by Cait London
She longed to dive through the clutter in the chest, but she would do that alone. She wasn’t sharing more of her life with Joel Palladin. He already knew more than he should.
She studied the intricate brass buttons on the chest. The only payback for his treachery of listening to her desires and intimate feelings would be to discover his. She intended to drag everything from him and serve it to him on a platter. Then she would walk away.
Pines and sunlight skimmed by her. Mrs. Perkins stopped sweeping her front porch. She stared at Fiona blazing by in the convertible and slowly raised her hand to wave. Mel Morely stopped his tractor and stared. Fiona had the odd feeling that time had skipped back to Tallchief’s capture of Una. Fiona sensed that she was a captured bride and that Joel had every intention of keeping her. To complete the circle, an unlikely love of the battlemaiden will come calling, bringing his angry dragon on one arm and the chest to woo her heart—
“You have my word that Eunice will be safe and that Palladin, Inc. will stand behind the sale of her to a caring home,” Joel said quietly as Fiona stood within the curl of Eunice’s trunk, hugging her. The front gates of the zoo were securely locked at three o’clock in the morning, and the guard was taking his one-hour break, according to Fiona.
Against the elephant’s size, Fiona’s body—dressed in a skintight black outfit—looked fragile and feminine.
Clouds provided shelter from moonlight, and the trees lining the street added a protective screen. Joel glanced up at the streetlight that he’d expertly disabled with a rock. He ran his hand through his hair; he’d shocked himself—Palladin, Inc.’s Iron Man showing off for a woman. Two nights in the vicinity of Fiona Tallchief had rattled him; she was unlike any woman he’d ever known—more feminine and fascinating than he had imagined.
Joel inhaled the cold, crisp air and studied the woman wrapped in the elephant trunk. She was crying softly, smoothing Eunice with her hands, comforting the elephant. He looked down at his boots, unused to the tenderness running through him. He didn’t like feeling guilty, and Fiona’s silence on the trip added to that weight.
Suddenly Eunice’s trunk swept out, caught him and gathered him close to Fiona. Tears glistened on her lashes and on her cheeks. She looked up at him and for the moment her barriers were down, and a very feminine, desirable woman needed him—not in a sexual way, but for the tenderness one heart gives another.
He’d teethed on brutality and shielded himself with calluses. He didn’t know if tenderness existed in him—
Iron Man Palladin went down like a load of bricks, awkwardly taking Fiona in his arms. He kissed her lids and gave her what he could, unused to sharing himself with anyone. There was the warmth of her lips, the perfect fit of her body against his—
Fiona pushed him away and dashed the tears from her cheeks with the swipe of her forearm. “You’re awfully experienced at break-ins, cutting the headlamps as you came near the zoo. And you looked hard, determined, as if you knew exactly what had to be done. You considered and disabled that streetlight with the air of a surgeon dissecting a gallbladder. You had experienced criminal written all over you, Joel. If anything happens to her, I’ll kill you,” she promised, urging Eunice to the tall, wrought iron fence. “Up, Eunice.”
Eunice promptly extended her trunk, and Fiona stepped on it. He hadn’t told Fiona how close to being a criminal he was, or that his father had killed her parents. He wanted time to circle Fiona and to gently serve her that tidbit. Joel held his breath, watching her, and wondered why he was letting her play this dangerous game, when he could have used Palladin, Inc.’s power to—
Fiona stepped onto a solid tree branch above the iron fence, lowered herself, and dropped down behind. In seconds the gate swung open and Eunice lumbered through it as though she was glad to be home. Joel was left to follow. Fiona glanced at him, and they pulled the gates closed. “You’ll have to help me over the brick wall for the large animal enclosure. Eunice doesn’t like it and—”
She placed her foot into the cup Joel had made with his hands. He levered her up. She pulled herself part of the way and got caught in the shrubs. “Joel...Joel?” she asked in a hushed tone.
He placed one hand on her bottom, while the other pulled away the shrub. He enjoyed the softness braced upon his palm and tilted his head to study the curve of her breasts. “I suppose now would be as good a time as any to tell you that you are the new owner of Eunice.”
