Rocky Mountain Widow (Historical) (17 page)

Was he happy? she wondered, already knowing the answer as she tugged open the cellar door. She could feel that sadness, too, within him, as black as the void of night sky where no stars shone. He was not happy with the charted course his life had taken. As she herself had not been.

The girl she'd once been—so full of dreams and belief, so certain that love could conquer all—seemed to stand beside her in the dark cellar. This was part of being an adult, of realizing that dreams were only fancies and love an invention of poets.

His footsteps made the floorboards creak overhead, and she filled her pockets and rose out of the cloistered cellar. The rattle of the teapot greeted her. Joshua stood at her stove setting the cozy on the teapot.

“The potatoes.” He grabbed the hot pad and opened the stove. “I'll put them in. The coals look hot enough. Do you want me to stay awhile, to keep an eye on things?”

“Taking care of others is a habit with you, isn't it?”

“A bad habit. One I usually only burden family members with. But for some reason I seem to be very protective of you.”

The man took her breath away, towering over her, pressing close, his wide, dependable chest like a shield against the heartaches of the world. Joshua had the power to melt away the world's troubles. Her troubles. Like a knight of old, he conquered foes, righted wrongs and stood a noble man when the battle was done.

She strummed with want for him. Want for his comfort. For his tenderness. For the heat of his kiss. She knew the reality of men. Of marriage. But she longed for the dream.

As if he felt the same yearning, his fingertips grazed her chin, tipping her face toward his. A perfect angle for kissing. Her gaze fastened onto his as if a physical force pinned her there, mesmerized by how deeply she could see inside him. Past the granite features and rugged shields around his heart to the real man within.

Her soul sighed; it was as if she'd taken her very first breath, newly born as he put his mouth over hers, hovering, and his free hand fitting against her jawbone in a slow, tender slide. His caress skidded across her sensitized nerve endings, crackling like dry winter air, and she felt the snap and sting of it deep within her. A sensual and emotional jolt that intensified.

It was as if their souls met.

This is a dream.
Claire didn't close her eyes as Joshua stood over her, his chiseled lips parted. Her mouth softened, remembering the velvet brush of his earlier kisses. Pleasant and thrilling and nice all at once, the way a man's kiss should be. The way she'd always wanted to be kissed.

When his lips fit to hers, she curled her fingers in the front of his jacket and held on. This time was different. She could see his eyes haze over and she wondered if he felt as if he were dreaming, too. The heated spice of his kiss, the warm caress of his lips to hers, the gentle suction became more than the chaste romantic kiss she expected.

More than anything she'd ever imagined.

His fingertips held her firm, not that she wanted to move away or do one single thing that would risk this moment in time. When they breathed the same air and their hearts beat in synchrony. When the sweet thrill of his kiss spilled like wine through her limbs.

This has to be a dream, she rationalized, because nothing real could be this wonderful. It was impossible that a man's kiss could make her buoyant, as if she were standing on a rising cloud. Higher and higher she seemed to fly, but she was not afraid. She boldly pressed against the hard male length of his body and held on tight.

It was just a kiss, and yet…joy burst inside her, spilling through every part of her being. The flare of happiness that blasted to life inside her was bright enough to dim the stars from the winter sky. Dazzling enough to
make her forget—for one moment only—that she didn't believe in true love. That she'd stopped wishing.

His kiss was thrilling enough for her to see, even a small glimpse, of what happiness with him could be.

A
loud blast ripped through the stillness. Joshua pulled his mouth from Claire's, too stupefied from the effects of her kiss to make sense of anything else.

It sounded like someone had laid a half-dozen sticks of dynamite against the outside wall of the front room and lit them. The blast rolled through the cabin like a crashing wave, shaking the walls and window glass, vibrating through the floorboards. Crystal lamps clattered and the hanging pots in the kitchen bonged as they rocked.

“What in hell blazes is that?” If it was a blast caused by those damn Hamiltons, he'd make them pay and to hell with spending a few nights in jail for assault, because he'd just been forced away from the best kiss of his life. She'd left him the consistency of melted butter on a red-hot stove. He had a hard time making his muscles obey him, and all because of a kiss.

Because of Claire's amazing kiss. He shook his head. He had to forget about that kiss. He had to shove aside
the fog-thick haze obscuring clear, rational thought. The blast struck again, rumbling the timbers beneath his feet.

Was it the Hamiltons?
Rage seared through him as he headed to the door. He felt nothing but the certainty with which he was going to make it clear that they were to leave this woman alone. And then it struck him that it wasn't a blast, and it wasn't someone outside.

“Will you need help? I've got my forty-five loaded and ready.”

There was no mistaking the lilt of humor in her words. Joshua winced. “Nah, I'm just on edge. Better to be safe than sorry.”

Good thing he was facing away from her so she couldn't see his face heat. Hell, was he really on the way to wrestle down a wind gust? Sure, it was a damned hard wind, but, jeez, what in hellfire was wrong with him?

