Blackwood's Woman (3 page)

"So polite," he said. "So politically correct. Not Indian or redskin or savage, but Native American." He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "Such a Southern lady."

"What gave me away?" She tried to sound teasing, hoping to defuse some of the tension radiating between them. "Couldn't have been my accent."

"What's the real reason a Southern belle like you is living in New Mexico, roughing it?"

She thought the sound he made might have been a begrudging chuckle, but it sounded more like a fractured grunt.

"I'm sure Elena told you that I came out here to paint. I'm fascinated by the land and by the people."

"So you're fascinated by the noble savage, huh? Do you have a particular fascination for half-breed Navajo men?"

"You're being insulting." Joanna resented the way he made her interest in the Navajo seem sordid and ugly. His comment tarnished her foolish dream of finding true love the way Annabelle Beaumont had done.

"For the record, I'm half Navajo and half Scotch-Irish." He eased his arm from her waist down to her belly, his hand pushing her backward, forcing her hips deeper into his arousal.

"Stop it!" She inadvertently squirmed against him as she maneuvered her purse in front of her where she could reach inside. "Take your hands off me. I knew Elena's big brother had a reputation for being a real stud with the ladies, but I didn't think he was the type to force himself on a woman."

"Are you kidding?" J.T.'s laughter was hard and cold. "I've never forced myself on a woman. They usually throw themselves at me."

Joanna jerked out the 25-mm. If this brute thought he could intimidate her, then he had another thought coming. No one controlled Joanna Beaumont except Joanna Beaumont!

J.T. saw the gun in her hand. Hellfire! What did she think she was going to do, shoot him? What was wrong with her, anyway? She'd made it abundantly clear she didn't like him, that his reputation had preceded him and she'd been put off by what Elena had told her about him. But he couldn't control his arousal any more than she seemed able to control her obvious desire for him. But if she thought he was going to force anything on her, she was crazy. He'd assumed she was as hot as he was.

The moment he'd seen her a few yards away from the stalled Jeep, J.T. had known the redhead had to be Elena's friend Joanna Beaumont. His half sister had been trying to pair him up with the Virginia debutante for the past three years. But the last thing J.T. wanted was to be part of some spoiled Southern belle's New Mexico adventure. She wouldn't be the first woman in his life to think a brief affair with a half-breed exciting.

But this trip home to the ranch was going to be a vacation. The first real vacation J.T. had had in the six years since he'd left the Secret Service and joined Sam Dundee's private security agency in Atlanta.

"Put your gun away, lady. I'm no threat to you. I like my women willing, believe me."

"Well, I'm not willing. Not now. Not ever." She clutched the gun tightly. "I want you to take me to the ranch house right this minute!"

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"I told you when I offered you a ride that it would be a while before I went back that way." J.T. guided Washington closer to the stream.

"And I just told you to take me back to the ranch house right now. If you're smart, you'll do what I tell you to do. After all, I have a gun and you don't."

"Lady, is this any way to treat a man doing you a favor?"

"I don't consider your coming on to me as doing me a favor. I asked for help, not for you to … to—" she sought for the right word "—for you to proposition me."

He snorted. "I didn't proposition you. I just asked if half-breed men fascinated you."

"And you—you—" He had pulled her against him, making her acutely aware of the fact that he was still very aroused. His nearness created an unnerving sexual awareness in her—the first she had experienced since the rape. And that desire frightened her. When this man, who wore a silver-and-turquoise ring identical to hers, had swept her off her feet and into his arms, her desire for him had unsettled her equilibrium.

J.T. slowed Washington to a standstill, dropped the reins and reached around the woman's body, grabbing her hand. An angry woman with a gun was dangerous.

Joanna struggled against his superior strength, but in the end all her fighting did was toss both of them off the Appaloosa and onto the ground. She lost her .25
in the fall, the small handgun clanking loudly as it hit a nearby boulder.

