His for the Taking

Seven



She was lying under Cole in his dark bedroom writhing against his hot, hard, naked length. She was in his arms again after six years of abstinence, and he was doing all the wickedly delicious things she’d dreamed of for years. He was skimming his fingers over her everywhere, loving her with his lips and his exploring tongue.

Then, in the next moment, the horror of the past intruded on the sweetness of their fragile present.

She was a frightened, young girl again, trapped beneath another man, a vicious man she hated, whose rough hands and foul-smelling mouth tore at her body.

Suddenly, all the dark memories she’d worked so hard to suppress overpowered her.

With her hair still damp from a final afternoon swim and her heart full of love for Cole, she’d rushed home to the trailer fresh from having made love to him on the grassy bank beside the pool. Thinking herself alone, she’d let herself in, only to find her mother’s boyfriend, Vernon, sprawled on the sofa in dirty, ripped jeans and a T-shirt. With his huge, tattooed arms, he’d seemed like a spider waiting for her in that tangled web of darkness as he’d squashed out his cigarette.

He’d come on to her before, and she was usually able to avoid being alone with him. “Why aren’t you at work?” she’d asked.

An ugly, drunken snarl had distorted his scarred face as he lunged toward her. “What’s it to you if I got fired? Bet I know who you’ve been with. The whole town knows about Prince Coleman Charming.” When she’d tried to squeeze out the door again, he’d grabbed her arm, wrenching it behind her and dragging her back inside, locking the door.

“I know where you spend your time. You won’t let me touch you because I’m not good enough. Then you chase Coleman like a bitch in heat. Who do you think you are, girl? Well, I’ll tell you! You’re Jesse Ray’s girl, that’s who! You’re nobody! Worse! You’re trailer trash, just like me! Hell, you’re lucky to get me!”

Vernon had reeked of beer and cigarettes and worse as he’d slammed her against the wall and pressed his pelvis against her as she’d fought desperately to escape. How she’d reeked of those things, too, later, when he’d finished with her.

Afterward she’d felt so dirty and scared and ashamed. Most of all she’d felt powerless. Sore and battered, she’d cried and cried, but what good had her tears been? Vernon had laughed and said nobody would believe her if she ratted on him, not even her mother. And he’d been right.

When her mother had thrown them both out, Maddie had known she couldn’t tell the authorities. If her mother hadn’t believed her, there was no way the cold-eyed sheriff would. Nor would anyone else. Hadn’t they always thought the worst of her?

Even before Vernon had hurt her, she’d always been afraid Cole thought he was too good for her. Still, she’d gathered her courage and called him. Only that was when his mother had answered. In Maddie’s broken emotional state, Mrs. Coleman’s harsh words had compounded Vernon’s injuries tenfold. She had crushed Maddie’s spirit and her sweetest hope of love and happiness.

Don’t think about the past! Don’t!

Cole shifted his weight beside her, staring at her in the dark. Gently, his hands brushed her cheeks. “Your eyes are glassy and wild, and you’re shivering and crying. Why?”

“Am I?” In shock, she traced her cheeks with her fingertips and realized they were wet. Thinking about Vernon could do this to her.

“No reason,” she lied. All the secrets that had driven her from Yella still lay like a stone on her heart.

Cole drew her closer and bent his head to nuzzle her hair. “I’ve dreamed of this,” he whispered. “All through my marriage to Lizzie, you were there between us. I wanted you even then. And I felt horrible about it.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” she said, empathizing more than was wise. His breath against her ear made her tremble.

“I felt so guilty. But I would lie in bed, with her beside me, thinking about you—about your lips, about how your nipples used to peak when I kissed them, about your silky black hair and how I loved to play with it. I think I hated you for that…more even than I hated you for Vernon.”

At the mention of Vernon, Maddie sobbed hoarsely. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Or what happened. You don’t know anything.”

“Because you ran away with Vernon without ever telling me anything. So all I had to go on was what your mother said.”

After his mother had been so cruel and Maddie had run from Yella, she hadn’t let herself think about Cole because it had been too painful. Then she’d been afraid she was pregnant with Vernon’s child. It was only when she’d realized how much Noah looked like Cole that she’d worked up the nerve to call him, but he’d hung up on her. So, she’d had to write it all down in those letters he hadn’t bothered to read.

