Katie watched, but Jack didn’t give anything away. His posture didn’t change, nor did his body language. She might as well have asked about the weather.
“I was never mad,” he said after a while.
Katie raised her eyebrows. “Of course you were. You had to be furious with me. I was the one leaving for college, when you should have already been there for a year. I got to go away while you were stuck on the ranch. Worse, I wanted you to come with me. I know now that I was tempting you with what you could never have. You had to be angry. I was angry with you.”
That got a reaction out of him. He turned to face her, his gaze narrow, his mouth set in a thin line. “You’ll have to explain that to me. What? You were annoyed that I couldn’t drop everything to come with you? Not that it made any difference. You’re the one who promised to love me forever. And you took all of six months to find some other man and marry him. So what happened, Katie? You get hitched to the first guy who asked you out?”
She’d wanted to know that he still remembered the past, and now she had her answer. Rage radiated from him, much as the sexual heat had years before. Fire flashed in his dark eyes, but the flames had everything to do with broken dreams and nothing to do with desire.
“Just about.” She whispered her confession. “But it’s not what you imagine, Jack. I didn’t love him.”
“That’s supposed to make it better?”
Silence stretched between them. She wanted to touch him, as she had wanted to before. But this time she wanted the physical contact so that she could know it was going to be okay between them. While she’d been going through the torture that was adolescence, Jack had been her best friend. All the years apart hadn’t changed the fact that she missed him.
He drew in a deep breath. “I was angry,” he said grudgingly. “But not in the way you think.”
“Then how? I know I hurt you by getting married. I didn’t mean to.”
“Hurt me or get married?”
His steady gaze unnerved her. She looked past him to the barn. “Both, I guess. I can’t regret Shane. He’s the best part of me.” She smiled. “I know that’s a cliché. All mothers think the same thing, but it’s really true. Shane has been my miracle. So that’s the one positive thing that came out of my very brief marriage.”
“He’s a good kid.”
“Thanks. I know I get to take a little of the credit, but most of it is him.” She risked glancing at Jack. His expression didn’t seem quite so hard. “I thought it would be different,” she admitted. “My life, my future. I wanted you to leave the ranch and come with me. I wanted us to be in a place where we could admit our feelings in public. I was very young and selfish. I’m sorry for that.”
She paused, but he didn’t speak. She wondered what he was thinking. Did her confession matter to him? Did the past still live or had he put it so far behind him that he couldn’t remember what it looked like anymore?
“We were both young,” he said slowly. “I knew you wanted me to go with you, and I couldn’t.”
“I see that now, but at the time all I could think was that you didn’t love me enough. Or at least not as much as I loved you.” She grimaced. “That was my interpretation of events. As for marrying the first young man who asked me out, I think I wanted to know that there was someone who wanted to marry me even if you didn’t. I had something to prove.”
“In what way?”
She still couldn’t look at him. She turned her attention to Nora’s car-a dark shape in the starlight. But it wasn’t enough to distract her from the whispers of pain. So long ago Jack had been her world. He’d hurt her desperately, not just by refusing to leave the ranch to be with her, but before.
“You changed,” she said in a whisper. “After you graduated from high school. You were different. Withdrawn. Looking back now, I can see that you were probably making the transition from teenager to adult. Suddenly you weren’t the football hero anymore-you were in charge of a working ranch. Old Bill Smith retired and your mom was busy with the other kids. So you had to go it alone. But I didn’t recognize that…at least not in time. I thought you were rejecting me.”
“Never that, Katie.” He hesitated. “You’re right about the rest of it, though. After high school everything was different.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”
“I guess.”
“You thought about this a lot,” he said.
She shrugged. “I’ve had plenty of time to work it out. Sitting up through the night with a sick child gives one a chance to revisit the past.”
“Was he sick a lot?”
“No. Nothing like me who caught every bug in a hundred mile radius and then some. Shane’s a healthy kid, and I’m grateful. I meant the usual stuff. Colds, fevers.”
She looked at him again and found him studying her face. She returned the interest, examining features she’d thought about over the years, noticing the changes and the similarities. Time had been kind to him, turning him from a good-looking teenager to a handsome man.
Jack smiled slowly. The corners of his eyes crinkled, and her stomach lurched in response. She found herself leaning toward him, wanting to hear whatever magic words fell from his firm lips.
