Tallchief: The Hunter (5 page)

“Jillian, it was only a little kiss,” Adam said very softly. “Sit down.”

Instead, panic threw her to the door. She opened it and ran through the rain to her SUV. She slammed the door, locked it, and sat shaking, her fists locked onto the steering wheel.

When she managed to look at the cabin, Adam was standing in the doorway, his arms crossed. Then, as if he could not stand more of her, he stepped inside and closed the door.

Jillian forced herself to calm, to breathe evenly, before she started the SUV. After reaching her rented home, she tried to work, but the creative design she’d seen in her mind escaped her. Images of Adam had pushed it away.

In her anger, she’d written the check for almost her entire bank balance. She’d left a high-paying job as an executive in sales to study graphic design. The leap from knowing what attracted a buyer’s attention to visually creating it had been easy enough. With classes and equipment to start her fledgling business, she’d drained her resources. The check to Adam left her finances stripped. But after her commission on the Silver perfume advertisement, she would have enough to leave town. Adam was a drifter; with her money in his pocket, he’d be gone before her.
That was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

It would be hours before she slept, because the brush of Adam’s lips was warm and safe, just as it had been years ago.

How could he taste the same? Wild and free and mysterious, as if he needed to be caught and treated gently? As if she needed to fly with him into that wild, free world?

W

Two hours after Jillian left his house, Adam paced the confines of the cabin, shoving his hand through his hair. He hadn’t wanted to know anything about New Pony news, and Tom’s death had surprised him. Using his laptop, Adam had researched newspaper archives to find the deaths of her parents and Tom. Tom’s obituary lacked the prison information and the cause of his death. There had been an auction to sell off the Greens’ furniture and their home. Through time, the other members of Tom’s teenage gang had carried on their family traditions as adults in New Pony, becoming “respectable.”

Jillian must have been shattered. She thought little of him, except to hate him for her brother’s imprisonment and his death there. Yet that didn’t justify the leap of fear within her, that shivering, the paling of her face. Or did it?

The newspaper’s archived account of her wedding to Kevin O’Malley had been detailed. The perfect wedding. But the bride’s expression hadn’t exactly been glowing; she’d looked stunned.

Adam shook his head, his research answering his questions, but raising others. Once he’d protected another woman, one who had been abused by her boyfriend. Her body had tightened at the slightest touch meant to help or to comfort. Jillian’s expression was of that same, tight fear. He remembered Kevin O’Malley as a college student and two years older than himself. Kevin was rich, spoiled, a party boy and not exactly sensitive. The son of an ex-senator, his parents had designated his future in politics.

Jillian would have been a perfect match with her quiet elegance, that intelligence, and would have improved his status in society and politics. His family’s money would have been needed by the Greens when they’d hit financial problems. They’d probably had to pay more than legal fees—Adam remembered the judge’s order, “Make financial restitution for the damage…Repayment is due for vandalism, theft and stolen vehicles.”

The good things in life had probably been handed to Kevin, including Jillian.

Whatever had happened to Jillian, her scars were unseen. Adam rubbed his hand over his side, where the scars of a shark attack remained; in comparison, those he’d gotten from testifying against Tom were much worse and slower to heal. He still carried the pain of being unable to protect his failing aunt, and he held his grief deep inside.

Adam shook his head; he didn’t want to think of Jillian in the hands of O’Malley. He didn’t want to think of Jillian at all—or did he?

Passing the table, he opened the box from his aunt Sarah. The feathers, one white and soft, the other, the bold color of a hawk, were bound by a worn red ribbon. Adam’s fingertip stroked the soft dove’s feather, and in doing so, moved it within the ribbon. Now the feathers spooned, the
hawk’s curving to the dove’s, almost sensuously, protectively, as though they had been fitted for life.

Strange that his aunt hadn’t given the feathers to him earlier. She’d sometimes had odd turns to her, questions she hadn’t wanted to answer. Adam frowned slightly, remembering Liam’s question about their parents’ destination. Sarah had firmly stated that she hadn’t known where they were going, that they were to call upon arrival. When Adam had questioned her, she’d become upset and he’d stopped, sensitive to her grief.

Yet, by asking Jillian to help deliver the feathers, she’d given him something of a father he couldn’t really remember. Though Adam had paid the rent on the safe-deposit box his aunt had left, he didn’t want to open it again. After her death, he’d been eager to get away from New Pony. He’d respected her wishes and buried her in Iota, next to her sister—his mother—and family. Then as she’d wished, he’d collected her brooches and family Bible with other mementos and tossed them into the locked box in the First National Iota Bank, careless of what else was inside.
Sarah….

