by Cait London
He’d been too tangled in his troubles: lack of sleep, the gnawing suspicion that he’d kept Grace’s doll overlong. A cold emptiness moved inside him, and he knew that Harmony’s warmth alone could warm him.
Jonah closed his eyes again, reliving the fear that she would fall from the mare, that he would never be able to tell her the things that were on his mind... such as the pleasure he knew just looking at her, tilting her temper just a bit.
Impressions circled him when he thought about Harmony’s past. Then he knew that few people had known the emotional woman beneath Harmony’s smooth walls. Pax had said she was a calm woman.
She’d been hurt before and deeply; Jonah had sensed that when he held her, felt her tears on his throat.
He shouldn’t have let Harmony get to him, to get caught in the cross fires of his shifting mind. Jonah sucked on a wheat stalk and studied the moon.
She was a proud woman. “I love you, you jerk,” she’d said.
Jonah shook his head and his mare nickered softly to him. Funny way for a woman to say a thing like that. He shrugged. Maybe he was a jerk.
Jonah swallowed the emotion tightening his throat. He’d seen into her... read her thoughts. Or was it her tears and her expression?
Harmony was right. He should have called after loving her. He should have told her that he was thinking of her... keeping her close when he thought he was losing his mind and when he was catching images from people he’d known all of his life. When he was near them, sensations from other people lurched at him like river snags. He received colorful pictures if he focused on that person.
The church matron had gloated; she had done well with her whipping cream sensual expedition. Her husband, at seventy-plus, had responded nicely. Their marriage had not lost anything, but the years had made it stronger and my, my, how pleased Elmer was with himself, how his eyes sparkled and she was feeling a bit frisky herself.
Jonah threw the wheat stalk away abruptly.
He didn’t have psychic abilities; he did have a slanting mind. He was just bone tired and aching for the child that kept crying. He admitted to the emptiness of not having a child in his life.
He’d had a daughter and wasn’t ready to give up Grace’s doll, his link to her. Though he didn’t believe Harmony’s psychic malarkey, he had deep feelings for her… more than deep.
She loved him. How could a man not notice a thing like that?
Was he so far gone that he didn’t know the tenderness a woman could feel? I love you, you jerk...
At two o’clock in the morning, Jonah settled down by Roderegas’s statue. He carefully skinned and deboned a plate of fried chicken for Shrimp.
The peace gift bought him complete attention when Shrimp finished the slivers and lay down beside him. She placed her head on his lap and considered the sweeping Missouri River as he petted her.
Quiet circled them and the dog’s thoughts circled Jonah: In Shrimp-Elizabeth’s opinion, if a woman said she loved a jerk, that no-good had better make himself appealing— if that jerk wanted to keep whatever depleted tenderness the woman felt for him... Even if he really didn’t deserve that tenderness, the jerk really should change his current “M.O.”— method of operation. Obviously Shrimp had been talking to several policemen lately.
“I’m some love god, huh?” Jonah muttered, as a whimsical memory swirled around him. Had they made love the night he’d fallen asleep at her house? Was that why Harmony was so familiar to him, a part of him before lovemaking the second time?
Lovemaking wasn’t the correct word. His feelings for Harmony wait deeper, as if they were melded together by the passionate heat enclosing them.
Shrimp-Elizabeth sighed and looked up at Roderegas. Though the chicken treat was nice, everyone in town was saving her goodies and telling her their problems at odd hours. She was exhausted from all the companionship and asked that Jonah return home. He needed to work on his Harmony problem. Shrimp-Elizabeth was certain that he would be installed back on his love-god status in no time if—
“If?” Jonah prompted, and realized he’d been concentrating on Shrimp-Elizabeth intently.
But Shrimp-Elizabeth was staring longingly at Roderegas, her love.
~**~
Chapter Nine
The first thing Harmony noticed when she saw Jonah walking down Thorville���s Main Street was his aura.
Usually auras were shifting, vague and “read” by colors and impressions, but Jonah’s was distinct. It wasn’t the ordinary multicolored mist dipped in sparks or streamers. It stuck out from his battered black hat, as distinct as Therapy’s horn. Harmony didn’t trust her reading of it.
