by Cait London
He studied the overstuffed easy chair he’d had reupholstered, rough beige fabric replacing the huge cabbage blooms. Mix and Match slept in it, overlapping heads and paws and snuggling together. The adjustable standing lamp stood nearby, and a wooden bookshelf that needed refinishing was laden with seed magazines.
Joel ran his hand down his jaw, testing the smoothness of his late-day shave. He wanted his relationship with Fino on a firmer basis before Cody arrived. His son’s defiance rose a notch with every passing day. At times, the two most important people in his life were the most frustrating ones. Joel wanted both of them to know exactly how he felt and what dreams he hoped for in their relationship.
Dreams. He’d had them from the first moment he’d held his son, and from the moment Fino stood over him, “diamonds” glittering on her shoulders. He hadn’t known that goddesses could be so rebellious or volatile or passionate, giving him more than—He closed his eyes and saw her again in the tepee’s firelight, standing tall and straight and feminine.
Fiona’s Jeep sailed down the road and screeched to a stop in front of his house. Joel usually stood on the front porch, for the sheer pleasure of watching her come home to him. But today he moved into the shadows of the old sewing room, watching her. Today, he wanted her to come to him, to admire the fine old wood furniture he’d found, to see it in the light of the sewing room, surrounded by her plants. She frowned, glancing at the porch, then took carrots to Morning Star and Dante, petting and talking to them. Long legged, dressed in jeans, boots and a warm woolen jacket, Fiona resembled the “boy” Joel had first met at the convenience store. Always in a hurry, she strode to the little cow and patted her through the fence.
Joel liked Fiona patting his backside; it made him feel appreciated. She was his first experience in many ways.
Fiona glanced at the house and frowned. Joel settled deeper into the shadows. She would have to come after him, because he had a surprise for her. He loved giving her gifts. Her pleasure was absolutely genuine and feminine, like a wild rose unfolding—
Fiona burst through the door. “Joel? Are you here?”
“In here.” He reached up to slightly unscrew a lightbulb; he didn’t want technology cutting into this magical moment.
“What are you doing?” she asked, moving into the shadowy sewing room. She clicked the light switch. “Joel, you need a new bulb.”
“Okay. I’m arranging furniture. What do you think?”
Fiona whipped off her knit cap and stopped as Joel eased her coat from her, tossing it to an old bench beneath the windows. “What...?”
She stopped, staring at the old pioneer loom that occupied one-third of the room. Fiona circled it, and outside, a soft rain began to trail down the window, creating moving shadows within the sewing room.
“I missed you, Princess,” Joel stated simply, filling his senses with her scent, her slow pleasure, as she studied his gift.
Fiona turned suddenly and absently kissed his cheek. “Oh, hello, honey.”
Joel swallowed tightly. Fiona had just given him an endear-meant He floated a little off the floor.
She frowned at him. “Joel? Do you weave?”
“Nope. Not a strand. There’s too much organization, structure and logic involved. It’s yours. I thought you might enjoy it when the snow is deep and—”
She hurled herself into his arms and placed her face against his throat, her body shaking. “Hold me.”
He held her close, terrified that she would refuse what he offered. “Are you going to cry?”
“I’m thinking about it.” She turned to the loom. “I...thank you.”
Joel smoothed her hair, combing it with his fingers as his heart kicked up two beats and leveled into a firm, hard race. Joel smiled into her hair, nuzzling the soft, glossy texture. Tempting Fiona was the best game yet. “You don’t think the room is too full? That some of the furniture should go into another room?”
Fiona moved away from him, scanning the shadowy room. “Not really. But if you think so, we could move the potted plants and—”
She looked down at the small wooden cradle her boot had just touched and crouched beside it. Joel held his breath as she traced Tallchief’s man and woman stick figures.
Fiona’s fingers reverently skimmed the handcrafted wood. “Duncan and Sybil have the original one in which Tallchief and Una placed their babies. Calum, Birk and Elspeth have ones that Tallchief made and sold to support their family. This must be one of his—”
“It was in the barn with the loom. Someone had taken care to protect them against damage, and I merely cleaned them. They are yours, Fiona.”
