Montana Mavericks, Books 1-4

by Diana Palmer

  Maggie opened her mouth to protest, but he held up one hand like a traffic cop. “Give me a minute, and then you can yell at me all you want. The truth is, you’ve had a rich white daddy smoothing the way for you with his money and influence. My guess is, all the stuff he donated to your schools probably bought you a lot of acceptance from the teachers and the other kids.”

  “You mean, they didn’t all love me for my charm, intelligence and good looks?” Maggie asked, her tongue firmly planted in her cheek.

  He shot her a quelling glance. “Your intelligence and good looks, maybe. I wouldn’t bet on the other one. Anyway, what I was trying to say is, the rest of us weren’t that lucky. We couldn’t even go to school in Whitehorn back then.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “To a BIA boarding school in Oklahoma.”

  “What was it like?”

  “I guess it was better than my parents had it, but I thought it was worse than being sent to prison.” Jackson’s eyes took on a faraway cast. “My father was a traditional medicine man. He was determined we would know our own culture, and we spoke very little English at home. The teachers at the school were equally determined to turn us into little white people. We weren’t allowed to speak anything but English there. Since I was more afraid of the teachers than I was of my dad, I focused on English. My Cheyenne vocabulary is still at a six-year-old’s level.”

  “It must have been hard for your parents to let you go so far from home, when you were still so little.”

  “They didn’t have a choice. If they wanted to receive any of the government benefits they needed to survive, all of their children had to be enrolled. It was blackmail, really, and it broke my father’s heart to see his children being systematically stripped of everything he’d tried to teach us.”

  “How often did you get to go home, Jackson?”

  “Once a year. For about six weeks in the summer. All year long, I’d live for those few days at home, but then I’d get here and everything would feel so strange, I couldn’t relax. My father would try to undo all the damage he thought my teachers had done to me, and we didn’t get along very well. It became a classic Catch-22.”

  “In what way?” Maggie asked.

  “At school I was too Indian. At home I had too many white ideas. Wherever I was, there was always somebody ready and willing to tell me there was something wrong with me.”

  Jackson gave Maggie a lopsided grin that made her want to weep for the sad little boy he must have been.

  “How did you ever cope with that?” she asked.

  He studied her face for a moment, then scowled at her. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I was one of the lucky ones. At least I was tough enough to survive.”

  “Some of them didn’t?”

  Jackson grimly shook his head. “There were always kids who couldn’t stand the homesickness and the regimentation. Some of them decided suicide was the only way out. Others ran away and died of exposure before anyone found them, or they just plain vanished. Who knows what happened to them?”

  “God, that’s awful. You didn’t ever think about…”

  “Killing myself? Sure I did. I was just too damned mean to give anybody the satisfaction of getting rid of me.”

  “Oh, Jackson, that’s a terrible thing to say.”

  “That’s how it felt sometimes, Maggie. Especially after they shook up the whole system and I had to come back and go to high school in Whitehorn. Believe me, I was one screwed-up kid. I don’t know how my parents tolerated me at all.”

  “Most teenagers rebel at one time or another,” Maggie said.

  “Yeah, well, I did more than my share. Most of the other kids got into alcohol or drugs, but I chose the one way guaranteed to hurt my father the most.”

  “What was that?”

  “I turned my back on the tribe. I let everybody know I couldn’t wait to leave the res, and that I never intended to come back. If I had to choose between the white world and the Indian one, by God, I was gonna go with the winners.”

  “Is that why you went to law school?”

  He nodded. “I thought if I could study hard enough, assimilate enough and make enough money, it wouldn’t matter who I was or where I’d come from. People would have to accept me, whether they wanted to or not.”

  “So, I’m not the only apple around here,” she said.

  “Not hardly. It takes one to know one.” Uttering a bitter laugh, he shook his head again. “That’s why you bugged me so much the first time we met. You reminded me too much of myself. I guess I owe you another apology for that.”

