by Cait London
He could have offered her so much more. With him, she would have everything.... But now she’d have to pay— if she was defiled....
He spotted a rabbit, feeding in the middle of the road, and because hatred ruled him, he accelerated, killing it.
Just as he would kill anyone who kept him from Carley.
*** ***
Aaron flipped the old tarp on the ground, a distance away from the house. The earth was fragrant with the gentle mist that had passed, bowing the heavy heads of the grazing grass. He lay down on the tarp and folded his arms behind his head, letting Montana, sweet and gentle, flow upon his mind. He’d missed this, the lonely hours, filling himself with Montana, drawing her strength into him.
He’d wanted Savanna on selfish terms, and he hadn’t considered her softer needs. She’d shamed him into considering his life. When he’d looked back, it was nothing but the empty picture of a man in motion— flashy status jewelry, expensive clothing and jaded, uncaring women.
Hogan had moved into the circle of life, no longer an observer. Aaron smiled softly. Jemma had dragged Hogan into life; she’d been good for him.
A shadow fell between Aaron and the silvery moon. “Hi, Mom. Welcome to my parlor.”
Dinah settled onto the tarp, and together they watched the moon. “We used to do this when you were a baby— your dad and I. It was like we were so filled, so complete, and then Carley came along and everything was that much better. We’re getting married again— when Carley is safe.”
“I expected that. Dad has always loved you.”
Aaron enjoyed the sight of his mother blushing. She ran her hand over his hair, as she used to do, soothing him when he was a little boy. “This is really our first time to talk in months. How are you? Really?”
He was ashamed of himself for avoiding her, for resenting how she’d left Ben. “Are you going to forgive me, Mom?”
Her hand stopped moving on his hair and then began again. “What for, Aaron?”
“For coming back here, leaving you.”
“You came because your heart told you to. You were a twelve-year-old boy missing his father and the rural life and animals. How could I resent that?”
The answer was so simple that Aaron closed his eyes, his chest tight with emotion. “I just dug in. Once I’d latched onto the idea that you’d left Dad when he needed you—”
Dinah pointed to a horse with two riders. “There goes Hogan with Jemma. He loves riding with her at night. They seem so complete, a single unit, her arms wrapped around him. Sometimes they just ride to a knoll and sit, outlined against the moon. They ride bareback without reins, and he guides the horse with his knees— Hogan was always good with animals, and you are too. You were so special and bright, eager for life, while he held back... Ben and I made bad mistakes. We hurt you children with our pride. It was our mistake, Aaron. Not yours.”
“I want something more, Mom. I’ve changed since I came back. Everything is so full here, more meaningful. I don’t think I’m going back to that rat race based on an hourly schedule and high-performance appraisals, company mergers, and stock tender deals.”
“And Savanna?”
Aaron thought of Savanna, not in the fast heat he usually craved with her, but in a softer, tender way as though she were locked in his heart. “She’s the best game ever, Mom. Better than chasing a big client with a fat bonus. She keeps me on my toes. A real bona fide challenge and the mother of your future grandchildren. Right now, I’m not looking too appealing to her.”
Dinah winked at him. “Try the old-fashioned, romantic courting scheme, like Ben did with me. Hasn’t failed yet. There isn’t anything that appeals to a woman’s heart like taming the playboy type into husband material. Try some of Hogan’s patience. Let her come to you. You keep jumping her and not letting her have a chance to breathe, and she won’t come around. Give her some thinking room and romance.”
Aaron rested there under the stars, the soft touch of his mother’s hand soothing him. He knew that he’d been telling Savanna what filled his heart all along, but with his body. “I’m good at learning new skills. She hasn’t a chance.”
*** ***
The hot July morning told of a hotter afternoon and in another week, Jemma was set to woo the television producer into a series.
Life with Jemma when she had a project churning wasn’t a predictable experience. Hogan had decided to sink into his own projects and try to forget that Jemma would be spending time with another man.
Hogan smoothed his newly purchased mare’s spotted rump, letting her know the feel of his hands. He absorbed the strong, fluid shift of her muscles beneath the mottled hide, a concept circling him.
