Secrets and Lies: He's A Bad Boy / He's Just A Cowboy

“I’ll be okay.”

“Will you?” She tried to smile, but couldn’t. “I don’t know if, after tonight, either one of us will ever be okay again,” she said, repeating the sentiments he’d expressed earlier. When he didn’t reply, she moved off the couch and threw another chunk of wood onto the fire.

She started to explore a bit then, feeling his gaze upon her as she poked into a bookcase that covered one wall. Below the rows and rows of volumes were cupboard doors, and within the cupboard was an old quilt, hand-stitched and lovingly worn in places. “Just what you need,” she said, withdrawing the blanket and shaking out its neat folds. “Voilà. Comfort and modesty all in one fell swoop.” With a flourish, she snapped the comforter in the air and let it drift down over the couch to cover Jackson’s long body.

“Does it bother you?”

“What?”

“The fact that I’m undressed.”

“What do you think?” She couldn’t even look at him then; the conversation was far too intimate.

“Haven’t you ever seen your brothers—”

“Don’t have any. Just one sister.”

“Well, the brother of a friend?”

“No.”

He studied her long and hard, as if trying to unravel a mystery that surrounded her. It was foolish of course. She wasn’t mysterious, nor particularly interesting for that matter, and yet he stared at her as if she were the most fascinating creature on earth.

“Tell me about Rachelle Tremont,” he suggested.

“Not much to tell.”

“Well…tell me about yourself, anyway. What else have we got to do?”

The question stopped her cold. It implied that they had time, and lots of it, alone together. It implied that anything else they might consider would only get them in trouble. It implied that they were somehow bound together, obligated to share of themselves, and yet she couldn’t imagine sharing only part of herself with this boy. This man. This male.

As she stood up, she glanced down at him, at his shoulders rising above the hem of patchwork pieces. “I should leave, Jackson. Try to get to town and find you a doctor.”

“I don’t want a doctor.”

“You need one.”

“No way.”

She sat down on the edge of the couch, looking at him, wondering what it would be like to kiss him, and her gaze locked with his for a heart-stopping instant. The look was electric, and she glanced quickly away, aware of heat climbing up her neck.

“You okay?” he asked, his voice husky.

“No, but considering…” She shrugged. “I’m all right.” She was so aware of Jackson that she tingled. “Thanks…thanks for saving me.”

“No big deal—”

“It was!” She bit her lip then, surprised at her vehemence, and when she slid a glance his way, he was studying her face.

“I—I’m not sure—we should stay here.”

“Neither am I,” he admitted, his hand finding hers. His fingers were warm as they laced through hers. Still watching her, he tugged gently, silently insisting that she get closer to him. She knew she shouldn’t. That she should resist. He was too dangerous. Too sexy. And yet her legs moved willingly to the edge of the couch and she didn’t stop him from pulling her closer, so that she was sitting, half lying with him.

As she lowered herself, his hands moved, surrounding her waist, drawing her closer. He stared up at her with the firelight catching in his golden-brown eyes and the throb of his pulse visible in his throat.

One hand held the back of her neck, dragging her head forward until his lips were only inches from hers, his breath mingling with her own. She felt poised on the brink of an emotional river that promised to change her life forever. Not really understanding what was expected of her, and yet wanting to find out, she felt herself let go and dive into the current as his lips brushed gently over hers.

Her heart stopped and the noises of the night—the steady patter of rain, the tick of the clock, the hiss of the fire—faded into some dreamy corner of her mind. The kiss was slow and sensual, and though only their lips touched, the feeling seemed to reach every point in her body.

She felt his breath mingle with hers as his hands twined in her hair. Low and husky, his voice whispered a soft groan and she responded in kind. He drew her closer still until her breasts were flat against his bare chest and his tongue insistently prodded her teeth apart.

Willingly she accepted him. Never had she wanted to be kissed so thoroughly, never had she felt such passion. Eager to learn, quivering as his fingers brushed the bare skin at her throat, she kissed him with the same hunger she felt shudder through him.

“This is dangerous,” he said, but didn’t release her.

“I know.” She licked her tingling lips nervously, and he groaned again.

“I think we should stop.”

