B.J. Daniels

by Forsaken

  She’d underestimated him when she’d first met him. It had been his hands. Pale. Not a callus on them or a scar or any sign that he’d ever used them to do any kind of manual labor. Add to that his accent and how he was dressed and she’d thought him soft. Weak. A city greenhorn who couldn’t rough it.

  “I was wrong about you,” she said. She’d never thought of herself as being judgmental, but she had been. “You are much more capable than I’d thought you were.”

  He looked at her, his eyes lighting up as he laughed. “Your expectations must have been very low for you to give me that much credit.”

  “I’m sorry I called you a greenhorn.”

  “Don’t be. You’re right. I know nothing about your lifestyle. Who knew that sheep didn’t have upper teeth or that if knocked onto their backs, they can’t get up by themselves? And I definitely didn’t know that anyone would herd sheep a hundred and fifty miles back into these mountains to summer pasture.”

  “You must think I’m crazy.”

  He shook his head. “It surprises me that for all the lamb chops I’ve had in my life, I never gave a thought to where they came from.” He added with a chuckle, “After looking into those big brown eyes out there that might be the last lamp chop I ever eat.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that. We might be eating one before we get out of these mountains. It’s that or mutton. That is if we get out of these mountains.” Her voice broke.

  “We will get out.” Jamison stood and pulled her up into his arms.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t fall apart on you,” she said against his chest.

  He chuckled. “I never thought you would. You got us back here to the camp. I don’t think I could have, not in that storm. But you don’t always have to be so strong.”

  She laughed. “Shows how much you know.” She didn’t feel strong at all right now. She felt her nipples harden and goose bumps ripple across her skin.

  Her breath caught in her throat as he bent to press his lips to her throat. His warm breath made her shiver. The soft brush of his rough jaw against her tender skin sent a wave of desire crashing through her. She desperately wanted to pull away, afraid of what she would let happen if she didn’t.

  But instead she clung to him, as desperate to stay in his arms as she was to run. “Jamison.” She’d breathed his name, a plea, a prayer.

  He drew back to meet her gaze, and then he slowly leaned forward until his mouth was only a breath away from her own. She closed her eyes as his lips brushed over hers. A moan escaped her parted lips.

  He put his hands on her waist and pulled her closer, deepening the kiss and spreading waves of desire through her.

  Maddie told herself she didn’t need this, didn’t want this. She turned her head away, breaking off the kiss to catch her breath. She felt his warm breath glance across her cheek. His lips brushed from her earlobe down the long arch of her neck to the hollow above her collarbone.

  Her traitorous body trembled with a need so strong she didn’t think her legs would hold her. His hands slipped under her flannel shirt to touch her bare flesh, stealing her breath. Her body ached and she thought she might scream if he stopped.

  She opened her eyes and met his steely gaze, surprised by what she saw there.

  Need and desire and absolute terror. He was as afraid as she was of this intimacy that made her heart race, her skin suddenly too sensitive to his touch and her pulse a thunder in her breast. His warm palms moved slowly over her flesh from her waist up her rib cage, stopping just below her breasts. Sensation skittered along her nerve endings, making her flesh dimple under his touch.

  She wanted to touch him, needed to with a desperation born of grief and desire. With trembling fingers she unsnapped his shirt, a shirt her husband had once worn. But she didn’t feel that thump of pain in her heart at the thought of Hank. He was gone. She was still alive.

  Maddie pressed her palms to Jamison’s muscled chest, her eyes closing against the well of emotions that whirled through her like the snow was doing outside the tent. A sound rose in her throat, a moan that captured in one sound a need that she would never have been able to put into words.

  Jamison reacted by dragging her closer. His hands pushed up under her bra to cup her full breasts. She felt her nipples turn rock hard against the warmth of his palms. As his thumb pad skimmed over her breast, desire rushed to her core. She moaned again and leaned into him.