In his mind, he saw the mare running with other horses, molded spots blending above the stream, their reflections riding through it. Designs and colors shifted within the gleaming, sunlit spots, waiting for him to discover them.
The breeze caught the mare’s mane, and the coarse strands laid out another image, blending with trees. Rose turned to look at him, her eyes liquid and reflecting his image, the man who owned her, who she must accept and who respected her.
He traced the proud arc of her neck and found it artistically meshing with the rolling foothills, another design within a concept, intricate, appealing, challenging.
Restlessly seeking the creative needs within him, Hogan knew that his days for producing commercial designs were ending. Where once he’d wanted metal and stone, now he wanted color and movement and life.
Jared had yelled when Hogan told him the necklace was his last, that he wanted to stop all marketing plans. “Hogan, you’re tossing away a fortune. Simone said the design will outsell anything we’ve got.”
Simone hadn’t liked Hogan’s order not to call him, until he’d resolved the roadblocks of his life. A complicated, sophisticated woman, Simone had known instantly that Hogan was in love. He’d told her that he would make the necklace for Jemma, his Fire Woman.
He smiled at Rose. “I think you’ll like her. Jemma is demanding and tough, but fair. Then there’s that softer side, and she’ll be there when you foal. Jemma doesn’t run from trouble— she meets it.”
He smoothed Rose’s mottled rump again, feeling the creative images swirl around him in the clear Montana morning; they blended, colors and motion moving within a central theme.
One look at Carley’s dark expression as she rode toward him told him that peace was over.
Riding beside her, Mitch’s face was grim. She swung down from the saddle and charged right into her mission. “Hogan, you’ve got to do something. I just called that producer guy and—”
She scanned his house and surrounding grounds warily.
“Jemma is in the chicken house,” Hogan said, still amazed that she would place her hand beneath the hens to draw out not-so-clean eggs. Of course, the bucket of soapy water she prepared prior to collecting the eggs helped.
“That guy Parkins is after her body. He as much as told me so. He’s no more interested in doing a show with her than— than Mitch is. Parkins likes the long, slim, active kind.”
Hogan fought the instant rise of anger, the bitter clench of his stomach. He wouldn’t say anything; he wouldn’t interfere. Jemma had to make her own decisions.
“Leave me out of this,” Mitch grumbled. He looked apologetically at Hogan. “Carley wants to protect Jemma. The proverbial shoe is on the other foot.”
Hogan realized his fist was tight in Rose’s mane. While he trusted Jemma, he knew exactly how a man could use a small space like her van—
Carley’s fist shot out to punch his arm. “Do something, Hogan. That guy has been playing her along. He’s even slicker than she is, and that’s going some. When she had to, Jemma has used flirtation to help her business deals, but this guy is out to get her. He makes my stalker look like a plotless fool. Which he is. He’s going to be here next week—”
“Who?” Both men asked together.
“That TV guy, not the stalker,” Carle
y clarified impatiently. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Jemma makes up her own mind.” Hogan would remember that statement when he met Les Parkins the next week.
*** ***
Driving a low red sports car and wearing mirrorlike sunglasses, Les wore his shirt open to reveal a heavy gold chain.
At midmorning, he sprawled on Hogan’s front porch, drinking very fine wine with the air of a beer guzzler. “So you two are living together, hmm?” he asked, eyeing Jemma’s tight, leggy jeans as she settled with her cup of herbal tea.
Jemma caught Hogan’s dark, hot look, quickly shielded, and knew that she had to get Les to safety. Hogan’s mouth was too set, and he hadn’t said anything about her plans for the television show. He’d adopted that cold, stoic cloak again.
But at night, his hunger was wild, erotic, and almost desperate. Jemma sensed that Hogan was very close to picking Les up and shaking him— especially when Les eyed her yellow blouse, knotted at her midriff.
She’d wanted to appear country, yet knowledgeable. Hogan’s citrine and carnelian earrings, bangle bracelets, and a casual hairstyle added to her simple cotton blouse and faded jeans. She’d taken care with her makeup, enhancing her eyes and contour-shading her cheeks, to demonstrate to Les how good she would look in front of the camera.
