Victoria Bylin - Of Men And Angels

Standing by the bay, with her arm wrapped in his shirt, with her sunburned skin stinging from the salt of her own perspiration, Alex felt her nerves rippling like grass in the wind. Did misery really sharpen a person’s senses? Did sugar taste sweeter after a mouthful of sand? She had to hope so. What else could explain the trembling in her bones?

Jake Malone saw it all in her eyes, and she could only pray the heat pulsing in her veins was nothing more than shock, an illusion, something that wouldn’t last, because her feelings for this man turned her well-planned future into a wasteland.

She belonged in Philadelphia. She belonged anywhere but here. And that meant she had to push back the glittering mirage of passion and see the true dryness of the desert.

Jake had heard of people going insane on the Colorado Plateau, and Alexandra Merritt had as much cause as the next person. It gave him a reason to be charitable, but temporary insanity was no excuse for bad manners. She hadn’t said a word since he lifted her onto the saddle, and he didn’t take kindly to being shoved on his butt.

Between the baby’s hungry wail and the fact he hadn’t had a drink for two days, Jake was brimming with indignation. They had a half day’s ride ahead of them, and as long as Alex wasn’t in desperate need of a doctor, he was grateful for the chance to sort through his thoughts.

At the very least she owed him an apology, but if the truth be told, he wanted a lot more than that. The angel made him hungry for things he’d never had, simple things like respect and a clean bed, and dangerous things like her body, and even her trust.

There wasn’t much in his life that made Jake proud, but killing the snake with a perfect shot was one of them. Wishing the snake would slither back to its nest but knowing it wouldn’t, he’d grabbed the Winchester and aimed. Instinct had forced the snake to strike, just as a piece of Jake’s own nature, a piece he had either forgotten or wasn’t sure he had, made protecting Alex and the baby as necessary as breathing.

An hour had passed since that moment, and they had all been amazingly lucky. Lancing the bite had been the most awful thing he had ever done. He would never forget the terror in her eyes or the taste of her blood.

Nor would the softness of her lips fade from his memory anytime soon. She had to be the luckiest person he had ever known, and the most pitiful at the same time. How could Thomas Hunnicutt look at himself in the mirror, when it was as plain as the desert sun that Alexandra Merritt didn’t know the first thing about kissing a man?

Jake didn’t understand men who treated women as if they were merely useful, like an extra right arm or a hot-water bottle for their beds. He knew from experience that something wondrous happened when the right man and the right woman got naked together.

He had been nineteen years old and not fully grown when a widow hired him to work her ranch for the summer. By July his muscles were hard and he was sharing her bed. She was close to thirty, but he would have married her if she hadn’t sent him away.

Leaving her cut him to the bone. The widow liked having him in her bed, but she didn’t want him in her life. A few months later, she’d pushed him away like a bum calf, and he remembered the taste of snow as he rode away.

And then there was Lettie Abbott. He’d broken all of the rules when he’d taken her to bed.

“You’ve got to pay for it or marry it,” his brother Gabe used to say, but Jake had done neither with Lettie. It had been nothing more than meeting a man’s need. Not once had he imagined she would conceive a child.

With spots drifting like flies in his field of vision, Jake had to admit there was more than one way to ruin a woman’s life. He had nothing on Thomas Hunnicutt when it came to using a woman. He had spent one night with Lettie for the pleasure of it. It wasn’t even worth remembering, except for the baby she’d conceived.

With the angel pressed against his thighs, the memory of Lettie’s pregnant belly tweaked what was left of his conscience. Never mind that she had invited herself into his bed. He had taken less than she had to give, and Jake knew in his gut how it felt to be treated as less than the person he wanted to be. Gabe did it to him all the time.

You worthless piece of trash. What makes you think you belong in school? You’ll never get it right, little brother. Smart kids read books. Dumb ones shovel shit.”

For a while, he had read them anyway.

Ma would die if she saw you puking like that….

Yeah, but Ma was already dead.

Rolling his hips in the saddle, Jake shifted to give the angel more space. He knew how to skulk through life. He was hardened to his own misery, but what would happen to her if her husband made her feel worthless and weak?

His stomach clenched around its own emptiness. Alex deserved all the joy life could bring. Pure goodness radiated from her bones as she cuddled the baby. Warmth rolled off her back, and Jake couldn’t stop himself from wrapping his arm around her waist.

She stiffened, but he didn’t loosen his hold until she relaxed and leaned against his chest. His mind took off for places it had no business going, and his eyes followed suit. He gazed at the curve of her neck where her blouse gaped, and he could see a line where her white skin ended and a fiery sunburn began. She was on the verge of blistering, so he tugged her blouse higher on her neck. She tensed beneath his fingertips. “What are you doing?”

“You’re starting to look like a tomato.”

His fingers brushed her skin, not by accident, and she sat straighter, as if her backbone had grown back.

“I’ll be glad to get home,” she said.

“Must be nice to have a home to go to.”

Her voice softened. “Where are you from?”

“Nowhere in particular.”

“You must be coming from somewhere,” she probed. “What do you do?”

It was the kind of thing a woman would ask at a dinner party. “You don’t want to know.”

“Yes, I do.”

He grumbled at her. “Didn’t anyone tell you it’s rude to ask questions?”

She didn’t answer, and he felt bad for scolding her. The woman made him prickly all over, and he gave in to a strange wave of pity. “I pretty much go where I want.”

“Where were you headed when you found us?”

“California,” he replied.

“Do you have family there?”

She was like a child rummaging through a box of puzzle pieces, looking for ones that fit, excited at the prospect of a pretty picture. Irritation leaked into his voice. “What I do isn’t anyone’s business but mine.”

“Maybe not, but Charlie and I are alive because you stopped. I won’t forget what I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything except an apology.” Her cheeks flushed, and it charmed him enough to be kind. “It’s not smart to kiss a man and then knock him on his butt.”

“I guess I had a sudden urge to kick death in the teeth, or something like that,” she said with dignity. “I am sorry, though. I behaved badly.”

“No offense taken.”

Alex turned in the saddle and looked at him with those rich brown eyes and sunburned face. With a sweet smile, she said, “You’re a good man.”

He wasn’t anywhere close to being good. His eyes drifted to her pink lips. Lightning shot to his groin and ricocheted to his chest. Pure lust would have been easy to put in its place, but Jake knew his reaction wasn’t that simple. Yes, he wanted to show Alex a thing or two about kissing a man, but he also wanted to keep her safe, to be someone she would want to know.

But he was on the run. He had no business lusting after an angel, even if he had kissed her and seen need in her eyes, curiosity, and the hunger that comes with a child’s first taste of sugar. Even if she asked him for more, he had nothing to give except a glimpse of pleasure, and that wouldn’t be enough. She deserved more from life, and so did the baby in her arms.