  His gaze locked with hers as he pulled her down on the cot and began to unsnap her shirt, one agonizing snap at a time. Cold air rushed over her bare skin as her shirt fell open. He freed her breasts, her nipples hard and dark in his hands, and then he dropped his mouth to hers again. She opened her lips, opening not just her body, but herself to him.

  She told herself that this union would be nothing more than sex. But that was before she’d looked into his eyes. This was going to change her. Change them both. The intimacy of what they’d been through and were now about to share reached beyond a simple physical act.

  “Maddie,” he said against her lips. She could feel his need, as strong and powerful as her own. As his fingers reached for the buttons on her jeans, she stopped him. Her voice sounded strange even to her.

  “I’ve only known one other man, my husband,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “I don’t know...and it’s been so long.” She lowered her gaze.

  He raised her chin with one finger. Their eyes locked. “Trust me.”

  She swallowed but nodded. “I do trust you.”

  This time his kiss was gentle. His gaze never left hers as he unbuttoned her jeans and drew them down. Tossing them aside, he pulled the sleeping bag over them.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ALEX LOOKED DOWN at Clete lying on the floor of the cabin, suddenly alarmed. “How much of the drug did you put in his drink?”

  Geoff shrugged. “Hopefully enough to kill him.”

  “I don’t like this,” Tony said. “I didn’t sign on for this.”

  “Like I signed on for this!” Geoff snapped and pulled up his pant leg to show his bleeding injured leg. “You don’t want to get your hands dirty? Well, guess what, I’ve had to do things I never dreamed I could do. So don’t go telling me you didn’t sign on for this.”

  “Knock it off, you two,” Alex said as he bent down to check Clete’s pulse. It was faint but still there. “Fortunately, you didn’t kill him,” he said, getting to his feet. He should have handled this part himself, but he couldn’t do everything. All he needed was one more complication. “We need to get moving.”

  “We can’t leave him,” Tony said.

  “He’s right. We need to finish him off,” Geoff said as Alex started to walk away.

  Alex turned back, fighting to keep his temper in check just a little longer. He was sick to death of all the arguing. “We already discussed this. Clete isn’t going anywhere for a while. When he does wake up—if he does, thanks to you—he’ll be on foot.”

  “He’ll go to the cops.”

  “Not until we are long gone. And what will he tell them? That he had a few drinks and woke up to find we had taken his horses and left him? It would be our word against his. We’d say he got drunk and violent. We couldn’t trust him to get us out of the mountains alive. Believe me, this part I have covered.”

  “I still think we should kill him.” Geoff met his gaze. “I think you should do it, Alex, so you’re in this as deep as I am.” His look was challenging. “Bury his body out in the woods so no one ever finds him.”

  “You ever watch any forensic shows, Geoff?” Alex demanded, losing his patience. “They would find him and they would come after us. I’m not getting involved in a murder.”

  “You’re already involved in murder,” Geoff shot back. “Or have you forgotten?”

  “People know we came up here with him. If he disappeared we would be the obvious suspects,” Alex said. “Use your head, Geoff. We’re covered. The kid killed the sheepherder. We know nothing about any drugs.”
>
  “They’ll find our tracks at the plane,” Geoff said.

  Alex sighed. “Our story is that after we left Clete we got lost, stumbled onto the plane, but it was empty except for the dead pilot. We call in what we found as soon as we reach Gardiner. By then, we will have gotten rid of the coke. They can’t prove anything.”

  “My blood is in that plane,” Geoff said.

  “We can say the pilot was still alive. You got in and tried to help him. Like I said, they can’t prove anything. Our fathers can get us the best lawyers money can buy. As long as we don’t spend the money for a while....”

  “He’s right, Geoff. It’s bad enough as it is,” Tony said, sounding scared. “But this is Clete. He used to be our teammate. So if you decide to kill him, I’m walking away from all of this.”

  “No one is going anywhere.” Alex knew he was losing control of the situation. He couldn’t let that happen. He needed them a little longer. “Trust me. We stick to the plan and everything is going to be fine.”

