The Heart Breaker (31 page)

She was a whore, his dulled mind told him. He didn’t know her name—she was new since he’d last frequented the Pick & Stirrup Saloon—but she was available.

Sloan glanced at his own bottle, which somehow was almost empty. Maybe she was what he needed to make him forget, to numb the savage ache inside
him. He desperately needed forgetfulness right now.

“Hell … why not?” he mumbled, the words slurred. He took the bottle she offered and tried to stand, but he had trouble getting his wobbly legs to support him. The blonde caught him when he staggered and wrapped a slender arm around him, pressing her beasts against his face. Laughing, she tried to turn him toward the back stairs.

Someone else blocked their way.

His head down, Sloan blinked at the female legs covered in black net wavering in his unsteady vision. He recognized those attractive legs.

Swaying, he raised his gaze to find Della Perkins standing in his path, a slight frown on her face.

“Lilly,” she said to the blonde, “why don’t you go see to Horace there? He wants some company, I’ll bet. I’ll take care of Sloan.”

Lilly shot Della a narrowed glance, but allowed her to take Sloan’s weight. Too far gone to stand on his own, he draped an arm heavily over Della’s shoulder and let her lead him.

“Where we goin’, Dell?” he murmured.

“Up to my room, so you can drown your sorrows in private.”

“You gonna take care of me?”

“Sure, honey. It’ll be like old times.”

“I got a bad ache.”

“I know, sugar.”

She led him upstairs to her bedchamber. The room was familiar to him; he’d known it well in his wilder days. It was plain but serviceable … a brass bed, a washstand, an oak rocking chair. The sheets on the bed were rumpled from recent use and probably smelled of stale sex.

Della helped him across the room to the bed and gently pushed him down. Yeah, stale sex. With a
sound that was half groan, half sigh, Sloan lay back, cradling the bottle protectively in one arm.

He felt Della pull off his boots, but instead of taking off his pants and shirt, she drew a blanket up to cover him.

He opened one eye. “Why’d you stop?”

“I’m just gonna put you to bed.”

“I doan wanna go to bed. I wanna fuck.”

“You’re in no condition to fuck, me or anybody else, sugar. Besides, you don’t really want me. You got a real purty wife waitin’ for you at home.”

He reached up to snag an arm around her neck and drew her mouth down to his. “Make me forget her, Dell,” he murmured hoarsely against her lips.

She pulled back. “Forget who? You mean your wife?”

“Yeah … her.”

He tried to pull Della down with him, but she resisted. “You don’t want me, Sloan, honey,” she repeated, “now tell the truth.”

No, he didn’t want her… Didn’t want any woman but Heather. That was the hell of it. He wanted Heather too much.

Della seemed to understand his problem. As if she could read his mind, she sat beside him and patted his chest. “Why don’t you tell me about it? I reckon I’m a good listener.”

Shaking his head dizzily, he struggled to uncork the fresh whiskey bottle. Della
was
a good listener, but he didn’t need a confessor. He didn’t want to end up telling his troubles to Della....

“I doan wan’ her love.” He heard the slurred protest from a distance. “I loved Doe. A man only … fines love like that onessh in his life.”

“Who says, Sloan?” When he frowned obtusely, Della smoothed back a lock of hair which had fallen
over his forehead. “Seems to me, a man can love two women in a lifetime.”

“No.” He put the bottle to his lips and drank.

When he coughed, choking a little at the fiery effect, Della gently took the bottle from him. “I think I know what your trouble is. I think maybe you’re in love with that purty wife of yours and you just don’t want to admit it.”

Fury surged through him, slicing through the numbing effect of the liquor. “No, goddammi’… I
cannnn
love ‘er. I love Doe.”

“Doe’s gone, sugar—may she rest in peace.”

“Not gone … sheesh still here…” He pounded his chest weakly. The pressure in his heart was sharp and heavy.

“Maybe so, but you’re here with the living. You gotta get on with your life.”

Sloan squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could die like Doe had. He loved her … and yet her cherished memory was fading. He couldn’t help it, sweet Christ....

Panic gripped him. The grief, the sorrow that had once swamped him, was gone. The love he’d once felt had faded. He couldn’t feel it....

