by Cait London
“He’s been here. City shoes... new,” Hogan said grimly when he emerged, his expression hard.
Ben nodded, walking around young serviceberry bushes crushed by a four-wheeler. “Likes toys.”
They worked quickly, efficiently, and Ben paused to look at his family gathered in the ranch yard. The blaze scrolled up into the midday sky, destroying the shack that old Aaron treasured. It had been built by Jedidiah Kodiak, a drover who didn’t want to go back to Texas.
Then Hogan ripped off his gloves, tucked them in his back pocket and turned to Ben. “Let’s get this straight.”
The hard punch of the words raised Ben’s anger, a familiar battle between father and son. He’d pushed his own father just like this, and inside him pride swelled— his son was a man. The old words came to Ben’s tongue before he could stop them. “You’re talking to me, boy. I set the rules.”
Hogan’s anger flashed back. “If I want to make Dinah welcome here, I will. A few boards and paint charged to my account shouldn’t hurt you. We’re not labeling who pays for what this go-around. I don’t like feeling like I’m taking food from your breakfast table.”
“I pay my own bills, and she’s your mother. Call her that.” Ben heard the snarl in his voice and regretted it.
Ben refused to back down or apologize. The boy should know he wasn’t stabbing at him; he just wanted his family fed and well, putting good solid food into their bodies. He didn’t have the sweet way of saying it, but that was what was in his heart.
He couldn’t help fighting back; Aaron had bred that hard edge into him. “The pup wants to fight with the old dog, does he? Why didn’t you stay last night, if you’re so concerned? Why didn’t you stay to supper?”
Hogan’s quick flash of pain should have told him to back off, but Ben had had his heart set on seeing his family together at the supper table. The empty chair that first night had mocked and hurt him.
Hogan’s cold words slashed at Ben. “Your table? Ben Kodiak food? Why do you think I didn’t stay?”
Because you’re too much like me, unable to show your emotions, and so you hide. Ben ached for his son and regretted the damage he’d done.
“I want to know about my mother, Ben. My real mother, not Dinah,” Hogan stated, slapping his Western hat along his thigh.
Ben hadn’t wanted to hurt the boy, and he didn’t want to hurt the man. “That’s best left alone. She’s buried now anyway. And you’ve got trouble coming right now. Probably more than you can handle.”
Hogan’s black eyes flashed, a man who took challenges and hurled them back. “What do you mean? Is that a threat?”
“Hell, I knew when I saw that damned earring in your ear and that black getup this morning that you were out for blood. What kind of a righteous man wears black jeans? It isn’t me that you have to worry about now. Look.” Ben nodded toward the trail winding upward to the knoll. “She sure can’t ride.”
Her hair fiery in the sunlight, Jemma bounced along on Sandy, a gentle quarter horse, the saddle slipping a little to the side. The girl loved color, Ben thought, the hot pink jacket contrasting with a purple sweater and tight jeans. The yellow boots were meant for city streets, not Montana dirt and mud and cow piles.
Ben smiled as Hogan slapped his Western hat against his thigh, this time hard. He slapped it again as Jemma bounced into the burning shack’s clearing. She almost spilled out of the saddle and came up with a too-bright smile, clearly an intruder out to make peace with warring men. “Hi. Did anyone bring the marshmallows?”
“You still can’t ride worth a damn, city girl.” Ben tossed a board onto the fire. While he loved her, the battle with Hogan and the past left a rough, angry edge to his voice.
“Of course I can’t ride well. I was meant to ride in a padded seat on a smoothly moving, very expensive car. I haven’t really wanted to bruise my backside that much. But I can outshop you any day, and that’s important. As a matter of fact, who is going to loan me a pickup? I’m not getting my pretty rig dirty, and Dinah wants loads of potting soil.”
“More money,” Ben grumbled, and hated himself for being stingy, hated himself for barely managing to keep Kodiak land.
“It’s potting soil, not gold. Leave her alone.” Hogan straightened, his body language challenging Ben’s. “No one asked you for anything.”
“It’s my house.” Ben’s words shot into the sunlight like cold steel, and the sound of old Aaron’s voice tore at him. Maybe he was too old to change, his father’s son.
“Of course it is your house, but—” Jemma began, her wide gray eyes glancing at one, then the other tall Kodiak.
