Reaper's Vow (11 page)

“Not a place you want to go, huh?”

“No.”

Grabbing a cloth at the fireplace, she poured a cup for herself and then refilled his. The only betrayal of her nervousness was the rattle of the pot when she put it back. She quickly squashed it. This was a man to whom one didn't give the advantage. When she turned, he was sitting at the table. She licked her lips.

“I have a little honey if you need it sweetened.”

He shook his head. “It'd be a waste of honey to try and sweeten me up.”

She didn't smile at the joke, but she did hand him the cup, being careful to keep her fingers out of contact with his. She didn't want to feel that jolt of desire. She couldn't afford to be weak.

“Take the chair by the fire, please.”

He didn't argue. Just sat on one chair and put his feet up on the other. She pulled the third out but didn't sit.

“I have some milk.”

Again, he shook his head. “Save it for Wendy.”

It irked her that he knew how dear milk was and he thought of her daughter. She didn't want to like him. Liking him could go nowhere.

He caught her look. “I'm not a monster, you know.”

“They said you took on four Reapers and defeated them.”

“I had help.”

“So you didn't do it?”

He shrugged. “There was a fight. I won.”

He said that as if it were nothing.

“But you're human.”

“I got lucky.”

“You defeated four Reapers.”

“Yes.”

He had to be lying. Four. She studied him from under her lashes. He was big boned and lean, with well-honed muscles that flexed beneath his shirt. No doubt he was something in a fight with humans, but with Reapers? It just wasn't possible.

He set his cup on the table. “What do you want from me?”

She shook her head. “I just wanted to thank you for the favor you did me earlier.”

He said something under his breath.

“What?”

“You can't negotiate and win with that man.”

“I'm not trying to win. I'm just trying to—”

Cole knew what she was trying to do. It was written in every nervous stroke of her fingers over her arms. Telegraphed in the way they tangled in the wrap. The woman was between a rock and a hard place.

“Negotiate a better position?”

She nodded.

“Have you talked to Isaiah about it?”

Her eyes flashed to his. Her “no” wasn't a surprise. She'd already said she didn't think Isaiah could help. And Clark was too confident to feel threatened.

He sighed and wrapped his hands around the cup. The heat from the coffee spread to his hands, warming them. He looked at the black liquid, the lamplight glinted off the surface, and he shook his head.

A cup of coffee in payment for risking his life. Damn. Even he didn't hold it that cheap. He took a sip.

“You can't do this alone.”

“I don't have a choice.”

No, he supposed from where she sat she didn't. “You need help.”

Anger flashed in her eyes. A hint of red heated the deep brown.
Reaper.

“I'm fine.”

He'd heard Addy speak those words in that same cold, flatly determined yet hopeless tone too many times not to know it for the lie it was. She wasn't fine. Without help she was, quite simply, fucked.

“Saying it doesn't make it so.”

She jumped, and coffee spilled from her cup. She grabbed the cloth and dabbed at the back of her hand. He watched, feeling the frantic flick of her energy.

“Miranda . . .”

Across the room Wendy whimpered. Miranda latched onto the slight sound like a cat on a June bug, hurrying to the bed, whispering soothingly, pulling the blanket up over the child's shoulders the way mothers did. As if the weave were a magic shield that nothing could penetrate.

Cole pushed his coffee away, watching them both, frustration battling with disbelief. What had he been going to say? That he'd help her? He had no position here. Hell, Miranda was right. He didn't even have a clue as to what was going on, and he was going to get in the middle of it? He had enough problems without borrowing a stranger's.

Wendy's whimpers grew stronger. Fear, pure and simple, spread through the room. Cole gritted his teeth. There was something seriously wrong when a little girl's dreams held that much terror. Little girls should dream about sunny days braiding daisy chains and skipping through fields and Christmas and puppies and kittens and all the things that fascinated children. Wendy cried out.

“Leave my mommy alone!”

