Blackwolf's Redemption (3 page)

Jesse blew out a breath of exasperated comprehension.

The woman was a trespasser. She probably knew exactly where she was and that it was private land, but he couldn’t fault her for leaping to the wrong conclusion at being told to take off her belt by a man who sure as hell didn’t look like anything she was accustomed to.

“I need the belts to make a rope,” he said.

“A rope?”

“To get us off this cliff.”

She blinked. “To get us off this…”

He squatted beside her, grabbed her shoulders, forced her to turn her head and see the canyon. “Take a look, lady. We’re on the side of a mountain. As if you didn’t already know—”

“Oh God!” The words were a whisper, but they became louder and louder as she repeated them. “Oh God,” she said, “oh God, oh God…”

She began to tremble. Tremble? The understatement of the year. She was shaking like an aspen leaf in a windstorm. Jesse shook her. Hard.

“Stop it!”

“I’m on the mountain. Blackwolf Mountain. In Blackwolf Canyon.” She made a sound that might have been a laugh. “And this—this is the sacred stone!”

“Surprise, surprise,” he said coldly.

She swung toward him, eyes wide, face still devoid of color.

“I was in the canyon.
In
it, do you understand? I was looking up at the mountain. At this ledge. At these stones and the sun and then—and then there was lightning and then I was here and no, it’s impossible, impossible, impossible….”

If it was an act, it was a good one. Damn it, was she going into shock? No color. Sentences that made no sense.

He caught her wrist.

“Take it easy.”

She laughed. It was the kind of laugh he’d heard wounded men make on the battlefield just before they gave it all up and went into shocked insanity. A knot formed in his belly. No. He was not going to let this woman go there. He had enough blood on his hands to last a lifetime.

“Take it easy,” he said again. Her teeth were chattering, and he had nothing to warm her with except himself. On a low, angry curse, he wrapped his arms around her. “Calm down.”

“D-did you h-hear what I said? I wa-was down there. At the bottom of this—this pile of rock. And then I wasn’t. I wasn’t d-down there, I was—I was here. And you—and you—”

“Come here,” he growled, and he drew her hard against him. She struggled; he ignored it. After a few seconds, she gave a little sob; he felt the warmth of her breath against his naked flesh, the hot kiss of her tears. She felt delicate, almost fragile in his arms.

How on earth could she have had the strength to get up here?

It didn’t make sense.

Yes, she’d ignored his No Trespassing signs. She’d come here to steal artifacts. He was certain of that. But how had she climbed to this ledge? He knew how much muscle power it took, and he knew, too, that she didn’t have it.

Not that her body was soft. Well, yes, it was. Soft, as only a woman could be soft. But she was fit. Toned. Her arms. Her belly, pressed to his.

Her breasts.

Rounded. Full. Ripe. And maybe he was the savage she thought him to be, after all, if he was in danger of turning hard while he held a woman he didn’t know, and had every reason to dislike, in his arms.

Tonight, once he was off this damned mountain, Jesse thought grimly, he’d turn himself back into a man of the 1970s instead of the 1870s. He’d drive into town, hit the bar at Bozeman’s best hotel and find himself a woman, a sweet-smelling, sexy East Coast tourist.

It was time to work off the past months of foolish celibacy. And if there was one thing that had never changed about him, it was that he’d never had trouble finding a beautiful woman to warm his bed.

After a couple of hours of that, he wouldn’t get turned on holding a thief in his arms.

At least his thief had stopped shaking. She was making little hiccupping sounds. Carefully, he put her from him.

“Are you all right now?”

She nodded. Her hair had come loose. He’d thought it was brown, but it wasn’t. It was gold. Beige. Brown. And what in hell did the color of her hair matter? Quickly, he got to his feet.

“Good,” he said briskly. “Because you’re going to have to listen closely. And cooperate, if we’re going to get down safely.”

She looked up at him. “What happened to me?”

Her voice was soft, still shocked. He couldn’t afford that; she’d be too much a liability unless she got a grip on reality.

“Lightning.”

She nodded. “I remember. It was green. How could lightning be green?”

It was an excellent question. Lightning, especially here, came in lots of colors. Red. White. A kind of electric blue. But green?

“Save the questions for later,” he said brusquely. “Right now, what matters is getting off this ledge.”

She swallowed. Ran the tip of her tongue over her dry lips.

“I’m, uh, I’m not much for heights.”

That explained why she hadn’t tried to look into the canyon again. It sure as hell didn’t explain how she’d gotten herself up here—and then a thought came to him.

“Do you have an accomplice?”

She stared up at him. “A what?”

“Is there anyone with you?” There had to be. Jesse moved to the edge of their stony platform and peered down, scanning the canyon floor as he’d once scanned for the ’Cong. Nobody. Nothing. Only Cloud, swishing his plume of a tail and munching on the leaves of a shrub.

