Children of Destiny Books 1-3 (Texas: Children of Destiny Book 9) Page 27

  Wayne’s silver-gold head bent low over his wife’s dark one, and she gave him a radiant smile. Watching the intensity between them, Megan’s heart ached with a bittersweet longing to know that kind of enduring love with a man.

  Megan wandered through the house, seeking a quiet place where she could be alone. Kirk was in the drawing room, a beautiful blonde sitting beside him on the sofa.

  “Union horses?” the girl murmured in disbelief. “In here?”

  Megan heard the low rumble of Kirk’s voice and knew that he was telling the girl the old story about how Union officers had ridden inside the house on horseback to kill Colonel Jackson, their horseshoes cutting deep half-moons into the wood and Persian carpets. The colonel had escaped, but two of his vaqueros had been shot dead in the parlor.

  Megan passed into the portrait gallery, where huge oil portraits lined the walls. All of the Jackson family was depicted there, even Jack, Jeb’s younger, wild brother who had been killed in a motorcycle accident. Even Julia. For a long moment Megan studied the painting of the little girl who had been her childhood playmate.

  The painter had caught her intense charisma, although Julia had always been most beautiful when she was moving. Her face was a perfect oval, her eyes immense and as darkly luminous as black pearls. Her hair fell in thick waves to her shoulders. The tragedy of her kidnapping on that long-ago day had changed all of their lives. To have a child stolen, lost forever. Never to know if she were dead or alive... Never to have closure…

  It was said that Mercedes could never look at the painting without tears coming into her eyes. Having lost her own father, Megan could identify with Mercedes’s pain.

  Because it distracted her from her own misery, Megan studied the other pictures in the room. There were MacKay portraits alongside the Jackson ones, images of men in fringed leather jackets, men with long, wispy beards whose faces were carved with hard determination.

  Megan knew the history of the two families by heart. Once the MacKays and Jacksons had been business partners. Together they had battled Indians and Mexican bandits. The Civil War had come and the soldiers who had protected the settlers from Indians were forced to abandon their forts and go to war. The frontier was pushed back a hundred miles, and had the ranchers not stood together, the MacKays and the Jacksons would have lost their fledgling empires.

  Megan heard the sound of Kirk’s crutches. His low voice came from behind her. She turned. He was alone.

  “It’s odd to think the MacKays were once richer and more powerful than the Jacksons,” he said.

  “I wish we still were.”

  “It’s useless to cry for the moon, Megan,” Kirk said gently. “When the land was tamed, the MacKays lost interest in it. They were adventurers, not ranchers.”

  You just think that because you happen to be an adventurer, she thought. Aloud she murmured, “Or maybe the Jacksons were just greedier.”

  “Or smarter,” Jeb retorted, entering the room with Janelle on his arm. He stopped several feet away from Megan, bowing his head slightly, formally. Her heart began to beat loudly. “Don’t look at me that way, Megan. I just said it because I know how you enjoy keeping all those old wounds open.” He smiled boldly.

  His deliberate cruelty stung. White-faced, Megan stared after him as he swept Janelle to the farthest corner of the room and began to talk about the famous paintings of the Alamo and San Jacinto as if they were the only two people in the room.

  Watching them, Megan felt the bitter anguish of jealousy. She had come into the gallery to distract herself from them. They were the last people she wanted to see. She must have betrayed something of her feelings because Kirk gave his sister a long quizzical look, but neither of them spoke.

  “So this is where the party is,” someone cried from the hallway.

  Wayne and Mercedes entered the room along with several politicians and Jack Robards, the oilman who’d done all the drilling on the Jackson Ranch. Nick and Amy followed them in, Amy clutching Triple’s hand tightly.

  Mercedes inclined her dark head toward Megan, standing by Amy while Wayne lead the politicians down to a painting of Goliath, the finest bull the ranch had ever produced. The men talked of horses and bulls, of the ranch’s money problems. Janelle and Jeb joined them. When Jack Robards turned the conversation to oil, gas and shale discoveries, expressing the hope that new exploration might help the ranch’s cash flow, there was a moment of tension while everyone waited for Jeb’s answer. Megan felt Jeb staring at her uneasily before he deftly changed the subject back to Goliath.

