Page 10 of Rainwater

But one night with him wouldn’t be enough. She would want more and that want would turn into a raging river of want. An insurmountable river that would only swell and grow with time.

She would want a commitment. She had to have someone who would stay around and be a father to Ellie and a husband to her. No, he should leave. Better never to know how much he could make her feel.

Her resolve was hard-won. Thirteen years of fending off amorous advances would not go for naught. She needed to consider everything in the equation. What would one night of lovemaking cost her?

Too much. Too damn much.

Sonny had hurt her, but this man could bring her to her knees.

She knew it inherently. One taste of his passion, the feel of his body, the possession of that body and she would be lost. All the independence, all the pain she had endured would go flying out the window and she’d have to fight to get back what she would lose in him.

“You’re welcome. Have a safe trip to wherever you’re going.” Her voice came out bitter and cutting.

He smiled again that sad, heart-wrenching smile. “I’m going nowhere. You take care, darlin’.”

Her heart twisted at the tired, defeated bitterness in his voice.

Her chest filled until she thought it would burst. Please, don’t look so damn neglected and forlorn .

He looked so lost that it pulled at something deep inside her, stirring all her nurturing and protective instincts.

She had the overpowering urge to take him in her arms and hold on to him until that look went away.

He’s running .

She must not forget that. But she couldn’t help the rush of tenderness that moved through her or the thought that if he would just stay and let her get to know him, she could get him to stop running. Save the outlaw mentality, Jen , she told herself sternly.

He tightened the bead of his hat and kicked the motorcycle into life. She stepped back out of his way and he had to look over his shoulder at her. His hand raised to his hat and she felt that stab of awareness surge through her again.

And regret. Deep, deep regret. She saw the same emotion in his eyes and her heart ached. She would probably never meet a man who would stir her like this one, and she’d just lost her chance to explore the attraction. Lost the chance to have a precious memory.

For only one night.

It would not be enough , she thought greedily.

It would be a night that would probably haunt her, a more reasonable voice said. One that she would never get out of her mind. She would unconsciously compare him to every other man she met. She was better off never knowing, she reminded herself.

Then she was watching his red taillight disappear into the darkness. The loneliness seemed to settle on her like a fine blanket of mist. The regret like a lead ball in her stomach.

Walking into the house, she didn’t’ feel the least bit sleepy.

When Two Tone scratched at the door, she let him in and he happily trotted up the stairs, his hooves clicking against the hardwood.

She knew he would curl up with Ellie and fall asleep, the way he did every night.

She went into the dining room, picked up the pie plates and silverware, put them in the dishwasher, then turned it on.

Upstairs in her bathroom, she stripped and got into the shower.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She’d sit in her window seat and look out at the night.

Suddenly, without warning, a small sob shook her.

She leaned against the wall, her tears mingling with the spray from the shower.

No man had ever touched her hair when she thought for sure his interest in her was purely sexual.

The way he’d looked at her, the barely concealed passion in his eyes.

They shared something that went deeper than lust.

She covered her mouth with her hand and turned her face up to the spray to stop the cries issuing from her tight throat, but still the tears fell. She wanted desperately to help, to erase the loneliness from his face and find out why he looked so heart-wrenchingly sad.

She closed her eyes tightly and leaned her face against the cool tiles. It would have been so easy to console him with her body. The thought of enfolding him in her arms and giving him pleasure made her cry harder, her whole body shaking with the effort.

She wasn’t looking for a temporary answer, she reminded herself. Sleeping with him would have been reckless and impulsive, and she couldn’t afford that kind of behavior now. She couldn’t think about herself and her needs. She had to think of Ellie and permanence.

But all those rationalizations did nothing to stem the tide of need that rushed over her.

She thought back to the evening, to the way he’d been with her child.

Ellie was just as taken with him as she was.

Her daughter had never had a father. After the divorce, Sonny had acted as if he’d never fathered a child.

