Montana Rogue

by Jessica Douglass

  “It’ll be a while for the chili,” J.D. said. “If you’re hungry, I can rustle you up another can of fruit or something.”

  “Please.”

  J.D.’s movements, despite his mountain man appearance, were deceptively smooth, effortless, as he strode about the cabin. Jack, too, had walked with the grace of a jungle cat. J.D.’s thighs, outlined in his well-worn jeans, were tight, well muscled, just as Jack’s had been. His hands...

  Stop it! These mental gymnastics were getting her nowhere. What kind of odds was she talking about anyway? Odds that she should be kidnapped and crash-land on the exact side of the exact mountain where Jack Sullivan had conveniently taken up residence as a hermit.

  Things happen for a reason.

  Reasonable things, she argued inwardly. Not crazy things.

  But what if it wasn’t a coincidence? What if...?

  J.D handed her a bowl of apricots and a fork. “Are you okay?” The man actually looked concerned.

  “Just thinking too much.”

  She expected him to scurry back to his stove. Instead, he lingered at the foot of the bed. “I know all this has been rough on you. I’m sorry.”

  “You say that like it’s your fault.”

  “I’m just sorry, okay,” he said, gruffly this time.

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “And don’t thank me.”

  Courtney blew out an exasperated breath. “You are the most infuriating man. Do you know that? First you’re nice, then you’re nasty, then you’re nice, then you’re...” She stabbed an apricot with her fork. “Well, I’m afraid you’ll just have to forgive me. I was raised to be polite. I can’t help it. Unlike you, who were no doubt raised by—” She held up a hand. “No, erase that. I can’t insult wolves. Which reminds me...” Her voice softened and she smiled. “Your carvings are magnificent.”

  J.D.’s jaw went bowstring tight. “Made yourself right at home didn’t you?”

  “I looked around a bit,” she acknowledged. “But only after you hadn’t bothered to show that hairy face of yours for six hours. For all I knew, you weren’t planning to come back at all.”

  “You thought I’d desert you?” Now he looked offended.

  “You’re the one who said you didn’t like company.”

  She had him there. And he knew it. He scowled. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “If you don’t intend to scare me, why do you insist on roaming about looking like an escapee from A Nightmare on Elm Street?”

  His mouth quirked. “You don’t care for this look?”

  “It’s perfect, if you’re trying out for the cover of Wolfman Quarterly.”

  He swore. “And you call me infuriating? If you aren’t the mouthiest little—”

  “Don’t you say that! Don’t you dare call me that again! Or I’ll come up with a few choice names for you.”

  Muttering furiously, J.D. snatched up Courtney’s towel full of potatoes and peelings and marched back over to the counter, where he slammed them down in a heap. “I don’t know when you got that mouth, but...” He stopped. Cold.

  “What did you say?”

  He sucked in a deep breath. “I, uh.” He stammered slightly. “I was just wondering if you’ve had that acid tongue all of your life, or if it’s a recent acquisition.”

  “It’s fairly recent,” she admitted, frowning. Something about what he’d said the first time had almost made it seem as though he were making a comparison, as if he’d known— No! No! She’d been down that road once too often already today. “I happen to like my mouth,” she went on, unwilling to dwell on any new suspicions. “So I suggest you get used to it. Especially if that storm out there is as bad as it looks. I may be stuck here longer than a blasted day or two.”

  J.D. glanced out the window and cursed. A sea of swirling white obscured even the closest trees. “I’ve seen late blizzards like this. We could get two feet or twelve this high in the mountains.”

  “I hope you’re making plenty of chili,” she grumbled.

  He raked his fingers through his long dark hair. “Okay, enough,” he said. “What would you say to a truce?”

  “I’d say, if we divide the cabin in half, I get the fire.”

  “Good. Then I get the food.”

  She made a face. “I want a new truce. If you stop being a jerk, I’ll stop being a—” she cleared her throat “—a you-know-what.”

  “Deal.”

  “One more term? For our peaceful coexistence?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A shave and a haircut.”

  “That’s two things.”