“I do, too,” she replied, but didn’t mean the words. Thoughts of pregnancy skittered through her mind, but were quickly forgotten when his fingers lowered, through the long strands of her hair to her back and he gently eased her forward until he could bury his face between her breasts. Her ripped blouse gave him easy entrance, and his breath was warm and wet against her skin.

She felt on fire and instinctively she arched closer, quivering when his tongue touched her flesh, wanting more of this delicious torture. An ache, deep and hot, burned between her legs as his lips slid downward, opening the flaps that had been her blouse and touching the lace of her bra.

His tongue delved beneath the sculpted edge and her nipple puckered in expectation. “You’re beautiful, so, so beautiful,” he said, shoving her blouse open and lowering the one silky strap.

Rachelle kissed the top of his head, wanting so much more.

She trembled as the strap was pulled over her arm and her breast, unbound, spilled into his waiting mouth. A shiver ripped through her as he began to suck and she moved against him, ecstasy and desire running like lava through her veins.

He cupped her buttocks and she felt a short second of panic before desire, like a living, breathing animal, turned panic into need. While he suckled and nipped at her breast, his hands moved downward, beneath her skirt to inch upward again, his flesh against hers.

“Stop me,” he said, his eyes glazed as he stared up at her. “Stop me if this isn’t what you want.”

She was embarrassed, but couldn’t control her wayward tongue. “I—I—uh, don’t want to stop.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

She reached down and held his face between her hands. “I’ve never felt like this before. Never. I don’t know if I can stop.”

He grabbed her hands, his fingers biting into her wrists. “For God’s sake, Rachelle, you were nearly raped tonight. I have no right to ask you to—”

“What happened with Roy has nothing to do with this,” she replied, surprised that he would compare the ugly scene with Roy to this tender, warm moment.

He stared up at her and clenched his teeth together as she shifted her weight. His eyes were tortured. “Too much has already happened tonight. I can’t do this to you.”

“Just kiss me,” she said, knowing she was inviting trouble, but unable to stop. A walk on the wild side? Wasn’t that what she wanted? But this—?

“Rachelle—no—”

She lowered her face to his and slowly drew his lower lip into her mouth. He clenched his jaw. She moved, and her bare breast rubbed against the hair of his chest.

With a groan, he buried his face in her abdomen and she bucked against him.

Jackson’s control burst and he was kissing her again. His lips, wet and anxious, covered her bare skin with eager kisses. His tongue, a wild thing, licked and played, and she was moaning in his arms, consumed with an ache so painful, she only wanted him to fill it.

Her thoughts were blurred, the flame within her so hot that she knew nothing aside from the feel of his skin against hers. He was hard where she was soft, he was hot and sweating as was she and her clothes seemed to fall away effortlessly as he kissed her and whispered words that hinted of love.

Rachelle closed her eyes and let her hands explore every inch of his maleness. From his rock-hard shoulders to the scale of his ribs, she felt him. He kissed her eyes and throat and sucked from her breasts as if she were offering sweet nectar and when he, suddenly oblivious to pain, rolled over her so that she lay beneath him, she felt no fear. He parted her legs and hovered above her.

Only when he looked down and saw her completely naked did he hesitate. “This is wrong,” he whispered.

“It feels right,” she said, swallowing against a sudden premonition that what was happening could never be undone. That he didn’t love her, nor she love him. That she was a stupid teenager experimenting with something that could burn her forever.

Swearing at himself, he thrust into her and she cried out from the pain that seared between her legs. She flexed but he didn’t stop. He moved within her, gently at first until once again the doubts were chased away and all that she felt was the swell of him in her, the calluses of his hands stroking her breasts, the fire that ravaged them both. His strokes deepened and came faster and Rachelle moved with him, wanting more of him, knowing in her heart that nothing that felt so beautiful could be wrong. She clung to him, her fingers digging into his shoulders, her hips arching up to meet his until, like an earthquake, a tremor rocked through her and she cried out.

