Montana Wildfire (52 page)

"I'm going to take that walk," he grumbled over his shoulder, his long, silent steps never breaking stride.

Amanda watched him meld with the shadowy trees—the white bandage wrapped around his arm stood out in stark contrast. Her gaze blurred with unshed tears, and a lump of emotion wedged in her throat, clogging his name there. She didn't realize she'd taken a step to follow him until she felt the support of the tree behind her melt away.

Given the chance,
would
she have swallowed her pride—bitter tasting though it was—and chased after Jake? The question would forever remain unanswered. She'd taken no more than a step when Roger tossed fitfully in his sleep and called out her name.

Amanda felt a weight of responsibility settle over her like a lead blanket. Though her gaze wavered between the boy and the spot where she'd watched Jake disappear, there was never a question in her mind as to what she had to do.

She'd been hired to take care of Roger. No matter that her life was falling apart. No matter that her insides felt ripped and shredded. She wasn't being paid to indulge in self-pity, she was being paid to get Roger to Pony. She hadn't done a very good job so far, but her job was still days from being over.

As she turned her steps to the child huddled beneath her blanket, Amanda realized that she needed to see this job through to its end much more than she'd originally thought she would. Not for the money—though she needed that too—but to help heal her battered self-respect. She'd rarely finished anything she'd started in her life, but this time she would. She needed to prove to herself that she could do it, and...

Oh, who was she kidding? She needed to prove it to
Jake,
no one else. He thought her a silly Bostonian princess—hadn't he said it often enough? She needed to prove that she wasn't... not anymore, thanks to the time she'd spent with him.

Since it was inevitable they would part company—he'd made
that
painfully clear—Amanda wanted to sever the ties between them completely and cleanly, in the way they'd originally agreed upon. She would get Roger to Pony, and she would collect her hard-earned salary from Edward Bannister. Then, she would pay Jake the money she owed him. Immediately and in full. Only in that way could she prove to them both what she doubted Jake even now believed. That, when she set her mind to it, Amanda Lennox
was
a woman of her word.

"Stop it, princess. You look fine."

"I look awful."

"No, Miss Lennox, you don't," Roger said. "Honest. You look fine. Besides, I think my father is going to be looking at me more than you anyway."

The trio had reined in their horses at the very outskirts of Pony. Amanda, positioned between Jake and Roger, barely glanced at the small but busy mining town. If she'd had time to think about it, that would have told her something; it would have told her that boardwalks, false-fronted stores, and numerous tawdry saloons were becoming all-too familiar sights.

She cast a quick glance at Roger and was again stunned by how much the boy had changed. Bad dreams had kept him awake most of the last two nights, but he was easily comforted by Amanda's soothing touch and voice. More often than not, he clung to her until he found his way back to sleep.

By day he'd been sullen and introspective; not only wasn't he as quick to ridicule, but he was also not quick to talk at all. He rarely spoke of his time in captivity, and he
never
mentioned the Raffertys. When he talked at all, it was to voice his eagerness to be reunited with his father.

There were physical changes in the boy as well, the primary one being that he was noticeably thinner. The baby fat that had once rounded his cheeks and stomach was gone; his time with the Raffertys had melted it away. His arms and legs, hidden in the laughably large folds of Jake Chandler's clothes, now looked gangly and awkward.

Roger's rumpled attire reminded Amanda of her own. She sighed, and a scowl puckered her brow when she glanced down. The yellow muslin dress wasn't as bright as it had been when she'd bought it. The sun had faded the color from daffodil to watery butter. The fabric itself was wrinkled from having been crammed into her saddlebag.

Roger, she noticed with a touch of sarcasm, wasn't the only one who'd shed a few pounds. Last night she'd convinced Jake to return her corset. After weeks of freedom, the contraption felt tight and confining. Lord, she could barely breathe! She hadn't had to work the laces very tightly, however, and her bodice still felt loose, telling her that she had lost weight as well.

