Tallchief for Keeps

by London, Cait

  “She’s mad,” Duncan noted as the flat of Elspeth’s hand hit him in the chest and sent him a step backward.

  “Brawling.”Elspeth’s single condemning word lashed out at them. She’d convicted and sentenced the offending males.

  “Just letting off a bit of steam, Elspeth-mine. I’m glad you came. Why don’t you just go inside my house and make some brownies or something, will you?” Alek watched, fascinated at the lift of her chin, the blaze of her eyes burning him. She moved suddenly, her sleek hair fanning out, gleaming blue black in the sunlight, and his heart flip-flopped. He took in her taut breasts beneath the clinging red sweater with long sleeves and the new jeans that clung to curves he wanted to caress. Neatly packaged, Elspeth’s supple muscles attracted him more than would a lusher combination. Everything about Elspeth was feminine, soft and yet tempered with strength that said she would hold what she wanted.

  Yep. That’s my woman, all right, Alek purred mentally. He just hoped she wanted him.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I’m done with patching bloodied lips and swollen eyes, Alek Petrovna. I’ve lived with these three, watched their stupid caveman games. You’re not adding to the trouble.”

  Alek was floating, high on the sight of Elspeth aroused to a fine, dangerous temper. He stroked a sleek strand back from her hot cheek, and her head went back. She flashed him a look that shot straight into his gut, twisted it and sank lower to heat and harden and ache. Alek tucked that look to his heart; she was glorious, a proud, hot woman that he wanted to toss over his shoulder and run—Alek glanced at the scowling Tallchief males and decided to wait.

  The three brothers looked sheepish beneath her quick, raking stare. Clearly Elspeth could pull rank and intimidate with the best. This was the real Elspeth, Alek mused, elegant even as the shutters went up and darkened steel gray eyes changed to fire.

  “Be gentle, Elspeth-mine. I’ve got a few bruises already. Will you kiss them and make them better?”

  Air hissed between Elspeth’s teeth, the tone a warning.

  Good. This was what he wanted, honesty between them. She was mad and letting it show; in another minute, she’d broil him. Intoxicated with the heat rising in Elspeth, he’d take a few more bruises from her and be glad of it. Alek grinned and tugged her hair, wrapping a strand around his fingers to enjoy and to torment her. With her, he felt like a teenage boy showing off.

  She studied him from muddy hair to muddy boots and back up again as if deciding which piece of him she’d like to sample first.

  He hoped it was his lips and pursed them appropriately for her kissing.

  Her eyes went black, boiling with temper.

  Calum straightened and stopped grinning. “Take it easy on him, will you, Elspeth? He’11 be an uncle to my baby.”

  Without looking at her brothers, Elspeth tossed over her shoulder, “He asked for this. Go bother someone else.”

  Duncan shifted restlessly, a muddied, rough cowboy towering over her, with a guilty little-boy expression.

  “What a woman. Right now, I’d say she could take all four of us and leave us in the mud,” Alek drawled, his breath catching as her eyes flashed at him. He winked at Duncan with the eye that was not swelling. “She loves me.”

  Elspeth muttered darkly to herself, a delight to Alek.

  “Uh-uh. If she did, she’d take you down herself. [ You’d be wearing kilts—like the rest of us with a cold wind blowing up your backside.” Duncan grinned at his sister, who had slashed a look at him steely enough to freeze spring. He stepped away from Alek. “Ah…you’re on your own, Alek.”

  “Juveniles,” she muttered quite clearly.

  “Just boys having a good time. You’d better start sewing.” Alek grinned and slowly placed the muddy tip of his finger just on the end of her nose. He almost laughed as she went cross-eyed and quickly recovered, glaring at him.

  The sheriff’s patrol car pulled up, complete with his latest opera and dogs howling. His bullhorn rattled the windows of every house on the block. “I thought you Tallchief boys gave up brawling since two of you got married. Now, Birk I’d expect it from, especially since Lacey—Never mind.”

  “They’ve been missing it, and I’m innocent,” Birk called back to him. He waved to the line of trucks stopped on the street. In town for Saturday shopping, people enjoyed a show from the Tallchiefs. Birk watched Sissy Mayors strolling by in her short shorts, and tossed a tidbit to the sheriff. “Petrovna has a thing for Elspeth. What did Lacey do?”