Anger lashed through the fear. Miranda cast him a glance. Hopeless. Desperate. She didn't want him to see this, but it was far too late. Energy pummeled him in relentless waves. Hers. Wendy's. And all of it was filled with the bite of horror. What in hell had happened to these two?

Wendy thrashed and cried out again. Her fist caught Miranda on the cheek. She flinched and whispered faster. Cole slowly brought the cup of coffee to his mouth and watched as the tension in him tightened. No amount of fast talk could halt memories that strong. Someone had hurt that little girl. Deeply.

In a routine that bordered on ritual, Miranda managed to get Wendy settled back into a quiet sleep. The energy in the room eased but didn't totally calm. Cole nursed his coffee as Miranda hovered by the bed. He knew from Addy's nightmares Wendy would sleep now. Miranda had to know it, too. Which meant she was stalling. No big surprise why.

“Your coffee's getting cold,” he told her.

She shrugged and looked over her shoulder. Instead of flashing fire, her gaze just telegraphed defeat. He knew that feeling, too. Nothing like holding someone you love as they relive a horror to make a body doubt everything.

“I don't feel like it anymore.”

No, for sure she didn't need coffee. What she needed was sleep.

“Why don't you go lie down and get some sleep, too, while I stand guard?”

She looked at him and the door. Outside the rain still poured.

“I'm not tired.”

As if to make a liar out of herself, she yawned.

“You going to stick to that lie?”

She shook her head and stroked her fingers over Wendy's shoulder. “It doesn't matter if I lie down, I won't sleep.”

It was probably the first bit of unvarnished truth she'd given him. The woman spun half-truths with the intricacy of a spider spinning a web.

“Too much on your mind?”

She nodded again, and her attention wasn't on his face but much lower. There was no telling what she was thinking from that look, but the way her tongue touched her lower lip, a hint of deeper pink on pink, gave him ideas.

He reached for his gun belt. “You want me to take them off?”

He would give a pretty penny for this woman to ask him to take off his guns, his boots, and his pants, until it was just the two of them skin to skin.

Shit. His cock twitched.

Her eyes flew to his. Shock, horror, and
son of a bitch
—it had to be his imagination that tacked desire onto the list of emotions he read in her expression.

Her gaze dropped down, then just as quickly jerked back up. Fresh tension laced the air. “No, I was just—”

With a slash of his hand he cut her off. He couldn't do anything about his cock, but he could put an end to her fear.

“Do us both a favor and crawl into that bed and pretend to sleep.”

“I didn't mean . . . I mean I can't—”

He cut her off again. “Just because I appreciate a beautiful woman doesn't mean I forget who I am.”

She licked her lips. His cock twitched again. He thought she'd retreat, but she didn't. That chin came up and those soft, tempting lips pressed ever so slightly together. The woman had guts.

“And who are you?” she asked as if it mattered.

“Cole Cameron.”

He stood. She put her hand on his arm. Frissons of electricity skittered up under his skin.

“And what does that mean?”

He tipped her chin up, adding a bit more tension to the taut energy between them. “It means you and your daughter are church-pew safe with me.”

Questions he didn't want to answer filled her eyes.

“Go to bed, Miranda. I promise I won't touch you.”

“There's no point.”

He stroked his thumb across her lips. In a subtle experiment he brushed his energy across hers, siphoning off some of the stress spiking within her. She didn't blink or otherwise acknowledge the touch, but she did relax. “Tonight it's safe to sleep.”

She blinked. Her energy withdrew, but she didn't. “Because you're here?”

The words formed against his skin in an intimate caress. She was challenging him. Showing him she wasn't intimidated. He smiled and pressed his thumb a touch harder. He tugged her shawl up with his free hand, covering her breasts “Yes.”

It was the truth.

She dropped her hand from his arm, eyeing his smile as if it were a bad thing. Shit. Had it been so long since he'd smiled that he couldn't do it anymore?

