Now there was an interesting possibility.
One he had no intention of exploring, of course.
This was not good. Molly, with her big, vulnerable brown eyes, wasn’t his type. She had hips. And, hey, the women he dated always wore acrylic nails—long, wicked, blood-red claws. He hated them, but that was beside the point.
So, what was the point?
With Molly pressed so temptingly against him, Jake honestly didn’t know. He only knew she reminded him of his mother in little ways. Jake loved his mother as much as the next guy. She was one of the dearest people on earth and still beautiful even in her late fifties. It was just one of those things that only men understood, he guessed. When it came to carnal pursuits, anything that put you in mind of your mom was to be avoided.
Molly definitely reminded Jake of Mary Coulter. They each had big, guileless eyes and smiles to light up a room. They also had similar builds, both of them short, curvaceous, and soft. They were the kind of women who were made to cuddle children close.
They were also the kind of women who bore lots of children because their husbands couldn’t keep their hands off them.
What was he thinking?
Suddenly narrow-hipped, long-legged, big-busted women no longer seemed very appealing. He wanted short and soft and—don’t go there, Jake.
With some women, acting on an instant attraction was fine, but Molly wasn’t one of them. He could see her heart in her eyes, and a bruised, wounded heart it was. He would never forgive himself if he hurt her, and he’d never been a staying kind of man. He liked to think that was because he hadn’t met the right lady yet, but what if he was wrong? And what was to say Molly was the right lady?
“Thank you for walking with me.” She glanced worriedly upward as they passed under a tree at the edge of his yard. “I really appreciate it.”
Jake was so damned tempted to play this up, but he wasn’t a hormonal teenager, and fear had long since ceased to be a tool of seduction.
“Molly, no cougar is going to attack you around here. Do you really think I would neglect to tell you if I thought it was a possibility?”
She fixed a big, worried gaze on him, her eyes luminous in the moonlight. “Hank seems to think it’s a possibility.”
“Hank is an idiot.” Jake winced. “Not an idiot, exactly. An opportunist might be a better description. He played the cougar thing up because he knew I was walking you home. He thought he was doing me a favor.” He remembered his vow not to pay her too many compliments. So much for that plan. “You’re a very pretty lady, and just look at you now, melting over me like a pat of butter on a biscuit.”
She snapped erect. The worried look in her eyes vanished. “He was matchmaking?”
Jake mourned the loss of her softness pressed against him, but he relinquished his hold on her waist. “He didn’t mean any harm. He’s a big tease and doesn’t take much of anything too seriously.”
Molly folded her arms. “You and me? If that isn’t beyond silly.”
And what was so silly about it?
He could kiss her silly. What would she have to say about that?
She picked up her pace, leaving him to step fancy in order to catch up with her. Ahead of them, a knee-high shrub grew at the edge of the patchy lawn, and Molly was headed straight for it. He grabbed her elbow just before she ran over the top of it.
“Bush dead ahead,” he said as he steered her around it. “How do you navigate at night, girl? Bats are blind, but they have radar.”
“I wish I did. Is it always so dark in the country?”
Jake switched hands on her elbow and slipped his right arm around her waist again. This time she jerked as if he’d stuck her with a pin. He almost released her. When she wasn’t-afraid, the lady obviously didn’t appreciate being touched. No matter. He didn’t want her to trip over something in the dark and get hurt, which was exactly what might happen if he turned her loose.
She stiffened away from him as they walked, trying without success to keep distance between their bodies. Jake firmed his hold on her and set an even pace, measuring his strides to accommodate her much shorter legs. She fit nicely against him, her soft fullness molding to the hard planes of his body. He liked the way she felt and, once again, he found himself wishing he could explore all those plump places.
He looked up at the sky and said, “Will you just look at that?”
It was a corny, shopworn line, but it worked. She glanced up, sighed in appreciation, and relaxed against him. “Isn’t that incredible? I never realized there were so many stars.”
“Out here, you can see them better, is all. No city lights to dim their sparkle.” Jake didn’t add that he was far more captivated by the sparkle in her eyes.
Sunset whinnied at their approach, the sound less panicky than yesterday, but not exactly a herald of welcome yet. “Did you stop to visit with him today?” Jake asked.
Molly laughed, the trill decidedly edgy. “I said hello before I went grocery shopping and again when I got back, but I wouldn’t say we had a visit. He goes the other way when I get close and stays in the corner until I leave.”
Steering her with a slight pressure of his hand, Jake detoured toward the corral. Sunset shrieked and reared. Moonlight glanced off the shiny sections of his black coat where he’d sustained no injuries, and his mane lifted in the breeze, flashing around his arched neck like tarnished silver.
“Did he act up like this?”
She shook her head. “No. He just grunted at me and danced around a little. I think he was afraid I might go inside with him.”
Jake wondered if she saw the significance of that. If the horse didn’t shriek and rear at her approach, it was a very good sign. After watching Molly with Bart earlier, he wasn’t surprised to discover that the stallion instinctively trusted her. Some people had a natural gift with animals.
