by Jeanne Allan
The large, gray horse looked at them and shook his head.
“No way.” J.J. backed away from Luke. “I’m not going anywhere that requires me to get on a horse.” When he’d handed her a T-shirt and a pair of his sweats and told her to put them on along with warm outdoor clothing because he had a surprise for her, nothing had been said about horses. “I plan to spend half the night soaking in a hot tub. I only had time for a quick shower before I fixed dinner tonight.”
She turned toward the house, taking one quick step before Luke snagged the back collar of the sheepskin coat she wore. Planting her feet firmly, in disbelief J.J. watched her boots plow twin furrows in the snow as Luke dragged her backward away from the house, her legs trailing uselessly out in front of her. “Luke Remington, you let go of me this instant or you’ll be sorry.”
“Whacha gonna do, lawyer lady? Attack me with elk antlers?”
“I should have let Birdie’s husband chop you into hamburger.” Reaching down, she grabbed handfuls of snow and hurled them over her shoulders. When that produced nothing but derisive laughter, JJ. twisted around and grabbed Luke’s legs.
Losing his balance, Luke toppled to the ground, releasing J.J.’s jacket. She dropped like a stone. Recovering quickly, she rolled over and struggled to her hands and knees. Luke was quicker. Before she could stand, he’d picked her up bodily from the ground and heaved her over his shoulder. She drew back to kick him, and felt a solid bulk behind her leg. A solid bulk that snorted and quivered. J.J. went very still.
“Wise move, O’Brien. You don’t want to irritate Soldier.”
“I don’t want to anything Soldier,” she hissed.
Luke stood her on her feet, penning her between his body and the horse. “You going to ride sitting up, or slung over him like a saddle blanket?” The amusement in his eyes glinted clearly in the glow from the ranch floodlights.
“I’m not riding—okay, sitting up!” she half shrieked as Luke hefted her up in the air. Throwing J.J.’s right leg across the horse, he plunked her on its back. J.J. grabbed for the saddle horn and made a terrifying discovery. “Luke, there’s no saddle on this horse. What am I supposed to hold on to?” The next second she dove for the horse’s neck, clutching frantically as Luke lightly vaulted up behind her.
Holding the reins in one hand, Luke urged Soldier slowly forward. “Take it easy, O’Brien.” He loosened her death grip on the horse and pulled her against him, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Relax. I’m not going to let you fall. Soldier’s part Tennessee walker. Riding him’s like sitting in a rocking chair.”
Maybe the horse didn’t hammer pain through her body with his every step, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “You can brutally force me to get on this horse, Luke Remington, but you can’t make me like it.”
Luke brought Soldier to a dead stop. After a second, Luke turned the horse in the direction they’d come from. In front of the house, he halted Soldier. “Go off back to the house if you’re too chicken to come.”
“What?” J.J. swiveled her head around to look at Luke. “You mean you’ll let me get off this mangy beast and go in the house and you won’t move a muscle to stop me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“If you don’t want to go with me, I’m not going to force you. I don’t want you coming with me because I’m bigger and stronger than you. I don’t want you coming because you’re too afraid of me not to come.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” JJ. retorted. The horse shifted his rear end and stamped a hind foot. Caught by surprise, J.J. slid to one side. Luke’s arms immediately tightened protectively about her waist, an action that yanked from J.J.’s subconscious an astonishing revelation. From the moment Luke Remington had thrust her from the path of a runaway horse, on some level she’d instinctively trusted him.
Which went a long way toward explaining her hasty marriage. With Luke she’d felt secure enough to act impulsively, to be someone other than the all-business, practical, clearheaded, cool-thinking, ambitious lawyer she was. For one week, the safety and security she’d known in his embrace had permitted her to explore a world without man-made boundaries. For which she’d always be grateful.
And she knew as well as she knew her own name, that she could have put a stop to his caveman behavior anytime she’d wanted to, but she wasn’t about to let some no-account cowpoke claim lady lawyers lacked intestinal fortitude. Besides, curiosity had always been her besetting sin. J.J. raised her chin and crossed her arms in front of her. “I’m not chicken and I’d never be afraid of an arrogant, muscle-bound cowboy. If you’ve got something to show me, show me, so I can get back to a hot bath.”
