by Cait London
Adam picked up the letter that had waited for over twenty-five years, when Sarah first began to fail badly. He reread her admission.
“I wanted a new life, without danger that the Tallchiefs would come after you, claiming you. I found a good-paying job with a tax firm in New Pony, and we started life as mother and son. How happy I was. I could not tell you this sooner, because I could not bear to feel your anger, or to lose your love. My friend has a chest in storage that rightfully belongs to you. She didn’t know where we went, or what was in it, but I knew she’d keep it safe.”
Michelle came to rest her hand on Liam’s shoulder and his immediately sought hers. “We’ve lost a lifetime together,” Liam said, his expression grim. “I’ve come to hate letters from the past. You never know what they’ll open up.”
“Shush, Liam,” Michelle admonished softly. “It was a letter from your foster mother that brought you here. She loved you enough to hide the truth in a letter, in her Bible, and it waited for you…. Sarah loved you, Adam. If she’d have known Liam, she would have loved him, too. Try not to think too harshly of Sarah,” Michelle murmured softly.
“At first, holding that letter for the first time, I did. And part of me is still angry. But she loved me, and I was her son, a part of her sister she couldn’t bear parting with. It’s a good thing to be wanted as a child. Some aren’t. It will take some time to settle my feelings, but I can’t hate her. She never faltered, never failed me, not once. I’ve come to know that there are few people like her in the world.”
Liam’s hard expression said there was little forgiveness in his heart. He’d lived a harsh life with the man who had stolen him from their parents’ wrecked car. He met Adam’s eyes, the same shade of brooding gray as his own. “Look at us. Grown men who have missed a lifetime together. Why didn’t you open the box sooner, Adam?”
The words framed a terse demand rather than a light question. But Adam understood Liam’s emotions—they mirrored his own when he’d first opened the letter. “It didn’t matter to me before coming here and meeting you, but I wanted you and your family to have your share. I also found Sarah’s friend’s daughter. She’d been keeping a trunk in storage, a promise to her mother, and it’s in the back of the pickup. It’s a big thing and heavy. I thought I’d let you adjust to Aunt Sarah’s letter first.”
“I may never adjust to it,” Liam said broodingly. “Let’s get the trunk.”
When the trunk was in Liam’s home, the contents neatly unpacked, it was a mix of the family’s Native American, Scots, English and Inuit heritage across the surface of the family dining table, all stuffed around an old, obviously beloved wooden cradle. Scrimshawed walrus tusks mixed with leather poetry books, arrowheads, a hunting knife in a fringed sheath, a book on English gardens—and the rest had clearly been cherished. The heirlooms and mementos were meant to be passed from generation to generation, from husband to wife and back again. Sarah hadn’t wanted him to explore his heritage—or his potential relatives. Guilt must have made her keep the feathers, saving them for him. How that deception must have cost her…Oh, Sarah….
“I’d like a few things of Sarah’s saved back for me, if you would. I’d like to see them now and then, when I come back to see my nephews and the new baby. The rest is your share.”
“‘Share’? What do these things matter when we’ve lost so much?” Liam asked bitterly. “And I don’t want anything to do with Sarah’s things. I want no part of her.”
Adam was still numb from the discovery, but anger mixed with love. “I loved Aunt Sarah. She may not have done the right thing, but she loved me. I was like her son. She’s a part of me.”
“You’re leaving, aren’t you, Adam?” Michelle asked quietly. “You wanted us to have this before you left. You wanted everything for Liam and J.T. and the new baby.”
Adam toyed with the oval locket that Sarah had always worn, the picture of her sister and of him. He loved her and nothing would change that. Trying to hold someone you loved close and dear wasn’t a crime of the heart. Then there was Jillian and the knowledge that he wanted her desperately; that what ran between them was not mild enough to be pushed aside. “Perhaps it’s best.”
“Stand and fight,” Liam challenged darkly. “You think you have no place here. Well, you do.”
“Aye, you do,” Michelle agreed softly. “With us, with Liam.”
“You’ll take care of Liam, that’s clear enough. I see the love between you, and feel it, too.”
