Tallchief for Keeps (23 page)

Elspeth’s endless legs in a short, hot, red number had lodged an uncomfortable hardness low in Alek’s body. If making love to Elspeth happened a second night, he didn’t intend to wake up to the entire Tallchief clan and end up in kilts and feathers.

Like the summer thunderstorm brewing
on the mountains, Alek sensed that Elspeth would make her move tonight—if Alaina’s visit hadn’t put her off. Somehow he doubted that anything could put Elspeth off from what she wanted. Alek hoped she wanted him.

Outside, the wind whipped at the rosebushes he had planted in the front, and upstairs he heard the first creak. Alek smiled; he hadn’t expected Elspeth to use the tree route. He rubbed his earring, listened to her progress across his new roof, and then a board in his bedroom creaked.

Alek bent to pick up the
blanket roll and the picnic basket he’d prepared. Then he slipped out of his house into the night.

Ten

E
lspeth pulled her van into what used to be the Kostyas’ driveway; she parked next to Alek’s pickup. She placed her hand on his hood, which was still warm.

Moonlight filtered through the old
oaks sheltering the house. Out on the mountain hillside, sheep seemed to float over a hill. Cattle grazed in the fields, and Yakov and Yuri, the Kostya mules, looked at her from the corral. A white-eyed sheepdog ran from the sheep to her. “Hello, Fadey.”

Fadey panted, accepted her ruffling of his black-and-white pelt, then bounded back to his sheep. Protective of the Kostyas, Fadey wasn’t a dog to give his affections lightly or to trust trespassers on his property. The dog knew Alek well to have let him pass. So Alek had been coming here, making friends with the Kostyas, had he?

Elspeth crushed Alek’s note in her hand. She’d found it beneath a rose, lying upon his cot. “The shawl isn’t here/’ he’d written in that bold script that few could read. Nothing could keep her from Una’s shawl tonight, nor from Alek. After a stop at the newspaper office, a call to Talia and Duncan, another sip or two of wine, Elspeth knew that Alek Petrovna had barricaded himself in the Kostya farm place.

Only Alek would know that she wanted this homestead desperately and he’d plucked it from her.
Though she loved her house, she’d dreamed of having this farm, of tending the sheep and milking her cows. She’d dreamed of placing her mother’s things amid new ones. She’d thought to make the Kostyas an offer, but she’d been…tied up with life. She phrased the thought carefully. She hadn’t taken the time, and now Alek had scooped a dream away from her.

She bent to pet Sophy, the barn cat winding around her feet, and studied the darkened two-story house with the opened front door. The Kostyas didn’t trust electricity, and a lamp glowed within the old house, spreading a square of gold upon the front porch.

Elspeth ripped off the note pinned to the front door: “Make sure you shut the front door and blow out the lamp. Sorry I missed you.”

“Aye. You’ll be sorry, Petrovna.” Elspeth went back to her van, retrieved a flashlight and her tartan plaid—if he played games in the mountains, she’d need the warmth. She quickly braided her hair into a single rope, then began looking for signs of Alek’s passing. His boot prints were too big to miss, tromping through a newly plowed field, headed straight to a glade near a stream.

The man couldn’t grow
anything but roses. How did he expect to take care of a farm? As her father had taught her, Elspeth turned off the flashlight and let the moon guide her, noting a bent stalk, a freshly broken twig on the path to where her mother and she had often gathered sumac berries, goldenrod, wild rose hips and blue lupine flowers for dye.

She hadn’t tracked in years, since before—Elspeth pushed that time away, on her way to run down Alek.

Elspeth entered the shadows of the pines,
slipping through them to watch the bubbling stream. She reached up to pull a black, curling hair drifting from a pine cone; she lifted it to the moonlight. “You need a haircut, Petrovna.”

Higher on the mountain, an owl shot high into the sky. Elspeth bent to trace a boot track and another, then stood and straightened, drawing the tartan around her. Alek was headed to the meadow that she’d just passed the day before. From the distance of his foot-prints and the depth, he was loping up a mountain.

“You’ll have to run faster than that to keep ahead of me, Petrovna,” she muttered, inhaling the clean mountain air. Nothing could keep her from running Alek into the ground.

