The wind gusted, blowing her hair into her face. “There is a baby boy who is depending on you!”
He grounded to a halt and she wished she could see his face.
She braced herself as he slowly turned to face her.
“Is that the best you can do?” he drawled in silken provocation.
Her heart thundered and her hands shook. She pressed on doggedly. “He is your blood, Elijah.”
His frame jerked. “What did you say to me?”
She inhaled shakily, not daring to remove her eyes from his face. “You have a little boy on the ranch that needs you. We need your help.”
He suddenly looked mean, and unforgiving. She stumbled back from him. Her mind screamed in the silence. She almost took back the words. Oh god. She wondered why she and Beth ever thought such a plan would work, but Sheridan could think of no other way to get him off the mountain. The silence raked, nagging at her already ragged nerves. “Please help us.”
In two quick strides, he stood in front of her. One of his hand circled her throat with deceptive softness. “When you say he is my blood…”
His eyes blazed alight with an emotion that shook her. She did not fool herself into thinking it was pleasure. Was it fear? Surely not.
“What do you mean?”
The low rasp of his voice was decidedly discomfiting. She would have preferred if he had shouted. “It means exactly that. There is a baby on the ranch who needs you.”
His eyes narrowed to mere slits. His rough callused thumb ran over her lips and her eyes widened at the unexpected caress. “If you are lying to me, Sheridan, I promise you will regret it.”
She knew he could feel the wild fluttering at her throat, and he must be hearing how her heart thundered.
“I have never lied to you.” She regretted the words, the second they uttered from her lips. The single lie she had told him in the past was the reason for his distance.
“Elijah, I...” She swallowed tightly, shivers wracking her frame, tears of misery leaking from her eyes. “I would have not come up here if I did not need your help. Please hear me out.”
Sheridan prayed he would unbend and listen to her. She could not return to the ranch without him.
***
Another innocent child needed him. The nightmares rose dark and painful, licking at the edges of his control, fraying it. A gaping wound, too much blood, and a haunting cry begging Elijah to save them. He forced the memories back with ruthless will power and tried to concentrate on Sheridan’s words.
Please hear me out.
Her voice seeped through his torment, pleading with an edge of desperation. That was the note that tugged at him. She had never sounded desperate before. The pulse beneath his thumb tripped and picked up a fast rhythm, but it was her eyes he watched. She was truly afraid and he hated to see fear in her eyes.
The idea of another life depending on him, another life that may be snuffed out because of his failures, savaged him.
Her eyes were imploring, glistening with tears.
His heart kicked double time. “What kind of trouble are you in?”
“Jericho Sullivan wants me as his wife.”
From what Elijah knew of Jericho, her objection would not mean anything. “And?”
She clenched her hands and pressed even closer to Elijah. “I do not want him. I do not delude myself in thinking Mr. Sullivan desires me. He wants my inheritance. There is also talk in town that he needs access to watering holes. He has expanded too rapidly and needs grazing land. Our land, and what King Sullivan wants, he gets,” she ended with a bitter snap.
A low groan emitted from the fallen rapist and Elijah glanced at him. He lived. Good. “Those were Jericho’s men?”
“Yes. They came after me when I left the ranch.”
She shivered in his arms, and Elijah knew it was more than fear. The wall of wind that blanketed the mountains knifed at his exposed skin, biting into his muscled flesh. She was soft and delicate, not conditioned for these situations. He cursed internally, despising his weakness for her.