Tallchief for Keeps

by London, Cait

  “Very careful,” Talia and Sybil and Lacey repeated too seriously, and then began laughing outright.

  “Should I tell her?” Sybil gasped.

  “Do it.” Talia smoothed her tummy again. “It’s all right, baby. Auntie Elspeth may scream a little, but—”

  “What?” Elspeth demanded, not certain she wanted to know.

  “Today at oh…say…eleven o’clock, one tired Alek Petrovna gifted Duncan Tallchief—your eldest brother and therefore the one acting in your father’s stead—with two horses and a flock of prize sheep. It was only two horses and a few sheep, Elspeth. I’d think you’d be worth more. Yes, after a day on Tallchief Mountain and a night at the Kostyas’ farm place, Alek was definitely floating.”

  When her mind started clicking again, Elspeth groaned, placed her arms on the table and sank her head down to them. “Do you know how it feels to have an entire town know everything?”

  “Details, Syb,” Lacey demanded, setting down her beer mug.

  Talia grinned. “I knew it. Junior is just as old-fashioned as Pop. Mom said she sometimes felt that Dad was a steamroller once he’d got it in his mind that she was the one for him. Of course, she gave him the idea in the first place. The horse and sheep are a version of the Petrovna bridal price. Tallchiefs aren’t the only one with traditions.”

  Elspeth allowed herself another groan. She should have understood Alek’s look; she should have stopped him.

  Talia’s laughter rippled over the room. “Syb, it’s your decision. Alek is merely following our family tradition and showing that he wants you and that he’ll take good care of you and that he sets your value at a few sheep and two horses.”

  Sybil rubbed Elspeth’s shoulders and continued, her voice humming with laughter. “It was all very formal. Duncan stood there, tall and formidable, his arms crossed over his chest. By the way, darling, Duncan and Calum and Birk were all watching your progress up the mountain Sunday morning. It was a regular spy mission with phones ringing, regular reports and binoculars. I believe the words ‘She nabbed him,’ were used. He said, ‘Didn’t have a chance with her on his trail.’ Birk said something about he and Fiona being the last of the mavericks. He sounded as if he were mourning the passing of an era.”

  Elspeth rubbed her aching temples. “Sybil, I love my brothers. But I could kill them.”

  “Don’t worry about Birk. He’ll be picking up another marriage prospect next week. He’d be all duded up and hot to trot,” Lacey stated. “Get on with it. I’m all ears.”

  “So back to the High Noon of yesterday. There Duncan was shooting bullets with each stare and Alek leading the horses while herding the sheep. They’re lovely sheep, Duncan said—”

  “Sybil…” Lacey urged impatiently.

  Elspeth sat up and lifted one finger. Maddy swooshed to her with another glass of white wine.

  “It was really lovely and formal. A male-bonding thing. There wasn’t an ounce of giving in Duncan or in Alek. I could barely keep Megan quiet, and then she launched herself at Alek and he cuddled her. He stood, combat boots locked to the porch, all tall and hard and tough and determined male, and cuddled Meggie on his hip.”

  Sybil took a sip of lemonade before continuing. “Duncan was weakening by then, but he leveled questions like a gunslinger at showdown time, and Alek answered them carefully, exactly. One of them was quite exact—‘She cut your hair?’ Alek said you did and at last Duncan nodded and said, ‘Aye.’ Then he added a threat about what would happen if Alek broke your heart. By that time, I was crying. After that, they both went to chop wood, just swinging axes away as if they wanted to brawl and knew they’d better not. Wood flew everywhere. It looked like a lumberjack contest. I found Duncan later, alone in the barn. His eyes were wet, he was hugging one of the sheep and he said he thought he was developing allergies and that there was too much hay dust in the barn.”

  “Ha! Allergies, my foot!” Lacey exclaimed. “He cried because his baby Elspeth was leaving his nest.”

  Sybil arched a brow. “Don’t you ever say anything like that around him, Lacey. He’s delicate and needs protection, but especially now. He’s been having morning sickness.”

  Elspeth managed to speak. “I believe that Mr. Alek Petrovna has a lesson to learn. He should have discussed this with me first—what exactly did Alek want, Sybil?”

  “Your hand in marriage. He wanted permission to court you, and sure enough there you were cruising in his Chevy last night.”

  “You’re absolutely right. He should have asked you to marry him first…didn’t he?” Talia clearly was not happy with her brother.

