Intimate Secrets
B.J. Daniels
She had the kind of secret no woman could keep…When Josie O'Malley found herself pregnant, she knew her father would surely mete out the Texas law of the West–and shoot the no 'count before he'd demand a shotgun wedding. What her dad didn't know was the Josie has been with the one man he'd respected above all others. Clay Jackson.He'd never guessed he fathered her child…Two years ago Josie left Texas in a hurry for the solitude of Montana. Now Clay knew why. But it boiled his blood that she'd had anybody's baby but his. It burned him even more that a thief led Clay to her doorstep. So what was Josie hiding besides a child? And what would Clay's investigation reveal about the toddler's father…and the woman he'd never stopped loving?
“We need to talk,” he said. “But first, I want to make love with you.”
Clay reached out to cup her cheek in the palm of his hand, his thumb brushing across her lips, her soft, smooth cheek. Her gaze never wavered. What he saw in her eyes almost leveled him. She kissed the pad of his thumb, her eyes filled with a need that mirrored his own.
He swept Josie up into his arms and carried her up the stairs to the bedroom, all reason and logic and suspicion discarded as quickly as he planned to discard their clothing. He wanted her. And he planned to have her. Right now. Later he’d deal with whatever she had to tell him.
She sensed his body heat draw her to him. The masculine scent of him mixed with the smell of leather and horses. Intoxicating. Her body felt alive, everything magnified as if this were the first time….
He was close. Too close. To her. To the truth.
Intimate Secrets
B.J. Daniels
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This one’s for LuAnn Rod, who shared her love of horses with me, and shares my love of snowboarding. See you on the slopes, girlfriend!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in Houston, B.J. Daniels is a former Southern girl who grew up on the smell of gulf sea air and Southern cooking. But like her characters, her home is now in Montana, not far from Big Sky, where she snowboards in the winters and boats in the summers with her husband and daughters. She does miss gumbo and Texas Barbecue, though! Her first Harlequin Intrigue novel was nominated for the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award for best first book and best Harlequin Intrigue. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, Heart of Montana and Bozeman Writers Group. B.J. loves to hear from readers. Write to her at: P.O. Box 183, Bozeman, MT 59771.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Josie O’Malley—When her secret past comes looking for her, it brings the two men she fears most back into her life.
Clay Jackson—He’s chased a thief all the way from Texas to Montana in search of priceless jewels. But what he finds is more precious than any jewel.
Ivy O’Malley—She’s the spitting image of her mother—except she’s got her daddy’s eyes.
Raymond Degas—He disappeared two years ago. Why has he resurfaced now of all times?
Odell Burton—He swore revenge—even from the grave.
Mildred Andrews—The elderly woman would do anything to protect the baby left in her care. But would it be enough?
Brandon Williams—He just wanted his jewels back.
Ruth Slocum—The tough old ranch woman passed on what she’d learned about horses—and men—to Josie. Now it was up to Josie.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Prologue
He looked like the rest of the tourists as he bought a ticket at the small booth on the mountainside. The next tour started in ten minutes. It would be the last tour of the day.
Perfect.
The rays of the sinking sun slanted across the top of the mountain, painting the buildings with bronzed heat. Below, the Jefferson River snaked emerald green through the rocky canyon. On the mountainside, the sagebrush stood dusty gray in a ground already gone dry.
He killed time in the gift shop, passing up a cold beer, ice cream and the usual curios for a schematic of the caverns. With five minutes to spare, he went back to wait by the ticket booth, anxious. Anxious to get deep in the cool darkness of the caves. Anxious to confront an old enemy he knew would be waiting down there for him. But mostly, anxious to find the one thing he needed, the perfect hiding place.
He’d been bowled over when he’d seen the sign just outside of Three Forks, Montana. Lewis and Clark Caverns 15 Miles. It had been more than fate or good fortune. It had been divine intervention.
A young guide called his tour group, explaining they would have to hike up to the cave entrance. There used to be a small train, but now visitors had to walk. He didn’t mind walking the half mile, even uphill along the paved trail, a trail easy enough for his grandmother.
Once inside, there was a two-mile trek and a three-hundred-foot descent, into the bowels of the cave, ending with six hundred rock-carved stairs to the exit.
Perfect.
He quickly got ahead of everyone else, anxious to get inside the mountain. But he also liked the view down the steep mountainside and wondered how many tourists had fallen. Sweat broke out under his arms, ran down his sides.
But it wasn’t from exertion. It was pure expectation. He hated confined places. Hated anything that reminded him of the root cellar back at his grandmother’s farm. The dark, cool, raw earth. The musty, wet-smelling air. The darkness pressing against him, squeezing the life from him. The taste and smell and feel of fear.
Claustrophobia. It was his only failing. But also the only thing that still aroused him to the point of rapture. The ultimate. The little death. It gave him an edge other people didn’t have. Would never understand.
He couldn’t wait to get inside. He couldn’t wait to find exactly what he was looking for. A hole. Something small enough he would have to squeeze through. A space beyond the hole, far enough off the tour route that no one could find him. A place where he could finish what he’d started.
At the top, he had to wait for the rest of the group. He tried not to be impatient as he stood at the mouth of the entrance and gazed down into the confining darkness. Soon, he thought, soon.
The tour guide led the group through the caverns, pointing out stalactites and stalagmites, flowstone and dripstone. He paid little attention. He knew all about caves. He did listen, though, when the guide spoke about one of the first explorers getting lost, losing his candle and spending three days in the dark, unable to move. The man had been temporarily blind and completely disoriented from the days in total blackness.
More than five hundred feet into the cave, he found what he was looking for. The perfect place to disappear into the blinding darkness.
He hung back in the small room, pretending to admire the iciclelike lime deposits, wondering if the tour guide would miss him. He doubted it, out of a group of more than a dozen. They were all more interested in the rock formations than some nondescript tourist.
The group began to move on. He waited behind a large stalagmite. “Do we have everyone?” the tour guide inquired. No one said anything and the light diminished as the tour moved on, leaving him alone in the dark.
He waited, standing in the dizzying darkness, his face frozen in fear. He loved this part the best. The absolute blackness. The chilling silence. The disorientation that set in within seconds. He thought of the explorer down here without his candle. Trapped. Unable to see anything. Unable to move. And no one to hear his cries for help.
When he couldn’t take another second of it, he snapped on the tiny flashlight he’d brought and shone it into the hole he’d found. Small. Just enough room to barely get through. He got down on his hands and knees, then his belly, and taking a ragged breath, wriggled into the narrow tunnel.
He slithered like a snake, deeper and deeper into the confined cavity, squirming around the tight blind corners. Five minutes in, the tunnel ended in a solid rock wall.
He froze. He couldn’t go on any farther. Nor could he turn around. This would do just fine. The perfect place to hide a small child.
He started to back out, but his body stuck, now suddenly too large for the cramped rock channel he’d wormed through. Instantly, sweat cloaked his already-clammy body. The constant fifty-degree air raised goose bumps, chilling him. He fought for each breath, but let the panic come, the euphoria of fear.