“And who will take care of you, Adam?” Michelle persisted.
“I’ve managed my life until now,” Adam said coolly, unused to family entering his life, the questions that were given because they cared. He didn’t want them to worry about him.
“It’s Jillian O’Malley, isn’t it?” Liam said, eyeing Adam. “It’s clear to see there’s trouble between you. I heard she stepped out of her way to avoid you on Main Street. Another time, you bowed to her as she passed, turning up her nose. And to say nothing of the gossip raging around town about you leaving her house in the early morning, giving her a goodbye kiss while she was still dressed in her pajamas.”
“The town snoop got her details mixed up a bit. I was coming to paint the house. I was doing you a favor. She rented it from you.”
Liam settled back in his chair, studying his brother intently, sifting the facts and the look of a man brooding over a woman. “Try again. That house was just fixed up last year. The paint was good, so was the caulking. You wanted to see her.”
Adam had needed few people in his adult life, and the truth of Liam’s statement nettled. “I can manage without Ms. O’Malley. And another coat wouldn’t have hurt it.”
He stood to pull on his coat and Liam stood, too, reaching for his. Clearly he wasn’t going to let Adam walk out into the night feeling alone and hurt. He looked at Michelle, who said with an impish grin, “I know. There’s only one real place for Tallchief males to conference about women—Maddy’s Hot Spot. It’s a tradition.”
“I can manage my own problems,” Adam stated firmly. “And Jillian O’Malley isn’t one of them.”
“Sure.” Liam’s broad grin said he didn’t believe Adam. “Come on. What are brothers for, if not to talk about women.” He winked at Michelle and added, “And how to handle them.”
As an adult, Adam wasn’t used to letting anyone into his life. Liam needed time to adjust to Sarah’s misstep and the cost to the brothers. They were men now, Sarah was gone, and the gap might never be bridged. But Adam knew that Liam worried for him, and didn’t want him brooding alone. They’d both have to give and take and understand, if they were to become closer. “I could use a brew with a brother, my only brother.”
Adam’s feelings after Jillian’s kiss were not likely to be gentled. But at least he would keep his distance from her. It wasn’t the traveler’s wind beckoning to him this time, it was the knowledge that if he came near her, he’d want more than a kiss—whatever their past.
He studied how Michelle seemed to understand Liam’s pain, his anger; even now, her eyes, as they met Adam’s, were worried. She held her husband tight, protectively, the wife comforting the husband.
And Adam was an outsider, uneasy with the intimacy of love, of family. It would be easier for everyone if he went on his way.
Adam awoke early the next morning to a slice of blinding sunlight in his eyes and Jillian standing above him. She held the glass that had just been emptied of its freezing water—directly onto Adam’s face. “So you’re leaving, are you?”
He caught her wrist and struggled to find reality. “I thought you wanted me to.”
“You’re running, Adam Tallchief. You’re running from family and ties, and people loving you. You don’t think I can have that on my conscience, do you? That I chased you away from a family who wants you? From a brother you’ve never known? Let alone J.T.,” she demanded. “You’ve stayed too long, you brought all those lovely things back for your brother, Michelle says Liam is worried you�
��ll leave and the next time you’ll see each other will be—”
He freed her wrist and sat up slowly. He shook his head, trying to clear it of sleep. In the early morning, his cabin should have been quiet, but the woman banging the metal coffeepot, filling it, was set upon destroying any peace he had. She glared over her shoulder at him, while Adam couldn’t help admiring the fine curves of her backside in those tight jeans. “What’s the matter, Adam?” she demanded. “Surely women have woken you up before?”
He shook his head and instantly regretted it—and the alcohol that had caused the pain. He’d rarely shared a night like the past, with a brother and a family of others, and the knowledge that Jillian Green O’Malley was likely the only woman for him. “I told you there was only one woman, one that I thought I’d marry. There hasn’t been one since. And if this is how it is with a woman around—a wake-up call of icy water and an argument already on the griddle—then I’d just rather not.”
