Heart Of The Eagle

“Then I’ll say good-night.”

“Good night.” Dal flinched inwardly over her gruffness. Jim made her feel simultaneously uneasy and euphoric. After he had left as silently as he had come, she dropped the pen and rubbed her face with her hands. God, she was so tired. When wasn’t she? The thought of having to close her eyes in the darkness of night leaked through her and she tasted terror. Holding her head between her hands, she wondered if she’d ever feel comfortable sleeping at night again. The nightmares always haunted her. During the day she could remain busy enough to keep them at bay. It was only in the silence of the night that they preyed upon her shredded heart.

Near two in the morning Dal had finally dragged herself from the study, taken a hot bath and slipped into her floor-length flannel nightgown. Taking the sheet and blankets from the hall closet, she made her bed on the orange-colored sofa that sat on a sheepskin rug in front of the fire. The hoot of an owl soothed her fears as did the warmth of the crackling blaze. She closed her thick lashes, dark fan shapes against the tautness of her cheeks, and took a long slow breath, slipping into the darkness where she could forget for just a little while….

Hands…they were strong, viselike hands wrapping around her wrists. Pain flared up her wrists, shooting into her arms as Dal felt her limbs being jerked savagely in order to control her. No, no, it was happening again! She moaned and tossed restlessly, the blankets now acting as something that held her powerless against the attack. In her sleep, she pushed them off and they slipped to the rug below the couch. Sweat glistened against her taut features as she heard Jack’s snarling voice break through her pleading cry.

“You’re staying, you hear me?” he growled. “You think you’re going to leave me, you’re the crazy one!”

“Ow-w! You’re hurting me. Let me go!”

His hands tightened viciously around her wrists as he pinned them above her head. “No way, baby. Your mine. And you’re staying.” His nostrils flared. “You want some attention? I’ll give you some. You keep accusing me of ignoring you all the time….” Anger soared through the sheer terror as Jack straddled her on the bed. It was dark. So dark…and yet, by the fullness of the moon outside of their bedroom window, she could see the glint of wildness in his narrowed green eyes as he watched her with feral intent. This wasn’t the Jack she had married. Where had he gone? Over the years fame and success had become his wife, and she had become nothing more than slave labor for his insatiable appetite to achieve more fame and make more money. Dal tried to throw him off her body, bucking and struggling. Fear gave her even more strength and she screamed. The sounds clawed up and out of her throat, which was now constricted in terror. Even to her own ears, she sounded like an animal that had been stalked and cornered, knowing that it was going to die at any second.

Oh, God, dying…She had died that night. Jack stripped her soul from her and he had done it deliberately, trying to frighten her in order to keep her beneath his control so she wouldn’t leave him. A whimper tore from her lips and she thrashed her head to one side, trying to fight off his powerful attack. No! God, no…

“Dal…wake up…you’re having a dream….”

Dal’s breast heaved with terror as she fought to take air into her lungs and throw Jack off her. He was a large man made of solid muscle. She felt hands on her shoulders and she tried to move away, curling against the back of the couch. Somewhere in her cartwheeling nightmare, part of her was slowly coming awake and telling her they weren’t Jack’s hands. No, these were a man’s hands that were firm with warmth without bringing her more pain.

“Dal, wake up…. Come on, wake…”

She heard his roughened voice soothe the ragged edges of her nightmare. It wasn’t Jack’s voice…no, it was a man’s voice that calmed her instead of instilling more of the revulsion that twisted through her. Dal felt herself being pulled up, felt arms going around her, holding her, rocking her gently within an embrace. A sob escaped her contorted lips as she fought to surface from the nightmare, her fingers digging into warm, hard flesh. Tears squeezed from beneath her tightly shut lashes and Dal was dully aware of them streaking down her cheeks.

“You’re all right, Dal…. Just let it go…. You’re safe…safe….”

Slowly, Jack’s voice and face dissolved into the tears that now flowed unchecked from her. Dal sobbed hard, burying her head beneath his chin, wanting, needing the safety he offered. As she reoriented to the present, the first sensation that struck her muddled senses was Jim’s masculine smell combined with the fresh odor of pine. She cringed like a frightened animal against the tensile strength of his bare, well-muscled chest. A myriad of sensations clashed within her reeling state as Dal tried to separate reality from the dream. Her fist clenched and unclenched, her long, slender fingers tentatively moving across his flesh. Jim was real. What was happening was real. And his voice…Dal’s sobs lessened as she sank against him, allowing the melodic, unknown language to fall over her raw, screaming senses. The thick, dark honey of his chanting tone was healing to her.