He stiffened and threw back his head in a primal cry. As he fell against her, he tangled his hands in her hair and whispered her name over and over. She seemed to glide, like a feather on the wind, sinking slowly back to earth. She was breathing hard, but the soothing waters of afterglow wrapped around her as tightly as the frayed quilt and Jackson nestled beside her, holding her close, resting her head in the crook of his neck, telling her that she was like no other woman on earth. To her horror, a sob thickened her throat and tears formed in the corner of her eyes.

She didn’t regret their lovemaking, oh, no, but she did cry—for something lost and something gained.

CHAPTER FOUR

AFTER HOURS OF MAKING LOVE in the candlelight, Rachelle fell asleep in Jackson’s arms, certain that their love—for that’s what she told herself the emotions she was feeling had to be—would last forever. Midway through the night, she felt Jackson slip away from her, but only for a while. Soon he was back beside her, his skin cool, his hair smelling of pine trees, his lips pressing softly against her nape. She wrapped her arms around him and they slept, legs and arms entwined, one of his hands cupping her breast.

She didn’t think of the morning or the problems they would face.

But those problems were worse than she imagined. She was still sleeping soundly when a loud banging against the door dragged her into consciousness.

“Moore?” A male voice boomed through the house.

Rachelle’s eyes flew open. She was disoriented for a second and the room unfamiliar.

Jackson levered up on one elbow, his bare muscles tense.

She was confused. “Wha—”

Silently he placed a warning finger against her lips, cautioning her not to cry out. His eyes were dark as he slid off the couch and snatched his jeans from the floor.

The voice thundered again. “We know you’re in there. Sheriff’s department. Open up.”

Rachelle felt instantly cold all over. The sheriff’s department? Here? Searching for them? Panic and guilt tore through her. Had her mother called the police and hysterically claimed that her child had run away or been kidnapped? But how had the police tracked them down here?

Noiselessly Jackson tossed her skirt and blouse to her and motioned for her to get dressed.

She couldn’t move. The thought of the police just outside the door made her feel sick with fright. What would happen to them? She began to panic, but Jackson’s hand, strong and warm, settled over her shoulder.

“It’ll be all right,” he whispered, though she didn’t believe him. But it was nice to have him try to comfort her, and she flew into action, throwing on her clothes before anyone saw her nakedness.

Jackson, too, was trying to get dressed. Wincing against the pain ripping down his leg, he struggled into his jeans. His calf and knee had swollen and with the added thickness of his bandage, he had trouble sliding his wounded leg into the tight-fitting Levi’s.

The pounding on the door resumed, and Jackson, limping visibly, slipped to the back of the house, where he carefully peered through the kitchen windows. Rachelle followed him and watched his handsome face fall.

“No way out,” he whispered, cursing under his breath.

“Maybe we should hide.”

“From the sheriff’s department? They’ve got dogs, Rachelle.”

The thought of the police terrified her. Sirens, guns, lights, dogs… “But—”

His face was filled with compassion. “We’ve got no choice.”

She glanced past him to the window. “You mean they’ve got us surrounded—just like in all those crummy old Westerns?” she asked, following his uneven strides back to the den.

“That’s about the size of it.” His gaze swung around the room where morning light was piercing through the shades and the smell of warm ashes, tallow and sex still lingered. The quilt had slid to the floor but throw pillows were still piled on the end of the couch that had supported their heads. Rachelle’s throat tightened at the sight of this, their love nest.

“Moore! Come out with your hands over your head!” the deputy ordered, his voice hard.

“I hear you!” Jackson replied. “Give me a second.”

“Now!”

Jackson swiped his jacket from the screen and tossed Rachelle hers. “Big trouble,” he said, staring into her eyes so deeply that her heart turned over. “I’m sorry.”

“Not me.” She gulped, but tilted her chin upward. Panic seized her, and her stomach clenched into a hard ball.

“You will be,” he predicted as he twined his fingers through hers. He sucked on his lower lip for a minute as he stared at her, then, in a gesture she’d remember the rest of her life, he drew her close, fingers still interlaced, and touched his lips to hers in a chaste kiss that melted most of her fears. “I’ll never forget last night.”

“Me neither.” Tears threatened her eyes as hand in hand they walked to the front door. She felt dead inside, certain that her life—as she’d known it for the past seventeen years—was over, but at least she and Jackson were together, she reminded herself, tossing her tangled hair away from her face and holding her shredded blouse together. What a sight they must make.