After a closer look, she saw cheery little ribbon streamers reaching toward her. She gripped the shipping carton in her arms tightly; though Jonah’s vital energy was focused on her, she wanted nothing to do with that buckaroo and his brick-like mind.
Western hats with their broad brims made it very difficult to read expressions, but Jonah’s blue eyes locked on her. From the price tag swinging under his arm, he’d purchased a new blue shirt, his jeans were stiffly new and he’d attempted to polish his scuffed boots. There was no way she or anyone else could miss that Jonah had her on his mind, psychic abilities or not. As he swept toward her, he kept those blue lasering eyes on her while his tentacle streamers quivered toward her.
Suddenly he noted a little girl holding her ragged doll close and shyly hugging her mother’s leg. Jonah stopped, his expression changing into tenderness and longing. Anyone could see that he was deeply affected as he crouched beside the six-year-old girl and spoke quietly to her. When he stood, he took out his worn wallet and gave the woman money. He watched as the mother and daughter entered the grocery store.
Of course Harmony loved Jonah Fargo. But why did she have to admit it to him? she wondered desperately. Why did she just have to blurt it out like a hot water kettle flipping its pressure valve?
He did not fit her pre-specifications for a relationship.
She hugged the carton of cupid wind chimes to be shipped to Seattle. Just three days after her damning admission that she loved him, Jonah— a tall, lean tough cowboy— was wrapped in a cheery aura with tiny tentacle like ribbons that were reaching out for her.
Aura reading was another of her psychic weaknesses, but today Jonah’s was neon bright and couldn’t be missed.
Now, in the first week of June, the impression that Jonah wanted to make amends and reclaim his love-god status was so strong that Harmony took a step backward. She noted that people came out of their stores in Jonah’s wake. Their minds hummed busily as they watched him.
When a man exuded that much animal magnetism and strode toward the desired lady object of his thoughts, people were certain to notice.
Sunlight glistened around him, his ribbon aura curling from him toward her. Harmony stepped backward and bumped into Lucky, whose arms closed around her, steadying her briefly. Lucky released her quickly when Jonah loomed over them.
Over Harmony’s head, the two men exchanged grim, meaningful stares as though debating territorial rights. Harmony blinked disbelievingly as she picked up their thoughts: Jonah and Lucky were locked in eye combat over the possession of one Harmony Davis; they were making mental growling noises and calling each other “sweetheart,” in the true old West tradition.
Jonah was thinking something really odd: that Lucky better tell the other “girls” that Harmony was wearing a big Fargo brand. Harmony remembered a western movie in which the cowboys called other men “girls.” Lucky was thinking: Sweetheart, the roundup ain’t over ‘til it’s over.
Harmony wanted to drop the carton on their boots. She had made her choice and the matter was not up for discussion. But she also enjoyed Lucky’s charming personality and his savvy fashion sense.
Then Lucky looked away, like a gunfighter who wanted to live, and Jonah smiled down at Harmony. He eased the heavy carton from her arms. “Pretty day, isn’t it?”
Lucky frowned warily.
“Did I just see you smile, Fargo?”
Harmony backed away a step, fogged by Jonah’s grim intention to be acceptable to her. When he continued smiling down at her, the sunlight caught his teeth and they flashed, blinding her. She blinked and shivered and studied the clear blue depths of his eyes.
Jonah Fargo had courting and claiming on his mind. He had plans for Harmony share his sleeping bag and camp out at the dinosaur dig before winter arrived. He had just a few months to restore himself to the status of her love god... And he had really big, big plans for his Christmas present and for hers.
Jonah’s thoughts rumbled darkly around Harmony: He had to make his move quick. The custom cutters would be circling the area in August, when it was harvest time for wheat. Touring the countryside from Kansas to Montana, the professional wheat harvesting crews drove fancy trucks and swarmed into town. One look at Harmony and the way her amber eyes lit up and her blonde hair frilled out wildly in the wind, just asking for a man’s hand to tame it, and the unmarried custom cutters would be— Jonah would have to step up his pace and try to be appealing. How? he wondered.