She placed her forehead on her knee and rocked her body. “You’re making this very difficult, Joel. But you intend that, don’t you?”
“I want you to remember me. Is that bad?” Joel lifted her into his arms and kissed her damp cheek.
Fiona turned closer to him, wrapping her arms around him. “Joel—”
He gently nudged her cheek, asking for her mouth; he had to tell her with his kiss how much he adored her. She opened her lips to his seeking kiss, and when her arms tightened and her body pressed urgently against his, Joel lost himself in the simmering heat.
He held Fiona tightly, hoping he could make it to the bedroom, because the couch was definitely closer—
Over Fiona’s soft, hungry purrs, the rain began pounding the windows, the primitive rhythm matching their passion. Recognizing the unwelcome slam of a car door, Joel tried to pull back.
She arched up against him, hungry now and trembling, Joel tried to ease her away as the footsteps crossed the wooden porch....
Cody, Joel’s ten-year-old son, jerked open the front door and stood, glaring at Joel who held Fiona in his arms. Rafe pushed Cody, dressed in a ball cap, an oversize coat, and jeans and battered sneakers, into the room and closed the door behind them. “Mamie thought sooner was better,” Rafe explained wryly.
“Sooner is better. Hello, son.” Joel wanted his son, and the woman in his arms. Joel held Fiona very tightly before lowering her feet to the floor. She turned to Rafe and Cody and trembled, her fingers digging into his shoulders. Then as if they had not been locked in passion, she slid from his arms. Joel latched his hand on to the back of her neck; she wasn’t running from him now, not when he had the two mismatched edges of his life in the same room. As Cody glared at them, Joel had the distinct sense that his world was hurling into the dirt.
“This place is a cabin, not a house,” Cody stated, glancing around the living room.
“It’s a lovely home with lots of love circling it. You must be Cody. I’m Fiona Tallchief,” Fiona said easily. “Take off your coat. Joel has supper waiting for you.”
“He didn’t know we were coming. That was the only condition to me coming here—that no one tell him. My uncles and Grandma do not break their words,” Cody shot back at her.
While Joel dealt with his aching, unfulfilled body and the unexpected arrival of his furious son, Fiona seemed unaffected, moving easily into welcoming the new arrivals. “I’ll take your coats. You look just like Joel. Which one are you? Rafe? Nick?”
Joel studied her. She moved away too easily from him, dismissing what had just flared between them. He wasn’t happy. One last, longing glance over her shoulder would have soothed him.
“Rafe. The best of the lost.” Rafe shrugged out of his jacket and grinned at Joel. “Nice suspenders. Looks like all that cooking has made your face a little hot”
Joel would take care of his brother later. He looped his hand around Fiona’s wrist She wasn’t leaving him.
“I hate this place,” Cody muttered.
A small hot-pink four-wheeler pulled into the ranch yard, and Fiona grinned. “That’s Emily delivering Sybil’s best berry pie. You’re in for a treat after dinner, Cody.”
“Yeah, right I don’t want to be here. I want to be with my friends in Denver.”
“Uh-huh. Maybe Emily will stay for dinner. You look just like your
dad and uncle, and they are handsome men.” Fiona held Joel’s hand as though she knew how badly he wanted to say the right things, how badly he wanted to hold his son.
“I hate girls—”
“Girls can be difficult, but this one is special. She’s Fiona’s niece.” When Joel opened the door, Emily hurried into the house, a redhead dressed in a cobalt blue sweater and long leggy jeans with Western boots. Cody stared openmouthed at her. When introductions had gone around, he was still staring at her and apparently unable to speak. When dinner was finished, Cody’s eyes hadn’t left Emily, who seemed quite happy with his attention. “I came over to ask Aunt Fiona if she could help me with my archery bow. It’s the old kind, a straight wood bow, and Dad says she was always the best archer around.”
Over his ice cream and berry pie, Cody turned slowly to Fiona and blinked. Joel knew exactly how his son was feeling—fascinated by the Tallchief women. “Fiona can handle an eighteen-wheeler with the best of them, too.”