“I don’t care about Vernon anymore,” he said.

“You don’t?”

“That was six years ago. You were young. I was your first. Maybe I was coming on too strong. Maybe you had to get away and be on your own to grow up. I only know that your coming back here is the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said. “I like who you seem to be now, and I don’t want to ruin our reunion by blaming you for what’s past. Don’t cry. Please. Because I can’t bear it if you do.”

He kissed her brow and then her temples with warm lips that soothed. He’d always been so nice to her when they’d been lovers. While growing up, she’d hated feeling that she was condemned for her mother’s sins. In his arms, she’d found an escape. Cole had made her feel as though she could change her life—before Vernon’s vicious act had nearly destroyed her.

Cole seemed as wonderful tonight as he’d been that long-ago summer. His gentle voice and kind words made her swallow her salty tears. Hadn’t Vernon ruined enough of her life? Because of him, she’d been afraid. She’d kept to herself and lived an impossibly lonely life until she’d met Greg.

“I won’t cry,” she said, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands. “My tears are all gone. See? So kiss me. Love me. Please, just love me again.”

She needed new memories, beautiful memories with Cole, to make the bad ones lose their power.

“All right.” He kissed her, but tenderly, sweetly, undemanding. His lips fell onto her brow, onto the pert tip of her upturned nose and then lightly onto her lips. Running his tongue over her breasts, he caressed her nipples with his hands while he held her close, slowly persuading her to put aside the past and all the pain and shame Vernon had inflicted on her for the pleasure that Cole alone could give her.

Soon his touches and kisses had her so dizzy with desire she forgot everything except her need to be with him. When he finally put on a condom and slid into her, she wrapped her arms and legs around him, moaning, clinging, so that he could sink deeper—oh, so much deeper—before he rode her. Then she clung to him and wept, but this time her tears came from joy…and the rush of new hope.

When his passion made him drive into her harder, his need to claim her primitive and demanding, she reveled in it, bracing herself for the power of his thrusts, for the pleasure of them, arching her hips to meet them, needing this forceful mating as much as he did. She circled his strong shoulders with her arms and surrendered with a completeness that stunned her, that wiped her clean of everything but her fierce desire to belong to him.

When finally he shuddered as he found his release, he cried out her name as if she were everything to him, and the sound of it made her sizzle and come in a blazingly glorious explosion of her own. For a long time after that, she held on to him, their hands locked, their damp brows touching. After six lonely years she wanted to prolong the moment of togetherness. Even when he pulled away, she murmured, clinging to him. Only in his arms and in his all-consuming passion had the dark shadow of Vernon briefly vanished.

Not that Cole seemed to mind her clinginess. No, he held her tightly and brushed his fingers through her hair, murmuring that she smelled of flowers and of her.

“You’re so sweet. You’re everything to me,” he whispered. “Everything…. You always were. I don’t care who your mother was or what my mother thinks. Those things don’t matter.”

Drowsily she lay in his arms, content, feeling utterly complete and happier than she’d felt in years.

He pulled her closer. For the first time in ages she wasn’t afraid as she closed her eyes. Though she wasn’t ready to contemplate telling him about Noah, she knew that tonight, if she woke up screaming as she sometimes did, he’d be there. What a wonderful feeling of security it was to know that.

When they awoke, he made love to her again. Afterward she felt an even greater sense of belonging only to him. The feeling wasn’t based on anything more than the sensual pleasure of sex. But each time he made love to her, she felt happier, if that were possible. She snuggled closer against his warmth because he made her feel safe. Wrapped in his arms, she fell asleep.

Hours later, when she came awake with a start as she often did after one of her nightmares, Cole’s strong arms no longer held her. As always, she’d been running from some unknown black terror. Just when she was nearly to safety, a strong male hand reached out of the darkness and pulled her down roughly. No matter how hard she fought the faceless figure, she couldn’t free herself. Trapped and helpless underneath him, she opened her eyes.