  An inveterate matchmaker, Mercedes stared down the length of the gallery at her son. “Megan,” she began in a soft undertone, “did you know this was my wedding picture?” Mercedes pointed to a portrait in front of Megan.

  “You were very beautiful.”

  “All brides are beautiful—if they love the man they are marrying.” Mercedes was watching Janelle and Jeb fondly. “I have always loved weddings and the birth of babies. They are the happiest times.”

  Megan could only nod.

  “Have you seen the beautiful saddle Janelle gave Jeb for his birthday?”

  “N-no.”

  “It’s embroidered leather trimmed with sterling silver.”

  “How lovely.”

  Nick was kissing Amy tenderly. Triple had broken free of his mother’s grasp and was gamboling back and forth in the long gallery like a lion cub on the prowl for mischief.

  Mercedes sighed. “Every time I see Nick and Amy together I want the same thing for all our children. For Jeb, especially. I guess I worry about him the most because he went into ranching only to make Wayne and me happy. Jeb’s always had such a strong sense of duty toward others that he neglects his own happiness. And lately...he’s seemed so...I can’t put my finger on it… out of sorts. I guess he’s worried about our money problems. It’s such a fight to hold onto a place like this. I keep remembering that Jeb wanted to be a doctor, that he went to medical school before Wayne’s crisis which forced him to take over the ranch. I’m afraid ranching alone will never satisfy him. More than most men, Jeb needs the right woman to complete his life.”

  Mercedes was so absorbed in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the tall, dark figure standing behind them.

  “And where does one find this paragon, Mother?”

  Mercedes gave a shaky laugh. “Jeb, I didn’t realize you were there.”

  He grinned at them both. “Obviously.”

  Janelle had remained with the other men beneath the painting of Goliath, and the conversation about cattle breeding had become more animated.

  Mercedes couldn’t meet her son’s eyes. One of her hands toyed with the diamond necklace at her throat. “Dear, I was watching you with Janelle, and I couldn’t help thinking...”

  His eyes gleamed. He was studying Megan closely, looking into her eyes. “Janelle is indeed a paragon of charm and beauty. She will make the right man very happy,” he murmured in a low voice.

  Megan began to tremble slightly.

  “I’m so glad you think so, dear,” Mercedes said, sounding pleased and happy.

  “Will you both excuse me?” Megan whispered raggedly. “I—I’m not feeling very well. I...”

  Jeb lifted his dark brows and watched her, hating the pain he saw in her eyes, the pain he had deliberately caused.

  But he did not try to stop her as she ran from the room.

  Nine

  Megan fled down the stairs and into the balmy night. Shakily she clutched her purse and the gift she had meant to give Jeb, the bright paper torn from having been ripped out from under the pile of lavish presents. Her first impulse when she’d left the party was to go home, but the sweetness of the Spanish guitar music and the cowboys’ laughter floating on the night air made her turn toward the pool where the vaqueros were dancing. She needed the warmth and reassurance of their friendship. She wanted to forget Jeb’s party, to forget Janelle’s saddle, to forget how shabby her own gift to Jeb would have seemed in
comparison.

  Megan threw her purse and the gift down on a table where a single surviving candle in a hurricane glass was guttered low beside the waxen stumps of others that had gone out. She moved toward the music and the dance floor, her body swaying slightly to the rhythm of the strumming mariachis. In the soft light of the flickering lanterns, her skin was honey gold. Her hair swung loosely down her back like the softest flame.

  A dozen velvet-black male eyes were riveted to her undulating form.