He breathed a savage curse. No matter how hard he tried, he no longer could see Doe’s face clearly in his mind. All he could see was Heather’s beautiful image, her eyes defiant and sad as she declared her love for him. As she insisted Doe was dead … that he had to forget her.

With a groan, Sloan rolled over and buried his face in the pillow, fighting the emotions that were strangling him.

He barely heard Della as she rose from the bed. “I’m going to send for your brother, sugar. He can take you home to your wife.”

“No, doan wanna go home… it hurts to much.”

His wife was the last thing he wanted. He’d fled here to escape her, to remove himself from the temptation of her body and the obsession he could no longer control.

For weeks he’d refused to put a name to the hunger he felt for Heather, yet it had taken hold of him in a way that was beyond lust, beyond carnal craving. All he had to do was look at her and his pulse started beating faster. He just thought of her and a fire smoldered low in his belly, swelling his groin. And when they made love… He’d never before been so lost in a woman’s body. What he felt went deeper than physical desire … damn damn damn her.

As the blackness swirled around him, Sloan mumbled another oath, despising his weakness for her. Even as he tried to shut out Heather’s memory, he was assailed by an image of her heart-stopping face, her beautiful, soft golden eyes filled with pain and love.

He groaned at the terrible, unexpected yearning that swept over him. Shutting his eyes, he cursed his burning hunger for her. He didn’t want her love. He wouldn’t let her mold and touch his heart the way she had his body.

He couldn’t love again. He couldn’t bear the vulnerability. He couldn’t bear it....

The moon glowed down on the rugged foothills, casting a spell of silver shadows, yet Heather scarcely saw the enchantment. Her heart was aching.

She stood at the rail on the back porch, her head bowed, her throat tight with unshed tears as she remembered Sloan’s parting words.
You can keep your love, duchess. I don’t want it.
When a coyote crooned mournfully in the distance, she shivered,
despite the warmth of the summer night.

Just then the kitchen door whispered open behind her. Her breath catching sharply, Heather turned to find Wolf Logan staring at her in the darkness with his intent gaze. Wiping her burning eyes, she closed the folds of her wrapper more tightly over her throat.

“You all right?” he asked quietly.

“Yes. I couldn’t sleep. I’m sorry if I woke you.”

“I’m a light sleeper.”

Closing the door softly behind him, he came to stand beside her at the rail. Half-naked, he wore no shirt or boots, merely denim trousers. The corded sinews of his bare arms and torso rippled in the moonlight, brazenly masculine. Modestly Heather averted her gaze. Despite his striking handsomeness, he seemed more than a little savage with his long raven hair and bronzed skin and piercing eyes. Yet somehow she didn’t fear him. On the contrary, she felt inexplicably safe with him.

“Sloan often ride into town to play poker?” Wolf asked.

She preferred not to reply. It was mortifying to have her marital problems on display. “Not often,” she murmured.

“He never used to be much of a gambler. Has he changed that much since I last saw him?”

“I don’t suppose so.”

Wolf must have misunderstood her dismay, for he said consolingly, “I wouldn’t worry too much. Sloan’s not liable to gamble away the ranch. It’s his heritage, after all. And he’d never do anything to jeopardize his daughter’s future.”

She nodded, yet it wasn’t really the thought of Sloan gambling that distressed her. It was the way they had parted. She tried a careless smile. “I confess I have an aversion to gambling, ever since my
father gambled away my mother’s fortune.”

“I heard you were obliged to pay your pa’s debts after he died.”

“Yes. I … was able to settle most of them, but Sloan assumed the remainder when we married. I didn’t realize at the time, but it was a burden he was ill-equipped to handle.”

She felt Wolf’s penetrating gaze on her. “I thought Sloan made a mistake marrying you, but now I’m not so sure. He seems different from the last time I saw him. More at peace with himself.”

“I would hardly describe him as being at peace,” Heather answered bitterly.

Wolf gave a quiet huff of laughter. “You didn’t know him after he lost Doe. He was like a madman then. All he lived for was revenge.”

“Perhaps he has changed in
that
respect. But he … isn’t happy. I’m not Doe, you see. He loved her so very much.”

“I don’t know about that.”

Heather cast Wolf a startled glance.