  “Please? Can’t you at least tidy up that rat’s nest on your head? Good grooming is next to godliness, you know.”

  “I think I look just fine.”

  “Which explains the complete absence of mirrors in this place,” she muttered.

  J.D. laughed, a genuine howl of amusement. “All right, Miss Hamilton. You win. A compromise it is.” Marching over to his chest of drawers, he came up with a wide-toothed comb. “I’ll do the hair. The beard stays.”

  Courtney would take her victories where she could.

  J.D. raised the comb and immediately sucked in a painful breath. “I’m afraid my make over will have to wait.” He hoisted his injured arm. “Did I mention that I’m left-handed?”

  Courtney’s heart skipped a beat. Jack was left-handed. “Bring me the comb.”

  J.D. trod over to her.

  Courtney got up on her knees and pointed to the edge of bed in front of her. “Sit.”

  He gave her a baleful look, but he sat.

  For long seconds Courtney stared at his back, the wide shoulders, the tumbled waves of dark hair. Why didn’t she just know one way or the other? To cover how awkward she felt, she sidled up behind him and peered at the top of his head. “If anything moves,” she deadpanned, “I’m out of here.”

  She could’ve sworn he growled.

  Slowly Courtney began to work the comb through his long, tangled locks, surprised to find the hair soft, almost silken to the touch. She quickly found herself warming to the task, taking an unexpected pleasure in it. There was something about the whole setting—the primitive cabin, the simmering chili, the crackling fire, and outdoors, the swirling snowstorm. It was as if she and this man were the last two people on earth. And here she was, some kind of Eve to his Adam, combing her man’s hair before the hearth.

  “You’ve got a nice touch.” J.D.’s voice was low, husky.

  “Thank you.” Courtney gave herself a mental shake. Instead of thinking about Adam and Eve, she needed to be thinking about kidnappers and getting home. “There,” she pronounced, tossing the comb on the bed beside her. Tangle-free, J.D.’s hair spilled down to his shoulders in burnished mahogany waves. “How does that feel?”

  J.D. cleared his throat. “Fine.”

  “Good.” Courtney went for the scissors she’d earlier spotted in a drawer. “Now for that godawful beard.”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  “No.”

  “A trim then? Just a foot or two?”

  He snorted, but rolled his eyes in what she took to be acquiescence.

  “You’ll need to move a bit,” she told him.

  Shifting clumsily, J.D. managed to position himself cross-legged in front of her, while still being mindful of Courtney’s injured ankle. She raised her right thumb in front of his face and eyed him critically, as though to judge the scale of the monumental job before her.

  “I hope you’re a realist and not an Impressionist,” he drawled.

  “You don’t want a Picasso nose?” she said, giggling. “One here.” She touched his left cheek. “And maybe one here.” She indicated the perfect spot above his right eyebrow.

  J.D.’s mouth twitched.

  “None of that,” she said. “Or I will cut something off by accident. Now hold still.”

  Carefully, methodically, Courtney set to work. She snipped and clipped and did
her damnedest to ignore the very real feel of J.D.’s hot breath against her fingertips. Ignore his very generous lips. Ignore... Dear Lord, what was the matter with her? The man was a Neanderthal. Trim or no trim.

  But J.D., too, seemed to sense a shift in their level of awareness. She had the distinct feeling that if he could come up with the right excuse, he’d end their barber school session in a heartbeat.

  As if to confirm her suspicions, he asked impatiently, “Are you going to be much longer?”

  “Done.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Except for one more tiny thing.” Courtney scrambled out of bed and, hopping on her good leg, made her way over to her canvas tote bag. Rummaging through it, she found what she was looking for and hopped back to the bed.

  “What do you intend to do with that?”

  Courtney grinned impishly, then clambered up behind her. She took the black silk ribbon and gathered J.D.’s long hair into a queue. “Now you look like a true eighteenth-century rogue, sir.”

  “Complete with flannel shirt and jeans?”

  “Okay, okay, from the neck up. In fact, if pushed, I could say you almost qualify as—dare I say it?—handsome.”