Her gaze had settled on her wrinkled muslin lap. She realized it only when a big copper hand inserted itself into her view and settled heavily atop her thigh. The imprint of those thick, familiar fingers burned through the cloth, branding like hot iron into her skin. A shiver rippled down Amanda's spine, reminding her to the second of how long it had been since Jake had touched her. Too long, the sizzling jolt of sensation that shot through her said. A surge of desire clawed at her, and that bizarre emptiness reasserted itself. Both left her feeling breathless and shaken.

"You look fine, Amanda," Jake repeated gruffly.

"I do? Really?"

"Uh-huh. All cool and refined and... princess-like."
Untouchable
, was the word Jake added to himself, because it fit her better. She looked poised, regal, cold as ice. Dignified. Ladylike.
White.

Jake's hand reluctantly left her thigh. Like his gaze, his fingers strayed to the golden bun she'd knotted at her nape. He stroked the tight twist of hair; it felt like spun silk under his fingertip. His gut kicked, and it was all he could do not to tug the knot free and bury his hands up to the wrists in all that flowing, fragrant softness. He wanted to nuzzle his face in her hair, to suck into his body the sweet, sweet scent that clung to every sunlit strand.

He didn't do it, of course. It had taken her so much time to pin the thick, heavy tresses up, and she'd probably have a fit if he pulled it all down now. But the urge was there, and it was damn strong. When it came right down to it, he preferred die thick gold braid she usually wore; it made her look more human, more accessible, less prissy and refined.

Pain shimmied up his arm when Jake pulled his hand back. His calloused fingertips brushed that sensitive spot behind her ear. He saw her shiver, and knew she wasn't as unaffected by his touch as she wanted him to believe.

"I, um, suppose we should find Edward Bannister now," Amanda said, and the saddle creaked beneath her when she fidgeted. She chided herself for being silly; she felt nervous as a cat, but it couldn't be helped. Jake's touch did that to her. One glance, one touch—no matter how innocent—went through her like lightning. She couldn't think of a time when it hadn't. She didn't
want
to think of a time when it hadn't. But she was going to have to. Soon now, whether she liked it or not.

"You that anxious to get your money, princess?" Jake asked softly, so Roger wouldn't overhear.

What? What will you get, Jake?

My money. Every last cent of it. The sooner we get that brat back, the sooner I can be rid of you.

Amanda sucked in a sharp breath. "No, what I am is anxious to pay you."

His eyes narrowed, yet even through the shadows cast by the wide brim of his hat she saw his gaze sparkle dangerously.

"For services rendered, Miss Lennox?"

The way his gaze fed hungrily on her lips told Amanda that finding Roger was
not
the service Jake was referring to. Her cheeks paled, then flooded with color. Before she realized what she was doing, her hand lifted. Her open palm arched toward his cheek.

Jake's smokey gaze flashed with knowledge. He knew what Amanda was going to do before she knew it herself. He had plenty of time to deflect the blow if he wanted to. He didn't.

The slap was harsh and stinging—to them both.

Jake's head whipped back with the force of it. He turned back toward her almost immediately, and Amanda blanched to see the red imprint of her hand outlined against his deep copper skin. The muscle there ticked erratically. His jaw was tight and hard.

She made to snatch her stinging hand back, but Jake didn't give her time. His arm throbbed as, lightning quick, he grabbed her. His fingers banded around her slender wrist in a grip just shy of painful.

"I owed you that one, princess. But
only
that one," he growled, his gaze burned into her.

Amanda's breath caught when she remembered that first night. The fire. Jake's body molding into her back as he taught her how to whirl a stick in just the right way to start a spark. And then she thought of the match that he'd had all along, the way he'd tricked her.
Remind me to slap you tomorrow.
Oh yes, she remembered it, all of it. Dear God, how could she ever
forget?

