Heartbreak Ranch (8 page)

He gave in to impulse.

His hand came up to cup around her throat and he lowered his mouth to hers. Her taste was fresh, sweetly intoxicating. His lips pressed hers apart, and her flavor fired through his system. His mind went blank in a brilliant explosion of light, and then sensation crowded in, slapping at heightened nerve endings.

Closer. He was aware of the demand, if not the action that followed it. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. He wasn't so far gone that he didn't feel her arms slide around his neck, her fingers twist in his hair.

Deeper now. Faster, hotter, more urgent. Her sigh only intensified his greed. He should have known that she'd be pure energy in his arms, lightning and heat flashing and strobing around him. His mouth ate at hers, savagely hungry, as if this moment had been a promise long denied. She returned his kiss with all the inner fire that burned so brightly in her, all but singeing him.

He buried his face at the smooth skin of her neck and fought for reason. He'd never known need to be so quick, so violent. He was a man who prized control above all else. And yet it wasn't control he thought of when his hand went to her breast. It wasn't control he fought for when she pressed against his palm in an unspoken plea for more. His lips streaked back to seal her mouth with his, as if he
could get his fill with just one more taste, desperately certain that he could never get enough.

Laughter sounded nearby, close enough to intrude. He lifted his mouth a fraction from hers and looked down into her face. Her eyelids lifted slowly, and she gazed at him, stunned bewilderment giving way to shock. They drew apart with a haste that would have been amusing under other circumstances. Right now, though, the situation seemed serious as hell.

“God,” Julianne said shakily, one hand pressed to her stomach. She moistened her lips, and Jed gritted his teeth against the sudden, vicious ache that bloomed low in his belly at her action. She took a stumbling step backward from him, and then another.

“God,” she said again, and shuddered out a breath.

“Maybe you were right. Some impulses can be downright dangerous.”

I
t didn't rank right up there as the biggest mistake in her life, but there was no denying that kissing Jed Sullivan wasn't one of her wiser decisions.

Julianne pressed her knees into the mare's sides, urging her to a faster pace. It was enough encouragement for the horse to break into a gallop. She'd been bred for speed and loved to run. That's what Gabe had told her when she'd asked for a mount. And that had sounded exactly like what she'd been looking for.

She ignored the shouted greetings of the men working fence as she passed by them, and leaned low over the mare's neck, letting her jump the stream in a powerful forward movement. She tried to focus on the lush green pastureland she was riding over, the majesty of the mountains in the distance, the sound of the stream thrashing and humming as it wound its way from the Missouri River in a path across the H/B Ranch. Her concentration, however,
was shot. She was more than willing to blame Jed for that, as well.

When it became apparent that the horse was tiring, Julianne reluctantly straightened in the saddle, a gentle pressure on the reins signaling the mare to slow. She'd missed this, for so long. When she'd lived at the ranch, she'd ridden every day, but there had been very little opportunity in Florida. And after the first disastrous visit to the ranch during her marriage, she'd never attempted another. So many pleasures she'd denied herself.

So many years wasted.

The horse slowed to a walk, and her mind crowded again with the troublesome thoughts that had only been swept away momentarily. The uppermost being Jed Sullivan.

Just the thought of him made her wince, and a flush warmed her cheeks. There was no use questioning why that kiss had ever been allowed to happen. She'd asked herself the question a thousand times already and had come up with no logical answer. Oh, it was easy enough to explain away the quick explosion of pleasure she'd experienced at his kiss. She would have to be dead not to respond to him. A few moments in Jed's arms had proved that her pulse was, indeed, thumping right along.

Julianne swung off the horse's back and let the mare graze. Dropping down in the new summer grass, she stretched out on her back and contemplated the clouds skudding across the sky.

Admittedly, there had been a brief period as a schoolgirl when she'd harbored secret, guilty dreams about Jed. Those dreams had withered under the reality of living day-in and day-out with the man. It was hard to maintain fantasies about someone who hadn't thought twice about publicly humiliating her when he'd disapproved of her actions.
She'd been about sixteen the time he'd seen her in town and hauled her back to the house to change out of the tube top and miniskirt she'd been wearing. Her lip curled as she remembered her mortification. She'd been ready to kill him that night. And he'd been less than tactful with his opinions, as well. Her stinging assessment of his high-handed actions hadn't discouraged him. Later that same summer he'd bloodied Davy Stoner's lip for bringing her home two hours past curfew.