  But Alex knew not much more could go wrong or they might never get out of these damned mountains.

  * * *

  “THIS IS FROM KATE,” Sheriff Frank Curry said when he found Lynette sitting behind the Beartooth General Store counter a while later. He handed her the paper bag with a turkey sandwich inside. “She said yours got smashed when you were almost run down.”

  His jaw tightened, making his teeth ache. He was fighting to hide his fear as well as his fury. He’d been in law enforcement long enough to know that being this personally involved and this furious could keep him from thinking clearly. And right now he needed more than anything a clear head—and not to act on what he was feeling.

  “Thanks,” Lynette said. “But I lost my appetite.” She put the sandwich aside and looked at him, waiting. “What’s going on, Frank?”

  “You were right. Kate said she didn’t get a look at the driver, and the few people around didn’t—”

  “I’m not talking about that.”

  He swallowed as he looked into her face. A bruise was starting to darken her jaw. He wanted to cradle her face in his hands and tell her how he felt about her. He told himself she was all right. But what about next time?

  There wouldn’t be a next time. He’d make damn sure of that.

  “You can’t keep pushing me away and then...” She met his gaze. “Doing whatever it is you are doing right now.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He glanced toward the front window of the store, wondering where Pam was and if she was close by. What would she do when she heard that she’d failed? Try again?

  “Frank—”

  He cleared his throat. “You and I do need to talk about...us. But I can’t right now. I have to find—”

  “Us?” Her face twisted in anger as she got to her feet and pointed toward the door. “There is no us, Frank. I want you to leave. I mean it. Just get out of here. Leave me alone.”

  “I can’t do that. Lynette, the truck that almost ran you down? It wasn’t an accident. I’m sure it was Pam.”

  “What?” Lynette lowered herself gingerly back onto the stool behind the counter. He could tell that she was favoring her side. She was in more pain than she was letting on and it killed him. “Your ex-wife?”

  He saw that he had to tell her. In retrospect, he should have told her before. “Pam is the reason I was in the hospital. She and an accomplice tore up my house and—”

  “Why isn’t she in jail, then?”

  “Because she had an alibi. Judge Westfall. She’s been staying with him and now she’s disappeared again.”

  Lynette was shaking her head.

  “She told me before I passed out that she wasn’t through with me. Lynette, she knows an even better way to hurt me is through you.” His gaze locked with hers. “She knows how I feel about you. She’s always known.”

  Tears welled in her eyes. “Well, she’s the only one who knows.”

  He had to swallow the lump in his throat. This wasn’t the time to get into this. They were both upset. “Lynette, I need you to close up the store for a while. Go on a cruise. Just leave town until—”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” She made a dash at her tears, clearly her anger buoying her.

  Frank sighed. He knew this woman too well. Of course she wasn’t going to run. He’d hoped he could talk her into it, especially after what had happened today. But he could see her digging in her heels.

  “I thought if I stayed away from you...” he said, trying to explain why she needed to leave. “When we got the call about the hit-and-run, I sent the undersheriff out to Westfall’s ranch. I called Dillon after I talked to the eyewitnesses—all but J.D. Do you know where he got off to?”

  She shook her head.

  “Anyway, Judge Westfall says one of their old dark-colored pickups is missing—and so is Pam. I looked for her last night, but if Westfall is harboring her... Bull swears he doesn’t know where she is and that he isn’t so sure he saw her the night I was attacked. He’s retracting the alibi he gave her, saying she might have deceived him.”

  “He gave her up?” Lynette knew how close Bull Westfall had been to Pam. The Westfalls were the first family she met when she came to Big Timber. Bull’s sister had taken her under her wing.

  “Pam made it look as if she was reading by the window so the judge thought she was down at the guesthouse,” he said. “But there still isn’t any proof she was the one who attacked me.”

  “So where is she now?”

