by Cait London
Fury boiled in him, and he fought its release. “The damned bastard wants my daughter. How do you expect me to feel?”
Once the release of his emotions opened slightly, the bitterness deepened and he turned to Dinah, disliking himself even as he attacked her. “Feel sorry for him like you did for me?”
He slapped his prosthesis, frustration boiling out of him. “You should have let me bleed to death, Dinah. I’ve been half a man since.”
She paled, her head rising for a battle as Ben’s gaze ripped down the flannel shirt too big for her, her slender legs sheathed in jeans. She looked no older than she had as the bride he’d brought home to this rough country.
But this time her eyes weren’t filled with hopes and dreams, they were filled with fury, lashing at him. “Well, now, isn’t that progress. That’s the first time you’ve put it in words, Ben Kodiak. And you’ve never been half a man.”
“Don’t be wearing my clothes, woman,” Ben ordered. He felt uncertain now and pride demanded that he strike back. The strength of her words, the certainty of them, had knocked the breath from him. If he backed off, holed up, she might move away.
If he pushed, she might push back, because Dinah was strong. “You’re a strong woman, Miss Dinah. I admire that. I always have. But I’d purely appreciate you not wearing my clothes.”
She tilted her head, and that silky soft pale hair slid on her cheek. “It was there. I wore it. You wouldn’t want me to come running after you in my bra, would you?”
Ben tried to think, but his mind was reeling, imagining her in just her bra— “Well, uh... I—”
Dinah laughed aloud, her delighted laughter rippling through the night. “You’re blushing, Ben. I’ve embarrassed you. You still can’t stand the thought of ‘unmentionables,’ can you?”
Ben watched Jemma’s van skid to a stop; the motor died as she leaped onto the ground and slammed the door shut. “That rig cost a pretty penny,” he said, wanting to derail Dinah from talking personal.
“Mmm. She can afford it. She’s determined to get that television series, and from the looks of it, she’s been tangling with Hogan again.”
“I’m not teaching her how to fly fish,” Ben muttered. “I like my hide in one piece— Why did you come out here to disturb my peace?”
The slender, feminine hand on his arm should have been wearing his ring. She’d come to ask something of him, he saw that in her face, and wished he knew how to ask her forgiveness.
“You want something for the boys and Carley. You’ve got that look. What is it?”
“They’re not boys any longer, Ben,” she said gently. Dinah studied him for so long and so intently that Ben feared she would see the age and hard times riding him. “It’s time to tell Hogan about his mother. Oh, don’t look like that, all closed-down and your jaw set as if the words would never come out.”
“I’m not good with words, and you know it. Never have been.”
She touched the gray in his hair, her eyes soft upon him. The gesture had his nerves quivering with a weakness he’d probably have until his dying day.
“You can do so many things, Ben. You have already, and you’re afraid for all of us. It’s time to let us do our share now, Ben.”
Oh, God, he wanted her hand to touch his face, just to feel her warmth against him again, even for a heartbeat. His voice came out strangled, emotions twisting a lariat around his throat. “What do you want?”
“Let them help. Let them do what they want to help you and—”
“Charity.” The word dropped cold and heavy upon him. “Charity. I’ve never asked for anything from them.”
“This is something they want to do, to rebuild the Bar K.” Dinah straightened her shoulders. “We don’t know how long this will last, Ben, and I’ve got to keep busy, so does Carley. I told her how I had started that Montana jams idea and the garden I loved and— oh, Ben, how I loved gardening. I’ve been looking forward to it.”
He wondered how he could have ever refused her anything, how he could have refused her love. Then he heard himself say, “I never slept with Maxi. I know people talk, but it wasn’t— isn’t that way.”
She smiled impishly. “I know. I never thought that for a minute. You saw a woman in need, one carrying a child, and you gave her a home. You raised Savanna as best you could. That’s you, Ben.”
He shook his head, wondering if he was so unappealing to women that she wouldn’t think he’d had another woman— which he hadn’t, not since the last time he’d made love to Dinah. “How do you know?”
“Oh, I just do. Your cat?” she said lightly, cheerfully, and bent to pet the heavily pregnant female cat obviously in love with Ben, twining around his legs.
“She just likes how the mice taste around here.” Ben didn’t want Dinah seeing his affection for the cat he’d named after her. He fought bending to pick up the cat, nuzzling her, like he did when the lonesome times came upon him and the need to touch something that wasn’t leather, machine, or horse. The cat had been thin and weak, and he’d loved her on first sight. “Cat. Shoo.”
“You’ll listen to our—” Dinah paused and then grinned again. “Our boys, won’t you? When they come to you? It won’t be charity, Ben. They’re Kodiaks, the same as you, with a right to tend land that will be theirs and our grandchildren’s someday.”
“They’re not like me,” he said, hearing the bitter echoes of how he’d yelled at her, shut her out, hurt her.
“You’re just doing fine, Ben.” She patted his cheek, and Ben cherished the touch of his dreams. The words were all locked in him like cold stones, and he couldn’t wrest them free, to tell her how sorry he was—
“It’s okay if you wear my shirts now and then,” he said quietly as she stood looking up at him and that old sweetness curled around him.
“I know.”
“You know so much, Miss Sass.”
“That I do, cowboy. And there’s another thing. Aaron is out on the roof, sitting up there watching us— Oh, don’t turn now. Leave him to me, Ben. Don’t start snapping at him and telling him to treat me with respect. He’s angry with me for leaving you; he always has been. Let he and me work this out without interfering.”