Her eyes closed and she folded her arms over her face to block the sun. How could she have kissed Jed? Jed, who had been ordering her around since the first day he stepped foot on the ranch, who had taught her to drive and bought her her first car. Jed, who had sneered at her crushes on teen stars and rock singers, then bought her tickets to the concert of the year. Jed, who'd always been there in the background, sometimes hassling her to the brink of madness. And other times stepping in to soothe the hurts her father's broken promises had caused.

It should have been like kissing someone familiar. They were almost family, for heaven's sake. But there had been nothing in the least bit sisterly in the feelings his kiss had elicited. His lips had been hard, insistent, and she imagined she could still feel the shock waves of pleasure that had eddied inside her. She'd heard the rumors when she was growing up; had, in fact, taken great pleasure in taunting him about his reputation. Finding out for herself that for once the gossip had been understated had been a fascinating revelation.

Absently, she let one arm drop to her side and plucked at the blades of grass with her fingers. The trip home from Helena had been the most awkward in her life. The only words Jed had spoken had been to snap out orders. She could have understood embarrassment; she ping-ponged
between that and total amazement herself. But Jed hadn't seemed embarrassed. He'd seemed…angry. No doubt he was beating himself up for not being in control for once in his life. She couldn't deny that she'd been grateful for the silence, even if it had made the trip seem interminable.

She wasn't up to being casual about the kiss. An insect hovered, and she waved it away with a languid lift of her hand. Maybe later, after her memory stopped supplying her with instant replays of the sudden firestorm that had raged through her system. Then they could go on as usual.

To give them some necessary distance, she'd made sure she hadn't come downstairs until long after the usual time Jed began his day. Avoiding him might be considered cowardly. She preferred to think of it as cautious.

After all, it wasn't as if she didn't have other things to occupy her mind. The mess in Florida no longer seemed like a dark cloud of doom hovering overhead, but she did have some thinking to do. She was twenty-eight years old, and divorced from a very wealthy man who had every available asset tied up by the drug enforcement agencies, the IRS or a trust. It was a tiny sliver of irony that Marianne Craig had been correct about one thing; Julianne had come home with little more than her clothes, some jewelry and a few other personal belongings.

She hadn't planned very far ahead while she'd been in Florida. She'd spent years reacting to each new crisis of Andrew's. But now she was home, and the details of the scandal were beginning to seem very far away. It was time to decide what she was going to do with the rest of her life. The one thing she was certain about at this point was that Jed wasn't going to factor into those plans.

She took a deep breath and released it, a little of her tension easing away. She hadn't gotten a great deal of sleep last night. And the rest she had gotten had been filled
with hard gray eyes, a clever mouth and strong arms. But here she felt more at peace than in the strange hotel room. The air was filled with a bounty of freshness that couldn't be found anywhere else. The sweet smell of the new grass and the lazy, droning sounds of the insects mingled with the sense of security she always had on the ranch. She let herself drift. Her last coherent thought was that she absolutely refused to dream of Jed Sullivan.

 

The pickup jolted over a hidden rut in the field with bone-jarring force. The bumpy journey did little to improve Jed's disposition. When he'd checked on the men, they'd laughingly mentioned that Julianne had bolted by on the back of a horse. The mere mention of her name had been enough to signal the return of the dull headache that had been riding him for the past twenty-four hours. Common sense dictated that he turn around and head in exactly the opposite direction from the one she'd taken.

Common sense had been in short supply recently. Certainly it had been completely absent a couple of nights ago. There had been no logic present when he'd covered her lips with his and discovered for himself the intoxicating flavor of that sweet, sassy mouth. And there had certainly been no sense in the desire that had knifed through him once he'd had her in his arms. The feel of that soft body pressed against his had ignited a fire in him that had yet to subside. Which was making sleep elusive, and his temper uncertain.

Knowing her as he did, he could imagine too easily the speed with which she was riding. Jumping the stream, for God's sake. She wouldn't consider the fact that she hadn't ridden in years. His mouth flattened. No, she was acting in typical Julianne fashion. Spoiled, reckless, headstrong. There was a time when he'd tried to save her from those
kinds of behaviors. Had tried to convince her to think before she acted. The way he remembered it, she'd never thanked him for his efforts. Deliberately he drove east, to check on several other hands who were working fence. He did his best to push her from his mind. She'd been lodged there for far too long already.

The sun read close to two o'clock when he headed back toward the buildings. He hadn't gone more than a mile when he caught sight of a mare, contentedly cropping at grass. His gaze swept the area, and when he caught sight of Julianne's body sprawled out on the ground, the blood in his veins congealed. He threw the pickup into park with a speed that had the transmission grinding, and was out of the truck and by her side in one swift movement.

