Ransom My Heart Read online

  “No, I guess that’s not it,” she said, and her green eyes lifted to meet his. She smiled at him. “I thought you’d never get around to asking,” she said, her smile widening slightly. Not taunting his blatant arousal. Not teasing him. Just smiling at him.

  He didn’t know why she was so beautiful. The features themselves weren’t spectacular. There were even flaws. Her mouth was wide, making her smile almost too generous. The right eyetooth was the tiniest bit crooked, and there was a minute dusting of freckles across her nose. But she had won every beauty contest her daddy had entered her into until, somewhere around age fourteen, she had put her foot down. She was through parading around on a stage in front of a bunch of horny strangers, she’d told him. The comment had been repeated for a couple of years by those who delighted that someone had finally stood up to Sam Kincaid, even if it was only his daughter and about nothing more important than a beauty contest.

  “Samantha,” Chase said softly, the word almost a groan.

  “What do I have to do?” she asked, the question tinged with resigned amusement. “I really believed I could leave you alone—and I did try. You have to admit I’ve tried, except…somehow I’ve always known…”

  She hesitated again, and he didn’t bother to fill in the blanks. He’d always known, too, from the first time her eyes had locked with his, her interest.in him somehow clearly expressed in their green depths. He might not understand it, but he had always known Samantha was his. His for the taking. But not for the keeping. Sam Kincaid had been very explicit about that. And the way Chase felt about her, had felt about her for what seemed to be his entire adult life, didn’t invite just the “taking” part.

  He wanted what Mac and Jenny had. That oneness. That rightness. The till-death-do-us-part stuff. Only, he knew it would never work for the two of them. Her father would never let it work. And he knew he couldn’t make her happy. In bed, maybe he could. He’d love to try, but he knew that wouldn’t be enough, not for the long haul. The gap between them was way too wide. It seemed he had always known that, too.

  “Go home, Samantha,” he said. He fought to keep any inflection out of the command, to keep the raw, aching need from showing in his voice. “Get out of here.”

  “I’m not a child anymore, Chase. I’m twenty-one, fully capable of making my own decisions, and I don’t think you’re too old for me. Or too anything else Sam told you.” She smiled at him again.

  “I don’t think your father would agree with you.”

  “I didn’t plan on asking him for his opinion. Or are you afraid Sam’ll have you beaten up again for touching me?” she asked. Her eyes held his challengingly for a moment, and then they softened, knowing as well as he did that wasn’t the truth of why he’d stayed away from her.

  “It’s no good, Samantha. You know it and I know it. Just go home. Save us both a lot of grief,” he said, his voice as carefully controlled as before.

  He picked up his jeans from the foot of the bed and carried them with him into the small bathroom. But once there, he laid them across the bowl of the freestanding lavatory and gripped the porcelain rim of the sink with both hands. He put his forehead against the cool glass of the mirror and closed his eyes. He held them closed, fighting against the thought of going back into the bedroom, fighting against the strongest temptation he’d ever known in his life.

  He jumped when her palms slipped over his shoulders and down his upper arms. The bare skin of his back shivered in reaction. Her warm lips brushed along his spine, the ringed column of bone made prominent by his forward lean. They trailed slowly downward, caressing and tantalizing. Gathering every ounce of resolve that hadn’t melted under the heat of her mouth, Chase straightened.

  The effect was not quite what he’d anticipated. Samantha’s arms came around him, her fingers laced together over the hard, contoured planes of his abdomen, and she laid her cheek against his back. When she breathed, he could feel the small movement of her breasts against his skin.

  “You slumming?” he made himself ask. “Is that what turns you on about me? They say some women are like that. They get turned on at the thought of crossing barriers. Is that why you’re here? Just a little sorority-girl experimenting on the other side of the tracks?”

  She released him then, stepping back, breaking the almost-unbearable contact, and he swallowed hard in relief. Maybe that was the key. Drive her away. Keep his word. Do what was right—what he knew was right—no matter how wrong it felt.