“Oh, he loved her well enough, I reckon. They were happy together. But guilt can do strange things to a man. Shade his memory a bit.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think maybe he only remembers the good parts about their marriage, about Doe herself. He blames himself for her murder, and afterward he built her up in his mind. Put her up on some pedestal, like some goddess.”

“Saint,” Heather murmured.

“What?”

“She’s always seemed like a saint to me. An ideal which I’ll never be able to live up to.”

“I think he cares for you a lot more than he lets on.”

Mutely Heather shook her head. Perhaps Sloan
had exaggerated the depth of his love for his murdered wife because of guilt, but she couldn’t believe he’d come to truly care for
her.
Not after tonight, when he’d spurned her love so unequivocally.

She forced a rueful smile. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For trying to raise my spirits.”

His slow masculine smile was dazzling. Heather felt her heart skip a beat at the display of white teeth in his bronzed, striking face. “My pleasure, ma’am.”

The congenial moment was broken, however, by the slow sound of hoofbeats and wagon wheels in the distance. Several minutes later, a buckboard swung into the yard and lumbered to a halt before the back porch.

Heather recognized the driver. In the moonlight she could make out Jake McCord’s handsome features. She could also see the figure of a man lying prone in the rear of the buckboard. Sloan?

Her heart leapt to her throat, while her hand reached out to clutch Wolf’s arm. “Dear God, he’s not…?”

“No,” Jake answered quickly as he jumped down from the seat. “He’s fine. Just had a bit too much to drink, I’m afraid.”

She couldn’t reply. Instead she watched mutely as Jake pulled his brother to his feet and caught him around the waist.

Shaking his head groggily, Sloan roused enough to drape an arm around the other man’s shoulder. He mumbled something under his breath but allowed Jake to support him up the steps to the back porch.

When they passed her, Heather went rigid as she caught the scent of cheap perfume mingled with the stench of whiskey. Sloan had been with a
woman, she could smell it. She remembered the odor from her own visit to the saloon and Della Perkins.

The sudden slicing pain low in her stomach was like the twist of a knife.

In the kitchen doorway, Jake paused with his burden to call over his shoulder, “Should I put him to bed?”

She felt Wolf’s dark gaze on her, yet she forced a hoarse reply. “Yes, please, I would appreciate it. On second thought, would you put him in the guest bedroom? Janna is asleep in his room and the beds aren’t set up in the other rooms.”

When she glanced apologetically at Wolf, he nodded in agreement. “You want me to bunk at Jake’s place for the rest of the night? Looks like you two have some things to work out.”

Heather shook her head, her throat tight with unshed tears. “You don’t have to leave. Indeed, I wish you would stay. I can make up one of the spare beds.”

“There’s no need to go to so much trouble. I’ll bed down on the floor.”

“The study has a comfortable couch.”

“Even better.” His mouth curved in a smile of sympathy. “I’ll wait in the kitchen till you get Sloan settled.”

She fabricated her own smile to hide her mortification and heartache and went inside. Her pride was fiercely wounded, yet her heart was suffering more. Sloan had heard her declaration of love and gone straight to the bed of another woman.

Jealousy and humiliation scored her. He had been with a prostitute, there was no other polite term for it. She might have been reared a lady and sheltered from the seamier sides of life, but she knew well enough what men sought from saloon
women. She just hadn’t expected it of Sloan.

A sick ache in the pit of her stomach, Heather unwillingly followed the two brothers upstairs to her bedchamber. She lit a lamp on the dressing table and turned it down low while Jake settled Sloan heavily on the bed.

“Thank you,” she said tightly. “I’ll take care of him now.”

“If you’re sure,” Jake replied skeptically.

“I’m sure.”

When he had gone and shut the door quietly behind him, Heather stood over the sleeping Sloan, not wanting even to touch him. He was lying on his back, fully clothed, on top of the covers, one arm draped over his face. Her mind felt numb, but as she regarded him, her despair grew into a hard, bright little kernel of anger. After his betrayal of her, his peaceful slumber infuriated her.

For a moment she was gripped with a strangling rage so powerful she wanted to scream. She wanted to strike him, to wail and pound her fists against the hard wall of his chest. She wanted to bury her face in his shoulder and sob out her anguish.

She did neither. Instead, she gritted her teeth and bent to tug off his right boot. She let it drop to the floor with a thud.