Josh Page 15

  Still, the knowledge that Sierra’s stalker was out there somewhere left him feeling on edge. Maybe that was why he couldn’t shake this feeling that something about tonight just wasn’t right.

  He kept glancing in the rearview mirror. He would feel a whole lot better if Chief Fletcher could call them with a report that Sebastian Delray had left the country. For good.

  Until then, he’d have to keep up his guard and keep Sierra close.

  Not that he minded the second part of that. Keeping her close was exactly what he had in mind.

  As the truck’s taillights faded around a bend, a sleek car with tinted windows, its headlights turned off, came to a stop under the arched entrance to the Conway ranch.

  Above the vehicle, the old sign blew back and forth, creaking ominously in the wind.

  Sebastian Delray stepped out and looked up, studying the letter C that was burned into the wood, along with the words DEVIL’S WILDERNESS.

  His lips were twisted into a snarl of fury as he pounded a fist into his palm, and kicked at the tire of his rental car.

  This land was uncivilized. Now that he’d actually traveled over it, he knew it to be much more primitive than he’d imagined.

  He was out of his element here. If Sierra had fled to London, or Lisbon, or even Italy, he would have the advantage over her. He had connections all over Europe. But here, in this wasteland, he had a need to come up with a very detailed plan.

  Today he’d managed to ride undetected across these hills, but only because the land was crawling with cattle and cowboys driving them toward pens. He’d never get away with it a second time. And he couldn’t simply drive in and carry Sierra away without being caught. The ranch house where she’d taken refuge was a fortress. It would be impossible to approach it without being spotted. Before he was halfway there, he would no doubt find himself surrounded by enough family members and wranglers to stop an army of invaders.

  Not that he needed an army. He had no doubt that if he could persuade Sierra to listen to him, to really listen, she would choose to be with him again. Couldn’t she see that they were the perfect couple? Her rejection made no sense. He was wealthy, educated, and had access to every luxury imaginable. His life had been one of endless ease and comfort. As he had patiently explained to her, she could have everything she’d ever dreamed of, as long as she continued to please him.

  Was that so difficult? Was he being unreasonable?

  He had generously offered her a life that most women would die for.

  Die.

  His eyes narrowed on the lights in the distance.

  If Sierra Moore wasn’t careful, she just might blow her only chance at living the good life.

  He thought about all the beautiful, glamorous women he’d had and then discarded, some of whom had thrown themselves at him shamelessly as soon as they’d learned his name. And yet this little nobody, whose background and talent couldn’t hold a candle to any of them, had walked away.

  No, he corrected himself. She’d run away. Run from the best thing that had ever happened in her life. Little fool. Didn’t she understand just how much power he could wield?

  He’d done his research. Her father was a small-time musician who would never become the superstar he hoped to be. Unless, that is, he happened to acquire a “benefactor” who could arrange for him to open concerts for some of the biggest musical acts in the world. As for Sierra’s mother, she had a certain amount of talent as a sculptor, but she squandered the bulk of her energy on her partner, who was spending their money like a drunken sailor in a nearby town in the Italian Alps, where his mistress lived. A collector with enough influence in the world of art could provide the exposure which would guarantee that even a mediocre talent like hers would earn her a comfortable living.

  But none of these things would happen unless Sierra agreed to come back to him.

  His hands fisted at his sides, flexing and unflexing with an almost uncontrollable urge to lash out.

  The longer she made him wait, the more he would have to punish her. He would have to cleanse her, purify her, before letting her bask in the glow of his forgiveness. There was nothing quite like a little suffering to drive home the benefits of love. And he did love her. A love that was all-consuming.

  The more he burned for her, the more he hated her for spurning that love.

  He loved her. And he hated her.

  He thought about the angry phone call from Jacques. There had been an angry exchange between him and his father hours later, with a reminder that their good name not be dragged through the mud again. Not that Sierra was anything like that other time. Katia had been the daughter of one of the richest men in Europe. A man almost as powerful as his own father and grandfather. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. Katia had nearly cost him his inheritance. Sierra Moore, on the other hand, was a nobody.