“My kind of woman,” Rafe stated with a grin and stood. “Sorry I can’t wash the dishes, old man, but I’ve got a date in Denver. Cody, I’ll bring in your things. Joel, his school records are on the way for his enrollment here, just as you asked.”
Joel studied his son. His backup plan of a private tutor wouldn’t be necessary. Cody had refocused back on Emily, who said, “I’d love to see your room. I’ll help you unload, okay? And listen, if you need help adjusting, or catching up on homework or anything, you know—making the change to a new school—you’ll let me help, won’t you?”
Cody cleared his throat and made what Joel considered to be a valiant effort for a stunned male. He straightened, edging for more height near Emily, who was taller. “I’d like that. You say Fiona can handle a bow? Well, I’ve been thinking that I’d like to learn how to handle one of those. Not the high-powered, compound kind, but the old-fashioned ones.”
Emily winked. “Fiona and Elspeth ride like all the Tallchief women. You should see them. I’m learning, too. We have a fall rodeo, and skiing and sledding in the winter, and hay rides. When I first came here, I didn’t like it, because I didn’t know anyone, but you know me already, and Fiona. The Tallchiefs are a great family. You’ll feel just like one of them in no time.”
Joel smiled at Rafe, who had just winked. “Women,” they both said, appreciating the opposite sex.
“You’ll be just fine, honey,” Fiona murmured before leaving. As they stood beside her Jeep, she lifted on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and snapped his suspender playfully.
Joel caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “I like it when you call me ‘honey.’ I’ll phone you later tonight.”
She kissed his lips and whispered, “You’re doing everything right, Joel.”
“Not quite, or you’d be in my bed tonight,” he returned tightly, and flicked her lips with his tongue, needing a more intimate taste of her.
Her smoky look made him want her immediately. He cupped the back of her head with one hand, raising her lips to his deep penetrating kiss, and caught her close with his other arm. “Remember that,” Joel murmured, satisfied, as Fiona blinked and stared at him, her slightly swollen lips parted.
“You just asked for it, my price,” she threatened in a husky purr as she revved up the Jeep and roared down the farm road.
“You bet I did, and I plan for it to include a wedding ring,” Joel said quietly as he turned back to the house and saw his son watching out the window. He motioned Cody to come outside, and when his son stood nearer, Joel lightly put his hand on his shoulder. “Come out to the barn. I’d like to show you something I’m working on. Maybe you can help.”
Cody stiffened, moving away from his father. He glanced painfully up at Joel. “Just don’t try the buddy stuff, okay?”
Joel inhaled and studied his son’s determined scowl, which looked so much like his and his brother’s. “You look like me, you know.”
“Yeah. So what?”
“Well, maybe we like the same things. We’ll just have to find out, won’t we?” Give me a chance, son. I’ll try my best to make a life for us. I love you.
“Motors! All kinds of ’em,” Cody exclaimed with delight a moment later. “My dad is a motor fiend! Have you ever souped up a racing cart?”
“I don’t get it. Why don’t they all just go to a restaurant or something. It’s too much work and mess,” Cody muttered a week later, the evening before Thanksgiving dinner. At the Tallchief ranch, the kitchen was bustling, the Tallchief women baking bread and pies and crumbling dried bread for stuffing while their husbands were home tending babies.
While they discussed what he should plant in the spring, Joel was helping Duncan with Megan and Daniel, both of whom did not want to go to sleep. Duncan had been summoned into the kitchen to unscrew, lift and fetch. Cody tried to remain a safe distance from the children. “Crawlers everywhere,” he muttered, as Megan plopped herself in his lap, showing him her dolly.
“They are a family who like being together, especially on holidays.” Joel rocked Daniel, whose big gray eyes were getting heavy. He’d missed so much with his son. “When you were a baby, I wanted to rock you.”
“I didn’t need it,” Cody snapped, easing away from Megan.
“You did. So did I.”
“You scared me. You always looked so hard and mad. You look different now. But I’m leaving, just as soon as—” Cody stared at Emily who had just breezed into the room after a ball game. The long-legged, teenage redhead ripped off her coat, tossed it aside, and with an unconscious feminine movement, shook free her long hair. She picked up Megan and hugged her.