Jake had a way with animals himself. It was a talent that had served him well, enabling him to make good money training horses. Sunset hadn’t warmed up to him yet, but it was early on, Jake was a man, and the memory of the whipping was still fresh in Sunset’s mind. Jake had every confidence that he would begin to make headway in a few days. He just had to be consistent and patient.
Once at the fence, he opted to keep his arm around Molly. She was shivering slightly, whether from his touch or the chill air, he couldn’t say. Just in case she was cold, it seemed only gentlemanly to share his body heat, since he hadn’t thought to bring a jacket.
He smiled to himself. The truth was, he liked having her close. She felt so right, which made no sense at all. He was a lofty man. The top of her head didn’t quite clear his shoulder even when she was wearing three-inch heels. In sneakers, she was definitely what he would term vertically challenged.
He’d never seen so many curves packed into sixty-three inches.
Beneath his palm, he could feel the ladder of her ribs, the generous overlay of soft flesh and silky skin supple and warm. As near as he could tell, there wasn’t much unneeded padding there, only enough to make her feel lush.
Why in the hell was she on a diet?
“What is it?” she suddenly asked. She peered through the gloom at Sunset. “Is something wrong with him?”
Realizing that he’d betrayed his thoughts by tensing his body, Jake forced himself to relax and turn his mind to safer things. “He’s fine.” He glanced down. “Can’t you see him?”
“I can see him—sort of. Not very clearly, though.”
Jake stooped down, making a show of getting at her eye level. “Is the light worse down here or something?”
She laughed and inched her face back from his. “I doubt it’s any worse down here than anywhere else.”
Jake thought the view was a hell of a lot prettier down there. Her lips were only inches from his. Never in his memory had he wanted so badly to steal a kiss. That mouth. Naked of any lipstick, it was a natural pink and shimmered in the moonlight, the pout of her bottom lip begging him to take a taste.
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If she’d been any other woman, Jake would have acted on the urge. At thirty-two, almost thirty-three, he’d been around the block more times than he could count, and with maturity, he’d lost any hesitance with the ladies that he might have once had. A friendly kiss meant nothing. If it led to more, that didn’t usually mean much, either. He dated women who knew the score. As long as he gave as much pleasure as he took, he owed them nothing more than that, and they expected nothing more.
Molly was different, though. He’d sensed that the first time he saw her, and his feeling hadn’t changed since, except to grow stronger. She was well past the blush of girlhood. In her eyes, he saw wisdom that had been hard earned through painful experience. But, for all of that, she was vulnerable. When he kissed her—if he kissed her—nothing about it would be simple.
He straightened and spoke to the stallion. Sunset whinnied and pranced nervously at the louder pitch of Jake’s voice.
“When will you start working with him?” Molly asked. Jake glanced down, wondering if she could see his face clearly. “I’m working with him already.” He resettled his hand on her side, noting as he did that she didn’t jerk or stiffen this time. “Several times today, I got in the corral, sat in one corner, and stayed until he stopped feeling nervous.”
“That’s what you call working with him?”
“It can’t happen overnight, Molly. And, yes, the way I train, that’s working with him, maybe the most important part. I don’t like to force my will on an animal. It can be done. Easily, I might add. But what’s gained? Sunset already knows he’s at a disadvantage, that I could use hobbles and twitches and do anything I wanted to him. Shall I drive the point home to him yet again?”
Her expression softened as she studied the horse. “So instead you’re letting him get used to you slowly.”
“Exactly. He’s been terrorized enough. This time, we’ll do it the easy way, in small increments, until he isn’t so afraid of me. That can only be accomplished by repeated exposure. By hanging around his corral, I’m desensitizing him to my presence. When I can approach without setting him off, it’ll be time to move on to the next step.”
“What will that be?”
Jake searched her eyes, which glistened up at him like twin measures of expensive Scotch shot through with moonlight. “The first step will be to move in closer yet. When he accepts that, closer still, until he gets used to me and welcomes the touch of my hands.”
“And then?”
“I’ll doctor him, even if he no longer has any open wounds.”
“Why will you do that?”
Jake thought a moment, trying to come up with the words to explain what he did instinctively. “Because, healed or not, the wounds will still be there.”
She made a slight sound at the base of her throat and nodded. Her sadness for the horse rolled off her in waves, filling Jake with a melancholy that made him ache.
“With a person, you can accomplish quite a lot with words, but all a horse understands are a few basic commands and tone of voice. You have to communicate with him in other ways, mostly by your actions. I need to tell Sunset that I’m sorry about what happened to him, that I know all the pain he suffered, and that I want to make him better.”
Tears glistened in her lovely eyes. “I wish I could tell him that, too.”
Jake tightened his hand over her side. “You already have, honey. By bringing him here, you told him. Somewhere in all his confused thoughts right now, I think he understands that you’re the one who saved him. When he’s ready, I won’t be surprised if he trusts you more than anyone else.”
“What makes you think that?” she asked tautly, sounding none too pleased by the prospect.
Jake bit back a smile. “You say he didn’t shriek and act up when you stopped to visit him today? That he just grunted and danced around a little?”
“Yes.”