Down girl, she told herself. While she was able to control her reaction around other men, Jack still had the ability to make her go weak at the knees. It probably had something to do with him being her first love.
“I’ve spent time with Shane and seen you with him. I know he’s your son,” Jack said. “But I have to admit I have trouble thinking of you as the mother of a ten-year-old.”
She splayed her hands, palms up. “That’s me.”
He drew one leg to his chest and rested his arm on his raised knee. “You and Shane both mentioned you were having difficulties with your dad. Is that any better?”
“Not really.” Katie looked at the stars, even though she knew there weren’t going to be any answers there. “My father doesn’t appreciate Shane. All he sees are the differences between them. But I’ve talked to my contractor, and our new house will be ready in seven weeks. I’m guessing we can hold out that long.”
“Tell me about the house,” he said.
Jack listened as Katie talked about three bedrooms and an eat-in kitchen. He couldn’t relate to living anywhere but on the Darby ranch. At one time he and Katie had planned a future together. Who would have thought things would turn out so differently?
“You’re nothing like Aaron,” Katie was saying. “You’ve lived similar lives on the same land, doing the same kind of work, but you’re very different men.”
“I’m like my father,” Jack said flatly, knowing that was the heart of the problem. When he’d been a boy everyone had said he was exactly like Russell Darby-charming, fun-loving. But all that had changed when he’d realized what his father had done by walking out on his family without once looking back. Since that day Jack had struggled to destroy everything his father might have taught him.
“You’re not like him at all,” Katie protested. “You have physical features from both your parents, but in temperament, you’re much more like your mother.”
Her words pleased him. He’d worked hard to make them true. He smiled faintly. Trust Katie to see him as he wanted to be seen. She’d always believed the best in him. When he hadn’t thought he could do anything right, when he’d been all of sixteen and had been trying to grasp the extent of his responsibility, Katie had been the one to convince him he could do it if he wanted to. Her trust and faith had given him the strength to keep trying.
But there were things about him that she couldn’t know. Ways in which he’d come far too close to being Russell Darby-a man who’d walked out on a ranch, a wife and seven children.
He looked at her with the porch light turning her blond hair the color of gold. She wore a sweater over slacks. The soft clingy fabric of her top showed him that she was still as curvy as he remembered. Growing up, she’d been his fantasy. Despite time and distance and good sense, he found himself wondering how it would be between them tonight. They were different. Not children who had fallen in love, but adults who understood the logistics of what went where and how good it could be…even between strangers.
She tilted her head. “You should have asked me to stay.”
He knew what she meant. That summer, when she’d been leaving for college and had wanted him to go with her. Instead of refusing, he should have asked her to stay here…with him.
“No,” he said.
“Yes.” She leaned toward him. “I would have done it. I would have done anything for you. I loved you-you were my world.”
He swore under his breath. “Your world, as you call it, was out in front of you, waiting to be explored. You knew everything there was to know about Lone Star Canyon. You deserved more than this. You wanted more than this.”
He knew all about wanting. Once he’d had wants and dreams, but they’d faded until he could barely remember what they’d been. Once he’d wanted a wife and a family. Not anymore. Love didn’t last, and women didn’t stay.
“Interesting that despite your plans for my destiny, I ended up right back here,” she said. “I wish you hadn’t been so self-sacrificing. I think we could have made it.”
He dismissed her comment. “It doesn’t matter.” But what he wanted to say was, “Don’t talk about it.” Because revisiting the past would start to hurt. He might not remember his hopes for the future, but the pain was still fresh. The pain of having to be in the one place he didn’t want to be; the pain of giving her up, of being nineteen and completely alone and responsible for the well-being of his family. The pain of spending every minute of his life not being his father. Of figuring out he was always going to be alone.
“When you tell me it doesn’t matter I start to think I wasn’t very important to you at all,” she confessed. Her gaze settled somewhere in the center of his chest. She tucked a few loose curls behind her ear and tried to smile. “Silly, huh? It was a long time ago. But it’s weird to think you’ve forgotten it all so easily.”
Without realizing what he was going to do, he reached out and grabbed her upper arms. “What do you want from me, Katie? To know that having you walk away ripped out my guts? That I almost didn’t make it without you?” He shook her slightly. “Guess what? I did make it, because no matter how dramatic it seems at nineteen, no one dies of a broken heart.”