“Dinah doesn’t like it?” Ben asked curtly, more wounded than if his heart had been sliced from him, but shielding that pain with anger.
“I like plants, but mine die. Dinah and Carley want houseplants, and they want the garden plowed. If you can’t bother, then I will. Driving a tractor and plowing a garden can’t be that hard. Hogan will lend his pickup for the potting soil, won’t you, Hogan?”
Hogan stared at the brilliant blue sky and wondered how Jemma always managed to use him as her backup plan. “Let it go.”
Ben didn’t back off, digging in to argue. He wasn’t letting anything go, furious with himself. He remembered raging at Dinah about potting soil, asking her why Montana cow manure and dirt wasn’t good enough. He’d been so wrong.
“The girl doesn’t know how to saddle a horse. She’s lucky she didn’t fall off with that loose cinch.”
“Boys,” Jemma purred, moving smoothly between them, placing a hand on each of their chests. Her fingers moved slightly across Ben’s buttoned shirt, and she frowned before looking up at Hogan, who had pushed her hand away. “Why are we having a bonfire? And where’s the marshmallows?” she asked lightly.
“Look.” Both men said at the same time, pointing down to the Kodiak ranch yard, clearly visible from the knoll.
Jemma expression darkened immediately. “He can see everything from up here.”
“We’re just not making him comfortable,” Ben said.
“Well, then you’d just better hug and make up, because Carley is going to need each of us, not a war between you two. This morning, something set you both off. What was it? Ben? What got to you?”
“That damned earring,” he muttered, looking away to the foothills of the Crazy Mountains.
“Hogan looks good in anything. It’s an in-thing to do. See his black jeans? I’ll get you a pair when we get to town. You’ll be dynamite, and we’ve got to do something about these old flannel shirts, too. Maybe a sweater or two.”
Jemma rubbed Ben’s cheek lightly. “You need a new razor. Hogan wears his own designs. They suit him. He can be pretty when he wants, not all dark and broody-looking.”
Ben scowled at the onyx earring. “It’s just not right.”
Because he needed to push the father who hoarded too many secrets, Hogan removed his earring and handed it to Ben. “It’s yours.”
It wasn’t a peace offering; it was a challenge. This time Ben looked hounded. He looked at the fragile earring in his callused, scarred palm. “It’s a strange thing for a son to give his dad. Women and daughters, maybe. I won’t wear it, of course.”
Hogan inhaled— his work wasn’t a trinket, but Ben would see it as silliness.
“You’d look cool with it on. Very exciting and studly.” Jemma slung her arm around Ben and rested her head on his shoulder. She touched the earring in his palm, prodding and turning it. “Isn’t it pretty? It’s a beautiful gesture, Ben. Take it. Doesn’t Hogan do marvelous work?”
Ben frowned, his expression something that Hogan couldn’t define, and he blamed it on disgust. “I design jewelry, Ben. You’ll have to swallow that.”
“Kodiak Designs sell all over the world, in the best shops,” Jemma said. She prodded it, revealing a tiny printed Kodiak with an arrow beneath it. “See? Kodiak. Your name. There are expensive stores just waiting to get on his client list.”
“Do you have some of it?” Ben asked softly, still studying the earring.
“I can’t afford it, but Carley gave me earrings and Dinah gave me a ring to match, from his Fire Bird collection. They’re in my safety-deposit box in Seattle. I think they’ll become collectors’ items, and I can make a mint off them.”
Ben stared at the earring in his rough palm, rolling it gently to catch the sunlight. Then he tucked it in his flannel shirt pocket, carefully buttoning the flap over it. There was just that one pat over his heart, then Ben’s glance skimmed the old cabin, in full blaze.
He nodded to Jemma, walked to his horse, swung into the saddle and locked a dark look at his son. “That’s old Aaron’s cabin. It’s gone now.”
Hogan returned the hard look; the cabin was a monument to rawhide-rough men and old Aaron.
Then Jemma nudged him aside, and, unwillingly, Hogan’s gaze dropped to the neat curve of her backside in tight jeans.