Hogan had taken one look at the makeup she rarely used when she was with him and had snorted, walking out to his horses.
That snort did not bode well for Les, nor the flaring of Hogan’s nostrils now as he caught her perfume. He withdrew his hand from hers as she attempted to soothe him.
The informal business meeting was not going well, and she had a fortune invested in the project.
Carley had washed her hands of the whole thing, saying Jemma “should know better than to tempt a sick creep.”
Jemma had counted on Hogan, but with each of Les’s leers, that support had withered. She had to warn Les that he shouldn’t upset Hogan. Hogan was really very delicate.
Life with an emotional, delicate man was not easy.
“I’ve been thinking we might refocus the project. Montana has so much more to offer than fly-fishing. I’ve got some ideas in my van— I’ll just go get them.”
“I’ll come with you,” Les offered, immediately strolling off the porch and to the van.
She glanced at Hogan, who was looking like a thundercloud. “You’re not going to interfere, are you? I spent a fortune on this—”
Hogan didn’t answer, but rose slowly, coldly and walked inside the house. So much for a discussion, she thought.
Jemma hurried after Les. She’d managed tight business situations before; she could again. If she could survive the brooding, stormy Kodiaks and Carley’s new over-the-edge independence, she could—
“Oh, hi, Les,” she managed, stepping into the van to find him nude and searching through the cabinets. Jemma shut the van’s door; she knew that if Hogan were to see him— “Les, you’ve got the wrong idea.”
When he leered and lunged at her, Jemma sidestepped him. “Don’t make me hurt you, Les,” she said cheerfully. “Get dressed and we’ll forget this happened. We’ll both profit by my ideas.”
Hogan sat in his studio, moccasins up on his sketch table. If Jemma wanted to carry on her career as a wheeler-dealer, that was fine. If she wanted a television series bad enough to—
Restless now, he rose to peer out at the van, which was now rocking. “I’m not going to interfere. She knows what she wants.... I am not going to interfere.... The hell I’m not.”
*** ***
Sitting at the sewing machine, Jemma tore the old clothing from Mrs. Coleman’s box. Mending for the thrift shop would help her unstable nerves.
Hogan had gone into his cave again. He had shocked himself, unprepared for his temper, and now he was brooding in his studio.
He’d jerked open the van’s door with enough force to almost tear it away. He stepped into the van and immediately the whole room seemed much smaller, quivering with the violence within Hogan.
“Get your pants on,” he’d ordered Les.
He took one scalding look at Jemma’s torn sleeve and the fishing net she’d just slammed over Les’s head. “Having trouble, dear?” he’d asked in a terrifying cold, evil, dark way.
“None at all,” she’d replied brightly, fearing for Les’s body parts as Hogan towered over him. “I can handle it.”
“Out.” Hogan’s simple command, directed at Les, had sent him hopping out of the van, one leg in his pants and the other trying.
Hogan had slammed the door, enclosing Jemma with him. He had leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, studying her. “Are you going to marry me or what?”
Now, automatically checking the pockets of Mrs. Coleman’s discarded garments, Jemma frowned as she found the envelope in the old raincoat. Are you going to marry me or what? wasn’t exactly a romantic proposal, and Hogan hadn’t been looking sweet and dreamy.
She’d tramped after him into the house, opened her mouth to burn him, and Hogan had wrapped his arms around her. He’d pulled her down on top of him. They’d made love on the floor, there in the bald square of sunlight on his varnished floor. Shaking in the aftermath of Hogan’s hungry lovemaking and the ignition of her own wildfire passion for him, she had floated back up into reality and found his expression tender.
At the sewing machine, Jemma smoothed the sealed envelope and knew that Hogan’s ruffled and beautiful feathers were going to take some stroking and comforting.
She’d order a book on shiatsu and Swedish massage and how to construct a Swedish steam house. She’d seduce him until he was blind. Are you going to marry me or what?
“You need a wife who wants children. I don’t,” she whispered.
