Читать книгу Wild Revenge - Сандра Мартон, Sandra Marton - Страница 13

JAKE SLEPT badly.

The truth was, he hardly slept at all but there was nothing new in that. He spent most nights tossing and turning, only to fall asleep and dream things that made him wake with his heart pounding, his skin drenched in sweat.

At least last night’s dreams had been different, he thought as he stood in the shower and let the water sluice down over him.

They hadn’t been nightmares about firefights and IEDs and men dying because he hadn’t been able to save them.

Last night’s dreams had been about the feel of a woman’s skin. The taste of her mouth. The scent of her hair.

The dreams had been about Addison, how it had felt to make love to her….

Jake frowned, shut off the water and reached for a towel.

Not love.

Sex.

She’d been right about that, and so what? There was no reason to disguise a basic human need with layers of phony hearts and flowers.

It was her attitude that ticked him off.

They’d had good sex. Hell, he thought, knotting the towel around his hips and glaring at his face in the mirror, they’d had great sex.

The problem was, when it was over, she’d acted as if what had happened was ugly. As if he’d somehow forced himself on her, or coerced her into giving in to him.

“No way,” he muttered as he lathered his face and reached for his razor.

She’d been a willing participant.

More than willing, he thought, remembering the way she’d wrapped herself around him, her moans, her cries, her wetness and heat ….

His hand slipped. The blade bit at his flesh. A tiny dot of blood appeared high on his cheek.

He cursed, tore off a square of toilet tissue and dabbed at it.

It was true, though.

She’d been with him all the way. Clinging to him. Riding him. Kissing him, biting his lip …

“Dammit, Wilde …”

He was turning himself on. And wasn’t that interesting, for lack of a better word?

He hadn’t had an erection since he’d been wounded, even though the docs had assured him that his equipment still worked. Now, just remembering what he’d done with a woman he didn’t even like was giving him a hard-on.

What he needed, he thought coldly, was a trip to Dallas, a night at a singles bar where either some hot-looking babe with enough booze in her to ignore the face staring back at him from the mirror or one who’d find his face a turn-on would take him home to bed.

Did that explain last night? Was the McDowell woman the kind who saw something interesting in a man who was disfigured?

It didn’t matter.

His hormones were working again. They’d told him that would happen. It didn’t have a thing to do with her except that she’d been in the right place at the right time.

Jake splashed cool water on his face, tossed the towel aside and stepped back into his bedroom. His clothes were still in the closet and dresser, same as they had been when he first left for the army. He pulled on faded jeans. An equally faded chambray shirt. A pair of roper boots, the leather worn soft and pliable with age.

No need to wear his uniform anymore.

His time in the service was over. So was his life here, working the ranch. He’d loved both things, always figured one or the other would become his career.

Not anymore.

He needed a fresh start. Where, doing what … He had no idea. All he knew was that he was going in search of the answers.

Last night, he’d figured on heading out right away but another day wouldn’t matter. He wanted to spend a little time with his family.

He ran his hands through his damp hair, tucked his wallet and keys in his pockets, put the patch over his eye. A glance out the window revealed a pewter sky, ripe with the portents of rain.

A deep breath.

Then he grabbed a denim jacket, opened the bedroom door and went in search of coffee.

The Wildes were gathered in the kitchen.

The girls were at the stove, an amazing sight in itself because Lissa was the only cook among them and she usually shooed her sisters away.

Today, Emma was scrambling eggs, Lissa was taking a pan of biscuits from the oven and Jaimie was frying bacon.

Travis and Caleb were sitting at the big oak table that was the heart of the kitchen, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper.

For a minute, he stood and watched them, these people he loved and who loved him.

He’d let them down.

That was the worst part.

They didn’t know it but he had—and why in hell hadn’t he stepped off that plane last night, gone straight to the ticket counter and booked himself to L. A. or New York or Seattle or—

“Hey,” Travis said, “it lives!”

Caleb grinned. “Had a late night, did you, my man?”

Jake searched for an answer. Foolish, when all he had to do was grin back and say nothing.

Somehow, he couldn’t.

Em unknowingly came to his rescue with a mug of black coffee, a one-armed hug and a smacking kiss.

“Sit down, little brother, and pay no attention to these jerks.”

Little brother. She’d always called him that because he was the youngest of the Wilde brothers, even though he had four years on her as well as seven or eight inches.

“Do I ever?” he said, flashing her a smile.

Travis raised an eyebrow. “We hope you did last night.”

