by Cait London
Jackson Reeves had been a classmate, in reform schools and later jails, and protected by his doting mother, the Richmonds’ cleaning woman for years. Hogan made a mental note to keeping checking on Jackson.
Merry Reeves, a birdlike, frightened woman and Jackson’s mother, would lie to protect him.
Hogan glanced at the digital lights of the alarm system mirroring the one at Ben’s house, and then at his own. If anything happened to Ben’s system, Hogan’s would announce it at the Bar K ranch house. The separate alarm system for Hogan’s house remained silent. The mini-alarm unit that he carried on his belt when outside was linked into both systems.
After a cold shower, he went to the studio and touched the modified drawing of his Fire Feathers necklace design. The edges of the feathers seemed to lift and turn and ripple upon the paper. That is how he had felt when Jemma’s long curved body moved beneath his, a flow that had excited him, a quiver of flesh that showed she wasn’t immune to him.
He eased down on the rug in front of his fire, watching the flames feed upon the wood.
Her half-closed lids had excited a savagery in him that he hadn’t expected.
As an artist, he’d studied a woman’s body. As a man, he’d served his needs and knew the sensuality in a woman’s body. In Paris, as a student and away from the restrictions of the Kodiak name, he’d dived into lush, willing, knowledgeable women, feasted upon them. His sexual affair with Simone had ended long ago, and at that time both their needs had been served.
Now, just watching Jemma, that quick restless movement of her head, those elegant hands, he found himself reeling in a sensual mist that he’d sooner not experience now.
Or did she call forth the hunter in him, a man needing more than sex, but needing the chase? What were the haunting images that swirled around and in that fiery sunlit hair?
He was already excited by the thought of her, alone with him, and that fascination was troublesome, because it deepened by the hour.
He ran his fingers across the penciled drawing, letting the sketched feathers flow into his fingers and into that secret creative place reserved for him alone. He saw Jemma, pale and nude, the feather necklaces almost savage around her throat, her vivid hair swirling up and around her head, taken by the wind.
Women usually came to him, not that he beckoned. But the novelty of pursuing a woman he’d known from girlhood, changing the dynamics into lovers wouldn’t be easy.
He shifted restlessly; he wasn’t happy with the knowledge that his body wanted hers; Jemma Delaney’s restless, dedicated-to-self-and-money style chafed the peaceful calm that Hogan had forged in his life. He raked his hand through his hair, pushing back the shoulder-length strands, and realized the gesture was that of frustration.
He never allowed himself frustration; he’d had too much of it in his lifetime.
Hogan smiled as the telephone rang and picked up his cordless phone nearby. “Hello, Jemma.”
The silence at the other end of the line told him that he’d gotten to her again, a game he really enjoyed. Her “Oh, hello,” was too off-hand.
Hogan rolled to his side and studied the flames. He settled back to enjoy nettling Jemma’s fast temper, toying with her and listening to the different, telling tones of her voice.
“You wanted me?” he asked to set her off, to place her in the position of pursuing him.
The catching sound of her breath caused him to smile. “Jemma?”
“It says in this book that we should be catching rainbow or brown trout, not native cutthroat. Are you sure you know what you’re doing? Do I need to go to the bait and tackle shop tomorrow? How big are they? I need one about forty pounds or so.”
“Cutthroat. I like how they fight. Try three pounds, and you don’t need to buy anything to start.”
“But I bought all this stuff! That small? I want a really big fish. Hogan, I think we should—”
“Relax, honey. See you tomorrow,” he drawled and clicked off the cordless telephone. The memory of Jemma relaxing beneath his massage, her “oh! oh!” sounding like that of a woman at the peak of her ecstasy was enough to make his jeans uncomfortably tight over his desire.
He smiled as the telephone rang again. Playing phone games with women hadn’t been in his life, but with Jemma, he was learning new interests. “Yes?”
“You’re rude, you know,” she shot at him.
He imagined how she’d look, all steamed up and sassy. “Why don’t you come over here and tell me that?”