  “You know better than that,” she said.

  He turned around to face her. She was still standing close enough that he could see her features clearly, despite the lack of light in the small room.

  “Or maybe sleeping with me is just a way to get back at your daddy? A way to finally declare your independence. Is that it? Because other than that, I really—”

  “Don’t,” she protested. “You know better than that,” she said again.

  “What I know is you can have any man you want. No matter how rich or powerful or smart. Men that Sam would find highly suitable. And yet for some reason—”

  “You know the reason,” she interrupted. “You’ve always known the reason. It’s always been the same. All these years it’s been the same.”

  Her voice was different, the surety that had been there before, faltering in the face of his accusations.

  “Hell, Samantha, you just. got an itch, and you picked me out to scratch it,” he said harshly, crudely. “That’s all it is. All it’s ever been. Even Sam understood what was going on.”

  The words were brutal, and she reacted. Her face changed, her mouth opening slightly as if to offer a rebuttal to what he’d claimed, and then it closed, but her lips trembled as if she were on the verge of tears.

  “So why don’t we just get it over with, just do it, and then maybe we can both get on with our lives,” Chase suggested harshly. “I’ll give you what you came here for, and after that, you leave me the hell alone. I’m getting a little too old to be your daddy’s whipping boy.”

  Now, he thought, watching the shimmer of tears invade the wide green eyes. Now she would leave. He’d done everything else he could think of to keep his word to Sam Kincaid. He’d practically exiled himself from his own home, from his family, and he’d never contacted Samantha in any way, trying to pretend that what was between them didn’t exist. It hadn’t worked, of course, but maybe this would.

  If he could finally destroy whatever image she had of him. Destroy what she felt, or thought she felt, about him. Destroy the possibility that she’d ever seek him out again, ever offer the temptation she had offered tonight. And in the process, destroy myself, he acknowledged bitterly.

  “All right,” she whispered. “Maybe you’re right.”

  It took his breath. That wasn’t what she was supposed to say. Was not the way someone like Samantha Kincaid was supposed to react to the suggestion that she become a one-night stand. Damn it, he realized, she had called his bluff. She knew as well as he did that it wasn’t that way between them. It never had been. He loved Samantha Kincaid. Had loved her for years. Probably since the first time he’d seen her, pigtailed and preadolescent gawky, riding in some local horse show, easily controlling one of the magnificent horses the Kincaid ranch was famous for.

  And loving her was a sickness he had never gotten over, despite the years of separation, despite Sam’s arguments, despite everything. He loved her, but God knew how much he wanted her, too. Had wanted her far too long for his body not to react to that whispered agreement.

  He watched her fingers lift to the top button of the shirt she wore. Watched unbelievingly as they unfastened the first and then the second, his eyes following as her hands moved downward. Breathing suspended, he watched her shrug almost awkwardly out of the garment and drop it onto the tile of the bathroom floor. She wasn’t wearing a bra and her small, perfect breasts had peaked with the touch of cold in the night air. His hands tightened into fists, fighting the urge to enclose, to make her bo
dy warm and soft and wanting under their touch.

  Her fingers had already dealt with the metal buttons of her jeans when he became aware of something besides the beauty of her breasts. She moved, sliding the denim down over her hips, allowing the jeans to puddle on the tile beside the light shirt, another small mound shadowed with the darkness. His eyes had followed the drop of fabric, and then they lifted, slowly, tracing the line of slender perfection upward. Long legs, beautifully shaped by years of riding. Hips almost boyishly slim. Slight convexity of her belly centered by the darker circle of her navel. Slender waist leading upward to the breasts where his eyes had begun feasting.

  This was not what he had intended. Not what honor demanded. Not what he knew in his soul was right, but there was nothing he could do about the rush of desire that seemed to consume him. Even his hearing was affected, the sweep of blood so strong in his ears that it was as if he were standing in a vacuum, as if this were one of the endless dreams he’d had. Not real. It couldn’t be real.