“Yes,” the woman said slowly. “Of course!” She stood up, keeping her eyes on the mountain, but she wobbled a little. Instinctively, Jesse moved quickly to her and gathered her against him. “Jack. Jack and the others.”

“They abandoned you.”

“No. They’re at the foot of the mountain.”

“They’re gone,” Jesse said harshly. “They let you risk your life for nothing. There’s nothing here to steal. The guardian stones, the sacred stone itself, are too big. And there’s nothing else.” His mouth twisted. “Your people made off with whatever was up here fifty years ago.”

“My people?” She glared up at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

What, indeed? She was white. So what? He was, too. Half white, anyway, and what did it matter? He’d never given a damn about anyone’s color. It was just that there was something about this woman that was disturbing.

“Okay,” he said gruffly. “Here’s the plan.” An overstatement, but she didn’t have to know that. “I’m going to link our belts together. I’ll fasten one end around your wrist, the other around me. I’ll go down first and you’ll watch every move I make. You got that? Every single move, because one misstep and… Damn it, what now?”

Sienna Cummings was shaking her head. “I’m not climbing down this mountain.”

“What will you do, then?” Jesse’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Wish yourself down?”

The look she gave him was hot with defiance.

“I’m going to wake up.”

Jesse raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I’m dreaming. This is a dream. It has to be. I am definitely not standing on a ledge halfway up a mountain, talking to a man who—who looks as if he stepped out of Central Casting for a movie starring John Wayne.” A curl of golden brown hair blew over her lip; she shoved it behind her ear and her chin rose a little higher. “John Wayne is dead, and I am dreaming. End of story.”

Jesse almost laughed. She was a tough piece of work. Whatever else she was, he had to admire her for that.

“I’ve got news for you, baby. John Wayne’s alive. And this is no dream.”

“Wrong on both counts,” she said. If her chin went up any higher, she’d tumble over backward. “John Wayne is history.
And I am sound asleep in my tent. There’s not a way in the world you can make me think otherwise.” Her eyes—more violet than ever—narrowed. “This is not real.”

“You’re wasting valuable time. The sun’s beating straight down. The descent’s going to be tough enough without factoring in the heat.”

“No,” she said, though now there was a faint quaver in her voice, “I told you, this isn’t real.”

“It damned well is,” Jesse snarled, and he proved it by pulling her into his arms, bending his head and covering her mouth with his.

S
IENNA
gasped as the stranger’s arms closed around her.

“Don’t,” she said, or tried to say, but he was too quick, too strong, too determined. She tried to twist her face away but that didn’t work, either. All he had to do was slide one hand into her hair, cup the back of her head and bring his mouth down on hers.

There was no way to call this a kiss. It was a hard imprint of his flesh on hers, a ruthless demonstration of sheer masculine power.

He wanted to show her that she was helpless against him.

But she wasn’t.

Her work took her to places that were often desolate and dangerous. She’d studied martial arts, and her instructor’s advice—
look for an opening or create one
—had saved her on a dig in the jungles of Peru, as well as on the streets of Manhattan. It would save her now. All she had to do was force herself to relax. Her assailant would follow suit by easing his hold on her. Then she’d bring up her knee and jam it, hard, into his crotch.

Wrong. Nothing about him relaxed.

If anything, as soon as she stopped struggling, he drew her even closer.

Her palms spread helplessly over sun-heated skin stretched taut over hard-muscled flesh. He tilted her head back, giving him greater access to her mouth. Sienna whimpered and tried to bite him. It was another misjudgment. As soon as her lips parted, his tongue swept into her mouth.

And everything changed.

What had been cold calculation turned hot and wild. She felt the press of his erection against her belly; the taste of him on her lips became dark and exciting. She heard herself make a little sound, almost a purr.
No,
she thought desperately, but even as she thought it, she was leaning into him, rising to him….

With a suddenness that left her reeling, he caught her by the shoulders and put her from him. She knew her cheeks were flushed, but when she looked at him, his face was expressionless. That frightened her even more than the way he’d kissed her…and the way she’d reacted.

Except, she hadn’t. She hadn’t! She wasn’t the kind of woman turned on by displays of macho male power. She was a woman of the twenty-first century and behavior like this had gone out decades ago.

Still, for that one, heart-stopping instant…

Sienna forced the thought aside. She looked up at the stranger. Deliberately, slowly, she wiped the back of her hand over her lips and then against her jeans.

“Do that again,” she said in a low voice, “and I’ll kill you.”

“Give me a hard time again,” he said in mocking imitation of her, “I’ll leave you up here and the only life you’ll take will be your own.” His mouth twisted. “Do you get it now? This is reality. You’re not dreaming.”

“Is using force the way you generally make a point?”

Something flickered in his eyes. “Only when there’s no other choice. A man does what he has to do.”