Adam put the lid on the box with the feathers, just as he had sealed away his past. Now Jillian had brought it back.

Still locked in his thoughts of Jillian and her puzzling fear of him, he flipped open the file Liam had given him. Sybil, Duncan’s wife, had prepared a genealogical chart of his family. Una Fearghus, Scots bondwoman, had married the chieftain who had captured her, Tallchief. Their son, Liam, had married Elizabeth Montclair, an Englishwoman, and their son, Ewan, had gone to Alaska. He married a Frenchwoman, Josette Benoit. Their three children had returned to the American West, and Liam’s father, Jamie, had married Tina Olson.

Adam’s eyes read the words, and his mind understood them, but contrasting images of Jillian, the girl and the woman, wouldn’t let his thoughts stay on course. Adam slapped the file closed and picked up Jillian’s check, study
ing the large, perfect, feminine script. He tossed the check back to the table and jammed his hands into his back pockets.

With the crackle of the fire in the old woodstove, Adam considered his choices. He could burn the check, make his excuses, and be on his way. He could forget meeting Jillian again. Or he could take Elspeth’s recommendation to “stand and fight.”

He reopened the box with the feathers and studied them, nestled together within the bounds of the old ribbon. Perhaps Jillian and he were like that, tied by the past, until it could be put aside and they each went on their way.

Or not.
Adam stroked the white dove’s feather, feminine beside the rakish appearance of the hawk’s. Maybe he wanted to know what haunted her, why she feared that slight brush of his lips. Maybe he wanted to tear her apart for believing Tom’s lies instead of the truth.

He tapped the check with a fingertip. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had of Jillian. He slid it inside the file folder for safekeeping.

Whatever ran between Jillian and himself, Adam wanted to examine it and he needed more time. He was considering his next step, when Elspeth called his mobile telephone number. “Tomorrow we’re having a family gathering at the old homestead, where Duncan and Sybil live now. We’re expecting you. Be prepared to eat.”

“Should I bring anything?” Adam asked, and realized that this was his first family gathering. His maternal grandparents were deceased and Aunt Sarah had been his only relative.

“Aye. Bring your heart and a good set of nerves for the children who will be sizing you up to Liam and their uncles. You’ll have tiny fingers in your ears and probably be wearing drool on your shoulder before the night is over,” she teased softly. “You’re definitely a fresh candidate for diaper changing.”

“Aye,” he replied, returning the tease with a smile. “If you’re trying to frighten me off, it isn’t working.”

When they said goodbye, Adam shook his head. This “family gathering” summons was his first, and he was set to enjoy it. Maybe the years of traveling had left him hungering for a home and the sound of women and children. Maybe there was more of Sam the Truck in Adam, reflecting the constant travel; but Adam lacked Sam the Truck’s friends. Perhaps that was why Adam enjoyed creating the stories and the products, a family all his own.

He dialed Sam the Truck’s corporate offices and left a message for an overnight shipment of the toys. It would be a heartwarming scene he intended to remember, the Tallchief children happily playing with his creations.

The next day, a drift of light snow swirled around Liam’s pickup truck as Adam drove to the Tallchief Cattle Ranch. The chill of the late afternoon foretold a cold night; the smoke rising from the sprawling rock and wood home was inviting. Soaring in the distance was rugged, snow-covered Tallchief Mountain and the nearby lake looked black and cold, whitecaps whipped by the late March winds.

Adam parked beside other cars and pickups in front of the home where the five Tallchiefs—Duncan, Calum, Birk, Fiona and Elspeth—had fought to stay together after their parents were killed. “Stand and fight,” Elspeth had said, and Adam wondered if he were meant to stay in one place for long. He already knew how to fight—survival in New Pony after he’d testified against the teenage gang had been no easy affair.

A quick survey of the various parked vehicles told him that Jillian hadn’t arrived. Just as well, Adam brooded silently; he wasn’t finished with her or certain of controlling the temper she could still rake from him. He didn’t want to make a bad impression on the family Liam treasured, as did he.

In a last-minute fancy, and proud of Elspeth’s gift, Adam
had slung the Tallchief plaid around his shoulders. The wind tugged at it now. Collecting the big sack filled with a variety of Sam the Truck models—from the elaborate with a doll driver down to the plastic with rounded edges for toddlers—Adam stepped from the truck. He hunched his peacoat collar up against the wind that smelled fresh and clean, scented of pine and smoke. After a day of clearing up the rubble in front of the cabin, hauling the old linoleum away and burning the wooden rubble, Adam had given himself to the mind-clearing task of chopping wood. Sam’s brand new friend Nancy the Flatbed Hauler needed a spiffy ad campaign launch with a new storybook already brewing in Adam’s mind. He could almost see Nancy on the plastic highway with her other friends—Tracy the Pickup Truck and Eddie the Railroad Crossing Warning with his red light and his long, movable, black-and-white arm.