Alek wasn’t an easy man, but he didn’t have to make the catching so hard, Elspeth thought, pressing her hand to her side and panting. Every muscle ached, including some she didn’t know she had, until Alek pushed her over the edge. He liked edges, did he? She intended to give him plenty of them.

She moved quickly over rocks and fallen logs, tracing his path. Every muscle ached, her head throbbed and Alek had Una’s shawl. She stepped into the meadow, panting, sweaty and dragging herself every step.
She’d caught him!

Elspeth paused at the edge of the meadow, the light of predawn shimmering in the dewy flower field between them.

He’d been waiting,
praying she’d be safe.

His heart lurched just looking at her cross the mountain daisies almost reaching her bare thighs. Did she come for the shawl, neatly folded and tucked in the basket? Panic skidded up his back and coiled low in his gut. He wanted her to want him more than anything she’d ever desired in her lifetime.

Elspeth took her time in coming to him, and with each step Alek forced himself to breathe. Almost black, her eyes locked with his, the dim light catching her high cheekbones, glistening in the length of her blue-black hair. He saw her take in his bare chest, the scars on it, the hair arrowing low to his jeans. Alek placed his hands in his back pockets, afraid that he would touch too soon when he wanted her to come to him. To love him. To hold him and let him love her. He’d settle for half a love—his for her—and yet knew that Elspeth would have nothing so easy.

On her way to him, through that
sea of daisies, Elspeth was proud and ready to fight. He’d linger on the sight all the days of his life. The tops of her bare thighs glistened with dew; Alek sucked in air and remembered the strong feel of them beneath his touch, wrapped around him. He waited for her to speak, to make the first move.

She slanted a glance up at him, not making it easy. “You have the shawl.”

“It’s yours. Take it.” Would he ever forget the look of her, a huntress on the prowl, ready to take him down? He clung to the hope that maybe, just maybe, she wanted him more than the legendary shawl.

She circled him slowly, dragging her fingertip around his waistband until she stood in front of him. Her fingertip reached to touch his scarred lip lightly. “Where did you get this?”

He caught the scent of her, one he’d remember until eternity. “Minding an orphan, stuck in the middle of no-man’s-land and scared as hell. I was running, carrying Danny, and went down in shrapnel. Danny made k out without a scratch. I had a stitch or two.”

In another minute,
he’d be dragging her to him. He glanced at her breasts and wished he hadn’t; her shirt was damp, clinging to her and showing every curve. Her nipples peaked against the light cloth, and Alek’s mouth dried. He strained to keep his mind on her questions, but his body was strained, as well.

“Did you adopt him?”

Whatever roamed in Elspeth’s sea-gray eyes told him that she would choose what happened between them. He kissed her roaming fingertip. “He’s enjoying a family here in the States, adopted and safe.”

“How did you break this?” She touched his nose.

“Back in Texas and again
in Germany.”

Elspeth touched the scars on his neck and cheek. Alek shuddered just once; it wasn’t easy feeling like a Christmas package about to be opened and inspected. “Do my scars bother you?” he asked hoarsely, surprising himself.

“I like texture,” she murmured, tracing the smooth old scars along his cheek and throat.

He snorted at that. “Texture. Now, that’s a name fork.”

“Interesting
texture,” she
corrected, and his heart went still, waiting.

Her fingertips drifted over his bare chest lightly, circling each nipple. Her feather-light touch roamed to his shoulder, skimmed his back and trailed down his spine as she moved around him, giving him nothing but her heat and the maddening scent of her body. Her finger trailed over his wrists, touched his palms, locked to his pockets. He shuddered as her lips touched his back, soothing an old scar caused by shimmying under a wire barricade.

“You made me come looking for you, Alek. I know the look of a planted trail, and that’s exactly what you did, breaking branches as you went, swaggering heavy enough to plant a good print. You should know, the bear and cougar on Tallchief Mountain aren’t exactly friendly.”

“I passed some of the wildlife on my way up here. They seemed friendly enough.” He’d worried, guilt biting him until minutes seemed like hours. He’d timed the moment her van arrived at the Kostyas’ former farm and the time it took her to cross the meadow. He’d traced her progress with his binoculars. She was good, stopping to mark his passing, trained by her father. The Tallchiefs should have let her go with them, tracking on the mountain that night her parents were killed. Elspeth had been put in her place, and Alek wanted to give some of that back. He knew how he’d feel if he were left behind. She’d not been allowed to go with them that night, but tonight she’d prove to herself that she could. Yet if anything had happened to her, he’d—

He arched against the stroke of her lips on his back.