  She took a step closer, the small thrust of her nipples touching against the mat of hair on his chest. His body jerked with the depth of the breath he took, and he was surprised that in the soundless vacuum of dead air that surrounded him he could still hear that gasp. Not a dream.

  “I don’t have anything, sweetheart,” he said, his voice hoarse with need. “Nothing to protect you. I didn’t expect—”

  “It’s all right,” she said. Her fingers found the end of the towel, and she pulled it away. The terry cloth fell to join her scattered clothing on the floor. Released from constraint, his arousal seemed to leap upward, making contact with her body. Then it was far too late for reason. Far too late to remember that this was the last thing he’d ever intended to happen. Far too late for any shred of sanity to interfere with what they had both wanted for more years than they could remember.

  He wasn’t even aware that he had picked her up, cradling her against the strength of his chest as if she had always belonged there. Unaware of the short journey to the lavender-scented bed. Too unaware of the stark reality of what they were doing.

  Despite the all-consuming force of his desire, he didn’t forget that this was Samantha, and he didn’t forget what he had dreamed about making her feel. His big hands were shaking, but they were infinitely tender, practicing a restraint that he wouldn’t have believed possible as they moved against her. Not possible except for the fact that he loved her so much. Had always loved her. An eternity of love, which he intended to demonstrate slowly and carefully. Using all the skills he had learned while trying to forget her. All the things her substitutes had taught him about lovemaking, he finally was allowed to show to the woman he had pretended they were.

  Through the years he had never allowed himself to wonder if Samantha had done the same. If she had sought release in the arms of other men. That didn’t bear thinking about, although he wasn’t chauvinistic enough to believe that it was right for him and wrong for her. It was just something he couldn’t face, and so he had locked the question from his consciousness.

  Until tonight. Until her body was moving under his trembling hands and worshipping lips. Arching into his touch. Reacting to his whispered avowals. Shatteringly responsive to his every caress.

  She had told him she was protected, so that must mean…It didn’t matter, he realized suddenly, if he weren’t the first to make love to her. He was in no position to make demands, not given the fruitless attempts he’d made through the years to destroy in the arms of other women the hold she had over him. What mattered was that this was the memory that endured, erasing whatever had gone before. Making all others meaningless. Forgotten.

  Finally, he knew she was ready. As wanting as he. As empty. She had whispered the words and her body’s responses had spoken to him even more clearly. Chase was certainly experienced enough to read all the signs. It was time, and so he allowed himself to push into the sweet, hot wetness he had so carefully created, that he knew was waiting for him.

  The barrier he encountered was a shock, but not enough to prevent the completion of what he had begun. Nothing could have prevented that. But he felt his eyes sting with hot moisture that had nothing to do with the sensations that grew with each small surge of her hips beneath his. Samantha was his. Only his. He was surprised to find how much that meant. Despite the long years, she had waited for him. Only him. Despite her father’s wishes and his own lonely exile, Samantha had waited.

  As he thought that, the control he had exerted spiraled away into the darkness and his need exploded inside her, the hot seed of his passion pulsing into her building response. He thought briefly that he had left her behind, too moved by what he had discovered to wait for her. Then she joined him, her body moving as convulsively as his. He held her, hearing his name gasped into the darkness as if it had been waiting on her lips through the eternity of their separation. His, he thought again. She was his—she always had been—and to hell with whatever Sam Kincaid thought about it.

  WHEN THE PHONE SHRILLED into the predawn darkness, Chase awoke instantly. It took him a moment to deal with the fact that the slender contours of Samantha’s body were pressed against his side. Not a dream, he realized with the same wonder he had felt in the bathroom, watching her undress. Reality. A remembered reality of her body moving under his. Several times.