J.T. was thankful the damned thing hadn't fired. A stray bullet could have killed either of them. Now Joanna pelted her small fists against his chest, fighting him like a wildcat, and with absolutely no rhyme or reason to her hysterical battle. No, that wasn't exactly true, J.T. acknowledged. He
was
a stranger. Despite the fact that he was Elena's brother, Joanna really didn't know him. For some absurd reason the woman assumed he was intent on ravaging her, with or without her permission.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said in as calm and reasonable a voice as he could muster while the two of them rolled around over the uneven terrain. "But you're going to hurt yourself if you don't stop acting like this."

Joanna paid no heed to his warning. All she could think about was the fact that she was lying on the ground, out in the middle of nowhere, with a huge, hard man on top of her.

J.T. grabbed one of her wrists, then managed to grip the other, manacling them both in one of his hands. He pressed his body against hers, cursing himself for being aroused. Squirming beneath him, tossing her head from side to side as she jerked her shoulders in a vain effort to free herself, Joanna glared up at him and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

In one swift move, J.T. stood, dragging the screaming redhead to her feet beside him. He released her immediately. Her breathing deep and ragged, she glowered at him, a pink flush staining her cheeks. Her eyes, such a dark green they appeared almost black in her anger, focused on him with rage as she balled her hands into fists.

J.T. lifted his arms above his head, high in the air, as a gesture of surrender. He hoped she would realize the error of her assumption and calm herself.

"What the hell happened to you?" he asked. "I apologize if anything I said insulted you or made you think I was going to attack you."

"It wasn't—" Joanna gulped for air "—just what you said. It was what you were doing."

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"I didn't realize you hated the way I was touching you. I thought—"

"You had no right to touch me, to caress me, to press yourself against me like that!" She couldn't bring herself to look at him, to make eye contact.

"Lady, you didn't protest anything I did until I asked if you had a particular fascination for half-breeds. And then, you go crazy and brandish a gun in my face."

He was right. She had enjoyed his touch, had gloried in the feelings of desire he created within her, even though those strong emotions had also frightened her …

frightened her enough to make her threaten him.

Had she overreacted? This wouldn't be the first time. For nearly a year after the rape, she hadn't been able to bear for a man to even shake her hand. But it had been well over three years since she'd allowed a man's nearness to scare her into acting like an idiot. Dear God, she had thought all the irrational fear was over, that she had truly put the past behind her, that she was in control. But J.T. Blackwood had shown her that she was still a rape survivor; a woman who could not trust any man.

"Maybe I did overreact," Joanna said, then immediately qualified her admission.

"I'm not saying I did, just that I might have. I don't like your type. I never have and I never will. You think women are fair game, don't you? That all you have to do is show an interest and a woman will automatically succumb to you."

"Can you stand there and tell me that you weren't just as turned on as I was?"

Lifting her downcast eyes, she glared at him, wanting to scream, no, no, no, a thousand times no! But she knew it would be a lie. And he would know she was lying.

J.T. Blackwood was a man of the world, a man who'd known a lot of women.

"Look, if it makes you feel any better, I'm not any happier about the situation than you are," he said. "I don't want to be attracted to you. You're not my type, either."

"That's good to know." Joanna couldn't seem to stop herself from glancing down at the zipper in his jeans. Feeling the burning sting of a blush warming her neck, she turned her head.

"A guy can't hide it very well when he's aroused," J.T. told her. "But you've got my word that while I'm at the ranch, I'll steer clear of you. We'll forget about what happened today. If we run into each other, we'll be cordial, but keep our distance.

Agreed?"

"Agreed." She watched him walk over, reach down and pick up her gun. Holding her breath, she waited until he came over and handed it to her. "Thank you."

"Put it away, Ms. Beaumont. Guns should be used only by people who know how to use them."

"I know how to use my gun," she said.

"Fine. Just don't ever try to use it on me again."

