Dark Paradise (7 page)

ashamed of the way her own body had betrayed her in reacting to him.

"Yep." Will sat back in the booth and stretched his arms out in front

of him, working a kink out of his shoulder. "That's J.D. He got all the

tact in the family."

Marilee sniffed and speared the last piece of bacon just as "Must have

been a deWill's fingertips brushed over it's affective gene," she said

caustically. "No offense, but your brother is about the biggest jerk

I've run into."

"None taken," he said, his face glowing with unholy glee. "He can be an

abrasive son of a gun."

"He could give lessons to concrete."

The sound of someone rising in the booth behind her sounded to Marilee

like the ominous roll of thunder. Her heart sank like a rock into the

morass of heavy food she'd consumed as J.D. Rafferty stepped into view.

He stood beside her table, looming like an oak tree, not so much as

sparing her a glance. Slowly he settled a pale gray hat in place and

pulled the brim low, his unwavering gaze on his brother.

"You done shooting your mouth off?" he said quietly, his low voice

setting off discordant vibrations inside Marilee. "We got work to do."

"That's what I love about you, bro," Will said, the finest razor's edge

in his tone as he slid from the booth.

"You're just a great big bundle of fun."

"Fun?" The corner of J.D.'s mouth curled in derision.

"What's that?"

It was sudden. The air between and around the two brothers were charged

with enough electricity to make hair stand on end. Marilee watched with

guarded fascination as some tense, silent communication passed between

their eyes. Will broke contact first, turning for the door without a

word.

J.D. turned toward Marilee, his gaze heating from gray ice to molten

pewter as it lingered on her lower lip. Marilee fought the urge to

squirm in her seat. It was all she could do to keep from covering her

mouth with her hand.

Warmth rose inside her. She called it embarrassment and knew she was

lying.

Rafferty met her eyes and smiled, the slight curve of his lips radiating

male arrogance. "You don't have to like me, Marilee," he murmured.

His meaning was crystal clear. Marilee glared at him, wishing they

weren't in quite so public a place so she could feel free to rip him up

with her opinion of him.

Still, she couldn't let him get away unscathed. She gave him a look of

utter disgust and mouthed Fuck you.

The gray eyes darkened, the smile took on a feral quality. "Anytime,

city girl."

"When hell freezes over."

He leaned down close, his eyes never leaving hers. He curled his big

hands into the fabric of her old denim jacket and pulled the edges

closed. "Better button up, sweetheart. I feel a cold spell coming on."

Marilee shoved his hands away. "It's called rejection, slick," she said

through her teeth. "Have the local schoolmarm look it up for you."

J.D. stepped back, chuckling at her sass. He tipped his hat ever so

slightly, conceding the round but not the war.

"Miz Jennings."

Marilee said nothing. She felt used and furious. Will Rafferty had set

her up and egged her on to get a rise out of his brother. And J.D. . . .

She decided the initials stood for jackass Deluxe.

Nora appeared beside the booth, rag in hand, and leaned across the table

to wipe away the crumbs Will had left. "Those Raffertys are enough to

give a girl cardiac arrest," she said matter-of-factly. "They don't make

men like that anymore."

"No," Marilee said, scowling as she watched J.D. Rafferty through the

front window. He climbed into a battered blue and gray four-by-four

truck with STARS AND BARS emblazoned across the bug guard. "I thought

they broke the mold after the Stone Age."

"It was a joke. Lighten up, will you?"

J.D. didn't say a word as he climbed into the cab of the battered Ford

pickup. He nursed the engine to life carefully. The old truck had

153,000 hard miles on it. It needed to go a few more. There was no extra

cash for buying new pickups. What money didn't get eaten up this year by

Will's gambling or by the astronomical property taxes they had to pay

because of the influx of elitists to the Eden valley would be sunk right

back into the operation.

Fortify and strengthen. A siege mentality. Well, by God, if they weren't

in a war, he didn't know what else to call it.

And in this war, Miz Marilee Jennings stood squarely on the other side

of the DMZ.

"She's a friend of Lucy MacAdam's," he said tightly, pronouncing the

name macadam, like the pavement. She had been that hard, that abrasive.

Even in bed she had had sharp edges.

He backed the pickup away from the curb and headed north on Main,

automatically glancing in the rearview mirror to check the feed sacks.

Zip, their black and white border collie, stood with his front paws on a

stack of plump bags and surveyed the passing scenery with a big grin on

his face. Behind them a maroon Jaguar putted impatiently. J.D. eased off

on the gas.

"So she's a friend of Lucy's," Will snapped irritably.

"So what?"

The sun cutting through the clouds pierced his eyeballs and rejuvenated

the hangover he had fought off with mass quantities of caffeine and

food. He pulled a pair Of mirrored sunglasses out of his shirt pocket

and slid them on.

"So she's one of them."

"Jesus. She came to visit a friend who turns out to be dead. Give her a

break."

"Why?
 
Because she's pretty?
 
Because she's a woman?"

Disgust bent J.D.'s mouth into a sneer. "I swear, if it wears a bra, it

can lead you around by your dick and you'll just go grinning like a

jackass eating sawhriars."