After a slight hesitation, Jemma hung up. Hogan rolled to his back, placed his hands behind his head, and smiled. He realized he was looking forward to having Jemma alone, stirring her up and watching her ignite.
*** ***
The Kodiaks thought they could protect her, his Celestial Virgin, but they couldn’t. She’d waited for him, buried herself in food and loose clothing, but she was perfect He was, of course, the only suitable male for her, himself a virgin after all these years of hungering for her. He saw her opening her silk robe for him, allowing him to be the first—
Time was on his side, and he was a patient man. He’d waited since that night. She’d been nothing but thrashing arms and legs and fearful eyes, and now she would be his alone.
Of course she was still a virgin, he’d sensed that immediately, reading the innocence on her face. He’d take the prize she’d saved for him. The others weren’t virgins, already used, and he’d had to kill them.
But Carley would be intact, her body pure. He groaned aloud, his desire rising hard and aching as he smoothed the folded white oriental robe that he intended her to wear that first time. He’d studied the reports of the area’s 1880s Celestial Virgins, brought from China to please the prospectors. Almost children, they’d been auctioned and sold, and then when they were no longer pleasing, they had been taken into the mountains to die.
Maybe it was true, that the winds coming down the canyons carried their cries— He liked the sound of crying, pleading women...
His skill and patience, his years of waiting, would soon be rewarded with the gift of his bride’s body. “Only a matter of time. The Kodiaks are too stormy to stay together long, and they’ll fly away to their own lives. Then I’ll have Carley for my bride.”
*** ***
“Thanks.” Hogan took the quart jar of iced lemonade from Dinah with one hand, and with the other sank his post-hole digger to rest deep into the rich spring earth.
A row of fence posts that needed replacement stretched over the knoll and into the woods. The new grass was pushing through the rich dark earth now, and by summer the stalks would be flowing, undulating like green waves in the wind.
Dinah’s fine pale hair caught the wind, lifting around her ageless face. “When you’re ready to eat, I brought sandwiches for lunch. Jemma’s alfalfa-sprout jar seems to be endless. She’s determined that we’re all going to be quite healthy, despite the fact that she and Carley managed to sneak down to the kitchen around three or so this morning and devour a can of frosting.”
She lifted her face to the slight, fragrant breeze. “Carley must have been upset, and Jemma is there for her in a way I can’t seem to be. I love Jemma for what she’s done for Carley... Jemma has never once failed my daughter. But I know all of you— Jemma, Carley, Aaron, Mitch, you— share some dark secret that has to do with Carley, and none of you are about to tell me.”
Dinah had always taken special care to seek him out, trying to draw him closer to the rest, to mend the wound between father and son. He realized that the familiar sight of her, dressed like a girl in jeans and a sweatshirt, her pale hair catching the slight midmorning breeze, caused him to remember how she had been— happy and glowing— before Ben drove her away. Hogan ached for the woman he could not help then.
For the month that they’d been together again, Kodiak battles flew over the house like bullets. Ben spoke guardedly, warily, and then tore from the house when his emotions had stretched too far. Jemma would run after him, coaxing him
back into whatever chore had caused the rift.
Aaron was on edge, torn between the driving need to be in the middle of the stock market bustle, and an unshielded need to have Savanna. An expert at flirting, Savanna wasn’t taking him seriously, and no other woman had treated Aaron so lightly.
Mitch worried about his Chicago teenage toughs, the girls he was trying to get off the streets, the impoverished mothers and the babies who needed proper nourishment. But Mitch was also drained by life, haunted and clearly determined to salvage Carley, who resented his “psychobabble” and “interference in my life.”
Carley found joy in Jemma, who was into everyone’s lives, ruthless in her goal of mending the Kodiak family. Over the horizon, Carley and Jemma were busily planting the garden. The garden wasn’t small; Jemma’s carrot-and-beet crop needed space. Aaron was plowing the field, preparing for the reseeding of the alfalfa crop, and Mitch was walking the irrigation ditches, cleaning out the winter debris.