  He glanced at his brothers. “I do not trust that little witch past anything. Since she bought that old bordello, she’s been twice as bad.”

  Elspeth groaned, closed her eyes and shook her head. Her cheeks flushed slowly, and she turned a glare on Birk that widened his eyes. “Chelsey is too sweet for you, Birk the rogue. You’d mow her down too easily. Now take Lacey—”

  “The hell I will. Elspeth, you try to match me with Lacey, and I’ll—”

  The sheriff’s loudspeaker blared, inciting a new round of howls from dogs. “Oh, hell, Birk. Everybody in town knows that Petrovna is sweet on Elspeth. He’s passed up some choice offerings, all heated up and engines running. How’s Petrovna doing? Don’t hurt him too bad. He’s doing a real nice article on western law and Caruso for the paper. He just interviewed me.”

  “He can hold his own,” Calum yelled. “It’s good to know the uncle of my baby isn’t a pansy.”

  “Not a one of you will ever taste, smell or come close to another loaf of my bread,” Elspeth stated too quietly.

  She took one step toward Alek. There wasn’t anything sweet or soft about her, but enough passion to ignite them both. She took another step and struggled for control; the shutters began to come down as she pressed her lips together. He couldn’t allow her to retreat. He dipped his head to kiss her and found what he wanted, the heat simmering inside and waiting for him. Unable to stop himself, Alek wrapped his arms around her, lifted her against him and gave himself to her care.

  He placed his hopes and dreams on his lips, asking her to taste them. He promised her his heart and asked for hers. He sank into the taste of what she had held apart, of the precious core of her—to the softness and the heat.

  Elspeth’s arms went around his neck, and she took. She tasted like wine and hunger and temptation all in one. There in the spring sunshine, she kissed him until he forgot the limits, the sweetness he wanted to show her, and sank into the heat of what she offered. When the kiss was done, Elspeth looked down at him, her hair spilling around their faces. The world spun and tilted and stopped in a halo of glittering sunshine as her thumbs caressed the corners of his lips, her eyes dark and mysterious. She was all woman, and his heart, the other part of him—

  She’d been like this that night in Scotland, and he prayed there would be more times when she’d look at him as if nothing else mattered.

  After a time, Duncan cleared his throat. “Aye,” he murmured. “That’s what I thought. But I wanted to make certain.”

  Elspeth pulled her gaze away from Alek’s and turned to Duncan, her face still flushed and her lips swollen. The drowsy look in her eyes did not match the taut press of her body within Alek’s arms. Her arms, locked around his neck, loosened; her fingers trembled as she placed them lightly on his shoulder. He held her there, her feet off the ground, and admired her dazed expression, as though she didn’t know what had snared her but had enjoyed the taste. He intended to give her more than a taste.

  “Aye,” Birk and Calum agreed, borrowing the term from their great-great-grandmother.

  Duncan reached out a friendly fist to punch Alek’s shoulder. “Come out and help us lay fence. We’re needing an extra hand. There’s a beer in it for you, and Birk has a sweat lodge near the creek. After a nice icy swim in the lake, Sybil won’t know—” Duncan glanced down at his muddy, torn clothing and muttered a curse.

  Elspeth had shocked herself; the proof crawled up her throat in a beautiful pink, coloring her cheeks. Entranced by the wordless mo
vement of her mouth as she looked at the crowd that had gathered on the street, Alek grinned. “Shocking, Elspeth. Just shocking. Here you are making out with me in broad daylight.”

  Mrs. Schmidt, who had been Elspeth’s first-grade teacher, called, “Elspeth Tallchief, are you all right?”

  Elspeth’s lips moved wordlessly, and her hands flopped helplessly on his shoulder. Because he was in a generous mood and floating on Elspeth’s kisses, Alek called, “She’s just fine, Mrs. Schmidt.”

  “You be nice to her, Mr. Petrovna. She’s always been a nice girl.”

  “Let…me…down.” Elspeth braced herself and pushed away from him.

  Alek lowered Elspeth to her feet. He’d prefer taking her into his bed…. The struggle for composure cost her; Elspeth straightened her sweater, smoothed her hair and attempted a cool, detached smile. She failed when she glanced down at her sweater to find two muddy patches where her breasts had pressed to Alek’s. He admired the sight, peaks pressing against the material and then the wild flush sweeping up her cheeks.