  She nodded in acceptance, then asked, “Why did you come back here, Jackson?”

  “I finally realized I’d been fooling myself and selling my soul at the same time. Whites will accept you to the degree you can assimilate, but sooner or later, you’ll slip up and remind them you’re an Indian. When you get right down to it, equality’s just a myth.”

  “You really believe that, don’t you?”

  He shrugged one shoulder, as if to say it didn’t matter what he really believed. “That’s what I experienced. When I figured that out, I decided to come home and learn how to be the man Maheo created me to be. I am Northern Cheyenne, and I will always be Northern Cheyenne, and if I have anything to say about it, this tribe will never be at the mercy of whites again. When it comes to Indians, they don’t have any mercy to spare.”

  “They’re not all like that, Jackson,” Maggie said, quietly chiding him.

  “Oh, I’m sure there’s a few good guys out there. But I haven’t had much luck in separating the good ones from the bad ones. I’m not willing to risk being wrong anymore.”

  “So you hate the whole bunch. Don’t trust anyone. Is that the way you want to live your whole life?”

  “I didn’t choose it, Maggie. But I’ve learned the hard way that if you stick your neck out with whites, the chances are too damn high you’re gonna get your head chopped off. Maybe you’re just too young to understand betrayal.”

  “I’m not too young or too naive to understand anything,” she said. “I’ve been betrayed by whites and other Indians, and I know how much it hurts. But if you go into every new relationship expecting betrayal, you’re setting yourself up for a self-fulfilling prophecy. That’s a defeatist attitude.”

  He gazed at her for a long moment, his expression completely unreadable. “I prefer to think of it as realistic. And one of these days, you’re gonna find out I’m right.”

  When she made no reply, he started the engine and drove back onto the road. Releasing a resigned sigh, Maggie turned to her window. So much for ending their fierce debates, she thought with a wry grin. But, while their discussion had become more heated than she would have liked, Maggie believed she and Jackson were making progress toward understanding each other.

  She was beginning to understand him, anyway, she thought, sneaking a sidelong glance at him. He’d put his aviator glasses on, and she wondered whether it was for protection from the sun or to shield his eyes from her view because he felt he’d revealed too much. Well, he’d better get used to it. By telling her about his childhood, he’d only whetted her appetite to learn more about him.

  Somewhere inside that big, strong, sexy man, there was a hurt, confused, lonely little boy who had never really felt accepted. Her childhood had undoubtedly been easier than his, and maybe she couldn’t relate to everything that had happened to him. But she knew more than he thought she did about feeling lost and left out. And wondering if she would ever really belong anywhere. Perhaps they could find some answers together.

  The road deteriorated into a rutted path, forcing Jackson to concentrate more on his driving and less on Maggie, but she still occupied a large part of his mind. She’d drifted into a thoughtful silence about five miles back, and he’d give a small fortune to know what was going on in that head of hers. Nuts.

  He shouldn’t have told her all that stuff about boarding school. It wasn’t relevant to anything going on wit
h the tribe now, and he’d probably sounded like a big baby, whining over a scratch that should have healed and been forgotten a long time ago. She was such a good listener, he’d have to watch himself, or he’d wind up boring her to tears with the story of his whole damn sad life. The idea made his skin crawl.

  Spotting the turnoff he’d been looking for, he shifted into a lower gear, warned Maggie to hang on and gunned the engine. The pickup jolted and bounced violently over rocks and potholes, but ultimately conquered the track, which ran straight up the side of a steep hill. Knowing the top of it ended in a cliff, he slammed on the brakes as soon as the truck leveled out.

  Maggie shot him a wild-eyed, indignant look as the dust settled. He grinned at her, then climbed out of the cab and hurried around to open the door for her. She jumped to the ground and stalked away from him, hands curled into fists at her sides. She came to an abrupt halt a moment later and gazed off into the distance as if entranced.