“The wind comes down from the Rockies and gains speed as it blows down the slopes. By the time it hits here, it can hit like a speeding train. This isn't bad.”

“How often does this happen? I've been out here plenty of times, and in a blizzard. I've never felt this. Are you sure it's the wind?”

“Positive. It's a windstorm. If we're lucky, it won't get much worse. Let me put the potatoes in…the potatoes that are still in my pocket.” She dug into her pockets and there they were, two brown egg-shaped lumps, which she shoved into the hot coals. “I'll lend you a warming iron, too. I'm going to worry about you all night now.”

“You'd worry about me?”

“Someone has to.” She stayed where she was, bathed
in the orange glow of the fire. “At least I won't worry about the Hamiltons tonight. They probably won't come out in this cold.”

“You like silver linings, don't you?”

“I've noticed you're not the optimistic type.”

“I'm a practical man. I don't have the luxury to be anything else.”

“You don't kiss like a practical man.”

You kiss like a fantasy.
How did a man go on from knowing that? He couldn't. As much as he wanted the fantasy, he knew it wasn't real. So he forced a retreat into the kitchen, where he poured a cup of tea for her. He didn't bother to do one for him, as cold as he still was. He had to get out of there before he did something they would both regret. He wanted more than a kiss.

He wanted everything.

Some things a man couldn't have no matter how much he longed for them. No matter what he would give to be able to lose himself in her and just
be
.

As if she were intending to make the agony worse, she padded after him, the whisper-soft brush of her gait on the floorboards behind him. He swore he could feel the slightest vibration of her step with the same force as the winds. It was her voice that curled around his soul and hung on.

“I'm sorry. I never should have said that about your kiss. You don't have to run off. I'm not expecting…anything.”

“If I don't leave now, you will be.”

“What does that mean…” And she fell silent as realization struck.

He poured her tea with quick jerky movements and
wished. He wished everything was different. Longing filled him with a blinding wave, a breath-stealing cascade of a riptide that dragged him under.

What kind of sense did that make? He didn't trust women and he didn't believe in love. He knew marriage was a miserable trap most men bemoaned the rest of their livelong days.

And yet to have the chance to love this woman, who gazed at him with a pure, guileless understanding in her eyes, whose soul felt wedged, in part, inside his. He broke away before he was completely, utterly lost.

“I've got to go.” There was nothing else to do but swerve past her in the narrow space between the table and the archway. It took only a second to grab his hat and haul his gloves from his jacket pockets.

“So, I was right.” She watched him with her arms folded beneath the soft rounds of her perfect breasts as if to attempt to shield her heart. “You can't just kiss me like that—”

“Like what?”

Her face crumpled. “Like a fiction becoming real. I've read too many dime novels, I know, but the way you made me feel. It's not right to do that so casually. Maybe you aren't aware—”

“Oh, I'm aware.” This was what he wanted to avoid. This tangle of emotions and affections and starting something that could not be stopped. Now was the sticking point, the stopping place. And he would go no further. His heart cracked, and his voice with it. “You weren't alone in those feelings. Is that what you want to know?”

“I…” She sputtered, as if that wasn't at all what she expected him to say. “Really? I just assumed…” She swallowed hard. “That kissing is such an easy thing for a man to do. And, well, more physical things. I hadn't realized…”

“That I had feelings for you, too? Believe me, there's nothing simple about this. Not for me.”

Not for me, either.
Claire didn't know if she was relieved or more upset. Somehow knowing this tug on her heartstrings wasn't one-sided, that Joshua was experiencing it, too, made her next step more consequential. Feelings were one thing; decisions and actions were another. Those were the things that affected a person's life.

She had no intention of acting in any means or manner on these emotions, which felt so raw and new and intense. Love was a fairy tale. She'd believed in the power of it once to her own folly. And yet she'd never wanted to believe more. Never felt that there was a man so unerringly good and worthy to believe in. Joshua Gable was, on the outside, everything a man ought to be—everything that made the woman she was stretch tight with a deep, instinctive longing.

It felt as if she were ripping apart a piece of her soul as she struggled to sound unaffected. And failed miserably. “This is very simple for me.”

“How's that?”

“Because I know what marriage is.”

“Yep, me, too.” He looked anguished. He crushed his hat in his hand until the brim looked ready to blow apart. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Hell, I don't know what to tell you.”

“I know this powerful feeling, this…affection.” It was a small word for what she experienced, for what tripped within her soul whenever he was near, but she could not admit it was more. “This is a fleeting thing. It doesn't last. I
know
this.”

“As do I. I take care of my grandmother and my ma. Which I'm bound by duty to do until they pass from this earth. I run the family holdings and make damn sure to do it well, so my brothers and their children will have something of our father's. Something that lasts.”

“I understand.” She felt his despair, his wrenching heart, because it was as if it were hers, too. “You have duty and family. Those things matter. And I have my life here, one I don't want to put at risk.”