Hogan tipped the jar and welcomed the iced lemonade. Ben would likely be checking his herd— newborn calves that needed ear tags— and marking the cattle that needed branding.
“Everyone has been busy with the garden, including Ben. It’s actually fun, all of us together, and Jemma determined to rule us all.”
Hogan lifted an eyebrow. His father had always said that a vegetable garden was women’s work. “Ben is gardening?”
“Ben. Carley is clearly out to exhaust herself, pitting herself against anything that needs doing. When Carley was out there killing herself, pulling out that old board fence, and Jemma was trying to learn how to drive the tractor without hitting anything, Ben just said, ‘Oh, hell, may as well see that it’s done right.’ He hitched up those two draft horses, the Percherons, and an old plow and plowed a huge garden. He was quite the sight to see— made my heart dance a little bit,” Dinah said, turning her face to shield a blush. “He let me drive his pickup out here. In the old days, he would have made a fuss.”
“He hasn’t changed, Dinah,” Hogan said quietly.
He prayed Dinah would not be hurt again by Ben’s rawhide temperament. “He won’t change,” he corrected, wanting to protect her.
“He’s trying,” Dinah stated adamantly. “So should you. I think he would talk to you now, about your mother.”
Hogan drank the iced bittersweet lemonade and pushed away hope, a skill he’d perfected. He pushed away fear of the truth and wondered what natural instinct made women want to soften rock-hard hearts.
“Still trying to make us a family, Dinah? It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”
“Not for you and him— no. I firmly believe that, Hogan, or I wouldn’t be here now. I think he’s really, really happy now, with all of his children together. We haven’t had time to talk, but I know what this is costing you,” she said quietly.
Morning sunlight flowed over her ageless, fair beauty. “You’re at the supper table every night, taking your place. You’re careful that Carley is always with Aaron, Mitch, or Ben before you take time to see to your own needs. I know your business is doing so well, and I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you. You must be working well into the night catching up on your designs and your company. Now, you’re out here, working on Ben’s ranch, when you could be working on your own. It’s only a garden and an invitation, Hogan. It’s a start.”
Dinah looked at Hogan, tall and strong; she remembered the awkward little boy she’d tried to hold and love. She placed her hand along the rugged planes of his face— a man’s hard face. The ache in him chilled her heart.
He didn’t move away from her touch as he had as a boy, and Dinah closed her eyes, loving Hogan as deeply as her own children. “I want grandchildren, Hogan. I want Aaron’s and yours alike, and Mitch’s, too. I want Carley to find peace and to become a woman. I want us, as a family, to heal. If we are strong together, we can emotionally meet whatever Carley’s stalker tries. I’m not worried about the physical threat, because I know that Carley is well protected. It isn’t just protecting Carley, it’s giving her a life. As for me— I’m tough, Hogan. I won’t let Ben hurt me this time, because now I know that I pushed too hard, and the timing was bad. I only made things worse. You were only a child, Hogan. Just a boy, all big eyes and hurting, and we made it worse with battling at every turn. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”
Hogan studied the swaying tops of the willows lining the stream where he would fish later in the day; the clear air echoed with the arguments of long ago. “Stop blaming yourself, Dinah. Ben is what he is.”
“He needed time to adjust after the accident. Jemma thinks the Kodiaks were the original hide-in-caves clan, apart and licking their bruises, and that everyone needs time to adjust and heal. She’s right. It took years to put this in place, long hard years, but now I know the truth. I replayed scene after awful scene, and I was wrong. I insisted when I should have given him time to heal, Hogan.”
She brushed a strand from her cheek. “You’re a man now, you understand what passes between a man and a woman. I wanted desperately to prove to Ben that his missing limb didn’t matter. He wasn’t ready. Each time I tried, the scene was worse.”
Her breath caught, and she swallowed, turning her face up to Hogan, her eyes bright. “You and Ben are so much alike, not willing to accept until you are ready. Open your heart, Hogan. Heal. And never, never think that you are not my child. I love you dearly.”