  He walked over and stood beside her, his face turned toward the sun, allowing Maggie a modicum of privacy while she absorbed the view he had seen so many times before. Though he had few of the spiritual powers of his father, Jackson knew this ground was sacred. He silently offered prayers to Maheo and each of the four directions, then glanced at Maggie.

  Her eyes shone with the awed wonder of a child. When she spoke, her voice held a hushed reverence. “Oh, Jackson, this is so…beautiful.”

  For once, they were in complete accord. As if Mother Earth had chosen this particular spot to display her most impressive gifts to their best advantage, a lush valley stretched for miles before them, reaching all the way to the point at which the mountains blocked the horizon. Sunlight sparkled on a blue ribbon of water cutting a lazy, serpentine path through the center of the valley. Clumps of aspen and cottonwood trees along the river would soon provide shade for sleek Hereford cows and their recently born calves.

  “What is this place?” Maggie murmured.

  “It’s ours,” he said. “The land we’re trying to get back from the Whitehorn Ranchers’ Association.”

  “No wonder they want it. It looks like Eden.”

  “It’s a paradise for cattle, all right. It’s got all the best grass and water. Kincaid and his friends have gotten rich off this valley.”

  “What will you do with it?” she asked.

  “The same thing they’re doing. Raise cattle. So many of our people have worked for the white ranchers, we’ve got plenty of expertise to draw from.”

  “Won’t it take an awful lot of money to get started?”

  Jackson nodded. “We’re already working on grant proposals.”

  “Let me know when you’re ready to submit them. Perhaps I can speed up the process.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, smiling at her. “I may need your help first to settle a disagreement among the tribal council members.”

  “Me? How could I do that?”

  “Sweet talk your buddy Earnest Running Bull into giving up the idea we should raise buffalo instead of Herefords.”

  “Buffalo?”

  “Sure. This whole area was a bison feeding ground long before the white men showed up. Our people used to hunt here every summer. We’re standing on a buffalo jump right now.”

  Maggie looked up at him, her eyes wide with surprise. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. The men would climb up into those hills back there,” Jackson said, pointing over his right shoulder with his thumb. “They’d bunch up as many buffalo as they could, and drive them off this cliff. The animals would break their necks when they fell, and the women would be waiting down below to finish them off and start the butchering.”

  Leaning out, Maggie peeked over the edge of the cliff. A huge chunk of dirt in front of her toes broke loose and smashed on the boulders below. Arms flapping wildly for balance, she teetered for an instant, and would have pitched forward to disaster if Jackson hadn’t grabbed the back of her Windbreaker and yanked her back to safety.

  “That,” she said, uttering a shaky laugh, “was close.”

  Jackson couldn’t have agreed more, but since his heart was still stuck in his throat, he didn’t try to talk. Instead, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, urged her farther back from the ledge and held her against his side, while he waited for his lungs to start working again. She threw both arms around him and buried her face in the front of his shirt.

  A fierce sense of gladness washed over him. Gladness she hadn’t fallen. And gladness that, despite their previous disagreement, she had felt she could turn to him for comfort. Vivid pictures of what would have happened if he hadn’t grabbed her in time flashed through his mind, and suddenly none of the things they’d argued about seemed important.

  “It’s all right, Maggie,” he said, stroking her glossy hair with a hand that was none too steady. “It’s all right.”

  She felt good in his arms. It had been so long since he’d held a woman like this, he’d almost forgotten what pleasure a simple human touch could bring. She turned her face to the side. With her ear still pressed against his chest, she gazed up at him from under her long lashes.

  “Your heart’s pounding like crazy,” she said.

  “That’s because you scared the hell out of me.”

  “You saved my life, Jackson.”

  “Next time you’re mad enough to strangle me, remember that.”

  “I’d probably kiss your whole face right now, if you weren’t so darn tall.”

  “Is that a fact?”

  “You betcha, kemo sabe.”