“Wait!” she said, hurrying to Ben. “Ben, I thought you might like to show me how to fly fish. I’ve got that producer coming, and I have to learn a little bit to make the series sell. If you could just point me to a stream with some hungry fish in it. I bought all this great stuff, and I have a license—”
“Oh, no. Not me. I want my skin all in one piece, and I don’t fancy wearing fishhook jewelry on my backside. And I’m not showing anyone my fishing hole,” Ben returned with a rich chuckle Hogan hadn’t expected. “You tell my sons to get that old chest down from the attic. Not the camelback, but the old blue footlocker. Dinah will be wanting to have pictures of you children around her.”
“I suppose I can make do with Hogan teaching me how to fish, and I’ve got until July anyway,” Jemma muttered. She gripped Ben’s shirt and tugged him down to kiss his cheek. “We’ll be changing the house a bit, Ben. You’ll help, won’t you? Not hide out? Men and women manage households together now. You and Dinah could go grocery shopping—”
Hogan looked at Montana’s blue sky. The rule-setting he had planned with Ben had turned into a “father-and-son-relate” session. From there, Jemma had driven the conversation into grocery shopping.
As he straightened, Ben cast a wary, cornered look at Hogan. “Maybe. Maybe, I’ll help her.”
“Aaron and Mitch and Hogan are all helping redo the house, and you did say for us to make ourselves comfortable, Ben. You’re helping, too, aren’t you?”
Because Ben was clearly uncomfortable with a man entering what he considered a woman’s domain, Hogan smiled. “Okay, Ben. I’ll wash, you dry.”
When Ben shook his head and left the clearing to ride down the hill, Jemma turned to jab a finger in Hogan’s chest. “Don’t you start with him. Didn’t you hear how he says, ‘my son,’ as if his heart is bursting with pride? You came to breakfast with a big chip on your shoulder, aching for a fight. From those shadows under your eyes, you were probably up all night planning on how to make life rough for Ben.”
“I was there, wasn’t I?” Hogan didn’t feel like explaining his dark moods. Part of his lack of sleep was due to the woman who battled him now, that fire warming his cold shadows.
Her slap on his back was companionable, a coach to a student; instead, it nettled Hogan.
“I knew I could count on you. He’s wearing his wedding ring beneath his shirt. I just felt it. He still loves Dinah, and she loves him. You’re not tearing them apart a second time.”
Hogan turned toward her, his defenses rising. He remembered Ben lashing at Dinah, her crying behind closed doors. “You’re blaming their split on me?”
“No. They both wanted something different. You’re inventive, Hogan. You’ve got the ability to step back, analyze, and proceed logically. But maybe you could have engineered a reconciliation if you weren’t so busy running away.... Maybe.”
Jemma followed Hogan to her horse, where he flipped up the stirrup and tightened the cinch. She hit his shoulder. “See what I mean? You’re always running. I’m exhausted, standing between you two snarling yard dogs, and my butt hurts.”
She rubbed her bottom and tossed him a winner’s smile. “Horses are really wide, you know.”
“Someday you’ll get tired of bossing me around, little girl,” Hogan said, his senses pumping up, because he knew Jemma would rise to the bait.
Jemma crossed her arms. “I know that we’re decorating that house with a few of your canvases, to make Carley and Dinah happy. We could use a statue or two, nothing too big, and dramatic, like that awful eagle with the claws. Nothing too savage or scary.”
“Eagles have talons, and I don’t paint anymore,” Hogan corrected, noting the fine edge of her jaw, the way the sun painted a sheen on her smooth skin. He saw her with a headband, a curving rune-embedded, brass affair, playing up to her Celtic heritage and bone structure.
Still raw from his encounter with Ben, Hogan fed his need to set off that fine fiery temper. He wanted to see that heat in her eyes and feel her passion surround him, burn him. “How’s your love life lately?”
“It’s mine— private— and that’s the point.” Few people interfered with her, or pushed her, and Hogan was clearly gearing up to do just that.
“I know you’re used to pushing men around to get what you want, and then you move on. It’s a wonder you got married.”
“I had a different picture of married life than he did. He wanted children and a sweet little helpless wifey. I didn’t like the picture. End of story.”
She looked down to the wild grass field and the small herd of longhorns. “Oh, look. Ben isn’t out on his tractor or fixing fence, he’s down there just sitting on his horse and staring at that cow herd. He’s thinking about all of you being home— how nice it is, and he’s wanting things to change.”