"Oh, Christ, will you lay off?" Will exploded, the volume of his own

voice setting hammers swinging inside his temples. He fought off the

need to rub the ache, not wanting to exhibit any sign of physical

weakness in front of J.D. "You know what your problem is?"

"I'm sure you'll tell me."

"You live like a goddamn monk. Maybe if you went out and got a little

every once in a while you wouldn't begrudge the rest of us."

"I get as much as I want. I just don't go around shooting my mouth off

about it."

Behind his shades, Will's gaze sharpened. "Or maybe you want her for

yourself?
 
Is that it, J.D.?" He hooted, ,wincing at the needles the

laughter stabbed into his brain. "That's it!
 
Ha!
 
She doesn't seem like

your type. More like mine. 'Course, damn near every type is my type."

J.D. leveled a deadly stare at him as they idled at the town's one and

only stoplight. "You'd do well to keep your eyes in your head and your

pants zipped. You're married, ace."

The words were both accusation and reminder. Will wanted neither the

censure nor the guilt that rose at the prodding. He knew damn well he

was married. The knowledge was like a yoke around his neck. He may not

have remembered the ceremony. Even the drive to Reno was hazy - it had

been a hell of a party that had led up to the event. But he was very

much aware he had come back with a wife. Nearly a year after the fact,

the idea still scared the hell out of him. A wife. A commitment. He

didn't want it, couldn't handle it, wasn't ready. The excuses piled up

at the back of his throat in a sour wad.

In a soft, unguarded corner of his heart he wondered fleetingly how

Samantha was faring without him.

"Shit," he snarled half under his breath.

He fell back against the seat, jerked an old University of Montana

baseball cap off the gun rack behind him, and pulled it on, settling the

brim just above the rims of his sunglasses. As if he were in disguise.

As if he thought he could hide his character flaws from his brother with

a costume. Will Rafferty incognito as Everyman. Christ, as if J.D.

couldn't see through that in two seconds. J.D. could see through

bullshit the way Superman could see through steel. He wondered how long

it would take before J.D. found out about the sixty-five hundred and the

busted flush of last night's poker game in Little Purgatory. He figured

he had maybe a day and a half to live.

J.D. studied his brother from the corner of his eye as they headed out

into the rolling green velvet countryside.

Half brother, really, though he had never been one to use the term. The

only child of Tom Rafferty's second marriage, Will was J.D.'s junior by

four years. Twenty-eight going on seventeen. The joker, the charmer,

this generation's wild Rafferty. He had a natural disdain for

responsibility that rubbed hard against J.D.'s grain. But then, Will was

his mother's son, and J.D. had never thought much of Sondra either. She

had pampered and indulged Will in exchange for the kind of unconditional

love and blind forgiveness J.D. had never been willing to give her.

He had seen Sondra for what she was early on - a spoiled city girl who had

fallen in love with the idea of loving a cowboy but had quickly fallen

out of love with the realities of ranch life. She had taken out her

unhappiness on her husband, punishing Tom Rafferty for her own failings

and miseries, and punishing his eldest son for seeing past her pretty

golden facade. Will had been too young to know the difference. J.D. had

never been that young.

He shoved the memories away, succeeding in shutting out all but the

lingering, bitter aftertaste. That he very easily transferred onto

outsiders as the maroon Jag roared past, all shiny new chrome and

dark-tinted windows hiding the rich interior and the richer occupants.

There had been Raffertys on the Stars and Bars for more than a century.

That heritage was something J.D. had been born proud of and would fight

to the death to preserve. As a rancher, he had several enemies:

capricious weather, capricious markets, and the bone-headed government.

But as far as he was concerned, no threat loomed larger than that of

outsiders buying up Montana.

Their pockets were bottomless, their bank accounts filled by obscene

salaries for work that seemed a parody of the word. They paid the moon

for land they didn't need to make a wage off and drove the property

values out of sight, taking the taxes along and leaving production

values in the dust. Half the ranches around New Eden had sold out

because they couldn't afford not to, sold out to people who wanted their

own private paradise and didn't care who they stepped on to get it.

People who had no respect for tradition or the honest workingman.

Outsiders.

Lucy MacAdam had been one of those outsiders, camped on the very edge

of Rafferty land like a vulture.

Marilee Jennings was too. It didn't matter that she had the biggest,

bluest eyes he'd ever seen or that those eyes were set deep beneath

brows three shades darker than the unruly mop of blond hair, which

suddenly struck him as being incredibly sexy. It didn't matter that she

was soft and curvy and he'd spent half the night dreaming about losing

himself in that softness.

The muscles in his jaw clenched at the reminder of his restless night.

She was trouble. He had made up his mind to dislike her. Unfortunately,

the message hadn't made it to the less discriminating parts of his

anatomy. Below his belt buckle all he could remember was the feel of her

bottom pushing back against him while his cock strained to set a

hard-on-of-the-year record. From his waist down he liked Marilee

Jennings just fine.

She thought he was a jerk.

You don't have to like me, Marilee.

Lucy had been of the opinion that emotions just got in the way of great