Secrets and Lies: He's A Bad Boy / He's Just A Cowboy

Rachelle felt suddenly foolish. His mother probably had never cared when he came home and he’d never had a dad to worry over him or scold him or play catch with him or take him fishing.

He left the kitchen and, walking stiffly, holding on to the wall for support, headed for the den. Rachelle followed, carrying two candles and noticing how he favored his right leg. His jeans were soaked and streaked with mud, and the worn fabric clung to his thighs and buttocks as he limped down a short hallway. She forced her eyes away from his legs and found herself staring at the back of his battered old jacket, wide at the shoulders, tapered to the waist.

Over the scent of melting wax were the stronger smells of rain and musk and leather.

He placed his candle on the mantel of a river-rock fireplace and turned to face her.

She was shivering, her feet ice-cold in her wet boots. A crease formed between his brows, and he rubbed his chin. “You’re freezing.”

“A little.”

“A lot. So am I.” He checked the blinds again, closed the door to the room and then leaned over the fireplace. “I guess we’d better find a way to warm up.” He reached into the chimney and pulled, opening a creaking damper and causing soot to billow onto the grate.

There were already logs piled on old andirons and newspaper and kindling neatly stacked in a box near the hearth. He bent on one knee and set to work.

Rachelle tried not to stare at him. “Isn’t starting a fire asking for trouble?”

“Begging for it.”

“Seriously.”

“Maybe.” He grabbed his candle and pressed the flame to the dry kindling and paper. In a few seconds the fire was popping and hissing, shooting out sparks and slowly warming the room. “Come over here,” Jackson suggested, but Rachelle didn’t dare move. She felt trapped in the seductive glow of the blaze, held prisoner by a man she found fascinating yet frightening.

To her horror, he stripped off his jacket, then his shirt. He hung his clothes over the screen and was left standing, half-naked, the golden light playing upon his dark skin and black thatch of hair at his neck. The wound to his shoulder had already stopped bleeding. He winced a little as he moved his arm.

“I—I can’t do that,” she pointed out, and he grinned—not the sardonic smile that twisted his lips cruelly, but a genuine smile of amusement.

“We’ll figure something out. At least take off your boots.”

That, she could do. So she balanced herself on the edge of a couch and tugged on her boots. Her skirt was torn in spots where thorns had caught in the folds and her blouse was in tatters. Her jacket was in better shape, but wet all the way through. She kicked her boots onto the hearth, then self-consciously hung her jacket over the screen.

She felt every bit the virgin she was. She’d seen boys without their shirts before—many times while swimming at the lake or watching them scrimmage in basketball—but they had been boys, with smooth skin and only the smallest suggestion of body hair. Jackson, on the other hand, was a man. His muscles were developed and moved with corded strength, and his beard was dark against his jaw. The way his jeans hugged his hips, hanging low enough to expose his navel, caused her diaphragm to constrict. The back of her throat went dry, and she had to force her eyes away from the raveling waistband of his jeans.

His voice jerked her from her wicked thoughts. “I’ll see if there’s something around here that you can wear, so that that—” he pointed to her ripped blouse “—can dry out.”

“It’s fine.”

“Is it?” He lifted a brow in disbelief. “We’re in enough trouble as it is. I don’t want to be responsible if you get pneumonia.”

“I won’t.”

“And I don’t want to get caught with you in something that was obviously torn from your body.”

“Oh.” She licked her lips nervously, aware that his gaze followed the movement. “Well, uh, I don’t want to get caught—period.”

“Amen.” He limped out of the room and Rachelle let out her breath. Good Lord, what was she doing here? If she had any sense at all, she’d grab her boots and jacket and flee.

To where?

Anywhere! Any other place had to be safer than here, alone with Jackson. Her thoughts had turned so wanton that she was shocked. She, who had never much enjoyed being kissed. All that fumbling and groping and panting. She’d thought something was wrong with her because she’d never been “turned on” as some of the girls had confided. She’d wondered about the girls who said they’d trembled because they wanted to sleep with their boyfriends so badly.

Well, Rachelle had never been in love and her parents were a fine example of how love didn’t work out. As for sex, Ellen Tremont had been embarrassed by the subject and had given her daughters minimal information on the subject. But Rachelle had learned a lot. From her friends. From the books she read. From movies. And she knew that something was wrong with her. Because she didn’t want it.

Or at least she didn’t think she did. Until now. For the first time in her life, she knew what her friends meant by thudding heartbeats and sweaty palms and a crackle of excitement—an electrical charge—between two people.

But Jackson Moore? Why not someone safe like Joe Knapp or Bobby Kramer? Someone who wouldn’t intimidate her.

She was still standing in front of the fire, heating the backs of her legs and holding her blouse together when he returned with a couple of blankets. “No clothes,” he said, and she accepted the blanket and tucked it over her shoulders.

“I’ll be fine.”

He smiled then and shook his head. “If either of us get out of this and are ‘fine,’ it’ll be a miracle.” She was suddenly so aware of him…of his maleness that she couldn’t look at him and felt tongue-tied, though she was beginning to warm a little.

From the corner of her eye, she watched him. Half boy, half man and thoroughly fascinating.

He flopped onto the couch, then sucked in a sharp breath as he attempted to struggle to a sitting position. But his knee, stiffening, wouldn’t bend. His face turned white with the effort, and he fell onto the cushions, wincing when his shoulder connected with the back of the couch.

“Your leg. It’s hurting you and your shoulder…”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You should see a doctor.”

“I said I’m okay.”

Rachelle wasn’t convinced. Every time he moved, he blanched. “You’re a lousy liar.” She glanced down at his jeans and felt sick. A dark stain colored the fabric stretching across his knee.

“So sue me.”

“Let me look at your leg.”

He offered her a lazy, pained smile. “Why, Miss Tremont,” he mocked, “are you suggesting that I drop trou?”

“No, I—”

“That’s a new one on me,” he cut in, “but if you insist—” He made a big show of sliding the top button of his waistband through its hole and she knew that he was expecting her to yell “stop,” but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Her heart was beating faster than the wings of a bird in flight but she watched, her fingers clenched tight in the folds of the blanket.

His gaze still pinned on her face, he yanked at the worn fabric and a series of buttons released with a ripple of pops. Rachelle’s breath seemed to stop.

Despite his pain, his lips twitched in amusement.

Rachelle was certain he wouldn’t go any further, yet she stared at him as he squirmed, lifting up his buttocks and sliding his pants down his leg with a grimace and groan of pain. For the first time in her life she saw a man in white briefs and she forced her eyes away from the bulge that was apparent between his legs.

“You could help me, you know. This was your idea.”

“You want me to help you take off your pants? No way.” The thought of grabbing that wet fabric, the tips of her fingers grazing his legs and hips brought a blush to her cheeks. He was injured, she told herself, she should help him, but she stood near the fireplace as if cast in stone. It wasn’t a simple situation of patient and nurse; there were emotions charging the air, sensual impulses that she’d never felt before but recognized as sexual. Her insides quivered—in fear or anticipation—before she saw the gash that started above his knee and swept over the joint to dig deep into the flesh of his calf. Blood was crusted around the cut and her stomach turned over.