Harmony thought of ways to tell Jonah that she wasn’t on his calendar. Right now the custom cutters sounded interesting.
They might appreciate her cupids. They might not think her hair was messy and needed taming. She blew away a spiraling curl from her hot cheek.
She was cute in a snit, Jonah was thinking, his smile down at her tender.
Snit? Me in a snit? Never! Harmony smiled blandly, refusing to let Jonah into her mad parlor. There were lots of reasons she was in a possible… snit... and Jonah was at the bottom of all of them.
“Where do you want this carton?” Jonah asked, glancing over her head at Lucky. The question to her wasn’t pleasant; it was a threat to Lucky.
“I— I,” she stammered, looking up at Lucky for help and found him smiling sadly.
Lucky’s thoughts rumbled around her: While Lucky really wanted her companionship and interesting discussions about his designer talent, he couldn’t ignore the code of the West. Fargo had placed his brand on Harmony and Lucky wasn’t trespassing... unless things didn’t work out with Fargo... and there was no reason they should, because Fargo was an ornery cuss. Lucky would just bide his time and wait for Harmony to fall into his hands naturally as most women did. Except June Fields; she’d been running from him for years. June needed help choosing her clothes and her underwear; she needed less point and less flash to frame her assets.
“Fargo. Harmony,” Lucky spoke in that wise, traditional western drawl. Then he touched the brim of his western hat in an adios and walked toward Roderegas’s statue. Jonah continued watching him as Shrimp-Elizabeth invited the cowboy into her parlor. It was time for a heart-to-heart chat about June Fields.
“Why did you do that?” Harmony demanded. “You ran him off.”
She turned back to Jonah, who was studying the sunlight shimmering on her hair, piled high on top of her head. He slowly looked at her face, taking in her features, and found the tiny pulse at the base of her throat. Then his gaze skimmed down her light pink sweater, touched the cupid necklace and followed her jeans to lock onto her work boots. His sensual thoughts dropped into Harmony’s mind and she caught how much he liked her strong thighs before his mind moved on.
“Been working on Therapy lately?” Jonah asked in a sensual drawl that went straight to the hairs at the nape of her neck, lifting them.
Her midnight welding hours weren’t of his concern. Harmony parted her lips to tell him so and blinked, swirling amid enjoyable sensations.
His aura’s happy, little sunlit ribbons gently wrapped around her, trickling around the round lines of her body with familiarity and tugging her toward him. His thoughts dropped in on her: Jonah was in a really good mood; he felt as if he were standing on Main Street with his best girl. She loved him. She had told him so and his little prairie-dew-dipped rosebud wasn’t one to toss things like that out freely. He promised to improve the “jerk” part of her love statement to “honey,” “lover,” “darling” or whatever Harmony wanted.
Harmony locked her work boots onto the street’s concrete sidewalk and fought her body’s trembling. She really liked those gentle, stroking ribbons, smoothing her body. Jonah’s aura was the first to touch her like a lover. However, because she was still miffed with him, Harmony refused to let her aura do likewise on Jonah’s body.
“I’d like my cupids back, please,” she said firmly. “I don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea. I wanted to pay you back for saving my life—”
“I miss you, rosebud,” Jonah stated in a low intimate tone that curled her insides and warmed her in places that only Jonah had touched. All of his aura’s little ribbons smoothed her up and down, caressingly. They played in the froth of curls over her head.
Harmony’s bells jingled as she lifted her hand to smooth her hair. She was certain her topknot of curls was dancing with her body’s shivering as Jonah grinned at her. Trust him to produce her first aura-caress.
Jonah had a thousand-watt, love-god grin, unfair at the moment because Harmony hadn’t realized how powerful Jonah could be when he tried. Twin little curving bits of sunlight slid from him to stroke her hair with a lover’s touch.
Jonah’s masculine thoughts considered her: She said she loves me... All I have to do is be nice... take it easy… and—
“You jerk,” Harmony said tightly. She grabbed her carton of cupid wind chimes from him. “You’re not getting these.”