Cody looked as if he’d been hit between the eyes—stunned and gaping at Emily. Joel knew exactly how he felt.
“Hi, guys. Hi, Cody. Sorry, I’m late. I’ll go help in the kitchen right now. How’s school?” She kissed Megan.
“Just great. I like it here. Can I help cook?” Cody asked, staring unblinkingly at Emily.
“Sure. Here,” Emily said, and eased Megan into his arms. “Let’s go into the kitchen and see what we can find to eat first. I build a terrific sandwich. I’m starved.”
“Great,” Cody said, and, taking a deep breath for courage, kissed Megan’s cheek.
Later, riding home in Joel’s pickup, Cody asked, “Why did you chase Fiona, Dad? I mean, you’re awfully old to be running after a woman who’s just snapped your suspenders, aren’t you? And why did you look so—you had this silly, proud expression on your face when she clipped your hair. I don’t get it.”
“Fiona makes me feel good, son. She’s a part of my life, just like you are.” Joel wasn’t that relaxed; he craved one little “honey” from Fiona, who would be sleeping alone in her bed tonight. He stopped his groan, longing for her.
Cody looked out into the night, the moonlight outlining a deer beside the road. “The Tallchiefs are wearing kilts tomorrow. The guys, too. What kind of a family does stuff like that? You won’t ever catch me wearing nutsy stuff like that. People can see right up to your—And what’s the deal with the scars on their thumbs? And all that ‘Aye’ stuff?”
Joel tried to organize how to tell his son about the Tallchiefs’ parents, and who was responsible. “Cody, a long time ago, a man shot their parents. There were five of them and they were just teenagers,” he began slowly.
When the story was done, Cody settled in to think, and Joel recognized the familiar brooding expression. “Okay,” Cody said when they got home.
“Okay?” Joel asked, uncertain about the simple agreement.
“I’m okay with all this. I’ll try.” He looked at Joel. “The thing is, Dad, you’re a little impulsive sometimes now, and I’m not certain how I feel about my dad patching my pants or shirts.”
“I used to do that for your uncles. I guess I missed doing it.”
“Hard times?”
Joel nodded, and Cody continued to look out into the night, his young face serious. “You really want me, don’t you?” he asked after a long mom
ent. “You want me enough to leave everything you know and come up here, where you are an outsider. I remember your office and your suits and how you knew what you were doing. Here, you’re reading lots of books just to find out what to plant. It must be like going back to school.”
“I really do want you. I love you, son.”
“Mom said you didn’t She said you were always too busy for me.”
Joel ached for his son. He needed to hold Cody, to keep him safe, but Cody was wary of him. “I was very busy, and I tried to see you. But I didn’t think I was the better parent...because of my father. Your mother’s parents are great.”
“There’s stuff people don’t see,” Cody muttered after a while. “It’s all like a great big picture you have to put on for everybody, to make everything look good, when it isn’t.”
“That isn’t going to happen with me, Cody. I promise.”
Cody looked at him. “Fiona is your girl, isn’t she? Where does that leave me?”
Cody was too old and worn for his age; Joel chose his words carefully. “That leaves you with me, no matter what. But I’d like Fiona to be my wife. I’d like you to have brothers and sisters. I’d like us to be happy. Together.”
While Cody digested Joel’s statement, his father mentally repeated Una’s legend: Then the magic circle will be as true as their love. Was the completion of his life too much to ask? Was there an outside chance that Fiona loved him and that Cody could be happy?
“Fiona gave me an old top. It was in the chest you gave her. She said she wanted me to have something special from her great-great-grandmother, isn’t that something? Rafe has a top collection, but nothing neat as this. It looks crummy, but it has perfect balance and spins like a—” Cody grinned. “A top. Are you in love with Fiona?”
“I am. But I want her to have what all women should have, a time to cherish before settling into marriage. I thought six months would be enough time. What do you think?”
“I think you need to watch the soap operas. Those guys whisk right in there and sweep a woman off her feet, and it’s mush before you know it. You don’t seem to be doing so well.”