From what she had seen of Hogan and Ben, that relationship was mending. Both men deserved more than a woman who felt suffocated by the idea of children—
The envelope crackled in her fingers, and five tickets spilled out onto the smooth wooden floor.
*** ***
Chapter Eighteen
“Hogan...” His name was no more than a trembling whisper on Jemma’s lips, yet it staked his body with ice and raised the hair on his nape.
He looked up from his rough, overlapping, intricate sketches to see Jemma standing in his studio doorway, her face pale.
“Hogan, look—” she whispered, her eyes wide with fear as she held out small white tickets to him. “They were in an envelope marked ‘Richard’.”
He hurried to her, wrapped an arm around her and studied the tickets.
“Airline boarding passes,” Jemma said, as though a giant hand were squeezing her throat. “I found them in the pocket of a coat Mrs. Coleman had ready for the thrift shop... I was just going to patch it up a bit. She must have wanted us to know— Oh, Hogan, I think they match the dates when Carley got those messages from the stalker.”
Just as he reached for the telephone to check on Carley, Jemma gripped his hand. “She was supposed to be with Savanna. I just called Savanna, and Richard came to pick up Carley. They’re going hiking up to Willow’s cabin— Oh, Hogan, that’s where the winds are so haunting, where the legend is—”
Her eyes widened as Hogan cursed, striding to his office to open the file Jemma had made. He ran his finger down the lists of dates, carefully comparing them to the tickets, as Jemma leaned against him, her hand upon his chest.
“You were right. They match,” he said, and felt the hair on his body lift, a chill passing through him.
“What are we going to do? He’s had her for four hours, and it’s late afternoon.”
Hogan punched in Ben’s number and slammed the receiver back onto the cradle. He slapped his hand flat against the wall, clearly frustrated and worried. “Today was Mitch’s day to watch her. Aaron, Dinah, and Ben are taking care of the last of the branding. Mitch wouldn’t have left her—”
He picked up the telephone and rang Savanna. She answered immediate
ly. “Mitch has gone after them— up the mountain. Carley had sent him on an errand to pick up pizza. When Mitch had gone a little bit, Richard came by. He said he only had a few hours and couldn’t wait. Carley thought Mitch would understand. What’s wrong?”
The plastic receiver in Hogan’s hand creaked, protesting his white-knuckled grip. With Carley in danger, there was no time to ease gently into suspicions. “Savanna, Richard may be Carley’s attacker, and I think he’s killed several times before. We have boarding passes that match the dates of Carley’s Seattle stalker.”
He outlined his suspicions briefly and the silence on the other end of the line said Savanna was circling the idea, not dismissing it. She spoke shakily, “He’s been gone several times, but doctors usually do conferences and seminars. I thought nothing of it. Yes, those girls that were murdered were his patients, but he’s the only doctor in town.”
Savanna sucked in air, the hissing sound revealing that she had reason to suspect Richard, too. “He’s my brother, Hogan. Half brother. His father raped my mother during a routine examination. She didn’t want anyone to know, and Ben kept that secret. That’s why he was never a patient or allowed any of you to be treated— ”
Her tone husky with fear, Savanna cried, “Oh, God, I’ve been telling Richard everything about Carley, about where she’d be— My mother told me how demented old Doc Coleman was, how he kept rambling about finding that old mine. When Richard was a boy, his father marched him up those mountains to find that old mine— Oh, what have I done?”
Hogan pushed aside his fear and tried to think logically— fear and panic would not save Carley’s life. “Savanna— think. How would they travel? By horse or hiking, or does Richard have an all-terrain vehicle?”
“An all-terrain, but that won’t carry two people. What do you want me to do?”
“Stay by the phone. We may need you.”
Hogan remembered how the all-terrain vehicle tracks were near the old cabin that they’d burned....
He glanced at Jemma, who had just cried out to him and gripped his arm, her fingers digging in. “That ring he gave her that summer she was attacked. Hogan, it’s carved jade and very expensive. He’s been wanting her to wear it.... He thinks she’s actually his!”