Sleepless in Montana (12 page)

“Better be careful, Aaron, or I’ll dye your
hair again. You looked snazzy in orange,” Jemma teased.

“I love when you threaten. You get all hot
and wicked looking— uh!” Aaron hopped and rubbed his backside. “No
pinching.”

*** ***

At one o’clock that morning, Carley gathered
her worn flannel robe around her and sat curled in Ben’s chair. The
fire had died, banked for the night with ashes, and the old house
had settled in creaks and sighs.

Her life as a Kodiak swam before her: two
parents, each scarred and hurt by the other, yet loving her. Her
brothers, “the Sasquatches,” were men hardened by life, lines and
love on their faces as they looked at her.

Carley slapped a palm down on the smooth
curled wood of the chair.
“You’re never going to forget me,”
he’d rasped that night, his hands hurting her budding breasts. He’d
jammed himself against her, hurting her and yet not penetrating,
though he’d tried. Her body had resisted his and it only angered
him more.

He’d torn her mouth, though, bitten and hurt,
and his rage had slammed into her. When she was thirteen, those
fifteen minutes had been an eternity.

Now, eighteen years later, she was still
haunted—

Her hand stopped the soft wounded cry, and
she turned to the man moving from the shadows. “Mitch.”

He crouched in front of her chair, and, still
filled with her terror, she pulled her hands from his. “Baby,” he
said so softly that the sound of her beating heart almost buried
it. “Baby, I’m here.”

Firelight gleamed off his bare angular
shoulders, the old scars he never explained. His black waves were
rumpled as if he’d been running his hands through them.

He stood suddenly, a fit angular, beautiful
man, dressed only in jeans and brooding by the fire. He turned too
suddenly, surprising her. “Damn it, Carley. He’s won if you keep up
like this. He meant to hurt you, and you’re letting him.”

She pushed away that wave of anger, then let
it roll over her. “How would you know?” she shot at him. “How would
you know what it feels like?”

“I’d know, honey,” he said, reminding her of
the scarred youth Ben had adopted.

“You don’t know
this.
You don’t know
how I feel.”

His answer cut like a knife. “It’s written
all over you. You’ve pulled your life into a hole. I saw it in
Seattle. I saw how you shrank back when a man came near you,
someone you didn’t know. You’re afraid to be a woman.”

“Oh, well. Now that’s something you’d know
about— women. You’ve had your share.” Mitch’s attraction for women
was legendary; he was so smooth, so easy as he drew them to
him.

She’d never know that flirtation, didn’t want
to. Didn’t want to be under a man’s body again or hurt and told how
dirty she was—

“I like women. It’s natural, Carley. Your
fear of men isn’t. If you need someone to talk to—”

“That’s right. Pull out those big psychology
degrees. I do not want to be your study, Mitch. Leave me
alone.”

“That’s just the problem, Carley. Everyone
has left you alone. I don’t intend to. I just wanted you to see me
coming.”

She shot to her feet. She was smaller than
Mitch, but raised with the same hard steel. “Ben won’t have
it.”

His smile was cold and tight, and there was
nothing left of the boy who had been her brother all those years.
“That’s right. Hide behind Ben.”

“I’m not hiding behind anyone.” Carley knew
she sounded like a Kodiak, and only Mitch could taunt that steel
out of her.

“You’re hiding from yourself,” he said sadly,
and reached to tug her hair. “Darling, you’re still a virgin,
hoarding yourself. I’ll bet you haven’t had a kiss yet.”

“Why, Snake,” she cooed, fury licking at her.
“Not everyone kisses and tells.”

He chuckled at that, then in a lightning
change of expression, frowned down at her. “Talk to me when you
want. It’s killing them to see you like this, like a scared little
mouse, fear in your eyes when a man comes too close.”

To prove him wrong, she tried not to flinch
as Mitch curled his hand around her nape, his fingers stroking her
skin.

She’d known him for most of her life, saw him
change from street-smart “Snake” to a man. But she couldn’t stop
the tremble that moved up her body, the quick edging away from him.
“Don’t play the do-gooder with me, Mitch. I have a life and I like
it. Ben is—”

“He wants you here, and you came. That’s
family, Carley. Let me help.”