  If Sierra couldn’t be swayed by intimidating notes or fabulously expensive diamonds, perhaps she needed to see just how all-powerful he could be when angered. The thought that had come to him at the saloon continued to grow in his mind.

  Once Sierra believed she was safe, he knew exactly where she would go. To the place that held her heart. The place she had talked about with her friend, Janine. Poor, foolish Janine. Thank heaven for her childlike trust and loose tongue. It had been Janine who had steered him here. To Sierra’s dream destination. The Tetons.

  While his devious mind began working through the knotty issues, Sebastian remained standing under the arched sign for what seemed hours until, far in the distance, lights that had been flickering in the ranch house were finally extinguished.

  With the mountains, the ranch house, and the surrounding countryside all in darkness, he climbed back into the car and sat scrolling through the missed messages on his cell phone.

  The illumination of the phone cast his face in an eerie light, giving him the look of a tortured demon.

  The ranch house and outbuildings lay in darkness. Apparently everyone had retired for the night.

  As Josh brought the truck to a stop in the barn, Cole stepped out.

  Minutes later he began frantically checking his pockets.

  “What’s wrong?” Josh paused beside him.

  “I can’t find my keys.” Cole looked clearly annoyed as the thought struck. “Hell. I bet I left them on the table in the saloon.”

  “Or maybe on the counter at Flora’s.” Josh touched a hand to his father’s arm to still his frantic movements. “Do you remember if you had them in the diner?”

  Cole shook his head. “The only thing on my mind in that diner was Flora’s sliders and a great big slice of her banana cream pie.”

  “Maybe your keys fell on the floor of the truck.” Sierra opened the truck door and the light went on as she and Josh scrambled around, moving the seats, checking under the floor mats.

  After a thorough search yielded nothing, Josh reluctantly reached for his cell phone. “I’ll call the saloon first, and then the diner. If you left them there, they’ve probably already found them and set them aside for you.”

  “I sure hope so.” Cole was shaking his head. “I have just about every key to this place on that key ring. I’d be lost without them.”

  “Don’t worry, Pa. We have spares.”

  “That’s not the point. I just hate losing something so important.”

  Josh felt a rush of anger, mixed with fear. Those keys in the wrong hands could spell danger for all of them.

  Just then Sierra, who’d been circling the truck, felt something under her foot. “What’s this?”

  She paused and peered down. “Look what I found.” She reached into the fresh straw and lifted a ring of keys.

  “Little lady, you’re a life saver.” Cole pocketed the keys and gave her a hard, quick hug.

  Josh paused beside her to mutter, “In more ways than one. I wasn’t looking forward to driving all the way back to Paintbrush tonight. I had… other things in mind.”

  “Now that sounds interesti
ng, cowboy.” With a laugh, she caught Josh’s hand.

  It was as hot as hers, the palm sweating, the pulsebeat rocketing. She released her hold on him, hoping to quiet her own unsteady heart.

  The three of them left the barn and walked to the house.

  As they drew near they could see Phoebe sitting on the porch glider, wrapped in a warm robe.

  “What’re you doing up at this hour?” Cole took in the look of her, hair brushed soft and loose, eyes crinkled in that wonderful, relaxed smile she always managed, even during the most stressful times.

  “Enjoying the silence. After the noise of the roundup and cooking for all those wranglers, it’s the most amazing thing to hear the gentle lowing of a cow or the sweet cooing of a dove.”

  “Yeah.” Cole dropped down beside her and set the glider into motion with his foot. “It’s been a long while since I’ve had the time to just sit and listen, but now that you mention it, this quiet time used to be a favorite of mine, too.”

  Phoebe looked up at Josh and Sierra, standing close together, but not touching or even looking at each other. “Would you two like to join us? There’s plenty of room.” She patted the cushioned seat beside her.