Jillian wasn’t backing off. The sunlight coming from the window caught the flame in her auburn hair and caressed the neat curves beneath her yellow sweater and blue jeans. “You hunted down something that means very much to Liam, if not to yourself. You did that for him and his family. They love you even more now. You can’t just take their hearts and leave. You’ve got to make something of yourself. I’m going to help you,” she continued. “We’ll find something you can do and we’ll focus on that.”
To tell her that as Sam, he’d worked for hours alone, designing the toys he loved, wouldn’t do. Or that he sometimes liked jobs that allowed to mix with people—on his terms. Maddy’s Hot Spot was rich with small-town lore and love, and he’d wound it around him. But then, he couldn’t tell her the many hours devoted to Sam the Truck, could he? He cursed himself again for the idea of keeping Jillian close.
He studied her and rose to his feet, staring down at his body. He was only wearing his boxer shorts and considering Jillian’s curved bottom, remembering the feel of it in his hand, had taken its hardening toll. He felt vulnerable, an unusual emotion in his adult life. “I do plenty. You can’t just come into a man’s home and start yammering at him, Jilly-dear.”
He looked at the coffee brewing on the stove, the morning nectar that would make his life bearable, and loved her.
Adam blinked and shook his head. He loved her. He’d loved her all this time.
The thought was enough to make him brace a hand against the wall, needing it for strength. With a tremendous effort, he moved to the washbasin. He washed his face and brushed his teeth and the truth wasn’t going anywhere. Dressed in a black sweatshirt and jeans, he went outside, and when he came back, not even the cold morning air had wiped away one fact—he loved Jillian.
There was nothing he could do, while she stood there with her hands on her hips, glaring at him, but to take her in his arms and kiss her. Apparently, surprise attacks fared him better, because her fear hadn’t had time to move in before that lift of her lips met his, her body pressed against his.
The full, steamy tear of desire seared through him, as he barely kept his hands from caressing her breasts and her bottom—that delicious, soft, round curve. Later, he would congratulate himself on his good behavior when his body and mind were consumed with desire.
Jillian breathed deeply and with the flat of her hands upon his chest, pushed herself away. While his arms and heart ached to reach for her, his mind heard a distinct clang of a warning bell. To do something, anything, he went to the coffeepot that was now bubbling over, the droplets skittering, sizzling on the stove’s black surface. He felt like that, his instinct to hold and to comfort her tearing at him. But there would be none of that—she was pale and shaking, those golden eyes wide and fearful upon him. “Well, now. What are we going to do about this? Do you want to tell me about it, Jillian? It was O’Malley, wasn’t it? And now you’re terrified of a man’s touch.”
Jillian locked her hands to the back of the chair. She wanted to run away from the total male power Adam exuded while holding her. Her heart thudded so hard, it chased every other sound away. Caught in the heat of what she wanted, driven by it, she had responded to Adam. Fiercely needing his taste, the fire building between them, she had coursed into fever—
The sound of the coffee hissing on the old black cook stove had slid through her senses and suddenly fear sprang, alive and terrifying.
“O’Malley?” Adam pressed, as he filled the cup with hot water from the kettle and placed a tea bag in it. “Here, drink this. You look like you could use it.”
He placed it on the table, while a distance away, he sipped his coffee. Jillian swam through a living nightmare, and focused on concealing it. But she’d been stripped bare before Adam; he knew.
“Sit down, Jillian,” he ordered quietly.
She eased into the chair, her body shaking as she held the cup. The tiny ripples in the tea reflected the chilling terror she sought to control. She’d hidden it from others, but now, suddenly, with Adam, it had erupted.
“How’s work going?” he asked as calmly as if nothing had happened.
She nodded, reliving the journey from hunger for him, that spreading warmth, to fear just sliding away. “Good.”
“How’s Sam?”
She nodded again, struggling to think clearly. She knew he was working to bring her back to reality, to an everyday common moment that was safe. “He’s a wonderful man. So thoughtful. I’ve been on the project for a week, and he says it’s good, really good with minor alterations. Oh, Adam, that project was for a national magazine ad, and next I get to design something for Nancy’s packaging. A little brochure to go inside, Nancy’s birth papers, the Truck Land Assembly Plant and the design on the packaging box.”