Because she couldn’t bear more, those soft
concerned eyes, the way his body gleamed in the firelight, Carley
tipped her head. “I’m going upstairs. Good night.”

“You’re running, Carley, and we both know it.
You have to do this for yourself. I can help. I’m trained to
help.”

Carley’s eyes were clear, glinting in the
firelight. That fine Kodiak tempered steel in her would see her
through life— if she’d let it. “You know where you can stuff your
help, don’t you, Mitch? I’m not buying.”

After she had gone, the house settling again,
Mitch placed a hand on the rough-hewn wooden mantel and stared at
the banked fire. He’d given her too much time to grow up, to shed
the damage done to her at a tender age.

There would be hell to pay when Ben
discovered Mitch had always wanted Carley.

“Some way to pay Ben back, by craving his
daughter,” Mitch muttered darkly, and damned the stalker for
hurting her all those years ago.

Then he remembered the steel in Carley’s
tone, that quick slap of her temper, and knew she remained a Kodiak
beneath the layers. “She just hasn’t been pushed, and I intend to
push plenty. She’s wallowed in that night enough.”

He wanted the woman within— that sweet tender
bud that had been nipped too soon and too harshly would have been
more woman than—
Was he pushing for her sake? Or for his
own?

*** ***

Hogan was home before he realized he wore
Jemma’s black ruffled band around his wrist.

He ripped it from him and tossed it to the
living-room floor on his way to the bedroom. The room was stark,
the flat pillowless bed covered with a lush woven blanket, Native
American in style. The large baskets held much of his work, a
clutter of sketchbooks by his bed for the hours he couldn’t sleep.
Hogan clicked on the sound system and tried to let the notes of a
solitary flute soothe him. He tried to concentrate on paperwork, to
return his e-mail messages and failed.

Whatever stirred inside him now had nothing
to do with his commercial drive. It had to do with finding his
soul—

He toyed with the carnelian beads he would
use in his designs. The dark red shade reminding him of Jemma’s
hair....

Jemma.
All bold, fast-talking, pushing
woman, an outsider who wouldn’t allow herself to be, easily
blending in with the rest of the Kodiak family.

Sunlight had caught in her hair, the strands
layered in deep waves. There was that proud, defiant lift of her
chin, steely anger in her gray eyes. All passion-ripe, heat pouring
from her, Jemma could fill his needs, but the consequences would be
dear. She wasn’t an easy woman, filled with pride and needs that
almost devoured every breath. Her love for Carley redeemed her, and
the bond to Dinah was clearly strong.

“Damn her.” Jemma would keep her promise to
invade his privacy— his “lair.”

She grated on his nerves; she excited him on
a sensual level.

He damned his need to touch and stroke
Jemma’s body. Brittle with emotions, Hogan crouched to build a fire
and spotted the ruffled band lying on the gleaming wood floor.

He picked it up, and, in the firelight, a
long fiery strand of hair erotically slid along his dark skin. He
wrapped it around his fingertip, smoothing the silky texture with
his thumb. After all the years he’d known her, he knew little about
her.
What drove her to mend the deep tears in his family? Why
was she so desperate, jabbing away at calculator buttons and
figuring profit and losses the moment she latched on to an
idea?

Jemma had haunted him for years. Hogan had
filled his body’s hunger with other women, but the need for her was
still there, ripe and hot and waiting.

Hogan padded to his sleek uncluttered office,
apart from his studio to keep from business distractions. If Jemma
wanted to dig at his family roots, it was time to learn about hers.
At his uncluttered glass-and-chrome desk, Hogan picked up the
copies of the stalker’s notes to Carley, included in Jemma’s file.
Cut and pasted letters would be hard to trace.

Hogan remembered Carley’s scream that night
and Jemma’s startling, too-adult rage.
There was more to this
than a protective friend, much more.

He rubbed his scar and prayed that Carley
would not be hurt.

*** ***

All the Kodiaks were gathering around sweet
Carley, and now she was so close to being his Celestial Virgin.

He’d always hated the Kodiaks and the
mongrel, Mitch, that Ben had adopted.

