Children of Destiny Books 1-3 (Texas: Children of Destiny Book 9) Read online

  Another of his quick glances swept over her. “I know.”

  He got up, too, and stretched. He seemed huge in the little room. Hungrily she watched the fabric of his shirt play over muscle.

  He came to her and brushed her cheek gently with his hand. “Will you be all right if I step outside for a few minutes and make a couple of calls? I want to phone the ranch and have one of the hands drive a car down here with some clothes, and with Tim Collins. I want Tim to fly the Mooney back to the ranch before anyone gets too interested in those bullet holes. And I promised Janelle I’d call her. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

  “Of course, I’ll be all right,” Megan said, struggling to pretend she didn’t mind.

  Jeb hesitated, seeing the vulnerability in her eyes.

  “Go on!” Megan whispered.

  When he returned, he found her huddled hollow-eyed in a corner.

  “Still no word?” he murmured.

  She stirred restlessly and shook her head.

  He sat down beside her and took her hand in his. “He’ll make it,” Jeb whispered. “Kirk’s like you. He’s too cussed stubborn to let a couple of Mexican bullets be the end of him.”

  Rough calluses ran caressingly against the soft flesh of her palm.

  Megan sat there, smiling wanly, watching as Jeb’s large brown hand slid against her golden one, liking the way his rough, cool fingers felt against her hot ones. “I imagine you’re right,” she said at last, “about us being stubborn.”

  “I know I am.”

  “Thanks.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment,” he murmured, “calling you cussed and stubborn.”

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  He smiled. “Just making sure.”

  “You never miss an opportunity to insult me.”

  “You’d be surprised.” There was a hint of cynicism in his expression. “I rein in a few.”

  “If Kirk lives... Jeb, I’ll be grateful to you forever.”

  Jeb smiled. He let go of her hand. She felt his fingers brush the flowing flame of tangled hair beside her face. Her heart fluttered, and she swallowed a soft moan.

  “I always wondered what it would take to make you grateful.” His fingers twirled a lock of her hair. “I would have thrown Kirk in the lion’s den years ago and plucked him out again, if only I’d known. But I didn’t. You know, Megan, through the years I thought I’d tried everything. Like I said, you MacKays are a stubborn lot. You, in particular. You can hold onto a grudge more tenaciously than any woman alive. I wonder—are all your emotions equally tenacious?”

  His electric black gaze jolted through her. His hand kept curling the flyaway tendrils beside her cheek. For a numbed moment, she could only stare at the thick raven lock that tumbled carelessly across his forehead, at the black brows that made slashing arches above his brilliant black eyes. His features seemed roughly chiseled, harder somehow than mere flesh and bone, yet gentle.

  She knew too well that he was a man who took what he wanted, a man who let nothing stand in his way. Hadn’t he taken her ranch, humiliated and driven her father away? Her gratitude toward Jeb dissolved in the hot tide of bitterness that filled her.

  She recoiled from him. “I had good reason to hate you,” she whispered.

  She tried to move away, but he wouldn’t let her.

  “You thought you had good reason.” His voice was as bitter as hers.

  They stared at one another for a long time. “If Kirk lives, he’s got to get over this obsession about rescuing people,” she said, struggling to change the subject.

  “He’s not going to,” Jeb replied matter-of-factly. “He can’t stop blaming himself for what happened to Julia. He wasn’t tough enough to stop them from taking her, so he went into the Marines and later the CIA to make himself tough enough. Kirk made himself into a lethal weapon. I think that’s why he can’t say no to people when they come to him with a problem. Every time he goes into some country to help somebody in trouble, he’s saving Julia.”

  “Maybe after this he’ll be different.”

  “Get smart, Megan! Kirk won’t change! No matter how many people he rescues, he can’t save Julia, so he’ll keep on going...until...his luck runs out—” Jeb finished darkly.

  “No.” The single word was a moan of pain. “If he lives, I’m not going to let him risk his life like this again! If... That’s the key word, isn’t it? Oh, Jeb, if Kirk dies, I’ll be all alone.”

