Montana Rogue

by Jessica Douglass

  Courtney flinched. He’d hit a nerve with that one. She’d always had a sense of unease about her family’s wealth. Especially when the gulf between the haves and have-nots in Butte often seemed so wide, it was beyond measuring. Still, she managed to straighten her shoulders. “My father worked hard for his money.”

  “So did mine,” Jack said acidly. “He was a copper miner. Worked strip mines in the fifties. One of your daddy’s. By the late sixties he was coughing up blood. He died when I was thirteen.”

  Courtney’s hands twisted in her lap. “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I.”

  “Please, Mr. Sullivan...”

  “Jack. My dad was Mr. Sullivan. To all the kids in Dublin Gulch anyway.” Dublin Gulch was a designation of sorts applied by locals to differentiate one ethnic neighborhood from another. Courtney remembered hearing other such names, too, such as Corktown, Finntown and Little Italy. Most of the old neighborhoods, such as Dublin Gulch, were long gone, condemned and consumed by the mines.

  “May I sit down?”

  “No. You’re not staying.”

  The man’s been drinking, and he’s lost his livelihood, Courtney reminded herself. It was only natural that he be a bit surly. “What did...what did your employer tell you, if I may ask?”

  “That I’d insulted the boss’s daughter, and I could clear out my locker.”

  “I promise you, I had nothing to do with it.”

  “I know.”

  She blinked, surprised. “Then why?—”

  “Am I acting like an ass?” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m not really sure, to tell you the truth. I think I’m a little unnerved having a Hamilton in my house. Especially one as pretty as you.”

  She managed a tentative smile, warmed by the unexpected compliment.

  “I know it was your silk-suit boyfriend who got me fired, Miss Hamilton. He didn’t have the guts to face me man-to-man, but it doesn’t take guts to make a phone call.”

  “I don’t know what got into Roger.”

  “He probably saw the way I was looking at you.”

  Courtney swallowed. “And how was that?”

  “The same way I’m looking at you right now.” The heat in that gaze sent sparks of fire dancing along her spine. He held out the beer. “Drink?”

  She shook her head. “I, uh, I came here to talk about your job.”

  He took a long pull on the bottle. “Did you?”

  “Yes.” She tried to sound resolute, but failed.

  “Okay. We talked. You apologized. I accept. Now you’d better go.”

  “But what are you going to do about a job?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “If you need money—”

  It was the dead wrong thing to say.

  Any trace of cordiality or sympathy vanished from those sky-blue eyes. “The day I take Hamilton charity,” he fairly spat the word “—is the day after hell freezes over, Miss Hamilton.” He pointed toward the door. “You know your way out.”

  Courtney felt deflated, irrationally rejected. She turned to leave, her gaze falling on his left arm. “I can’t go. You haven’t told me about your tattoo.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “Please.”

  A muscle in his jaw jumped. “Tell you what...I need to change my clothes. I fell asleep in these.” He gestured toward the stairs. “You come up to my room, and I’ll tell you all about my tattoo.”

  He was issuing a challenge, daring her to follow him to his bedroom. Courtney bumped her chin up a notch. “Lead the way.”

  His bedroom was as simply furnished as the living room. A bed, a dresser, a night table, a small reading lamp and an electric radio were the room’s only accoutrements. The radio was on and playing country music. Courtney hovered near the open door as Jack crossed to his dresser. She tried to concentrate on the darkening clouds outside his window, a flash of lightning creating brief static in the radio. But her gaze shifted back to Jack, as though drawn by a magnet. She could only stare as he peeled off his shirt, mesmerized by the play of muscle across his chest, his back, his arms. From his closet he selected a short-sleeved denim that he shrugged into, but did not button.

  Needing to distract herself, Courtney asked, “How long have you been a carpenter?”

  “Six years. Working my way through school. Taking night courses, correspondence. Any way I can get the credits.”

  “To stay in carpentry?”

  “No. I’ve got other plans.”

  Thunder rumbled overhead.

  “I saw you watching me, you know,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “At your log house in the country, I saw you watching me from the kitchen window.”