  He didn’t reach out a hand when she sagged, but let her straighten by her own will. She’d have pushed him back in the mud and then he’d have to wrestle her down into it for a kiss. “Aye,” he said, borrowing from the Tallchiefs. “You’ll do.”

  Sun glinted off her lashes as they narrowed, and Elspeth turned to elegantly pick her way across the muddy garden back to her house.

  Alek folded his empty arms, ached for her, and tilted his head to admire the fine sway of her hips.

  Birk hooted. “Petrovna is in love.”

  “Petrovnas can be a fast game,” stated Calum from experience. “Elspeth is picky.”

  Duncan looped an arm around both brothers. “She can handle it.”

  Calum elbowed him. “You’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight, older brother.”

  Duncan winked at him. “Making up is the best part. It’s worth a night on the couch.”

  “She hasn’t decided she wants me yet.” Alek spoke to himself. He stroked his muddy beard. “I’ll have to make myself even more enticing. It doesn’t usually take this long to have them swooning over me. Five seconds, tops.”

  Birk guffawed at that, and Calum grinned.

  “I’d say she’s thinking about having your scalp right now. You could work some of that off by helping us with the fence.” Duncan placed his western hat on his head and braced his legs apart, grinning at Alek.

  Alek suspected Duncan worried about Elspeth…that Alek would cross those few yards to her home. “Tucking me under your wing, Duncan the defender?”

  “You could call it that. A few years ago, you wouldn’t be standing on two feet now. She can rip the earth right out from under you before you know it. I’ve got firsthand experience, and I’m wearing Megan’s oatmeal. From the look of Elspeth, one wrong step and you could be wearing some bruises.”

  “It would be worth it.”

  “I know the feeling,” Duncan returned with a grin that brought a quick, pained frown and a finger to his swollen lip. “At least we know you can handle yourself. Come on, girls, let’s fix that fence.”

  Seven

  Elspeth shook. she managed to walk to her kitchen table, poured the alfalfa-mint tea she’d just brewed into a cup. She stared at leafy bits at the bottom of the china and spread her trembling hands flat on the table.

  She’d taken one look at Duncan and at Alek; a life-time of experience with bristling males had told her they wouldn’t be civilized. She’d swept out of her home, leaped across a bed of sweetwood herb and had feared that she wouldn’t reach them in time.

  Alek had stood there with one eye swelling and had blown her a kiss. “Swaggering, arrogant…”

  Her home seemed to quiver around her. Thyme and sage, bundled and hanging by her kitchen window, seemed to twirl in her flooding emotions.

  Her studio was the same; her loom caught the sunlight from the windows. Skeins of dyed wool hung from pegs and the spinning wheel. Everything was in its place, and yet her life had changed.

  She had cared what happened to Alek.

  Her kitchen was neat as usual. Her new weaving projects consumed her, as though she were pitting what snarled and heated and brewed inside her against the wool. She reached for a skein colored with madder root—a fiery red—and gripped it in her fist.

  Violent. That’s how she felt about Alek.

  Elspeth sifted through her emotions concerning Alek. No. Violence wasn’t enough. Primitive suited her emotions better.

  A reluctant glance out the window caused her to shake her head. Alek stood beneath the hose, his ruined shirt hanging on a branch. He stretched his arms high over his head, and Elspeth’s mouth went dry, her body instantly quickening.

  She wanted to feed upon him. To take and to give, to bear him to the mud and—

  She touched her swollen lips, still hungry for the taste of his promise, his dreams…if only he hadn’t offered her his dreams….

  “Aaagh!” Elspeth lifted her teacup and forced herself to sip slowly. She knew men were boys, and boys liked boasting and brawling. She shouldn’t have jumped to defend Alek against Duncan, who used to fight to ease his demons before marrying Sybil. But the sight of Duncan moving purposefully toward Alek sent her flying to rescue Alek.

  She ran a fingertip across the rose design of her teacup; Alek made her feel like a rose—delicate, soft, beautiful. She glanced at the shadowed mirror and found her flushed face in it, her lips swollen and ripe.