Lissa scooped bacon and eggs on a plate, put the plate in front of Jake and hugged him, too.

“Eat while it’s hot, and they hope you did what?”

Caleb shot Travis a look. “Oh, Jake said he wanted to get some air, so we told him to take Trav’s truck and go for a drive.”

Jaimie put the basket of biscuits on the table, dropped a kiss on Jake’s head, sat next to him and said, “A drive where?”

Jake looked at the food. The coffee was all he wanted—he had the feeling anything else would lodge in his throat—but his sisters would never let him get away with that, especially when it was obvious they’d shooed away Senora Lopez, the housekeeper, so they could make breakfast themselves.

“Believe it or not,” Caleb said in a deliberate stage-whisper, “it’s all edible,”

Em grabbed a napkin and threw it at him.

“A drive where?” she said.

Jake concentrated on forking up some eggs. “Oh, you know. Just around.”

Jaimie ruffled his hair. “We wondered what happened to you.”

Lissa nodded. “We thought it might have something to do with the McDowell woman.”

Jake shot his brothers a look. Travis gave a little shake of his head; Caleb mouthed a quick no.

“Why would you think that?”

“Well, you both vanished.”

“Pretty much at the same time,” Em added.

“Except, she didn’t exactly vanish.” Jaimie stole a strip of bacon from Jake’s plate. “Ellen Boorman said she made a scene and stalked out in a huff. Anybody know what happened?”

“No,” Travis and Caleb said, with one voice.

“Ellen said you were part of the scene and then you disappeared, too. So we thought you might have gone after her.”

His three sisters fixed him with laserlike stares. Jake coughed.

“Piece of biscuit,” he gasped. “Caught in my throat.”

Em rose, went to the sink, returned with a tall glass of water. Jake nodded and gulped down half.

“So, what happened?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly.

“You’re not going to do an assessment for her?”

Jake narrowed his eyes at his brothers, who looked at each other then gave their complete attention to their mugs of coffee.

“Where’d you hear that?”

Lissa shrugged. “Around,” she said airily. “Are you?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Because?”

“Because,” he said, putting down his knife and fork, “because I’m not—I’m not—”

“Not what?” Em asked, and that was when he remembered he’d still not told his sisters he wasn’t staying.

“Because he won’t have the time,” Jaimie said blithely, “once he’s taken up his duties here.”

Silence fell over the room.

“Jeez, Jaimie,” Caleb said.

Jaimie held up her hands. “What’d I do?”

“What duties?” Jake said carefully.

Travis sighed.

“Well, running El Sueño. Taking it over. You know.”

Jake narrowed his gaze.

“No, I don’t know. You want to tell me what you’re talking about?”

Caleb gave an elaborate shrug.

“Tom Sloane is retiring. Remember?”

“Of course I remember. What does this have to do with me?”

“Well, the General thinks—”

“The General thinks,” Jake repeated slowly.

“So do we. All of us. We hoped you’d step into Tom’s shoes. More than that, actually. We’re all part owners of The Dream, of course, but we want you to be its CEO.”

“The paperwork is all drawn up,” Lissa said.

Caleb and Travis groaned.

“Paperwork?” Jake said carefully.

“Legal documents. Changes to the trust that holds El Sueño, that will reflect you taking over operations.”

Jake looked at his brothers.

“You went ahead and did this even though I told you that I’m not staying.”

“Oh, Jake,” Em said. Her sisters shushed her.

“Well, we were hoping you changed your mind.”

“Didn’t it occur to you to consult me?”

“Sure. But—”

Jake was angry. Angrier than the situation demanded. He knew that—but knowing it didn’t change a thing.

He shoved back his chair, tossed his napkin on the table and got to his feet.

“How nice of you all to plan out my life.”

“Hey, man, we aren’t—”

“Yeah. You are.”

“Look, El Sueño needs you. And you need El Sueño.”

And there it was. The cause of his anger. Jake leaned over, slapped his palms flat against the tabletop.

“What am I, the family rehab project?”

“Jake,” Travis said, “we love you.”

“Then don’t play at being my therapists,” he said, and he ignored his sisters’ voices calling after him and got out of the house before he said something he’d truly regret.

His car was where he’d left it last night.

Enough of this, he thought as he got behind the wheel. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life but one thing was certain.

He wasn’t going to let anyone make his decisions for him.

Not anymore, he told himself grimly as he started the car and got moving.

He should have taken off first thing that morning.

He hadn’t wanted to hurt his sisters. And, dammit, that was exactly what he’d do, if he left now.