  Maybe the earth would just open up and swallow her. At least she could hope.

  “It’s okay,” he drawled. “I was flattered. Why do you think it took me four days to finish that railing? Whenever you were at the window, I’d find an excuse to be in front of it.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanted to know if you’d ever do anything but look.”

  “I liked to watch you work,” she managed. “Is there anything wrong with that? You’re very good with your hands.”

  “Oh, princess, you don’t know the half of it.” He said the words with deliberate provocation. Then seemed to catch himself. “I’m going to try real hard to be noble, okay? It’s not my nature, but I’ll give it a shot. I want you to turn around and go down the stairs and out the door. Between the way you look and this beer, I’m not thinking real straight. Having Courtney Hamilton in my bedroom is a fantasy that’s proving a little hard to resist.”

  “You say that like this isn’t the first time you’ve thought about having me here.”

  “It isn’t, princess. Believe me, it isn’t.”

  “Why do you call me that?”

  “Because it was the way you looked the first time I saw you. Two years ago in your daddy’s downtown office building. I was in the lobby, waiting for my mother. Maddie Sullivan. She’s your daddy’s cleaning lady.”

  He said the last as though he were embarrassed, but Courtney wasn’t going down that pride-bound road of his again. “Maddie Sullivan is your mother?” She hadn’t even made the connection. “She’s a wonderful woman! I adore her!”

  “Well, it seems we have one thing in common at least. We both think my mother is terrific.” He walked over to the window and opened it to its widest aperture. A stray breeze teased his shirttail as easily as it did the window’s Irish lace curtains. “You were dressed in some kind of Cinderella ball gown. Sequins and satin. Your hair was all done up like a crown of curls. I think you even had flowers in it.”

  “Baby’s breath.” Courtney smiled wistfully, remembering. “I won a part in community theater. I went to the office to show my father. He couldn’t come to the play. He was too busy. I think he gave me twenty seconds.”

  Outside, the rain began to fall. The radio offered up a mournful tune of pain and heartbreak and loss.

  On impulse, Courtney crossed the room and stopped just inches behind him. “If I’m a princess,” she said softly, “maybe you could be my Prince Charming. Just for a minute?”

  “I don’t think that would be a very good idea.” He did not turn around.

  “Dance with me? Please?” She raised her arms. For an instant he hesitated; then, with an almost fatalistic shrug, he turned and drew her to him, as naturally as if he had done so a thousand times before. With a dreamy sigh Courtney rested her head against his shoulder, allowed one large hand to engulf her smaller one, felt his other hand settle gently, almost shyly, on the small of her back.

  Thunder rattled the window, and she instinctively moved closer to him, smiling as Jack tightened his embrace.

  The rain fell, the music played and they danced. On and on, they danced.

  Nothing existed in the world but she and Jack. Yesterday was gone. Tomorrow was an illusion. Today—this minute—was all either one of them had
.

  She turned her head.

  His kiss was as natural as the rain, as sweet as summer honey. The tang of beer on his breath only added to the heady sensation of forbidden pleasure. The pressure of his lips increased. The stubble of his beard abraded her tender flesh. Courtney tilted her head and sighed his name.

  And just that abruptly he released her.

  “What is it?” she asked, still dazed by the tender assault of his mouth on hers.

  “You need to go. Now.” His eyes were twin flames of desire. He was breathing in ragged gasps. She didn’t miss the telltale bulge straining behind the zipper of his jeans.

  Courtney wasn’t sure what she was feeling. She only knew she didn’t want this time to end. Not now. Not yet. She walked over to his bed and sat down on the edge of it. “You haven’t told me the story of your tattoo.”

  “Dammit, Courtney...”

  “I like it when you say my name.”

  He cursed vividly. “You’re playing with fire, princess.”

  “Would you burn me, Jack?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  She picked at the chenille coverlet on his bed. “I want to know about the tattoo.” She was pushing him, she knew. Maybe it was the storm, maybe it was the unrelenting pressure from her father and Roger, or maybe it was simply being in Jack Sullivan’s bedroom, but she was feeling things she’d never felt before. Reckless, careless...and a little dangerous.