The fingers around her wrist tightened. "Don't ever slap me again, lady. Like you've said often, and I've always agreed, I'm like no...
gentleman
you've ever met. Next time, I
will
slap you back. Hard enough to make your prissy little head spin."

He released her so abruptly that Amanda had to grab the saddle pommel to keep from falling off the horse. She opened her mouth to apologize, plain and simple. For a split second she'd forgotten that nothing was plain and simple when it came to Jacob Blackhawk Chandler. Not only did he complicate seemingly everything, but he also gave her no chance to utter a sound.

"I'll check around, see where Bannister's at. Sooner we get this over with, the better," Jake said over his shoulder as he jerked the reins and started guiding the white toward Pony's only street. "Wait here."

A few minutes slipped tensely past before Roger glanced over at Amanda. "He will come back, won't he?"

Amanda shrugged. She was trying to fight the feeling of desolation—and failing miserably. "Does it matter?"

Roger shrugged, and turned his gaze back to the swinging door of the false-fronted saloon they'd both seen Jake disappear inside of. "I guess not. Well, Miss Lennox, it seems the next logical question would be, do we wait for him?"

As it had for the past two days, Roger's oddly mature tone surprised Amanda, Except for the timbre, there was no similarity between this voice and the whiny, petulant one that she was used to having taunt her. She answered him question for question. "Do you want to wait for him?"

"Not really, but... well, to be honest, there's something about that man that scares me. I don't trust him, yet I don't
dis
trust him, either. Does that make sense, Miss Lennox?"

"Yes. I feel the same way."

Roger sat forward, eyeing her quizzically. "Do you think he'd be mad if he came back and found us gone?"

"Very." And a mad Jacob Blackhawk Chandler wasn't a man Amanda ever wanted to see again. Once had been more than enough, thank you. She shivered, remembering his icy hatred that night in his sister's cabin, the piercing glares that had looked right through her, his rough-to-the-point-of-violent touch.

Roger squirmed. While he was riding better these days, and seemed to have gotten over his sudden, unnatural fear of horses, Amanda couldn't help noticing how uncomfortable he was to be astride one. Surprisingly, he hadn't voiced a single complaint about it. Perhaps he'd sensed it would do no good? After all, horses were the only way to get to Pony.

"Do
you
want to wait for him, Miss Lennox?" Roger's tone said he would if she insisted, but that he'd rather not. Amanda knew that being this close and not being able to go on must be eating at him. He seemed every bit as impatient to put this god-awful journey behind him as she was.

"I don't see what harm scouting around for your father would do," she said finally. "And if we find him..." she shrugged, "well, I don't see what harm that would do, either." Except maybe to make Jake think she planned to collect her money without him seeing, and run off without paying him. His mistrust of her was strong enough to fuel such a conclusion, but she wouldn't let that stop her. Amanda knew she had no intention of leaving Pony until she'd paid Jake in full, and that was what really counted.

In the end, it took surprisingly little time to find out which house Edward Bannister lived in. Amanda simply stopped the first miner she passed and asked. He'd eyed her warily, but he told her what she wanted to know. And once he had, she realized she should have guessed on her own. What other house
would
Edward Bannister live in, except the biggest and best?

As she and Roger made their way toward the sprawling ornate structure, Amanda found herself wondering why Jake hadn't found out the information himself and returned by now. She was still wondering about that as she slipped from her saddle and tethered her mare to the porch railing.

The front door was flung wide open. It crashed against the outer wall of the house with a resounding slam.

The sunny day cast the porch—and the man standing in the open doorway—in shadows. Amanda didn't need to see all of the tall, thin man to know he was Edward Bannister. The resemblance between him and Roger was stunning; Roger had inherited the Bannister curls, the haughty tilt of chin, and the light blue eyes. Then, of course, there was the way Roger bounded up the stairs and catapulted himself into the man's arms. And the way the man in turn crouched down to wrap the boy in a tight hug.