  “Maybe on the run but we can’t be sure of that. That’s why I wish you would leave until we can find her. I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

  Lynette shook her head. “I can handle Pam if she comes back.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that. I thought I could handle her, too. She almost killed us both. Don’t underestimate her.” He took off his Stetson and raked a hand through his hair. “I can’t bear the thought of you being alone out here.”

  “She’s not alone,” J.D. said. Neither of them had heard him come in the back way. “I understand you’re looking for me, Sheriff?” He chuckled. “Just like old times.”

  * * *

  LYNETTE WATCHED FRANK and J.D. talk on the store porch. Night bugs fluttered under the porch light. Just from the men’s postures, she could see the animosity between them. Her head hurt when she thought about what Frank had told her. Her body hurt from her near-death accident and now Frank had her brain circling like water down a drain.

  How he felt about her?

  She swore under her breath. J.D. was right. It was high time she quit waiting around for Sheriff Frank Curry. It was bad enough the way he kept pussyfooting around with his intentions toward her. Now his crazy ex-wife wanted to kill her.

  She started to move from the window when she saw Frank turn abruptly and head down the porch stairs. It was so like Frank to just take off and not bother to finish their conversation.

  Nettie rushed out past J.D. to follow the sheriff to his pickup. If he thought they were finished after what he’d told her, he was sadly mistaken.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded as Frank jerked open the driver’s-side door to his patrol SUV. She’d seen the look on his face when J. D. West had come into the store. He’d been furious and even if he wouldn’t admit it, jealous. Not that he had any right.

  She grabbed his arm to stop him from climbing into his rig. “If this is about J.D.—”

  “It’s about Pam.” Frank yanked his arm free and slid behind the wheel. “I need to settle this once and for all. I’m not going to lose you to J. D. West and yet, I can’t chance what Pam will do if she thinks you and I are together.”

  “Frank, please—”

  “I’m sorry, Lynette. I can’t let her try to hurt you again.” He pulled on the door, forcing her to step back. The door slammed, the engine revved and he pulled out, throwing gravel at the edge of the highway.

  Lynette went back into the store and made a quick
call to the undersheriff. Frank was going to get himself into trouble, sure as the devil.

  As she hung up, she turned to find J.D. grinning at her.

  “My plan is working,” he said.

  “Oh, and which plan is that?” she asked, hands on her hips.

  “Frank couldn’t be more jealous.”

  “I told you. He and I—”

  “And I told you that Frank just needs a little competition,” J.D. said, cutting her off. “If he thinks I’m interested—”

  “So you really are just doing this to make Frank jealous.”

  His brown eyes warmed her as they met hers. “It’s an added benefit. Anyway, you’re still hung up on Frank, and, sweetheart, he’s still hung up on you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, yeah? I saw him sitting in his pickup outside your house last night.”

  Nettie couldn’t hide her surprise. “He just doesn’t want me with you.”

  J.D. laughed. “Can’t blame him. But a man doesn’t sleep in his truck outside your house unless he cares about you. I saw him early this morning when I left.”

  She shook her head, afraid to let herself believe anything either man told her. “He’s merely worried about me. His ex-wife is the one who put him in the hospital. He thinks she was the person behind the wheel of that truck that tried to run me down.”

  J.D. let out a low whistle. “Looks like he’s gone after her. Once she’s in jail—”

  “By now she could be in another state.”

  “Let’s hope so.” He moved closer. “What do you think about closing up and coming upstairs with me?”

  Nettie studied the handsome man in front of her. He’d saved her life today. But even if she hadn’t hurt all over, she wasn’t going upstairs with him. J.D. was right. She was still in love with Frank. Not to mention, she didn’t trust J.D. He’d lied to her about going out to his brother’s ranch. She suspected that lie was just the tip of the iceberg.

  J.D. had warned her, though. He’d said he was no hero. That he couldn’t be trusted. That he wasn’t one of the good guys. She just hadn’t listened to him.