He tried backing out again. If he’d come through it, he could get out, right? Except he’d come through headfirst, and since there wasn’t enough room to turn around, he had no choice but to go out feet first. Feet first like a corpse.
Prostrate, he dug in with his toes, inching backward, squeezing through the tight, constricting passage, the claustrophobia taunting him: “You’ll never get out. The rocks are compressing, the hole contracting, the mountain closing in on you.”
His mouth went dry as dust. He gasped for breath, his heart lunging in his chest. Minutes ticked off like hours. The tiny flashlight banged against a rock, dimmed, almost went out.
He was breathing hard now, but the air seemed too thin. Maybe he’d made a wrong turn. But he knew better. He struggled for each breath, each inch backward, the hole now endless as eternity. Or hell. His hell.
Then suddenly his toes lost purchase. Nothing but air. Air and space. He shoved himself backward with his hands and slipped through the opening, scrambling out of the hole.
Free.
For a few more desperate moments, he stood in the room where the tour group had left him behind, shining the light across the ghostly rock formations, forcing back the claustrophobia the way he forced back the dark.
He didn’t have much time. He gripped the flashlight, suddenly afraid he might drop it. That he might be the one who ended up trapped down here in the deafening darkness.
The irony amused him as much as the bitter taste of his own fear. He stood, just long enough to catch his breath, then hurriedly wound his way through the cold cavity until he was within earshot of the tour group, the worn trail easy to follow. He waited until the guide moved on to the next item of interest before he caught up and fell in with the others.
Then it was over. One last rock-carved wide tunnel and he was back outside again, more than three hundred feet below the entrance, walking down another paved path, smiling smugly, feeling triumphant.
But the euphoria never lasted long.
Fortunately, he’d be back. For the cave’s dark, confined allure. For a well-deserved ending to the two years he’d lost. He’d make up for it. In spades. Once he’d snatched the kid, he’d finally get what was rightfully his.
He chuckled to himself as he looked across the mountainside toward Three Forks, Montana. Wouldn’t Josie O’Malley be surprised when she saw him. Soon, Josie. Real soon.
Chapter One
Josie reined in her horse and looked out at the valley that ran spring green to the still-snowcapped mountain peaks.
“Look at that, Ivy,” she whispered as she hugged the toddler in front of her, resting her chin on top of her daughter’s blond head. “Isn’t it pretty?”
The sun slipped behind the mountains, turning the Montana sky a brilliant orange that radiated across the horizon, making the last of the day glow as warm and bright as any Josie had ever seen.
“Pwetty,” her fourteen-month-old repeated.
Ivy’s hair still had that baby smell, the loose curls a pale blond and down-soft, so much like Josie’s own. Ivy looked just as Josie had at that age. Except for her eyes. Instead of being the color of bluebonnets, they were a startling deep, dark brown—just like the baby’s father’s.
Because of that, Josie never looked at her daughter without being reminded of him—and Texas. Each brought an ache of its own.
As beautiful as Montana was, it wasn’t Texas. This time of year, the Texas hill country would be alive with bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush against a backdrop of live oak. The air would be scented with cedar.
So different from Montana. She stared out at the lush landscape and breathed in the sweet scent of pine. The Buffalo Jump Ranch, surrounded by snowy peaks, towering pines and rocky bluffs, was thousands of miles from Texas—and the past.
But more important, she’d found what she wanted to do with her life here in Montana. For the first time, Josie O’Malley felt truly at peace.
The realization startled her. She’d always felt at odds with the diminutive flaxen-haired sprite with the bright blue eyes she saw staring back at her from the mirror. They said she looked like her mother, but her father and brothers assured her she was nothing like sweet-tempered, soft-spoken Katherine Donovan O’Malley had been.
Instead, Josie had a wild spirit, as wild as the Texas land she’d grown up in, with a rebellious temperament her father said came from her namesake, her great-grandmother Josephine O’Malley.
Josie didn’t mind the comparison to her great-grandmother, who’d been a Wild West rodeo trick rider. In fact, Josie had clung to her rebellious spirit when her father and older brothers had tried to break it the same way they broke their horses—by trying to break her will. In the end, they’d only succeeded in driving her away.
As she hugged her daughter in the fading light, Josie realized with more than a little surprise how far she’d come—and not in miles. For the first time, she really did feel…ready. Maybe now she could do what she’d sworn on her great-grandmother’s memory she would do.
The horse nickered softly beneath them, his ears coming up as he raised his head and sniffed the warm breeze. Suddenly his ears lay back as if he saw something in the trees.
Josie tensed as well, her gaze going past the aspens to the dark edge of pines that bordered the horse ranch to the north. The first shadows of evening had settled in the trees, but she was close enough that she could see him. A man. Standing not fifty feet away. Looking right at her. Watching her and Ivy.
Startled, Josie jerked the reins, making the horse jump to the side, making her lose sight of the man as she held Ivy to her. She steadied the horse, upset with herself for treating the mare with such roughness, and focused again on the pines.
An icy shaft of fear sliced through her, bone-deep, as she stared into the shadows, frantically searching for the man she’d seen. A man she’d recognized.
But no one looked back at her from the shadowed darkness of the trees. Nothing moved. Not the thick, dark branches of the pines. Not the silver-sided, coinlike leaves of the aspens. Certainly not the man she’d thought she’d seen standing there, watching her and Ivy.
The sun slipped behind the mountains, shadows deepening. Suddenly the day no longer felt warm. Or safe.
Josie reined the horse around and, hugging her daughter to her, rode toward the small cabin that had become her home, afraid to look back. At the pines. Or the past.
Afraid to acknowledge who she’d thought she’d glimpsed watching her from the shelter of the trees.
A man who’d been dead for more than two years.
JOSIE WOKE WITH A START, jerking upright, heart pounding, her gaze at once darting to the crib in the bedroom across the hall.
Sun streamed in the window, blinding her. The crib appeared empty. In that instant, the memory of the man she’d seen yesterday in the trees came back, as dark and ominous as an omen.
Then she heard Ivy’s sweet laughter. Eyes adjusting to the sunlight, Josie saw her daughter standing in the crib, trying to catch dust motes in her chubby little hands.
Just the sight of Ivy filled her with a wave of relief that threatened to drown her. She got up quickly and took her daughter in her arms, needing to hold her, to assure herself that Ivy was safe.
But the initial fear she’d felt on waking receded slowly, the memory of the man in the pines too fresh. Too real.
Odell Burton was dead. And Josie O’Malley didn’t believe in ghosts. But just thinking she’d seen him had shaken her more than she wanted to admit. Especially since at that moment she’d been feeling safe.
As she and Ivy ate oatmeal on the porch in the morning sun, she tried to get back that feeling of peace, however brief, she’d felt the day before. Logically, she knew she’d seen a man—just not Odell.
But the memory of the man watching her and Ivy from the trees still clung to her like the remnants of a bad dream. Something about him had scared her. And Josie prided herself on not scaring easily.