  “He did not. He’s pushy, Sybil. I haven’t decided whether I like the man or not. At the moment, I do not believe I want anything to do with Alek. Other than to teach him a lesson.”

  Sybil leveled a look at Elspeth. “There’s a big difference between love and like. I always love Duncan, but sometimes I really don’t like him.”

  Lacey licked the beer foam off her upper lip. “Birk dumped poor Chelsey Lang. I have no idea why. She’s such a sweet, old-fashioned, homey-type girl, too. Looks fertile…massive mammaries and big hips, just like what you’d think a Tallchief would want—no offense, Syb…Talia. Yep, I’d have thought Birk would have wanted that one. Instead he dumped her. Men.”

  Lacey’s tone put the male species in a box with cockroaches. The four women shot Maddy a dark look that sent him scurrying toward Miss Loretta. When he realized how close he was to her proximity, he reeled back, knocked over two liquor bottles and caught them. He kept a wary eye on Loretta as he wiped his bar.

  While Elspeth dealt with just how much Alek had invaded her life and embarrassed her, Alek tossed a beer to Duncan. Alek almost felt sorry for Duncan, a man called “Mother” by the law; he’d risked his life to rescue kidnapped children and now he felt he was losing his sister. With Emily baby-sitting Megan and doing her homework at Duncan’s, the three brothers sprawled on Calum’s candlelit porch, wrapped in the citronella scent. Olaf and Thorn lay in the front yard, watching the Tuesday-night traffic of one truck, two bicycles and three cars in the space of one hour.

  Calum propped his boots beside the other three sets on the railing. “I added the horses and the sheep to Elspeth’s portion of Tallchief cattle.”

  “I’ll keep them until Elspeth decides what she’s going to do with you, Alek. She knows Una’s legend concerning the shawl. She’ll tell you when she’s ready, Alek,” Duncan said.

  Alek didn’t want the legend coming to him from anyone but Elspeth and when she was ready; a man had to have some pride. Whatever the Marrying Moon was to the legend, it was his right to know. It had been five years since he’d first heard Elspeth sigh the words, and he could wait a little longer.

  “She’s keeping her secrets to herself. You Tallchiefs are a secretive lot,” Alek noted, toying with a baby rattle. It nettled him that the woman he loved, who he wanted to marry him and who had given herself to him several times, could hold him at a distance when she wanted. Elspeth could have collected the shawl at any time and walked away with it, yet she hadn’t.

  He ran his thumb over the cool, damp aluminum beer can. He didn’t intend to fail Elspeth a third time. Scotland and the damned Denver undertaking had been pure stupidity.

  “I think ladies’ night at Maddy’s should be outlawed.” Birk cuddled a teddy bear while Duncan arranged the tiny plastic horses around the crib mobile he’d been assembling. “Uh-uh. Trouble.”

  Alek, Duncan, Calum and Birk looked down the tree-lined street, past Mrs. Monroe’s yard of roses, past the teenagers smooching on the Joneses’ porch swing, to the four women storming toward them.

  “Aye. Trouble,” Duncan and Calum stated together. Calum reached for Birk’s teddy bear and the mobile and placed them inside the house. The men propped the backs of their chairs against the wall, rocking on them as they crossed their boots on the railing.

  “Alek, did you check with Elspeth about courting her?” Duncan asked c
arefully. “Did you talk to her before you talked to me? Ask her to marry you before bringing those horses and the sheep to me?”

  Alek watched Elspeth steam toward him, the streetlight outlining her taut, curved body; her hair flew out from her shoulders, rippling in her passing. Desire shot straight down to his loins and pounded there. “Haven’t had time. Brad Klein got sick, and I stepped in at the paper. Went out to cover the new plant nursery outside of town and helped pull a calf from the Stevenson’s guernsey. I meant to call, but my truck broke down four miles out of town. By the time I got home, Elspeth was already barricaded at Maddy’s.”

  Calum, Birk and Duncan stared at Alek. “We owe you. That’s an outraged female posse coming.”

  “They’re after Alek,” Calum said finally. “We’ll have to keep you here if you try to run. We can’t have them taking out your lack of manners on us.”

