To Tame a Renegade (16 page)

“In the loft,” Sarah said, indicating a rope that pulled down a retracting stairway. “I fixed a bed for him up there.”

She pulled on the rope and the stairs came down. Chad ascended the rickety staircase and laid Abner down on the pallet of straw and blankets. Sarah followed him up, tucked him in and placed a kiss on his forehead. When she would have lingered, Chad placed an arm around her shoulders and led her back down the stairs.

“Let him sleep. He’ll be fine tomorrow.” His gaze slid over her bruised face. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I will be as soon as I leave this place.”

“Why don’t you get some rest? You look exhausted.”

“You’d be tired too if you had to chop wood, carry water, and cook for four people.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been searching for you since the day after you’d disappeared. If I hadn’t come across Spotted Deer I might still be looking. This cabin isn’t easy to find.”

Sarah saw Chad’s expression change abruptly from concern to intense, unrelenting anger. “I should have wrung Jackson’s neck while I had the chance. When I saw you both on the bed, all I could think of was how badly I wanted to kill him.”

“You got here in time. Spotted Deer served him in bed, not I. He turned to me after he sent her away.”

“Come here,” Chad said, grasping her hand and leading her over to the bed. “Sit down and tell me what happened.”

Sarah perched on the edge of the bed. “Will you believe me?”

“There are certain things in my past that make it difficult for me to trust a woman, but I’ll try.”

“We’re more alike than you know,” Sarah muttered.

“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Chad urged. “How well do you know Freddie Jackson?”

“Not well at all. I guess I never really knew him. I met him at a church social about six years ago. I don’t know why he took a shine to me. I was a painfully shy, awkward sixteen at the time and he was a smooth-talking man of twenty-five. I admired him. I even thought I… was in love with him.”

“What did your parents think about that?”

“Nothing. They didn’t know I was taken with him. I never even shared a private word with him until he found me alone one day in the church and asked me to meet him that night in the barn behind the parsonage. I was young and impressionable and thought he was a gentleman. He swore he only wanted a moment or two of conversation with me, that no one would ever know I’d sneaked out to meet him.”

“I take it Jackson wasn’t an outlaw at that time.”

“No, he was just a restless young man without much direction. His parents doted on him, giving him everything he wanted within their means. Obviously it wasn’t enough.” Painful memories made her voice crack.

“I thought it romantic that Freddie wanted to meet with me alone. I had girlish dreams like any other innocent girl of sixteen.”

“What happened?” Chad asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

“Talk was the last thing Freddie wanted. The moment I entered the barn he threw me on the ground and brutally raped me. I was afraid to tell my parents and that’s what he counted on. When I was finally able to pick myself up off the ground I felt as if my life had been destroyed by that one cruel act. The only way I could survive was to pretend it never happened. Then my world shattered when I learned I was pregnant. By then Freddie had already left town to begin his life of crime.”

“You never told anyone who hurt you?” Chad asked with disbelief.

“What good would it have done? Freddie was gone. Accusing him of rape would have hurt two old people who loved their son. Telling my parents I was pregnant was the most difficult thing I had ever done. They refused to believe I’d been raped. They called me a sinner and cast me from their house in disgrace.”

“Jackson never knew he had a son?”

“Not until he returned to Carbon recently. Somehow he learned about Abner and turned up at my door. He saw Abner and decided he wanted his son.”

“So you both went along with Jackson,” Chad said evenly.

Sarah leaped to her feet. “No! It wasn’t like that at all. He took Abner without my consent. Do you think I’d let my son go without a fight? I stole the Barlows’ horse and followed. Freddie had no choice but to take me along when he saw me following him up Elk Mountain.”

Chad pulled Sarah down on his lap, stunned by the tender feelings she aroused in him. For a man who shunned responsibilities, he had suddenly become the unwilling protector of one small woman and her son.

What was happening to him?

Chapter 8

“W
hat you did was very foolish and very brave,” Chad said. Despite her fragile appearance, Sarah possessed more gumption than any woman he had ever known. “You should have gone to the sheriff. I understand Carbon has had a sheriff for some time now.”

“There wasn’t time,” Sarah revealed. “Besides, I didn’t want anyone to know Freddie Jackson was Abner’s father. Abner has suffered enough cruelty in his young life, he didn’t need another cross to bear.”

Chad’s arms tightened around her. He didn’t understand this strange, savage need to protect Sarah from everyone and everything. From the beginning he’d been determined not to care for Sarah Temple. Yet here he was, holding Sarah in his lap and loathe to let her go.

“Chad, I… I think you should let me up,” Sarah said breathlessly.

“I don’t think I could let you go right now even if I wanted to,” Chad whispered against her cheek. “I’m going to kiss you, Sarah. I’d like to do a lot more if you’d let me. I wanted you from that first moment I saw you. I can’t fight it any longer.”

“Is that why you followed me here?” Sarah asked.

“I suppose that’s one of the reasons,” he said moments before his lips touched hers. Her mouth was sweetly inviting and he deepened the kiss, drawing a tiny, shuddering sound from her.

“Sweet, so sweet,” Chad groaned against her mouth. He wanted to be inside Sarah so badly it was tearing him apart. He was trembling from the force of it as he eased her back on the bed and came up over her.

He kissed her hungrily, ravenously, allowing her scant time to think about the right or wrong of what they were doing. His hands covered her breasts, finding her nipples and rolling them between his fingers. He smiled as Sarah writhed beneath him, pleased to find her so responsive. Anxious to render her naked, his fingers tugged at her buttons. Sarah uttered a protest and moved her hands to stop him.

