His for the Taking

“Someday you’ll find another woman. Maybe she’ll remind you of Lizzie. You’ll have children, build a family together….”.

Her voice grew choked and then trailed off awkwardly.

He didn’t want to be reminded of Lizzie, who had been the bride everyone else had believed would be perfect for him. They’d made each other very unhappy. He’d remained lonely even in marriage.

“Goodbye, Cole.”

When Maddie turned to walk away, he watched her slim, denim-clad hips swing and noted the way her damp T-shirt clung to her back.

Just watching her move with liquid grace as she vanished into the woods had his blood surging like fire in his veins. His breathing felt shallow. He wanted to strip her, to hold her, to kiss her. He wanted her naked and writhing with her legs wrapped around his waist.

He wanted her—period. Longed for her.

He’d stay crazy if he let her walk out of his life a second time. At the very least she still owed him some answers.

Four

The past, all her secrets, were supposed to be dead and buried. But Cole had her letters! And he’d never read them! He didn’t know about Noah!

Cole hadn’t rejected Noah as she’d believed. Instead, he hadn’t read her letters because he’d wanted to stay true to his new bride.

All these years, everything Maddie had thought about him had been wrong.

She’d hurt him when she’d left him. Imagine that. As she fought her way through the woods, back to Miss Jennie’s house, she wondered why it had never occurred to her that he might have felt that same shredding of the soul that leaving had caused her?

Because she’d had zero self-esteem. Because she’d been Jesse Ray’s daughter and he’d been a Coleman, and she’d told herself he would believe the worst of her as her mother had.

Even so, she had tried to call him and explain before leaving Yella. She’d been so hysterical she had called his home, no longer concerned with revealing their relationship. His mother’s cruel words would be forever branded into her heart and soul.

“You’ve got your nerve, Miss Gray. How do you know my son?”

“We dated. This summer. I need to talk to him.”

“You dated?” Hester’s voice had been shrill. “I don’t believe you. Maybe…he felt some cheap sexual attraction, but if he’d had any respect for you, he would have brought you home to meet his family. My son loves Lizzie. And I thank God for that! John doesn’t care about you any more than any of the men who’ve slept with your trashy mother have ever cared about her. You’re so far beneath him, all you’d ever do is drag him down into the gutter where your kind lives. I warn you, if you don’t let him go, my husband and I will do everything in our power to destroy you.”

“That won’t be necessary. Somebody else already did that,” Maddie had whispered.

She blinked at the blinding white light sparkling through the trees and came back to the present. She didn’t want to remember. It shouldn’t matter that Cole hadn’t known what Vernon had done to her or that he hadn’t known about Noah. It was too late to include Cole in Noah’s life because any contact with her son’s father was too dangerous to her own well-being.

Still, as Maddie walked away from Cole, the pain in her heart was so great she barely felt Cinnamon twisting and tugging against the leash. Even though the woods were dappled with golden sunlight, she felt that she was stumbling through a dark void.

She couldn’t afford to feel sympathy for Cole. No way could she let herself care about the young man she’d walked out on six years ago, or the wounded man he was now. Not when long-suppressed fears concerning her son gripped her.

Her work had taught her that lives were fragile, especially the lives of the ill, the elderly, the young, the learning disabled and the people like herself who’d experienced severe trauma and didn’t have wealth or a supportive family. One false step, one stroke of bad luck, could lead to ruin. That was why she had to marry Greg, who had a good job and a stable, loving family. Together, if they worked hard, they would build a respectable life. The kind of life she’d always wanted.

The Colemans were rich and powerful. They could do a lot for Noah. But they considered her inferior. What if they decided to use their money and connections against her—to prove her unfit and take Noah away?

Maybe she didn’t have their kind of money, but she had character and determination and a mother’s fierce love. If she followed her plan, she could give Noah the wonderful childhood and bright future she’d never had. Then Noah wouldn’t need the Colemans’ money or their name.

But if Cole found out about Noah now, she might never be free of his family and the past. And she had to be free of him…because he too easily aroused all her foolish dreams of love and romance. It wasn’t her fault he’d believed the worst of her and hadn’t cared enough to read her letters. She’d made a life for her son without him, a life that would soon include Greg.

Even though she was more mature now, just seeing Cole today had her heart racing in a torment of confusion that included hurt, loss and hope, which was the most dangerous emotion of all. She couldn’t let herself listen to his side and believe in those dreams again.

But what if he wasn’t like his mother? What if he had loved her when they’d been together?

And she couldn’t help feeling sympathy for Noah, who would never know his father, and for Cole, who wouldn’t know his son.

Maddie’s mind warred with her emotions.

She’d spent her whole life trying to prove she wasn’t like her mother, but she couldn’t deny the surge of excitement she’d felt in Cole’s presence this afternoon. She still wanted him.

If he learned about Noah and became a part of their lives, would Cole tempt her to cheat on Greg, the very best of men, whose appeal paled in comparison to the virile and charismatic Cole?

Bottom line—for Noah’s sake she needed to maintain a stable relationship with Greg. And that would be more easily achieved if she closed the door firmly on her past, and on Cole.

If only she could get her letters back before Cole read them. But how? She didn’t dare mention them again because that would just intrigue him all the more.

Suddenly she heard his heavy boots crashing through the brush behind her.

“Maddie!” he yelled in that deep, possessive baritone that instantly made her blood buzz with a fierce, hot need that both thrilled and terrified her.

Stunned by the urgency in her own heart, she whirled, her gaze widening when his green eyes caught and held hers. She should keep walking, but somehow she couldn’t when his desperately intent gaze refused to release her.

The past and its new truths couldn’t matter.

But they did.

Stirred too deeply to deny her true feelings, she felt herself in a time warp. A warm breeze swirled the emerald trees around them, and she remembered all the times she’d seen him looking just like this before she’d run into his arms in these very woods as a girl. Back then she’d trusted him completely. Back then he’d been hers to hold and love, at least in secret.

Now, instead of the hurt and rejection she’d felt for so long, she was remembering brighter moments, remembering how he’d picked her up and spun her around, remembering how he’d spread a blanket across the lush grasses beside the river before drawing her down beside him, remembering how he’d stripped her slowly so he could make love to her. Always, always he’d been infinitely patient and tender. And so dear.

At the happy memories, blood pounded in her temples, bringing tumultuous excitement and the kind of wicked delight she’d never once felt for Greg, not even when he kissed her. Six years were washed away in bursting sensations of breathless joy and hot carnal needs that exploded in every one of her nerve endings.

She hadn’t slept with anyone since she’d left Yella. It was as if she’d been frozen—until this afternoon…with Cole.

Why him? How could she still want him when he brought back the past and all the ugliness of her life here? Why couldn’t it be Greg? She wanted to look forward, not back.

What was happening to her? How could she feel so powerless to fight her feelings for Cole when she knew she could never trust him with her heart or with her son?

“I’ll always be Jesse Ray Gray’s daughter.”

“I don’t care.”

He looked as conflicted as she felt when he grabbed her by the wrists and spun her into his arms, hard against his body.

“I’ll get you all wet,” she cried.

“Feels good,” he rasped. “What could be better than a wet woman on a hot day?”