  “Almost?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t want that head to swell any more than it already is.”

  Their gazes locked. “Maybe you’re right,” she whispered. “Maybe I should drop that ‘almost.’”

  He wanted to kiss her. She knew it. In her vitals, she knew it. More than that, she wanted to kiss him back. Absurd, ridiculous. Some sort of isolation-induced lunacy. The kidnapping, the crash, this man, this storm.

  Without thinking, she reached out to trail her fingers across a tiny, whitened scar near his left temple. “Don’t tell me,” she breathed, desperate to lighten the tension between them. “A mountain lion, right?”

  “A fight over a woman.”

  The tension escalated. “What became of her?”

  “I lost her. A long time ago.”

  “Did you love her very much?”

  “I don’t know. I never gave us a chance to find out.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was a fool, Miss Hamilton. A pride-bound son of a bitch who didn’t know any better.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I’m just a fool. A damned fool for ever letting you talk me into this.” J.D. shot to his feet. “We’re going to need more firewood. It’s going to be a long, cold night.” With that, he grabbed his coat and stalked out into the storm.

  * * *

  Outside, the snow continued to come down hard. Icy flakes stung Jack’s sweat-dampened forehead. He welcomed them, turned his face into the wind for more. He wanted the cold, needed it to ease the heat that fired his blood.

  Why in God’s name had he let Courtney touch him? He was risking everything, everything he’d worked so hard for these past months. All because of his blasted hormones.

  He needed to stay focused on Pete. He owed it to him, owed it to the memory of his murdered friend.

  But, God, he wanted Courtney, wanted her so badly, it was driving him mad. Wanted to touch her, taste her, make fever-mad love to her in front of the hearth.

  And he could have her. He knew it. Felt it.

  But only as J.D.

  She liked J.D. Was drawn to him, in spite of herself. Maybe spurred on by fear, her current dependence, or just plain loneliness. Maybe even because she sensed the wounded soul in him.

  But if she knew for a minute that wounded soul belonged to Jack Sullivan, he’d have been wrestling her for that knife under her pillow.

  Jack swore viciously. How had it come to this? He should have leveled with her from the first. Told her who he was, then fabricated some lie to explain his reappearance in her life. Now it was too late. Now, even if he could tell her the truth, she would never believe him.

  Now, no matter what happened, Courtney would be hurt.

  Again.

  By him.

  More than once tonight it had been all he could do not to spill his guts. To just tell her. And hope...

  Hope what?

  That she wouldn’t hate him? God, he hated himself.

  With a disgusted sigh Jack turned and slogged his way into the cabin.

  “You forgot the firewood.”

  He slapped at the snow that still clung to him and tried hard to keep his eyes off of her. He failed. She was sitting up in his bed, her blond hair tumbled about her shoulders like a halo of sunshine, and he wanted to die. Wanted to die rather than do what he was about to do. Wanted to die rather than see her hate him.

  Tell her. Just tell her. Get it over with. “You’d best get some sleep, Miss Hamilton. It’s been a long day for both of us.” He tossed his sleeping bag on the floor in front of the fire. Tell her.

  He lay down, muttering a curse when he accidentally jarred his bad arm against the floor.

  Courtney leaned down from the bed. “I can’t sleep knowing that arm needs attention.”

  He got up, found her some bandages, some antiseptic. This would do it. This would do the job for him. He sat down on the bed and held out his left arm. “It’s all yours, Courtney.”

  Her head jerked up, and he realized his mistake. Mistake or deliberate slip. Courtney. He hadn’t called her that here. Not once. Always Miss Hamilton. She’d noticed.

  Without a word she reached for the bandage on his arm. Her hands were trembling. He made no move to stop her.

  Courtney tugged free the soiled cloth. For a long, tortured minute she stared at his arm, unmoving. Everything in him wanted to look at her face, to know what she was thinking. But he couldn’t summon the will to look.

  Because some part of him already knew.

  Then came the agonized rasp that sealed his fate.

  “Jack.”

