by London, Cait
“Aye,” Duncan and Calum stated together. The word sounded like the growl of wolves who had sniffed the danger near their pack.
“Haven’t you three got something to do?” Elspeth asked more sweetly than she felt, and reached for Duncan’s ear. One tug widened his eyes. One by one, she pushed them out her door.
The old Potts place sat in full view of her studio, and Elspeth gripped a shuttle tightly as she stood before the large windows lining the room. She looked past the large rack of beams that served as her wool-dying shed, her gaze skimming her dead herb garden and resting on the house next door.
Alek was there, piling old boards, limbs and weeds into a huge pile. Dressed in his laced boots and worn camouflage clothing, he moved easily, powerfully, leaping over a branch before hauling it to the pile. He tossed the For Sale sign on top with the air of a man who was sinking in his roots to stay. A tall, powerful man, Alek braced a boot on a stump and surveyed the house. With his back to her, Alek was all long legs and wide shoulders.
No man should have that much black, curling hair, nor look as if he hacked at it with a knife when it got in his way. It glistened in the sun, touching his shoulders and mocking her. Her fingers itched to trim it, to cut it as she did Birk’s—but with her hands near Alek’s hair, she didn’t trust herself not to pull hard.
Elspeth wished Alek and her brothers into another country.
She studied her new work, which was just beginning to take shape. The design waited for her, springing not from her usual paper layouts, but from something simmering inside her. Elspeth sat at the rack that had been used by her mother and grandmothers before her and chose a tan wool. Whatever beckoned to her from inside the design had waited and now wanted life—it simmered and heated beneath her fingers.
Alek hadn’t expected his smoky-eyed neighbor to welcome him with a tuna casserole, freshly baked bread and a smile. And she hadn’t.
In his new house, Lacey MacCandliss, a petite, curly-headed elf and adopted member of the Tallchief family, raged at Birk, who yelled back. The two contractors had taken time away from competing long enough to help Alek with the basic necessities of safe electricity and major plumbing.
He’d expected Elspeth’s offer to buy and Calum’s methodical dissection of why he might want to consider another home. Calum was already questioning Alek’s motives and Elspeth’s reaction to him.
A tall, cool blonde with cornflower blue eyes had stopped to introduce herself. She had been distracted by Birk’s yell at Lacey and had listened intently to them. “I’m Chelsey Lang. Birk and I are going together. He’s busy now or I’d talk with him. Tell him I came by, okay?”
Alek nudged a loosened foundation stone back into place with his boot. He’d planted himself near Elspeth’s castle, near enough to spot her looking at him through the huge windows of her studio.
Alek blew her a kiss.
She reached to the side, and shades slashed down between them.
Little kept Alek from leaping over the picket fence that separated them. On a second thought, he began working the rotted old fence free from the ground and dragged it into the pile to be hauled away. He wanted no fences between Elspeth and himself, on any level. Thorns from the old rosebushes raked across his hands and arms, and when Alek could no longer avoid it, he looked at his scarred hands.
His palms were soft, and he wanted calluses from working outside in the fresh air. He wanted roots and growing plants and babies.
He wanted a woman to hold in his arms at night, to hug in the morning—Alek fought the churning, cold pit inside him. He didn’t know if he could put down roots, but hell, he would try.
When Elspeth had entered his life, he’d been a desperate man, one wanting to survive. Now he wanted more than to survive. He wanted a life here in Amen Flats. He took the leather gloves from his back pocket, an inheritance from Mr. Potts, who could no longer do yard work. Alek intended to get his calluses and along the way, he’d get Elspeth’s secrets.
At forty, he should have been immune to teenage sexual hormones raging in his body. But one look at Elspeth, and he wanted to examine firsthand just how long she could remain untouched.
He worked furiously, needing the late-March wind cooling him and the labor to dull the fine edge riding him. That damn soft promise of a mouth had haunted him for a week, no less enchanting than the first time he’d kissed her. She had tasted as sweet as the Scottish heather smelled in the night air; the taste of her haunted him. He swiped the sweat from his cheek and whipped a handkerchief from his pocket, tying it around his forehead. He pitted himself against the disaster of the yard with an intensity that eased his need to pull Elspeth against him and kiss her until she melted.