“Julianne!” In contrast to the urgency in his voice, the hand on her shoulder was a bare whisper of movement. Already his gaze was sweeping her form, trying to detect any injuries.

Then her eyes were flickering open, and the dazed, drugged look in them was so similar to the way she'd looked after their kiss that his stomach drew up in a tight, painful knot.

“I thought I told you to stay out of my dreams.” Her voice was slightly slurred, a little petulant.

“Are you hurt?”

She blinked a couple of times, then rubbed both hands over her face and sat up. “No, why would I be?”

Relief fired through his system and unleashed his temper.

“Maybe because fate decided to pay you back for tempting it all your life. When I saw you lying here, I figured you'd finally taken the fall you've always been begging for and broke something.”

She yawned and worked her shoulders lazily. “I think
fate intervening with another nasty surprise at this point would be a little redundant, don't you?”

“Why, because you've had a few disappointments lately?” He knew his tone was hard but made no effort to soften it. Recent experience had taught him what to expect when he allowed himself to soften toward Julianne. “Grow up and deal with it.”

She was wide awake now, and spitting mad. “You're going to lecture me about life? That's rich. It's easy to be an expert when you rarely leave the confines of the ranch. When your biggest challenge is having to get up in front of a bunch of ranchers and make a two-minute speech.”

He simply stared at her, grateful that she'd never know about the biggest challenge he'd ever faced. And just how horribly he'd failed. “We're not talking about me. It's time you grew up, Jules. If it took some bad things in Florida to convince you of that, maybe they were worth it.”

Her lips tightened and she looked away. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“I know you. I figure that at least some of the trouble you found yourself in was due to your own recklessness. You don't seem to have a hint of self-preservation. You dive in to save people without thinking about what the cost to you might be. At the very least, people like your ex will only end up draining you. At the worst they'll drag you down with them. Like Andrew almost did.”

She didn't turn around, but he could see the muscles in her back go tense. “Fascinating analysis. Unfortunately, I've heard it all before, ad nauseam, from you.”

He frowned and reached for a cigarette. Lighting it, he blew a stream of smoke in her direction and narrowed his eyes. “Too bad you never listened. But you'll listen now.”

She turned and shot him a look sharp enough to draw blood.

Imperturbably he continued. “You're impulsive. You always have been. And not thinking things through can land you in a mess of trouble. Hitching up with Andrew Richfield is a prime example.”

“You'll have to excuse me if I find marital advice from you to be a little hard to swallow,” she said caustically.

“What's your definition of a long-term relationship, three weeks?”

He'd had plenty of practice over the years ignoring her barbs. He did so now. “You're also spoiled, willful and careless.” He drew in a deep breath of smoke consideringly. “I guess that's natural, given the way you were raised, always trying to get Harley's attention. But you're not a kid anymore, Jules. It's time you used your better qualities and made some changes in your life.”

The look on her face was deadly enough to make him glad there was nothing nearby she could throw at him. “Better qualities? Don't tell me you think I have some.”

He gazed at her through the narrow haze of smoke trailing from his cigarette and wondered with a sense of unease when he had started letting her twist up his insides. “You've got a few. Your heart's as big as all Montana, even though it's too soft sometimes. You're loyal and determined to a fault. When you set your mind to something, there's no stopping you.” He brought the cigarette to his lips and drew in thoughtfully. “You've got a good mind, use it. So life jumped up and slapped you in the face. Slap back.”

“Don't tempt me,” she muttered meaningfully.

“You returned to the ranch to regroup. Use that time to make a mature decision about what you want. Make sure you have a plan before you take off again.”

She cocked her head challengingly. “What makes you think I plan to leave?”

He said nothing for a moment, just brought the cigarette to his lips and watched her. Of course she'd leave. He ignored the quick churn in his gut at the certainty. Everybody did, eventually. Just as Kimberley had left. His birth mother hadn't exactly left him, she'd just given him away, when he'd been little more than a mass of burnt flesh and sullen bruises. Life had taught him it was infinitely easier to be the one to do the leaving. Since that wasn't always possible, the next best thing was not to give a damn.

He dropped the stub of the cigarette and ground it out carefully. “You'll leave,” he said with certainty. “But this time you'll be wiser, more careful. Think before you act. That's all I'm telling you.”

She raised her chin. “You don't know me half as well as you think you do. I'm a hell of a lot more than a half-brained idiot chasing after my impulses.”