Page 26 of Rainwater

She couldn’t draw her eyes from his chest if her life depended on it. “I had to put down Happy-Go-Lucky.”

“I’m sorry, Jennifer.” There was true sadness in his words. “Do you think it was Butler? Just give me a reason, darlin’, and I’ll take care of him.”

“Yes, I think it was Jay, but I have no proof, and violence only begets more violence, Corey.”

“I know that. But, Jennifer, it’s the only thing he understands.”

Her dazed eyes traveled from his face down his body and she licked her lips slowly.

Corey took a deep breath. “Jennifer, turn around and get the hell out of here. For God’s sake, for my own sanity, stop looking at me like that.”

With an embarrassed groan, she wrenched her eyes away from his magnificence and turned away, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t seem to get her legs to move.

She heard Corey swear again and she heard him approach, her throat going dry.

She could hear his raspy breathing and the sexy jingle of his spurs.

She closed her eyes tightly. The sun had set and the darkness was complete except for the wan light from the barn and the quarter moon.

She could feel his presence behind her, engulfing her, protecting her.

His hands were like red-hot brands when they dropped to her waist, and without any urging, she dropped her tack and turned in his arms.

“Jennifer, didn’t we agree that we weren’t going to complicate matters?” His voice was a tortured rasp that sent heat and sensation skittering across her skin.

“No, you gave me an ultimatum. I don’t take threats well, and I can’t forget the way you made me feel. I don’t want to forget the most wonderful night of my life.” Her eyes focused on his lips, and to save her soul, she couldn’t look away.

The stark look of pain flashed across his tanned face and for a moment she felt as if the ground had been wrenched from beneath her feet. “Jen,” he breathed, “you’re driving me crazy. I couldn’t sleep last night. I need you. I’m hurting so bad.”

She couldn’t help herself. Her finger came up and touched his mouth and he took it inside his own, suckling her with delicious sweeps of his warm, moist tongue.

Closing her eyes against the powerful sensation of his wet velvet tongue against her skin, she groaned when his mouth left her finger and came down on her lips, hard, demanding, masterful.

Jennifer made a low sound, surrendering to the urgency clamoring within her, her mouth softening beneath his seeking lips.

With a moan deep in his chest, he pressed her body against the wet heat of his, and her clothes soaked up the moisture on his skin.

An urgent stirring sizzled in her blood, pumping through her body when he roughly clasped her hips and pulled her against his hardness.

She moaned again when Corey’s hand moved up her body, cupping the back of her head, deepening their kiss, his mouth frenzied and wet.

With a force that knocked the breath from her lungs, he backed her right against the warm heated wood of the barn. Abruptly the kiss ended, and unable to let her go, he commanded hoarsely, “Run.”

“Corey,” she started to say between thoroughly kissed lips.

But her words stopped when she saw the look in his eyes.

She could push him into it. She saw that he was hanging by a thread, but suddenly she couldn’t do it.

The power she held over him would be corrupted if she forced him to break a promise.

She could see that she was forcing him. His jaw was clenched, his eyes hard with something besides passion, and his body tense with his need and the inability to help himself.

A man at war with himself. It was breathtaking.

He closed his eyes as if in agony. “I don’t want to break my word, but if you don’t go now, I’m going to lose it and take you right here in the dust and mud. Run. Now!”

An hour later, when a knock sounded at the cottage door, he expected to open it and find Jennifer standing there. Instead, he found Ellie, breathless, clutching a sketch pad to her chest, her eyes bright with mischief.

“Shouldn’t you be in bed, little darlin’?”

“Yes. I should, but I’m not. I snuck out to see you. I haven’t seen you all day and I wanted to show you something.” She gave him a coy smile, which slowly disappeared from her face. “Is this a bad time?”

“No. Come on in and show me.”

She walked in with Two Tone on her heels. He just trotted in as if he owned the place and sat down near Corey’s feet, looking up at him with those dark, intelligent eyes. Corey reached down and petted him, smiling at the pig’s pleasure-filled grunt.

Ellie sat down in one of the brown leather chairs and opened the sketch pad. “I’ve been working on this since you showed me what I was doing wrong. I wanted to know what you think.”

He came around and sat on the arm of the chair. “Ellie, this is beautiful. That little mare never looked so good.”

“I watched her a lot before I tried sketching her.” Her voice was filled with pride.

“Have you ever tried to add any color?”

“Once, but it came out awful. So I’ve stuck to pencil. Besides,” she said, laughing, “you can erase it when it turns out wrong.”

He smiled and smoothed his hand over her soft hair. It was loose, lying on her narrow shoulders. A feeling came over him, one that was tender and painful at the same time. And to think her father hadn’t even seen her. “Ellie, I think it’s time for us to begin gentling that mare. What do you think?”

She caught her breath and looked up at him, the expression on her face rapt and full of joy. “You really mean it? You’re going to train me to barrel race?”

“Sure I am, darlin’. When I promise something, I don’t take it back.” He took her little hand in his and squeezed. “Start by taking care of her tomorrow. Feed her and groom her. Spend as much time around her as possible. Let her get used to you. Talk to her, feed her treats.”

She nodded knowingly. “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, huh?”

“Yeah, something like that. Now scoot before your mother finds you gone and panics.”

“That would never happen.”

“What? She never looks in on you?”

“No, silly, she never panics.” Ellie picked up her sketch pad and walked to the door. “Corey?”

He smiled at her tentative tone. “What now?”

“I want to tell you something, but I don’t want you to take it the wrong way.”

“I can take it. Shoot.” He got a subtle warning, a tiny shiver up his spine, a shattering pain in his chest before she spoke. Not fully prepared for the words, they gouged into him with stiff fingers.

“Well, I’ve never had a dad to compare anyone to, but you sure would make a great one.

” In her young heart, Ellie knew it was true and she also knew that Corey Rainwater would not stay.

She wasn’t blind, and although she was only thirteen years old, she understood adult love.

She guessed that her mother was in love with this guy, and Ellie knew how easy it was to fall in love.

She knew how easy it would be to love a dad.

She’d wished a long time for a dad and if she had her choice, she’d choose Corey.

A long time ago, she had found out what her father looked like.

She knew his name was Sonny Braxton and she’d decided that when she was on the circuit, she was going to find him.

She hadn’t decided what she would say to him, but she was determined to tell him how much he had let her down, and her mother, too.

“I mean that you’re so understanding and willing to help me,” she said. “Even some of the cowhands older than you don’t have the time of day for the boss’s kid. I guess what I’m trying to say is, thank you.”

With a satisfied smile, Ellie innocently opened the door to leave, unaware of the blow she’d just dealt him.

His throat constricted and he suddenly found things blurring the room.

He couldn’t answer, so he nodded. He didn’t raise his head until the door clicked shut.

He didn’t know how much more he could take before he was broken completely in half.

Maybe he had been wrong to come here and stir up her feelings for a father she’d never had.

He was going to hurt her when he left and suddenly he couldn’t bear that.

Raw gut-clenching pain racked him and he rose from the chair and went to the easel near the window.

He’d painted the forbidden picture again.

He removed the white cloth he’d draped over it last night.

Some of the paint had rubbed off onto it.

He hadn’t slept, just painted at a frantic pace.

Just looking at it was as painful as Ellie’s words.

It was his fondest wish brought to life.

Deliberately he picked up the knife lying on the table and made the first cut.

It hurt physically. Each stroke burned in his heart, scarred his soul.

But he didn’t stop until the destruction was complete.

The destruction of his dream. And without dreams, there could be no hope.