“Comin’ out,” Jackson yelled as he opened the door with a decisive turn of his wrist. He and Rachelle stepped onto the front porch. It was early, just after dawn, and there was still a thick mist rising off the lake.

Three cars from the sheriff’s department were parked in the drive. Six officers, weapons drawn, were staring grim-faced at them, sighting their guns as if Rachelle and Jackson were dangerous fugitives who had escaped the law.

Rachelle thought she might faint.

“Let her go,” one deputy ordered, and Jackson released her hand as if it had suddenly seared him.

“No—“ she whispered, but was cut off.

“You’re Rachelle Tremont?” another officer demanded.

She nodded dully. What was this all about? They were trespassing, true, but the somber faces and loaded weapons of the officers reeked of much more heinous crimes than even a possible kidnapping charge. “Jackson?” she whispered.

“Move away from him,” a voice barked.

“But—”

“Move away from him. Now!”

Her spine stiffened in silent rebellion though she was scared to her very soul. With her throat dry as a desert wind, she moved on wooden legs, feeling the distance between Jackson and herself becoming more than physical; as if by walking away from him, she was creating an emotional chasm that might never be bridged again. His expression turned harsh and defensive, and he only glanced at her once, without a glimmer of the kindness or even the cynical humor she’d seen the night before.

Slowly Jackson raised his hands, palms forward into the air, and the officers rushed him. Two grabbed his arms, while another threw him up against the side of the house and quickly frisked him. Rachelle looked on in horror.

“Hey, man, I’m not carrying—”

“Shut up!”

Jackson snapped his mouth closed while another deputy read him his rights.

Rachelle was nearly dragged by yet another to one of the deputies, down the steps and to the cruiser.

“What’s going on?” she demanded, shaking and pulling back, her head craned to look over her shoulder so that she could keep Jackson in view. Her blouse gaped, and she caught it with cold fingers.

“Just get inside, Miss Tremont.”

“But why are you doing this?”

Jackson was being stuffed into another car from the sheriff’s department, and once the deputies had slammed the cruiser’s heavy door shut, they slid into the front seat and flicked on the engine. With red and blue lights flashing, the car roared down the puddle-strewn drive.

“We’re taking you to the department to ask you a few questions,” a short deputy with a bushy red mustache explained. His name tag read Daniel Springer.

“Why?”

“We want to know what you were up to last night.”

She swallowed hard and her cheeks began to burn. “I was here.”

“All night?”

“Y-yes—after we, um, left the party—the party at the Fitzpatrick place on the lake.”

“We know about the party.”

“Jackson and Roy got into a fight. Roy almost killed him… .”

“So you were here alone all night with Jackson Moore,” Deputy Springer clarified.

“That’s right.”

“You’d swear to it?”

“Slow down, Dan,” the other deputy, Paul Zalinski, insisted. He lit a cigarette, took a long drag and snapped his lighter closed. Smoke streamed from his nostrils. “We don’t want to screw this up. She’s a minor, for God’s sake. We’ve got to talk to her guardian and probably a lawyer. Then we can get her statement.”

“By then, she and Moore can get her story straight—”

“There’s nothing to get straight,” Rachelle interjected.

The men exchanged glances and told her to get into the waiting car. She had no choice. Nervous sweat broke out between her shoulder blades as she slid into the worn backseat of the cruiser. Deputy Zalinski ground his cigarette out beneath the heel of his boot before climbing into the Ford. Deputy Springer started the car. Soon, they were following the other police cars on their way back to Gold Creek, leaving the Monroe mansion, a rumpled couch and a night of lovemaking far behind them.

Rachelle tried to fight against the terror that she felt creeping into her heart. Arms hugging her middle, she huddled in the backseat of the police cruiser and silently prayed that this was all a bad dream and she’d wake up with Jackson stretched out beside her. She rubbed her arms and stared through the trees to the misty lake. What was the old Indian legend? Drink from the lake but don’t overindulge and the waters will bring you good luck? Well, she was certain both she and Jackson could use a shot of magic water right now. They were in trouble. Deep trouble.

