September Rain Read online

  Hallie turned her head, and found his eyes open, glittering in the dark.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “Did I wake you?”

  His mouth curled up. “Yes.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I should get up.”

  “No.” He put his hand out, over her ribs.

  Hallie’s body tingled at his warm touch and her breath became short. “Are you--are you feeling any better?”

  “Mmm.”

  Hallie wasn’t sure, but she thought that was a satisfied sigh. “Are you warm enough?”

  He made a sound deep in his throat and Hallie felt his chest and belly ripple, as if he’d laughed. Warmth spread through her body, the warmth of longing, of a yearning she didn’t even have a name for. She turned over onto her back and looked at Jacob. When she did, he didn’t remove his hand, but let it slide as her body turned, until it rested on her stomach. She felt his fingers curl slightly into the material of her chemise, and within her, warmth turned to fire.

  It took her a moment to push words past the pounding of the pulse in her throat. “I’ve never done this before,” she said.

  “I know.” The look he gave her was tender, sympathetic, and maybe just a bit filled with longing, too.

  “I mean lying with a man.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s that obvious?” she asked. “I know I’m plain and unschooled in the ways of men, being an old maid.”

  His gaze slid down her body to where his hand rested, then back up to study her face. “I can tell what kind of woman you are.”

  “You can?”

  He nodded. “You are a woman of principle. A woman of high moral standards.”

  Hallie didn’t know whether she should feel insulted or complimented. Their heads lay on the same pillow, so close she could feel his breath on her face. She could smell him. His scent was not unpleasant, but not exactly like anything she could identify. She took a long breath.

  “What are you doing?”

  She smiled shyly. “I’m smelling you.”

  He stared at her. “What do you smell?”

  Hallie closed her eyes. “I don’t know exactly. The rain, the earth. Evergreen. Soap. Leather. Potato soup. And something else. Something that’s just--you.” She took another long breath.

  As her lungs expanded, Jacob’s fingers spread over her waist. Before she could react, before she could even open her eyes, his breath grew warmer and his lips touched the corner of her mouth.

  A flash of something very like pain seared through her. His lips were firm yet soft. His hand had inched up to an indefinably sensitive spot somewhere between her waist and her breast. Hallie put her hand on top of his, not even sure why. She needed to stop the feelings, or direct them, or control them.

  Instead of pushing his hand away, she curled her fingers around his. She turned her face so his lips slid over hers.

  “Hallie,” he whispered.

  Hallie opened her mouth to say something. She could never remember what, because when she did, Jacob’s mouth covered hers.

  A gasp escaped her throat, only to be swallowed up by his mouth as he lifted himself up on his elbow and his hand inched a bit closer to her breast.

  She reached for him, curling her fingers around his nape, something inside her guiding her actions. She arched her neck to reach for more of his delicious, disturbing kiss.

  As she did, Jacob pulled back, his eyes shining in the semi-darkness.

  “What is it, Jacob?”

  He remained there, still as death, hovering over her, his hand hot beneath her breast. The only movement Hallie could see was the muscle in his jaw working. Then he closed his eyes and shook his head slightly.

  “Jacob?”

  With a grunt and a sharply drawn breath, he pushed the blankets aside and got up.

  The cold air swirled over Hallie’s heated body, shocking her. She caught at the blankets and sat up. “Jacob? What is it? Are you hurting?”

  With a frowning glance at her he slid his feet into his boots and his arms into a thick coat. Then he poked at the fire, and sank down onto a fat log that had been turned up to use as a stool. His breath hissed between his teeth.

  Hallie wrapped one of the blankets around her and pulled the single chair over to the fire. She stared into the red and yellow flames, instinctively aware that she shouldn’t speak. Jacob would tell her what, if anything, he wanted her to know. She pulled the blanket closer, thinking how cold and lonely she felt now, compared to the wonderful, tingly warmth of lying curled into Jacob’s side just moments before.

