Beautiful Dreamer with Bonus Material (17 page)

She threw herself away from him with a strength that came from desperation. He staggered against the table, off-balance. Her right hand closed over the boning knife as she sprinted between the counter and the table, heading for the back door.

Turner moved with surprising speed for such a big man. He didn’t manage to catch her, but he did cut off her escape.

She backed up rapidly, retreating from him. He didn’t bother to follow. He simply stood with his legs braced far apart, admiring her flushed face and dark hair. He smiled with cruel anticipation.

“That’s more like it, baby doll. I like a good run for my money.” Then he saw the boning knife glittering in her hand. “Put it down. Fun’s fun, but I’m not into knives.”

“Then get the hell out of my kitchen.”

Hope’s voice was cold and empty, like the wind wrapping around the house in a sustained wail.

Turner hesitated before he smiled again, an ugly smile. With small movements of his body, he began closing the distance between them. “You won’t do it.”

She simply waited, knife in hand. She would do whatever she had to.

The expression on his face said that he was finally figuring that out.

“Last chance,” he snapped. “Put it down.”

She waited, watching. She knew just where she was going to put the knife.

So did he.

“
Bitch
. When I catch you, you’ll wish to God you’d never even thought of it!”

The cry of the wind masked the heavy sound of Turner’s boots against the floor as he closed in on Hope.

Seventeen

“I’
M TEMPTED TO
watch her castrate you.”

Rio’s voice was as cold and empty as the wind, as cold as his eyes watching Turner from just beyond the kitchen doorway.

The interruption was so unexpected that the big rancher simply stood and stared for a moment. Then he shook his head like a dog coming out of an icy rain.

Relief surged through Hope with a power that made her light-headed.

“But Hope isn’t used to drawing blood,” Rio drawled. “I am. I’m going to see what color yours is, Turner. I’m betting it’s yellow.”

With a smooth, predatory stride, Rio walked toward Turner, nakedly stalking him. There was strength and control in each clean movement of Rio’s body.

And violence.

It radiated from the coiled perfection of each stride.

Hope backed away from Turner in a rush that took her beyond Rio to the living room.

“Go outside,” Rio said calmly, not looking at her, watching Turner with eyes that were both savage and utterly controlled. “This won’t take but a minute.”

Before she could answer, Turner charged into the living room with his arms spread wide to drag everyone down. She threw herself to the side even as Rio gave her a hard shove, removing her from Turner’s reach. Her knees hit the couch and she fell on it in a sprawl that sent the knife flying out of her hand. The blade slid hilt-deep into a cushion.

The instant it had taken to push Hope to safety left Rio at Turner’s mercy. He was knocked off-balance by the rancher’s massive tackle. They crashed to the floor with a force that shook the room.

As Turner had in so many bar brawls with smaller men, he used his superior weight and muscle to flatten his opponent. Straddling Rio, he smiled and cocked a huge fist, preparing to beat the man beneath him into a bloody rag.

Hope struggled upright and looked frantically around for the knife. She spotted the handle, grabbed it, and turned around just in time to see Turner’s fist start down.

It never reached Rio.

With an upward sweep of his left arm, Rio knocked aside the blow. His right hand made an unusual fist, middle knuckle extended. With a deadly, twisting movement at the moment of impact, he rammed a shot straight to Turner’s heart.

Before the rancher went white at the pain exploding through his chest, the callused edge of Rio’s open left hand connected with Turner’s thick neck in a short, brutal chopping motion. With a low sound, the big man slipped sideways and flopped facedown on the living room floor.

Rio came to his feet in a flowing, catlike movement. “Hope? Are you all right?”

“I—Rio?” she asked, disbelief in her wide eyes.

The violence had happened so fast that she was having trouble understanding that it was over. Rio had moved so quickly, so lethally, no more than a handful of seconds from the moment Turner tackled them. Even with what Mason had told her, she hadn’t expected Rio to be so deadly against the much bigger rancher. Turner had earned his reputation as a brutal, boots-and-bare-knuckle brawler.

Rio took the knife from Hope’s slack fingers and set it on the lamp table. He knelt in front of her, searching her face with blue eyes so dark they were almost black.

“Are you all right?” he asked urgently. “He didn’t have time to hurt you, did he? I saw him drive out of town. He turned toward the Valley of the Sun, not his own ranch. I got here as fast as I could.”

