Almost Perfect Read online

  And then all thought, all rationality disappeared completely and, though locked within his arms, tightly held beneath him, he flung her out into the universe, alone among the shattered stars, fragmenting, shivering, screaming silently, calling his name aloud.

  He was there to catch her, to call her name in answer, to bring her back to earth with his shuddering, thunderous roar of completion.

  “Carolyn!” he cried out as if in agony, and she clung to him, grasping him to her as tightly as he held her, bringing him back this time, securing him, nurturing him home to her arms, to the real world.

  “I never knew,” she murmured, not telling him the half of it, not really telling him anything, but trying to say everything in the stroking of his shoulders, the soothing of his still-shuddering body, the wrapping of her legs around him to hold him within her, to keep him there. Forever.

  Tears filmed her eyes and she felt a couple roll free and down her temples to mingle with her hair. “Oh, I just never knew.”

  He pressed his lips to the sensitive hollows above her collarbone, still holding her tightly, still pressed deep within her. He raised a shaking hand to her face and, upon stroking it, hesitated, then lifted his head to look down at her.

  She didn’t open her eyes despite feeling his question, his gaze.

  “Are you crying?” he asked, running his hand across her face, dipping his fingers into her hair.

  “Mmm. Good tears,” she said, and smiled gently, and, scaring her a little, lovingly.

  He kissed the corners of her eyes, drying the few tears of release, of realization, with his mouth. His kiss, as he transferred his lips tenderly to hers, tasted of salt and, more, of fulfillment.

  He pulled back a little, raising his body to grant her breathing room. She forced herself to loose her grip on his back and opened her eyes then to meet his gaze. The look on his face, compassionate and kind, somewhat awed and perhaps a bit bemused, made her arch up to kiss him with swift, sure passion before dropping back to the bed.

  “Carolyn...?”

  The question in his voice made her stiffen slightly, as if the mere sound of her name spoken aloud without the elements of passion was an announcement that the outside world was about to intrude.

  Whatever it was he wanted to ask, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. She lifted a finger to his lips and pressed gently. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s perfect.”

  “No,” he said against her fingertip. His eyes were sad and his body motionless. The dark bruise beneath his eye was spreading. The cut on his lip stood out in sharp relief against his pale skin.

  “Yes,” she contradicted. “This is: What we had here. What you did to me. What you do. Tonight. Now. This was perfect.”

  He didn’t argue further, merely gathering her into his arms again, rolling her to the side and slipping away from her in spite of her moan of protest. He drew her closer then and held her against his warm, velvet body.

  Pete thought she fit him as if nature had created her body specifically for him. Her skin, satin smooth and silky soft against him, seemed designed for his touch and he knew he could never get enough of the feel of her. And her scent, now mingled with his own, teased at his nostrils like an elusive promise, a forever lingering hint of spring and hope. The scent of laughter and salvation.

  He’d wanted her, had ached for her. But in their lovemaking, in the profoundly moving experience of joining with her, he’d discovered something far beyond mere desire. She’d lit the very fires of his soul. He wanted her still, but that want had shifted, after the moment of culmination, to a deep, searing craving.

  He didn’t want her just for tonight. He wanted her for tomorrow and a thousand tomorrows after that. He wanted her forever. Unconsciously his arms tightened around her and he shivered a little as she pressed a kiss to his chest and she tightened her own grasp on him.

  Now was the time to tell her the truth about himself. Now, with barriers down between them, with her body pressed to his, with the passion imperfectly banked and the shadows pushed to the corners of her bedroom by the glow of her overhead light.

  “Carolyn, I want to tell you about the past. About what I am, what I’m—”

  “Not now,” she murmured against him. “Not tonight. It’ll keep. It’ll hold.”

  He stroked her silken hair and lowered his lips to her temple to press lightly, lingeringly. He knew she was wrong; some things didn’t keep well. She had the right to know about his past, his uncertain present, and he had the need to tell her.

  But a part of him, even in this moment of rare joining, reared its ugly, selfish head and he lay beside her, holding her, reveling in the knowledge that she’d taken him to her bed without assurances, without safety factors. She’d accepted him on nothing more than instinct.

  Was it so wrong of him to need that trust? Was it so wrong to allow the night to fade into dawn with the belief that she could trust him, perhaps even learn to love him, on nothing more than pure faith alone?

  He, who had trusted no one in ten years, who had believed the milk of human kindness had soured on the streets, who had vowed never to allow himself to believe in anyone again, wanted this lovely, vital woman in his arms now to have faith in him without a single reason for doing so.

  That this was patently unfair he knew far better than words could ever express. And yet, it hovered at the crux of his need for her. He wanted to bury his face into the warmth of her neck and stay there for eternity. And longer.

  Incredibly, amazingly, she knew about the tattoo on his arm, knew what it meant. And still she’d taken him into her body, into her passion, and, perhaps, God willing, as deeply as her heart.

  She would never know how that realization rocked him to his core. She couldn’t know. He scarcely understood it himself. But he held the awareness of the depth of her trust to that opened door in his heart, in his soul, and he felt some broken part him begin to mend.