Wordlessly Luke nudged Soldier into motion.
Used to traffic noises and frenetic city lights, at first JJ. found the total silence and absolute darkness strange and eerie. Slowly her senses adjusted to the night. Snow frosted the distant dark mountains with an otherworldly pale blue. Overhead, stars sparkled as if they were diamonds on navy blue velvet. Leaning her head back against Luke’s shoulder, she picked out the Big Dipper and the North Star. A half-moon bathed the landscape with pale light, casting weed-shaped shadows on the snow.
From a nearby field came the sound of cows lowing. Soldier snuffled, and the rhythmic clopping of his hooves mingled with the jangling of his bridle. Rustling noises along the road disclosed the presence of small creatures.
JJ. smelled the horse and the sage and the cold. And occasionally, when Luke moved, a whiff of the scent she associated with him. Eau de male. Giving in to temptation, J.J. relaxed against his chest and puzzled over why he’d turned back toward the ranch house.
The answer, when it came to her, stunned her. “You don’t seriously think there’s the slightest bit of similarity between you and Ad Parker, do you?”
“I wouldn’t like to think so,” Luke said in a level voice.
“Ad Parker likes people to be afraid of him, to cringe when they see him. Scaring people gives him a high similar to what other people get from drugs. Deep inside he’s a coward. He doesn’t know how to be a man, so he has to knock other people, smaller people, weaker people, down to prop himself up.” When Luke didn’t respond, J.J. added, “He’d never turn a horse out to pasture to enjoy his last days.” She paused. “And he wouldn’t comfort a woman who’d had a nightmare.”
Luke guided the horse toward a pasture gate. “Hang on while I get this.” He swung down and crunched through the snow, unfastening the gate and pushing it through a drift until he had an opening wide enough to lead Soldier through.
J.J. clung to the horse’s mane, and said loudly. “You are a pain in the neck, obnoxious, overbearing, arrogant, overly fond of having your own way and think you’re always right. You irritate me, infuriate me, make me mad, make me want to slug you and drive me absolutely crazy. You do not scare me. I don’t care how much you yell at me or flex your muscles, I am not afraid of you, Luke Remington. You know why?”
Luke closed the gate and swung back on the horse. “Why?”
“Because I know I could trust you with my life. I would even let you take my nephews on the merry-go-round. Is that clear?”
“Very clear.” He put his arms around her and told his horse to move. “You know that stuff you said about me irritating you, making you mad and so on? Ditto.”
“Good. We understand each other.” She settled back against his solid chest, feeling rather than hearing Luke’s snort of laughter. Soldier picked his way by moonlight across the snowy pasture. J.J. sniffed. “Yuck. What is that awful smell? It smells like rotten eggs.”
“Sulfur,” Luke said, as if that explained everything.
J.J. sat up straight on the horse. “Luke, look. There’s a fire up there. How can anything burn in all this snow? Look at the smoke pouring out of there.”
Luke drew Soldier to a halt and slid off his back. He tied the horse’s reins to a nearby bush. “It’s not a fire.” Clasping J.J. around her waist, he
set her on the ground, turning her to face the gray clouds rising from the ground. “Your bath awaits.”
“My bath?” Comprehension dawned. “A hot spring?”
“It comes out of a fissure in the rock alongside the creek.” He held out his hand. “Come on.”
They walked into the warm steam and entered another world. Clouds of moisture swirled around J.J.’s head. Beneath her feet the snow-free ground looked green and lush. Ahead of her flat rocks rimmed a pool about ten feet across. Other flat rocks terraced one side of the pool, as if they were stadium bleachers.
Luke took a folded plastic bag from his pocket. “Put in here whatever clothes you take off.” He raised a mocking eyebrow. “I figured I couldn’t talk you into skinny-dipping.”
