on him, trying subconsciously to slow him, to slow what was happening.
There was no need. Her own response was again a surprise, its force exploding in shivering torrents throughout her lower body, sensations spreading upward through veins and nerves and muscles like warmed honey. She could hear her own gasping breath above the harsh panting of his. Could feel, despite the chill of the December night, the sweat on his face, its masculine roughness tight-pressed against her cheek.
Slowly, slowly, the sensations faded, retreated, his body stilled, and the world shifted back to its familiar focus. The room was dark and slightly chilled. She shivered involuntarily, either from the temperature or from the aftereffects of their lovemaking. Mac rolled onto his back, muscled arms locked around her body to carry her with him. She lay on top of him, half clothed and totally relaxed, and listened to his heart beat just beneath her ear.
“I love you, Jenny-Wren,” he said softly.
She heard the words, not in the night air that surrounded them, but the sound of them rumbling through their very skins, slick with commingled sweat and still joined. Always joined.
“I love you, too,” she whispered. Her fingers moved across the hair-roughened contours of his chest.
She lay and listened to his breathing, slow and even as his body gradually relaxed under hers. His arms loosened their hold, and she knew finally that he slept.
Still she didn’t move away, and it was a long time before she closed her eyes. She stared instead into the darkness, thinking about what he had promised. Thankful the hot tears that seeped onto the broad, dark chest pillowing her cheek didn’t wake him.
JENNY DIDN’T HAVE ANY idea what time it was when the phone rang. It wasn’t all that unusual for them to get a call in the middle of the night, and Mac’s voice when he answered was calm and official, if not yet fully awake.
She lay and listened to his monosyllables and soft questions without really hearing them. He’d tell her what was going on when he hung up. She closed her eyes and snuggled her bare bottom against his hip. She realized Mac was still wearing his pants, and it wasn’t until the incongruity of that attire penetrated her sleep-fogged consciousness, that she remembered last night.
She sat up, but Mac was already moving out of bed. He stood and put the phone he had been holding back into the cradle on the nightstand. He reached out and grabbed the shirt he’d discarded last night from the foot of the bed and, turning it inside out, began to pull it on over his head.
“Who was it?” she asked.
“Somebody who’s got folks on his property who aren’t supposed to be there.” Mac’s deep voice was muffled momentarily by the shirt.
“What does that mean?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
“Drugs?” she asked, feeling a viselike tightness invade her chest. “Are they—”
“Somebody wants me to check out some trespassers. That’s all I know.”
“Call Chase,” she said.
He had sat down on the edge of the bed and had begun to pull on his boots, but he paused and slanted a look at her over his shoulder.
“What for?” he asked.
“Because…I asked you to,” she suggested. That alone should be reason enough, she thought, and he already knew all the others.
The blue eyes studied her face for a moment before he nodded.
SHE DIDN’T HEAR WHAT he told Chase. He had made that call from the kitchen, and she guessed that had been deliberate. At least he had called. This might not have anything to do with what they had talked about last night, but it didn’t hurt to be careful.
“Chase is coming over here,” Mac said.
She opened her eyes and found him standing in the doorway to the bedroom. His body blocked most of the light that was filtering around him from the distant kitchen.
“I can make coffee,” she offered.
“Don’t get up,” he said. He walked across the floor, his boot heels echoing on the hardwood. “Chase said for you to have breakfast ready when we get back.”
“‘Chase said,’” she teased.
“I thought you wouldn’t let your brother-in-law go hungry.”
“But I would let my husband,” she said.
“I hoped not, but I figure I’ll get better if you know we’re having company.”
She smiled at him, reaching up to catch his fingers in hers. She held them for a moment, still remembering last night.
“Chase sounded strange,” Mac said.
She looked up from his hand. “Strange how?”
He shook his head. “Just…strange. I don’t know. Different. He didn’t want me to go over there and pick him up. Said he’d come here. That’s when he said you could fix breakfast.”
“Ulterior motive,” she suggested, smiling at him.
“I guess.”
“Want anything special?”
“Uh-huh, but I don’t think I’ve got time for it before Chase gets here.” He put his knee down on the bed and the mattress dipped under his weight. He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek.
“Sanchez ranch,” he said, his breath warm against her face. “In case anybody needs me.”
She nodded. She wanted to tell him to be careful, but she’d done enough nagging. Mac had promised, and if he told her he’d do something, he would.
“I’m going to wait out in the truck. Go back to sleep.”
He pulled the sheet and the quilt over her shoulders, tucking them around her. She listened to his footsteps fade away over the wooden floors and the sound the front door made as he closed it behind him.
She shrugged off the covers he’d tucked in and pulled his pillow into her body, resting her cheek against the soft cotton of its case. It smelled of Mac. He didn’t use cologne. This was soap. Shampoo. Always the same no-name-brand brands. Or maybe this was just the familiar, beloved scent of his skin.
She closed her eyes, willing herself not to think about anything but that. About last night. After the argument.
It was possible that she had gone back to sleep. She could never say for sure whether she had been awake or asleep when she heard the explosion. But she had known at once what it was. There had never been the least doubt in her mind, not from the first sound, exactly what she was hearing.
Chase would sometimes say that he could close his eyes and see Mac’s truck exploding, his brother’s burning body thrown out onto the ground. Jenny had no clear memory of any of that. The horror for her always began and ended with that sound.
The