“That means he’s not as afraid of you as he is of me, that on some level he already trusts you. He probably senses that you care about him. At least, that’s my guess.”
“Oh, do you really think so?”
Her expression was such a mixture of hope and dread that Jake couldn’t help smiling again. “I really do. To be gifted with that kind of trust is a very special thing. I hope you’ll appreciate what an honor it is, and that you’ll use it to help in every way that you can.”
“How can I do that?”
“You can start by spending time with him every day. Just hang around his pen for a half hour or so and talk to him. It doesn’t really matter what you say. Your tone of voice will convey your feelings. Let him know you care about him and that you’re here for him. He’s very frightened right now.”
“Yes,” she agreed faintly. She straightened her shoulders and stared through the darkness at the nervous stallion. “He sort of scares me.”
Sort of? Jake thought that fell short.
“He’s so big, and he gets so violent when he’s frightened,” she added. “I’m not sure I’m the right person to help him.”
“In time, that’ll change. You’ll feel more comfortable with him soon.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’d much rather just watch you work with him.”
“And accomplish what? Every time that whip cut into him, his pride and dignity took a blow, and the hurt of that will never heal until it’s acknowledged and an attempt is made to soothe it away. As his trainer, I can get him parkway there, but someone who loves him will have to take him the rest of the way.”
Her uplifted gaze went suspiciously bright again. After taking a shuddering breath, she swallowed, looked away, and said, “I don’t love him. Not really. I just feel sorry for him.”
Jake didn’t believe that for a minute. The very fact that she’d stolen the stallion to protect him told Jake her feelings ran deep and strong, that she felt far more than just pity, even if she hadn’t realized it herself yet.
“We’ll see how it goes. One peculiarity about horses and most other animals is that they choose their masters. We buy them and claim ownership, but the heart of a creature can’t be owned. Sunset will choose who he’ll love, and if that turns out to be you, you won’t have a hell of a lot to say about it.”
“In other words, he’ll be my horse whether I want him or not?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Jake studied her profile, thinking to himself that Sunset might not be her only conquest. Something was happening inside him. He felt it every time he looked at her. He had the strangest feeling that this was absolutely right—that he’d been waiting for her all his adult life. It was a feeling that grew stronger each time he was with her.
“I’m so glad I brought Sunset here.”
“I’m glad you came,” he said huskily.
“I’ll do my best with him,” she promised hesitantly. “Even though I’m nervous with him, I’ll try.”
Jake already knew that. The lady wasn’t lacking in backbone. In fact, he’d venture to say that she had no idea how strong she actually was.
“It’ll be a long, hard haul,” he warned. “But nothing worth doing comes easily.”
“Sunset is worth it.” A distant look came into her eyes. “I wish you could have seen him the way he used to be. He was magnificent.” She smiled sadly. “He had a dauntless spirit, and you could tell just by looking at him that he’d been born to race. He ran his heart out for Rodney. Literally ran his heart out.”
Rodney. Finally, the bastard had a name.
“It’s so sad, seeing Sunset the way he is now,” she whispered. “He loved Rodney so much, and he tried so desperately to please him, but nothing he did was ever good enough.” She rested clenched fists on the fence rail. “When you try that hard, when you give someone your very best and it’s never good enough, it does something to you. Way deep inside, it does something, and you’re never the same again.”
Jake’s heart caught. He knew she wasn’t speaking only of the horse. There was too much pain in her voice.
“Rodney was never satisfied with anything. I think that broke poor Sunset’s spirit long before the whippings did.”
Jake wanted to put his arms around her, gather her close. She looked so sad, and so very, very lost.
With the echo of her words still circling in his mind, he knew he couldn’t possibly criticize her performance in the kitchen. She’d tried her best, giving him all she had. He would be damned if he would tell her that, once again, her best hadn’t been good enough.
A few minutes later, Molly slid home the bolt on the cabin door. From outside, she could hear the tap of Jake’s boots on the planks as he crossed the porch and descended the steps. When the sounds faded away to silence, she turned to lean against the door. Exhaustion. It seemed as if an eternity had passed since six that morning, and she’d spent every second in high gear.
Passing a hand over her eyes, she went into the bathroom to prepare for bed, her weary joints protesting with every step. In the harsh light cast by the ceiling fixture, her reflection in the mirror looked pale and haggard. She avoided looking at her face as she loosened her long hair from the braid and began her nightly brushing ritual. Not that shiny hair mattered to her anymore. She’d long since stopped wearing hers loose. It was so wildly curly and uncontrollable that it overwhelmed her features.
Five strokes into the brushing ritual, Molly heard a knock at the door. Laying the brush aside, she moved back into the tiny living room. It hadn’t been far from her mind all day that the police might still find her here. “Who is it?” she called, her nerves jangling.
“Jake.”
There was no mistaking that deep voice. Molly hurried over to unfasten the deadbolt, wondering why on earth he was back. As she opened the door, she voiced her first concern. “Has something gone wrong with Sunset?”
“No, no, he’s fine. I just—” A looming silhouette in the darkness beyond the threshold, he broke off from speaking to stare at her.