Her eyes sparkled, and for a moment he thought she might be fighting tears. “I know,” she whispered. “I’m being silly. It’s just after all this time, I’m sorry you weren’t my first. Dumb, huh?”
Dumb and wonderful and Lord almighty, how had she known exactly where to stick the knife? He felt the sharp blade slide between his ribs with a surgeon’s precision.
“I wish things had been different,” she went on as if she couldn’t see the bleeding. “I wish you remembered it the way I did and that it had been important to you the way it had been important to me.”
He released her because her warmth burned him. He looked away, at the barn that had fascinated her earlier. “Why is that so important?” he asked. “We were wrong for each other then and we’d be wrong for each other now.”
“I’m not looking for a relationship, either.”
“Then why are you digging up bones?”
“Because I have questions.”
He returned his attention to her beautiful face. Her blue eyes were dark in the porch light, glinting wide pools, and he found himself poised to dive in.
“You always were fearless,” he told her. “That hasn’t changed, has it?”
“I hope not. Sometimes I get scared, but I do whatever it is anyway. I think it’s because-”
Later he would tell himself he wasn’t sure who reached for whom. But his gut knew the truth. He knew he was the one who grabbed her arms again, but not to shake her. Instead he drew her close. But she reacted so quickly, hugging him, sliding against him in a heartbeat, that he was nearly able to convince himself they’d acted in tandem.
One minute she was talking and the next his mouth came down on hers. Lips touched, bodies pressed and the explosion sent them into a time warp. Suddenly it was eleven years ago and they were young and in love and close to dying if they didn’t kiss one more time. He could feel the warm nestling of her breasts against his chest. Her scent was familiar, as was her heat. Her lips tasted exactly as he remembered, only better, if that were possible.
He told himself to back off, to stop it, to end what was obviously insanity, but he couldn’t. He could only hold her close and brush her bottom lip with his tongue.
She parted for him instantly. Parted and breathed his name. He swept inside her, taking a familiar path of exploration. Need thundered through him, arousing him, making him want with a power he’d never experienced before. He touched her back, her sides, her face, wanting to know all of her. She returned his caresses. Her small, sure hands moved across his shoulders, then down his spine.
Somehow he managed to shift until he was under her and she was straddling his lap. Her feminine heat rested on his arousal, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted more-he wanted it all. Her. Katie. Naked, willing, ready in every way possible.
She wrapped her arms around his neck. The kiss deepened. He was so close, he had a sudden terrifying thought that he was going to lose control, like some teenager. He cupped her face, because touching her anywhere else was too dangerous. His thumbs brushed across her cheeks. His fingers buried themselves in her hair. She breathed his name again. Her voice was thick with desire.
“I want you,” he murmured.
She slid against him, riding his hardness. “I know the feeling.”
“We could-”
But he never said what they could do. Before he finished the sentence, the sound of childish laughter reminded him who she was and where they were. Her son was in the house, as were his mother and sister.
Katie must have heard the laughter, too, because she scrambled off him and stood staring at him, her mouth swollen, her face flushed, her expression stunned. Her chest rose and fell in time with her rapid breaths.
He didn’t know what to think, let alone say. So he did what was easy. He got to his feet and left without saying a word.
By midnight Katie figured out she wasn’t going to get a lot of sleep. After lying in bed for an hour, she’d tried drinking warm milk and listening to soft music. Unfortunately she was still tense, her mind whirling in a thousand different directions.
Jack had kissed her. Really, passionately kissed her. She’d known she’d been attracted to him over the past couple of weeks, but she hadn’t realized that her body had reached a point of such incredible longing. Just the feel of his mouth on hers had been enough to make her resolve about going it alone crumble. She’d wanted to be with him in the most intimate way possible. She didn’t care about their confusing past, her complicated present or the lack of any mutual future. She didn’t want to talk about what was sensible or right. She didn’t want to talk at all. If she hadn’t heard her son’s laugh, who knows what she might have done.
Katie paced to the window of her bedroom and stared into the night. She acknowledged the unfortunate truth of the situation. She knew exactly what she would have done. If Jack hadn’t stopped her, she would have made love with him right there on the porch.
“Talk about a complication,” she murmured. Ignoring the fact that they could have been caught by an assortment of people, what on earth had she been thinking? She didn’t need or want a man in her life. At least she hadn’t thought that she did. After all, she’d sworn off the gender for the next eight or nine years. So why were her thighs on fire and her hands trembling at the thought of being close to and kissing Jack Darby?