The last time she saw Odell had been on her family’s ranch in Texas. She’d turned to find him watching her and realized he’d just come out of the barn. He had an odd expression on his face. He looked almost nervous.
That wasn’t like him. She’d known him since they were kids. His father raised rough stock for rodeos down the road from the O’Malley Ranch.
But there had always been something about him— She shivered. His interest in her had always unnerved her. Even when they were kids. Worse, when they were older and he’d realized she wasn’t interested in him. Odell had a hard time accepting no. It was probably one of the reasons he’d gotten in trouble with the law at such an early age.
She fed Ivy a few bites of oatmeal, then relinquished the baby spoon, although Ivy was getting more oatmeal on her face than in her mouth.
Josie knew that even thinking she’d seen Odell was some kind of subconscious reminder of everything she still feared from two years ago. She and Ivy were safe. But obviously, her subconscious didn’t believe it.
Maybe it was because she’d been thinking about going home to Texas. Just the thought of going home filled her with excitement—and anxiety. It had been two years. She’d broken all ties with her family when she’d taken off the way she had. Not that it could have been helped under the circumstances. Still, she wished things had been different.
Going home meant facing more than Odell’s ghost. More than her father and brothers. She couldn’t be sure what kind of reception she’d get at the O’Malley Ranch. But at least she knew what to expect from Clay Jackson.
Clay. She closed her eyes for a moment, unconsciously smiling at a distant memory. Clay had grown up on the adjacent ranch, the Valle Verde. He’d been her brother Dustin’s age. Six years older, the boys had seen her only as a kid—and a girl at that.
But Clay was always kind to her, and from the time she could remember she’d had a crush on him. When he went away to college, she dreamed of the day he’d return home to the ranch—and her. She knew that once he saw her all grown-up he’d fall for her, just as she’d fallen for him so many years before.
Unfortunately, she thought, her smile fading, he hadn’t come back. He’d fallen in love with a woman named Maria and he’d become a deputy sheriff, and he appeared to have no intention of ever returning to ranching.
Then one day he’d just reappeared. She’d looked up and there he was framed against the Texas sky, his broad shoulders blocking out the sun.
Except it wasn’t exactly as she’d dreamed. She heard through the ranch rumor mill that the woman he’d fallen in love with after college had run off with someone else, Clay had turned in his badge, and being the youngest, he’d come home to take over the ranch so his father could retire.
He’d just turned thirty. Josie, twenty-four.
Prize-winning horses and Clay, right next door. Unfortunately, she hadn’t known then that he’d brought more than just a fine string of horses to the Valle Verde. He’d brought the bitterness of a man who’d lost the woman he’d loved and had sworn never to love again.
She opened her eyes now, all the old regret coming back. She’d naively believed she could heal his broken heart, if Clay would give her the chance. If he’d see her as a woman—and not the tomboy she’d been. He’d once told her she was the wildest thing east of the Pecos, wilder than an “unbroke” stallion.
She hired on in his stables, mucking out the stalls, although she had a degree in ranch management. It wasn’t until later that she’d found out Clay had only hired her as a favor to her family. It seemed Clay arrogantly believed he was the man who could handle her. That he would be the one to tame her wild spirit as a favor to her father and brothers.
How wrong he’d been. In the end, he’d only succeeded in spurring her to live up to his expectations—and her foolishness had ultimately cost her dearly.
Clay Jackson had never seen her as anything more than Dustin’s wild kid sister. She doubted that would change when they saw each other again.
She looked over at her daughter, who was now banging the high-chair tray with her spoon and dropping globs of oatmeal to the floor with her other hand.
One thing was certain. She was ready to go home to Texas. But did she dare?
She turned at the sound of a car coming up the road. “Here comes Millie,” she told her daughter.
Ivy stopped banging her tray to look out the porch screen at the approaching car. “Miwillie!” she cried, all smiles.
Josie lifted her daughter from the high chair and wiped her face, kissing the wriggling, giggling toddler’s damp, clean cheek when she’d finished.
“Mornin’,” Mildred Andrews called as she joined them on the porch. Mildred was short and squat, a small gray-haired woman in her early sixties with a pleasant round face and an ever-present cheerfulness. She made Ivy laugh. She made Josie smile. There was something so homespun about the grandmotherly woman. And best of all, she loved children—especially Ivy. They’d hit it off immediately, and Josie felt secure knowing Mildred was caring for her daughter. She was the grandmother Ivy would never have.
“I thought I’d take Ivy into the big city,” Mildred was saying. The big city Millie referred to was the tiny town of Three Forks, Montana, named for the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin rivers that joined outside of town to make the Missouri River. “Can I get you anything from the grocery store?”
Josie scribbled down a quick list, the heavy weight of anxiety lightening at just the sight of Mildred. Ivy let out squeals of delight as the older woman took the list and Ivy out to the car. Ivy loved to go “bye-bye.”
It wasn’t until later, standing on the porch, watching Mildred pull away, Ivy waving and throwing wet kisses from the car seat in the back, that Josie felt a stab of doubt, like a thin blade of ice piercing her heart. She told herself she had nothing to worry about. Ivy was in good hands with Mildred. But she knew that wasn’t what worried her. Dead or not, Odell Burton and the past were still haunting her.
SHE HEADED FOR THE STABLES, knowing work would be the only thing that could get her mind off her worries.
By early afternoon, she was feeling better and relieved to see Mildred’s car coming up the dirt road in a cloud of dust. Ivy’s cherub-cheeked face peered out from the back seat.
Josie walked up the hillside to the cabin where she and Ivy lived, a rustic two-story log structure with a screened-in porch off the front and a deck and stairs off the back of the second story.
From the porch, Josie could see not only the stables and main ranch house, but beyond, across the valley and the Madison River, to the tops of the grain elevators in town.
But the view from the second-story deck off the back was her favorite. She often stood there, looking over the pines to the pale yellow band of sandstone known as the Madison Buffalo Jump. For years, before the Native Americans had horses, the site was used to harvest buffalo on foot.
Josie couldn’t imagine a time when buffalo roamed this river valley. She especially couldn’t imagine a time before horses. She’d had a horse since birth and had been riding almost as long. She loved horses and understood them in a way she’d never understood men.
Ivy was already out of the car and headed up the steps by the time Josie reached the cabin. She stopped at the car to help Mildred carry in the groceries. A widow, Mildred often stayed over. They’d fallen into the habit of having dinner together, with Mildred surprising them with her favorite dishes.
“Your daughter causes a commotion everywhere she goes,” Mildred said, laughing as she lowered a bag of groceries to the table.
“A commotion?” Josie asked, eyeing Ivy as she let the screen door slam behind her.
The cabin was narrow, built tall rather than wide. It ran shotgun style from living room to kitchen with a set of open stairs on the left up to the second-floor bath and two bedrooms.
Josie heard Ivy let out a squeal as she took off across the living room after Millie.
“What did Ivy get into now?” Josie asked with a pretend groan as she set down her armful of groceries, then turned to grab her daughter as she toddled past. She scooped Ivy into her arms and hugged her tightly. She couldn’t seem to hug her enough. Everything about the child filled her with awe. Josie never knew she could feel like this. It was the second revelation in her life.
