Page 23 of Point of Mercy

What a fool she’d been. She loved him. She was sure of it now. The fact that he was a cowboy was no longer repulsive—she even found his livelihood intriguing and romantic. “You’re being as silly as Jill,” she muttered to herself as she climbed from her bunk. She felt bottled up—claustrophobic—and she had to get outside for some fresh air. Throwing a robe over her nightgown, she stole down the back stairs.

The ranch house, filled with noise during the day, seemed strangely quiet. The hall clock ticked, the refrigerator hummed, the old timbers groaned and creaked,but still the house was different, the dark shadows in the corners seeming close.

Holding her robe together with stiff fingers, Heather dashed through the kitchen and outside. Muttso growled from somewhere in the bushes, but she ignored him and ran to the paddocks, her bare feet scraping on the stones and packed earth of the paths and walkways. The air was filled with the drone of insects and an owl hooted from an upper branch of a mammoth pine tree situated behind the pump house.

Heather breathed deeply of the pine-scented air. She ran her fingers through her hair, shaking the loose, tangled curls that fell down her back. The notes of an old country ballad drifted from a forgotten radio left on the windowsill of the tack room.

She wondered about Turner. Was he in his bed—sleepless as she? Was he packing to leave, for she’d heard he would soon rejoin the rodeo circuit? Or was he sleeping soundly, maybe with some other woman in his arms? That thought caused a particularly painful jab in her heart.

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous slinking around here in the middle of the night?” Turner’s voice was soft and close, and for a minute she thought she’d imagined it, had conjured the deep sounds as her thoughts had drifted to him.

Turning, she saw him, shirt open and flapping in the gentle breeze, Levi’s riding low over his hips. She forced her gaze to his face, expecting hard censure. She wasn’t disappointed, his gaze was stony, his jaw set.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t betray her.

“Seems to be contagious.” His voice was low and supple and seemed to whisper up her spine.

Heather gripped the top rail of the fence so hard she felt splinters against her fingers. “Did you think about the other night?”

“Can’t think of much else.”

Her heart took flight. “Me, neither.”

He hesitated a second. “You had a visitor today.”

Her stomach turned over and she bit her lip.

“Your boyfriend.”

“Ex,” she said automatically.

“He didn’t seem to think so.”

“Look, Turner, it’s over. I know it and I think he does now, too.”

He turned halfway, leaning an elbow on the fence rail and studying her face as if it held a vast secret he hoped to expose. “You’re a hard woman to forget.”

“Is that a compliment?” she asked, her voice tremulous.

“I’m just pointing out that your ‘ex’ didn’t look like the kind who gives up easily.”

“He’s not.”

“But you convinced him?” His voice was edged in skepticism.

“All I can tell you is that it’s over between me and Dennis. It has been for a long time. And now…”

“Now what?”

Curling her fists, she sent up a silent prayer for strength, for honesty took more strength than she knew she possessed. “And now I only want you.”

He let out a long low whistle. “You don’t—”

She stepped forward, touching the rough stubble on his face with her hand. “I do, Turner. I want you.”

She felt him smile in the darkness, a slow, sexy grin that brought an answering smile to her own lips.

“So what’re we going to do about it?” he drawled.

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