Her soft words punched into him, cracking the wall he had been trying to erect. He knew what having a place she called home meant to her. He ignored the pleading in her eyes, and gathered his weapons to clean and oil them for their journey in the morning. He did not believe in bringing a gunfight to what could be an amicable discussion, but he certainly believed in being prepared. “Mr. Sullivan truly offered marriage?”
Her eyes widened at his unexpected question. “I...Yes.”
“If you are not willing to leave, accept his suit. You will be on the neighboring ranch and will be able to see Beth and her son.” Denial burned in his gut at the very idea of her in another man’s arm.
Pain darkened her eyes. “I see.”
He had never heard her voice so hoarse. The devastation of her face was real. It gutted him to see it, but he would not offer false hope.
“You would easily relinquish me to another man?”
He slowly walked over to her. Her face looked bloodless, her eyes wide, huge pools of hurt. “You were never mine, Sheridan. There had been a time when I wished for it to be so. That time has passed. We will leave at first light…get some rest.”
He did not wait for her reaction. He slammed out of the cabin into the bracing cold, heading for the barn to ensure his horse was protected against the storm that was brewing. A snarl slipped from him as he slammed into the barn. Damn! She needed him. And he had to be there for her; even knowing to be in her presence would only slide him deeper into the abyss of failure and nightmares he’d been slowly pulling himself from. He would have to guard himself to ensure he never fell back into the trap a woman like her presented. A trap offering false hope, and certain death.
Chapter Five
Sheridan closed her eyes tightly, wondering if she was being silly and reckless in her need to seduce Elijah. God, she had never expected him to be so cold. Deep inside her heart she had harbored hope that the connection that had burned between them in the past would have been reignited.
She wished he would listen to the offer she had, but he would never marry her. She was relieved he never gave her the chance to suggest they wed. It would have been a marriage in name only until she made him fall in love with her, but she doubted that would have mattered to him. He would have shredded her.
There had been a time when Elijah hungered for her, a time when he had seemed so gentle. Remembered feelings of being protected and safe in his arms swept over her, burning behind her eyelids. She wanted it back with a fierce need that made her tremble. She wanted to be branded by him, kissed by him, loved by him.
It was moments like these she wished her mother was alive. Though Sheridan had lost her at the tender age of seven, she recalled her mother had always soothed her fears and uncertainties. Never had she been so sure about a path she should take, but also unsure. Her options felt few, and she despised the desperate sensations that wormed themselves through her heart. The last time she had felt like this was amongst the ton, where her life, her speech, her mannerism had been under such scrutiny. She had wanted to be away from polite society, from her father’s constant indifference, and her stepmother’s unrelenting disapproval and petty jealously. Sheridan had escaped to find such joy here, and now it was irrevocably threatened.
Could she marry someone else, while loving another? She instinctively rejected such a notion. That would make her just as vile as Thomas. He had loved another dearly, and had married Sheridan for her wealth. The love he’d possessed for his lover, had seen him treat her with contempt and indifference, leaving her caged in a marriage without love, respect, or affection. She would never do that to another person. Even if she would strive to respect someone else, she could never allow intimacy, knowing her entire heart belonged to Elijah.
Seduction…how the ladies of the ton had made it seem easy. The delicate flick of a fan, flirting, dropping a handkerchief in front of a beau, and conspiring for them to be seen together alone. Here was so different…Beth was correct, less polite. Sheridan would have to be bold and wanton…and so very unladylike, much like how she had been in the past when she had given herself to Elijah. Or rather, allowed him to take her. But the situation was much different now; he wanted nothing to do with her.
The fire roared and the room’s warmth soothed her nervous shivers. Sheridan’s hands clenched in her lap and she wished she could storm at him with anger and demand he listened to her. But that was not his way.
The first time she had met him, he had seemed so hard and fierce. Everything about him had been raw, untamed, and utterly intriguing. Elijah Kincaid. There had been a razor edge to his personality, something tortured, and lonely. She had been drawn to him, wanting to soothe the wildness. She had understood his profound loneliness after enduring it for more than half her life.