“She was an absolute angel!” Mildred said in Ivy’s defense. “It’s not her fault that she’s so adorable that even good-looking, smooth-talking cowboys can’t resist her.”
“Good-looking cowboys?” Josie asked, feeling the first prickle of unease as she put the wriggling Ivy back down.
“Even at the store,” Mildred continued as she began putting Josie’s groceries away. “He just couldn’t take his eyes off her. He finally had to come over and say hello.”
Josie felt a wave of anxiety flood her.
Mildred looked up and saw her reaction. “Oh, it wasn’t like that. He was perfectly adorable. Polite with an accent like yours.”
Josie felt the floor buckle under her. Blood drained from her head. Her ears rang. “A Texas accent?”
Mildred looked scared, too, now. She’d paled, her fingers nervously kneading the edges of a box of macaroni and cheese.
Josie could barely form the words. “What did he look like?”
“Oh, Josie, I didn’t really pay him much mind,” she cried. “He was just a nice-looking cowboy in jeans, boots and a Stetson. I guess he was tall and dark and—” She realized what she was saying. “—and yes, as corny as it sounds, handsome. But he didn’t do or say anything…inappropriate, and with tourists coming through town all the time—”
“What did he do and say?” Josie asked, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. Trying not to scare Mildred any more than she already had.
“He said something like ‘Oh, what a beautiful little girl.’ Ivy was giggling. She liked him. Then he said, ‘She looks just like someone I used to know. The spitting image. Except for the eyes.’ Something like that.”
A chill raced up her spine like a Montana blizzard blowing in. She tried to tell herself it was nothing. Just like thinking she saw Odell in the pines yesterday.
This had only been a cowboy in a grocery store. Ivy always attracted attention with that pale blond hair of hers and her angelic face. And those startling dark eyes. So why did Josie find herself shaking, fear making her heart pound and her knees weak with worry?
She saw Mildred frown as if she’d remembered something that disturbed her. “What is it?”
“He did ask her name. I didn’t think it would hurt anything.”
Josie found breath to ask. “You told him her name was Ivy O’Malley?”
Mildred quickly shook her head. “I just told him her name was Ivy.”
Josie tried to breathe. She’d kept her name when she’d left Texas. She’d wanted something of her family to take with her, something to give her child, and after Odell’s death, she’d believed that no one would ever come looking for her.
But now she realized keeping her name had been a silly, sentimental and very foolish thing to do. If someone from Texas was looking for her, she’d made it easy. So didn’t that mean if the man had been looking for her, he’d have already found her? He wouldn’t be watching her from a stand of trees. Or chasing after Ivy in some grocery store.
“I’m sure it was nothing,” she said, trying to reassure Mildred. Trying even harder to reassure herself.
Mildred looked more worried. “Do you think you might know him?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Tall, dark and handsome definitely ruled out her brothers. They were tall, handsome and quite the ladies’ men with their Irish charm, but they were blond like her.
Unfortunately, tall, dark and handsome did fit both Odell Burton and Clay Jackson. But Odell was dead. And Clay… Well, he didn’t know where she was and didn’t have any reason to come looking for her. At least not one he knew about.
Don’t panic. Mildred’s right. It all sounds innocent enough. So what if he had a Texas accent? Texas is a big state. So what if he took an interest in Ivy?
But Josie knew what she really feared. That the man was somehow connected to Odell Burton and what had happened in Texas two years ago.
“Did you happen to see what he was driving?” Josie asked.
Mildred shook her head. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” she assured the older woman. “It might be someone I know from Texas. You see, no one back home knows where I am. I left in a hurry.” She smiled at Mildred. “I found myself pregnant and knew if I stuck around, my father would either demand a shotgun wedding or shoot the man. The truth is, he’d have probably shot him.” How could she explain the Texas law of the West when it came to daughters? Or for that matter, Texas cowboys and their codes of honor?
“It’s none of my business,” Mildred said. “I didn’t mean to pry—”
“I want to tell you,” she said. Mildred needed to know the truth—well at least some of it—to keep Ivy safe. “I didn’t want anyone to know about Ivy or who her father was. He was the last thing Ivy and I needed.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Mildred said. “Then you think this man I saw might be looking for you?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. But she intended to find out. If the man was still in town. “Would you mind watching Ivy for a little while tonight?”
Mildred readily agreed. “He really did seem like such a nice man.”
THERE WEREN’T MANY PLACES to stay in a town the size of Three Forks, Montana. As Josie left in one of the old ranch trucks, instead of her own truck with Texas plates, she was thinking about where the cowboy stranger with the Texas accent might be staying.
She figured it wouldn’t take much to find him—if he was still around. There was the Sacajawea Inn, a white, wood-framed historic hotel on the north edge of town. Or several motels.
She decided to start with the Broken Spur on the south end of town, but a block before the motel, she spotted a newer black Dodge pickup parked on a side street with the silhouette of a cowboy behind the wheel and Texas plates.
Distracted, she barely missed hitting an older model Lincoln Continental that sped out of the Broken Spur motel parking lot and pulled in front of her, headed for Main Street.
Her heart was still pounding over her close call when a set of bright headlights filled her cab. She looked in her rearview mirror to see that the Dodge pickup with the Texas plates had pulled out and fallen in behind her.
Flipping up her rearview mirror, she pulled her western hat down and stayed low in her seat, telling herself the truck wasn’t following her. Anyone going into town would come this way. It was a coincidence that the truck had pulled out behind her at that moment. Right.
She tried not to look back as she turned left onto Main Street. Downtown Three Forks was only about four blocks long. She went two of those blocks and parked diagonally between two cars in front of the Headwaters Café, the most well-lit part of town and the busiest this time of night.
Immediately she realized that if she got out, she’d be caught in the pickup’s headlights like a deer on the highway. She shut off her engine and slid down in the seat, knowing no matter what she did, if the pickup was following her, the driver knew where to find her.
Facing the inescapable, she watched the pickup park back up the street a few spaces away. She could see the driver silhouetted behind the wheel, a man wearing a cowboy hat, his face shaded and dark. But she could tell he was looking her way. Her heart lurched, her pulse taking off at a sprint as he opened his pickup door and stepped out.
It had been two years since she’d last seen the tall, broad-shouldered cowboy, but there was no mistaking him or the impact he had on her.
He pushed back his Stetson and glanced in her direction as he walked toward her truck. Her breath caught in her throat. What was Clay Jackson doing in Montana?
Chapter Two
Josie held her breath as Clay started in her direction, her heart pounding. He stepped up onto the sidewalk, the heels of his expensive boots tapping lightly as he walked. He wore a gray Stetson, a western-cut leather coat and jeans. He looked like he belonged here. Or maybe Clay just had a way of looking like he belonged anywhere.
As he neared her truck, she slid farther down in the seat, afraid it would do no good. Of course he’d seen her. He’d been following her! He’d watched her park. He’d know that she hadn’t had time to get out of the truck.