  Maybe that was why his brain felt like sawdust. Maybe that was why he couldn’t move to answer the phone until the second ring. Maybe…

  “I got a call,” Mac’s voice said in his ear when he finally managed to pick up the receiver and mumble into it He was aware that Samantha had shifted, moving closer to him. He listened with half his mind, the other half occupied by what was happening to his body—something that, given the number of times he’d made love to her through the night, shouldn’t be happening.

  “A call,” Chase repeated, trying to clear his head.

  “A tip. Something happening at the Sanchez ranch. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

  “No,” Chase said. The denial came out too sharply. But Mac was nobody’s fool, and Chase didn’t know where Samantha had parked her car. For some reason, he didn’t want Mac to know she’d spent the night here. His brother wouldn’t say anything to anyone except Jenny, but still he didn’t want anybody, not even them, to know. Not until he figured out what to do. Not until he’d talked to Sam Kincaid, confessed that he’d broken his word and that he couldn’t let Samantha go, now that she was his.

  “No,” he said again, concentrating on controlling his voice. “I’ll come there. Jenny can feed us breakfast when we get back.”

  Mac hesitated for a moment, perhaps sensing that something else was going on, but the need to check out the tip he’d received precluded argument.

  “I’ll give you ten minutes,” Mac offered and hung up. Another man of few words.

  Pushing off the covers, Chase sat up on the edge of the bed.

  “What is it?” Samantha asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Mac got a tip. He wants me to go with him.”

  “A tip about what?”

  “Drugs,” Chase said, standing. At least, that was why his brother had asked him to come down here. Unofficially, of course. Chase knew a lot about running drugs across the border. He ought to after three years with the DEA. That was why Mac had sought his advice, not because he wasn’t capable of taking care of his county.

  Mac had been sheriff here for almost six years, and he knew just about every secret folks didn’t want anyone to know. But they’d been lucky so far with drug smuggling. There were easier places to bring it across, places closer to major U.S. highways and closer to the Mexican cities where the stuff from South America was flown in.

  “Here?” Samantha asked. The same doubt was in her voice that had been in his own when Mac had first broached the possibility to him. Not here.

  “Maybe,” he said. If he looked down at her, he knew he would never make Mac’s deadline, never pull himself away before he had touched her ag
ain. And if he touched her…

  “You be careful,” she said softly.

  Almost against his will, his lips lifted. She sounded like Jenny. Like a wife. This, then, was what it felt like. This sense of loss, this separation. A tearing at the oneness they had created last night.

  “I will,” he promised. “I’ll be careful.”

  HE HAD DRESSED IN THE darkness of the bathroom, and when he recrossed the pine floor, awkwardly on tiptoe, his boots had sounded too loudly, echoing in the dark stillness. They hadn’t spoken again. He wasn’t sure what to say. Not yet It was far too new. Almost fragile. Too easily destroyed.

  He stepped out onto the small porch, closing the door to the house behind him. The clear December air was sharp in his nostrils, replacing the scent of her body that somehow had clung to his as he dressed.

  He drew in a deep lungful, fighting the urge to go back, the urge to let Mac check out his informant’s tip alone, as he would have done if Chase hadn’t agreed to come home this weekend. Fate, maybe. Instead of wondering about how that one simple decision might change the future, he stepped off the porch and down onto the first of the two wooden steps.

  “You give your brother a message.” The voice spoke from the darkness across the yard, raised only enough to travel to him through the chill of the Texas night. “Maybe save his life.”

  “What message?” Chase asked. Although it had been years since he’d heard that voice, he had no trouble recognizing it. A familiar bitterness tightened his throat.

  “He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.”

  “And you’re going to tell him,” Chase mocked.

  “Pesos or bullets. You tell him.”

  Chase laughed, loudly enough that he knew the sound would carry to the figure in the shadows. “That’s supposed to scare Mac off? You don’t know my brother very well.”

  “Your brother,” the voice repeated. The comment was somehow taunting. “Tell your brother what I said. His life depends on it.”