Bound By Marriage(13)

Jess wanted to scream. Because he was right-in a battle of wills, she'd  always lose. Gabe had been tempered in the most cruel of circumstances  and it had hardened him to all that was soft and gentle. He'd never bend  for a woman, most especially not a woman he'd bought and married on the  understanding that she'd expect nothing from him.

Ever.

Several days passed in a procession of tense words and strained  silences, with Jess keeping her distance while she figured out what to  do. If she went to Sylvie's party, Gabe would win yet another skirmish  in their ongoing war. But if she didn't, then that blond bitch would  undoubtedly try something to ensnare Gabe. And Jess was discovering she  had a rather wide streak of possessiveness where her husband was  concerned. Something else she'd neither expected nor prepared for.

Of course, staying away from Gabe only worked during the day. During the  night, she was his. In spite of everything, she'd come to crave the way  he made her feel-so alive, so passionate, so intrinsically female.  There was also another, less obvious temptation-she'd begun to believe  that bed was the one place where Gabe might allow his ironclad control  over his emotions to slip.

Sometimes, in the midst of the deepest intimacy, she thought she caught  glimpses of the man behind the mask, fleeting moments of vulnerability  and true feeling.                       
       
           



       

If she could only push him further, make him remove that mask in other  surroundings, she might yet discover the answers she so desperately  needed … discover whether their marriage had a heart or was only a barren  field.

But Gabe never let her go that far, retreating behind his titanium-strong walls as soon as their bodies separated.

"Enough, Jess." She slashed paint onto a canvas and told herself to stop  thinking about the things that took place in the lush intimacy of  Gabriel's bed.

Which left her mind free to stew over the party-now only two nights  away. And about the fact that she hadn't heard from Richard Dusevic. A  glob of paint flicked off her brush and onto the canvas.

"Damn it!" She decided to stop before she ruined the painting altogether.

A quick shower later, she grabbed the keys to the SUV and left Angel,  not giving herself the opportunity to change her mind. She'd been a  coward long enough.

It was time to go home.

To the main house on Randall Station, the place where she'd watched her  father die a quiet death, safe in the knowledge that Jess would protect  their land.

Tears burned the backs of her eyes. Fighting them, she clamped her hands  on the steering wheel and stared out at the passing scenery.

It was maybe sixty minutes later that the station house first came into  view, getting larger as she approached. And then there it was. Tempting  as it was to turn the SUV around, she shut off the engine and stepped  out.

She'd half expected to find it falling to pieces, but it appeared to  have been well maintained. Going up onto the verandah, she peered  through the glass and gave a shocked gasp when she saw all their old  furniture sitting inside, carefully covered with dust cloths.

Emotion a knot in her throat, she put her hand on the doorknob. It was  locked, of course. She'd never returned after being evicted by the bank,  but now she wondered if anyone had bothered to change the locks.

Running back down the steps, she reached under the last one and  scrabbled around until she located a small rock. "Gotcha!" The key was  rusty but otherwise fine.

Dusting off her knees, she went to try the lock. If it had been changed,  she'd have to ask Gabe for the new key and, in her current mood, she  didn't want to ask him for anything.

She slid the slender piece of metal into the lock and turned. "Please. Please let me in."





Chapter 8





The door opened in smooth welcome. Kicking off her shoes out of habit,  she walked through the hallway and into the living room. It hurt. So  many memories, so many good times. But walking into the kitchen was the  worst. This was the heart of the house, where she and her father had sat  many a night drinking coffee and talking over everything.

Everything but the finances it turned out.

Sean Randall had considered it a man's duty to take care of his family,  to keep a roof over their heads. So he'd borne the strain alone and  she'd been too wrapped up in the cotton-wool of his love to understand  the threat of foreclosure.

But then he'd died, leaving her with the burden of a promise she'd  sacrificed everything to keep. "How could you do that to me, Dad?" Sobs  breaking her voice, she crumpled to the floor. Guilt had kept her from  acknowledging the anger she'd carried around since his death, but being  in this house destroyed her ability to pretend.

When the tears finally stopped, she felt wrung dry. There was no water  in the taps so she walked out to the SUV, found one of the bottles of  water always banging around in the back, and used it to wash her face.  Afterward, she had no will to return to the house. It belonged to the  ghosts now.

Instead, she went down on her knees in front of the verandah and began  to pull weeds. While the building had been maintained, Beth Randall's  garden had been left to run wild, a tangle of climbers and weeds even in  the still-icy breath of winter's approaching end.

"Look after my garden won't you, Jessie my love?"

"Yes, Mom," she'd said, holding on to her mother as she lay dying in the hospital bed.

A promise to her mother. And one to her father. Between them, they held her trapped. A trap of emotion, of love, of memory.

Where the hell was Jess? Gabe stared out at the cloud-heavy evening sky  and swore he'd wring her fool neck when he found her. "Are you sure she  didn't say where she was going?"

Mrs. C. shook her head. "She wasn't here when I came back from Kowhai. I figured she'd gone visiting."

"I'm heading out to have a look. If she comes back, tell her to stay put."

"Do you want me to ring around?"

"I'll give you a call if I don't find her." He held up his cell phone  and made a mental note to buy one for Jess as well. "Why don't you go  home?"                       
       
           



       

"Are you sure?"

"You can keep an eye out for her from the cottage-the driveway's in your  line of sight." He got into the Jeep after receiving a nod of  understanding. As he backed up and turned in the drive, he considered  the places where his wife might have gone without leaving word,  especially when she was pissed with him.

His jaw tightened. No, surely even Jess wouldn't be idiotic enough to  wave the red flag of Damon in front of him. Deciding to give her the  benefit of the doubt, he headed toward the one place that he knew held a  grip over her stronger than anything or anyone else.

Bumpy country roads made the drive slow going and when full dark caught  up with him near the old boundary line, he had to further lower his  speed. By the time he got to what had once been the Randall station  house, he was cursing himself for not having gone with his first  instinct and hunting down that pretty-boy Jess was in love with.

All that changed a few meters later when his headlights bounced off the  side of the SUV. There was no one inside. Worry jackknifed in his gut.  If she'd injured herself, she could have been lying out here for hours.  Alert for any sign of her, he brought the Jeep around, intending to park  it parallel to the other vehicle.

The headlights swept across a small figure seated on the verandah steps,  hand raised to block the brightness. His concern flashfired into the  most dangerous kind of anger in a single hard instant. Turning off the  lights and engine, he got out.

"Gabe?" She gave him a puzzled look. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, that's what." He pulled her to her feet. "What the hell kind of childish stunt do you think you're pulling?"

"Stunt?" Something in Jess broke at that moment. She slammed her fists  into his shoulders. "I came to visit the only place that's ever been  home to me! To be close to the only people who ever loved me! Can't you  even allow me that?"

"Stop it." He pulled her into a tight embrace to restrain her pummeling hands.

"Be still, Jessie."

She struggled to escape but he was holding her so tightly, she could  hardly move. "Damn you, you've never loved anyone in your life! How  would you know what it feels like to lose everything?" His body went as  still as ice, but blinded by her own anguish, she paid no attention.  "You don't even put flowers on their graves!"

"Shut up. Shut the hell up before you say anything else." Quiet,  frighteningly calm, his tone cut through her pained fury to chill her on  the inside.