A Measure Of Love. Lindsay McKenna

hip resting near her thigh. Against his better judgment, he reached out and smoothed several tendrils from her cheek. Her flesh felt like velvet beneath his fingers. She stirred. He sat there, watching her awaken.

      “Jessie?”

      Rafe saw the effect his low voice had on her as she stretched like a cat that had been sleeping on a sunny windowsill. Her arm moved over her head, her slender fingers curled inward. He smiled to himself, watching as her lashes slowly opened, and her sable eyes clouded as they came to rest on him.

      “Millie got a little worried about you,” he explained quietly. “She said you’ve been sleeping for over six hours.”

      Groggily Jessie stared at Rafe. “I have?” she murmured, her voice husky with sleep.

      He nodded, relishing the quiet, tender moment with her. Is this how she would wake up every morning? Would her voice be that throaty sound that sent a raw yearning through him? “She thought you might be suffering the effects from that blow to your head.” He leaned over, gently pushed strands of hair from her brow and studied the lump. “Looks better. How do you feel?”

      The feel of his hand on her forehead woke her slumbering body and brought her mind to quick attention. Struggling into a sitting position, she rested her back against the brass headboard. “I’m okay,” she mumbled, rubbing her face. “I overslept, that’s all.”

      Rafe sat back, watching her, his eyes drawn to the braid that hung between her breasts. The urge to release her hair and stroke it was strong. Her clothes were rumpled, her hair was mussed, and she was sleepy, but that didn’t take away from her natural beauty, he thought. Jessie would look good dressed up, down, or wearing nothing at all….

      “First time I’ve kissed a lady and put her to sleep.”

      Jessie heard the wry amusement in Rafe’s voice and looked up. He appeared almost shy about admitting it. There was so much sensitivity beneath that granite exterior of his, she thought. In an effort to make him feel less awkward, she murmured, “The last thing on my mind was sleep, believe me.” And then she realized her faux pas. “I mean–”

      “I know what you meant,” Rafe said as he stood, a smile lingering in his eyes. “Do you always dig yourself into a deeper hole?”

      She grimaced and swung her legs over the bed and sat up. “The first half hour after waking I’m not held accountable for what I say or do. Take my word for it.”

      “Maybe some coffee is in order?”

      “Please?” She looked up at him as he towered above her and felt her entire body respond to the pure male strength he emanated. She imperceptibly swayed toward him as he reached out for a brief second and touched the crown of her head.

      “Millie’s got supper warming in the oven for you. The coffee will be waiting.” Then he was gone.

      She sat there and watched him leave, a lonely, retreating figure swallowed up by the shadowed hall outside her bedroom door. Jessie was aware of some incalculable pain that was known only to him that was evident in his sad gaze. Automatically she touched her hair. She must look a sight! When she got to the bathroom and looked, that much was confirmed. “You look like Raggedy Ann,” she muttered at the image in the mirror.

      As she unbraided her hair and brushed it until it shone with gold highlights she thought about Rafe’s kiss. When had anything like that seared her like wildfire? Tom’s ardor had been lukewarm in comparison. And thinking about the sparse dates she had with men after her divorce, she couldn’t remember one man who had equaled Rafe’s appeal, who had stormed the doors of her defenses and forced her to confront her fiery desires. Jessie pondered the effect he had on her as she applied some lipstick and a bit of blusher to hide her paleness.

      The emotions, the feelings he had released in her were surprising and scary. It was if he had reached deep inside her and pulled from the very depth of her being hungers and needs that she had thought dead. He’d brought out within her desires to match the ones she glimpsed in him. And Jessie didn’t know how to resist. Rafe was like the wind: when he caressed her she responded like a slender shaft of wheat before him. As she walked out into the hall toward the kitchen, she realized just how vulnerable she was.

      * * *

      Millie fussed over her like a mother, and Jessie welcomed the attention. The fact that she was going to have to face Rafe about the mustangs after dinner squashed her appetite. The kiss they had shared played on her mind, and she knew it was going to hinder rather than help the situation. After thanking Millie, she got up and wandered through the living room toward the study.

      Postponing the inevitable for a few minutes, Jessie took her time crossing the living room. The warm cedar floors, dark leather furniture and fieldstone fireplace, where a fire crackled pleasantly, all appealed to her, and gave her the sense of coming home. Pausing to look more carefully around herself, she noticed the handwoven Navajo rugs on the walls, and the way the plate-glass window allowed the sun to splash color into the room. The browns, tans, and brief touches of orange gave the room a distinctly masculine tone, as if the whole room were a reflection of the man of the house. Rafe.

      Girding herself, she walked through the room and knocked on the partially open door.

      “Come in.”

      Jessie took a deep breath and opened it. Rafe sat at a desk, ledgers surrounding him. There was a blue glint to his black hair, and a few strands dipped over his furrowed brow. His light blue cowboy shirt emphasized the richness of his eyes as he lifted his head and held her captive in his stare.

      “Am I interrupting?”

      “No. As a matter of fact,” Rafe said, leaning back in the creaking leather chair, “I can use a break. Come on in.”

      Disregarding a leather couch near the wall, she chose a wing chair near the desk. Sitting down, she stated, “I need to discuss the BLM problem with you.”

      Rafe placed his hands behind his head. He was having a tough time not staring like a gawking teenager. Her hair lay like a golden cape around her shoulders, thick and shining, begging to be tamed. “Okay. Looks like problems are the order of the night.”

      Jessie glanced at his desk. “Bill-paying time?” she guessed.

      “Twice a month. Twice too often.”

      “I’m just beginning to realize what it takes to run a ranch,” she admitted. “Millie started telling me about some of the problems you have, and how you have to juggle your loans and bills.”

      He nodded. “That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Anyway, let’s talk about this mustang thing. When Allen came here, he accused me of shooting them. It was the first I had heard of it.”

      “Our office received an anonymous phone call, Rafe. The caller said you were shooting mustangs that had drifted down off the federal land that’s connected to your property.”

      “Who was the caller?” Rafe demanded, his eyes glittering dangerously. His body had tensed with barely checked anger, and he leaned forward on his elbows.

      “We don’t know. He wouldn’t give his name.”

      “What proof did he offer to you that I was supposedly doing the shooting?”

      “None.”

      His nostrils flared. “Pretty flimsy evidence, wouldn’t you say?”

      “Yes, I would.” Jessie shrugged. “Allen should have made a study, gone up into the area in question and investigated. Mustangs usually stay on the lower plains during winter and migrate to the mountain areas only during the summer, for grass. The snowfall was lighter this year, so it made the mountain valleys available to them earlier than normal. The horses may have come off the Red Desert area of Wyoming because food was sparse.”

      “So do you think the call was a hoax?”

      “I don’t know. Let me ask you this–is there a local rancher who has an ax to grind with you?”