  Jeb folded her into his arms. “Honey, you’ve never been alone. You’ve always had me and my family behind you. You were just too proud to see it.”

  An uncontrollable shiver raced down her spine at his nearness.

  She didn’t want to let him hold her, but his warmth seeped inside her seductively. She sagged weakly in the arms of the man she’d hated for years, in the arms of the man who’d stolen everything she valued.

  But he had risked his life to save her brother, and for that she owed him.

  Megan’s eyes flew to Jeb’s face. His expression was hard, implacable.

  The intense emotions he aroused in her were bewildering. She didn’t know anymore if he was friend or foe.

  She only knew she was irresistibly drawn to him, and she was terribly afraid it would prove a fatal fascination.

  Five

  There was a crackle of sound in the room as the mini blinds were flicked open. A blood red sun splashed ribs of fire from a high, narrow window into the cold room. Megan snapped herself up sharply from the comforting warmth of Jeb’s arms.

  The first thing she saw was the doctor in his blue scrub suit, and her heart began to thrum with terror for her brother.

  The doctor’s mask hung limply around his neck. His face was gray and lined from the hours in the operating room. His bloodshot blue eyes were large with the same frank curiosity he’d had last night when they had showed up in his emergency room. They’d been in blood-soaked clothes with a dying man who looked like a mercenary soldier shot full of bullet holes.

  The doctor had thrown off Kirk’s sheet, looked at him with those cold, curious eyes and demanded rudely, “Mind telling me about it, sir?”

  “Yes!” Jeb had erupted. “You’re wasting precious time—time he doesn’t have.”

  Filthy and mud-caked, his brown face crusted with blood and his black eyes burning, Jeb had looked ferocious.

  “I can’t operate until I know.”

  Jeb had loomed over the smaller man. “You can do anything you damn well decide to do. I’m Jeb Jackson of Jackson Ranch.”

  “Nobody’s above the law.”

  “I didn’t say I was. That man on the stretcher works for me. I don’t know what happened to him for sure. I just found him. If you can’t save him, find someone who can. I’m known as a man who repays favors, and I’ll consider it a favor if Kirk MacKay lives.”

  Megan had listened in numb silence. The doctor had hesitated. All Megan could see was Kirk lying between them, his tanned face ashen, the lifeblood seeping out of him.

  “For God’s sake, you can sort the legalities out later. Just save my brother,” Megan had cried.

  The doctor had stared at her for a long moment. Then he’d picked up the phone and dialed an administrator, who’d demanded to speak to Jeb. After that call there were no more questions. Only brisk, tight-lipped efficiency.

  Megan had always despised Jeb’s tactics. They were low-down and undemocratic, exactly like him, but this time it was gratifying to see how well they worked. Within minutes a team of surgeons had begun working to save Kirk. A second standby team was flown in from Harlingen.

  In the red morning sunlight, the doctor studied Megan.

  “I-is Kirk dead?” Her voice was choked with fear.

  Jeb woke up instantly, and the doctor’s expression hardened.

  “He’s going to make it.”

  “You must have operated all night.”

  “What was left of it, yes, but your brother’s tough. Wounds such as he sustained would ha
ve killed most men. His knowledge of first aid plus his other survival skills must have enabled him to hold on until you found him and brought him here. Of course, especially for the next twenty-four hours, there’s always the chance of complications.”

  “Can we see MacKay?” Jeb asked.

  “He’s unconscious.”

  Jeb scowled blackly at him.

  “Just for a minute,” the doctor said.

  It was a comfort to Megan to see Kirk’s white face even for the brief half minute the doctor allowed them to hold his limp hand. It was a comfort to see that he really had survived the long hours on the operating table.

  “Kirk,” she whispered, “you made it. You’re going to be okay.” Her finger traced the curve of his thumb.

  Jeb led her gently outside. “He can’t hear you.”

  “I just wanted him to know.”

  “He knows.”