She grimaced, realizing she was caught. She waited for him to turn at her front left fender and walk back to her door, maybe tap on the window, or knowing Clay, just stand waiting until she acknowledged his presence.
To her amazement, he didn’t slow in front of her truck, didn’t come alongside. Instead, he walked to the café entrance, his gaze not on her or the ranch truck at all, but down the street, toward the Town Club bar, where the rusted, dented cream-colored Lincoln Continental that she’d almost hit a few minutes earlier was now parked.
In fact, it was as if he hadn’t seen her at all slumped down in the seat, peeking out from under the brim of her hat.
It suddenly hit her. Clay Jackson hadn’t been following her! Wasn’t looking for her!
She felt a bubble of relieved laughter float up. As far as she could tell he didn’t even know she was here in Three Forks.
But if he wasn’t looking for her, then what was he doing here?
She watched with interest as he entered the Headwaters Café, took a seat at a front table. He looked out the large picture window in the direction of the Lincoln as a waitress slid a cup of coffee in front of him. The Lincoln hadn’t moved, but the driver, Josie noticed, was no longer inside.
She studied Clay, thinking how little he’d changed, as if life had stood still back in Texas, back on his Valle Verde Ranch. While time had flown for her and everything had changed—especially her. And yet just the sight of him still evoked a mix of emotions, regret at the top of the list and an even stronger emotion that she’d spent two years trying to forget.
She rolled down her window and let the cool air rush in, feeling the flush of memory play in her mind like a country-western song, making her ache with a longing of something unfulfilled. An odd feeling, considering the way things had ended.
She forced another memory to the surface, one that firmly put her feet back on the ground and cleared her head of all romantic notions about him. The day Clay Jackson had forbidden her to go near his prized horses other than to clean out their stalls.
But as she watched him now, she knew her problems with Clay ran a lot deeper than his horses. Or her unresolved feelings for him.
She studied him, wondering what he could be doing here. She doubted horses had brought him all the way to Montana.
As she watched him idly sip his coffee, she realized she wasn’t going to find out. He wasn’t looking for her. Wasn’t that enough? She started the truck and backed out, hoping he wouldn’t notice her. It hadn’t been that long ago she’d wanted more than anything for Clay to notice her. To see her not as Shawn O’Malley’s wild daughter but as the woman she’d become.
Funny how times had changed.
Keeping her face turned away, she drove away from the café—and Clay—down to the end of the street and doubled back, taking side streets until she was clear of town.
She told herself that the man Mildred had seen at the grocery store had to have been Clay. But he wouldn’t have recognized Ivy as being Josie’s. Or guessed who the father was. He had more pressing concerns than a fourteen-month-old toddler with pale blond hair and dark eyes. Or that baby’s mother. But just in case, Josie would stay close to the ranch and keep Ivy close as well.
She peeked in on Ivy when she reached the cabin, only to find her sleeping, looking like an angel. She bent down and kissed her warm, plump cheek and breathed in her smell, smiling at the sight of her precious daughter. She felt blessed.
For a few moments, Josie let herself think about Ivy’s father, then quickly banished the thought. Some things were best left buried, she thought as she closed the door softly and asked Mildred if she would like to stay over.
Mildred looked tired and worried, but she didn’t ask what Josie had found out in town. She readily accepted the invitation to spend the night on the couch. Josie wondered if Mildred stayed because she was concerned about her and Ivy. That would be like Mildred, Josie thought as she went to get the older woman a pillow and some bedding from the closet.
Too restless and wide awake to sleep, Josie went out on the porch and sat down on the step to stare up at the stars.
A pine-scented breeze skittered coolly across her bare arms, making goose bumps rise on her skin. She hugged herself. She’d done the right thing two years ago. The only thing she could do. No reason to start doubting herself now.
But she felt uneasy and knew it was more than just knowing Clay Jackson was in town or seeing some man in the trees the night before. It was the unshakable feeling that her past had come looking for her before she’d finished what she had to do. Before she could go home to Texas and face it as she’d planned.
She leaned back against the step and began counting the stars overhead, anything to distract her from thinking about Clay. Or worse, worrying about why he was in town.
Just an unhappy coincidence.
Right.
She caught the flicker of a light below her on the hillside not far from the stables and the creek.
Must be the owner of the ranch, Ruth Slocum, since she was the only other person here besides Mildred, and Mildred was snoring on the couch.
Josie sat up straighter. The faint light moved like a firefly through the dark. She watched it quickly disappear into the stables. Something must be wrong for Ruth to be in the stables this late at night. Odder yet, why had she come from the creek instead of her ranch house, which was in the opposite direction? Had one of the horses gotten out?
Worried, Josie got a flashlight from her truck and started down the hill.
The moon crested the mountains in a sky shot with stars. The breeze whispered through the tall, dew-damp grass, sending up the sweet scent of spring. Grass pulled at her boots, the night sky at her soul, making her feel small and insignificant.
She pushed open the stable door, surprised to find darkness. Reaching for the light switch, she stopped herself.
Through a crack in the tack room door at the end of the stables, she saw the flicker again of a flashlight, followed by a rustling sound.
She frowned and clicked on her own flashlight, keeping it aimed low at her feet as she moved slowly forward. Ruth wouldn’t be rummaging around in the tack room at this time of the night. Not with a flashlight. Ruth had recently broken her ankle; even with her cane and walking cast, she had trouble getting around.
Just as those thoughts took hold—and their possible significance—Josie reached the tack room door. It hung open only a few inches, just enough that she could see a shadow moving around behind it and hear the thump of saddles being dropped to the floor.
But it was another sound that made her freeze.
This one behind her. The stable door she’d just come through opened with a rush of cool night air.
Startled, she swung around, banging the flashlight into a post with a resounding thud. The flashlight went out.
From inside the tack room, something fell or was dropped. The narrow beam of light blinked off, pitching the stables into a dense, silent dark.
She could feel the presence of the person who’d just entered the stables but couldn’t see him. And she knew someone was still in the dark tack room, closer by. She held her breath, afraid to move.
Suddenly the tack room door flew open and a large, solid body hit her, sending her sprawling to the floor, knocking the air from her lungs. Whoever it was bolted for the nearby back door. A little of the yard light spilled in as a man-sized figure ran out, the door banging behind him.
Before she could get to her feet, someone tripped over her. She heard a loud male curse, then the sound of his body hitting the dirt. He quickly scrambled to his feet and ran toward the back door of the stables. The back door banged open again.
Before it could bang closed, the sound of a car engine roared to life, followed by another male curse. Then the sound of boot heels, slowly working their way back to her as the door banged shut again.
She was on all fours when the stable lights flashed on. She looked up to see a large cowboy silhouetted against the bright light, his Stetson shadowing his face.
“What the hell?” the cowboy cursed.
She didn’t need to see his face. She knew that body and that voice. Had heard that tone used in connection with her on numerous occasions.
Inwardly groaning, she hoisted herself to her feet, and dusting her backside, blinked as her eyes adjusted to the bright light. If anything, this close, he looked more handsome. Dark from his thick black hair to his eyes. His Spanish blood, although two generations removed, still fired passionately in his eyes. Unfortunately, that passion was almost always anger. “Hello, Jackson.”