  Jacob gripped the poker like a weapon, a weapon he could use to fend off the raw, painful feelings Hallie Greer evoked in him. He didn't regret helping her. Not when they’d beaten him, not when he’d crawled to his horse knowing something inside him was broken and bleeding, not when he’d fallen on the trail, despairing of living long enough to get back to his cabin.

  But he regretted it now.

  Why did she have to be so determined? How could she possibly be so innocent?

  Jacob stabbed at the fire, as if to punish it for his renewed pain.

  “Jacob?”

  Her soft voice split the rain-soaked silence like a clap of thunder. He winced, and went on poking the fire.

  “Jacob, can I get you something? Some tea? Or water?”

  “No!” He closed his eyes. He hadn’t meant to shout. Well, he had, but he hadn’t meant to direct it at her.

  He felt her withdraw. Without even looking at her, he knew she had shrunk inside the blanket, shrunk back, away from him. He’d hurt her. And that had always been the last thing he’d wanted to do.

  “It’s been too long,” he said, still amazed that his rusty voice worked at all, that he remembered how to put words together. He rubbed his neck with the backs of his fingers.

  “Jacob, you don’t have to — “

  He silenced her with a wave of his hand. Staring beyond the flames, into the darkness of his past, he spoke without thinking, just letting the words come as they would.

  “I died inside when my wife died,” he said. “Then I died some more when I murdered the bastards who killed her. There’s nothing left now inside--”

  “You’re not dead,” she interrupted.

  He glared at her and she swallowed whatever else she’d planned to say. Turning his gaze back to the fire, he continued, afraid if he didn’t speak now, he might never speak again. “There’s nothing inside me, now. Not even hatred. Nothing but the memories and the pain. I have nothing to offer.”

  The flames blurred. He’d said everything he could say. He wiped his face with a shaky hand. What he’d accomplished with his ragged confession, he didn’t know. But he knew what he’d hoped to do. He’d hoped to kill the light in Hallie’s eyes when she looked at him like he was some kind of hero.

  He was no hero. He was a coward.

  “If you’re dead, then why don’t you lie down and die?”

  Jacob lifted his head. “What?” he rasped.

  Hallie sat with her blanket-encased arms wrapped tightly around her. But her back was stiff and her manner was imperious, and as he stared, she lifted one regal brow and gave him back look for look. “Why haven’t you just lain down and died?”

  “Maybe that’s what I was doing when you interrupted me.”

  She shook her head, and her hair, which had been fighting restraint all day and night, won its battle and fell around her shoulders like a dark, soft cloud. “You weren’t dying. You were feeling sorry for yourself, which it sounds like you’ve done for years.”

  “Hallie, you know nothing of me.”

  “I know you’re not dead.”

  Jacob turned back to the fire. “What makes you so sure?”

  “I felt you.”

  Her simple words sent an ache of desire streaking through him, and behind it a streak of fury. “Shut up,” he grated.

  “I felt you against me. Your warmth. Your heartbeat. Your breath on my face. Your lips
--”

  He threw the poker down and stood. “I said shut up. You don’t know what you’re talking about, Miss Hallie Greer.”

  She stood and faced him. It surprised him to see how small and reed slender she was. She seemed to fill his cabin.

  “I may be plain, and a spinster, but I know enough about men to know you’re not dead.”

  “That’s exactly your problem. You’re a romantic spinster who knows nothing except what you’ve read in novels. You think I’m some tragic hero you can rescue, like Jane Eyre rescued Mr. Rochester. Well, you’re wrong, Hallie. I don’t need rescuing. I just need to be left alone.”

  Jacob’s words pummeled Hallie like blows. She stood as firmly against them as she could, although inside she cowered and wished she could somehow shield her heart. “Do you?” she taunted him. “Do you want to be left alone? Is that what you wanted when you kissed me?”

  “You think that kiss was some declaration of love? Some romantic rebirth of my spirit under your tender care?” He laughed harshly, scouring the last bit of armor from her bleeding heart.