“You’re safe, Dal. Nothing’s going to harm you anymore. You’re home and you’re with me…not Jack. It’s all over.”

A shudder tremored through her. Jim’s fingers splayed against her back and he gently began to rub the tension out of her shoulders. Through her nightgown his touch was steadying to her spiraling caldron of emotions as his fingers moved down the deeply indented curve of her spine, freeing all that tension. Dal gulped, aware of the coolness of tears still on her lips as she struggled to gain a complete hold on reality.

She felt him breathing evenly and deeply, and that calmed her more as she forced her eyes open. Gray light filtered through the windows, telling her it was near dawn. A rush of gratefulness coupled with some undefined emotion coursed through Dal as she pushed herself out of Jim Tremain’s embrace. She couldn’t meet his gaze. Instead, she sat up and buried her face in her hands. He remained close to her.

“I—I’m all right,” she heard herself say. Her voice was unsteady.

“You will be in a few minutes,” he agreed huskily.

Dal felt fresh, hot tears brim in her eyes as he gently stroked her head. She was like a scared little girl and he seemed to realize that she needed his continual physical touch in order to get a grip on herself. How could he know that? When had she ever welcomed the touch of a man since her travesty of marriage to Jack? Another shudder coursed through her and Dal felt his hands gently settle on her shoulders, beginning to knead her taut, screaming muscles.

“Sit up more,” he commanded quietly, “and turn your back toward me.”

She did as he asked, melting beneath his sure touch as his fingers worked a special kind of magic to her tense body. “H-how did you know?” she quavered.

“What?”

“That I needed—” She couldn’t finish the sentence, shame flowing through her. She wanted to be touched? She’d cringed from any nearness to a male since…Her mind shut the door on Jack’s parting act that had severed their marriage. Dal heard Jim’s voice and clung to it.

“Any animal in pain needs the touch of its mate. One dog will lick the other’s wound. A horse will nuzzle the one who is sick. Humans are no different. Sometimes a healing touch is all that’s needed. You need it….”

Her lashes swept down, wet with tears, as she gave herself to his ministrations. His words had slipped from his mouth like a reverent prayer. Dal heard the smile in his voice and ached to turn and see the expression on his features.

“The first time I saw you out in the meadow with Nar you reminded me of a deer. When you rose from your crouched position with him on your arm, I saw how slender and graceful you were,” he told her in a low, husky tone. “And like a deer, you had large, liquid eyes that I could read and see the unhappiness within.” His hands stilled on her shoulders. “Deer are one of the most helpless of all animals. They have no way to protect themselves from predators. Their strength lies in their ability to run. All they have is their camouflage coloring and their running so that whoever is stalking them won’t find them.” His hands tightened slightly against her arms.

“You’re like that; you’ve been stalked by someone. My guess would be it was your ex-husband. You’ve thrown up walls to freeze behind, hoping all men will pass you by and leave you alone.” His voice grew deep. “In my eyes, you are like a deer. A woman who needs a gentle hand and who isn’t frightened into running away once again.”

Dal felt bereft as Jim released her. She could feel the heat from his male body and was wildly aware of his scent: a clean, outdoor scent mingling with the special odor of his skin. It was perfume to her and she took a deep, drugging breath, feeling the last vestiges of the virulent nightmare fading. Slowly, Dal turned around to face him.

If she had expected the natural planes of his face to be hard and unreadable, she was wrong. Dal found tenderness burning like a gold flame deep in the recesses of his shadowed eyes, his mouth relaxed. A lock of black hair had fallen on his brow and she had the wild urge to push it back into place with her fingers. In those moments out of time that spun effortlessly between them, she found herself wanting to fall back into the welcoming embrace of his arms and simply rest her head against his chest.

The thought that she wanted to be held by Jim shocked Dal. Her gaze traveled down from his face to the strong column of his neck to his powerful shoulders and chest. She remembered that he didn’t appear to be that well-muscled in clothes, but seeing him clad in only a pair of well-worn jeans, she changed her mind. Indeed, he was like a cougar, lean but compactly built, as if he could uncoil and leap upon a prey with graceful ease.