However, she wouldn’t realize until hours later just how bottomless that trouble was.

Before the day was out, Jackson Moore, the bad boy of Gold Creek, would be formally charged with the murder of Roy Fitzpatrick.

* * *

“THAT’S CRAZY! JACKSONwouldn’t kill anyone!” Rachelle cried, disbelieving. She leapt out of the hard wooden chair in the interrogation room at the sheriff’s office.

Her mother, two deputies, a lawyer she’d never seen before, and even her father were with her, listening as she tried to explain the circumstances of the night before.

“You’ve got everything wrong!” She was nearly hysterical.

“Calm down, little lady,” Deputy Springer advised. “We’re just talkin’ this thing out. Now, someone hit that boy over the head and drowned him in the lake last night, someone strong enough to hit him and hold him down, someone who was angry with him, someone who had a reason to pick a fight with him.”

“But not Jackson,” she replied staunchly, though her insides were shredding with fear and doubt and a million other emotions.

“You see ’em fightin’ earlier?”

“Yes, but—”

“And didn’t Moore stop Roy from…well, from attacking you?”

Rachelle took in a long breath. “That doesn’t prove anything.”

“A couple of witnesses say that Jackson was lookin’ for a fight with Roy, that he’d already had words with Roy’s daddy at the logging camp a few days ago, and that Roy had almost run Jackson down before the party.”

Rachelle didn’t say anything. Her throat was tight and hot, and she was more scared than she’d ever been in her life.

“Isn’t that what happened?” Deputy Zalinski prodded.

Slowly, so as not to be misunderstood, she said, “I’m telling you I was with him the entire night.” Her voice was raw from talking, and hot tears began to gather in the corners of her eyes. She felt shame that all of Gold Creek would learn of her night with Jackson, but more than shame she felt fear, sheer terror for Jackson. The charges were ridiculous, but the stony, solemn faces of the men who worked for the sheriff’s department convinced her that they meant business. She had to save Jackson. She was the only one who could. “That last time we saw Roy, he was alive. Drunk, and a little beat-up, but alive!”

“And you were awake all night long?” Deputy Zalinski asked. He fiddled with his lighter, but she knew his concentration hadn’t strayed at all. He waited, flipping the lighter end over end in his fingers.

Rachelle hesitated. She couldn’t look her father in the eye. “I slept part of the time.” She was mortified and tired and still in the dirty, ripped clothes she’d been in the night before. All she’d been given was a box of tissues and a glass of water. And her father’s disgrace, so visible in the downcast turn of his eyes, made her cringe inside.

Zalinski finally lit a cigarette. “Are you a heavy sleeper?”

“I don’t know.”

“She sleeps like a log—” her mother began, then snapped her mouth shut when the lawyer shot her a warning glance. Ellen Tremont went back to worrying the handle of her purse between her bony fingers.

“Isn’t it possible that Jackson could have left you for a couple of hours and you would never have been the wiser?” Deputy Zalinski suggested. He took a long drag of his cigarette, and the smoke curled lazily toward the light suspended above the table. “The Monroe place is less than a quarter of a mile away from the Fitzpatricks’.”

“He didn’t leave me!”

“But you were asleep.”

“He was hurt and…” She swallowed back her humiliation and tried not to remember the hours in early dawn when she’d felt him leave the couch to return later—she couldn’t have guessed how long—smelling of pine needles and the rain-washed forest.

“And what, Miss Tremont?” Zalinski pressed on.

“He, uh, he didn’t have his clothes on.”

Her mother gasped, and Rachelle fell back into the folding chair. Somehow she managed to meet Deputy Zalinski’s eyes. “He could barely get into his pants because of the swelling and bandage around his leg.”

“He was wearing jeans this morning.”

“Yes, but he had to struggle to get them on. And I watched him do that—after you had arrived and ordered us out of the house.”

The deputy smiled patiently. “Then it was possible that while you were sleeping, he could’ve ‘struggled’ into his clothes, left and returned before you even missed him.”

“No!” she snapped quickly, and watched as Deputy Springer, propped against the corner of the room, jotted a note to himself.

Zalinski stubbed out his cigarette. “Miss Tremont—”