“Why not? You’ve managed to talk me into everything else you wanted me to do.” She could have kicked herself for speaking without thinking. Luke would think she wanted him to persuade her to strip naked. She knew if he could see the color of her face, it would be bright red.
“Maybe I was a mite hasty loaning you my T-shirt.”
“Too bad.” Slipping out of her boots, she unzipped her jacket. “You’re not getting it back.” Shoving her outer garments into the plastic bag, JJ. turned her back to Luke and stripped down to his T-shirt over her underwear. A faint splash behind her told her Luke had beat her into the pool. She started to turn, then froze. Luke hadn’t said whether or not he planned to skinny-dip. She didn’t care if the pool covered the entire state of Colorado, she couldn’t get in it if Luke soaked stark naked. The thought sent shivers though her body in spite of the warm steam surrounding her.
“Come on in, the water’s fine,” Luke said. “The temperature’s about one hundred degrees.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.” Crouching down, her back to Luke, she fussed with her clothing inside the plastic bag, precisely refolding each item over and over again.
“Chicken,” Luke taunted softly.
“I’m not chicken. Why would I be? I can swim.”
“Even if you couldn’t, you’d be hard-pressed to drown. It’s less than four feet at the deepest part, and you can sit on these rocks and go in only as deep as you want.”
J.J. carefully smoothed the plastic bag over her clothes. “What are you wearing?”
CHAPTER NINE
“IF YOU had any hair on your chest, O’Brien, you wouldn’t ask,” Luke drawled. “You’d turn around and see for yourself.”
“Assuming you’re equating hair on your chest with courage,” J.J. retorted, spinning around, “I have plenty.” Luke was little more than a misty shape in the steam. J.J. stomped over to the water and got her first clear view of him. Coming to an abrupt halt, she sucked in half the steam around the pool Sulfurous steam that immediately sent her into a paroxysm of coughing.
Luke rose to his feet, moonlit water streaming down the well-shaped body J.J. remembered all too well. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Get back in the pool before you catch your death of cold.” Her toes curled in the grass. As if any germ would dare attack a healthy male specimen such as Luke. How many times did she have to see his bare chest before she quit reacting to it as if it were a pubescent female? Swallowing the last of her coughs, J.J. concentrated far more than necessary on not tripping on the rock steps down into the water.
“If the sulfur smell makes you sick, we don’t—”
“I said I was fine. Something went down the wrong way.” She wasn’t about to admit the first thought to cross her mind at the sight of Luke lolling against the side of the pool, his damp shoulders glistening and water droplets clinging to his chest hairs, had been she hoped he wasn’t wearing a stitch. Her second thought had been the one she’d choked on. Sulfur fumes must induce erotic fantasies.
Above the waterline, her bare feet encountered damp, furry-coated rocks. She stepped down, the warm water lapping sensuously at her legs, luring her deeper into the pool. A small wave broke across the surface as Luke sat.
He’d gone deeper, the water level almost to his chin as he stretched out, a rock behind him pillowing his head. Watching her descend into the water, he said, “After a few minutes you’ll get used to the smell and won’t even notice it.”
She’d already forgotten the smell. What she was trying not to notice was the large, scantily clad male who shared the pool. J.J. wiggled around on the rocks, seeking a comfortable place to sit. Following Luke’s example, she leaned her head back against a slanted rock. The warm water soothed her muscles. The heated desire racing through her veins proved not the least bit soothing. Her mind wanted to run screaming back to the ranch. Her body wanted to float over and merge with Luke’s.
Her toes drifted up to the water’s surface, and she studied them with great intensity as she searched for a safe topic of conversation. The skimpy amount of blue fabric hugging Luke’s lean hips when he’d stood didn’t seem all that safe to discuss. Closing her eyes failed to erase the image from her mind.
“You getting things settled for Birdie?”
It took J.J. a minute to realize Luke had asked her something. She moved her thoughts away from forbidden channels. “Based on Birdie’s affidavit claiming domestic violence, the court issued a temporary restraining order and a citation for a domestic violence hearing. No matter what happens there, I’m going to file a petition with the district court for dissolution of Birdie’s marriage. She’ll be seeking custody of Jackie Ann.”
