Sleepless in Montana (22 page)

Then Carley, dressed in a ragged sweat suit
she loved, stepped out onto the roof. Aaron and Mitch both shot out
hands to grip her hands until she settled firmly on the roof. She
shrugged them away. “Like old times. Wonder what Hogan is
doing?”

“Breathing brimstone and fire and cruising
that cold box he calls a house like a warlord on the prowl. Along
the way he’s probably making another million designing jewelry that
will sell for outrageous prices. His work will probably rest on
every millionairess’s silicone bosom,” Jemma muttered, more darkly
than she had intended.

Pictures of Simone D’Arcy preyed on her mind.
“Don’t tell me D’Arcy’s size C’s stuffed into that belly-button-low
neckline were real.”

“Wow. That was impressive coming from you.
You rarely care about necklines unless you’re wearing them.” Just
then Carley snapped, “Stop blowing in my ear, Snake. You’re lucky
you’re not rolling off this roof.”

“You’d just have to take care of me,” he
drawled. Sighing contentedly, he settled back.

“Home sweet home,” Aaron murmured dryly. “To
think I could actually be in my nice quiet civilized penthouse and
not worry about if a hoof is going to unman me during branding....
This place doesn’t have a surround-sound system. I tore my hand to
shreds with that putty knife today.”

Carley peered down at Ben and Dinah. “The
folks look okay together, don’t they? I wonder how long Dad can
manage his illness. He looks so good. I’m glad he’s got Savanna
here to help him. She’s totally dedicated to him. But I’m glad
we’re all here, too.”

She looked down to Mitch, who had just
stretched out his arm, patting his shoulder to indicate a place for
her head. “We’re all grown up now, Snake. I’m not a little girl
anymore, and I don’t need cuddling. Do you think Dad and Mom ever
thought anything was wrong after... just after that happened? They
never knew, did they?”

“No,” Jemma, Aaron, and Mitch said together.
Then when Carley stared off into the night, all of them knew what
she was thinking—the horror of that night.

“Dad doesn’t know that I’ve had letters from
that stalker, does he? He shouldn’t have to worry about anything as
dirty as that now, not when he’s... dying,” Carley whispered
raggedly.

“You’re not the dirty one, Carley,” Jemma
stated hotly. “You didn’t do anything wrong. This is bringing it
all back, isn’t it?”

Carley nodded. “But I want to be here for
Dad. He can’t know, and Mom would never forgive me.”

“Dammit! For what?” Mitch erupted, sitting up
and glaring at her. “For being in the wrong place at the wrong
time? Jemma’s right, you didn’t deserve what happened and you can’t
blame yourself for the rest of your life. And you can’t bury
yourself in food and sweat clothes.”

“Take it easy, Mitch,” Jemma warned.

To Carley, she said, “He’s just tired, like
the rest of us. His snarling will be gone in the morning.”

“Stop protecting her from reality, Jemma.
It’s time she faced the facts and moved on with her life,” Mitch
said sharply, getting up to leave the trio alone.

“Everyone is going to have to stop running my
life,” Carley said very quietly. “I can protect myself from Mitch’s
evil moods. He just likes to torment me, that’s all.”

But later that night, when the old house had
settled, Jemma listened to Carley sob quietly. Without hesitating,
Jemma eased from her bed and into Carley’s single one. She nudged
her hip against Carley’s. “We’re bigger than we used to be, huh? Or
else this bed is smaller.”

“I couldn’t bear to go through that again,
Jemma,” Carley whispered shakily. “He made me feel so dirty. I
couldn’t bear to be held down again like that.”

“You know what? I think you’re brave. You’re
putting aside your fears for Ben’s sake. Besides that you paid a
bundle for all those self-defense classes and you’re really
good.”

“I can feel him out there—waiting.” Carley
began to shake and curled away from Jemma.

Jemma rose to lean over her. “Then feel Ben
and Hogan and Mitch and Aaron, too. If I were that sicko, I
wouldn’t want to tangle with any one of them. And hey, what about
me? Don’t I count? Wasn’t I there in every one of those
self-defense classes, bruising my butt along with yours? He won’t
come near you. He’d be a fool to even try.”

