***

Jesse came roaring to life, drenched by the bucket of icy water Honey had thrown on him. "What the hell are you doing, woman?"

He leapt out of bed like a lion from its den, roaring with anger. He was naked, and she had never seen him look so powerful. Or so seductive to her senses.

He grabbed for her and she stepped out of his way. "You bastard!" she hissed.

"Honey, what the hell-"

"Don't come any closer." She held up the buggy whip she had found in the barn, a relic of days gone by. "I'll use this," she threatened.

"What's going on here?" Jesse demanded. "It's a little late for outraged virtue."

"Outraged virtue! You low-down mealy-mouthed skunk!" she raged. "You stole my bull!"

She wanted him to deny it. With all her heart she yearned for him to say he was innocent. But the dark flush she could plainly see working its way up his naked flesh from his powerful shoulders, to his love-bruised neck, landing finally on his strong cheekbones, was as blatant a statement of guilt as she had ever heard.

"How could you?" she breathed, more hurt now than angry. "I trusted you." Then the anger was back, and she wielded the whip with all the fury of humiliation and pain she felt at his betrayal. "I trusted you!"

The whip landed once across his shoulders before he reached out and jerked it from her hands. He threw it across the room and pulled her into his arms.

Honey fought him, beating at him with her fists and kicking at him with her feet until he threw her down on the soaking-wet bed where he subdued her with his weight.

"Stop it, Honey! That's enough!"

"I hate you!" she cried. "I hate you! I hate you!"

She burst into gasping sobs and turned her head away so he wouldn't see the tears she cried over him. She lay still, emotionally devastated, as he kissed them away.

"Honey." His voice sounded like gravel. "I'm sorry."

"Where's-my-bull?" she gritted out between clenched teeth.

"In a safe place," he said.

Honey moaned. His words were final confirmation that he had used her, lied to her, stolen from her.

"It's not what you think," he began.

She turned to face him, eyes blazing. "Can you deny that you lied to me?"

"No, but-"

"That you stole General?"

"I did, but-"

She growled deep in her throat and bucked against him.

"If you know what's good for you, you'll lie still," Jesse warned.

Honey froze, suddenly aware of the fact he was naked, and they were in bed. "Don't you dare touch me. I'll fight you. I'll kick and scratch and-''

"If you'll just shut up for a minute, I can explain everything."

"I don't want to hear your excuses, you bastard. I-"

He kissed her to shut her up.

Honey felt the punishment in his kiss, and it was easy to fight his anger with her own, to arch her body against the weight of his, to grip the male fingers threaded through her own and struggle against his domination.

The more she fought, the more her body responded to the provocation of his. He insinuated his thigh between her legs knowing it would excite her. At the same time his mouth gentled and his lips and tongue came seeking the taste of her, dark like honey, rich and full. She fought his strength, but his hands held hers captive on either side of her head while he ravished her.

"Don't," she pleaded, aware she was succumbing to the desire that had never been far below the surface. "Don't."

She was helpless to deny him. He was stronger than she. To her surprise, he stopped kissing her and raised himself on his elbows so he could look at her.

"Are you ready to listen now?"

She turned her head away and closed her eyes.

He shoved one of her hands back behind her and held it there with the weight of his body while he grabbed her chin with his now-free hand and forced her to look at him.

"Open your eyes and look at me," he commanded.

When she didn't, his mouth came down hard on hers. "Open your eyes, Honey. I'm going to keep kissing you until you do."

Faced with that threat, her eyes flashed open and she glared at him.

His dark eyes burned with fury. His mouth was taut. A muscle jerked in his cheek. "There is an explanation for everything," he gritted out.

"I'll bet!" she retorted.

"Shut up and listen!"

She snorted. But she stayed mute.

He opened his mouth and closed it several times. Searching for more lies, Honey thought. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, she saw regret.

"I don't know how to say this except to say it," he began.

She waited, wondering how she could bear to hear that the man she had spent the night making love to, the man she had begun to think herself in love with, was part of a gang of murdering rustlers.

