by Cait London
*** ***
In Hogan’s living room, Jemma looked up from her sewing as she had for a thousand times, watching for his return after two days and nights away with Carley.
Hogan was perfectly right, taking Carley into the foothills and giving the Kodiak family time to recover and prepare.
It was almost July. In the two and a half months since the Kodiaks had all come together, Jemma had lost a friend she adored; Carley would never forgive her. Jemma knew that in Carley’s place she would feel the same—
Jemma saw Hogan riding toward his house and pushed away the fabric, almost upsetting the sewing machine cabinet as she stood, her hand over her heart.
In the distance, he looked so tired and lonely, as if all the world sat upon his shoulders.
She lifted her hand to her mouth, smothering the cry that tore out of her. He was certain to tell her that Carley hated her, and wanted her out of the country, away from the Kodiaks. He was certain to tell her that he didn’t want to see her again, either.
Jemma dashed away her burning tears and hurried out to the front porch, wanting to run to him. She feared if she did, she’d learn that much faster that she was exiled from the family she loved.
Hogan. The weary set of his shoulders, the way he sat in the saddle, told her those two days hadn’t been easy with Carley. Hogan would always do the right thing for his family, no matter what it cost him. He’d always hold them together, though he was still battling his shadows.
And she loved Hogan. Two days and nights of waiting and hoping that he’d be safe, that he’d come back to hold her against him in that special way—
She’d missed him every moment, her heart aching for the sight of him. Jemma placed her fist over the pain in her chest.
She glanced at Aaron’s expensive Land Cruiser sliding from the shadows of Hogan’s barn and prowling down to meet him. Aaron had been with her, but he was anxious to see Savanna, and he was carrying a solitaire engagement ring he’d ordered from a New York jeweler.
Just then Jemma’s gold van hurled down the road from Ben’s, bypassing the Land Cruiser and Hogan’s horse. It squalled to a stop in front of Hogan’s house. Carley began throwing out Jemma’s vivid clothing and anything else she’d moved into the Kodiak house. The carrot juicer landed on top of the clutter.
Jemma gripped the porch’s railing, her knuckles white; a part of her life, her soul, was tearing free and leaving a big, bleeding hole.
She’d loved Carley for most of her life, adored her, and now her taut anger whipped at Jemma. Carley had every right to be angry and Jemma should have listened to Hogan’s warnings.
The cold stare Carley shot at her hurt more than words. The tinkling of the wind chimes sounded like the pieces of Jemma’s heart falling at her feet. She knew her expression begged for forgiveness, and she didn’t care.
Then Carley turned stiffly and marched down to Aaron’s silver Land Cruiser. She got in and slammed the door, the sound echoing in Jemma’s heart. She’d lost her best friend, a sister— and more than likely, the entire Kodiak family....
*** ***
Chapter Sixteen
Jemma ran out to meet Hogan, searched his weary face, and found no hope for Carley’s forgiveness. Jemma couldn’t bear to touch him, afraid that he would shove her away; she’d crumple into the dirt if Hogan turned away from her now.
“Thank you,” Jemma whispered, not shielding her tears from him.
“It will take a while. Carley isn’t in a forgiving mood.” He bent down from the saddle and eased her tousled hair away from her face, his dark eyes searching her face. “You haven’t slept.”
She didn’t care that her face was stripped of cosmetics, or that she’d made no effort to hide her swollen lids. In her lifetime no one but Hogan had mattered as much as Carley.
She couldn’t tell from Hogan’s expression if she was losing him, too. Would he tell her to leave? Would he forget their beautiful lovemaking? “I don’t blame her. I should have listened to you, Hogan. But just this one time, all of your family was getting along and—”
Hogan swung slowly down from his horse. He stood there, long legs sheathed in wom chaps and looked down at her. “You wanted the best for us. We’re just not perfect, honey.”
“To me, you are. Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to hold me?” Jemma asked baldly, freezing in the warm June sunlight and terrified that she had lost him, too.