His conscience didn’t help, especially when the townspeople chatted with him about his neighbor. Full of life and as fierce as any of the Tallchiefs, she’d laughed and gone off to Scotland. Una’s shawl had come from the Paisley town mills in Scotland, where Elspeth had journeyed to seek her heritage.
According to Mr. Potts, the whole town had seen her off, and then Duncan and his brothers had brawled with any takers. The townsfolk cherished friendly brawls—a tradition in Amen Flats. Fiona and Lacey had jumped into the fray, banging heads and riding shoulders. At some point, Birk had tossed Lacey over his shoulder and carried her out into the street, instructing her to stay put and safe. She was on him instantly, landing a punch in his stomach and crawling up a ladder that wouldn’t support him. Birk had yelled threats to her, watching her cross the rooftops to Maddy’s Hot Spot Tavern. Then he’d stopped to accept a kiss on his cheek from an elderly woman who had changed his diapers. He helped her carry her groceries from the store into her car and accepted another kiss before he stalked back toward Maddy’s.
The sheriff had ignored the brawl at Maddy’s request. The lawman had turned up his radio, an Italian tenor shrieking loud enough to set off the town’s dogs.
Stories about the Tallchiefs saturated Amen Flats, and sorting them out, Alek found that Elspeth’s adventures had stopped after visiting Scotland, He’d changed her life, shredded it with one night.
Alek jerked a rotten post from the ground, tossing it onto the pile. He was responsible for the Elspeth who had returned to Amen Flats: she’d built a home for herself, was too cautious about relationships and had settled into her safe castle, weaving into the night.
Alek’s shirt tore and he ripped it away, just as he wanted to rip away the past and his guilt. Yet she should have told him—He switched on the tape player, turning up the passionate Russian folk music that stirred his blood.
“Alek.”Elspeth’s call stopped Alek as he braced his bare shoulder against a loosened post supporting the back porch.
Dressed in a loose cream blouse over a long chambray skirt and moccasins, Elspeth picked her way over the rubble. The ends of her dark red shawl, wrapped tightly around her against the biting wind, reminded him of the flying banner of a lady going off to war. From the yard, she looked up at him on the porch. Alek leaped to the ground and strolled to her; he wanted to see every expression on her face and know when he had fired her passions enough to ignite.
Alek studied her braids, wound like a coronet on top of her head. Oh, yes, he wanted to see her ignite. To lose that fine hold on her emotions. He’d seen her heart break, and to soothe his guilt, he needed the heat of her temper.
She backed up a step, pleasing him. Like it or not, Elspeth Tallchief had been affected by him. He admired the way she lifted her head; she wasn’t a woman to give herself easily and yet, she had five years ago. Why?
“You can’t do this, Alek. You cannot move in next door to me.”
He laughed at that. He’d always gone where he wanted, and this would be his first home. “Says who?”
He enjoyed the way she struggled for control, the flash of smoke in her eyes and the flush spreading slowly up her cheeks. The reluctant skip of her gaze down his sweaty chest and then the control that took it upward to meet his eyes caused his senses
to leap. Without effort, Elspeth possessed more sensuality than any woman he’d ever known, and he resented the lurch of his body. Alek studied the quickening pulse along her throat and found himself lost in the clean smell of her—the scent of wildflowers and herbs, and Alek breathed very slowly, inhaling a light, exotic scent. Elspeth—
Her sea-gray eyes darkened, stormed and locked to his. The pulse in her throat pounded heavily, and Alek wondered what she’d do if he placed his lips upon it. She inhaled and he found himself wondering if she wore lace or plain white lingerie.
Elspeth’s breath came out in a hiss. “It won’t work—you living next door to me.”
“I’ll live where I want. You lit a flame or two before you left for Scotland, and the locals say that Tallchiefs have a backbone of steel. You’ve changed, Elspeth.”