Carley was quiet for a time, and then she
warned, “Don’t test Hogan too much, Jemma. I saw him watching you,
and he’s interested. He’s never tried to get women, they’ve just
thrown themselves at him. If he decides he wants you, you might not
be able to brush him away as lightly as the others. You were
playing with them, getting what you wanted and dancing away. Hogan
isn’t like Aaron or Mitch. My oldest brother has infinite patience
when he wants something. You’ve seen him work with horses.”

Jemma had seen Hogan’s slow, easy style with
balking horses, and that worried her. She’d successfully chilled
any moves upon her, but Hogan had snared her for a moment in the
van. Losing that control, fighting her needs and his tenderness,
was terrifying. “I’m not interested. I went into a heavy-duty
commitment when I got married and see how that ended?”

Carley’s disbelieving “uh-huh” kept Jemma
awake long into the night.

*** ***

Hogan ran his finger down Mulvaney’s report.
The investigator was thorough, but had not been able to reveal new
information. Aaron’s visit to the sheriff’s office proved that
there were no strangers in Kodiak, or the surrounding towns,
violence was at a minimum— except for Artie Moore’s harassment of
Savanna.

Closely watched now, Artie hadn’t been happy
with Savanna’s protection of his battered wife and children.
Slighter and faster than Artie, and schooled in karate, Richard
Coleman had quickly taken away the knife held at Savanna’s throat.
Artie was now under close watch, and Savanna hadn’t filed charges—
but she would, if Artie came near his children or soon-to-be
ex-wife.

But eighteen years ago, Artie had been in
Florida when Carley was attacked.

Jackson Reeves had been a classmate, in
reform schools and later jails, and protected by his doting mother,
the Richmonds’ cleaning woman for years. Hogan made a mental note
to keeping checking on Jackson.

Merry Reeves, a birdlike, frightened woman
and Jackson’s mother, would lie to protect him.

Hogan glanced at the digital lights of the
alarm system mirroring the one at Ben’s house, and then at his own.
If anything happened to Ben’s system, Hogan’s would announce it at
the Bar K ranch house. The separate alarm system for Hogan’s house
remained silent. The mini-alarm unit that he carried on his belt
when outside was linked into both systems.

After a cold shower, he went to the studio
and touched the modified drawing of his Fire Feathers necklace
design. The edges of the feathers seemed to lift and turn and
ripple upon the paper. That is how he had felt when Jemma’s long
curved body moved beneath his, a flow that had excited him, a
quiver of flesh that showed she wasn’t immune to him.

He eased down on the rug in front of his
fire, watching the flames feed upon the wood.

Her half-closed lids had excited a savagery
in him that he hadn’t expected.

As an artist, he’d studied a woman’s body. As
a man, he’d served his needs and knew the sensuality in a woman’s
body. In Paris, as a student and away from the restrictions of the
Kodiak name, he’d dived into lush, willing, knowledgeable women,
feasted upon them. His sexual affair with Simone had ended long
ago, and at that time both their needs had been served.

Now, just watching Jemma, that quick restless
movement of her head, those elegant hands, he found himself reeling
in a sensual mist that he’d sooner not experience now.

Or did she call forth the hunter in him, a
man needing more than sex, but needing the chase? What were the
haunting images that swirled around and in that fiery sunlit
hair?

He was already excited by the thought of her,
alone with him, and that fascination was troublesome, because it
deepened by the hour.

He ran his fingers across the penciled
drawing, letting the sketched feathers flow into his fingers and
into that secret creative place reserved for him alone. He saw
Jemma, pale and nude, the feather necklaces almost savage around
her throat, her vivid hair swirling up and around her head, taken
by the wind.

Women usually came to him, not that he
beckoned. But the novelty of pursuing a woman he’d known from
girlhood, changing the dynamics into lovers wouldn’t be easy.

He shifted restlessly; he wasn’t happy with
the knowledge that his body wanted hers; Jemma Delaney’s restless,
dedicated-to-self-and-money style chafed the peaceful calm that
Hogan had forged in his life. He raked his hand through his hair,
pushing back the shoulder-length strands, and realized the gesture
was that of frustration.

He never allowed himself frustration; he’d
had too much of it in his lifetime.

Hogan smiled as the telephone rang and picked
up his cordless phone nearby. “Hello, Jemma.”

The silence at the other end of the line told
him that he’d gotten to her again, a game he really enjoyed. Her
“Oh, hello,” was too off-hand.