CLAY STARED IN STUNNED disbelief. He couldn’t have been more shocked to see anyone. Hadn’t he thought he’d seen her a couple hundred times over the past two years? Each time gave him a start. A jolt of pure electric shock that jump-started his heart and made it take off like an escaped con at the sound of a bloodhound.
“Josie.” Even to his ears it sounded like a curse. He stared at her, assaulted with too many thoughts, too many memories and feelings.
Josie O’Malley. After all this time—and looking just as she had the last time he’d seen her. No, he realized as he studied her. She’d changed, although he couldn’t put his finger on exactly how.
Her pale blond hair was still short and unruly, as if she’d just run her fingers through it. Her eyes were still that unbelievable blue. Clear as a Texas summer sky but unreadable as if the cool veneer masked a well of secrets. No doubt they did.
And she still had that defiant look, of course. She’d always been a spitfire. Rebellious, head-strong and willful as a wild mustang. Her father had actually thought Clay could do something with her. It had proved an impossible task. One he’d failed at miserably.
She was still slim and small, about five six in boots, but rounded. Actually more rounded than he remembered.
“What the hell are you doing here, Josie?” he demanded.
“What am I doing here?” she snapped, crossing her arms over the breasts he’d just been staring at. “What are you doing here is more to the point.”
He jerked his gaze away, trying to make sense of this. But after one glance at the rear door of the stables, he narrowed his eyes at her again, seeing things a whole lot clearer. “You tripped me.”
“Excuse me?” She hadn’t lost her Texas twang—or her temper. Her blue eyes fired like forged steel. That was definitely something time hadn’t changed.
Her first instinct was to tell him it wasn’t any of his business. “I happen to work here.”
“Work here?” he repeated, and glanced down the line of stalls.
She knew what he was thinking. That she shoveled manure—just as she had in his stables. What did she care what he thought? It made her more angry, though, that she did care.
“You work strange hours,” he commented. “Or are you going to tell me that you just happened to be down here in the middle of the night, didn’t bother to turn on the lights and just happened to be on the floor to trip me?”
She gritted her teeth, reminded of just how irritating this man could be. She bit off each word. “I saw a light and someone come in here so I walked down to check. I was just about to find out who when you came in and scared whoever it was away.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Whoever it was knocked me down and then you tripped over me,” she continued, daring him to interrupt. “But that doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.” What was he doing here? In Montana? But more important, on the ranch where she worked?
“I’m looking for someone.”
She stared at him, her heart pounding. “Anyone in particular?”
“A thief,” he said grudgingly. “I’ve been following him for the past four days. Unofficially, of course.”
For a moment she’d thought he’d come to see her—even though she knew from watching him in town it wasn’t true. When was she going to quit kidding herself when it came to this man?
“He led me from Texas to this stable.”
She didn’t like the sound of this. “Why would you follow a petty thief all the way from Texas?” She glanced toward the tack room. To this particular stable?
He frowned. “Petty? I don’t think several million in jewels is petty, do you?”
Her heart looped in her chest. Hadn’t she feared that the past had come looking for her? Worse yet, in the form of Clay Jackson, the one man she had reason to fear the most.
Did he just imagine the surprise that flashed in her eyes? The worry? God knows, he’d read more in her expression than he should have in the past.
She didn’t answer. If anything, she seemed to be doing her best to look innocent. It was a look she’d perfected, but he knew her too well to fall for it.
“Actually, you know him,” he said. Maybe had stayed in contact with him. “An old friend of yours.”
It was hard to tell if she really did pale under the harsh light in the stable. Maybe he just wanted to see guilt in her eyes. Suspected it. Expected it. The same way he suspected she’d purposely tripped him to allow the thief to get away. After growing up next door to her, he’d have said he knew Josie O’Malley better than anyone.
But two years ago, she’d made him realize that he didn’t know her as well as he’d thought.
“An old friend of mine?” she asked innocently.
Yes, he definitely glimpsed a crack in her composure. He smiled at her, but there was no humor behind it. Something hot tore at his insides. “You remember Raymond Degas,” he said, studying her.
No doubt about it. The last of the color drained from her face.
“Raymond?”
“Come on, Josie,” he prodded, his guts on fire. “You had to have heard about the jewel heist two years ago. Raymond and Odell were the number-one suspects. Raymond disappeared. Odell got himself killed. The jewels never turned up.”
He felt frustration and anger burn in him. He’d held this woman at arm’s length for years until two years ago. After Maria, he’d sworn he’d never let himself feel like that for a woman again.
But Josie had changed that. Damn her, she’d made him want her. Made him want only her. She’d dared him to love again, and just when he thought he might take the chance, she’d taken off. Without a word.
What made it worse was she’d disappeared right after the jewel heist.
It would have been suspicious enough if she hadn’t been thick as thieves with Odell Burton and his buddy Raymond Degas at the time.
But Clay knew his suspicions ran much deeper. Deeper than he wanted to admit.
He watched her swallow, her gaze sliding away from his.
“I’m afraid I had other things on my mind two years ago,” she said. She looked at him again, nothing showing in her face or her eyes now, as if she’d dropped a curtain over her emotions. He recalled the last time he’d seen her do that. Had she been trying to hide something then, too? The thought unnerved him.
But he had her now and he wasn’t going to let go until he got the truth out of her. About everything.
Josie watched him glance toward the tack room.
“What do you suppose Raymond was doing in your tack?” he asked.
She didn’t answer. She figured Clay had his own theories about that. She was shocked that Raymond had been here at all, let alone Clay.
“Suppose we take a look?” he said, indicating she could go first.
She thought about putting up an argument. Clay had no authority here. Nor did she take orders from him anymore—not that she ever had, without an argument. But she didn’t want him forcing the issue by insisting they call the cops or wake up the ranch owner. The fewer people who knew about Clay Jackson and her past, the better. And she had a feeling that the thief hadn’t found what he was looking for, anyway.
The tack room had been ransacked, all the tack and saddles pulled down in a heap in the middle of the floor.
“What would Raymond have wanted in here?” Clay said. “Have any ideas?”
Oh, she had lots of ideas, but none she wanted to share with him. She remembered the Lincoln Continental he’d been watching from the café in town. Was it Raymond’s? But what would have brought Raymond to Three Forks? “Maybe he was looking for something to steal. You did say he was an alleged thief.”
Clay smiled at her attempt at alleged humor. “Kind of a long drive to steal tack.”
Had Clay really followed Raymond Degas all the way from Texas? All the way to the stables where she just happened to work? Quite a coincidence, if you believed in them. She had a feeling Clay didn’t.
“Anything seem to be missing?” His tone made it clear he doubted it.
“We must have scared him away before he had a chance to steal something,” she said, torn between despair and anger as he tried to provoke her.
“Convenient.” He was eyeing her as if waiting for her to give him some answer.
Damn you, Jackson, she thought. I don’t owe you any explanations. Well, at least not any she was willing to make. Including why she’d left Texas the way she had two years ago.