He’d told her she could “keep the brat” and even insinuated that the child wasn’t his.

That had been the one and only time she’d ever hit a man until this afternoon when she’d hit Jay for taking liberties.

She stood under the water until she was shivering, then wearily she turned the faucet off, dried herself with quick angry strokes and put on a light cotton nightgown.

She towel-dried her hair, went into her bedroom and sat down on the window seat, feeling sick with despair, marveling that she’d never cried so hard and so long over Sonny.

Tears were precious and she chose who she shed them over. Sonny hadn’t deserved them, but Corey did. She guessed that he deserved a lifetime of tears.

She didn’t want to close her eyes and sleep, because then she would remember. She would remember his kiss and she would relive it, and all the painful desires and all the things that could never be would rise around her as ghosts.

She looked out the window but didn’t see the night—only a pair of hot aqua eyes and a battered, wounded soul.

He stopped the bike just outside her fence, everything inside clamoring for him to turn around and go back to her.

His eyes closed tightly, his hands gripped around the handlebars until they hurt, he fought the urge.

He wanted to go back and strip those soft silky pants off her, pull that blouse over her head, run his hands over her body, straddle his motorcycle, and have her straddle him.

Hot skin against hotter skin. Silk against steel.

He groaned low in his throat, thinking about her body moving over his, him deep inside her.

Hormones. Nothing but long-denied desires of a man. Hell, it had been too damn long since he had a woman. He sat in the darkness, his body pulsing, his blood hot in his veins.

Yeah, hormones. Lust. Need. Want. All of those.

He questioned his motives. In his dreams, where all things were possible, why, when he’d brought her to fulfillment and taken his own, did he want to wrap her around him and sleep with her against his heart? Why did he never want to let her go? Because there was more than lust to his hunger.

But he couldn’t explore that hunger, he told himself. He was a man with baggage and Jennifer Horn was a woman he’d only dreamed about and that was where she had to stay—in his dreams.

Corey pulled away from the fence, then opened the throttle when he reached the road, the powerful bike fishtailing in the gravel before it righted itself once it hit the better traction of the blacktop.

He fought the bike for control while the wind pulled at his hat and coat and tangled his long hair.

He pushed the throttle higher, wanting the wind to take this feeling away. Believing that if he went fast enough, he could outrun the desire throbbing through his blood. He moaned softly into the wind, his fingers remembering the silky fire of her hair.

Why did it feel as if he’d left half of himself back in her cozy house? Why did it feel as if he’d left his heart in her soft, warm hands? Because there was an emptiness in his chest.

He made it back to the motel in record time. He wouldn’t sleep, he thought as he parked the Harley. He knew he wouldn’t. He might as well just gather together his stuff and get back on his bike and ride until he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

Finally he got off the bike, his mind so preoccupied with his inner struggles that he didn’t see the shadows waiting.

He didn’t hear the scrape of a boot heel against the asphalt.

Delving into his pocket for the key to his room, he stiffened as the hair on the back of his neck lifted in warning.

But awareness came too late. The white-hot agony of the blow to the back of his head knocked him to his knees.

He felt the warm rush of blood over the back of his neck.

The attack was so sudden and vicious that Corey found his quick reflexes and formidable fighting talent couldn’t respond in time.

The blow from a baseball bat across his back pushed him to the ground and he scraped his face painfully against the asphalt of the parking lot.

A blow from a booted foot exploded against his side, knocking the breath out of him.

He grunted from the pain and tried to pull in enough oxygen to get another breath.

Torturous blow after torturous blow rained down on him.

He curled into a fetal position to protect himself as best as possible, nausea from the pain and the suddenness of the attack roiling in his stomach.

He felt cold and paralyzed. In his disorientation, he wondered if his father had beaten him.

He wondered if he was at home lying on the carpet instead of the hard ground.

And he wondered, as he did when he was a child, if he’d done something to deserve this.

He thought that he should be used to pain by now, but some rational part of his brain was telling him shock was setting in.