He thought about seeking out Travis and Caleb and telling them it was time they learned to mind their own business but he knew what they’d said was true.

They loved him.

And they were worried about him. That was why they’d come up with the half-baked idea of him running the ranch.

The entire Wilde clan had decided he was depressed or suffering from PTSD when, in truth, post-traumatic stress disorder was not the problem.

The problem was, he was a failure.

It started to rain as he turned onto the county highway.

Great. Rain certainly suited his mood.

Had Caleb or Travis told Addison McDowell he needed a reason to feel useful?

Had they asked her to take pity on him?

His jaw tightened.

Was pity at the heart of what had happened last night?

The possibility made him sick. And angry.

There was only one way to get an answer.

Jake pulled onto the shoulder of the road, made a U-turn and headed for the Chambers ranch.

He drove fast and hard, and reached the ranch in half the time it normally would have taken.

His anger was still boiling when he pulled up outside the house.

The rain beat down on him as he got out of the car and slammed the door shut. Scowling, he turned up the collar of his jacket, stalked up the sagging wooden steps to the porch and jabbed at the bell.

Silence.

“Dammit,” he muttered, and banged his fist against the door.

Nothing.

She had to be inside.

Her car—he could see that it was a plain vanilla rental Chevy—was parked where he’d seen her leave it. In the glow of his headlights, he’d seen her get out of it and rush inside the house as if the hounds of hell were at her heels.

Had she been afraid of him?

Was she tucked away inside, afraid of him now?

Jake stuck his hands in his pockets, looked down at his boots.

He wouldn’t blame her if she were. He’d behaved like a crazy man and here he was this morning, stomping across her porch, banging on her door….

And why in hell would he think she’d made love with him out of pity? Had sex with him, whatever she wanted to call it?

She’d been as carried away as he’d been.

No matter how things had ended, she deserved better than those cold and ugly thoughts.

Enough, he thought, and he trotted down the steps, got back into his car and drove away.

Addison watched from an upstairs window as Jacob Wilde drove off.

Good. In fact, excellent.

The last thing she wanted was to deal with him this morning.

She was busy getting things in order inside this—this catastrophe of a house.

Despite her best intentions, she wasn’t going to be able to leave today. There wasn’t a seat on a New York-bound flight out of Dallas until the end of the week.

Not a problem.

She wasn’t fleeing Wilde’s Crossing, she was simply heading home.

There was plenty to keep her occupied for a few days.

Like what she was about to tackle. Emptying a hall closet on the second floor.

“Yuck,” she muttered.

It wouldn’t be fun, but it had to be done.

Over the weeks, she’d cleaned all the rooms, scrubbed the kitchen and ancient bathroom. She’d even done some touch-ups—polished the floor, painted the walls, bought some odds and ends for the biggest bedroom, which was the one she slept in.

She’d done the closet there but nowhere else, and she had not even looked at the attic.

She could put the house on the market as it was, but for all she knew, there was a treasure trove of interesting old stuff right here, under her nose.

Checking would be fun—

Okay.

Addison stepped away from the closet, sighed and sank down, cross-legged, on the floor.

Maybe not.

She’d probably find nothing but spiders and dust. Still, it would give her something to do instead of thinking about last night.

Thinking about it was pretty much all she’d managed this morning.

That man. Jake Wilde.

“Such arrogance,” she told the empty room.

Indeed.

Arrogance. Audacity. Ego.

The nerve of him to show up here today.

Why had he come?

She couldn’t think of a reason, unless he thought he could talk her into a repeat performance.

No. That hadn’t been it.

A man hoping to take a woman to bed wouldn’t have looked so damned angry.

As if he had anything to be angry about when she was the one who—

Addison froze.

What was that? A car?

Frowning, she rose, went into the closest bedroom and drew back a corner of the curtain.

Jake Wilde’s car.

He was back.

The man was persistent, if nothing else.

Jake stood on the porch and rang the bell.

Knocked on the door. Knocked, not banged. No answer, so he switched to ringing the bell again.

Eventually, he heard a window slide open somewhere above him. He took a step back, looked up, saw Addison, her face half-obscured by a flapping lace curtain the color of old gym socks.

He took a breath, let it out, cleared his throat.

“Ms. McDowell.” Did you address a woman so formally after you’d slept with her? But he hadn’t slept with her. He’d all but screwed out his brains and hers against a truck … and, hell, that kind of image didn’t belong in his head right now. “Addison,” he said pleasantly, “good—”

“You have ten seconds to turn around and get off my land, Captain. After that, I call the police.”