Only the monster wasn’t there. He never was. She was all alone in the hot darkness of Cole’s bedroom, drenched with perspiration from her nightmare. Her fingers played across the nightstand searching for her flashlight, but it wasn’t there. Then she remembered she was at Cole’s, not in her own room where she kept a flashlight by the bed. But she did have a small one in her purse, which she’d left on that little table downstairs near the front door.

“Cole?” she whispered in a panic. “Cole!”

When he didn’t answer, she moved toward his side of the bed. If only he would wake up and take her in his arms, she wouldn’t feel afraid. But his side of the bed was empty. She pushed free of the cool tangles of sheets and sat up in the dark.

Shakily, she grabbed his pillow, which was cool although it held his scent, and pressed it against her lips. Because of her nightmare, all the newfound confidence Cole’s lovemaking had instilled in her deserted her.

Where was he? Why had he left? He’d made her feel so safe and cherished, but was their night together just rebound sex for him after losing Lizzie?

Desolation swamped her. The distrustful mindset she’d experienced ever since Vernon’s attack slid back into place. Suddenly she was filled with doubts about everything. About her feelings, about having given herself with such abandon to Cole when she barely knew the man he now was or what his true intentions toward her might be.

Did he believe what his mother had said, that Maddie was as low as ever and after him for his money? Did he regret sleeping with her? Or was she just a sexual outlet? Would she never be free of the stigma of her childhood in his eyes?

Made more anxious by her nightmare, she felt increasingly disconcerted by his absence as she stared at the flickering shadows on the ceiling. When he didn’t return after a lengthy interval, her doubts built to a terrifying level. She grabbed a sheet and pulled it around herself. Determined to reassure him that he owed her nothing, she stood up and padded out of the room to search for him in his vast, shadowy house.

* * *

When Cole switched on the overhead lamp in his office, his gaze zeroed in on the keys dangling from the lock of his bottom drawer.

“Son of a…” Cole cursed vividly under his breath. He would never have left his keys there. He remembered Maddie’s look of alarm when he’d entered the office earlier in the evening. She’d been pale, and her hands had shaken as she’d read that boring magazine article he hadn’t been able to get through about hay. He’d thought she was upset because of the hateful things his mother had said. Now he wondered.

Had Maddie played him?

The vague impression that something was not quite right in his office had niggled worrisomely at the back of his mind even after he’d collected Maddie, but he’d been so focused on trying to make up to her for his mother’s rudeness that he’d dismissed any suspicions he might have had.

Then they’d slept together, and their hot sex had distracted him further. Had she intended that? When he’d awakened, as he often did in the middle of the night, and had begun to ruminate on the various ongoing challenges in his life, he’d replayed in his mind Juan’s message concerning the driller who’d failed to show after cashing the advance check. Since Cole couldn’t do anything about the driller until morning, he’d decided to come down to his office to see what could be done.

Now he remembered thinking there had been something furtive in Maddie’s manner after his mother had left. He remembered that she’d insisted on waiting in his office even when he’d tried to talk her out of it.

More suspicious than ever, Cole knelt and touched the keys. Then he yanked the drawer open wider. He’d intended to read the letters the first chance he had after Maddie had mentioned them. They’d been on his mind when he’d gotten home with Raider, but Juan had called. After that, Joe had wanted to discuss what the vet had to say about a sick bull. Then the roofer who hadn’t shown up to reroof the barn had called with a litany of excuses. Cole had hung up from that call furious. One thing had led to another, and he hadn’t thought of the letters again until he’d been driving back to Miss Jennie’s to pick up Maddie.

Had Maddie chosen to wait in his office so she could search for her letters?

What the hell was in those damn letters anyway?

Curious now, he grabbed the piles of deeds and mortgages he stored in the fireproof lower drawer and tossed them carelessly onto the floor. Then he riffled through the remaining documents until he got to the bottom, where he found the two yellowed envelopes exactly where he’d placed them five years ago. Exactly where Lizzie must have dutifully replaced them.

Whistling, he sank back into his chair and held them up so he could study the postmarks. Then he grabbed his bronze letter opener and ripped into the first letter. After the first sentence, he sat forward, his heart thudding with a vengeance.

When I left Yella, I was pregnant.

Pregnant. He whistled again. He knew the kid was Vernon’s. Why should the word slam him? It was the way she put it somehow, right in the beginning of a letter she’d addressed to him.