He raised one finger to lightly tap the hair on top of her head and studied the movement as though he were making a scientific experiment. “You need riding lessons. Bet you were sore from that saddle pounding your backside. Better let me teach you how to grip with your thighs and feel the horse roll under you. It’s a rhythm thing.”
Harmony sniffed haughtily. She’d ached after attaching her cupids to his rooftops and later when she’d pitted herself against him. Her knowledge was quite sufficient about rhythm things and gripping them with her thighs. One of Jonah’s stealthy little ribbon-feelers was slipping under her pink sweater now. He really appreciated her sensible underwear and round curves. She was just ripe and sweet as a canned peach from her curly, cute topknot down to her work boots.
She realized suddenly that she was holding her breath and her body was arching, responding to the caressing motions of his aura.
“Your brother thinks you’re quiet, organized and calm. He’s wrong,” Jonah stated as her body began picking up the crashing heat waves from his. The warm ribbon gently closed around her nipple, flicking it just as Jonah had done with the tip of his tongue.
Another warm gentle, pleasing, tentacle ribbon eased down the rounded line of her hip, curved around her, then eased upward to slide down inside her jeans. It gently stroked her femininity, lovingly, cherishing her.
Jonah was thinking about how flushed she was and that she was his little sweetheart and that if he worked on improving his jerk image, home on the range wouldn’t be so lonely this Christmas.
Harmony took a step backward. Jonah in a whimsical, out-to-get-her mood was frightening. “I… I have to be going. Sorry I can’t spend time chatting with you.”
“Shrimp has left me,” Jonah said in a lonely, deserted tone that cruised straight to her sympathetic nerves and lifted their antennae to full quiver.
“She’ll be back,” Harmony murmured, unable to block her caring, soothing tendencies.
“I’ve got something to show you,” he offered in a low husky drawl that dried her throat. Then he bent to kiss the fast-beating pulse in her throat. Every tiny warm caressing Jonah-aura-ribbon gathered her to him gently.
If his darn little feelers would release her, stop caressing her so gently and sweetly, she’d run.
She steeled herself against Jonah’s darkened blue eyes, the heady warmth of his body and pushed his sunlit invisible ribbons away with all her psychic might. In another minute, she’d repeat her “I love you” and mel
t against him.
Faced with Jonah’s unpredictable nature, Harmony decided to surrender the field. She hurriedly exited Main Street and kept her pride.
~**~
Lucky studied the peach pies cooling on Jonah’s table. He glanced at Jonah who frowned at the pies, and dusted flour from the bath towel he wore as an apron.
Lucky sank his hands in the soapy dishwater. He began scrubbing and muttering. “It’s a poor world when a guy has to get himself in the right again by helping bake pies on a Friday evening. I’ll barely have time to fix up for the dance. When we put these cupids up, I was just helping Harmony thank you... to pay you back for saving her life. Shoot. I’d help you take them down now, if you asked, Fargo. But oh, no… You wanted me to help you bake peach pies.”
Jonah touched the button on the fan; it began pushing the layers of smoke out the open window. “Who would know that pies boil over?” he muttered. “I could see from the recipe book that pie baking was a two-man job, Lucky. I appreciate you delivering and putting on my new roof, but it wasn’t enough for the desecration damage. And I’m keeping those cupids.”
“What about June-bug?” Lucky asked softly. “If these pies are for Harmony, then June is not yours, right?”
Jonah probed the burned crusts critically, then carefully sprinkled sugar over the worst places. “Never was.”
“Good. I never saw a woman weld like Harmony. Janice said that Harmony is working on a metal monster thing with a horn. Seems she calls it Therapy.”
Jonah turned slowly to him. “Don’t you worry about Harmony’s welding projects,” he warned. “You just think about getting back the tools you’ve borrowed from me over the years. I’m going back to wheat ranching.”
But Lucky was drying his hands, his western boots clumping across the floor to study the stacks of books on Jonah’s coffee table.
“Paranormal? Mystical?” he asked, picking up and studying the book titles. “Weird stuff.”
Jonah tried an experiment: a whimsical investment in nonsense that he didn’t believe. He concentrated on Lucky’s thoughts and the cowboy frowned, turning to him. “Did you say something, Jonah?”