"Don't ever make me think you're going to attack me."

"That's a promise."

"Fine," she said. "Will you take me back to the ranch, now?"

"Why not?" He grunted. "You've ruined any chance for me to enjoy this place.

Whenever I come home, I always ride up here to this stream. It's been a favorite place of mine since I was a kid."

"I'm sorry I ruined your homecoming, Mr. Blackwood, but I didn't plan on our meeting the way we did."

"Call me J.T."

"I'd rather not, since it's obvious we aren't going to be friends."

"Or lovers."

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Every nerve in Joanna's body quivered with awareness. "Or lovers," she repeated.

"Come on. Let's head back to the ranch."

She followed him to the big Appaloosa, waited for him to mount, then hesitated when he offered her his hand.

"You can sit behind me," he told her.

"All right." She mounted the horse, sitting behind him, relieved that she wouldn't have to endure the hard pressure of his body against her hips on the ride back to the ranch.

Within a few minutes, Joanna slipped her arms around J.T.'s waist in order to keep her balance as they rode down the side of the mountain. She found herself wanting to lay her head against his broad back and hug herself tightly to his big body.

What she felt was wrong, she thought; her overwhelming need for this man—this stranger. J.T. Blackwood might be wearing Benjamin Greymountain's ring, but he was not Joanna's dream lover. He couldn't be!

Chapter 2

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"
N
ot tonight, Elena. Please." Joanna clutched the portable telephone in her hand.

"I'm tired from today's ordeal with my Jeep. I just want to take a nice long bath, look over the sketches I did at the reservation, and go to bed early."

"But this is J.T.'s first night home and I've planned a special dinner," Elena pleaded. "You don't have to stay long after we eat. But come over for a while. I was counting on your being here."

"I've already met your brother. Remember, he's the one who gave me a ride back to the ranch."

"I don't know what happened between you two, but whatever it was, I'm sure we can straighten it out tonight."

"I don't want to ruin your plans, but—"

"Then don't ruin my plans. Just come eat dinner and you can leave as soon as we smooth things over between you and J.T."

Joanna breathed a deep sigh. Stepping up on the raised floor of what had once been the back porch of the old bunkhouse and was now her huge bathroom, Joanna began unbuttoning her dirty blouse.

"There's nothing to smooth over between your brother and me. We understand each other perfectly." Joanna leaned over, turned on the faucets and watched the water flow into the big, pedestaled, cast-iron bathtub she'd found at an antique shop in Albuquerque. "Mr. Blackwood and I have agreed that we don't like each other, that we aren't each other's type and that we have no intention of allowing you to play matchmaker."

"Just what did J.T. say to you?"

Joanna opened a bottle of scented bubble bath, sloshed a generous amount into the running water and set the container down on the unfinished, wide-plank floor.

"He told me that you'd been trying to get the two of us together for several years now and he has avoided coming to the ranch except when I was out of town."

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10/31/2009and he has avoided coming to the ranch excep Blackwood's Woman t when I was out of town."

"That no-account brother of mine!" Elena said. "He had no right to say something like that to—"

"Why on earth would you ever think your brother and I would be interested in each other? If I were looking for a man, I'd want someone more like your Alex.

Gentle and kindhearted. A fellow artist. And someone who loves New Mexico the way I've come to love it."

"Oh, Jo, you need someone special in your life and so does J.T." Elena let out an exaggerated sigh. "All right, so I was wrong to hope you two were a perfect match.

Come to dinner and I promise no more matchmaking."

"Not tonight." Joanna finished unbuttoning her blouse and dropped it to the floor, then unzipped her jeans.

"You've become my best friend," Elena said. "And J.T. is my only brother. Even if there can't be anything romantic between the two of you, I'd still like for you two to be friends. J.T.'s taking a real vacation and he's going to be staying a couple of weeks this time."

"If he's going to be here a couple of weeks, then there's no hurry in our getting to know each other, is there?"