Hogan stripped away his leather glove and placed his hand on her cheek, his expression tender. “Take it easy. We’ll work through this. She’ll burn it off, but you’ve got to let her grow, honey. She can’t do that with you protecting and making everything smooth for her. Let her fight her own fights.”
He watched the white rumps of antelope jog across a pasture of timothy and “needle and thread” grass. “Don’t think the burden is just yours. We all were that way from the time she was little. We were all in on getting her here. She didn’t like us doing her thinking. Right now, she’s fighting her way free of being the family’s baby, and that’s a hard task with us.”
“Oh, Hogan!” Unable to control the grief inside her, Jemma threw herself against him, locked her arms tight around his lean, safe body. She’d always held her pain, but Hogan was so much a part of her life, in the air she breathed; she had to hold on to the remnants as long as she could.
Another Jemma, one filled with pride and independence, would have lifted her head and walked away, no matter how much it hurt— but not Jemma-now. She needed Hogan too much.
“Shh. Carley is sensible. She’ll make the right decisions. It’s up to her. We’d all better be prepared to let her do her own thinking from now on. It’s my fault.... I should have known. She’s a Kodiak, and stubborn.” Hogan’s voice curled around Jemma, deep and rich, and his hand stroked her hair as he rocked her against his body. “I’m glad you’re still here.”
She pushed her face into the safe cove of his throat. “Where else would I be?”
“Flying off somewhere. Hunting the great bargains, taking care of profit margins.... Did you sleep in my bed?” His body trembled, surprising her.
Hogan’s deep, uneven tone said that was important to him, where she slept. She used his shirt collar to dry her eyes. “If you’re wanting to know if I missed you. Yes, I missed you terribly, but there wasn’t much sleep. You don’t look any better than I do. I won’t go to Ben’s, since Carley doesn’t want me there. I’m losing the only family I’ve ever really had, Hogan. Am I going to lose you, too?”
Hogan tipped her face up for a long, hungry kiss. “Does that feel like you’re losing me?”
She traced his beautiful lips and gave him another light kiss that told him he ran gently through her heart. “She’s your sister, and I’ve hurt her terribly. She’ll probably never forgive me. I should pack up and leave well enough alone—”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Hogan stated roughly, and eased away from her.
He slapped the horse’s rump and it turned, cantering back to Ben’s ranch. Hogan stepped into her van and returned with an expensive sheet, which he flipped open on the ground. He began dumping her clothes into it, then tied the four corners together. He looked at Jemma, then slammed the van’s door, as if making his point.
Jemma couldn’t move, for on the ground was a framed picture of Carley and her, the glass broken. She picked it up carefully, and ran her fingertips over the young, happy faces grinning at the camera.
While Hogan carried her belongings into the house, she stood for a long time in the late June day in Montana’s Big Sky country.
She wondered how it could have all been so beautiful— her adopted family, Carley, an almost-sister. She folded the picture close to her heart and let her tears flow. Then Hogan’s strong arms were picking her up and carrying her into his house.
Locked tight in his arms, Jemma wasn’t letting go. Hogan carried her into his bedroom and laid her down. His slow, simmering look took in how she lay on his bed, his
eyes darkening as if Jemma was where she belonged.
He eased to the side of the bed, sitting wearily to draw off his boots.
“You stay put,” he said again, reminding her of his order that night at Ben’s.
While he showered, Jemma shivered and prepared for Hogan’s concise bottom line, ordering her out of the Kodiak lives. She hugged herself and wished she could go back in time.
After his shower, Hogan returned to lie beside her, easing her close against him— filling her with familiar scents— that dark mystical Hogan-scent, soap and man.
He rocked her gently and stroked her back. Jemma realized her fingers were digging into his shoulders, her face pressed hard against his throat. She knew without looking that his expression was grim, that she’d torn his family apart.
Then Hogan’s slow, deep breathing told her that he had drifted into sleep. She tried to move away, to draw a sheet over his long, nude body, but his arm tightened, drawing her back against him. Jemma wanted to be close to him, just this one last time.
“I want to undress,” she whispered.