She stepped to the side, squeezing out from between him and the table. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome.”

As soon as she was clear, she took one step and then another and another until the bed was at her back. The whole distance she didn't take her eyes off of his. Like he was a rattler prepared to strike.

He didn't like the comparison. “I told you I wouldn't hurt you.”

“I know.”

But she didn't believe it, and that just pissed him off. “Then act like it.”

She fussed, her hands moving over her arms and the skirt of her nightgown in a graceful dance. It was also as arousing as hell. He turned his back. “Just get in the bed.”

“You could go back outside.”

Thunder rumbled; it was not as close, but the rain was still steady. “In case you haven't noticed, it's pouring out there.”

“You didn't mind before.”

Before she hadn't looked at him like he was a rapist. Now he had something to prove. He wasn't a threat to her. “I mind now.”

Her energy snapped with annoyance, and then there was a rustle as she slid into bed. When he turned back, she was watching him cautiously from under her lashes.

A twinge of something that could have been guilt flicked his conscience. Cupping his hand around the chimney, he blew out the lamp. Miranda's energy jumped and focused. He pulled his hat down over his brow, slumped a bit down on the chair, and acted like he was going to sleep. He felt a little of the tension leave her energy, but it still seethed around him in wary twitches.

After ten minutes of lessening tension, she asked softly, so softly if he'd been asleep he wouldn't have heard, “Did you really kill four Reapers?”

“Yeah, I really killed four Reapers.”

There was a rustle of the sheets. Was she turning on her side or her stomach? His imagination wouldn't let go of either image. On her side he'd be able to follow the curve of her hip with his hand, over the fullness of her thighs, indulging in a bit of play in the hollow of her waist before wandering up to her breasts. On her stomach, that fine ass would be sticking up.

Shit. His cock thickened and strained against his pants. He'd been too long without a woman.

This woman.

He pushed the thought away. From across the room her breathing quickened. “What are you so damn afraid of, woman?”

“Losing control.”

That made twice she'd been honest. He gentled his voice. “Of what?”

“Everything.”

“Why?”

Her energy gathered. “Why do you have to ask so many questions?” she snapped.

“Because no one will give me any answers,” he snapped right back.

There was another long expulsion of breath. “You don't know what you're asking.”

“So tell me.”

He could hear her hair rustle on the sheets, feel the flare of her energy as she denied him.

“I'm not allowed to talk about it.”

“Says who?”

“Says Isaiah.”

“The same man that's letting this Clark fellow bully you.”

“He's not ‘letting' anything. I'm the one that agreed to the union.”

“Why in hell would you agree to anything like that?”

“I told you.”

“Yeah, I heard you last time. You need a strong man to protect your daughter.”

“Yes.”

“Protect her from what?”

He felt the flex in her energy that preceded the evasion.

“What every mother's afraid of. The wrong time. The wrong man. The wrong place.”

“Reapers.”

So soft he almost didn't hear. “Yes.”

In the wake of that truth the silence was deafening. He waited, but she didn't say more. Wendy murmured in her sleep. Thunder rumbled in the distance. He could push for more or let it go. He opted for the latter. The woman was strung out tighter than a kite string in a high wind.

“Where you from, Miranda?”

Her energy swirled in a flurry of panic. A reaction he was more used to in criminals than in a woman. But still she answered.

“Virginia.”

“Not much of a drawl for a Virginian.”

“Northern Virginia.”

He made note. “So how'd you end up out here in the back of beyond?”

“My husband, Wendy's father, wanted to come west to start over. There wasn't much left of our home after the North's act of aggression.”

“You mean the war.”

“I call it like it was.”

“So you're a Southerner.”

“You just got done saying I didn't have an accent.”

Did she think she could confuse him? “Yes. One more piece of the puzzle that is you.”

“I'll thank you not to see me as a puzzle or a challenge.”

“Are you telling me or asking me?”

There was a rustling that indicated a shrug. “Both.”