It was crazy, she told herself. Worse, it was dangerous. Jack had always had the power to hurt her, and she doubted that had changed. Time might have given her life experiences and a bit more wisdom, but she didn’t think it had toughened her heart. Besides, she didn’t just have herself to think about. She didn’t have to be a psychology expert to realize that her son was getting a serious case of hero worship where Jack was concerned. Getting romantically involved with the man would only make Shane vulnerable. Something she absolutely didn’t want.
Katie rested her forehead against the cool glass of her window. She felt restless and confused. Why had his kiss been so amazing? Why couldn’t she have been left cold by his touch? She’d never considered herself very wild, sexually. While she enjoyed the act, she didn’t ache to make love. Except now she found herself nearly vibrating from need. The tension and the wanting were both uncomfortable and unfamiliar.
And why, if she finally had to discover this part of herself, did it have to be with Jack? They were completely wrong for each other in a million different ways. She paused then closed her eyes when she realized she couldn’t come up with a single one. Except for the ongoing problem between their families, she and Jack actually had a lot in common.
“This is not good news,” she murmured with a sigh. “Remember what happened last time you tried to let a man in your life.”
Good point, she thought. Zach had been a doctor at one of the hospitals where she’d worked in Dallas. He’d been handsome, charming, patient and she’d thought they might have a future together. He got along with Shane, and while her son wasn’t wildly enthused about her boyfriend, he didn’t make trouble. But even after several months of dating Zach, Katie had known something was wrong. The problem was she hadn’t been able to put her finger on the exact issue. She and Zach couldn’t seem to get emotionally close. Then Zach had told her why.
Katie turned from the window and walked to her bed. She settled onto the mattress and tried to relax. But even with the covers pulled up to her chin, she found herself shivering. She wasn’t sure if it was the temperature in the room or her memories. Maybe both.
Because while Zach had told her he loved her and wanted to marry her, he’d also told her that he wasn’t interested in raising another man’s child. Katie still recalled the perfection of the white linen on Zach’s kitchen table. He’d invited her over to his place for dinner and, as he’d requested, she’d left Shane with a sitter. Zach had carefully spelled out his plans for their lives. His practice in Dallas grew bigger each year. He wanted them to buy a large house in an exclusive neighborhood and have two children of their own. He talked about country club memberships, luxury vacations, her own Mercedes. Then he’d pulled out a beautiful diamond engagement ring. There was only one catch-he wanted Shane to go live with her parents.
“Our marriage won’t stand a chance,” he’d said so calmly, she’d thought he couldn’t possibly be saying what she thought she heard. “A child from a previous marriage creates division between the natural parent and the stepparent. Plus what about the child we want to have together?” What it came down to was him or Shane.
Katie wasn’t as shocked by what he proposed as she was by the realization she’d never known him. How could she have dated this man for nearly a year, made love with him and even thought about marrying him when all the time he’d been planning fifty ways to get rid of her son?
She explained that if he was asking her to choose, there wasn’t a choice. Shane was her life. She’d left Zach that day and had never once regretted the decision. But what hadn’t been so easy to put behind her was the realization that she’d made such a terrible mistake. Marrying on the rebound at eighteen was one thing. She understood how it had happened and she’d learned from the experience. But this was different. She’d been ten years older and, in theory, ten years wiser. So why had she screwed up again?
So far her record in the male department was pretty dismal, which meant her decision to avoid entanglements until Shane was older and less likely to be hurt was a good one.
Katie stared at the ceiling. Nothing was as she thought it would be, she admitted to herself. She’d thought moving back to Lone Star Canyon would give Shane the extended family he needed to continue to develop into a happy, healthy adult. She’d assumed telling herself she wasn’t interested in a relationship with a man meant that she wouldn’t even be attracted to one. She’d thought it would all be so much easier here.
She’d been wrong on every count. Worse, she found herself caught up in an attraction to a man who had once broken her heart. The irony was, Jack was the best man she’d ever known, heartbreaker or not. He was the benchmark by which all the other men in her life had been measured, and every one of them had come up short.
He wasn’t her destiny. They could never make a relationship between them work. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t interested in her except possibly as a temporary sexual partner. Which left her wide-awake and staring at the ceiling. So much for the thought that coming home after all this time would be easy. Now what was she supposed to do?