“I’ve changed for the better. If it comes to rooting you out, I will.”
He stroked a gleaming strand of hair away from her cheek, tucking it back into the black braid flowing down her breast. Unable to stop, Alek allowed his fingertip to slowly move downward. Elspeth stepped back instantly, her eyes flashing with anger.
“Why don’t you make it easy on yourself and tell me about the legend? Your edges are showing, fair Elspeth.” Edges, he thought, nice little edges to explore, to fit together until the puzzle was complete.
“I wonder why.” The whip in her voice took him by surprise. She leapt to the porch and switched off his tape player. Without thinking about the why of it, Alek leapt up to the porch and bent to brush his lips across hers.
She jerked back, flattening against the old boards, her eyes widening with surprise and then narrowing as her temper flared. He reveled in the blaze of emotions, trolling a fingertip down her flushed cheek.
Then Birk yelled at Lacey, doors slammed and Elspeth frowned up at Alek. She spoke in a controlled tone, the effort clearly costing her. “Amen Flats is a small, boring town. Other than for Talia—and she shares my beliefs about overly protective brothers—there is absolutely no reason for you to be here, Alek. Especially living next to me. I don’t like noise while I’m working, or half-naked men parading in front of my studio window.”
“So you’ve noticed me.” He leered at her, pricking at her edges. What right did she have to keep all that heat bottled inside her, when the scent of her caused him to steam? “It’s beautiful you know, when you weave. Your arms and hands are flowing, artistic, and there’s a timelessness about your movements. But I wondered what you thought about when you wove and now I know. You ogle men from the corner of your eyes, Elspeth-mine. It’s nice to know you admire me, that I am the object of your lust.” Alek delivered the taunt and watched her struggle for control. For effect, he reached out a sweaty arm and flexed his muscle. He was showing off like a teenager, trying to get a girl to notice him. Alek tossed the mocking thought aside, and gave himself to studying Elspeth.
Her gaze slowly skipped to his arm; she wasn’t as immune as she pretended to be. When her eyes locked to his, they were steel gray, shooting sparks at him.
“Lust doesn’t come into it. What do you think you’re doing, Alek?” she asked too carefully, her face very pale.
“Settling down, fair Elspeth. Making my nest. Issuing a town paper in two weeks. The middle of April is a wonderful time for a first issue. I’m shopping for a work truck and a Chevy classic in that order. Take care of business, that’s Petrovna’s law—finishing what I start. What do you think I’m doing?”
“I think that you are being stone headed and totally obnoxious. You thought you had a score to settle, but there is no score now. And there is no Petrovna law in Amen Flats. Leave me alone.”
Alek took a step closer. “We’re not done, Elspeth.
Not by a long shot.”
“Back off.”
“Stand and fight. Isn’t that what the Tallchiefs say?” Alek caught her scent, clean and yet exotic, and realized that his body was taut, remembering that night.
“There will be no fight, Alek.”
“No? Because you say so?” He knew the air had shifted between them, warmed by the past and enticed by the future. He leaned closer. “You think you can cut me out of your life? Forget that I would have been the father of our child? I can still see you, smell you, after all these years. What was that about the Marrying Moon, Elspeth? What did you mean that night?”
She gasped slightly and moved back. Alek took her wrist. Her pulse fluttered and raced beneath his fingertips as he brought her wrist to his lips. “You knew what you were doing, Elspeth. It was there in your eyes, heat and smoke burning me.”
“I knew what I was doing, but not that you needed a substitute for your wife. I didn’t know you were grieving for your wife until Talia told me last October, when Calum brought her here.” The words were hushed and rapid, held too long and now rushing out “Do you know how I felt after and for years later, thinking I had given myself to a married man?”
Pain and guilt over hurting Elspeth tore at him; instincts told Alek to protect himself against her barb. “I didn’t know you were a virgin until it was too late. You were twenty-eight, and ready.”
“And you took.”
Alek’s head went back. The truth hit him like a fist. “And we made a child. I want another.”