In the distance, veiled by the light snow, cattle grazed upon several huge round bales of hay. To the other side and sheltered from the elements by a rock bluff, the thick coats of a small sheep herd almost blended with the snow. “Aye,” he whispered to the wind, lifting his face to it. Amen Flats was a place for belonging—if you weren’t the footloose kind.

Elspeth opened the door before he knocked, a toddler balanced on her hip, this time not her own, but with eyes just as gray and hair as black. A long sleek braid coursed down her red sweater. “Aye. It is a good home to come to when the heart is weary. The house has been added to and changed a bit, but holds a treasure of memories of dark times and of good. Ah, you’re wearing the plaid. That’s good, wearing of the colors when you come home. I only wish I could talk my brothers into doing the same more often.”

“Da?” the toddler ventured, holding out his chubby arms to Adam.

The warmth of Elspeth’s knowing welcome, the life and
scents inside the house, and the boy, unafraid of strangers, curled around Adam’s heart. He rummaged through the sack of toys and found a squeaking, rounded plastic truck, just right for a teething toddler, whose delighted squeal caught the attention of the other children.

“You’ve only got one heartbeat to take off that coat before they get you,” Elspeth whispered as Alek came to place an arm around her. “Come in and meet the rest of your family. You’re rested, I hope?”

Alek, editor of Amen Flats’s newspaper, tugged his wife’s long braid and grinned. “You’d better be. There’s no rest amid this crew. Fetch this, carry that, get more wood, change the diapers—uh,” he grunted as Elspeth’s elbow lightly sought his ribs.

She placed the toddler on the floor and as he made his way across the room, Birk caught and tickled him before lifting him into his arms. The scent of baking bread and love curled invitingly around Adam as he studied the huge room, filled with a family he’d never known.

Elspeth took the plaid and hung it by the peacoat Adam handed her. She waited patiently while his gaze skimmed the room. Near the huge rock fireplace hung a spear draped with the Tallchief plaid, the barn wood burned with the Tallchief Cattle Ranch brand, a stick man and mountain. In a warm corner, an old wooden cradle with a sleeping baby was being rocked by a loving hand.

The expressions of tenderness and warmth struck Adam as he noted their faces, most with coloring matching his own gray eyes and black hair. He nodded to Liam with Michelle sitting upon his lap.

Elspeth made sweeping introductions while children played on the floor and bounced on knees and slept in loving arms. There was Nick, holding hands with his Silver, Duncan with his red-haired wife, the genealogist and the antique huntress, Sybil. Calum stroked his wife Talia’s long blond hair, and Birk toyed with his petite wife’s, Lacey, curling black hair. Rafe Palladin had arrived with his Demi,
and Joel’s arms were around his wife, Fiona Tallchief Palladin.

The love in the room stunned Adam full-force. As did the look of instant acceptance, as though he had always been one of them.

A beautiful girl, just college-age, came sauntering to him. The firelight played over her long red hair. The younger boy at her side, clearly adored her. “I’m Emily, Sybil and Duncan’s daughter.”

“I’m Cody Palladin, Joel and Fiona’s son,” the boy said promptly.

She slid him a cool, older-woman look, then J.T. pushed through their legs. J.T. locked both arms around Adam’s leg. “He’s mine! This is my uncle Adam. He’s my daddy’s brother and he’s been all over the world. He’s going to come to preschool with me and tell all about sharks and lions and castles and sunken treasures. He’s going to find what he’s lost and what he’s hunting—right here with us—that’s what my daddy says.”

When Adam glanced at Liam, his brother was suddenly finding the rough beams of the ceiling very interesting.

Emily’s hand on J.T.’s head was gentle but firm with warning. “I have something to say,” she announced clearly to the room with the elegance of royalty. She placed her hand on Adam’s shoulder. “I claim thee for my Black Knight,” she stated dramatically. “’Twas not long ago that I claimed Duncan, Birk and Calum. The others came later, but mean just as much. When I was young, they took away my fear, and I belonged. I trust you with my safety and my family, oh, Black Knight of the Tallchiefs. In return, I grant you my everlasting friendship and love—with one condition. Do not try to fix me up with a boyfriend.”

“I swear I will leave your love life untouched. The decisions are yours.”

“The bargain is sealed, Black Knight.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, and took the opportunity to peer
inside his sack. “I don’t suppose there is anything for me in there.”