  Lauro stepped out of the crowd of dark faces and asked her to dance a polka, and soon she was whirling around with everyone. The redolent scent of sizzling beef and onions being barbecued over an open mesquite fire wafted through the air. There was a piñata for the children. Some of the smaller children were playing pin-the-tail-on-the-burro. The older ones were dashing about in a game of tag that was quite lively. Triple wriggled free from his mother and was stealing tacks from the younger children and putting them to mischievous use. There were shrieks and yelps of laughter, the soft sounds of mothers’ voices struggling to control their unruly children, and Triple’s cries, wilder than all the others.

  Megan danced until she was breathless, changing partners again and again, and almost forgetting her earlier unhappiness.

  She was dancing with Tim Collins, amused that he dared to tell her several of his favorite sexist jokes about female pilots. Like too many male flyers, he considered women too emotional, vain, inconsistent and frivolous to fly airplanes. They were a hazard to others as well as themselves, he said. She was laughing at him, making a joke of his ridiculous views, when suddenly she became aware of a tall, dark man in formal evening clothes prowling restlessly along the edge of the dance floor.

  Jeb...

  Her laughter died in her throat.

  “Bienvenidos.”

  “Welcome, Señor Jeb.”

  Jeb was greeted by his men and their wives as if he were one of them. They offered him beer and fajitas, and he took a beer, lifting it to his lips. Then he saw Megan and stopped. Through narrowed black eyes, he watched her.

  Megan gaped at him, feeling like some disobedient schoolgirl caught in an escapade.

  Tim whispered into her ear. “You’re too pretty to fly. You should get married. Have children...”

  She tossed her head defiantly and allowed herself to be spun around faster. Her green skirts were a gossamer pinwheel, whirling above her knees, revealing a blur of yellow petticoats and the slender grace of honey-gold legs.

  Jeb bit his bottom lip and emitted a low growl as he threaded his way through the crowd toward her.

  Megan’s eyes widened as she realized his intent.

  The dance floor was packed. Escape was impossible.

  When he reached her, Jeb waved his tanned hand in a swift, imperious gesture. The music stopped abruptly. A breathless, explosive hush fell upon the crowd.

  He stood so close she could see every one of his thick eyelashes, every pore of his skin.

  His glittering eyes surveyed her with a cool, cutting arrogance.

  Not an ice cube tinkled. Even Triple froze for a second.

  Megan could feel her heart pounding, her legs turning to water.

  Jeb’s deep, low tone sliced through the silence. “May I cut in?”

  Megan’s green eyes blazed at him. She was the only one who dared answer him. Tim had taken one look at Jeb and stepped out of the way.

  “I said I want to dance with you,” Jeb rasped.

  Her gaze fell away from him. She felt exposed, vulnerable. He was making his interest in her plain, staking his claim like some primeval male. This was his territory. His eyes said: this is my woman.

  Everyone stared at them with avid curiosity. For years there had been rumors. And now this.

  Megan was blushing hotly. Tomorrow, and the next day afterward, and for all the days that followed, she would have to face these people.

  She was furiously angry and a little frightened.

  She stumbled back, but Jeb blocked her escape and drew her into his arms against his hard, muscled body. Her chest heaved against his. She could feel the heat of her body and the heat of his mingling. When she tried to twist away, his grip tightened gently.

  The silence of the breathless crowd was like a crushing weight.

  “I would be delighted to dance with you, Mr. Jeb,” she murmured coolly, softly.

  He smiled down at her, ignoring the hot brilliance of her eyes. He waved his hand lightly, signaling for the music, and she thought he’d never seemed more ruthless.

  There were shouted bravos, applause, sighs of relief.

  The guitars resumed, wilder, faster than before.

  Brown fingers slid up the length of her honey-gold arm, and she shivered. She felt his other hand around her waist. Her fingertips rose slowly to his neck, stopping only when they brushed the silken, ink-dark tendrils that curled over his collar.

  There was an unreal quality about the moment, a dreamlike magic that held them both in thrall. They stared into each other’s eyes, he with heady triumph, she with a sensation of wild dismay.

  He began to move, slowly at first, and she could do nothing but follow. Then the music took over and possessed them both. He was a superb dancer. He held her tightly, so tightly that her legs burned with the brush of his thighs, so tightly that her soft breasts felt the tiny hardness of his shirt studs. They danced as if their bodies were made to be together, to move together.

