Time After Time (10 page)

Suddenly Leah stiffened and raised her head to listen. The sound she had thought was the pounding of her own heart was growing louder. And now she recognized it for what it was—hoofbeats. Someone was riding hard and fast. And he was coming toward the ranch.

A moment later she could see the horse in the moonlight, coming straight at her and the man beside her. A muffled sound came from Trent seconds before he jumped out of the way. But Leah stood her ground. It could be only one person, and that person brought her no fear.

Paul reined in fiercely, causing his horse to rear in protest. He reached down to grab Leah under her arms, and she was plucked off the ground. As he swung her around, she dragged up her skirt and flung herself astride the saddle, close behind him. Then, before Trent even had a chance to move, Paul dug his spurs into the horse's flanks, and they galloped away into the enveloping darkness, leaving the three men on the ground to watch in helpless fury.

Leah gripped Paul's waist tightly, pressing her face into his back. He didn't slow the furious pace, even when they left her father's land, and so speech between them was impossible. Then, when the terrain became rougher, he allowed the horse to pick its way through the rocks.

Even then Leah didn't question him. It was enough that he had come for her.

Several hours after they had left the ranch it began to rain. Not a gentle spring shower, but hard, steady sheets of icy rain. And still they didn't stop. Several times the horse lost its footing, slithering sideways in the slick mud. But each time Paul's body seemed to turn to iron under her hands, and as if by sheer force of will, he would right the stumbling beast and they would keep going.

By the time the movement beneath her stopped, Leah was in a state of exhausted semi-awareness. Paul jumped down, catching her in his arms as she slid sideways in the saddle.

He carried her into a small cabin and stood her on her feet just inside the door, leaving her to light a lantern that sat in the middle of a rough wooden table. Within seconds he was back, holding a dark blanket.

"You need to get out of those wet clothes," he said, handing her the blanket. Then he turned his back to her and squatted in front of a small stone fireplace.

The blanket slid through her numb fingers. She left it on the floor and began to fumble with the hooks and eyes that ran down the front of her dress. The wet fabric clung to her body and seemed to fight her ef-

forts, but eventually she stepped out of it and removed her undergarments.

She wrapped the blanket around her, clutching it tightly as she tried to keep her teeth from chattering. "I'm through." Her voice was a weak thread that barely penetrated the silence.

He stood immediately and turned to face her, moving her toward the fire with a hand on her waist. "You sit here and get warm." Without another word, he walked to the door and opened it.

"Paul! Where are you going?" The panic in the words shamed her, and she glanced away from his searching gaze.

"I've got to see to my horse," he said quietly. "It won't take long."

She nodded; then, when she heard the door close, she slumped to the floor, wrapping her arms around her blanket-covered knees.

Was he angry with her? she wondered, blinking back the tears that stung her eyes. The gentle, laughing man she had seen earlier today was gone and a solemn stranger had taken his place. Did Paul resent her for bringing this trouble down on him?

Gradually the warmth from the fire began to reach her, and the tremors that shook her body died away. She fell into a state of mental and emotional numbness as she stared into the leaping, crackling flames.

When the door to the cabin opened once again, she didn't look up but kept her gaze straight ahead. She could hear him moving around the cabin; then, minutes later, he sat beside her before the fire.

Finally Leah turned her face toward him. He had removed his wet shirt, exposing the muscles of his shoulders and arms. A sprinkling of dark hair spread across his chest, narrowing to a V that trailed down his hard, flat stomach, then disappeared at the waist of his still-damp pants.

Jerking her gaze upward, she found him staring at her face, a frown adding harsh lines to his tanned features.

"You don't have to be afraid, Leah," he said. "I won't ever let him touch you again."

She shook her head. "I'm not afraid of Trent. Not now. It's just—" She broke off, biting her lip. "Are you angry with me, Paul?" She couldn't keep a slight tremor from her voice.

He inhaled sharply. "Never," he said with deep intensity. "I didn't mean to give that impression. I'm worried about you, Leah. I didn't give you a chance to think about this." He took both her hands in his, his expression somber as he searched her face. "Trent Howard wants you. Although he'd rather see you dead than with me, he knows it wouldn't be necessary to kill you. I couldn't watch over you every minute of the day. He has too many men and too much influence here. Sooner or later he'd kill me, and then there would be no one to keep you safe." His fingers tightened on hers. "You know what that means, don't you? It means we can't stay here. Leah, if you come with me, you won't ever see your father again."

His features softened, and when he spoke again the words were so filled with tenderness that it felt as if

someone was squeezing her heart. "I made my decision the minute I heard you scream. Now you have to make yours. If you want, I can take you back as soon as it stops raining."

She kept her eyes trained on his face. "Don't you know?" she whispered. "There's no decision to make. As long as I'm with you, nothing else, no one else in the world, matters."

Joy so great that it left her weak exploded in his green eyes as he crushed her to his chest. A violent tremor shook his strong body, and now Leah recognized the tight control he had held on his emotions as he gave her a choice.

Moments later, he framed her face with rough hands. "We'll have a good life, Leah. There won't be much at first, but for the rest of my life, you'll be loved so damned hard, it'll make you dizzy." She laughed, feeling the dizziness already. "And someday," he continued, "I'll come back here. I'll come back, and I'll set things right with Trent Howard."

Leah felt herself stiffen. After a moment she nodded sadly and pulled away from him, gazing into the fire. Always the land, she thought wearily. But he was her man now. She would take that part of him along with the rest. Because without Paul there was nothing.