“Don’t make me stop, sweetheart, I don’t think I can.”

“Chad…I…”

He silenced her with a kiss. A scorching, voracious kiss that effectively put an end to her objections. When he felt a tiny bubble of fear in her, it suddenly dawned on him what was troubling her.

“How long has it been since you’ve been with a man, Sarah?”

Sarah glanced up at him, then her glance skittered away. “Freddie was the only man, and that was rape.”

Chad went still. “You’ve never been made love to?”

“No,” she said in a small voice.

“That it’s about time. First we have to get your clothes off.”

“All of them?”

Chad searched her face, cursing himself for going too fast. Her degrading experience with Freddie Jackson had left Sarah scarred; she knew nothing about lovemaking, or the pleasure to be gained from a relationship with a man who cared about her.

“We’ll go slow, Sarah, I swear it. I won’t hurt you. You’ve been hurt enough in your life. I want to give you pleasure.”

“Why?”

“Because you deserve it,” Chad said uneasily. If there was another reason, he chose to ignore it. “Will you trust me?”

“Trusting is difficult, and it hurts,” Sarah observed.

“Do you want me, Sarah?”

He felt her shift beneath him and the fragility of her slender frame had an unsettling effect deep inside his gut. He sensed her tension, her fear, her agonizing loneliness and commiserated with her. Those were the same emotions he had experienced nearly every day since leaving Dry Gulch. He wanted to make Sarah smile, to hear his name on her lips when she cried out her pleasure. He wanted…

Sarah.

The ensuing silence nearly killed him. When she finally spoke he had to strain to hear. “I do want you, Chad. God help me, I do, and it frightens me. All these years I’ve done my best to preserve my reputation, though God knows I had little of it left to save. Give me pleasure, Chad. I want to experience it at least one time in my life and I want you to give it to me.”

Her words touched something deep and inviolate inside him. “You won’t be sorry,” he vowed. “I’ve never abused a woman and don’t intend to start now.”

She threw her arms around him, pulling him down for her kiss, surprising Chad. Their lips met and melded. His senses whirled as his hands tangled in her hair and he deepened the kiss.

Chad was shocked at the way Sarah’s kisses affected him. He’d worked so hard to feel nothing for Sarah but lust. He knew he’d hungered for Sarah sexually, but hadn’t realized till now that he wanted something deeper than physical pleasure. It scared the daylights out of him.

Chad managed to release the buttons on her bodice and untie the ribbon on her chemise, baring her breasts to his kisses, her soft sighs delighting him. Then he drew a velvet nub of nipple into his mouth. It hardened instantly, deliciously sweet and enticing. He suckled her, absorbing her warmth, her femaleness, her very essence. He cradled her breasts and pressed them together, burying his face in their sweet crevice. He felt the pounding of her heart and knew that his matched it.

“Help me,” Chad whispered, tugging at her clothing. Sarah obliged, lifting her shoulders then her hips as her dress and underclothes were stripped away. Then he stood up and tore off his own clothing, tossing them to the floor.

Sarah watched him from beneath lowered lids, admiring the latent power and masculine beauty of his naked form. His legs were long and perfectly sculpted. His hips were slim and his torso broad and impressive. His stomach was ridged with corded muscles. Even in the dim light she could see a fine dusting of brown hair on his arms and legs. She’d never initiated sex in her life, but now it seemed the right thing to do. She held out her arms to him but Chad didn’t move into them immediately.

“I want to look at you first You’re beautiful.”

His gaze traveled the length of her lithe curves, coming to rest on the dark mound at the junction of her thighs. He had dreamed of her like this, her yielding body flushed with passion, soft, voluptuous, welcoming him in every way.

With a groan of surrender he came down on her. His mouth found hers. Within seconds she was responding to the urgent demands of his lips, her tongue sparring with his, her mouth clinging with quiet desperation.

Beneath his touch her breasts swelled, and her nipples hardened. He heard her whimper and understood her need as he lowered his mouth and suckled the stiffened crests. His hands and lips were everywhere at once. Her back, her buttocks, her trembling thighs. He pressed kisses along her shoulders, her breasts, her stomach. He nudged her legs apart, his warm breath whispering over her most intimate place. Then his mouth touched her there and she arched up against him.

“Please, Chad.”

“I want to be sure you’re ready, sweetheart,” Chad said in a voice made husky with desire. His sex was heavy, primed to burst, but still he held back. He wanted to make this memorable for Sarah, to banish all those bad memories of her first time.

His caressing hand moved over the curve of her abdomen, trailing through the dark curls, touching her moist flesh below. His thumb rubbed across the tiny nub at the entrance to her sex, and when his fingers found her secret place, Sarah tried unsuccessfully to hold back a scream.

She’s tight, Chad thought, testing her with his fingers. If he’d had doubts about her celibacy these past few years, they were quickly dispelled. She couldn’t be having sex regularly and be this tight. His fingers teased, sliding inside her with slow, deep strokes.

Sarah gave a long, drawn-out sigh.

“I’m going to come inside you now, Sarah. You’re tight, so it might hurt. That’s why I spent so much time preparing you.”

Sarah was past caring. She wanted him. All of him. And she wanted him now. She felt the moisture gathering between her legs and knew she was as ready as she’d ever be. She arched up against him in blatant invitation and he accepted, pressing inside her slowly but surely. She felt herself stretching to accommodate him. There was a moment of discomfort but it wasn’t painful. The delicious sliding friction quickly created an inferno within her.