Adam frowned at that. “He’s probably getting more than he’s paying for…. Did I scare you?”
“No,” she answered slowly, as if adjusting from a happy lane to a darker one. “But it’s hard to separate everything. I haven’t been close to a man since my marriage. I went into counseling, and I thought I had put it behind me. Apparently I haven’t. I think Kevin tried, but at the last moment, he lost control and I froze. I suppose all men do that—”
Adam’s dark curse slammed into the room. “No, they don’t. It might cause discomfort, but a man can stop.”
“He didn’t. We didn’t have relations for the last four years of our five-year marriage, but Kevin didn’t want a divorce so soon. His parents said it wouldn’t look good for his political career. We came to a living arrangement that suited us both and a separation that was so cold and businesslike that it was almost as if we’d never known each other. I accepted the fact that sex wasn’t likely to be on my life list. It’s too primitive and I can’t bear it.”
Adam sat slowly beside her. Her hand was cold in his easy, warm grasp. Not wanting to frighten her, he lifted it to his lips, kissing the center, then pressed it against his cheek.
She could feel the bones beneath skin roughed by stubble, the tips of her fingers resting in that thick straight hair. There was so much warmth there, just at her fingertips, intimate against her palm. It felt as if she could wrap her fist around it, as if something real were just within her grasp, an anchor that would moor her in the worst of storms. But then she’d given up those dreams long ago.
He took her other hand and cherished it just the same, until her hands framed his face. He looked at her, those gray eyes dark beneath the shield of his black lashes. “You see? Nothing to be afraid of.”
Nothing except the fierce desire that still clung to her, battling with the past and her fear.
“How about going over to Elspeth’s and seeing if we can have breakfast with her brood?” he asked, smiling as he slid his fingers between hers, their hands meeting, soft palm to calloused one.
The intimacy of male and female intertwined brought other images to Jillian’s mind, such as how he had looked down at her, that pure flash of desire hardening his features. She saw herself holding him against her, her lips still
tasting him. Who was that other woman, the one who had escaped her fear, just for that moment?
The kiss he’d given her earlier had ignited this one, because she’d been brooding about it—and Adam. He’d hurt her family dearly, and yet—She should just…and yet—
Adam slid one hand free and reached to tap her forehead with it. “Don’t think so hard, Jillian. Spend some time with Elspeth—she’s calming, and you could weave if it suits you. That’s what you like to do, isn’t it? Put the pieces together to make an image you like?”
They had been pretty little images, the life she’d expected with Kevin. But reality tore them apart.
“I’m not going to breakfast at Elspeth’s with you. There’s enough gossip about us already with you kissing me that morning you came to paint the house. And you didn’t finish it. I can’t be to blame because Liam and Michelle can’t get a handyman to take care of the cottage. I’ll paint it myself.” She stopped, considering how she had never maintained a house. Only Adam could make her forget caution. “It will be good exercise. As for Elspeth, yes, that is a good idea. But I’ll go by myself.”
“Aye, you do that, Jilly-dear. But she’s already invited me to breakfast. It’s a family affair. Liam is to bring a trunk filled with family mementos, and Elspeth and Sybil are going to investigate it. They’ll try to match it with Elizabeth’s and Una’s journals.”
“Michelle told me of Sarah’s letter, how it had devastated Liam. She said you had closed yourself away from Liam, loyal to Sarah, but angry, too. She doesn’t believe you’ve ever truly allowed yourself to grieve for Sarah, that you hoard her close to you.”
“My sister-in-law should take care of her own family and not worry about me.”
“Don’t you run away from this family, Adam. Now you’re here and you’ll have to deal with the consequences—” She frowned, noting the small cut on his thumb. It was in the exact same place as Liam’s and Duncan’s and all the rest of the Tallchief family; it symbolized that they had claimed him with the mixing of their blood. She touched the cut lightly. “You could turn your back on that? I don’t think so.”