“That’s ‘cattle’, not ‘cow herd’. Don’t change the subject and don’t push me, Jemma,” Hogan murmured, meaning it.
She placed her palms on his chest and shoved. Hogan didn’t move back; instead, he backed her closer to the horse, framing her with his hands on the saddle.
Jemma glared up at him. “I’m making this happen, Hogan. You’re not stopping it.”
“Ah, the real Jemma-agenda. Protecting Carley is essential. We agree on that, but you’ve got another plan, don’t you? Could that be reuniting Dinah and Ben? Making the Kodiaks all one, big happy family? All of us hugging? That group-hug you love so much?”
Hogan enjoyed the feminine toss of her head, fiery hair swirling around her like a sunburst. Jemma, beneath all that hurry-hurry, human dynamo, was a very feminine woman.
He reached out to smooth the gleaming strands that had come free from her ponytail and watched Jemma’s emotional curtains come down. She edged away from him, gray eyes dark and wary.
Without an escape route, backed against the horse, Jemma looked down on to the sprawling fields, cut with irrigation ditches. Baldies dotted the pastures, calves frisking around cows, an Angus bull lying on the ground, overlooking his Hereford harem. She edged her jaw away from Hogan’s disturbing, prowling finger.
He was studying that touch, the contrast of dark skin and fair and Jemma fought her uncertainty, and her temper. “You’re playing with me. You and Ben are enough to exhaust a saint— too stubborn, cut out of the same cloth— and I don’t have the time or energy.”
“I do,” Hogan said, lowering his lips to taste hers, just a brush of his mouth, following that silky shape of hers, her scent curling around him.
Hogan reached around her, capturing her arms against her body. He flattened his hand low on Jemma’s spine and with his other, fisted that dark red thick mane, holding her face up to his. Her pink coat prevented him from locking her curved, lean body to his, but that was exactly what he wanted— Jemma close and tight against him.
“I’ll get you,” she said breathlessly, after a struggle that Hogan enjoyed, the softness of her body exciting his. Now there was just that stubborn set of her jaw, the steely flash of her eyes. Heat poured from her— live, twisting around him, ignit
ing angry little edges and making them hunger.
“Mm. I’m looking forward to that.” Then he slanted his mouth to hers and took.
She tasted like freedom, sunlight, and life— she tasted like Woman, erotic, darkly sensual, heat, and storms. She tasted like dreams that had died in him long ago— She tasted like life...
Jemma worked her hands free and slid them into his hair, fisting it as he held her, meeting him, an even match. Usually controlled with women, Hogan took the kiss deeper, tasting her mouth with his tongue. Then Jemma’s quickening breath set off a sensual need to have her— there beneath the clear Montana sky.
His hand slid down to grip her bottom, to tug her close to his hardening body....
Suddenly, she shivered, her head jerking back, her body taut, and Hogan caught her fear of him, of what he wanted, of what he demanded....
Hogan gentled the kiss, seeking out the tender edges of the woman who called forth the raging darkness and the live flames within him.
Unable to release her just yet, he frowned down at Jemma, taking in her high color, all that heat, the wariness in those stormy eyes.
Her lips were swollen slightly, bright and gleaming and soft as petals. He fought the thought of Jemma’s lips on his body, those sharp teeth nipping slightly, that tongue....
Well, shit.... If he wanted to destroy himself, this was the woman who could do it for him.
He tightened his hand in her hair, fought the affect of the silky waves and color on his senses and gritted, “Stay away from me, little girl. Now get up on that horse—”
Hell, he couldn’t watch her walk away again, those hips swaying.... Hogan grabbed her waist and lifted her onto Sandy and pushed the reins into her hands. “Now, git.”
Jemma stared down at him, her eyes like hot steel cutting at him. She wiped her hand across her lips as if to remove his taste. “Sometimes I want to kill you. Just tear off pieces of that dark skin....”
“Keep talking dirty and we could....”
He watched Jemma’s disturbing efforts to turn the horse toward the ranch. All that bouncing softness of her breasts wasn’t doing him any favors. Then frustrated, he gripped the reins to turn the horse and slapped its haunches with his hat.