Bound by Honor (3 page)

“And Dallas Kirk?”

Jessica's soft face went very hard. At her side, one of her small hands clenched. “Dallas was badly wounded in a firefight a year ago. He came home shot to pieces and Eb found something for him to teach in
the tactics courses. He doesn't speak to me, of course. We had a difficult parting some years ago.”

That was intriguing, and Sally was going to find out about it one day. But she didn't press her luck. “How about fajitas for supper?” she asked.

Jessica's glower dissolved into a smile. “Sounds lovely!”

“I'll get right on them.” Sally went back into the kitchen, her head spinning with the things she'd learned about people she thought she knew. Life, she considered, was always full of surprises.

E
BENEZER WAS A MAN
of his word. He showed up early the next morning as Sally was out by the corral fence watching her two beef cattle graze. She'd bought them to raise with the idea of stocking her freezer. Now they had names. The white-faced Black Angus mixed steer was called Bob, the white-faced red-coated Hereford she called Andy. They were pets. She couldn't face the thought of sitting down to a plate of either one of them.

The familiar black pickup stopped at the fence and Ebenezer got out. He was wearing jeans and a blue checked shirt with boots and a light-colored straw Stetson. No chaps, so he wasn't working cattle today.

He joined Sally at the fence. “Don't tell me. They're table beef.”

She spared him a resentful glance. “Right.”

“And you're going to put them in the freezer.”

She swallowed. “Sure.”

He only chuckled. He paused to light a cigar, with one big booted foot propped on the lower rung of the fence. “What are their names?”

“That's Andy and that's…Bob.” She flushed.

He didn't say a word, but his raised eyebrow was eloquent through the haze of expelled smoke.

“They're watch-cattle,” she improvised.

His eyes twinkled. “I beg your pardon?”

“They're attack steers,” she said with a reluctant grin. “At the first sign of trouble, they'll come right through the fence to protect me. Of course, if they get shot in the line of duty,” she added, “I'll eat them!”

He pushed his Stetson back over clean blond-streaked brown hair and looked down at her with lingering amusement. “You haven't changed much in six years.”

“Neither have you,” she retorted shyly. “You're still smoking those awful things.”

He glanced at the big cigar and shrugged. “A man has to have a vice or two to round him out,” he pointed out. “Besides, I only have the occasional one, and never inside. I have read the studies on smoking,” he added dryly.

“Lots of people who smoke read those studies,” she agreed. “And then they quit!”

He smiled. “You can't reform me,” he told her. “It's a waste of time to try. I'm thirty-six and very set in my ways.”

“I noticed.”

He took a puff from the cigar and studied her steers. “I suppose they follow you around like dogs.”

“When I go inside the fence with them,” she agreed. She felt odd with him; safe and nervous and excited, all at once. She could smell the fresh scent of the soap he used, and over it a whiff of expensive cologne. He was
close at her side, muscular and vibrating with sensuality. She wanted to move closer, to feel that strength all around her. It made her self-conscious. After six years, surely the attraction should have lessened a little.

He glanced down at her, noticing how she picked at her cuticles and nibbled on her lower lip. His green eyes narrowed and there was a faint glitter in them.

She felt the heat of his gaze and refused to lift her face. She wondered if it looked as hot as it felt.

“You haven't forgotten a thing,” he said suddenly, the cigar in his hand absently falling to his side, whirls of smoke climbing into the air beside him.

“About what?” she choked.

He caught her long, blond ponytail and tugged her closer, so that she was standing right up against him. The scent of him, the heat of him, the muscular ripple of his body combined to make her shiver with repressed feelings.

He shifted, coaxing her into the curve of his body, his eyes catching hers and holding them relentlessly. He could feel her faint trembling, hear the excited whip of her breath as she tried valiantly to hide it from him. But he could see her heartbeat jerking the fabric over her small breasts.