“So does a woman.” Her chin came up. “You might keep that in mind.”

“Hang on to that attitude. It might just help save you.”

From him? From the climb down? Sienna wasn’t foolish enough to ask. This was not a man to push too far, at least not until she was safely back in civilization with Jack and the others. For now, doing what she had to do made sense, and what she had to do was get off this ledge.

“The belt,” he said, holding out his hand.

He’d already stripped his from the loops of his jeans. She hesitated, then undid hers and gave it to him.

He worked quickly, his big hands moving with surprising grace as he joined the two lengths of leather. When he finished, he tugged hard at both ends. The leather held, but so what? Belts weren’t made to support the weight of two people descending a mountain. His improvised rope wasn’t long enough or strong enough or—

Thunder rumbled from somewhere behind the mountain. She looked up. Dark clouds were moving in. The sky looked ominous. Nerves made her sweep the tip of her tongue over her lips….

And she tasted him.

Anger. Power. Determination. And the darker tastes of man and desire.

“Ready?”

She blinked. The man was wrapping one end of the joined belts around his wrist. It was a big wrist but it matched the rest of him. His height. His shoulders. His powerful arms, ridged abdomen, long legs…

“Keep looking at me like that,” he said in a low voice, “you’re asking for trouble.”

A flush rose in Sienna’s face. “What’s your name?”

He looked at her as if she were crazy. Maybe she was, but before she stepped into space, real or imagined, it seemed she should at least know who he was.

“Does it matter?”

She turned, shot a glance at the yawning distance between them and the canyon floor. Then she looked at him.

“Yes,” she said stubbornly. “It does.”

Just when she thought he wasn’t going to answer, he shrugged those big shoulders.

“It’s Jesse.”

Sienna stared at him. “Jesse?”

“Jesse Blackwolf.”

“But—but—”

“You wanted my name. You’ve got it. Now, let’s get moving before that storm hits.”

“But…” she said again, and he grabbed her wrist.

“No more talking. You got that?”

She got it, all right. Besides, what could she say? How could she possibly tell him that he could not, absolutely could not be who he said he was, that Jesse Blackwolf, if he’d turned up, was in his sixties? So she kept quiet as he wrapped a section of the belt around her wrist, secured it, then gave it a tug that seemed to meet with his satisfaction.

“Do everything I do,” he said. “Concentrate on—” He grabbed her by the shoulders, hoisted her to her toes. “Listen to me, if you want to survive. The rules are simple.”

“Rules?” she said, with a nervous laugh.

“Rules. Five of them. Do not look down. Do not look up. Keep your eyes on your hands and feet and on me. Pay attention to what I say. Obey what I say, without question. Understand?”

She didn’t have enough saliva in her mouth to answer. In
stead, she nodded her head, but the truth was, the only thing she actually understood was that she’d never been so scared in her life.

He turned his back to her and took a step forward.

“Wait!”

He looked over his shoulder, face taut with impatience.

“What now?”

“How—I mean, what, exactly, am I supposed to do?”

“I just told you.”

“No. I mean—I mean, I’ve seen people climb rocks. Should I search for handholds? Dig my toes into the crevices? Stay in one place until I’ve found the next—”

“Are you deaf, woman? You do what I do. Nothing else. And stop trying to analyze everything. This is a mountain. The ground is forty feet down. There’s a score of places in between where we can break our necks.” His eyes narrowed. “You’re just going to have to trust me.”

Trust him? A man who couldn’t possibly exist, standing with her on a mountain she couldn’t possibly have climbed? A man who snapped orders like a general but looked like a savage and thought that the way to handle a woman who asked questions and proved she had a brain was to kiss her into submission?

“You have no other choice.”

It was as if he’d heard what she was thinking.

And he was right. What could she do but step off into space behind him? Maybe she
was
dreaming. Or hallucinating. Or whatever you did when you were unconscious. Maybe, indeed, but she was stuck up here, anyway, with no way down except this.

A whimper inched its way into her throat. She tried to stop it. Too late. Jesse Blackwolf, the man who called himself Jesse Blackwolf, had obviously heard it.

“Scared?”

What was the logic in lying? Still, she wasn’t going to sound pathetic about it.

“Damned right, I’m scared!”

He smiled. It didn’t last more than a second; it was the barely perceptible lift of one corner of his mouth, but it was a smile and it changed him from terrifying male to gorgeous man—and was she crazy, noticing such a thing at a moment like this?

“Good,” he said. “You’d have to be a fool not to be scared, and a fool’s the last person I’d want tied to me right now.” He reached out, one big hand cupping her chin. “Obey me. Be a good girl and I promise, I’ll get you down safely.”

Obey him. Be a good girl. Even now, with the coppery taste of fear on her tongue, Sienna almost laughed. Nobody had said anything remotely like that to her since she was twelve, but this didn’t seem the time or place to correct him on what her Women’s Studies prof called gender issues that still existed more than thirty years after the women’s lib movement.