He took a deep breath and said, "I'm a Texas Ranger. I'm working undercover to catch the leader of the gang of rustlers that's been stealing from ranches in this area."

Honey couldn't believe her ears. Her first reaction was relief. Jesse wasn't a thief! The very next was anger-make that fury. He had lied to her! It was a lie of omission, but a lie all the same to keep her ignorant of his true identity. Finally there was hopelessness. Which was foolish because she had never really had much hope that the drifter would settle down. Now that she knew Jesse was a Texas Ranger, the situation was clear. He would leave her when his job was done. Not that it really mattered. She would never repeat the mistake she had made with Cale.

"Honey? Say something?"

"Let me up."

"Not until I explain."

"You've said enough."

"I didn't want to lie to you, but Dallas-"

" Dallas was in on this? I'll kill him," Honey muttered.

Jesse was pleased by the fire in her eyes after the awful dullness he had seen when he had told her the truth. Or at least as much of the truth as he could tell her.

" Dallas was under orders, too," Jesse continued. ' 'The Captain thought it would be better if you were kept in the dark. Because of…" His voice trailed off as he realized he couldn't tell her the rest of it. "I mean…I guess he thought you would understand, having been the wife of a Texas Ranger, why it was necessary."

"I understand, all right," Honey said heatedly. "You used me without a thought to the pain and anguish it would cause."

"How much of what you're feeling is the result of losing General and how much the result of my deceiving you?" Jesse asked in a quiet voice. "General would have been returned within a day or so at the most and no harm done. I hadn't counted on what happened between us, Honey."

"You never should have touched me."

"I know," he said.

"You should have left me completely alone."

"I know," he said.

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I couldn't. I didn't know I would find the other half of myself here, now, under these circumstances."

Honey swallowed over the lump that had suddenly risen in her throat. She closed her eyes to shut out the tenderness in his dark-eyed gaze.

"I love you, Honey."

When her eyes opened they revealed an agony she hadn't ever wanted to feel again, "Don't! Don't say things you don't mean!"

"I've never meant anything more in my life."

"Well, I don't love you!" she retorted.

"Who's lying now, Honey?"

"This can never work, Jesse. Even if you could settle down, and I'm not sure you can, you're a Texas Ranger."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I don't want to spend my life worrying about whether you're going to come home to me at the end of the day. I had no choice with Cale. But I have one now. And I choose not to live my life like that."

"I can't-won't-change my life for you," Jesse said, disturbed by the narrow lines she was drawing.

"I'm not asking you to," Honey said.

"Where does that leave us?"

"You've got a job to finish. I assume you're going to meet with the rustlers and exchange General for a great deal of money?"

He grinned crookedly. "That was the plan."

"Then I suggest you go to work."

Jesse sobered for a moment. "Things aren't over between us."

She didn't argue with him. There was no sense in it. As soon as his job was done he would be leaving. She felt the pain of loss already. Even if he had been the drifter he first professed to be, he would have been moving on sooner or later. She had always known Jesse wouldn't be hanging around. Only now his leaving had a certainty that allowed her to begin accepting-and grieving-his loss.

She searched his features, absorbing them, cataloguing them so she would remember them. Her eyes skipped to the body she had adored last night, and she noticed a huge red welt on his right shoulder that had previously been hidden by the pillow.

"Oh, my God, Jesse. Look what I've done to you!"

Jesse gasped as she reached out and touched the spot where the horsewhip had cut into his flesh.

She pushed at his chest. "Let me up, Jesse. I need to get some salve for that before it gets any worse than it is."

Honey didn't know what she would have done if he hadn't let her up just then. She was feeling so many things-remorse and embarrassment and love. And the love seemed to be winning out. She didn't want to care for this man. It would only hurt worse when he left.

Jesse took advantage of the time Honey was out of the room to put on his pants and boots. When she came back he was sitting on the edge of the bed shirtless, waiting for her.

Honey laid the things she had brought back with her on the end table beside the bed, then sat down beside Jesse to minister to the wound.

He hissed in a breath of air when she began dabbing at the raw flesh with warm water. "I know this must hurt," she soothed.