Abruptly reaction hit Hope. She began to tremble violently. Tears spilled out of her eyes. Her skin went pale. Her breath came in short gasps that couldn’t get enough oxygen into her lungs.

Rio saw blood welling from a cut on her lip and knew that Turner had caused it.

Hope saw the change in Rio’s eyes, the blackness of violence wholly unleashed. With a guttural sound he turned toward the man lying unconscious on the floor.

“No,” she said quickly. Her cold fingers closed over Rio’s arm. The bunched hardness of his muscles shocked her. It was like grabbing a steel fence post. “He didn’t—do anything.”

Rio searched her face, hearing both the truth and the desperation in her broken words. He looked away from the tiny drops of blood on her pale lips. A fierce emotion went through him, cutting him, making him bleed even as she bled.

“Hope,” he said softly.

He ached to touch her and knew he shouldn’t. If he touched her, he would make love to her, kissing away even the memory of brutality, caressing her with his lips and his tongue and his body until she trembled and wept with ecstasy instead of fear.

Turner’s low groan echoed the sound of the wind, rough and empty of meaning.

Rio slanted the man a single feral look. Then he closed his eyes and fought to keep himself from curling his long fingers around Turner’s throat and squeezing until there was nothing left of the rancher but a mound of cooling meat.

Violence had never tempted Rio so much.

Flexing his fingers, fighting a savage need to destroy, he turned away from the man who would have raped Hope. For a few terrible moments, Rio wasn’t sure he could let Turner live.

Self-control had never been so hard before, not even when he was young and as wild as a winter storm.

Hope whispered his name.

“It’s all right.” Rio forced calm into his voice instead of the violence that coiled within him, straining to be free. “I won’t kill him.”

Yet,
Rio added silently.

Hope looked at him and heard what he hadn’t said aloud. “No, Rio. Don’t. Turner’s not worth going to jail for.”

“You are.”

Before she could say anything more, Turner groaned again.

Rio moved with shocking speed. His fingers clamped around a thick arm. With an impatient jerk he rolled Turner over onto his back.

“Can you hear me?” Rio asked indifferently.

The other man’s groan didn’t tell Rio anything new. His palm smacked the bigger man’s face with measured force.

Turner’s eyes flew open. The instant his vision cleared enough to make out Rio, he lunged upward at him.

Rio wrapped his hands around the rancher’s arms just above the elbows and used the bigger man’s momentum to yank him to his feet. Steel fingers flexed and dug in like talons.

Waves of pain slammed up Turner’s arms. He sagged and almost blacked out. The next time he looked at Rio, it was with dawning fear instead of rage.

Rio saw the change and nodded. “We’re going to reach an understanding, you and me,” he drawled, his voice mild and his eyes promising hell everlasting. His fingers dug deeply into Turner’s muscular flesh, grinding nerve against bone in a gesture that was punishment, warning, and promise in one. “You touch Hope again and I’ll hurt you. Hear me?”

“All I hear is the wind,
drifter,
” Turner said hoarsely.

He didn’t say any more. He didn’t have to. The knowledge that Rio wouldn’t always be around to protect Hope was there in Turner’s eyes.

It was there in Hope’s, too, raw fear and regret.

“That’s right,” Rio said softly. “I’m the wind. I’m everywhere. I see everything. I hear everything. Nothing happens that I don’t know. You touch Hope just once and you better start looking over your shoulder, living in your rearview mirror, locking your doors at night, and checking the locks again before you go to sleep. You better start going to church every Sunday and praying to God that you never see me again.”

Turner’s eyes widened. He stared at Rio through waves of pain and began to understand more than mere words could say. Rio’s smile was as much a warning as the agonizing grip that was making the world go gray around the edges.

“But if you touch her, no locks and no God will save you,” Rio said almost gently. “One day you’ll hear the wind and you’ll turn around and I’ll be there. That’s the day you die.”

The unlatched front door banged open, pushed by a cold shout of wind.

Pivoting, Rio released Turner with a hard motion that sent the rancher smashing into the doorframe. He pulled himself upright, took one look at Rio’s face, and stumbled down the front steps and into his Jeep.

Cold fingers of wind raked through Rio’s hair. He didn’t feel it. He stood in the doorway, watching while the Jeep’s headlights made a sweep of the yard and sped down the road until there was nothing left but a pinpoint of brightness.