  Chapter 5

  “You bastard.” Courtney stared at Jack, willing him to look at her, but he did not. “You lying snake son of a bitch.” She shook her head, her senses reeling, her mind for the moment at least filled more with shock than anger.

  Jack Sullivan.

  It couldn’t be, couldn’t be. But it was. The reality slammed into her even as her brain refused to accept the truth offered up by her own eyes. Juxtaposed against a five-inch gash of J.D.’s left forearm was the full body tattoo of a timber wolf.

  J.D. was Jack Sullivan.

  “I can explain....”

  “Explain?” She gaped at him. “Explain twenty-four hours of dissembling and deceit?” Her anger nudged a notch higher. “Did you enjoy your sick little game, Jack? Did you have a good laugh at my expense?”

  “That wasn’t—”

  “I don’t want to hear it!” Anger charged ahead of shock. “How dare you? How dare you play out some sick joke with me? Do you have any idea what it was like for me this morning to wake up in this bed with the missing link bending over me?

  “You knew damned well who I was. Your excavation into my purse told you that, even if your memory didn’t. But did I hear any words at all like ‘Take it easy, Courtney. It’s okay. It’s me, Jack Sullivan. I know I look like a serial killer, but it’s just me. Not someone who might be contemplating eating your liver for breakfast!’ Oh, no, not a word. In fact, what I did hear was ‘You’re not leaving, Miss Hamilton.’ ‘I’ve got bodies to bury, Miss Hamilton.’ Dammit, how could you?”

  “I’ll tell you, if you just—”

  “No, I won’t ‘just,’” she hissed. “Because then we go on to act two. The hair, the beard and the tinted contacts. I know we didn’t exactly part friends, but I think I deserve better than that, don’t you?” Her voice rose. “Don’t you?”

  Silence.

  “Well?”

  “You through?”

  “Not by a long shot. But you go right ahead.”

  His lips compressed in a grim line. “I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t all that sure you remembered me.”

  Courtney let out a humorless laugh. “You can do better than that, Sullivan. F
or one thing, you’ve got me mixed-up with yourself. You’re the one who doesn’t remember names and faces, most especially, I’m sure, when it comes to the women who’ve shared your bed.”

  A muscle in his jaw tightened. “Another reason I didn’t tell you,” he said, “is that when you didn’t recognize me, I figured I could probably get you down the mountain and home without your ever knowing, and maybe you’d even appreciate missing out on an encounter with a ghost from your past.”

  “Oh, it was all for my sake then,” she said, her voice dripping sarcasm. “I’m so sorry. How could I have forgotten? My feelings were certainly your primary consideration the last time we were together.”

  “I never knew that night was such a watershed moment in your life.”

  More than you’ll ever know, she thought bitterly. But said, “Don’t flatter yourself. My only point is that I’ve been through quite enough lately, thank you. My father’s heart attack, a kidnapping at gunpoint, a helicopter crash. It might have been nice if you had at least been a neutral face, rather than an enemy.”

  “I’m not your enemy, Courtney.”

  “No?” Very deliberately she retrieved the knife from under her pillow.

  She watched Jack’s eyes widen, though they revealed no particular emotion.

  “Let me spell it out for you,” she said. “I was in a helicopter with two kidnappers. In flight they announce that they’re heading for a cabin. And that a mysterious boss has plans for me. The copter then crashes near a cabin, where you—a man with a link to my past and an attitude toward my father—just happen to be living. I know it’s quite a leap—but you know what occurs to me, Jack? That you could be that boss. And that because we have a history—however brief and sordid it might have been—you needed a contingency plan. You know, in case my blindfold slipped. So you arranged to look like an ape.”

  “I prefer Neanderthal.”

  “The tinted contacts, Jack. They’re what make the deception premeditated, deliberate.”

  “Why in God’s name would I kidnap you?”

  “You announced the motive yourself, remember? Money. A whole galaxyload of money.”

  He swore and began to pace. “I did not kidnap you.”

  “Then why the masquerade? Oh, I know—you’re on the lam from an irate husband. Or more likely an irate girlfriend. Or six. Or twelve.”