He had sent heated shivers through her. He had always done so, from the moment Beth had introduced him as Thomas’s ranch partner. Sheridan had avoided Elijah the first few weeks he had been on the ranch, startled by the need he roused in her. She had watched him as he wrangled broncos and tamed the wildest of stallions they had on the ranch. Something about him had commanded her attention, but she had been too wary, too shy to approach him. He had noticed her watching him several times and he had only returned her stare with a sensual slant of his lips. It had always created a flutter of need in her, which had only drawn her to him more. But he had never approached her.
One day when the sun had felt divine, and the world itself seem lazy, she had done the unthinkable, she’d stripped bare and dipped into the river. He had saved her from drowning after she had been determined to learn how to swim. As a Viscount’s daughter she had been cosseted most of her life, even when locked away behind the cold iron doors of a boarding school. Being on the frontier had been very different, but it held the same barren existence. She had wanted to do something daring. In hindsight it had been incredibly dangerous, but for a while she had dared.
Elijah had been so furious with her. He had drawn her over his knees, and his rough hand had descended on her buttocks with firm force. She had been enraged, bucking and screaming at the humiliation and his high handiness. At his release she had surged to her feet, slapping him with rage, and he had stunned her by hauling her to him and kissing the fight out of her. She had sampled her first taste of desire, and bliss had seared her.
Sheridan sank into the rustic bed, regretful tears streaming down her face. When he had asked roughly against her lips if she was spoken for, she had lied. Desperate to ease the ache of loneliness, she had foolishly lied. She had pretended Thomas was her guardian while in America instead of her husband, albeit he had been her husband in name only.
Thomas had never touched her, never made love to her, and had treated her presence with constant annoyance. When she had tried to climb into his bed six months after being married, hoping that if he could give her a child so she wouldn’t be so lonely, he had her removed from the connecting chambers and deposited her in another section of the sprawling ranch house. The eighteen-room ranch house that had seemed so grand and beautiful had become a lonely haunting prison.
Thomas had been impervious to her demands as to why they were not living as man and wife. It had taken her seeing him with his lover, one of the ranch hands, befo
re she had fully understood how he had used and deceived her. They would never have a real marriage. She simply held no appeal to him because she was a woman. It had all been about her money. He had cruelly deceived her, and had been willing to rob her of a child and a family, all for money.
With Elijah it had been so different. Her heart had pinched with guilt and fear when he spoke tentatively of marriage, and she had been in agonized doubt how to tell him. She had confided in Beth and she had been horrified. Beth had demanded Sheridan reveal all to him, and when she crept into his room that night, after spending the day shoring up her courage, she had succumbed instead to desire, hoping to have at least one night of passion before he left her.
That one night had turned into two, and then over a dozen. Each day she had been in torment of need for him and fear how to let him know she was bounded. She had reveled in words of affection from him. Elijah had taught her to swim, to ride straight saddle, how to use a rifle, how to hunt. He had made her so damn happy. Then Thomas had come home two months earlier than he had been scheduled to, and everything had gone to hell in a basket.
The wind slamming the door shut startled her. She hastily wiped at her tears, and controlled the ragged edges to her breathing. She listened to Elijah moving in the adjoining bedroom, desperate to go to him and lay her heart bare. But she knew he would crush her if she attempted to.
They would leave at first light for the ranch, and Mr. Sullivan would also return tomorrow. Her stomach tightened in dread. She could not bear the idea of marrying that man. She jerked to her feet and paced furiously, her mind churning as her feet sunk into the plush bearskin rug with each step. Elijah would allow Mr. Sullivan to take her. She was still disbelieving of that, but she did not want to doubt the cold distance she saw in his eyes. She would have to act tonight. He would not give her a chance once they reached Whispering Creek.
She gritted her teeth, ignoring the flare of doubt. Sheridan tried to dwell on the hunger that had leapt into his gaze earlier. She would seduce his body, and pray to God that she could eventually seduce his heart.
***