So much for being pleasant.

“Take it easy, okay? You don’t need the police.”

“I’ll decide what I need. The police, the FBI, the National Guard. How about the cavalry?”

“Look, I just want to talk to you.”

“You have nothing to say that I want to hear.”

“How do you know until I say it?”

“When I was in college, I took a class in Platonic dialectic. I’m not going to get dragged into this discussion.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “I took a class in contract negotiation. Does that make us even?”

It was difficult not to laugh. He was quick, and he was funny.

As if either thing mattered.

“Here’s the bottom line,” Addison said. “We have nothing to talk about.”

“What about last night?”

“What about it?”

“We need to talk about that.”

“We already did.”

She was right; they had. And the excuse he’d given himself when he’d been here fifteen minutes ago wasn’t valid, either.

He hadn’t come to confront her.

He’d come because he just plain wanted to see her.

What if he told her that?

“Captain?”

Jake nodded. Looked up. “I’m still here.”

“And I’ve just proved that there’s no purpose to your visit. So do us both a favor. Go away.”

“I probably should.”

“There’s no ‘probably’ about it.”

“I would, if I were smart.”

“Yay,” she said, and he tried not to laugh when he heard her clapping her hands together.

“But I’m not smart. If I were, I’d have done the right thing last night.”

“What did I say? I do not want to talk about—”

“I’d have told you,” he said gruffly, “that I wasn’t sorry we’d made love—”

“Goodbye, Captain.”

“—because,” he said quickly, before she could close the window, “because the truth is, I wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted a woman. And what we did …” His smile was slow and intimate and she could feel it, straight into the marrow of her bones. “What we did,” he said, “was fantastic.”

Addison stared at the man looking up at her from the porch.

What did she say to that blunt admission?

That blunt, incredibly sexy admission?

The man was a puzzle. He confused the hell out of her.

Just looking at him was confusing.

No uniform today. Instead, he was dressed like a, well, a cowboy. Faded shirt. Faded jeans. Boots that she could tell had nothing to do with style. Even here, in the heart of ranching country, she’d seen a lot of that. Style, no substance.

And, of course, he was wearing that eye patch, hiding what the war had done to him from the world.

He looked—there was that word again—beautiful. And so masculine she was finding it difficult to remember how much she despised him.

It was quite a combination. Arrogance and vulnerability in one gorgeous package …

She’d never known a man like him. And the sex—the sex, she thought, almost hearing the italics in her head—as for that …

Why lie to herself?

It had been … there had to be a better word than fantastic.

Sex was okay. But it wasn’t mind-blowing.

Until last night. Until he’d taken her in his arms. Was that why she’d heaped all the blame on him? Because it was less embarrassing than the truth?

Those moments when he’d been inside her, when their mouths and bodies had been fused …

“Okay.”

Addison came back to reality. Jake was still looking at her but he’d gone down the steps, even backed up a couple of feet.

Now that he had, she could see that he had a bouquet of flowers in his arms.

“You don’t want to talk to me,” he said, “I guess I can’t blame—”

The window sash fell into place. The dishwater-gray curtain swung back to cover the glass.

He put the bouquet down on the porch. Then he tucked his hands into his back pockets and headed for his car.

And felt a moment of ineffable loss, and wasn’t that ridiculous? He’d apologized. She’d refused the apology. End of—

“Hey.”

Her voice was soft but it stopped him in his tracks. He turned and saw her in the open doorway.

His gaze swept over her.

No black silk dress.

No stilettos.

She wore oversize gray sweats. Her feet were bare. Her hair hung loose around her face, a shining curve of darkness.

Something seemed to turn over inside him.

As beautiful as she’d been last night, she was even more beautiful now.

The sight of her made him wish they could start over, even though all they’d have was today.

She cleared her throat.

“I was just going to make some fresh coffee. Would you … would like some, Captain?”

Jake looked at her for what seemed forever.

“It’s Jake,” he said gruffly. “And coffee sounds … it sounds great. Thanks.”

He retrieved the bouquet. She took a step back as he climbed the porch steps. When he reached her, she felt her pulse leap.

“Actually,” she said, “actually, it really won’t be great. The coffee, I mean. The pot I found in the kitchen is—is just about as—as antiquated as the rest of the—the rest of the—”

“Addison.”

The way he spoke her name, the way he was looking at her, told her everything she wanted to know, including the fact that coffee was the last thing on his mind.

Or hers.

“Jacob,” she whispered, and he dropped the flowers as she stepped into his arms.