  They came out of the recovery room. She started to sink onto the couch, but Jeb restrained her, shaking his dark head. “No, I’m taking you to a motel, where you can stretch out comfortably.”

  “I’m not leaving Kirk.”

  Dark eyes moved over her face. “The motel’s only five minutes away. I made the reservation last night with my cell phone.”

  “You were that sure he’d make it?”

  “I told you he was too stubborn to die.”

  “And I’m too stubborn to go to a motel room with you.”

  Jeb gave her a long look and shrugged indifferently. “Then stay here alone, if that’s what you want.”

  She watched him pick up his things. She listened to him give the nurse his cell phone number.

  At the door, he turned. “Well,” came his quiet low tone. “If you need anything, you’ve got my number.”

  Megan cocked her head in a defiant angle, but her soft voice was not so defiant. “You say it’s only five minutes away?”

  “Maybe less,” he murmured.

  The throbbing of her pulse echoed loudly in her ears. “I—I hate being by myself.”

  “I know the feeling.” His voice was husky.

  Both of them were silent again.

  The ribbons of light were now golden against the wall. He didn’t move, and they couldn’t stop looking at each other. His bronzed face was dark, unfathomable.

  They both spoke at once.

  “Megan...”

  “Jeb...”

  Their names were soft sounds, cutting into the silence, then vanishing.

  Across the stillness they laughed nervously.

  His mouth crooked into a charming half smile. “You coming or not?” he asked huskily.

  She shook her head, but when he opened the door, she jumped up and ran after him.

  He turned. In the gleaming white hall, wearing his bloodied camouflage fatigues, he seemed an all-powerful male giant. The rugged planes of his face, tanned by the sun and made darker by the jet blackness of his eyes and hair increased the pagan force that drew her to him. His brooding gaze moved possessively across her face, and she knew a moment’s alarm.

  She had made a mistake. He exuded masculine power and virility. No woman in her right mind would go to a motel room alone with such a man unless she was willing to...

  His black gaze seared her, and Megan began to shiver. She was exhausted. She didn’t want to be alone; that was all. He held out his hand, and with an exaggerated show of reluctance, she placed her own in it.

  He smiled down at her, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. His grip was like hot living steel. “If I’d forced you,” he chuckled softly, “you would have fought me all the way. Maybe I’m learning how to handle you.”

  The last sentence should have been a warning.

  But she could not resist the effect his gentleness had on her senses. He brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them tenderly, and she made no attempt to pull away.

  Megan had second thoughts as she stood outside the motel room and watched Jeb turn the key. Not that she voiced them when he led her inside.

  An immense red-satin, king-size bed gleamed from the center of the room.

  “Looks good, doesn’t it?” Jeb drawled with a lazy smile.

  There was an unreal quality about the moment, a terrifying magic that set her senses spinning. Her legs turned to jelly. Red satin blurred into a shimmering scarlet sea that seemed to fill the room.

  “I-isn’t there another room? Or at least another bed?” Megan asked in a tiny, shaking voice.

  “This is it,” he murmured. “The last bed in Brownsville. Take it or leave it.”

  “I’m leaving,” she whispered, her heart racing in panic. She made a wild jump toward the door.

  “Don’t be silly.” He caught her, peeled her fingers from the door facing and brought her back inside. At his touch, a liquid fire raced through her senses.

  “I really don’t think...” She whirled, and he wrapped her tightly in his taut arms.

  “You’re behaving like a child. Do you really think I brought you here to seduce you?” He laughed softly when her eyes filled guiltily with telling emotion. “Believe me, until you started acting like this, that was the last thing on my mind. I’m tired and filthy and so are you. Every time that doctor looks at us, he acts like we’re criminals. I want a bath and an hour’s sleep.”

  “I’d still rather go back to the hospital,” she insisted mulishly.

  “Look, nothing’s going to happen.” His lips curved. “Unless you do something to make it happen.”

  She felt her temper flare.. “I’m certainly not going to do anything!”