It was a relief to find her as helplessly attracted to him as she once had been. It made him arrogant with pride. He let go of the ponytail and drew his hand against her cheek, letting his thumb slide down to her mouth and over her chin to lift her eyes to his.

“To everything, there is a season,” he said quietly.

She felt the impact of his steady, unblinking gaze in the most secret places of her body. She didn't have the experience to hide it, to protect herself. She only stood staring up at him, with all her insecurities and fears lying naked in her soft gray eyes.

His head bent and he drew his nose against hers in the sudden silence of the yard. His smoky breath whispered over her lips as he murmured, “Six years is a long time to go hungry.”

She didn't understand what he was saying. Her eyes were on his hard, long, thin mouth. Her hands had flattened against his broad chest. Under it she could feel thick, soft hair and the beat of his heart. His breath smelled of cigar smoke and when his mouth gently covered hers, she wondered if she was going to faint with the unexpected delight of it. It had been so long!

He felt her immediate, helpless submission. His free arm went around her shoulders and drew her lazily against his muscular body while his hard mouth moved lightly over her lips, tasting her, assessing her experience. His mouth became insistent and she stiffened a little, unused to the tender probing of his tongue against her teeth.

She felt his smile before he lifted his head.

“You still taste of lemonade and cotton candy,” he murmured with unconcealed pleasure.

“What do you mean?” she murmured, mesmerized by the hovering threat of his mouth.

“I mean, you still don't know how to do this.” He searched her eyes quietly and then the smile left his face.
“I did more damage than I ever meant to. You were seventeen. I had to hurt you to save you.” He traced her mouth with his thumb and scowled down at her. “You don't know what my life was like in those days,” he said solemnly, and for once his eyes were unguarded. The pain in them was visible for the first time Sally could remember.

“Aunt Jessica told me,” she said slowly.

His eyes darkened. His face hardened. “All of it?”

She nodded.

He was still scowling. He released her to gaze off into the distance, absently lifting the cigar to his mouth. He blew out a cloud of smoke. “I'm not sure that I wanted you to know.”

“Secrets are dangerous.”

He glanced down at her, brooding. “More dangerous than you realize. I've kept mine for a long time, like your aunt.”

“I had no idea what she did for a living, either.” She glared up at him. “Thanks to the two of you, now I know how a mushroom feels, sitting in the dark.”

He chuckled. “She wanted it that way. She felt you'd be safer if she kept you uninvolved.”

She wanted to ask him about what Jessica had told her, that he'd phoned her about Sally before the painful move to Houston. But she didn't quite know how. She was shy with him.

He looked down at her again, his eyes intent on her softly flushed cheeks, her swollen mouth, her bright eyes. She lifted his heart. Just the sight of her made him
feel welcome, comforted, cared for. He'd missed that. In all his life, Sally had been the first and only person who could thwart his black moods. She made him feel as if he belonged somewhere after a life of wandering. Even during the time she was in Houston, he kept in touch with Jessica, to get news of Sally, of where she was, what she was doing, of her plans. He'd always expected that she'd come back to him one day, or that he'd go to her, despite the way they'd parted. Love, if it existed, was surely a powerful force, immune to harsh words and distance. And time.

Sally's face was watchful, her eyes brimming over with excitement. She couldn't hide what she was feeling, and he loved being able to see it. Her hero worship had first irritated and then elated him. Women had wanted him since his teens, although some loved him for the danger that clung to him. One had rejected him because of it and savaged his pride. But, even so, it was Sally who made him ache inside.

He touched her soft mouth with his fingers, liking the faint swell where he'd kissed it so thoroughly. “We'll have to practice more,” he murmured wickedly.

She opened her mouth to protest that assumption when a laughing Stevie came running out the door like a little blond whirlwind, only to be caught up abruptly in Ebenezer's hard arms and lifted.

“Uncle Eb!” he cried, laughing delightedly, making Sally realize that if she hadn't been around Ebenezer since their move from Houston, Jessica and Stevie certainly had.