Her mouth suddenly became dry. For the first time in a long while, she was appreciative of a man in a purely physical sense. There wasn’t an ounce of fat upon his deeply bronzed form. Her gaze followed the line of dark hair that traveled from his chest, across his hard stomach and disappeared beneath the waist of the jeans he wore. Male. He was intensely male and Dal found herself wildly drawn to him.

Jim knew that if he had made the slightest move that resembled a pass, she would have shrunk away from him. And if he correctly read her inspection of him, he didn’t allow it to interfere in the trust he had magically woven between them. Instead, he shared a slight smile with her, his eyes dark and assessing as he watched her in the ensuing silence.

“How about a cup of hot chocolate? Milk always makes you sleepy.” And then he reached out, pulling away several strands of hair that clung to her cheek. “You need to get some rest, Dal.”

Just the way her name rolled off his tongue like an endearment made Dal shiver. And it wasn’t out of fear. She didn’t trust herself to speak and nodded instead.

“Okay, you just lie there and rest. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he promised huskily as he rose.

Dal looked up at him, the darkness and firelight dancing across his lean form. He looked frightening as well as beautiful in her eyes. Ruggedly beautiful in a male way that dissolved her fear and replaced it with awe. The soft curl of his black hair only emphasized his harsh features, and yet Dal found solace within his ensnaring golden gaze. He picked up the blankets, tucking them in around her before he left for the kitchen.

She lay propped up on her pillows, staring blankly into the fire, trying to absorb the myriad sensations pulsing around her. It was impossible and Dal tried to tidy up her bed. Jim Tremain was a stranger to her. A man who had walked quietly into her life the previous morning. And now, less than twenty-four hours later, she had given him what little trust hadn’t been destroyed by Jack. Swallowing hard against a forming lump, Dal waited for his return, too hollow and wiped clean of terror to do much more than sit and not think.

Jim returned on bare feet, silent as he turned the corner from the hall and walked into the living room. He gave Dal a smile that said, relax, it’s all right. And she did, reaching out for the mug when he handed it to her.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice scratchy.

He sat down on the sheepskin rug, resting his back against the couch near where she sat with her legs tucked up beneath her. The firelight heightened each curve and hollow of his face and Dal found herself staring down at him.

“I found some honey out there. I put that in the chocolate instead of sugar,” he offered, lifting his head and meeting her dark, anguished eyes. God, he thought, she looked so damned vulnerable. But he stilled any reaction on his part to take her back into his arms and hold her. As with any wild animal, touching Dal could only go so far before she would misinterpret the gesture as an attempt to entrap her and deny her her freedom. Her lips parted and he groaned inwardly. He had been sorely tempted to kiss them when they were contorted with pain, but had held himself in tight check for her sake. And for his. Jim smiled when the corners of her mouth curved slightly upward.

“Just as long as you put it back where you found it,” she managed with a slight laugh. “Or Millie will know someone was in her kitchen and all hell will break loose.”

Returning his gaze to the fire, Jim sipped the steaming chocolate. “She reminds me of the guard dog type that would take a wooden spoon to you if you trespassed on her territory.”

Dal tasted the chocolate, finding it just right. A glimmer of amusement came to her eyes. The relaxed aura surrounding them was astonishing. It had to be Jim’s presence; she had never felt so safe or protected. Never. Too drained and exhausted to question the special feelings embracing her, Dal accepted them and Jim. “You’re right. I’m sure when Millie gets up and sees the pan you made the chocolate in, she’ll sniff around to find out who didn’t wash it and put it away.”

His mouth stretched into a full smile. “I’ll do that before I go back to bed. We don’t need a snarling housekeeper. It’s a bad idea to bite the hand that feeds you.”

Dal couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up from her throat. “Even as kids growing up here at the ranch we all knew to stay out of Millie’s domain. Rafe, who was the greatest cookie snatcher in the world, couldn’t always fool Millie. She’d make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and naturally we’d all be plotting and planning how to get a few before dinner.”

Jim glanced up, drowning in her relaxed features. No longer was Dal haunted looking. “Did it work?”

“Not often. And if Millie caught you, then you didn’t get any cookies at all.”

“Sounds like she ran a tight ship with the three of you around.”