* * *
THE FAMILIAR SOUND of his name on her lips grabbed his heart and squeezed it like a fist. He closed his eyes, her palm radiating warmth that ran like a live wire through him. Heat to heat, reminding him how it had been between the two of them. As if he’d ever forgotten.
“Jack, my father never should have done what he did without giving you a chance to—”
“Chelsea.” He turned quickly, breaking the contact between them as he moved. He held her at arm’s length, his voice rough with emotions he didn’t want to feel. “Listen to me.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide, brimming with tears.
He’d almost forgotten how brown her eyes were. How tiny gold flecks shone when she was excited or angry. Or aroused. If only he’d been able to forget the rest. The feel and smell and sound of her. Or the way her father had handed him the check that morning in the corral so many years ago.
“It doesn’t matter, don’t you see that?” he said. “What happened was for the best. Your father was right. You and I were all wrong for each other. The ranch hand and the rancher’s daughter. So he thought I was stealing his cows. He also thought I was trying to steal his daughter, and he wasn’t having any of it.”
He pushed her away and waved an arm at the confined space he called home, thinking of the Wishing Tree Ranch and its massive rooms and high-timbered ceilings and all the antiques handed down through generations of Jensens.
“There is no way we could ever have made it together,” he said, the words beating him like stones. “Look at us, Chelsea. I’m a rodeo cowboy. That, and a ranch hand, is all I’ve ever been.”
“Jack, none of that matters if—”
“It matters to me. And it mattered to your father.”
“He was wrong,” she whispered. “If only he’d let you explain—”
“Chelsea, why dredge this all up again?” He moved away, turning his back on her. For years he’d hoped she would come after him. Now he realized just how wrong he’d been—seeing her served no purpose.
“Ryder Jensen did me a favor.” The rancher had reminded Jack just who he was. A man not good enough for his daughter. He turned to meet her gaze, something that took every ounce of his will. “He could have had me arrested but he didn’t.”
Her eyes darkened. She shook her head, a pleading in her gaze that broke his heart. “Tell me the truth.”
“Will you leave here and never come back?” he asked.
“Yes.” Her voice broke with emotion.
“Then it’s true.” He turned his back on her, leaning over the counter, the pain worse than being gored by a bull—and he’d been gored enough times to know. He wanted to stop but knew he couldn’t. Not if he hoped to finish this once and for all. He should have done this years ago, but he hadn’t been strong enough then. He wasn’t sure he was now.
“I’m everything your father and brother told you I am. Now get out of here.”
CHAPTER FIVE
CHELSEA WINCED as if he’d slapped her. “I don’t believe you.”
He shook his head, his back to her.
“I know you, Jack. Look me in the eye and tell me you were only after my money, that none of what we shared was real, that you never loved me. Tell me to my face and look me in the eye when you do it.”
He turned slowly.
She felt her heart leap to her throat as his gaze came up to meet hers. In his eyes, she saw the answer. Her limbs went weak with relief. “You can’t do it, can you?”
“It doesn’t make any difference whether or not I was stealing your father’s cattle,” he said quietly. “I was sleeping with his daughter and I wasn’t good enough for her. That was a far greater crime than stealing a few bovines.”
“That’s not true. If you had stayed, I could have proved how wrong you were about my father and brother.”
He let out a laugh. “Chelsea, they’d already convicted me and were ready to slip the noose around my neck.”
“If you told my father, I know he would have—”
“He didn’t come out to the corral that morning to ask my thoughts on the rustling problem, Chelsea,” he snapped. “He came with a check for ten thousand dollars and the threat of the sheriff if I didn’t leave the ranch at once.”
She felt sick, knowing what that had done to a man like Jack. “If only you had come to me—”
He let out a snort. “You’re kidding yourself.” He narrowed his gaze. “Did your brother believe you when you told him I didn’t rustle the cattle? You did tell him, didn’t you?” He must have seen the answer in her face. “That’s what I thought. Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter if I rustled your cattle or not.”
“It matters to me,” she said defiantly.
He laughed. “Well, you’re the only one. Now that you’ve found out everything you came for—”
“I’m going to prove to my brother that you were innocent,” she declared. “I’m going to clear your name.”
He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what she’d said and was amused by it. “Even if you could, do you really think it would change anything?”
“Yes. You’re trying to sell my brother short. You’ve already done that with my father and me.”
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