  “Ah, Carolyn,” he murmured, needing to kiss her again, needing to go back downstairs and into his wallet to retrieve another measure of protection.

  She stirred against him, as in tune with him now as she had been during their union. “Pete...?”

  “Yes,” he said, in answer and possibly in question.

  “Mmm.”

  “Oh, Carolyn,” he said, stroking her face, drowning in her blue eyes. “You were right. This is perfect.”

  Chapter 10

  Carolyn woke slowly, as if coming up to the surface through layers of cocooning gossamer filaments. Warm. Cradled. Held safe. Loved.

  She opened her eyes and daylight stung them. She tried turning her head and met a broad, warm shoulder blocking her movement.

  She didn’t have alcohol as an excuse for the night before. She didn’t have amnesia or even an unknown second personality to blame. She had no excuses whatsoever. She had gone to bed with a stranger her daughters had found in the desert, a stranger who sported a murderer’s tattoo on his forearm.

  And she had loved every single second of it.

  But...

  She sighed, lowering her eyes to the arm protectively encircling her and to the glowing red eyes of his death’s-head tattoo. It could be erased, she thought, and immediately chastised herself for the notion. The image might be physically erased, but would she be able to forget it?

  Never.

  He’d murdered someone and gotten away with it, had apparently exited prison with authorities none the wiser.

  But she knew.

  And worse, he knew.

  What kind of a toll would murder take on someone’s psyche, on his very soul? The worst kind, she thought. The very, very worst kind.

  So much of the tension in Pete Jackson, of the shadows in his eyes, of the bitterness occasionally heard in his voice could be explained by something as dark and damaging as taking the life of a fellow human being.

  She’d stopped him from telling her about his past the night before. In the aftermath of their incredible union, in the wake
of the shocking truth their joining contained, she hadn’t wanted to know about his past. The present was all she had desired, all she craved. She didn’t want details, doubts, or baggage from his past to interfere with that rare moment of bliss any more than she would have wanted to talk about Craig, about her days in Dallas, about the sleepless nights that followed his death.

  If they had been a normal couple, dating, getting to know each other... no tattoos signifying murder between them...he might have told her what loves he’d had and lost, and she might have opened up about the fears she’d had following Craig’s funeral, her eviction from their condo, her desperate struggle to keep her girls safe and happy.

  But they weren’t, couldn’t be, a standard pair of lovers. That notion was as unrealistic as believing a night of perfect harmony could create a future filled with laughter. Even a regular Jane and Joe would encounter struggles with money, moments of losing a dream; times of grief and despair. But a stranger who had murder in his past, and a lover who knew about it... how could she pretend not to be aware of that dreadful truth? How could she ever hope to pretend that his past didn’t exist?

  And yet he touched her soul in some inexplicable way. He moved her with his gentleness toward her daughters. He snared her heart with his lopsided grin. When his gray eyes were lit with humor she couldn’t help but smile in response. And the sorrow she sometimes glimpsed in his face, the bitterness that rested so heavily on his shoulders made her sad, hurt and even, upon rare occasion, angry. Not at him, but at whatever had brought such pain to him.

  He’d fought for her, been brutally beaten as a message to her, and had thrust his wallet into her hands so that she and her daughters could escape, leaving him behind to fight her battles for her. What kind of a man was he?

  A good kind, she thought. The best kind.

  As if aware of her thoughts even in sleep, he tightened his arm around her, drawing her closer to his chest. He mumbled something and, amazingly, pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  “Are you awake?” she asked.

  He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He was deeply, soundly asleep. He had kissed her from some level of his unconscious or subconscious mind.

  She closed her eyes. Was his past so very important?

  Wasn’t it more important to consider that she lay, held close, pressed tightly against a man capable of kissing her even while he slept?

  Wasn’t it equally vital to consider his present actions, to know that he’d held her through the night, had fought for her, had let her into some vulnerable part of him?

  Of course the present was important, but so was the past. A person was made up of all the factors in his life, good, bad, even indifferent. She couldn’t pretend his past didn’t exist. It did exist. He had killed a man in prison. That was a very real part of who Pete Jackson was.

  He might kiss her as tenderly as a dawn kissed the horizon or as passionately as stars shone in a winter’s sky, but somewhere, perhaps deep inside him, he was flawed, damaged.

  Capable of murder.

  A slow, sad tear of regret, of pain for him...and for herself... slipped from her eye and dripped onto his arm.

  “Mmm, perfect,” he mumbled.

  Oh, if only that were true, she thought unhappily. If only that were true.

  Pete fought waking and even when he did, he kept his eyes closed. He was sure if he opened them, acknowledged the day in any way at all, he would also have to acknowledge the doubts and fears stiffening the woman in his arms. She’d been pliant, warm, and everything a man could ever want through the night. But with morning, she’d grown steadily more tense with each passing second.

  He held her fast against him, unwilling to let her go, knowing it was inevitable but wanting to delay the moment as long as possible. He needed to pretend that just for this moment, in the aftermath of a night such as he’d never known before, they were a couple.