She stopped struggling, and with one leg up on the top of the wall and her bottom in Joel’s two hands, she looked down at him. “What?”
“Your name is on her ownership papers, and the zoo has agreed to take care of her until you find a satisfactory home for her. You ought think about Amen Flats, Palladin, Inc. could use the good exposure and would donate a hefty amount to start the ball rolling. It would make an appealing tax deduction. Shut your mouth, darling,” he added, amused by her look.
His hand smoothed her bottom, and he held his breath, releasing his tension slowly, controlling the fear that Fiona would hate him even more violently than she had at the funeral. Joel braced himself for what he must do. “You really are very soft...and by the way, my father was the one responsible for killing your parents. When you were ten and running wild after your parents’ service, you told me to get off Tallchief Mountain. My brothers and I came to pay our respects and were too late for the church service.”
“You!” Her face was starkly revealing, eyes huge in the night, and reminding him of that ten-year-old racked with grief. “You look like him! Palladin...that is the name. I had forgotten—”
“Joel Palladin at your service,” he stated, sounding cool, despite the emotions boiling in him. His father’s legacy had reached out to cloak Joel in ice.
Fiona hefted herself up to the brick wall, stood and braced her legs apart. She looked down at him, hands on her waist. “What are you doing in my life, Joel Palladin?”
He should have expected the bold question, shot at him like a steel-tipped arrow. He sent the answer back to her, sparing her nothing. “I couldn’t forget you, that child on the mountain, and I felt guilty. I knew exactly what you all would have to face to stay together. My brothers and I had been fighting that battle since our mother died and Nick was only six months old. Dad—my father—sold Nick and Rafe. Mamie, my grandmother, would have none of it. She got them back and he kept us, if that’s what you could call it, and we came to the mountain that day because we had to. We had to say we were sorry. Pride had to begin somewhere, and we decided we weren’t living without it anymore.”
He would remember her forever, standing there in the shadows, the wind riffling her hair, her fists tightly balled at her taut thighs. He could feel the emotions humming off her, and for a moment bitterness and raw pain boiled inside him. “I’m not my father, Fiona,” he said quietly, because he had to say the words to her, to make her understand. I’ve tried so hard not to be.
He inhaled slowly, forcing the night air into his lungs. He’d never released emotions; how could he really know if he was like his father?
She dropped from sight and pushed open the gates a heartbeat later. Eunice wandered through them, and Fiona shot him a look as they hurried to follow the elephant lumbering to her appropriate enclosure.
“Aye and blast!” Fiona muttered as she stared at the metal chain looped around the gate to Eunice’s quarters and fastened with a padlock.
Joel took one look and removed his wallet. A thin foil packet fell to the ground, gleaming like hard evidence of his desire as Fiona shook her head. “That will never happen,” she said.
“I’m one of those always-prepared guys,” Joel murmured as he extracted a small tool and neatly picked the lock. He’d lied, the purchase was his first in years and was made at a stop for truck fuel after an entire night of Fiona sleeping in the back of the cab...moaning sensually and sleeping, he corrected. Joel had liked the feel of her beside him in bed, in his arms, and he fully intended to snare Fiona for their mutual enjoyment The purchase
of protection was no light matter for him; he never bought anything without a specific purpose, and his body told him that with Fiona, he had distinct goals in their relationship.
Eunice turned and looked at them, as if saying, “I know, guys. You’ll do your best for me. I love you.”
Her trunk swayed out and ran over Fiona gently, reassuringly. Then Eunice swept Joel against her. “I can’t be all bad,” he murmured, shaken by the embrace.
“Hmm. She’s easy.” Fiona’s tone was skeptical as she worked quickly, locking the gates behind them. Outside the front gate, Fiona tapped him on the shoulder and said, “It’s been fun,” as she turned to leave.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Joel caught her in two strides, eased her over his shoulder and ran back to the truck, dumping her in the cab. He started the motor and eased the truck down the street and onto another one, before turning on the headlights. “We’re taking this back to your friend Danny, and then we’re heading home.”
Home. He liked the warm curl of the word around him. The woman who sat with folded arms and a petulant expression was not warm.