  “Save yourselves, sweethearts.” Just looking at Elspeth caused Alek to suck in air, steadying his light head. She looked better than the last time he’d seen her—which was when she’d tried to drag him into her house the previous night, after hours of necking. “I’m a saint,” he murmured, and damned his righteous idea that the next time they made love, he’d have Duncan’s permission to ask her to marry him. “A real saint.”

  Birk guffawed at that, spewing out his last sip of beer.

  Elspeth, dressed in an emerald green sweater and jeans, marched up the steps to the porch, followed by the other women. While Elspeth stood beside Alek’s chair, hands on hips, staring down at him, Talia placed a hand on Calum’s shoulder to stay him. Sybil did the same to Duncan, and Lacey placed the tip of a broom handle on Birk’s chest.

  Elspeth’s lips opened and closed, fascinating Alek.

  “Yes?” he invited in a drawl. He floundered, went dizzy at the sight of her outlined in the street lamps and flickering candlelight.

  Duncan, Calum and Birk slashed him a dark look. All four women acted at once: Elspeth reached for a bag of potting soil, ripped it open and shook it over Alek. Talia poured beer over Calum’s head, and Sybil did the same to Duncan’s lap. Lacey swept her foot beneath the back legs of Birk’s chair, and he went down cursing. Then Sybil reached for another bag of potting soil and shook it over Duncan’s head; Talia took it from Sybil and shook it over Calum’s and Lacey dribbled beer straight down into Birk’s face.

  Elspeth lifted a watering can. “What’s in this, Talia?”

  “Water. Plant nutrients. Do it.” She stood back, dusting her hands as Elspeth quickly doused Alek and dribbled the rest over her brothers.

  The women shook hands. “Good job, Elspeth.”

  Duncan blew a clump of potting soil from his hair and slid Alek a dark look. “You should have—”

  Alek swiped away the mud and ran his hand up the back of Elspeth’s taut leg to pat her bottom. “I know.”

  He wanted to pack her over his shoulder and run with her. She swatted at his hand and lifted her nose. “This debris stinks. I’m going back to Maddy’s.”

  “Uh…honey, precious, Talia…don’t you think you’ve had enough activity for tonight?” Calum tried a hopeful smile.

  “This gives me an idea for a play. I’m going back to Maddy’s to sketch it out on a napkin, big boy.”

  “Sybil, you’re coming home with me,” Duncan stated, struggling out of his chair.

  Alek studied the shape of Elspeth’s firmly pressed lips and went lightheaded as he remembered them prowling down his chest. “You’re a fine-looking woman,” he said, meaning it.

  “Jeez, Junior. Your fangs are showing. You’re drooling,” Talia muttered. “How dumb can you be? You’re in real deep manure here, boy.”

  Elspeth inhaled slowly, as if tethering her temper. “Someday, Petrovna, someone is going to knock you off that overstuffed ego and grind you into the ground. The next time you get an idea that you and my brothers will settle my life, I’d appreciate a little notice.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “I believe I’ve served adequate notice that I’m interested.”

  “Interested? You’re on thin ice here, Petrovna.”

  “Home, Sybil,” Duncan insisted, trying to hold his own on the porch.

  “Nope. I’m not,” Sybil returned lightly, and placed a firm finger in the middle of his broad chest. “See you in the morning.”

  Duncan glared at Alek. “He’s an ill-manned oaf.”

  Olaf bounded up the stairs, certain that his name had been mentioned. Thorn joined him to sip the beer wasted on the porch. Talia’s kitten and puppy romped across Birk’s flat stomach on their way to play with Olaf and Thorn. The sheriff came by, sopranos at full blast. “Maddy wanted to know if you men are okay, and if you’d keep your women here.”

  “Tell him we’re on our way back,” Elspeth called, looping her arm with Sybil’s as they began to walk back to Maddy’s.

  “Well, hell,” Alek muttered, surging to his feet. None of this was going the way he had planned.

  “I wouldn’t—” Calum said behind him.

  Alek began singing “You Are My Sunshine” loudly, strolling after the women with his hands in his back pockets.

  Elspeth pivoted and leveled a finger at him. “You’re pushing me, Petrovna.”

  “That I am, darlin’. That I am,” he admitted, undaunted.

  The sheriff cruised by and Alek motioned him over. He took the loudspeaker microphone from the sheriff and lifted it.