  She shook her head. “I told you, I am not unaware of men and their needs.” Raising her chin, she looked Jacob straight in the eye. “I know I’m not beautiful. I also know I’m old. But I was not always this old.”

  “Indeed?”

  Hallie glared at him. “I see you’re not so dead you cannot make fun of me. I never expected to marry. But I could help you, if you would let me. I’m not an uninteresting person.”

  The light of amusement returned to his eyes. The fact that he was amused infuriated her.

  “Are you proposing to me, Miss Hallie Greer?”

  She shrugged, hoping the gesture appeared offhanded. “My reputation will be ruined after people discover where I’ve been. You are lonely. We could be company for each other.”

  He laughed, then winced. “I have not had company for three years. Why would you think I needed it now?”

  “I felt you.”

  Jacob’s face darkened. He stepped toward her, his eyes burning into hers. Hallie stood her ground, although she quaked under his glare.

  He stood, so close she could feel his heat, and looked down at her for a long time. Mesmerized, Hallie stared up at him. She swallowed and licked her lips. When she did his gaze flickered downward to her mouth, then slowly back up to meet her eyes.

  “Do you know what you’re offering, Hallie?”

  She nodded and swallowed again. “Y-yes,” she whispered.

  “I have nothing to give you in return,” he said bleakly. “Nothing.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Why?” he said softly, his head bent so his breath warmed her mouth.

  “I only have one answer for that, and you’ve already heard it.”

  “Let me hear it again.”

  Hallie took a long breath. She looked at Jacob’s face, the most beautiful face she’d ever seen, even with the swollen, blackened eye. She looked at his lips, cut and bruised, and at his strong, harsh jaw. “I felt you. I felt your life, your breath, your yearning. I don’t know how else to tell you.”

  “You felt nothing but an animal attraction. I merely exist, like an animal, and lust like an animal.”

  She blinked in astonishment at his words, but didn’t back away.

  Suddenly, Jacob grabbed her roughly and pulled her to him, brushing the blanket aside. He pressed her against his body, until she could feel the relentless hardness of him, the iron like strength, the rigid control. He stuck his fingers in her hair and closed his fist, bringing tears to her eyes as her scalp burned. Then he slanted his mouth over hers and kissed her harshly.

  At first, Hallie wanted to cry, to struggle against his ruthless assault. But almost as soon as his mouth ground against hers, he changed.

  His body relaxed minutely, his hand released its cruel grip on her hair and moved to cup her head, his lips softened and coaxed rather than demanded.

  Hallie’s body molded to his embrace as a thrill streaked through her. She felt her skin tighten as her muscles went limp as rags. The feelings she got when she read her romances titillated her, but this was ten times better, or worse. Maybe twenty times. Something strange was happening deep in her most secret core, and Jacob was the only man who’d ever made it happen.

  Something was happening to him, too. His body, although he’d relaxed his cruel grip, was growing harder, more insistent, against her. From somewhere deep inside her came a longing to touch him, to feel all the separate parts of him, to explore the differences in his body and hers. She leaned into his embrace and parted her lips.

  Jacob tore his mouth away from hers. His breath came harsh and fast. He stared at her as if she were a demon, or a witch. “Go to bed, Hallie. You leave here in the morning.” He turned away and stalked to the door.

  “Jacob wait,” she said, but he didn’t.

  She stood barefoot and bare armed in the cold room, with the heat from the fire scarcely reaching her. The door slammed with a blast of cold, damp air, and Hallie shivered.

  Then, she picked the blanket up off the floor and crept back to bed, huddling under the covers, wondering when, or if, Jacob would come back.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The next morning she woke to find him sitting by the fire, his elbows on his knees, staring at her. His eyes were as blue and remote as the midday sky.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Get up. You’ve got to leave.”

  “Your voice is stronger.”

  He frowned and looked away, toward the fire. “I’ll get you some water to wash.”

  “Thank you.”