“You’re asking too much, lady. The boy doesn’t treat you with respect.”
“Maybe he’s right, maybe I should have stayed. But I didn’t. And now is a time to heal. Aaron and I can’t do that with you standing between us, protecting me. Ben?” she prompted urgently.
He nodded abruptly; she was right. Ben traced Hogan’s tractor lights as they circled the old Holmes barn, sitting on Kodiak land. The boy was like him and old Aaron, stubborn and hard, clear through.
“He’ll be fine, too. Just think about telling him.” Dinah stood on tiptoe to lightly kiss his cheek, and while Ben dealt with that, she brushed her lips lightly over his.
*** ***
Chapter Eight
A half hour after her return to the Bar K, Jemma stepped out the window and onto the roof where Aaron was sitting. “Go away. Don’t start on me tonight.”
“Hold this,” she said, handing him the two plates laden with food. She settled beside him and licked her bottom lip, the one that Hogan had nipped gently, surprising her. He was full of surprises and when he’d grinned boyishly, she’d known her heart was flip-flopping loud enough to hear.
There wasn’t anything like diving into Hogan Kodiak when he was heated up, but she wasn’t certain she wanted more.
She dragged an old blanket through the window and wrapped it around her. Aaron had always been like a brother, her relationship with Hogan was not the same any more. Hogan moved too quickly, too intently, and had her simmering. She didn’t like handing him any control. “This is like old times, isn’t it? Cold night, pretty stars, and dark thoughts, right?”
He flicked a dark look at her, a male not wanting his space to be invaded. He handed one plate back to her and glanced at the turkey sandwich, laden with tomato and alfalfa sprouts, then at J
emma. “You’re looking all hot and bothered. Another argument with Hogan?”
“He’s going to teach me how to fish,” she stated airily.
Jemma dived into her sandwich, ignoring him, and for a while they ate in silence. Aaron watched his father lead a half-broken mustang around the corral as Dinah stood by the fence.
“She won’t hurt him, Aaron,” Jemma said, meaning it.
“He’s showing off for her, and she’s letting him. He never got over her. When this thing is over, and Carley is safe, Dinah will be off again— big-city woman done with playing country girl.” His words were bitter in the Montana night.
“Is that why you never married, because you’re afraid you’ll get hurt? Or is it because you’ve never gotten over Savanna?”
“We were kids back then. I’d come home from college and thought I knew everything there was to know. She’d changed overnight, a woman at sixteen. We were too hot for our own good. She broke it off by going out with other guys, and I was ready to move on, too—”
He glanced at Jemma, who had just laughed. “Lay off. It’s just sometimes I think what might have been, if I had stayed here... with her. She’s got a thing going with Richard Coleman anyway. You can tell it by looking at them together.”
“Well, he’s nice. You’re not.” Jemma’s thoughts flew back to Hogan, how he tasted, how he looked her over, arrogant, cocky, with a grin she hadn’t expected. The rest of him wasn’t as she expected either. He’d been aroused, hard against her.
She took a small dried branch from the roof and sailed it into the night, like she wished she could her shaken emotions. She’d expected Hogan to be remote, not playful.
That kiss on the knoll had definitely tasted of male hunger, he’d opened his mouth upon hers, his exotic, mysterious taste had invaded her mouth, holding her head in place like a—
She tossed away the primitive illusion of a stallion holding a mare in place, nipping at her. In the van, he’d held her beneath him—
His tenderness was even more earthshaking than his passion. She’d always known that Hogan enjoyed touching, feeling textures and forms shift beneath his fingertips. But she hadn’t expected to be stroked or held like that, the gentle press of those long fingers, shaping her breast.
He’d terrified her then, because she hadn’t expected the sensual onslaught, the change from intense observer to touching, to playful lover. Those long fingers had been so strong, digging slightly into her wrists, Hogan’s face too warm against her throat.
But then he’d be missing Simone and the conveniences of their affair. A meticulous man, Hogan was not likely to go shopping for one-night stands.
“I will not be taking up the slack,” she muttered, resenting his need for a comfortable, convenient substitute— herself.
“What?” Aaron asked, not really paying attention to her.
“Your brother is a jerk. You and Hogan and Ben and Mitch— all absolute jerks one minute and then like boys the next. You and Ben and Mitch have a certain charm, but Hogan is one-hundred-percent jerk.”
She pushed her hands through her hair, an attempt to remove the taut feel of Hogan’s big, unrelenting fists in it.
Aaron studied her. “You’re in a good mood tonight. Hogan is laying off Dad, for now anyway, and that can’t be easy. They’re circling each other now, though, and who knows when that will erupt. It won’t be pretty.”
As she looked across the small valley, she saw that every window in Hogan’s house was lit. He’d kept himself apart all these years, and now, he’d be lurking there, fighting his shadows.
Jemma sucked in the crisp Montana night air and tucked her bare toes beneath the blanket. She promised herself that she’d handle Hogan.
Mitch passed by the open window. “Found Ben’s candy bar stash.”
He stepped out onto the roof and settled beside Jemma. He handed each one a candy bar, then lay back with one arm behind his head to study the stars. “I’ve been working the irrigation ditches, damming for the overflow onto the fields. Even my butt hurts,” he said finally with a long, weary sigh.
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.