“I own an elephant, do I? How did I manage that?”
“We have ways, all of them legal and without a jail sentence attached.” Joel followed the point of her finger to an off-ramp.
“Palladin. Inc. ways? You know how I dislike the abuse of power and money.”
“You’re doing this for Eunice, remember? This way, you have personal approval of anyone who wants to own her, you have the option to do something great for Amen Flats, and to top it off, you’re innocent of any crime.”
Joel glanced at Fiona, disturbed by his need to protect her. “Just how close are you to Danny?”
“We’re very, very friendly.” Her smug, intimate smile set him simmering. Jealousy wasn’t on his familiar-emotions list, startling him. She reached in back, grabbed her backpack, laden with Una’s chest, swung her Tallchief plaid around her shoulders and put her hand on the door handle. “Don’t wait for my call.”
She glanced down when she heard the click on her wrist. “Handcuffs. How common, but I’d expect something like that from you—shackling me to you.”
“I made your family a promise that I intend to keep. I’m bringing you back safely.”
“Yawn,” she drawled as if the thought bored her. “You’ll never make it.”
“Won’t I?” Joel took her hand, being careful of the metal, so as not to hurt her as they eased from the cab. He hoisted his black leather bag in one hand and held her hand as they walked down the street toward a phone booth.
A half hour later, Joel tossed his bag in the back of the shiny, new, black pickup. He signed the delivery and ownership papers on the salesman’s clipboard.
“I should have known,” Fiona muttered as she slid into the cab moments later. “I suppose this black monster is the equivalent of the macho medieval charger.”
Joel couldn’t resist her petulant, tired, feminine snit. He cupped the nape of her neck and took her mouth gently, enjoying the shape and feel of it. “Why don’t you snuggle down on my shoulder and sleep?”
“That will be the day,” she murmured after a yawn. “You’re not getting away with this, and I’m not done with you, Joel Palladin.”
She wanted revenge for her parents’ murder. Joel glanced at her. The light from the dashboard sent shadows from her lashes upon her cheek. “I am sorry for what my father did, Fiona,” he said quietly, meaning it.
“That’s another story. He’s not a part of this. You should know, Joel, that I don’t like being pushed into corners, and when I’m pushed, I can be very, very bad.” She gathered her plaid around her, hugging Una’s chest close. She settled down on the seat beside him with the ease of a woman who caught sleep where she could find it.
Joel noted the highway signs that would take him back across Kansas, and found Fiona’s hand. He slid his fingers against her slender ones, testing the fit, and drew their hands to his thigh.
Thats another story, she’d said. At the moment she wasn’t condemning him for being the son of a murderer, and few women in her position would have dismissed that fact.
Five
“Aye and blast!” Fiona muttered as she flopped back on her single brass bed, hers since childhood. Her homey, cluttered apartment offered none of the excitement she experienced with Joel. “There isn’t another man who can tango like Joel Palladin can, and the jerk knows it.”
On a Saturday night, Fiona could have been with any of her family or at Maddy’s Hot Spot Tavern. She eased to her side, furious with Joel for keeping her from another night’s sleep. She hadn’t seen him since he’d dropped her off at her apartment early last Sunday morning as if... Fiona scowled at the fresh-cut calla lilies standing in her mother’s elegant cut-glass vase and spoke aloud, “As if I hadn’t made an impact on his life.”
The graceful sway of his body, the heat and motion of corded muscles—a man who knew what to do with a woman in his arms haunted her. On the way back to Amen Flats, he’d drawn women’s glances at every café, every stop for gas. A tango had come on the jukebox just as they were leaving a café, and without missing a beat, Joel had swept Fiona into his arms and tangoed her in the space between tables. The challenge of the taut Latin American dance was too much for her to resist.