  Josh shook his head. “No thanks. I…” He seemed lost for an explanation until he suddenly blurted, “I promised Sierra a tour of the place.”

  “In the dark?” Cole’s tone was incredulous.

  Phoebe merely smiled and squeezed Cole’s hand to silence him. To Sierra she said, “Well then. It’s the perfect night for it. Cool, but not freezing. And not a snowflake in sight. Enjoy your tour.”

  “Thanks.” Sierra shot her a grateful smile. “Good night, Phoebe. Cole.”

  “Yeah.” Josh took hold of her hand. “’Night, Phoebe. Pa.”

  The two turned away and headed toward the horse barn, which was closer to the house than the vehicle barn they’d just left.

  The farther they got from the porch, the more hurried their steps became, until they were practically sprinting away.

  “What in hell is that fool thinking, giving her a tour in the dark? I have half a mind to—” Cole started to rise, but Phoebe caught his hand and drew him back down.

  “Oh, Cole.” She gave a girlish laugh. “Have you forgotten what it feels like to be young and want to get away from everyone else?”

  “Of course I haven’t forgotten. But it’s the middle of the night.”

  “Exactly. As I recall, it’s the very best time for young people to make love.”

  “Make love?” Cole turned to her with a look of absolute astonishment. “Now where did you come up with that?”

  “It’s there in their eyes. All you need to do is look. You can’t tell me you haven’t seen this coming.”

  Cole’s mouth opened, then closed, but no words came out. After a long, silent minute his expression changed from one of questioning to one of dawning acceptance.

  “I guess I have, but I just wasn’t paying enough attention. Too much going on around here to think about something like that. You think they’ve already…?” His voice trailed off. This was, after all, his son they were discussing. And though Josh was well into manhood, Cole could still see the distant, tough, independent face his son had been presenting to the world since losing his mother at the age of ten.

  This wouldn’t be something Josh would confide to his father.

  There had been women in his son’s life. Too many to count. But until now, Cole would have bet a fortune that none of them had meant a thing.

  Until now.

  Phoebe laughed again. A clear, sweet sound of pure joy. “I’m thinking those two looked a bit too uneasy to be lovers yet. There was way too much tension between them.”

  “Yeah.” Cole thought over the past few hours that he’d spent with them. “Now that you mention it, Josh was cranky. Edgy. Like he had a burr under his saddle.”

  “Don’t you remember that itchy feeling, Cole?”

  He looked over at her, and a smile split his lips and crinkled his eyes. “I surely do. That first time I saw Seraphine I took a hot poker straight through my heart. I remember thinking that if I couldn’t have her, my world would never be the same again.”

  He fell silent for a moment before asking, “You think they’re headed down that path right now? Tonight?”

  Phoebe shrugged. “Hard to say. But Josh looked like a tiger about to pounce.”

  “He did.” Cole shook his head. “Were we ever that young?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I was.” She smiled, remembering. “And madly, wildly in love.”

  He was oddly touched that she would share this with him. It was a portion of her life that Phoebe had always kept to herself. Some pain, he knew from firsthand experience, was just too intimate to bring out into the light.

  “Your Tim died much too young. How old was he?”

  “Twenty-five. And I was just twenty-three.”

  “I remember that fiery truck crash. It was the talk of the county.” Cole took her hand and noted idly that it was cold. “I don’t know how you kept that ranch going all alone.”

  “It was rough, but no harder than you, trying to care for three motherless little boys while running this spread with Big Jim.”

  “But we both did it, Phoebe.” He kept her hand in his. But only, he told himself, because it was cold.

  He’d spent so many years trying to remain faithful to the memory of his beloved Seraphine, his strict code of honor had become second nature. But surely a man ought to warm the hand of a friend, even if it brought him the kind of pleasure he hadn’t felt since before Seraphine went missing. “I remember the first time you walked into the chaos of our household, all calm and serene, and started setting things in order. The kids, the house, even Big Jim and me.” He chuckled. “And old Ela. Especially Ela. Befriending her had to be one hell of a mountain to climb.”