Coils of wind hummed around and through the house, making the walls shiver.

Rio shut the door, turned, and saw that Hope was shivering, too. She came to her feet slowly, looking at him with eyes that were wide and very dark.

“I know you don’t—” Her voice broke and she tried again. “I know you don’t want to, but would you hold me, please?” She swayed, holding on to herself because there was no one else. “Please,” she said desperately, scrubbing her face and arms with her hands. “I can’t stand the feel of him on my skin any longer!”

With a hoarse sound Rio went to Hope, wrapped his arms around her, rocked her gently against his body.

He held her for long, long minutes, until her skin was warm beneath his hands and her body no longer shuddered with vicious memories. He felt her take a deep, ragged breath, and then felt her lean against his strength with a trust that made him want to cry out in despair.

“I would have used the knife,” she said bleakly.

“I know.” His voice was soft and certain as he smoothed his cheek against the dark satin of her hair.

“Do you?” she asked, tilting her face up to his.

“Yes. You’re a one-man woman,” Rio said, bending down to Hope. “And God help us both,
I’m that man.
”

He lowered his mouth to her trembling lips, kissing her with melting gentleness, cherishing her. The tip of his tongue caressed the cut on her lip.

“Even your blood is sweet,” he whispered.

She made a low sound and swayed against him.

“Does that hurt?” he asked softly against her mouth, not lifting his head at all.

“No,” she said in a low voice, watching him through half-closed eyes. “It feels . . .”

Her voice died. She shivered and moved her head very slowly from side to side, offering more of her mouth to him in a silent plea.

With tiny, hot movements of his tongue he caressed her lips, licking away every last bit of Turner’s ugly embrace. She moaned and clung to Rio, letting his warmth and his tenderness fill her senses.

Her lips parted in a helpless invitation that he accepted with a deep sound of pleasure and need. His tongue stroked the inner softness of her mouth, tasting her while tiny shudders of desire rippled through his powerful body, passion surging hotly, threatening to strip away his control.

He shouldn’t be holding her, touching her, tasting her on his tongue like a wild, sweet rain.

“Hope,” he breathed against her mouth. And then again, urgently, “Hope, tell me to stop.”

Her eyes opened, luminous with emotion. “I love you,” she whispered, and her breath flowed warmly over his lips.

“God,” Rio groaned, and he buried his face against her neck, unable to bear the radiant truth of her eyes. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” he said harshly.

“I know.” Her voice was like her eyes, serene, certain.

“I don’t have any past, any future, any present.
I am the wind.”

“Yes,” she said, turning to caress his cheek with her lips. “I know.”

He straightened and confronted the extraordinary beauty of Hope’s eyes. His hard, warm hands shaped her face.

“Then tell me to go,” he said in a hoarse voice.

She smiled sadly. “Never, my love.”

“Hope—”

“Kiss me,” she interrupted, standing on tiptoe to reach his mouth.

“Hope, I don’t—”

The soft heat of her lips, her tongue, drove every word from Rio’s mind. He made a rough, low sound and took her mouth even as she took his. The gliding pressure of tongue over tongue became a wildness shaking him. He couldn’t hold her close enough, taste her deeply enough, or control the hunger sweeping through him like a violent desert storm.

Before the kiss ended he was fully aroused, needing her as he had never needed a woman before. With an effort that left him shaking, he lifted his mouth from hers.

“No more,” he said hoarsely.

Her luminous eyes searched his. “Why?”

His laugh was short, rough. He felt her warmth over every inch of his body, but most of all in the rigid flesh straining against his jeans. Against her. He moved his hips once, slowly. The blunt, unmistakable ridge of male passion caressed her.

“That’s why,” he said almost angrily.

Hope’s smile was like her body, invitation and incitement at once. “That’s the best reason I can think of
not
to stop,” she murmured, kissing the corners of his mouth, moving her hips against him in return.

“Hope—”

“I’m not asking you to stay with me forever,” she interrupted, breathing her warmth into his mouth. “I’m not even asking you to say you love me. All I’m asking is to feel your life inside me. That’s all, Rio. Just that. You. Inside me.”

Her words wrenched a cry from him that was both harsh and infinitely sweet. He could no more resist the outpouring of her love than the land could resist a silver fall of rain. Without stopping to think or argue or deny, he lifted her into his arms. Her weight was as feminine and heady as her smile.