Now he would tear the very heart from them.
Dear, sweet, virginal Carley would be his. He had to have her, the
virgin she remained after all these years, waiting for him.
She
would be pure, he knew, but the others weren’t. They’d
shared their bodies, pretended to be virgins to the world, but they
weren’t and so they’d had to die.

Only Carley would be unique, perfect, clean,
and pure.

He’d changed her. Since that night other men
hadn’t been interested in her with her frumpy clothes and shy
temperament. The added weight was appealing, because he knew that
was a protection to keep her for him. His research of her records,
easily obtained, had revealed few male friendships.

He’d watched her grow into an adult, a
professional, dedicated to her work, running the temporary
employment service. She was very good, very thorough, his Carley.
But then he deserved this perfect virgin he had created, who had
waited for him— an intelligent, pure woman.

He frowned, hating the Kodiak men, tall tough
men bred to the West. Mitch, Ben’s adopted son, was just as
physical. Women loved them, of course—
stupid women. But they
couldn’t have Carley— because she was his.

Because his darling, perfect virgin had
waited to give her body to him.

*** ***

Chapter Five

“Jemma got Hogan to come to the breakfast
table. She’s smart and tough, just like my son. They’re a good
match,” Ben said to Sagebrush, a sturdy, ordinary-looking brown
quarter horse. Sagebrush responded to Ben’s uninjured leg better
than any other horse, but when tested, Sagebrush had a fighting
spirit, just like his sons.

Ben settled back in the saddle, letting the
horse pick his way up the fir-and-spruce-studded knoll to the old
line shack. As a teenager, Hogan had stayed at the shack more than
he stayed at the house or bunkhouse. As a teenager rebelling
against old Aaron, Ben had stayed there, too.

He smiled briefly and checked the gasoline
can tied to his saddle horn. From the sounds behind him, he knew
another horse followed. “That would be Hogan, coming to set the
rules of this fandango, Sagebrush.”

Like Ben, Hogan liked emotional boundaries,
used them to protect himself. Ben smiled again and raised his face
to the clear Montana sky, letting the scents drift into him. This
son was a tracker, bred to it, and could follow a cold-dead trail
through a midnight rain.

Hogan would know that the shack would provide
a perfect overlook to the ranch. To keep Carley safe, it had to be
destroyed.

“He’s a hard son of a gun,” Ben said,
admiring his son. “Went his own way. Made his life and fortune. An
artist—what do you think of that, Sagebrush? Would you think that a
Kodiak could have that in him? He reached for the stars, and got
them, too.”

Ben acknowledged the pride in his voice. “Ah,
he’s a lonely man, Sagebrush. And if he doesn’t watch it, he’ll
throw away his chance for happiness, just like I did mine. We’re
alike, you know, and the trail is set too deep. Dinah has hope in
her eyes that things will change between us, but I ruined it once,
and I could do it again.”

He slowed Sagebrush just that small bit, to
let his son’s Appaloosa gelding come alongside him. His son had
picked a fine strong horse with good lines; Moon Shadow was
probably out of Mike Blue Feather’s herd.

Hogan always knew horses, how to pick them.
He knew how to talk gently, touching and gaining the horse’s trust
and acceptance of a rider. There was nothing like seeing Hogan ride
in the rodeo, except seeing him with the horses, how they came to
him. Animals knew a good heart, and Hogan’s was true.

Ben’s heart skipped a beat and went sailing
into the sunlight; it felt good to ride beside his son, clean cold
Montana air upon his face and the horse riding over Kodiak land.
His family was together again, and a man couldn’t ask for more—

Dinah.
Ben lifted his face to the
breeze scented of pines and the earth that lay waiting for his
tractor. Dinah still filled his heart every time he thought of her,
coming home to him, just as she had as a bride. Of how she felt in
his arms, all soft and sweet, how her blue eyes looked up at him as
if he was all she could see or feel.

There was that quick glance to the shambles
that had been her pride, her garden. The slow drift of her hand
over the old furniture that had belonged to his mother. As a bride,
she’d stripped away the black varnish, and the wood gleamed new
now, the old claw-foot buffet, and the sprawling spool-leg table.
In the bedroom, she’d babied a freestanding closet into life— an
“armoire,” she called it.

There would be plants and flowers in the
house this summer, silly little things that showed a woman’s
touch.