  She inhaled the scents of her herbs to calm her nerves and found Alek’s, lingering on her skin. “Beast. Arrogant—”

  Beast. The word echoed in her mind, reminding her of Una’s description of Tallchief:

  A swaggering, arrogant warrior of a man, accustomed to women doing his bidding and fetching for him. The worst of it was he knew how gloriously beautiful he was, even with his battle scars. I’ll bring the beastly, mule-headed giant of a man to his knees…I swear it. He mocks my size and feminine weakness, but there are other ways, softer ways. I have nothing so fine to capture this Tallchief man-beast but the shawl.

  The shawl. Suddenly she had to know the legend. Elspeth shook the pieces of paper detailing the legend to the table and began to arrange them. Under a magnifying glass, Una’s handwriting defied reading. After a few frustrating moments, Elspeth called Sybil and asked her advice about duplicating the page. Minutes later, Elspeth hurried down the street to the printers and asked them to enlarge and darken the pieces.

  When she arrived home, Sybil was sitting on her doorstep with her camera and magnifying lens. “We can shoot the pieces outside in a few minutes with natural light and have pictures in a snap. Meanwhile, I am not a happily married woman,” she stated. “Your brother is a huge, brawling, full-of-himself boy. He walked right into the house, kissed me with his swollen lip—right while my client Marcella Portway was on the phone, pestering me about her blasted royal Spanish gene. He actually eased me down to the floor and held me there, all muddy and bloody and…Mrs.

  Portway raged on about her royal blood while he kissed me silly.”

  Sybil blushed. “There Duncan was, huge, ragged and bloodied and grinning like a baboon. ‘Don’t blame me. I did it for Elspeth,’ he said. The strange thing of it is that he seems to like Alek.

  “I could use a good cup of tea. I left them all with Megan, who is teething and not happy about anything. That should keep them from fighting. Duncan is cooking tonight, planning to wine and dine and candlelight me out of sleeping on the couch…and just maybe he will.”

  Elspeth and Sybil went inside and Elspeth prepared and served tea. “I remember when you entered a brawl at Maddy’s to defend Duncan.”

  Sybil sniffed elegantly. “I had to. There he was having a fine time when I needed him to rescue Emily. He was the only one who could track her kidnapper and find her.”

  “You’d do it again.”

  “Of course. Alek shouldn’t pick on Duncan just when he’s properly tamed. Now show me wha
t you have. I wondered when you’d get around to this.”

  Elspeth pivoted to Sybil with a thought that plagued her. “Do you think a man can be celibate for more than five years?”

  “I do. But he’d be a hungry one—” Sybil’s eyes widened. “Five years. That’s about when you went to Scotland, isn’t it? Before you changed? Don’t tell me that Alek has wanted you for five years—Don’t tell me that you knew him in Scotland and you and he and—So that’s what’s been going on between you. Something happened before…. Oh, yes! Tell me.”

  “No. Duncan will get it out of you…there’11 be more stupid, overgrown boys’ brawls, and then Talia…I do not want to think about what she would do. She shouldn’t be upset now.” Elspeth decided not to ask Sybil more questions; she was too sharp, her mind trained to connect hidden implications.

  “Mmm. I see what you mean. But Duncan can’t get everything out of me.”

  Elspeth shot her a disbelieving look. “He’s getting good.”

  “I can still hold my own. By the way, I know all about Alek’s little contract. You know it equated to the Tallchiefs’ capturing their brides, don’t you? That old macho thing about beating their chests and dragging off their women.”

  “He’s apologized for the contract. He was rather sweet about it Alek had his reasons.” Alek wanted to make her pay, to run her down, push her around and swagger off after his revenge. He ached for a child, a need coursing heavily through him to produce an off-spring, to have his line continue in the world after he was gone.

  Elspeth swallowed. It must have cost Alek to back up, to apologize, but he had. She shook her head, clearing it. She had to find a way to exorcise him from her life, to peel him away from her heart.

  Sybil sighed with dreamy longing. “I get all fuzzy when Duncan apologizes. I don’t know whether to take a broom after him for his crime…or to kiss him senseless. The light should be fine now. Let’s go take those pictures. From there, we’ll use computer tracing. The pictures are just double insurance.”

  Alek sat on his porch and drew the shawl across his bare chest. He tipped the chair back against the new siding and settled into his thoughts. A brawl, bruises and hard physical labor couldn’t tear away his need to see Elspeth. Neither the sweat-lodge steam nor the freezing dip in Tallchief Lake could cool what she had ignited with one sultry look. He knew better than to push Elspeth now. He’d done enough with that damn, stupid contract.