“Hello, tiger,” came the deep, pleasant reply. He put the boy back down on his feet. “Want to go to my place with Sally and learn karate?”

“Like the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' in the movies? Radical!” he exclaimed.

“Karate?” Sally asked, hesitating.

“Just a few moves, and only for self-defense,” he assured her. “You'll enjoy it. It's necessary,” he added when she seemed to hesitate.

“Okay,” she capitulated.

He led the way back into the house to where Jessica was sitting in the living room, listening to the news on the television.

“All this mess in the Balkans,” she said sadly. “Just when we think we've got peace, everything erupts all over again. Those poor people!”

“Fortunes of war,” Eb said with a smile. “How's it going, Jess?”

“I can't complain, I guess, except that they won't let me drive anymore,” she said, tongue-in-cheek.

“Wait until they get that virtual reality vision perfected,” he said easily. “You'll be able to do anything.”

“Optimist,” she said, grinning.

“Always. I'm taking these two over to the ranch for a little course in elementary self-defense,” he added quietly.

“Good idea,” Jessica said at once.

“I don't like leaving you here alone,” Sally ventured, remembering what she'd been told about the danger.

“She won't be,” Eb replied. He looked at Jessica and
one eye narrowed before he added, “I'm sending Dallas Kirk over to keep her company.”

“No!”
Jessica said furiously. She actually stood up, vibrating. “No, Eb! I don't want him within a mile of me! I'd rather be shot to pieces!”

“This isn't multiple choice,” came a deep, drawling voice from the general direction of the hall.

As Sally turned from Jessica's white face, a slender blond man with dark eyes came into the room. He walked with the help of a fancy-looking cane. He was dressed like Eb, in casual clothes, khaki slacks and a bush jacket. He looked like something right out of Africa.

“This is Dallas Kirk,” Eb introduced him to Sally. “He was born in Texas. His real name is Jon, but we've always called him Dallas. This is Sally Johnson,” he told the blond man.

Dallas nodded. “Nice to meet you,” he said formally.

“You know Jess,” Eb added.

“Yes. I…know her,” he said with the faintest emphasis in that lazy Western drawl, during which Jess's face went from white to scarlet and she averted her eyes.

“Surely you can get along for an hour,” Eb said impatiently. “I really can't leave you here by yourself, Jess.”

Dallas glared at her. “Mind telling me why?” he asked Eb. “She's a better shot than I am.”

Jessica stood rigidly by her chair. “He doesn't know?” she asked Eb.

Eb's face was rigid. “He wouldn't talk about you, and the subject didn't come up until he was away on assignment. No. He doesn't know.”

“Know what?” Dallas demanded.

Jessica's chin lifted. “I'm blind,” she said matter-of-factly, almost with satisfaction, as if she knew it would hurt him.

The look on the newcomer's face was a revelation. Sally only wished she knew of what. He shifted as if he'd sustained a physical blow. He walked slowly up to her and waved a hand in front of her face.

“Blind!” he said huskily. “For how long?”

“Six months,” she said, feeling for the arms of the chair. She sat back down a little clumsily. “I was in a wreck. An accident,” she added abruptly.

“It was no accident,” Eb countered coldly. “She was run off the road by two of Lopez's men. They got away before the police came.”

Sally gasped. This was a new explanation. She'd just heard about the wreck—not about the cause of it. Dallas's hand on the cane went white from the pressure he was exerting on it. “What about Stevie?” he asked coldly. “Is he all right? Was he injured?”

“He wasn't with me at the time. And he's fine. Sally lives with us and helps take care of him,” Jess replied, her voice unusually tense. “We share the chores. She's my niece,” she added abruptly, almost as if to warn him of something.

Dallas looked preoccupied. But when Stevie came running back into the room, he turned abruptly and his eyes widened as he stared at the little boy.

“I'm ready!” Stevie announced, holding out his arms to show the gray sweats he was wearing. His dark eyes
were shimmering with joy. “This is how they look on television when they practice. Is it okay?”