Her mother had a reputation for getting her lovers to pay for stuff. Had Maddie been trying to stick him with Vernon’s kid?

Not that I realized I was pregnant that final day in Yella. And later, I admit I thought the baby had to be Vernon’s since you were always so careful to protect me.

Anger ate through him like acid at her admission that she’d slept with Vernon. Which was ridiculous, since her mother had told everybody Maddie had run off with Turner years ago.

But Noah has your dark hair and green eyes and your widow’s peak…. And he is like you, Cole. He collects arrowheads just like you did as a little boy. He is just so bone-deep good, in all the ways a person, even a little, mischievous person, can be good. He’s so good, Cole, that I know now he’s yours. You’re welcome to do a DNA screening of course.

Noah? His? Good?

Through his shock, Cole felt her gladness in that final word. Obviously, she’d seen through Turner even back then. But she’d slept with the nasty creep anyway; she’d thought she was pregnant by him. For more than a year of Noah’s life, she’d believed Vernon to be the father, so she hadn’t told Cole when he’d been free and able to claim his son.

Cole thought he’d forgiven her for leaving with Turner, but there was a roar in his ears. Tonight, when Cole had made her his again, he’d wanted to erase their past, to erase Turner, to forgive all. But the letter made the past and all its pain feel fresh again, made him hot at the thought of her ever having been with that man, even for one night.

Unable to forget her sweetness and her total surrender in his bed a few hours earlier, Cole clenched his fist, seething as he fought for control.

What did his anger matter, if she was right about Noah being his son?

Cole thought of all her struggles and achievements. No matter what she’d done, if she was right about Noah being his, she was the mother of his son.

Cole’s big hands shook as he slashed into her second letter.

I know you received my first letter because you signed for it, and if I don’t hear from you after this one, I’ll know for sure that you want nothing to do with Noah—or me—ever again. I understand why you would feel that way, and I promise, you don’t need to worry that I’ll hound you any further. If I don’t hear from you in two weeks, I will consider you free of all obligations toward our son and me, and I’ll go on with my life.

Cole sank back in his chair and buried his face in his hands as he remembered how coldly he’d rejected her over the phone, how coldly he’d tossed her letters into his bottom drawer.

Free? She’d really believed he would knowingly cast his son aside! How could she have ever believed that of him?

But…he had signed for the letters. And he hadn’t answered her. Was it really fair to blame her for drawing that conclusion when he’d drawn his own hellish conclusions about her?

How had she raised their son alone? With no money? While struggling to educate herself?

Worst of all, what had Noah done without because of his father’s blind arrogance? At the very least, Noah had never known he had a father who would have cared about him.

Cole knew too well how such a revelation could tear up lives. His own father had had a secret son by his first love, Marilyn. That son was his older brother, Adam. Neither Marilyn nor his dad had known she was pregnant when they’d broken up. By the time she’d found out, his father had been in the military overseas. When she’d finally located him, he’d already married Cole’s mother. Although his father hadn’t openly claimed Adam, he’d assumed full responsibility and had secretly supported Marilyn and Adam. He’d even gone to see them as often as he could. It wasn’t until Cole’s dad was gray-faced on his deathbed that he’d confessed everything to Cole and had begged him to go and see Adam in West Texas.

“I always felt I had to protect your mother from knowing about Marilyn and Adam. You know how she is, so fine and proper…and so unyielding and self-righteous. For her sake, I never told you about your brother. I want you to go to him now. Try…to be a brother to him. And please ask your mother to forgive me.”

Cole had asked her, all right, but his mother was still very bitter about Adam. Against her wishes, Cole had taken Adam into the family business as his father had wished. They’d even become close, considering they hadn’t grown up together and still didn’t totally trust each other.

Cole’s hand dug into his scalp as recriminating emotions tore at him.

Damn it, you thought you were protecting your marriage and Lizzie when you refused to take Maddie’s calls or read her letters.

No, you were a selfish, arrogant coward…just like your father.

That’s not true! Dad did the best he could.

What is your own arrogance compared to Maddie running off with Turner?

Forget Turner. Forget what she did. You have a son—Noah. He has to come first.