  Phoebe joined in the laughter. “She was a tough one. She wanted nothing to do with the intruder who was encroaching on ‘her menfolk,’ as she referred to all of you.”

  “But you handled her just right. And you gradually won her over. Just the way you won all of us. You saved us all, Phoebe.”

  She shivered and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. It was the neighborly thing to do. Though at the moment, he wasn’t feeling as much neighborly as he was feeling young, and alive, and frisky as a colt.

  “And having all of you depending on me saved my sanity and my life, Cole. You’ll never know how desperately lonely and unhappy I was. One day I was a blissful bride, planning the rest of my life with Tim, and the next I was all alone in the world. No husband. No family. Struggling to run a hardscrabble ranch with no way to pay off a mountain of debt. And then suddenly I had these three little boys who needed me.”

  “Not just my boys, Phoebe. Big Jim needed you.” He cleared his throat. “I needed you. Still do, if truth be told.”

  Phoebe looked away.

  Cole tilted his head and watched the path of a shooting star as it streaked across the sky. “Quick. Make a wish.”

  He closed his eyes.

  Beside him, Phoebe did the same, before suddenly getting to her feet.

  Cole’s eyes snapped open. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Time I headed up to bed.” She stepped back, hands clasped tightly at her waist. “’Night, Cole.”

  “’Night, Phoebe. Would you like me to walk you upstairs?”

  “No. I’m… I’m fine.”

  “Okay then. Guess I’ll just sit here a while and watch the stars.”

  But when she disappeared inside the house, he realized the night had gone flat.

  Phoebe managed to reach her room and close the door before the tears started.

  The rush of emotions had caught her completely by surprise. One minute she’d been enjoying Cole’s quiet presence beside her. The next she’d been so overcome with emotion, she’d almost embarrassed herself right there in front of him.

  She’d come
to expect his declarations of love for his Seraphine. It was as much a part of Cole Conway as his handsome, Irish face, his booming laugh, or his rare outbursts of temper that were quickly forgotten. What she hadn’t expected was her reaction to the touch of his hand on hers. Or the warm tingle along her spine when he’d dropped his arm around her shoulders.

  But when he’d made that grudging admission that he’d needed her in those early days and needed her now, his words had warmed her heart as nothing else could. Though, in truth, there was but one thing Cole needed: Seraphine. Didn’t the entire family know it?

  Still, when he’d invited her to make a wish, a thought had sprung, unbidden, into her mind, that had shattered all her composure.

  Pure foolishness, she knew. It was useless to wish for things that were completely out of her reach.

  She pressed a hand to her heaving bosom. She’d had a lifetime to practice firm self-discipline. Why was her silly, childish heart betraying her now?

  It had to be that glimpse of Josh and Sierra, thinking they were so clever, when all their heartfelt emotions were there in their eyes for the whole world to see

  Whatever the trigger, she needed to push it aside and get back to the careful discipline that had ruled her life for the past twenty years. She was content to be a cook and housekeeper, and a surrogate mother to three grown men who made her proud of whatever meager influence she’d had in their lives.

  What she would never tolerate—what her pride would never permit—was being a surrogate wife.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I thought we’d never get away.” Laughing, Josh led Sierra to the barn. He paused just inside the doorway and turned to her, keeping his eyes steady on hers as his hands moved across the tops of her shoulders and down her arms. “You’re making this awfully easy.”

  “You mean because I don’t play games about wanting what you want?”

  His grin was quick and disarming. “Yeah. But I have to warn you. I—”

  She pressed her hand over his mouth to still his words. “I know. You can’t make me any promises. Isn’t that imprinted in a guy’s DNA? Don’t worry. I’m not asking for any. As my parents have told me time and again, sex is not a good reason to commit for a lifetime.”