Hogan’s eyes drifted open, and his arm relaxed. He watched her as she drew the sheer curtains, blocking out the day and the harsh reality of what would come— when Hogan sent her away. When she curled against him, naked flesh against his, drawing the sheet over them, Hogan sighed and gathered her back against him. He slept deeply, instantly, as if he was waiting for her to return and now was at ease.
Jemma awoke to find Hogan moving over her, entering her, filling her gently as though locking his body with hers was a reassurance that he needed her.
She opened to him, gave herself without reservation, meeting his easy, tender kisses with her own, drifting deeper into their lovemaking without the desperation of other times. He made love to her gently, almost as if they were sharing a warm ocean wave. He rocked gently upon her, allowing her to adjust to the slow tempo, to spill over into a warm golden cloud and float back to earth with Hogan close and tight upon her.
Jemma sighed and met his last gentle kiss, not wanting him to shift away, but to stay with her, in her, keeping him as close as she could. She stroked Hogan’s back and hips and soothed his hair, loving him, aching for him, until sleep crept warmly, safely upon her.
*** ***
Mitch leaned against the barn stall and pushed his hands in his back pockets. After her return, Carley’s assault on him hadn’t taken long.
She was tramping back and forth in the airy barn, her short hair gleaming palely in the dim light. She stopped to hitch up jeans that had gotten too large for her, since she’d lost more weight, and planted her feet on the barn’s dirt floor. “I want to know about you, Mitch. You know everything about me, and I haven’t a clue about you. Is that fair?”
He looked away to the calves frisking in the field. He didn’t want to spread his dark life on hers, his angel.
Carley’s hand shot to his jaw, turning him back to her. “You’ll tell me.”
“Or?” he asked, resenting being pushed into corners. As a child, he’d been shoved into too many and locked into them, too.
“I’ll have to think about the ‘or.’ I feel stripped, Mitch. I feel as if everyone knows everything about me— right down to my bones— and I haven’t a clue as to what they’re about. I know Aaron’s reconsidering how he wants to live the rest of his life. I know Mom and Dad will probably remarry. I know that Hogan is watching and caring for all of us, and that he’s in love with Jemma. I know that Jemma— Well, I’m mad at her now, so never mind about her. What about you? What about the scars on your back, and worse yet, inside you?”
Mitch jerked his jaw away from her hand. “There are some things better left alone.”
“Oh, great. It’s really true then, what Jemma says, that we all have caves and we sink back into them when someone comes too close. You just closed up on me. Well, you mean enough to me to get very personal, very close. So what if someday I want children with you and something from the past comes between us. No, I want to know and understand everything right now. There’s a part of you in that boy, Jimmy— the one you’re worried about in Chicago— isn’t there?”
Mitch thought of Jimmy, too scared now that his protector was in Montana and too many miles from help. Mitch had done what he could for Jimmy, temporarily placing him with a good couple.
As a boy, Mitch hadn’t had protection, until Ben had caught and adopted him. He wasn’t about to explain to Carley—
And then he did, in short fast bursts that he’d never told anyone. “My mother gifted me with those scars. The cord of an iron isn’t exactly friendly, nor were her boyfriends. It isn’t sweet, is it? Neither was living without food, eating garbage from cans, and all the rest.”
“That’s why you help the inner-city kids, why you stayed in Chicago, when you loved it here,” Carley whispered shakily. “For them.”
“For me,” he corrected. “I had to. That’s what I’m about, Carley. Why I need to help those kids. I’ll be going back in and—”
“And coming out in pieces,” she finished, wrapping her arms around him. “I can’t bear that, how you looked when I first saw you— like your soul had been torn away.”
“I can manage. Can you?” Would she still care for him when he started bringing the children into his life, as he wanted— as he needed— to do? Or would she turn away?
Her arms tightened. “I love you, Mitch. What happened to you is horrible, and I can’t even imagine.... But you’re you, the kindest man I know. After this is over, and it’s safe for Jimmy, you bring him here. To heal, just as you did.”
He swallowed, his throat too tight with emotion to speak. Instead he gathered her closer and buried his tears in her hair.
