Page 59 of Rainwater
“How’s that?”
“Flat on your back.”
“Jennifer Horn! You’re a mother.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
His eyes roamed over her face then down her body intimately hugging his. “That’s quite a fashion statement you’re making there. Am I going to have to buy new shirts?”
“No. Just one. You can’t have this one back.”
“I think it looks better on you than me, anyway, darlin’.” He sat up and pushed his hands through his hair. Jennifer settled behind him and picked up the brush on the nightstand.
“Your hair is all windblown. Let me brush out the tangles,” she said softly, urging him to lean against her. Very gently, she pulled the bristles through his hair and with every stroke, he could smell the scent of her clinging to the brush.
“Your life hasn’t always been an easy one,” she said. “How long have you been on the road?”
“Not that long.”
“All those gold buckles. The ones in your saddlebags. You were a champion. It looks to me like you were making a pretty good living on the circuit.”
“I was.”
“Is all your money really gone?”
“No. I have a lot of investments and a huge house in Austin.”
“Then why…?”
That money and house belonged to someone else, someone he didn’t know and couldn’t remember. It didn’t seem right to use that money. “I don’t want to touch that money, Jennifer. It belongs to someone else. That person I used to be. It’s hard to explain. I need to do this…what I’ve been doing.”
“Running?”
He sat up abruptly, his nostrils flaring, her question hitting very well on the target. He had been running from his failure, from his fears, from himself, and he just couldn’t see how to stop. How to gather all the pieces that were missing. “Have you ever felt as if you’re on the outside looking in?”
Her hands continued to caress him. With her face against his back, she said, “No.” She turned him around, her voice soft and filled with knowing clarity.
“That’s how I’ve always felt.”
Jennifer didn’t say anything, just pressed her face against his chest and then very slowly began to unbutton his shirt.
He let his passion for her take over and it unleashed like a snapping whip. What little control he had slipped away like sandthrough his fingers, slipped away like the days he had left with her. Jennifer. As elusive as the horizon.
Chapter
Thirteen
Two days later, Corey sweated under the sun as he dug postholes for a new line fence. It was brutally hard work and it made his muscles throb with sensation that was a close cousin to pain, but provided no distraction to his thoughts.
He jammed the posthole digger against the relentless ground. The shock reverberated through his arms and shoulders. He cursed and threw the tool down.
“You look like a man with a problem, son.”
Corey straightened and whirled. Sheriff Dawson sat on a big bay horse, the reins hung loosely in his hands.
“It hasn’t got anything to do with the law, Sheriff.”
“No, I already know that. I ran a check on you already. It has to do with Ms. Horn.”