  He still didn’t know about the future, about the part of a man that made him capable of making...and keeping... promises. He didn’t trust easily. He couldn’t. And he didn’t have the kind of faith some men had, faith in a bright tomorrow.

  He was used to men like the Wannamachers and their accented friend. That was the world he understood. Women like Carolyn, children like Jenny and Shawna, they were a breed apart. And they simply baffled him. Courage, humor, honesty seemed to bubble up and out of them as naturally as breathing. They deserved every good thing a man could give them...protection, honesty, trust. Love.

  They deserved a far better man than he. Knowing this, he still couldn’t release Carolyn. He slowly kissed her bare, warm shoulder. And at the sharp gasp and because her spine suddenly became rigid, he let her go.

  “Morning,” she mumbled, sitting up, turning her back to him.

  “Carolyn...”

  “We’d better get going. I don’t know what time Taylor’s bringing the girls out. It’s nearly eight, now,” she said hurriedly. She all but bolted from the bed and to her closet door for a robe. Still without looking at him, she left the bedroom and seconds later he heard the door to the bathroom close softly. Securely.

  He rolled onto his back, groaning a little as the bruises and cuts left by the Wannamachers made their myriad protests known. The incredible and multiple unions with Carolyn had certainly masked any and all pain the night before, but he was fully aware now that they hadn’t done anything to help heal the wounds.

  He winced as he sat up, and frowned as he swung his legs to the edge of the bed. “Damn,” he muttered, catching sight of himself in her vanity’s mirror. He looked like a prizefighter who hadn’t come close to winning the purse but had managed to go seven rounds before throwing in the towel. He had a black eye, puffy bruises on his cheek, a cut at the edge of his mouth, and a sour expression on his face.

  No wonder Carolyn had fled the room.

  Whatever her reasons, his battered mug or simply morning confusion after the incredible passion they’d shared the night before, a part of him was glad she’d done so. He had several things he wanted to do before Taylor arrived with the girls. And he needed to be alone to do them.

  He pushed off the bed and growled an oath at the stiffness in his body. Not all of it could be laid at the Wannamachers’ door, he thought with a rueful grin. Some of the stiffness came from using muscles that hadn’t been tested in a very, very long time.

  He’d left the clothes she gathered for him in the bathroom, so grabbed a pair of sweat pants from the upper shelf in Carolyn’s closet. He winced at the soreness of his arms and at the thought that her husband had once worn these pants.

  He decided a man could go crazy thinking that way.

  Donning nothing else but the sweatpants and his shoes, mud covered and still damp, he gave a quick look around outside before pelting across the muddy driveway to the bunkhouse.

  Staring around the interior, taking in his soaked bed, the wet floor and the streaks of rain down the walls, puddling beside his gear, Pete felt disoriented. The entire world had changed since he packed those bags yesterday. Nothing would ever feel quite the same way again.

  Knowing this, he still had to grin. Apparently, except for the beating, he’d been lucky in a variety of ways the night before. And lucky he’d packed his gear before the downpour. He dug into his waterproof bags and found fresh clothing and alternate—dry—boots. Different though the world might be, he still needed the mundane elements that comprised life.

  He washed quickly and got dressed and was back in the main house before Carolyn had finished her bath. He started a pot of coffee and, after a quick look up the stairs at the still-closed bathroom door, went to the living room closet and dug into an opened box. He swiftly rifted through papers until he found what he was looking for. A few seconds later he was on the telephone.

  The number he dialed was answered by a voice giving another number and he responded with yet a third, this one an extension.

  “MacLaine,” a deep voice barked.

  “Alec...it’s Pete.�
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  “Ready for a pickup?”

  “Not yet. And I’m not on your place anymore,” he said.

  “So I was right? You get something?”

  “Worked over.”

  “Bad?”

  “I’ve felt better,” he said, but while this was true, some deeper part of himself had not felt as good in years, maybe ever.

  Pete heard Carolyn’s blow-dryer start up and spoke less cautiously. “Listen, Alec, you were right, something is going on, but you had the wrong property. The drop is here, on a ranch they call the Leary place. Widow and two little girls are being harassed by a couple of local toughs. But the cowboys have got a friend. Brass-knuckle type. He’s giving the orders. Canadian accent. Or non-accent, as the case may be. Just an impression.”

  “What’s the harassment?”

  “Midnight spray-paint raids, punk stuff. But their surprise visit last night made it clear they’re serious. They want her off the property pretty badly. I was supposed to relay the message that she—or one of her daughters—would be next if she didn’t clear out now.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “Yeah, I did, but not all of it.”

  “Any reason why not?”

  “Yeah,” but he didn’t elaborate. Carolyn had been through enough in the past year without being run off her property to top it off. He was damned if he’d let the Wannamachers take her home.

  “If she’s got kids...” Alec said.

  “I’ll make sure they’re safe. Carolyn, too. Don’t worry, I can take care of them,” Pete said, and hoped like hell that was true. Jenny and Shawna’s safety was a fairly tremendous commodity to gamble with.

  “She just moved in?”

  “In the last month. Place was empty for some fifteen years before that.”

  “Damn, it sure fits,” Alec said.