He needed to breathe—he’d stopped when she began touching him. He sucked in air, filled with her scent.

She stood on tiptoe, leaning against
him, her lips against the corner of his mouth. Her hands smoothed up to his neck and locked around him, fingers playing in his hair.

He wouldn’t grab her, drag her closer yet to him. Then he did, hands splayed across her long back. “Come here, sweetheart,” he whispered against her lips, and caught the taste of wine and woman and desire.

“I’m here.” Elspeth bit his lip, kissed a path to his earlobe, and her tongue toyed with his earring. “You couldn’t make this easy, could you?”

“And have that
family of yours arriving on our doorsteps?” he scoffed. He breathed deeply, savoring the twin press of her breasts against him. “I’ve got plans that don’t include them.”

She smiled against the curve of his throat, her fingers digging slightly into his shoulder. “Tell me.”

First I’ll tell you I love you and watch that sink in. Then, because you’ll look so flustered, I’ll damn myself and go all the way, telling you all my dreams.
Instead, Alek bent to scoop her bottom in his hands, dragging her body upward. She locked her legs around his hips, her arms looped around his shoulders as he hoped she would.

“If we go down, you land first,” she whispered. “I didn’t come all this way to be crushed.”

“I’m hoping you came for just that reason.” Alek tossed away his smile. “Trust me, Elspeth.”
Trust me with your love, trust me to love you.

He kissed her in the faint
light, told her he loved her with his lips. She gave him back heat, hunger and what he needed. Alek slanted a look down at her wicked smile. She filled him—quite simply filled him with pleasure just looking at her. He felt tipsy on pride, daft on dreams and full of himself. “So you tracked me, did you?”

“Did you doubt that I could?”

Pride was there in her voice, and despite the fears shrouding him, Alek grinned.

“Arrogant, intellectual gypsy meathead.” But she locked her hands to his cheeks and fused her lips to his. It was a rough taking, hunger dancing on her tongue and sucking, tempting his desire until he trembled and went weak kneed. He felt like a chocolate to be savored before the having.

The having.
“I love it when you talk dirty, Elspeth-mine. You keep doing that, and we’ll go down. Did you come for the shawl?” he asked roughly when he could drag his lips from hers.

Would her pride let her say the words that he needed? Would she admit she needed his body, if not his love? He saved her pride by taking another kiss and lowering her to the blanket he’d prepared.

He spread her hair upon the old quilt,
one stitched by loving hands and one in which children had slept, lovers had talked intimately. The shadows had them now, dawn rising on the rugged crest of the mountains.

Then Elspeth lifted against him, her hands gripped his hair, her mouth hot on his. Her hips moved restlessly against his sweeping hand. “Hurry, Alek. I can’t wait.”

“Not this time, love,” he managed to say, and wondered where he got the strength. His pride barely in control, Alek needed some sign she cared, that there might be a chance she’d take him to her heart. He smiled grimly, quickly, mocking his uncertainty. He needed a measure more to salve his pride. He smoothed the soft line of her stomach and lower, the excitement racing in him, battling with the punishing stab of desire.

“I came for you,” she whispered against his mouth, setting flame to the tinder burning in him.

“Did you?” he
had time to whisper before dragging her to him.

Her hands flew between them, touching
him, igniting him. She gasped as she pushed away from him and quickly shed her clothing. Alek groaned, shucking his jeans and cursing when they lodged at his ankles, halted by his boots. Her hands flew to touch him, to cradle the softness gently and stroke him until he groaned outright. They stared at each other, panting, dragging air into their lungs, then Alek managed to drag off his boots and kick away his jeans. He bent to take her breasts, to cherish them.

“Alek,” she cried out wildly, locking his head to her.

He touched her intimately, felt her pouring into his hand, waiting for him, gasping. Alek jolted when she touched him again, this time with possession, dragging him back to her, over her.

He’d go blind, locked
in the pulse of her, lodged deeply as they rolled from one edge of the blanket to the other. Elspeth cried out, her hips lifting quickly to him, her arms and legs gripping him to her.