13 years ago ~

Julene Santiago slid off her horse, breathing quickly, heart pounding. Not from the ride; she'd made this ride countless times, though not like this, stealing up to Rancho Piñtada like a thief in the midnight darkness. The volatile mix of fear, anticipation, and bravado making her throat tight and her body tremble was because of Rafe.

She wouldn't leave Luna Hermosa without him. He'd told her he didn't want to see her again but she'd never listened to Rafe when he talked like that. Instead, she listened with her heart - she always had with Rafe. She always would.

Letting her horse inside the corral fence out back, she stiffened her spine and went up to the door of the little adobe and frame house, not for the first time glad it was sheltered from the big ranch house by large cottonwoods. It had once belonged to Rafe's birth parents and Rafe had taken to living in it a few years ago, telling her he couldn't stomach living in the same house any more with his adopted father.

Rafe opened the door to her, half dressed, his black hair wild and loose. When he saw it was her, his face shuttered. But not before Jule saw the flare of hope in his eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"I had to see you. Let me in Rafe." It was plea for more than just entry into his house.

After a long hesitation, he stepped aside to let her pass. Inside, they stood staring at each other.

"You shouldn't have come," Rafe said finally.

"I had to. I'm leaving in the morning. I don't want to leave without you."

He shook his head, a short, sharp jerk as if she'd hit him. "Don't say that again."

"Rafe . . ." Jule came closer, almost touching him. "I love you. I've loved you since I was eight. You're my best friend. I can't leave you."

"You can't stay. There's nothing for you here."

"You're here," she said softly.

He grimaced, pain etching his features. Familiar sorrows haunted his eyes and there was a new sorrow there now, one with her name on it. "Like I said - nothing."

"Your father, my father - they're wrong," she said fiercely.

"My father - ? " His short harsh laugh made her wince. "I'm not Jed Garrett's son. I'm his ranch hand. The only reason I have his name is because he figured it was cheaper to adopt me than hire me."

Jule didn't have an answer for him. It was an old wound she had never been able to heal, made worse by the terrible day four years ago when her father had caught her and Rafe kissing behind the barn.

Both Jed and her father insisted Rafe wasn't good enough for her, would never be more than a rough ranch hand, working on someone else's land. But Rafe's birth father's legacy to him had been a fierce love for the land of Rancho Piñtada and a vow that Rafe belonged here. And so Rafe stayed, determined one day to prove himself worthy of inheriting the ranch.

And Jule stayed too, equally determined nothing would keep them apart.

It had changed them, though. Rafe was often angry, even cruel, as if he wanted to drive her away but couldn't, and hated himself for not having the strength to let her go. She'd watched helplessly for the last four years, seeing it eat him up inside. And she'd cried for him, loved him with everything in her as if her love alone could make everything right.

"Do you love me?" she asked.

Rafe wrenched back, his expression tortured. "Jule - "

She deliberately put herself in front of him, touched his face so he was forced to meet her eyes square on. "Do you love me?"

"Yes," he ground out. "Damn you." Jerking her into his arms he kissed her with a rough, possessive passion, raw with need, telling her more than any words could ever say the depth of his feeling for her.

Jule threw herself wholeheartedly into the kiss. For ten years she'd played with him, laughed with him, whispered her secrets to Rafe and treasured his. Now she wanted to love him fully, so hard and so deep that he could never let her go.

His hands roved her body in almost reckless, frantic need. Jule tried to shake the feeling that Rafe was desperate to have her this one time before he told her goodbye. But she ignored the dark voice inside her whispering he was going to break her heart.

The fire burned between them hotly, both of them awkward and bold all at once as they moved toward a place neither of them had ever been.

Rafe pulled back from her suddenly and looked at her, searching for the answer to a question she sensed he couldn't ask. Then carefully, as if he were afraid of hurting her, he caressed her face before gently, tenderly kissing her, taking his time, bringing tears to Jule's eyes with the sweet depth of it.

Very slowly, they began undressing each other and then Rafe carried her to his bed and made love to her as if they had forever.

This time the tears came at the rightness and the power of it. It wasn't perfect but it was right. And for a time, Jule believed it would last forever.

Forever ended too soon.

In the cold hours before dawn, she woke up alone in a tangle of sheets. Rafe, wearing only his jeans, stood by the window, staring out at the darkness.

Not bothering to dress, she went to him, sliding her arms around him. "We can make it work. Come with me. You can find work in Albuquerque and when I finish school - "

"No," Rafe interrupted. "I'm staying." He pulled out of her embrace to look at her. "This is all I have. I can't walk away from it."

"But you can walk away from me?"

"You're the one leaving."

"Are you asking me to stay?" Jule whispered, not daring to hope.

His expression softened and she could almost touch the emotion in his eyes, a potent mix of love, need, and pain.

"Rafe - "

He turned away. "No. I want you to go."

"How can you say that, after tonight?" The words came out a hoarse croak although Jule felt as if she'd been screaming. She was cold, dying inside and suddenly overwhelmed by fear that this time he meant it.

"Tonight was a mistake," he said, looking hard at her, his jaw tight, hands fisted at his side.

"It wasn't. I love you, you love me."

"I can't -" Rafe took her by the shoulders, gripping hard as if trying to convince both of them. "I can't Jule, I can't love you."

"Can't - or won't?"

His hands tightened almost painfully then he abruptly let her go and stepped back. "Can't, won't, it doesn't matter. Just - go. Go!" he snarled at her when she stood, frozen, desperately searching for the words to convince him they belonged together.

With a sob, Jule spun away from him, pulling on her clothes in a blind rush and then running out the door. She heard the slam of his fist against it as she hurtled toward her horse.

But she never saw him crying with her.

From the book The Rancher's Second Chance
By Nicole Foster
Silhouette Special Edition
July 2007
ISBN 0373248415
Copyright © July 2007
by Danette Fertig-Thompson and Annette Chartier
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher.
The edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S. A.
For more romance information surf to: http://www.eHarlequin.com

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