  Lightning flashed, casting phantoms of light and dark across Jack’s rigidly still features. He seemed to be deciding something. And whatever it was, his answer was to cross the room and sit beside her on the bed. His left arm brushed against her right.

  Courtney switched on the reading lamp and stared at the tattoo. “May I touch it?”

  He didn’t say yes; he didn’t say no.

  Courtney caressed the wolf. Beneath her fingers, Jack’s flesh grew fire hot.

  “I was fourteen,” he began, his gaze locked straight ahead. “My dad had only been dead about a year. He was my whole world. To get back at God for taking him, I was busy raising hell all over town. My poor mother did her best. But I was one messed-up kid. That’s when Pete Wilson came into my life.”

  He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. “Pete’s a cop in Butte. We met over a Snickers bar.” His mouth crooked into a self-deprecating grin. “I was vandalizing the machine it was in at the time. Pete could’ve arrested me. Instead, he took me fishing. Then he took me to Alaska to hunt caribou. If I didn’t know there was a God, I knew it when I saw that land. And heard it. A quiet like I’ve never heard anywhere.”

  He regarded her with a sudden intensity. “Do you understand?”

  She nodded. She understood perfectly. “I’ve been up in the Sapphires. Hiking. I spent the night once. All alone. I was a little scared. But I’d do it again in a minute. Sometimes it was so quiet, I could hear my own heart beating.”

  He looked away again, and Courtney was certain that it wasn’t because he didn’t like what he saw. But because he did. Maybe too much. Her pulses sang.

  “We were with this guide, a barrel-chested Inuit named Yancy. We were out on a snow-covered plain, near dusk. Yancy got us within sixty yards of a herd of caribou. That’s when we saw them. On the horizon, just coming over a hillock. A wolf pack. Maybe seven animals with this big silver male in the lead.

  “We just sat back and watched. Within about ten minutes the pack had culled out an old stag. He probably wouldn’t have put up much of a fight. But then all of a sudden the wolves scattered. I looked up and saw a plane, a single-engine Cessna coming in low.”

  Courtney watched Jack’s face change, darken with anger.

  “Yancy cursed. I asked Pete what was going on. He said they were likely poachers come to shoot animals from the plane. It made me sick.

  “A rifle barrel with a scope so big, a blind man could sight on it, jutted out the window of the plane. Then the spineless bastard started shooting. He hit the alpha male square in the chest.”

  Courtney closed her eyes.

  “His mate went wild. She was howling, screaming. Like something ripped her heart out. She wouldn’t leave him. He lay at her feet, bleeding in the snow.

  “The plane circled, looking for a place to land so the cowards could claim their trophy. I wanted to shoot ‘em, just shoot ‘em right out of the sky. I’ve never felt anything like that before. Not even when my dad died.” He was trembling, his hands balled into fists.

  “I ran to the wolves. Pete and Yancy both tried to stop me. But I was faster. I got there, went down on my knees. The other wolves hung back. Except the female. She watched me. Like she’d been expecting me.

  “The male didn’t even growl. It was just him and me in this frozen wilderness. I cradled his head in my lap. I felt him die. At that same instant I felt his spirit come into my body. I know that sounds crazy. But it was real. He was part of me.”

  Courtney’s eyes burned. She longed to touch him, hold him, but knew she didn’t dare.

  “The plane landed. Pete showed the so-called ‘sportsmen’ his badge. He didn’t have any authority up there, but they left in a hurry anyway. I carried the wolf into the woods and covered him with branches. Then I lit a fire. I didn’t want those bastards coming back for the pelt.”

  He straightened. “I got the tattoo as soon as I got back to Butte.”

  For a long minute the only sound came from the radio and the rain. Finally Courtney found her voice. “Thank you.”

  Jack’s face reddened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get carried away. I never told that story to anyone before. My mom just got mad when she saw the tattoo. My sister—she lives in Seattle now with her husband and two kids—she figured it was just boy foolishness. So I kept the story to myself. Except for Pete.”