  Hallie watched him as he picked up the water bucket and left the cabin. He was much better, if she could judge by the way he moved. His eye wasn’t as swollen either, although there was still a black rim around it which she suspected would turn an ugly purple before it went away.

  Wrapping the blanket around her, Hallie walked around, touching the hand-hewn table, the sturdy chair, the bed. All the things Jacob had built.

  This wasn’t the cabin of a man who was dead. It was a lonely place, a sad place, but it wasn’t a dead place. Hallie thought about his wife, and how much he must have loved her, how devastated he must have been to lose her.

  She thought about his lonely existence and her eyes filled with tears as she touched the flowers on the table which had probably never seen a flower.

  She had done that. She had instinctively begun the age-old ritual of woman, making a home wherever she happened to be. She’d had no right to force her way into his life. He’d helped her because she needed help. She’d tried to help him because she’d thought he needed help. But he didn’t want her help, and as much as it hurt her to admit it, that was his choice. What he chose to do with his life had nothing to do with her. It amazed her how painful that realization was.

  When Jacob had smiled at her, she'd viewed it as nothing more than a small triumph in a day that otherwise was the duplicate of hundreds of past days. But before that day had ended, Jacob had become the most important person in her life, because he had saved hers at risk of his own. Now, one day later, it seemed he was important to her in another, more tender way.

  She shouldn't have come here. Before she had lain with Jacob, before she had felt the tenderness of his kiss, she had been content with her life as a spinster, gleaning snippets of romance from books. She touched a drooping petal and blinked away tears. Now books would never again be enough for her, for he had given her a taste of the real thing.

  Jacob brought in the bucket of water. He looked at her, then away.

  Hallie put a hand to her head, thinking how disheveled she must look with her hair undone and nothing but a blanket draped over her chemise and underskirt.

  “I’ll leave you to wash in private.” His gaze touched her again before he turned his back.

  “Jacob,” she said.

  He stopped at the door. She stepped close to him, but he kept his face averted.
r />   She reached up and cradled his cheek in her hand, urging his head toward her. His gaze turned to hers reluctantly, traveling over her face, then dipping to the top of her chemise and back up to meet her eyes.

  Hallie felt a tiny bit of triumph that she could evoke that much response in him.

  “You should not blame yourself for your wife’s death,” she said.

  His face went white with shock. “What?”

  “You blame yourself. You think you should have been able to save her.”

  He stepped backward, out of the reach of her hand. “What I think is none of your business. Your horse is saddled.”

  “There’s no reason you lived and she died, Jacob. It just happened.” Hallie licked her lips, determined not to falter, even if he was determined to ignore her. “The same way it just happened that you came along in time to save me.”

  She took a long breath. “You can’t live your life regretting what might have been.”

  His jaw clenched. “I can live my life anyway I please. Goodbye, Miss Hallie Greer.”

  Hallie’s eyes filled with tears, despite her best efforts to stop them. She touched the broken skin of his lip, her fingers hesitant. “I know it’s none of my business, Jacob. I know you care nothing for me. I’m much too old and spinsterish to be the object of anyone’s affections. But I want to thank you.”

  He stared down at her, his brow furrowed, but his eyes carrying a hint of the softness she found herself always looking for. “It’s I who should thank you for coming to see about me. It was no chore to save you. ”

  Hallie shook her head. “Not for saving me, although I do thank you for that. I thank you for making me feel pretty. For kissing me.” She felt her face grow warm, but she forced herself to continue. She might never have another chance to speak so to him. “For showing me how it feels to be a woman, even if just for an instant.”

  She swallowed and drew in courage with a long breath. It was hard to gaze at him unwavering as she humbled herself. “If you should ever decide you would like companionship, I should be honored if you felt I could provide what you needed. But, Jacob, whatever you do, don’t hide yourself away up here and pretend to be dead. You’re too fine for that.” Then she wrapped her hand around his neck and stood on tiptoe and kissed his mouth.