“What if the Hamiltons wind up with your land? It's none of my business, but they sure seem determined, having Clise go head-to-head with my cousin. I suppose a woman in your position wouldn't mind having a man feeling the way I do on a string. Just in case.”

“Is that what you think of me?”

It would be so much easier to walk through this door if I did.
Joshua winced, but he'd come this far and he wasn't going to chicken out instead of simply saying the truth, so he said it. “I see that you're a woman working hard to make her own way. I don't doubt you could be married within a month, if you were inclined to take on a husband to pay the bills. I'm not saying anything in judgment of you either way. I'm only saying that man won't be me. Can't be.”

“I never thought otherwise. That's why this decision is so clear.” She lifted her chin, not at a haughty angle, but
one that denoted determination and inner strength. “How many times have I tried to say goodbye to you for good?”

“I don't seem to leave you alone, is that it?”

“That's it. Don't mistake my gratitude. You've made an enormous difference in my life. You changed everything for me that night you rode up here.”

“I was damn furious at your husband. And when I saw how he treated you… Claire, no man should ever treat a woman that way. I'm glad I came that night. I'm honored to have helped you. We've always known this, whatever this is between us, has to end. Right?”

“Right.” She granted him a small grin.

One that lit her up from the inside; one that made his soul brighten with a blinding white heat.
It's time to end this, and end this right.
Joshua released his death grip on his hat and worked the battered brim back into shape. He wished this didn't hurt so damn much, but to stay, to give in to this momentary need to be with her, to cradle her in his arms and to make her his woman…

Leave now, Gable.
There was no sense in that. No good possible outcome. She said it herself. She didn't want the consequences any more than he did. Love doesn't last…if it even exists. As for these needs, urges, well, as much as he wanted to give in to them, they were momentary. And they would not change the inevitable.

All he could do was to tip his hat to her, leaving just the way his gut instincts were hollering at him to do. “If you ever need anything, anything at all, you know where to find me.”

She moved once, a single nod, hardly a movement at all. Was her soul wrenching, too, as if it were being torn
asunder? He had to end this now. No good could come from all these feelings wrenching a person apart. “Goodbye, pretty lady.”

She didn't blink. She didn't appear to breathe. With quiet dignity she watched him go, her heart in her eyes, and he knew as he yanked the door shut against the vicious wind that she did indeed feel this, too. He was no coward, but he wasn't a fool, either.

I did the right thing, he assured himself as he bowed his head against the wind and gave himself up to the night. He was numb clear through by the time he reached the stable. The problem was that the knifing cold deadened everything.

Everything but his soul.

 

Claire let out her pent-up breath. Was he gone? She circled around the corner of the table and pulled back the edge of the ruffled curtain. Moonlight shimmered like a halo, casting a magical luster across the silent night. There, moving against the pearled landscape was Joshua, astride his great strong gelding and riding away from her as fast as his horse could go.

And taking her heart with him.

It was strange how she thought it had been frozen over, but she'd been wrong. The tiny blossom of love was new and tender, yet fierce. Like those delicate snowdrop flowers that pushed through the ice of late winter to bloom and greet the spring.

There was no spring. Not in her life. There would be no man—even Joshua—stepping into her life to be what Ham was not.
Men. Whenever one comes courting, he's
the best man on earth. Once he gets a ring on your finger, then it's a different matter.
Her mother's words ripped through her like a nightmare into a dream.

Mama, I don't want you to be right this time.
With her hopes sinking, Claire pivoted to keep Joshua in her sight. He wasn't taking the road, but the horse path that cut through the property. Gilded in platinum, graced by stardust, he was naught but a silhouette, a rider on his proud horse; but she knew his characteristics so well.

Love swelled within her, making it hard to breathe and harder to see, and his hat and his granite profile blurred, becoming sharp pinpoints of light as wetness streaked down her face.

Just let him go.
Her fingernails dug into the sill as he rose over the crest of the hill and disappeared from her sight. He took with him all the brief images of what it would be like to be held in his arms all the cold night through. She remained at the window, as if waiting, even though she knew he was gone.

Forever.

 

An owl's lonely
who? who?
echoed across the night. Joshua pulled his hands out of his pockets, yanked off his gloves and swore. He didn't regret leaving Claire's house when he did, but he sure could have used a baked potato in each pocket right now. He wouldn't be fumbling to send back the answering call—the all-clear signal.

Liam kept to the shadows. “We got visitors. It's the deputy this time and he's pissed.”

“How many ridin' with him?”

“Just the Hamiltons. Figure on taking the back trails
through this time. Cut through the hills, in case we're watching for them. It's good cover. James is keepin' watch on them now. He'll signal when they're heading toward the widow's stable.”

“I was halfway hoping those bastards wouldn't come after the horses. They ought to let this be. Then I could be at home with my feet up in front of the fire.”

“Dreamin' of the pretty widow?”

Joshua hated that his brother was right. Claire had stayed in his heart ever since he'd escaped her kitchen. “I have my reasons for makin' sure she's safe. Not because of the reason you think.”