Hogan rolled to his side and studied the
flames. He settled back to enjoy nettling Jemma’s fast temper,
toying with her and listening to the different, telling tones of
her voice.

“You wanted me?” he asked to set her off, to
place her in the position of pursuing him.

The catching sound of her breath caused him
to smile. “Jemma?”

“It says in this book that we should be
catching rainbow or brown trout, not native cutthroat. Are you sure
you know what you’re doing? Do I need to go to the bait and tackle
shop tomorrow? How big are they? I need one about forty pounds or
so.”

“Cutthroat. I like how they fight. Try three
pounds, and you don’t need to buy anything to start.”

“But I bought all this stuff! That small? I
want a really big fish. Hogan, I think we should—”

“Relax, honey. See you tomorrow,” he drawled
and clicked off the cordless telephone. The memory of Jemma
relaxing beneath his massage, her “oh! oh!” sounding like that of a
woman at the peak of her ecstasy was enough to make his jeans
uncomfortably tight over his desire.

He smiled as the telephone rang again.
Playing phone games with women hadn’t been in his life, but with
Jemma, he was learning new interests. “Yes?”

“You’re rude, you know,” she shot at him.

He imagined how she’d look, all steamed up
and sassy. “Why don’t you come over here and tell me that?”

After a slight hesitation, Jemma hung up.
Hogan rolled to his back, placed his hands behind his head, and
smiled. He realized he was looking forward to having Jemma alone,
stirring her up and watching her ignite.

*** ***

The Kodiaks thought they could protect her,
his Celestial Virgin, but they couldn’t. She’d waited for him,
buried herself in food and loose clothing, but she was perfect He
was, of course, the only suitable male for her, himself a virgin
after all these years of hungering for her. He saw her opening her
silk robe for him, allowing him to be the first—

Time was on his side, and he was a patient
man. He’d waited since that night. She’d been nothing but thrashing
arms and legs and fearful eyes, and now she would be his alone.

Of course she was still a virgin, he’d sensed
that immediately, reading the innocence on her face. He’d take the
prize she’d saved for him. The others weren’t virgins, already
used, and he’d had to kill them.

But Carley would be intact, her body pure. He
groaned aloud, his desire rising hard and aching as he smoothed the
folded white oriental robe that he intended her to wear that first
time. He’d studied the reports of the area’s 1880s Celestial
Virgins, brought from China to please the prospectors. Almost
children, they’d been auctioned and sold, and then when they were
no longer pleasing, they had been taken into the mountains to
die.

Maybe it was true, that the winds coming down
the canyons carried their cries— He liked the sound of crying,
pleading women...

His skill and patience, his years of waiting,
would soon be rewarded with the gift of his bride’s body. “Only a
matter of time. The Kodiaks are too stormy to stay together long,
and they’ll fly away to their own lives. Then I’ll have Carley for
my bride.”

*** ***

“Thanks.” Hogan took the quart jar of iced
lemonade from Dinah with one hand, and with the other sank his
post-hole digger to rest deep into the rich spring earth.

A row of fence posts that needed replacement
stretched over the knoll and into the woods. The new grass was
pushing through the rich dark earth now, and by summer the stalks
would be flowing, undulating like green waves in the wind.

Dinah’s fine pale hair caught the wind,
lifting around her ageless face. “When you’re ready to eat, I
brought sandwiches for lunch. Jemma’s alfalfa-sprout jar seems to
be endless. She’s determined that we’re all going to be quite
healthy, despite the fact that she and Carley managed to sneak down
to the kitchen around three or so this morning and devour a can of
frosting.”

She lifted her face to the slight, fragrant
breeze. “Carley must have been upset, and Jemma is there for her in
a way I can’t seem to be. I love Jemma for what she’s done for
Carley... Jemma has never once failed my daughter. But I know all
of you— Jemma, Carley, Aaron, Mitch, you— share some dark secret
that has to do with Carley, and none of you are about to tell
me.”

Dinah had always taken special care to seek
him out, trying to draw him closer to the rest, to mend the wound
between father and son. He realized that the familiar sight of her,
dressed like a girl in jeans and a sweatshirt, her pale hair
catching the slight midmorning breeze, caused him to remember how
she had been— happy and glowing— before Ben drove her away. Hogan
ached for the woman he could not help then.