  Panic rippled across Elspeth’s pale face. “Alek, don’t you dare—”

  “Elspeth Tallchief, I’ve made mistakes, but I’ll learn. I’m here to stay and I’m nuts about you,” Alek broadcast to the people lining the streets. She’d have to learn about Petrovna capers, Alek decided and grinned. Petrovnas could be wild, excitable, unpredictable. He didn’t intend to give his love anything but the real Alek. The one she’d made love her.

  She began to mutter amid the other three women, who were laughing. Birk had rolled off the porch onto the lawn, holding his sides and laughing. Calum was loping toward Talia, and Duncan was walking down Main Street, sighted on Sybil and twirling his lasso. An expert at cowboy rope tricks, Duncan stepped into the rope’s circle, hopped out again and back in. He looked at Alek, who nodded and took the rope, performing the trick.

  Calum walked by with Talia snuggled in his arms, clearly on his way to a making-up event Birk and Lacey glowered at each other, then both crossed their arms across their chests and looked away.

  Faced with determined women, Duncan and Alek passed the rope back several times, each matching the other for tricks. Sybil cursed darkly. “He knows that Will Rogers stuff gets to me. I turn into putty when he does it.”

  Elspeth couldn’t take any more. She marched up to Alek, grabbed the rope from his hands and tossed it into the bushes. “There. You’re finished,” she said, placing her hands on her waist Glorious, he thought. Wild and glorious. Soft and sweet, delectable…his lifetime love, because he’d never love another, she’d taken him too hard and too deep.

  He caught her to him, bent her over his arm and fused his mouth to hers. She was caught by surprise, and her gasp went into Alek’s mouth, followed by the flick of her tongue, tasting him. Then her hands streaked to his hair, keeping his lips on her hungry ones. “Ah, you’re a passionate one, Elspeth-mine. And you love me. Admit it,” Alek managed to say when he had to come up for air and took her lips again, this time lifting her feet off the ground.

  When he set her toes back to earth again, when his heart was racing with need of more than a kiss from his love, when he decided he’d better leave her or he’d shock Amen Flats then and there, Alek released her. He held her arm as she balanced, eyes glazed, mouth juicy and ripe with his kisses and hair gleaming like satin under the streetlights.

  Then he managed to stroll away, though his knees weren’t too steady.

  Elspeth’s voice shot at him from the sheriff’s loudspeaker, “Wait!”

  Alek inhaled and stopped. She had her pride; he had his. Sh
e’d have to come to him this time. He turned slowly to see Elspeth sauntering down the street. Alek jammed his fingers into his back pockets. He placed his boot on the curb and waited. “She’s going to destroy whatever I’ve got remaining in the way of pride,” he muttered, meaning it.

  Elspeth sauntered down the street, long legs outlined in the streetlight, her hair swaying at her hips. She stopped in front of him. “We don’t have a thing in common, Petrovna.”

  Alek steeled himself, suddenly cold in the June night air. He stared down at her and didn’t trust himself for one heartbeat. “You’re what I want.”

  “Why?” There wasn’t an ounce of yielding in her, and he respected that.

  Why? Because he needed her as he needed air. Because his heart raced at the sight of her; his pulses kicked into high gear with just a scent of her. Because he saw her in his dreams and in his future. Because herd be a shell of a man without her. “I’m here, Elspeth. I’m staying in Amen Flats. I’m dependable and I’ll be here when you need me.”

  “You can’t gather me up like you gather bits of other people’s lives to you.” She traced the scar on his lip with her fingertip. “I don’t like being pushed and currently I’m more than embarrassed…I’m good and mad.”

  “You’re afraid I’ll leave you…that I’ll hurt you again. I won’t. You’ve lost your parents. Let me give you mine. We had something then and we have it now.” So much for pride, thought Alek. With Elspeth, he had none. “It’s in my nature to push. Waiting for you to make up your mind is damn hard.”

  “Poor Alek.” She served him with a soft, taunting smile.

  His temper flared at that “I could show you poor Alek pretty quickly without this audience, darlin’.”

  “You talk big, Mr. Petrovna.” There it was, that flashing, dangerous, enchanting grin. Then she placed her arms around his neck, leaned against him and gave him the famed Tallchief kiss. It challenged, pushed him to the limit, moved into his body, ignited it and traveled up to cloud his brain. Hormones, he tried to think, keep the hormones on a level—Oh, hell…he sank into the kiss, hands locked in his back pockets because he knew he’d grab her and make off with her to the closest private spot. From there, he couldn’t trust himself at all.