“Ad’s not going to like that.”
“Ad Parker’s likes and dislikes concern me not one whit.”
“Birdie go home to her folks?”
“No. She had a friend pick her and the baby up at the hospital and take them to a safe place. I offered, but. she was afraid Ad might be watching me. She planned to call someone she thought her husband would never think of.” J.J. drew circles in the water. “I can’t imagine not being able to call on your own family for help.”
“Me, neither. My dad and I don’t always see eye to eye, but I know he wants the best for me, even if we never agree what that is. I’ve never doubted he’ll stand by me, no matter what.”
“He still in the army?”
“Remingtons don’t leave the army unless they die or are forced out because of age,” Luke said dryly. “My dad, his dad, all the way back to before the Civil War. I was slated to be the sixth General Remington.”
“I guess that explains why you’re so bossy. General Remington, sir!” Water cascaded from J.J.’s mock salute.
“I’m not bossy. You’re just allergic to listening to any suggestions a man has.”
“I know all about males and their ‘suggestions.’ I have four brothers. If I hadn’t kicked and scratched and fought every breathing moment of every single day, they would have used me for their own personal doormat. Cinderella would have had nothing on me. My mom told me early on fairy godmothers were out of fashion. She said whatever I decided to do with my life was fine with her, except I had to be able to take care of myself, whatever happens.”
Luke shifted, in the process splashing J.J.’s face. He reached over, wiping away the droplets and drew her damp hair behind her ear. “Does your mom think you can take care of yourself?”
“She worries she did too good a job convincing me. She thinks I’m too independent.” Her mom should have told her how to take care of herself when the sexiest cowboy in creation sat inches away, his finger lightly tracing the whorls of her ear.
“She’s right.”
“You say that because you’re a man. Men are afraid of independent women.” Meant to ridicule, her words came out more like a sultry challenge.
Luke chuckled. “I’ll bet you’re a good lawyer.” His next words erased any notion J.J. might have had that he’d complimented her. “The mind always working, the mouth always going.”
A lot of J.J.’s parts were working and going right now. None of them happened to be her mind or her mouth. The front of the T-shirt she wore had trapped a minuscule amount of ai
r that caused the fabric to float above her body. Luke’s every little movement sent tiny waves across the surface of the pond. Waves that lapped against J.J. and caused the T-shirt to barely brush her sensitized skin. To think some misguided people thought hot mineral pools were relaxing.
Obviously Luke was one of them. “Those stiff muscles loosening up, O’Brien?”
“Sure,” she lied in a tight voice.
“Doesn’t look like it to me.” He slid closer. “Let me work on those legs.” Before J.J. could grasp his intention, he hoisted her legs onto his lap and began rubbing her upper thighs. “Relax. You’re as stiff as a board.”
Relax! The man was deranged. How could she possibly relax when his touch set her afire. The heat raging through her veins had nothing to do with the temperature of the water. “Luke, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“No? Then tell me to stop, lawyer lady.” Suddenly the way he kneaded her flesh had little to do with sore muscles.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“That’s good, O’Brien,” he drawled with deep satisfaction. Sliding his hands under the T-shirt, he lifted her onto his lap. “I’m not sure I could stop.”
J.J.’s few pieces of clothing floated away to slowly sink to the bottom of the pool.
Much later, J.J. idly drew her foot through the water. “I should have known you’d figure out someway to get me to skinny-dip.” The silken water caressed her torpid body.
“I wanted to take your mind off your sore muscles,” Luke said virtuously, running his hand over her bare hip.
“Mmm, I think you succeeded. At least for the moment. Luke—” she wove her fingers through his chest hair, pausing to curl a crisp hair around her index finger “—I’ve been here over a week. Why did you wait so long to show me the hot spring?”
“Why do you think?”
“I think you didn’t tell me before because you knew we’d end up doing what we did. So why tonight?”
“You have to ask me that after the way you attacked me in the pasture this afternoon?”
“I wondered if that was it.” Cupping her hand, she scooped up water and poured it slowly over Luke’s shoulder.