He hadn’t meant to state the thought, the need to be a father, but once the words caught the wind, he knew he meant them. He saw into Elspeth Tallchief, the strength in the silence, the fire rising out of the smoke. Then the fine control leashing her emotions. He’d wanted children, ached for them, dreamed of holding them in his arms. If Elspeth would have come to him, perhaps he could have—
Yet that high pride of hers—and his own actions—kept her from notifying him.
If he’d never known about the child, perhaps the ache would have been less…but now he’d had a taste of the dream, and so the loss had deepened.
And with it came a new kind of bitterness.
They both owed each other a dream, Alek raged silently. They owed each other a child.
“This won’t work, Alek. You’ll get tired of whatever game you’re playing and move on.”
“Sometimes you have to dig beneath the surface…make things happen.” He lifted an eyebrow to spear at her with his gaze. “I always finish my stories and tie up loose ends. I happen to like puzzles, Elspeth. Get used to it.”
Sunlight skimmed along her lashes as she glanced beyond him. Anger flashed, steely, hard and bright before she looked up at him. “You have a visitor, Alek.”
Alek stepped back and glanced at a young woman with too-tight jeans. He recognized the hungry smile; the casserole dish she carried caused more excitement than her look.
To set Elspeth simmering, he turned to greet the curvaceous blonde bearing his food.
Laden with scents of mountain pine and newly tilled gardens, April 1 usually entered Elspeth’s open windows as she wove. The sound of Alek’s power saw ripping through lumber grated; the sound of his hammer caused her headache. His dented pickup needed a muffler badly, and when he wasn’t working on the house, Alek tinkered with the truck. This drew the Tallchief brothers and a host of teenage boys, complete with the teenage girls tagging after them—to say nothing of the boys on bikes. The rubble stacked in his backyard grew daily, and big new windows now faced her house.
A meandering line of daffodils divided their properties, punctuated by the old rosebushes, which Alek had trimmed. At least she’d have the roses this summer, some small token after he’d invaded the quiet street.
Elspeth longed for the old Kostya place, which bordered Duncan’s ranch, but it wasn’t for sale. There she could have her privacy with no irritating, half-naked, muscle-flexing, arrogant, grinning Alek Petrovna.
Elspeth kept to herself, finishing Talia’s present and the order of woolen throws. She sketched her new wall hangings for the exclusive contract. The dealer already had several of them, and when they were first shown, the price would be outrageous.
Outrageou
s.
We made a child. I want another.
She wanted to free herself of Alek’s statement, to stop it from tearing into her thoughts. Yet that I want another remained, despite her will, nagging at her. It seemed just as permanent and irritating as the man himself.
To free herself from her new neighbor, Elspeth pitted herself against the heavy loom until her body ached. Alek had women running after him, eager for a taste of the worldly bachelor who was settling down in Amen Flats.
Elspeth firmed her back. Alek could flirt with an army of women bearing casseroles, and she wouldn’t notice. He could flex his muscles and—Elspeth inhaled sharply. Alek’s muscles had been the object of her wandering eyes, and she regretted that. She jerked down the beater and regretted that, too, because she’d made the weave too tight.
Then she glanced out the window. Alek stood on a ladder, hammering away at the rain gutter, his body taut. The sun glistened on his muscles, which were pulsing with each blow. Elspeth found she was holding her breath and let it out in a rush. Alek did not affect her, not in the least.
Just then, Alek wiped the sweat from his forehead with one hand and caught her gaze. He blew her a kiss.
Hours later, Elspeth smiled at Sybil, Duncan’s wife, and kissed her niece, Megan. “How is Marcella Port-way?”
Sybil groaned dramatically at the mention of her client. ‘That woman will drive me to fake her ancestry. I’ve never done that, but the thought appeals—just to get rid of her.” A genealogy expert, Sybil had been hired to track Marcella’s family gene pool to a Spanish nobility that didn’t exist. “By the way, Duncan has been worrying about you.”
“Are you scouting?” Elspeth watched Megan toddle to her mother. At ten months, Megan was already a handful, ready to explore.
Sybil laughed and kissed Megan’s black hair.