  Tickled by her ridiculous reference to the Lone Ranger’s faithful Indian friend, Tonto, and the way she wrinkled her impish little nose at him, Jackson put his hands on Maggie’s waist, picked her up and carried her back to the pickup. Then he plunked her tush down on the hood, braced his hands on either side of her and looked her right in the eye.

  “I’m not too tall now, am I?”

  Returning his challenging grin with one of her own, she lifted his Stetson off his head and set it behind her. She took his sunglasses next, carefully laying them on his hat brim. Finally she linked her fingers at the back of his head and pulled him closer.

  His heart started racing again as she kissed his eyes shut. Her breath struck his face in sweet little puffs as she moved on to his nose, his cheekbones, his forehead. His lips tingled, wanting their turn, but she playfully denied them in favor of his temples, jaw and chin.

  “You missed a spot, Schaeffer,” he grumbled, opening one eye to glare at her.

  She kissed it shut again. “Don’t be so impatient,” she said, punctuating each word with another soft kiss, retracing her previous route. “I’ll get there eventually.”

  It was the gentlest form of torture, but torture nonetheless, especially when she started stroking her thumbs behind his ears, while her fingers massaged the back of his neck. He didn’t know why he tolerated it, except that it was…fun. Like Maggie. He’d bet his truck she’d been one of those adorable little girls who loved to flirt and tease and giggle.

  And suddenly she “got there,” reminding him in no uncertain terms that she was all woman, not a little girl. Her lips brushed tentatively over his, then zeroed in for a kiss that sent blood rushing to his groin in one hell of a hurry. She clasped the sides of his head, as if she feared he might try to escape, and slid her tongue into his mouth.

  Damn. It was even better than the last time. All of his senses were on overload, but he couldn’t taste enough, feel enough, breathe in enough of her essence. A primitive part of him wanted to seize control—just grab her and lay her back on the pickup’s hood, strip off her jeans and bury himself to the hilt in her softness. But another part of him was enjoying her gentle seduction too much to risk frightening her into ending it. Or, worse yet, never doing it again.

  Her hands were on his chest now, stroking and petting, and the sweet, hungry little sounds she was making were driving him out of his mind. She took the kiss hotter, wetter, deeper.
He had to touch her with his hands. Had to pull her closer and feel her breasts rub against his chest. Had to nuzzle the side of her neck.

  It was like racing down a mountain on a runaway train—too fast and powerful to stop, both exhilarating and terrifying while the ride lasted. And all along you knew it would have to stop sooner or later, and the end wouldn’t be pretty. Already it was starting to happen.

  She was calling his name, trying to get his attention, slamming on the brakes. Damn it, she wanted him. He felt it in the way her body clung to his, even as her hands halfheartedly pushed at his shoulders. He could silence her protests with another kiss, overwhelm her silly female restraint with passion.

  It wouldn’t be rape. Not even close. But it wouldn’t be right, either. Eventually she would regret her loss of control, and come to hate him. And then he would hate himself.

  Forcing himself to release her, he stepped back. His chest heaved like a bellows as he sucked in head-clearing oxygen. When his thundering pulse finally subsided, he looked at Maggie and felt his heart contract.

  Still sitting on the pickup’s hood, she had her hands clasped in her lap, her shoulders hunched and her eyes focused on the ground. Then, with agonizing slowness, she raised her gaze to meet his. The wariness he saw in her eyes made him feel like crawling under a flat rock.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I never intended for it to get so…”

  “Hot?” Jackson suggested. “Wild? Crazy? Passionate?”

  Her cheeks flushed. “All of the above.”

  “I didn’t either, Maggie.” Shrugging one shoulder, he crammed his hands into his pockets and tried to give her a grin. “Some chemistry, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Her answering grin was crooked to start out with. A second later, it vanished, leaving her with a somber expression. “But it can’t happen again.”

  “Because you don’t mix business and personal relationships?”

  “Yes. I’ll only be here a few more weeks, so there’s no future in pursuing this for either of us.”