Dinah straightened, brushed his hair away from his face in a tender gesture that he’d once avoided. “And I love Ben still. I married another man whom I respected and who I thought would provide a stable environment for my children. But Joseph was dying then, all alone, and love didn’t run between us, not like with Ben. We had separate bedrooms, and he never asked for more. Raw from my divorce and feeling like a failure, I needed Joseph’s friendship then.”
When Hogan looked away, unwilling to look deeper into the past, Dinah turned his face back to her. “But it was Ben who sold Kodiak land to set up my temporary employment company. He wanted me to build something of my own. Oh, I was furious at first— him pushing me away, but then I knew that he was doing what he thought was best for all of us. Go to him now, Hogan. Ask your questions, but do it when he isn’t feeling raw and a failure. You can read him— ask when the time is ripe.”
By mid-afternoon, uneasy with his emotions, Hogan had left his work. He studied the sunlight on the graceful arches of his fly-fishing line, the drops of water flying in a perfect design. The willows bordering the stream were quiet, clear sunlit water sliding over the round rocks. He played the line with his left hand, getting the feel of fishing after years away from it. His reel was old, heavy and familiar, dug from the rubble of fishing equipment haphazardly stored in the barn. Years ago, he’d made the flies from horsehair and whatever else he could find.
There were cutthroat trout in the riffle on the opposite bank, lazing in the shadows of a fallen log. They weren’t hungry now, but Hogan enjoyed the sunlight on his back, the flowing, constant beauty of his line, returning to the calm, storing it within him.
He didn’t feel like blending metal and rock. He realized now how badly he had needed to recover who he was, to rest from his struggle to success. Dinah thought it was time, but Hogan didn’t sense Ben’s willingness to open the past.
Ben had taught Hogan how to fish, to sail the line over the water, working the fly to appeal to the trout. There had been a peace about Ben then that he’d patiently shared with a small boy.
Hogan cast again, too quickly for the line to sail properly; he was determined to push away the thought that he’d come back to make his home, his nest. The restlessness in him was for a woman. He could almost inhale Jemma’s unique, feminine scent now, feel that smooth skin, her body tremble against his. The taste of her mouth had shocked him... rather his need for the taste of her had stunned him.
He hadn’t expected the excitement within him, nor the tenderness.
A trout took the wet fly as it lan
ded on the water and Hogan, his thoughts on Jemma, tugged too quickly. The horsehair fly tore from the water; the fish was wiser now and retreated back to the stream’s depth.
Jemma. He wanted her beside him, filled with life. He wanted to hold her, place his hands on those taut perfect breasts and— Hogan admitted that he was, as Ben would put it, “in season.”
Her wary glances only excited him, much to his disgust. He was long past playing boy-chasing-girl games. He disliked watching for her, his senses alert and hungry. Yet there had been a certain sense of victory when he’d held her beneath him, holding her still when she would have moved away.
Hogan detested men who needed to subdue women, and this discovery within himself was not a pleasant one. The male-female challenge had made him want more. He doubted that Jemma knew or cared about the pleasant intricacies of a civilized sensual relationship.
He settled into his thoughts, casting automatically, letting the hissing sound curl around him, jerking the fly lure back before the trout would take it. He drew nature’s colors around him, the gray river rocks beneath the surface of the stream, dark lichen lace swaying on the trees, the snow-capped mountains soaring in the distance. He settled into the sunlight on his bare back, the almost imperceptible sounds of leaves brushing against each other, the stream gently murmuring.
Attuned to nature’s sounds, Hogan noted the slight stirring of the brush higher on the embankment. He stretched slightly and used the movement to disguise a stealthy look at the intruder.
Jemma had found him, and the knowledge brought a mixture of pleasure and irritation.
The brush crashed behind him, Jemma cried out, and Hogan turned to watch her slide down a small ridge on her backside.
She glared at him as he watched; she stood up, dusted her backside and tramped through the bushes toward him. Certain that she wasn’t hurt, Hogan took a deep steadying breath and returned to casting. The image of the curves beneath her leopard-print sweater and jacket and tight black jeans had set him on edge.