*** ***
At sundown, Hogan awoke to a black kitten curling on his chest, settling down to sleep. After petting the purring kitten and coming fully, instantly awake with the fear that Jemma had left him, Hogan found her cuddled against him.
He lay still with the purring kitten in one hand and his love in his other arm. Sunset eased through the curtains, and he relaxed.
Carley’s taut emotions had taken their toll, but he was home now— with Jemma next to him. A lifetime of shadows eased as she lay beside him, and he intended to keep her there, and to see her happy. All the missing pieces seemed to be together now, with her breathing quietly beside him. After a time, Hogan eased from the soft tangle of Jemma’s body, and placed the kitten near her. The kitten snuggled down to sleep, apparently used to sharing his bed with Jemma.
Hogan padded into his living room; he frowned at the bundle of Jemma’s things, reminding him of how she’d looked when he’d returned: all in pieces, bright, glittering, tear-streaked trembling, pale pieces, fear of rejection and pain in her wide gray eyes.
She’d felt so frail in his arms, and he’d wondered when she’d eaten last. Dealing with her own pain, his half sister had been brutal, casting Jemma out of the house. Carley’s Kodiak blood wanted revenge, but Hogan prayed that she would gradually recognize Jemma’s good intentions to protect her.
Hogan wanted no doubt in Jemma’s mind where she belonged. He picked up the bundle and carried it into the bedroom. He plopped it on the bed and Jemma awoke, flaying her arms and legs amid the tangled sheet. She pushed herself upright and blinked owlishly at him. “What are you doing?”
Hogan forced himself to ignore the sheet sliding down Jemma’s bare, gleaming shoulders, and the nipple budding against the cloth.
He wanted her to know that her place was with him, no matter what happened. He tore open the knotted bundle and began sorting her clothes and cosmetics. He jerked open a dresser drawer and pushed her underclothes in with his, smiling at the tangled mess of black silk boxer shorts and lacy feminine underwear.
He shoved the drawer shut and jerked open the closet door, taking down hangers and stuffing her clothes onto them. He slapped her folded jeans onto the top shelf, next to his, and tossed her colorful assortment of shoes and bo
ots onto his. Gathering an armful of her cosmetics, cleansers, and creams, he walked into the bathroom and plopped them down next to his things.
He studied the less than artful arrangement, and nodded. Hogan intended to leave no doubt as to where she belonged, every day and night.
Hogan turned abruptly, ready to lay down the law, and bumped into Jemma’s soft body, clad now in a short, ruffled, rosebud-sprinkled cotton nightie she’d foraged from the bundle.
“You’re staying with me,” he said, shaken at how sweet and young she looked.
She pushed her hair back from her face, her expression that of a woman who had been well loved and who couldn’t balance her worlds at the moment. “You’re upset, Hogan. You’re very emotional now and not quite yourself.... You’re usually calm, dissecting the causes and repercussions. I don’t want to do more damage by staying here—”
“I’m just peachy.” Days of dealing with Carley’s unsettled emotions and returning to find Jemma in pieces had taken their toll.
Jemma’s only fault— shared with his family— was that she loved Carley too deeply. She hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him of her marriage.
In his passion, he’d held her too tightly— he’d bruised her wrists... He was no better than the man who had hurt her—
Oh, well, hell, he’d never been in love before, nor so vulnerable. Of course, he was emotional, Hogan thought, disgusted with his unshielded mood.
He shouldered past her, jerked a pair of shorts from the tangled drawer, and tugged them on. He wanted to give her soft words and not orders, and he was ruining any chance—
He pulled Jemma close to him and kissed her with the hunger and desperation riding him. “Stay with me— please.”
Then because he knew that Jemma was a woman who made up her own mind, he left her with a softer kiss and escaped to the kitchen. If he’d stayed, he would have wanted her in bed, and in the long run, he wanted more than that from Jemma.
In the middle of the gleaming kitchen, he stopped and slowly took in the changes. The carrot juicer stood next to the bread maker and there were four loaves of bread, uncut and waiting on the chopping block. His first pottery efforts with matching lids were lined up on the counter—An old glass churn sat on the table, next to a cookbook.