  “Well, there you have it. You’re safer with me than if you were in a convent.”

  She stared into his ruggedly handsome face. “Safer?” Her eyes trailed over the rippling expanse of his muscled shoulders in startled disbelief.

  He grinned. “You have me to protect you.”

  “What about those kisses?” she blurted. Megan felt heat flush her face.

  His eyes traced the curve of her vivid, lush lips.

  “What about them?” he demanded softly.

  “Yesterday morning, and...” She watched the telltale pulse tick within the corded column of his neck, belying his air of lazy nonchalance. “You’re so big. You could make me do anything you wanted,” she said, trying to still the quiver in her voice.

  “This is now, and in case you’ve forgotten, we’ve both just been through hell. I’ve never forced myself on a woman.”

  She lifted her chin. “You’re saying you don’t think anything of sharing a room and a bed with me.”

  “It damn well beats sharing that plastic couch in that ice-cold waiting room.”

  She resented the twisted logic in that statement.

  “Don’t look so worried. I’m the guy that didn’t make a move even when you invited me into your bedroom and offered yourself to me.” He stared arrogantly down at her.

  She flushed. “You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”

  “It’s a cherished memory.” He smiled sensually, maddeningly.

  “If you were a gentleman...”

  “We both know I’m not.” He flashed her another of his quick, white smiles.

  “That fact is hardly reassuring.”

  He laughed boldly. His hands ran down the length of her arms while a compelling light glittered in his eyes. “I’m beginning to think it’s not me you don’t trust, but yourself, honey.”

  She swallowed, digesting this new thought. The fact that there was some truth to his brash statement was even less reassuring.

  He stalked away and began to unbutton his shirt. As he did, her eyes widened and she stared at the teak-brown strip of his chest. The curling mat of hair on the broad expanse ran down the center of him, tapering to a line at the waistband of his trousers. He stopped, aware of her mesmerized stare, and nodded toward her.

  “Sorry. I’m so used to living alone, I forgot.” A thick black brow arched sardonically. “Ladies first.”

  The bed was betwe
en them, making her more deeply conscious of being in a bedroom, alone with him.

  Megan gazed helplessly into his dark face. “W-what?” she stammered.

  “Your clothes are smeared with Kirk’s blood. You need a bath.”

  Her face flamed. “I’m not taking my clothes off.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  He stripped down to his trousers. When he fumbled with his zipper, she clamped her eyelids tightly shut.

  He laughed with amusement as though he derived great entertainment from her modesty. She heard him move with deadly, pantherlike agility toward the bathroom.

  “You can open your eyes now,” he said, shutting the door with a soft click, still chuckling to himself.

  Megan sat rigidly on the bed, listening to him in the bathroom. There were the sounds of soap wrappers being torn off and discarded, of water splashing, of a low velvet rumble as he sang bawdily to himself.

  He was perfectly at ease. He was probably enjoying himself immensely. Minutes later the bathroom door opened again. A delicious, male-scented cloud of steam preceded him. She jumped off the bed.

  He stood before her, his body sleek and brown, his face bright, his hair as wet as jet ink. He smiled jauntily into her worried face. A damp sheen clung to his body. He smelled of soap. Other pleasant scents wafted toward her. Jeb took a deep breath as if the air were keener now that he was clean. He seemed to feel invigorated, but she almost preferred him dirty and tired—not so vitally energetic.

  He wore nothing but a towel as he strutted about the room without showing the least concern that it might fall off. She found herself marveling at him. His body was all muscle, even his flat, hard stomach. Hungrily she studied the dark trail of fur that ran from his chest down to the towel. Some treacherous part of her began almost to wish that the towel would fall off so she could find out if the hidden parts of him were as dark and attractive as the rest. She flushed and stole a quick glance at his face to see if he might have read her thoughts, but he wasn’t watching her. He didn’t seem in the least bothered by her avid interest. She shook her head, but the magic of being alone with him was beginning to work its spell on her.

  He rubbed his roughened chin. “I wish I had a razor.”