“Convenient that you just happened to scare him away when I reached the stables,” he said, not willing to let it go. “And what a coincidence that Raymond Degas broke into the stable where you work.”
She’d known that was coming.
“On top of that, you just happen to trip me and keep me from catching him,” Clay finished, and crossed his arms, waiting, challenging her.
How much did this really have to do with the robbery? Clay hadn’t wanted her, but he hadn’t wanted anyone else to have her, either. She felt all that old resentment rising like steam off a geyser.
She thought of Ivy and blew out a long, heated breath. “You believe what you want. You always have.”
She turned away and started out of the tack room. She’d clean up the mess tomorrow. “If it was even Raymond,” she added.
He moved in front of her, reminding her how fast he was on his feet as he blocked the door, blocked her exit. “It was Raymond.” His voice was deep and soft and sent a chill through her as she was reminded of another time and place that Clay Jackson had been this close.
“Raymond led me all the way from Texas straight as a shot to you,” Clay said, leaning closer, trapping her. “Come on, Josie. We both know what Raymond’s looking for.”
He was so close she could feel his breath against her cheek, smell his too-familiar male scent. Everything about him seemed to radiate a low-frequency electricity. She felt a buzz when she was around him and always had. But it seemed stronger somehow. More so than she remembered it.
“He’s looking for the jewels.”
She swallowed but said nothing, her nerves raw with the nearness of him. His body seemed to fill the tack room, making it as hot and sultry as a Texas summer night.
“That’s right, you don’t know anything about the robbery,” he said, his tone clearly calling her a liar. “A rare collection of rubies, diamonds and emeralds, all irreplaceable. Intact, the jewelry would be impossible to fence. Too distinctive. Too easy to track. So what would the thieves do?”
How would she know? Why would she care? She knew nothing about getting rid of stolen property. And why did Clay Jackson think she did?
She shook her head, slowly, infinitesimally, afraid to move too much for fear of touching him. Or worse, him touching her.
He smiled. A halogen smile against the dark stubble of a day’s growth of beard. He leaned so close it reminded her of the last time she’d seen him two years ago. He’d kissed her beside her barn in Texas. She didn’t need the reminder. Not now. Not anymore.
She held her breath. But he didn’t kiss her, although she did wonder if he, too, had been reminded of that kiss. Had purposely made her remember.
“It’s hard to believe a petty small-time criminal like Raymond could pull off such a score, isn’t it?” he said. “Even with the help of someone like Odell Burton.”
She’d known Clay would get to Odell eventually. “I heard he was dead.”
“Yeah, but he’d have needed an accomplice.”
“Raymond.”
He shook his head slowly, his smile gone. “I’m talking about someone smart. Someone who knew about the security plans and knew how to get them. Talk to me, Josie,” he whispered. “Tell me what really happened that night.”
Something in his voice, a slight break that could have been born of passion or pain, made her wonder which night he was referring to. She looked into his eyes and felt that old familiar rush. Like standing on the edge of a cliff. A combination of danger and exhilaration. Fear and longing. Her pulse pounded in her ears. Her heart drummed, the beat accelerating.
“Josie? Are you all right?”
They both turned at the sound of the voice behind them past the open tack room doorway. Mildred stood in the light, her expression worried. In her arms, she held a sleepy-eyed Ivy.
“Ivy woke and was frightened,” Mildred said. “We came down to look for you—”
Clay stepped from the doorway and Josie rushed past him to take Ivy in her arms.
“Ma-ma,” Ivy said, and snuggled against her.
Josie heard Clay’s quick intake of breath as he came out of the tack room. She cradled her daughter to her, bracing herself as she turned and let her gaze rise to his.
He stared at her, then Ivy, his dark eyes wide with shock for the second time tonight. “I knew it,” he whispered. “I damn well knew it.”
“I understand you’ve already met my daughter Ivy,” Josie said, bracing herself for the inevitable.
He dragged his gaze from Ivy’s face to her own. His expression darkened, like a storm rolling in.
“I always wondered why you left Texas in such a hurry,” he said, his words striking her like stones. “I guess I know now. At least one of the reasons. Did Odell know he had a daughter? Or is that just another of your well-kept secrets?”
Chapter Three
Josie with a baby! The same little girl he’d seen in town with the elderly baby-sitter he’d mistaken for a grandmother. Hadn’t the toddler reminded him so much of Josie that he hadn’t been able to resist taking a closer look?
But the little girl hadn’t had Josie’s incredible blue eyes. Now he realized that was because the baby had taken after her father. Odell.
He should have known. This at least explained part of Josie’s hurried departure from Texas. No wonder she hadn’t told her family.
He stared at Ivy for a long moment, surprised by the emotions that rushed him. She looked so much like her mother. In fact, she was the spitting image of Josie—except for the eyes.
This could have been my child.
The thought came out of left field, blindsiding him.
Josie hugged Ivy protectively to her, telling herself she shouldn’t have been surprised. She should have known he’d see Odell in her daughter. Should have known he’d question if Odell had known she was pregnant. Still, she felt sick inside. What would he do now?
Or was that the least of her worries?
She looked into his angry face, trying hard to understand what it was about her that made him so angry with her. “Odell knew I was pregnant.”
That seemed to surprise him. “You told him?”
“He guessed,” she admitted.
Clay frowned. “That must have been what the two of you were arguing about that day by your barn. I’m sure Odell wanted nothing to do with a baby.”
She looked down at her daughter. Ivy had fallen asleep again, her tiny cherub cheek warm and pink against Josie’s shoulder, the dimpled arms locked around her neck. Odell had been furious about her pregnancy. She shivered at the memory of his threat.
When she looked up again, Clay’s gaze seemed to soften. “So you struck out on your own. Just the two of you.”
Was that grudging admiration she heard in his voice?
“What did you use for money, Josie? I know you didn’t take much with you when you left.”
So much for admiration. She knew what he was implying. “I worked.”
“Pregnant?”
“I did what I had to do,” she said stubbornly, unwilling to admit how she’d really managed alone, broke and pregnant. Unwilling because she was ashamed of what she’d done. And it really wasn’t any of his business.
“You know I’m going to find out the truth.”
“My life doesn’t have anything to do with you.” Even as she said it, she knew that wasn’t true. Clay was definitely one of the reasons she’d left Texas.
“We should get the baby to bed,” Mildred interrupted.
They both looked over at her. Clay seemed to have forgotten she was standing there, she’d been so quiet. And Josie had been distracted. Clay did that to her.
“Yes, you should get your baby to bed,” Clay said. “But you and I aren’t finished, Josie. Not by a long shot.”
She feared that was true as she slipped past him and headed back up the hill to her cabin with Mildred beside her.
“Who is that man?” Mildred asked when they were out of earshot.
“A neighbor of my family’s in Texas. I used to work for him.”
Mildred said nothing, but Josie knew the older woman realized there was a lot more to it.
“He’s the man I saw at the grocery store,” Mildred said. “What does he want?” She sounded worried.
“He’s here investigating a robbery.”