“Is it a deal?”

She nodded. He leaned forward and brushed his mouth lightly over hers.

“For luck,” he said.

And then he turned his back to her and stepped off the ledge.

At least, that was the way it looked.

He hadn’t stepped off it, though. His head and shoulders appeared as if from nowhere, along with an extended hand.

“Let’s go,” he said briskly.

“I’m coming,” Sienna said. And she would—in a decade or two. Right now, her feet seemed glued to the sacred stone.

“Remember what I said? Just do what I tell you to do.”

“Something you should know about me,” she said with
forced lightness as she inched forward. “I never do what anyone tells me to do. Especially a man.”

“You want to burn bras, do it somewhere else.”

Okay. This time, frightened as she was, she did laugh at the old-fashioned phrase.

“Good. Relax. Take a deep breath. Another. And give me your hand.”

“In a minute.”

“Now,” he commanded. “Hear that thunder? The storm’s getting closer. Bad weather’s not a pleasant thing to experience on an exposed ledge.”

A convincing roar of thunder followed his words.

“Sienna! Give me your hand.”

Who could possibly argue with such authority?

Not me,
Sienna thought, and she took Jesse’s hand and stepped off the cliff.

A gentle rain had started by the time they reached the canyon floor.

As for the climb down… She had no clear memory of it. Halfway down, scree coming loose under her feet, fingernails torn off by desperately digging into cracks that only a very generous person would call handholds, she’d finally taken Jesse’s best advice.

She’d stopped thinking.

It had been easier after that, but he’d still twice saved her from plummeting to earth.

Each misstep had left her hanging, one hand clutching the rocky face of the mountain while her feet dangled in midair. Each time, he’d clasped his fingers tightly around her wrist, his face contorting with determination as he steadied her until she found a foothold.

Now they were down. And this time, when the man who said he was Jesse Blackwolf said “good girl” as she tumbled into his waiting arms, she didn’t give a damn for gender issues.

She was simply happy to be alive.

“Th-thank you,” she said in a shaky whisper.

It was all she could manage, but it was enough.

Jesse nodded, held her in the circle of his arms and wondered if he ought to tell her she’d surprised him with her courage.

No. Not now. There was no point to it. Why compliment her for creating a situation in which she’d risked both their lives? Besides, they had to get out of here before the storm hit with full force. It was going to be a bad one; the signs were all there. The dark sky, the wind, the thunder and lightning…

This would be a storm that would turn the lazy creek that ran between the canyon and his ranch into a raging torrent.

So, any second now, he’d let go of the woman in his arms.

But not just yet.

She needed to share his body warmth. Her teeth were chattering; her skin was icy. She might be going into shock. Anything was possible in the aftermath of danger.

He’d seen men—trained warriors—face the worst kind of imminent death and survive, then all but collapse when the danger was over.

Sienna Cummings had just come through that type of situation.

He’d made it sound as if getting down the mountain required nothing but her compliance. He knew better. The descent had called for guts and determination. She’d shown both.

Of course, she’d gotten up the mountain in the first place and that was almost as difficult. How had she done it? That was still the $64,000 question.

Damned if he could come up with an answer.

Maybe somebody had helped her. Climbed with her. That guy she’d mentioned. Jim or John. Jack. Yeah. Jack. Had he gone up with her? And then, what, left her?

What kind of man would abandon a woman that way?

Endless questions. No answers. None he could answer right now, at any rate, not with the storm almost on them and Sienna still trembling in his arms.

He could feel the race of her heart. Feel the soft whisper of her breath against his skin. He gathered her even closer, leaned his chin on the top of her head. Her hair was soft; it smelled of rain and, very faintly, of lilacs.

“Easy,” he said. “We’re down. You’re okay.”

He wasn’t sure she’d heard him. Then she drew a shuddering breath.

“I didn’t think we’d make it.”

“Blackwolf Mountain and I have known each other a very long time.”

She gave a little laugh. “A good thing.”

Not really, he thought, but she had no need to know that.

“You all right now?”

“I’m fine.”

She wasn’t. She was still shaking, her face devoid of color. And she was a mess.

Her hair was a mass of curls. He’d already seen the bump on her head. She’d broken her fingernails. Her jeans were torn and so was her T-shirt. Sweat and now the steadily increasing rain had plastered them to her, outlining her body. It was delicate but as lush and feminine as a man could want.

He could feel her belly and her thighs against his. Could feel her breasts pressed against his chest, the pebbled nipples seeming to burn against his naked flesh. The pebbling told
him she was chilled. And braless. And that her breasts were gently uptilted as if in readiness for a man’s mouth.

He shut his eyes, willing the all-too-vivid image away, deliberately replacing it with an image of her face. That was safer.