  The song ended before it seemed to have begun. After it was over, they clung to each other in silence, their hearts pounding violently.

  Everyone was changing partners. Megan came awake slowly as if from a dream and lifted her head dazedly from his shoulder, stunned by the primitive abandon he aroused in her. He was as arrogant and bullying as always. She tried to tell herself she would have run from him had he not been holding her fingers tightly, but that was a lie.

  He lifted her hand to his lips and she felt the warmth of that gentle kiss between her fingers, tingling in every part of her body. When he released her hand slowly, she did not run away.

  Megan looked up at him and saw mirrored in his black gaze the same powerful awareness of their physical closeness. His eyes blazed with something that was fierce and powerful, something she responded to without thought. No man had ever affected her like this. She felt weak at the knees, dizzy, completely his.

  “I had forgotten it is the custom for a Jackson to make an appearance at the ranch hands’ party,” she said breathlessly, in an attempt to lighten the charged atmosphere between them.

  “So had I.” His eyes were deep and dark and still. “I came after you.”

  He was drawing her into his hard arms.

  “Jeb—”

  The music began again, and he whirled her across the dance floor, away from the other dancers and into the darkness where they were soon utterly alone. Flat brush country stretched beneath an endless star-studded sky. There was a kind of peace in the emptiness of the land, an all-enveloping serenity in the vastness.

  For a moment he held her in silence. She no longer tried to struggle as he sheltered her in his arms. Even though she knew she shouldn’t, she let him bury his face in her hair. Nor could she stop herself from raising a hesitant hand and brushing his rough cheek with her fingertips.

  The compelling spell of his virile masculinity was too strong. She wanted him, wanted to touch him, wanted to know again the indescribable ecstasy his finely muscled body could give her. The treacherous need was a torrent of fire flooding her veins.

  “You left without even saying goodbye or happy birthday,” he said gently.

  “I didn’t think you’d notice.” Was that her voice, soft as velvet, dying away in the darkness?

  “I notice everything about you,” he murmured.

  Her fingertip stroked the length of his jaw. Warm sandpaper stretched over chiseled bone. He felt so hard and so hot, so very much a man.

  Every part of her turned to jelly, uncertain, unsure.<
br />
  “Happy birthday, then,” she whispered. “There, are you happy now?”

  He held her closer even than before, his hot, quick breath beating upon her ear.

  “Only because you’re in my arms,” he whispered.

  “Janelle is probably missing you.”

  “Janelle knows how to take care of herself,” he muttered thickly.

  “A commendable quality.”

  “She has lots of them.” He was turning Megan’s face up to his. “So do you.”

  “Oh, why don’t you go back where you belong—to her?”

  “Because I can’t resist holding you in my arms.” His voice was hoarse, a stranger’s voice. His grip had tightened again. “Megan, Megan... Darling...” She felt his lips in her hair. “Forget Janelle. She doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “I’m immune to your smooth lines,” she said. Then why did she feel so thoroughly, so powerfully aroused?

  “Are you?” He cupped her face in his warm hands. “I wonder.” He brushed his thumbs lightly, lightly across the smooth curve of her cheekbones. “Megan, why did you run away tonight?”

  There was an ache in the center of her being. “Because I don’t fit into your world. Because...I can’t, ever. I’m not like your mother or Janelle. I can’t give parties—”

  “They can’t fly airplanes or lead secret commando missions into Mexico,” he said softly, tenderly. “Besides, you were the most beautiful woman there.”

  “My dress was too loud. My hair...”

  “It suits you.”

  “Everybody kept looking at me.”

  His gaze strayed to her mouth, and he watched her tongue flick around the edges, moistening it. Her head was thrown back, her eyes half-closed. Her racing pulse throbbed in her throat.

  The sight of her made his heart pound swiftly. He drew a deep breath. “You were meant to stand out. To be looked at.”