“He’s a policeman?” Mildred asked, sounding surprised but also relieved.
“No, he’s a former deputy sheriff, but he’s here unofficially.” She could tell Mildred feared that he meant her or Ivy harm. “Don’t worry. He’ll catch his crook and be gone soon.”
They walked in silence to the cabin, each lost in her own thoughts.
“You know, I might go on home, if you think you’ll be all right tonight,” Mildred said when they’d reached the cabin. “With all the excitement, I’m wide awake.”
Josie understood perfectly. Mildred said she cleaned when she was upset. Something told Josie that Mildred’s house was in for a scrubbin’. “We’ll be fine.”
Mildred bid her good-night after making certain that Josie had her pepper spray handy.
Josie watched her leave, worrying that Clay’s departure wouldn’t be that simple. Nothing with Clay had ever been simple. And she now had Raymond Degas to worry about as well.
AS CLAY LEFT THE STABLES, he heard the high-pitched whinny of a horse. He looked toward the pasture and spotted a stallion standing in the moonlight watching him. The image gave him a start, the horse reminded him so much of Diablo. But while Diablo had been black as midnight, this horse was a blood bay. Like Diablo, though, it stood at least seventeen hands high and had that spirited, wild look in its eyes.
The stallion watched him warily, then took off as if touched with an electric prod, disappearing into the darkness, leaving Clay with one lasting impression. That horse was dangerous. Just like Diablo had been.
But he knew that wasn’t why he’d gotten rid of Diablo. Even after the horse had almost killed him, he’d sold him because Diablo reminded him too much of Josie and an unforgettable dream he’d had about both of them.
Once at his truck, he drove up the road, parking out of sight of Josie’s cabin. Then, taking his bed-roll, he cut through the pines until he could see the cabin without being seen. He tossed down the bag and plopped down on it.
Raymond Degas would be back. Not tonight, probably. But sometime. Clay was betting that Raymond hadn’t found what he’d been looking for. And when he returned, Clay intended to be here.
When the lights blinked out in Josie’s cabin, he tried to get some sleep, but he couldn’t quit thinking about her.
Seeing her again had shaken him, much more than he wanted to admit. She was more beautiful than even he remembered. And the baby—
Odell’s child, he reminded himself.
He tried to think about the jewels and his quest for them, rather than Josie. But it was impossible.
He’d often wondered if Josie had somehow been involved in the robbery. Raymond leading him right to her left little doubt that his suspicions about her had been warranted. It gave him no satisfaction, though.
But if she’d been in on the jewel heist, then why was Raymond rummaging around in the stables in the dark instead of just asking Josie for what he wanted?
Clay swore. Unless Josie had double-crossed Odell and Raymond and taken the jewels.
That seemed pretty far-fetched, considering the woman was pregnant at the time. But with Josie O’Malley he wouldn’t rule out anything.
He even blamed her for the dream that had plagued him for the past two years. A dream he now thought of as That Damned Dream.
He’d started having the dream after being bucked off Diablo not once—but twice in twenty-four hours. The dream was always the same: Josie O’Malley riding through a creek toward him on the large black horse, the Texas hill country behind her, the horse’s hooves throwing up water droplets that hung in the moonlight. Josie coming out of the darkness of the live oaks and into the moonlight, wearing a yellow dress, her shoulders bare, the wet cotton clinging to her skin. She was buck-naked beneath the dress! Her nipples dark and hard, pressing against the soaked fabric as she dismounted and came to him where he’d fallen from the horse, her blue eyes filled with a longing that matched his own.
Definitely a fantasy dream. It disturbed him that he’d had it at all. He’d never thought of Josie like…that. Nor did he want to.
On top of that, the dream mocked him with the incredible impossibility of it. Josie had been riding the horse that had thrown him and then run off—Diablo, his wild green-broke stallion, and she was way too inexperienced to ride a horse like that, let alone one as unpredictable as Diablo.
He’d awoken the next morning, horseless, with a knot the size of Texas on his head, a terrible headache and no memory of what had happened. But with the ground under him instead of a horse, he had a pretty good idea what had taken place.
It had been a fool thing, trying to ride Diablo. Especially in the mood he’d been in. He’d caught Odell Burton in his barn with Josie, gotten into a fight with him and made Josie mad. Although he’d won the fight, he still had the scar where Odell’s ring had cut him.
In a foul mood by that time, he’d gotten half drunk and decided to ride Diablo. Not his best decision.
The next morning when he limped back to the ranch, he’d seen Josie—again with Odell, but he’d had the good sense to stay clear of them both.
That’s when he started having That Damned Dream. The last thing he’d needed was Josie O’Malley in his dreams. Having her around his ranch was trouble enough without conjuring up the feel, smell and taste of her the moment he closed his eyes.
On top of that, she didn’t get over being mad at him from what he could tell. He and Josie had argued enough over how to break horses.
Six weeks later, the jewels were stolen from the Williams Gallery in town where the collection was to go on display. He’d acted as a consultant on the security plans. In fact, he had a copy of the plans in his locked desk drawer at the ranch.
That’s when the first inkling of suspicion about Josie started. When Brandon Williams, the jewel collector, called to ask if Clay still had his copy. Williams felt the only way the thieves could have pulled off the heist was with the plans.
When Clay had gone to his desk, he’d found the plans—but someone had been in the locked drawer. They’d used a key, because the lock hadn’t been tampered with—and he had the only key.
He’d assured Brandon Williams that his plans were there, keeping his suspicions to himself. Temporarily.
With Odell Burton and Raymond Degas wanted for questioning in the heist, Clay wondered if one of them could have somehow gotten his keys. That seemed impossible. But Odell was always hanging around Josie.
He’d saddled up and ridden over to the O’Malley ranch. Josie was by the barn. Clay wasn’t surprised when Odell came out of the barn, looking angry.
He rode toward them, unable to hear their words, but he could see that they were obviously arguing. Odell had grabbed Josie’s arm, and she seemed to be trying to fight him off.
Odell spotted him as he rode up and took off before Clay’s boot soles hit the dust beside Josie.
“Don’t” was all Josie said when she saw him. She was crying and upset.
Without thinking, he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her. A crazy impulse. He hadn’t known it at the time, but it would be the last time he’d see her until today. It had been one amazing goodbye kiss.
After it was over, she’d pulled back, confusion in her gaze. Her eyes had filled with tears. “What do you want from me, Jackson?”
When he didn’t answer, she spun on her heel and left him standing with his reins in his hand.
He’d watched her go, fighting the urge to go after her. What did he want from her? He’d told himself he didn’t know. Getting involved with Josie O’Malley was definitely out of the question. So he’d swung up into the saddle and ridden off, kicking himself for kissing her.
The next day he’d discovered that she’d packed up and left Texas, lock, stock and barrel. At the time, he’d blamed himself. For kissing her. For being jealous and possessive when he had no right. For being angry with her for making him want her. Because by then, he’d realized that he did want her. Like he’d never wanted any woman before. He just wasn’t fool enough to confuse that with love and all that went with it.
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