Joel, she brooded, knew every intricate move and step, playing the dominating male as he dynamically molded their bodies together and flowed with the Latin beat, whipping Fiona around as if he owned her. The problem was—die impromptu dance delighted her. The people in the restaurant clapped, and with Fiona bent back over his arm, he had kissed her until she’d clung to him, wanting more. “If you were interested in me,” he’d said, “you would ask questions. But since you’re in a snit and acting like a clam, I’ll tell you that I worked as a dance instructor at night. Women seemed to like me for some reason. Of course, none of them ever told me that she was a very ready virgin. I’ll be very careful with you, darling,” he’d whispered, one hand caressing her back.
“‘A very ready virgin.’ Aye and blast!” Fiona repeated. The bed creaked as she flipped over onto her stomach. She traced the sewing chest’s stick figures of a man and a woman and Tallchief Mountain, then opened it to prowl through the beloved contents. She went through them lightly, sensing that other women had cherished the contents and had added to it, giving bits of their loves and lives. There was a fine thread for making lace, a spinning top with a metal point and the colors worn through to the wood, colored swatches of woven wool, as if some weaver wanted to remember the color. The tatting shuttle, ivory crochet hooks and a shoe button hook gleamed. The coins were very old, and the buttons were of deer horn and intricate Celtic design on brass. An awl, used to make holes in leather, had the stick figures on the handle, and Fiona imagined Tallchief etching them with his knife. Tatted lace was wrapped around a piece of horn, and Fiona traced the lace, slowly unwinding it.
A tiny folded paper, turned yellow with age, fell to the quilt. When Fiona gently opened it, a woman’s handwriting curved delicately upon the paper:
I am all alone in the wilds, with no family to comfort me, and so I share my thoughts with papers. I love Tallchief, the rogue, and he knows it. He knows I want him with my body, that the fever is upon me when he but touches me. I am not alone in the fever, for I see it in Tallchief’s eyes, each time that black, fierce gaze holds me...when heat flashes and bums away his cold heart. Yet I will not bend to his will, nor will I be ordered about like his captive. I cannot give my body and keep my heart apart. Nor can I give my heart to a man wanting only my body. He thinks he will have me without the tenderness that a man must give a woman. He thinks that he is a mighty dragon, my swaggering chieftain-laird, while I am to do his bidding. I will have what I need. What every woman needs. Deep in the corners of my fierce heart, I long for the battle and the love.
Una
Fiona imagined her great-great-grandmother, lifting her Scots chin, her gray eyes warring with the tall ch
ieftain, who desired her. “I don’t think love will come to me, Una,” Fiona whispered, giving way to the shadows that were never far from her. “I’ve been looking for a long time...hoping, too. And I’ve certainly dated enough. Though I’ve had good friends, I just couldn’t bear to think that any of those men could touch me intimately. My last date called me ‘frigid.’ I’ve begun to wonder if I am. Or at least, if my sensuality is low.”
She laughed nervously. “Now that was quite an admission from someone who hasn’t cared about anything but rebelling against the establishment.”
Her parents’ love was perfect, laughter and love running between them like sunlight. They blended, in Fiona’s mind, one running into the other, loving the other.
“I’m too independent, Una. I don’t like restrictions of any kind. Like you, I’m not certain I can share myself, not the deepest heart of me.” Fiona tried on the horsehair ring, tapping the blue beads. The smaller ring was definitely Una’s, and a larger ring had belonged to Tallchief. She remembered reading about them in Una’s journals.
Fiona skimmed the flat of her hand over the old quilt made by her grandmother LaBelle, a world-class cat burglar...until grandfather Jake turned up at her fancy soiree to claim her.
Fiona’s reaction to Joel was just body heat and basic sexual survival, Fiona mulled the thought and the restless ache in her body. “I guess I’m not exactly frigid.”
She picked up the intricately woven brass headband and remembered how Joel’s eyes had flashed, brilliant as dark emeralds, when he’d placed it upon her. There was definite male ownership in his expression, when he directed it toward her. She didn’t know if she liked that tether; she’d escaped it for years.
Joel had no deep love or tenderness in him, except when he spoke of his son. She could count on Joel not to ask more of her emotionally than she could give. Joel was “Not an asker,” she stated aloud. “But he might be just the perfect candidate to see what’s making me so restless. He doesn’t appear to want emotional ties, which means I could leave the relationship when I wanted. I’d like that option.”