  “I’m honored. Truly.”

  He shot to his feet. “Okay, you heard it. Now you’d best go.”

  She stood up next to him. “Thank you again. For the dance. And for the story.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She touched his arm. “I truly am sorry about your job, Jack. If there’s anything I can do...”

  He took a step back, forcing her hand to fall away, then rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Never say that to a drunk and horny man, Miss Hamilton.”

  “Please, don’t be crude. Not now.”

  “I’m a crude guy.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “No?” He turned toward her, and she could actually feel the pent-up tension in him, coming off of him in waves. She didn’t move.

  “Leave,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Fine,” he breathed. “Just remember—you were warned.” With a tortured groan he pulled her to him, his mouth finding hers once more. Where his earlier kiss had been tender, this one was savage. Where he’d been gentle, now he was ruthless. Where he’d given, now he only took.

  Outside, the storm grew fiercer.

  Without a word Jack tumbled her down onto his bed. “I want you, princess. I want you with every cell of my body. Right here. Right now.” His eyes glittered, fever bright. “You want to take your angel-sweet body and leave, do it now. You stay, and I’m going to make love to you until you can’t walk. Until neither of us can walk.”

  He rolled onto his back, his arms splayed wide. “It’s your choice.”

  Courtney levered herself onto one elbow. Using her free hand, she brushed aside his unbuttoned shirt, trailing her fingers along the bare wall of his chest, feeling the thundering beat of his heart beneath her palm. She already couldn’t walk. Her knees were weak. Her every sense, every nerve ending was tuned to this man. If the house were on fire, she wouldn’t have left his bed.

  She had no idea what kind of sorcery he employed, no notion of how in such a short span of time he could so thoroughly captivate her. But he had. She wouldn’t be so rash as to say she loved him. But she could. And soon. Very, very soon.

  She acquiesced to his superi
or skill and knowledge, lying in breathless anticipation as he began to undo the buttons of her blouse. Gently, gently he eased the filmy fabric off of her shoulders, his rough, callused palms skating upward to slide beneath the lacy barrier of her brassiere.

  “Courtney, Courtney,” he rasped. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe...”

  He worked the clasp of her bra and wisped away the last obstacle between his hands and the quivering mounds of her breasts. He teased, suckled, worshiped, seeming to know always when to touch and when to withdraw.

  Courtney arched upward, seeking, aching, her body on fire with need, passion, lust. Never in her life had she felt this way. Never in her life had she known she could feel this way.

  And then the last of her clothes were gone, and somehow Jack, too, was naked. Lightning blazed at the window beside them, jagged streaks that highlighted the sheer magnificence of his body.

  Cool night air whispered across her overheated skin. Tiny droplets of rain misted through the screen to settle on her naked straining body.

  Again and again Jack brought her to the brink of some unknown precipice, and again and again he eased her back, never quite allowing her to slip over the edge.

  “Jack...Jack, please...” She twined her fingers in his hair. “I need—oh, please...”

  “Patience, princess,” he whispered. “Patience.”

  He slid his hands between her thighs, urging her to open to him. Mindlessly, she obeyed. He dipped his fingers between the curls at the apex of her legs and teased the very core of her womanhood. She hurtled back to the rim of that precipice. “Let me go,” she whimpered. “Please.” Again he lured her back.

  Bold, desperate, she reached between them, touched his pulsing shaft, reveled in his throaty, bliss-filled gasp.

  “Now,” she urged. “Please, Jack. Now.”

  He rose above her, staked his arms on either side of her and without a single word drove himself inside her. For just an instant, the spell was broken. His face, contorted with ecstasy, stilled, as his eyes went wide with astonishment, disbelief.

  “Don’t stop,” she pleaded.

  He wanted to. She could tell. But his body, so fearfully aroused, would not be denied. He buried his length in her velvet softness, let her grow used to his hardness, his size. Then, with an animal cry that bordered on madness, he drove them both over the edge into the shimmering mists of paradise.