Hitched!. B.J. Daniels
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for a week? The thought worried him a little as he glanced toward the bathroom door.
The sweet scent of lilac drifted out from behind the closed and locked door. But nothing could shut out the thought of her. After having her in his arms, it wasn’t that hard to picture her lush, lanky body in the steamy bathroom: the full breasts, the slim waist and hips, the long, sensual legs.
The provocative image was almost his undoing. He groaned and headed for the door. He couldn’t let her distract him from his real reason for coming back to Montana and the Winchester Ranch—and that was impossible with her just feet away covered in bubbles.
Opening their bedroom door, he headed down the hallway toward the opposite wing—the wing where he and his mother had lived twenty-seven years ago.
Jack had expected to find his mother’s room changed. As he opened the door, he saw that it looked exactly as he remembered. The only new addition was the dust. His boots left prints as he crossed the floor and opened the window, needing to let some air into the room.
The fresh air helped. He stood breathing it in, thinking of his mother. She’d been a small, blond woman who’d mistakenly fallen in love with a Winchester. She’d been happy here—and miserable. He hadn’t understood why until later, when he’d found out that Angus Winchester was his father.
His jaw tightened as he considered the part his grandmother had played in destroying Angus Winchester, and that reminded him of the reception she’d given him earlier when he and Josey had arrived.
He shouldn’t have been surprised. When he was a boy, Pepper hadn’t paid him any mind, as if he were invisible. They’d all lived in some part of the huge old lodge, but seldom crossed paths except at meals.
It wasn’t that she’d disliked him. She just hadn’t cared one way or the other, and finding out he was Angus’s child hadn’t changed that.
He stood for a moment in the room, promising his mother’s memory that he’d see that Pepper Winchester paid for all of it, every miserable day she’d spent in this house or on Earth. Then he closed the window and left the room, anxious to get back to Josey.
Who knew what a woman on the run with a trail of secrets shadowing her might do.
FROM THE TUB, Josey glanced over at her backpack resting on the floor of the bathroom. Just the sight of it turned her stomach, but she was pretty sure she’d heard Jack leave and she had no idea how long he might be gone.
She quickly climbed from the tub and didn’t bother to towel off. Instead, she grabbed the robe he’d bought her and avoided looking in the mirror at her battered body. She also avoided thinking about how she’d gotten herself into such a mess. She was sick to death of all the “if only” thoughts.
As the saying went, the die was cast.
All she knew was that she couldn’t keep carrying her backpack around like a second skin. She’d seen the way Jack had eyed it. He was more than a little curious about what was so important in it that she wouldn’t let it out of her sight, and he’d eventually have a look.
Which meant she had to find a safe place for its contents.
She listened. No sound outside the bathroom door. Hefting the backpack, she cautiously opened the door a crack. The room appeared to be empty.
She shoved the door open a little wider, not trusting that he hadn’t returned.
No Jack. She wondered where he’d gone. She wondered a lot of things about him, but mostly why he’d wanted her to masquerade as his wife. He’d have to have seen she was in bad shape when he’d picked her up on the highway.
So what was in it for him? After meeting his grandmother, Josey was pretty sure it couldn’t be money. She just hadn’t figured out what Jack was really after.
Josey reminded herself it had nothing to do with her. All she had to do was play her part, hide out here on this isolated ranch until the heat died down. No one could find her here, right?
She quickly surveyed the room. She couldn’t chance a hiding place outside this room for fear someone would find it.
Across the room, she spotted the old armoire. The wardrobe was deep, and when she opened it she saw that it was filled with old clothing.
Strange. Just like this huge master suite. Who had it belonged to? she wondered, as she dug out a space at the back, then opened her backpack.
The gun lay on top. She grimaced at the sight of it. Picking it up, she stuck the weapon in the robe pocket. What lay beneath it was even more distressing. The money was in crisp new bills, bundled in stacks of hundreds. Over a million dollars splattered with blood.
Hurriedly she dumped the bundles of cash into the back of the wardrobe, hating that she had to touch it. Blood money, she thought. But the only way to save her mother. And ultimately, maybe herself.
She quickly covered it with some old clothing. Then, grabbing some of the clothing still on hangers, she stuffed the clothes into the backpack until it looked as it had.
Straightening, she closed the wardrobe and looked around to make sure Jack wouldn’t notice anything amiss when he returned.
Footsteps in the hallway. She started. Jack? Or someone else?
As she rushed back into the bathroom, closed and locked the door, she stood for a moment trying to catch her breath and not cry. Seeing the gun and the bloody money had brought it all back.
She heard the bedroom door open and close.
“You all right in there?” Jack asked. Her heart pounded at how close a call that had been.
Discarding the robe, she quickly stepped back into the tub. “Fine,” she called back, hating that she sounded breathless.
“We’re going to be late for supper if you don’t move it.”
The water was now lukewarm, the bubbles gone. She slid down into it anyway and picked up the soap. Her hands felt dirty after touching the money. Her whole body did. She scrubbed her hands, thinking of Lady Macbeth. Out, damned spots.
Suddenly she remembered the gun she’d stuffed into the robe pocket. She rinsed, stepped from the tub and pulled the plug. The water began to drain noisily as she looked around for a good place to hide the weapon.
There were few options. Opening a cabinet next to the sink, she shoved the gun behind a stack of towels on the bottom shelf. It would have to do for now until she could find a better place to hide it.
She intended to keep the weapon where she could get to it—just in case she needed it. That, unfortunately, was a real possibility.
WHEN JOSEY CAME OUT of the bathroom, she wore another of the Western shirts he’d bought her in town and the new pair of jeans that fit her curves to perfection. Jack had also picked her out a pair of Western boots, knowing she would need them to horseback-ride during their week on the ranch.
Jack grinned, pleased with himself but wondering why she hadn’t worn the two sexy sundresses he’d picked out for her. He’d been looking forward to seeing her in one of them, and he said as much.
“Maybe I’m a jeans and boots kind of girl,” she said.
She looked more like a corporate kind of girl who wore business suits and high heels, he thought, and wondered where that had come from. “You look damned fine in whatever you wear.”
She appeared embarrassed, which surprised him. The woman was beautiful. She must have had her share of compliments from men before.
As he smiled at her, he couldn’t help wondering who she was—just as he had from the moment he’d spotted her on the highway with her thumb out. Josey carried herself in a way that said she wasn’t just smart and savvy, she was confident in who she was. This woman was the kind who would be missed.
Someone would be looking for her. If they weren’t already.
Jack