and stares following right along behind him.

She stirred a little in her sleep just then and the layer of blankets slipped down below her shoulder, revealing the blue-flowered pattern of her thermals.

He paused for just a moment, debating the wisdom of touching her even this casually, then he sighed. It was too cold in here for her to sleep without covers.
Lightly, quietly, he stepped toward the bed and pulled the blankets back into place.

Despite the care he took not to disturb her, her eyes fluttered a few times then opened. The first emotion flickering there was dread and he bit back a curse at his brother who had brought fear into her life.

The alarm faded quickly when she recognized him and her hand slipped from the blankets to rest on his. “Joe? Is everything okay?” Her voice was rough-edged and sexy from sleep.

“Everything's fine,” he lied gruffly. “Go back to sleep.”

But her eyes remained stubbornly open and a new emotion suddenly flickered in them. Awareness. He watched it kindle to sizzling life just as the fire had and couldn't look away, hypnotized by it like he was by the sultry dance of the flames.

“I was having a dream about you,” she said. “About that afternoon by the lake.”

Heat shot straight to his groin and he could do nothing but stand there with her hand warm on his and and stare at her. Just what the hell was he supposed to say to that?

“I used to dream about it a lot,” she confessed quietly, her green eyes locked with his. “And I would wake up with my face wet with tears, afraid you would never hold me again.”

He felt as if his heart had stopped beating. Raw desire hit him so hard he couldn't breathe, couldn't think straight.

Through the quicksilver haze of need he remembered her words of the night before:
If I was going to have to become a woman, I was damn well going to do it in your arms.

Before he could make his suddenly thick tongue work right to answer her, she sat up in the bed keeping her fingers tightly wrapped around his hand. “Hold me again, Joe,” she whispered. “Please.”

He tried to fight it, tried to remember all the reasons he couldn't, but he had no defenses against the entreaty in her voice or this hot, urgent need. With a strangled curse he dipped his head.

Her mouth was warm and soft from sleep and she sighed his name when he kissed her. He sank down onto the narrow bed beside her and pulled her into his arms.

She melted against him and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him tightly to her. The position put them in close contact, chest to chest, and he could feel the soft, unfettered weight of her breasts pressed against him through the weave of her thermal top.

Every movement, every innocent wriggle, aroused him further and he deepened the kiss.

He slipped his tongue between the seam of her lips then groaned when they parted eagerly. The tip of her tongue slid along the side of his and blood roared in his ears.

The way she brushed against him like that was driving him crazy. With some vague intent to stop it, he reached a hand between their bodies and encountered the curve of one breast.

He groaned again, unable to stop himself from savoring her, from caressing her with his thumb and then cupping her through the material of her shirt. She wasn't exactly well-endowed—although personally he thought she was perfect—so her breast fit exactly right in his big hand.

As he touched her, she inhaled a sexy little breath and arched against him, her head sagging back, but still
she kept her arms tightly around his neck to maintain the connection of their mouths.

She gave a tiny mewl of protest when he pulled his hand away but it changed in midbreath to a sigh when he slipped his hand underneath her shirt. His body pulsed painfully when he encountered warm, willing skin. She was as soft as thistledown and he couldn't get enough of her.

Wanting—needing—more, he pressed her back against the thin mattress of the cot. He wrenched his mouth away from hers and began to trail kisses along the curve of her jawline, down the slender column of her throat, across the bow of her collarbone.

When his mouth closed over one tight peak, she nearly came off the bed.

Through the haze of thick need, in his head a warning bell began to ring.

He had always kept himself on a tight rein. It was vitally important to him, as important as breathing. He knew some people thought he was cold, hard. Emotionless. But it wasn't anything like that. He just had always had to prove to himself that he could control his mind and his body, that he was different from his father, from Charlie.

But he had never been so turned on as he was right now, never had this wild, urgent kind of need that pounded relentlessly through his body. All his precious control was about to fly right out the window and it scared the hell out of him.

No, he'd take that back. He
had
experienced this rage of desire one other time—when he had taken her innocence on the shores of the Butterfly thirteen years ago.

The thought had the same effect as being thrown naked into the snow.

“Stop. We have to stop. Dammit, Annie. We can't do this.”

Her breathing was every bit as ragged as his. “Why not?”

He wanted to bury his head in his hands like he'd done that day in third grade, to do his best to hide away from the world.

He wanted to kiss her again and never, never stop.

He seized on the only excuse he could think of. “Unless you carry something in your saddlebag, we don't have any protection. Look what happened the last time.”

She frowned in confusion for a moment, then understanding dawned along with a blush across her cheeks. He wondered why he found that blossoming color so damn appealing.

“I can't get pregnant, if that's what you're worrying about,” she mumbled, her blush heating up a notch. “I had complications with C.J. and had to have surgery. And as far as sexual history, I've only been with you and with…with Charlie, and the only…” her voice faltered and she looked away. “The last time with him was eight years ago. If he had given me any kind of…of condition, I think it would have appeared by now.”

He gazed at her blushing face in the low light from the woodstove, questions buzzing through his mind. Eight years? What the hell kind of marriage had they had?

He opened his mouth to ask, then shut it with a snap. He had a pretty good idea, but it wasn't his business. And anyway, he wasn't sure he was all too crazy about hearing the answers.

“It's not just that. I'm leaving in two weeks, Annie. Nothing we do here would change that.”

He saw the hurt blossoming in her eyes and he hated himself for putting it there but he wouldn't lie to her. He couldn't in good conscience let her think otherwise.

“I know,” she said, her voice just a whisper of sound in the still of the cabin.

Was she wrong to want the bittersweet joy of having him like this, knowing he would walk away just as he had done the last time?

No. A resounding, unequivocal no.

She had spent more than thirteen years with only that one memory to keep her warm during the bitter, lonely Montana winters. She wanted more. She wanted to know again the taste of his skin and the strength of his arms and the heat of his touch.

His leaving would be hard enough, though, a worried voice in her head reminded her. Wouldn't this only make her sorrow worse, make her miss him more acutely in the long run?

Maybe, she answered it. But at least she would have this memory to comfort her.

The decision made, she reached a hand out to his chest and splayed it against the chamois fabric of his shirt. “I know you're still leaving. But you're here now. As far as I'm concerned, that's all that matters.”

He looked down at her hand and then his gaze met hers. The desire glittering in those black depths like stars in a midnight sky completely took her breath away. “Are you sure, Annie? We can't go back to the way things have been after this.”

She didn't want to go back to the way things had been, to the stilted awkwardness that had buzzed between them since he'd come to work for the Double C.

“Dead sure,” she replied, with a shadow of a smile.

She watched his throat work as he swallowed hard and then he leaned forward to kiss her. Her pulse pounding loudly in her ears, she settled against his mouth with a sigh. This was what she wanted. This was what she had
always
wanted, since before she was old enough to understand the intricate dance between men and women.