"I understand what the land means to you, Paul," she said slowly. "Are—are you sure you wouldn't rather stay and fight it out now? You wouldn't have to worry about me. I could go somewhere else for a while. I—"

"Leah!" He grasped her shoulders tightly, turning her to face him. "What are you talking about?" He examined her face, frowning at the pain he found in her eyes. "What's hurting you?" he asked in bewilderment. "Why are you talking about my land? It's not for the land that I'll settle with Trent Howard. Sure, every man wants a place of his own, somewhere he can put down roots. But my roots aren't tied up in a piece of ground. My roots are wherever you are. When I come back here, it'll just be to set things right. If I let Howard get away with what he's done to
both
of us, I would be a poor sort of man. And you deserve more than that, Leah."

As he spoke, Leah felt a great yearning and softening within her, a sweet warmth even more powerful than what she had felt when he kissed her in the field. The bonds that had held her prisoner loosened, then fell away completely. He really meant it. She was more important to him than the land. She was as important to him as he was to her.

Paul kept his eyes on her face, and he must have seen the happiness that had become a steady glow, because a smile spread across his face.

"Where will we go?" she said, the weariness in her voice replaced by shy enthusiasm. It didn't matter where they went. They could go to the moon for all she cared, as long as they were together. She just wanted to hear the sound of his voice.

"Well," he said lazily, his eyes crinkling with amusement, "have you ever thought about Texas?"

She shook her head. "No. Is it nice?"

He laughed. "That's a pretty tame word for Texas. It's not like here. It's wild and free, and there's plenty of good land for cattle."

She loved hearing the excitement in his voice. She didn't even care that he mentioned land. He could have a million acres now and it wouldn't bother her. "It sounds wonderful," she said earnestly.

"I hope you still think so when you see it. It's big, Leah. So big, it'll make your head swim. It can be green and gentle, or it can be dry and hellishly hot."

She touched his face. "It sounds to me as if you even like the hellish part."

"I do," he admitted, grinning. "There's a place in the western part I want to show you. We couldn't live there—it's too wild and mean even for cattle, but it's beautiful. Maybe someday I can take you there just to see it." His gaze was steady, as though he were seeing his wild Texas country now. "You can stand on the side of a mountain I know of and look out over

hundreds of miles of country___The color of it will

make you drunk. It's like looking at the day the earth was born. It has the feel of forever to it."

He came back from Texas and was now looking only at Leah, his features softened with love. "When you look at me, your eyes turn golden with sparks of bronze fire in them. They remind me of sunset on those rocks. It's as if God took melted gold and splashed it on everything. I want to show you that, Leah. I want to show you what it feels like when I look in your eyes."

She couldn't take her gaze from his face. He was so beautiful. She didn't need his west Texas mountain to know what forever looked like. It looked like green eyes and a fiercely loving heart.

He raised a hand and ran the tips of his fingers down her throat and over her shoulder, pushing the blanket away with the same light, compelling stroke. Fiery threads of desire tightened in her, making her tremble beneath his touch, and with a simple shrug of her shoulders, the blanket fell and settled around her hips.

The breath caught roughly in his throat. He closed his eyes, his head thrown back as the muscles of his tanned face tautened, giving him the look of carved teak. The fingers on her shoulder tightened painfully, but she welcomed the pain. In some way it seemed to make her a part of him.

Slowly he opened his eyes. "You're not fighting it anymore—this thing between us." It wasn't a question. It was a statement filled with wonder.

On a distant level, she knew he was talking about a reality beyond the cabin, beyond this place and time.

"No," she whispered. "I'm not fighting it."

He groaned her name, pushing her to the floor as he kissed her with a possessiveness that made her weak. His tongue slid between her lips, branding her, making her his own. Her breasts pushed against the wonderful roughness of his bare chest, bringing a sweet and terrible ache to her body.

His hand began to move urgently on her flesh, down her back and the gentle curve of her hip, lingering on

her birthmark. Raising his head, he buried his face in her hair.

"I've been so lonely." The roughly whispered words were filled with remembered pain. "I thought I could do without you, love, without your warmth. But now I know I was only fooling myself. All my life, something's been missing, but until I held you the first time, I didn't even know what it was. I only knew there was an unexplainable emptiness in me, as if my soul was a house where no one lived anymore."

Wrapping her arms around him, she held him tightly, wanting to share the hurt, needing to fill the emptiness. His hard, smooth flesh rippled beneath her fingers, and he arched against her uncontrollably, making her feel his urgent need, bringing a fever to her blood.

Then he moved away from her slightly and brought a strong, tanned hand to her breast. The tips of his fingers brushed across the dusky nipple, and it sprang to life beneath his touch. Slowly, he bent and took the taut bud between his teeth, making her gasp with pleasure. Looking down, she saw him suck it deep into his mouth. With desperate fingers she held him to her, feeling the heat spread through her with the speed and power of lightning.

When his hand slid to her inner thigh, she moved against it, wanting to capture the wildness and beauty of the sensations he was offering with every caress.

A tiny whimpering sound escaped her when he stood abruptly. Her eyes were glazed with deep hunger as she watched him remove the rest of his clothes.

There was no shyness in her now. This man belonged to her. She stared openly, watching as the firelight flickered across the strong body before her. She felt a tightness grow in her chest and an unbearable ache grow in her loins.

He shuddered under her gaze for a second before he rejoined her on the blanket. Running a hand down the length of her body, he united their flesh, pressing her breasts to his chest, her stomach to his hard belly, her restless hips to his burning need.

Instinctively, his lips sought hers, making her feel the fiery hunger in him. And when his hand slipped between her thighs, she opened herself to him with a desire that matched his own.

"Now, love," he whispered, his voice harsh.

When he moved over her, Leah felt her muscles tighten in anticipation. "Yes—now," she moaned urgently. "Now, Paul."