Dark Paradise (18 page)

J.D. saw the fire from a good distance up the hill.
 
Swearing, he

nudged Sarge into a gallop.
 
Lucy MacAdam was proving to be as much of a

nuisance in death as she had been in life. He cursed himself briefly for

taking on the task of looking after her place, but if Miller Daggrepont

hadn't come to him, he would have gone to Bryce, and J.D. didn't want

Bryce getting any kind of a foot in the door. He intended to have first

crack at buying the property. If that meant he had to put up with the

headache of looking after the animals and calling the sheriff after

vandals trashed the place, then that was a small enough price to pay.

The sight of orange flames through the curtain of the trees put

everything else out of his mind. Panic sparked instantly. If a fire

weren't contained immediately, there was every chance that it would

sweep across acres of forest and grassland, charring everything in its

path. He braced himself back in the saddle as the big gelding skidded

down the steep trail. Berry bushes and saplings slapped at him and

snatched at his clothes. Then they broke onto clear, flat ground and the

horse exploded beneath him, hurtling toward the MacAdam place with his

ears pinned and his neck stretched, his powerful body rolling beneath

J.D.

He lost sight of the flames as the ground dipped and the trail bent

around a thick copse of tamarack. His brain raced, leaving the business

of staying astride to reflexes developed almost from infancy. He had to

formulate a strategy to fight the blaze, wondered how he would summon

help, wondered if Bryce would still want the place if it burned to the

ground.

Marilee stood in the corral, watching the flames lick high into the air.

She felt a certain solemnity for the ceremony and a tickle of giddy

excitement that stemmed from exhaustion and cognac. She had used the

liquor to help start the blaze, then stood back and took a swig in honor

of Lucy's last wishes. It went down like liquid gold, burned in her

belly, and spread its own fire through her, numbing the raw feelings and

lending a certain romantic glow to the proceedings. She tossed the

bottle into the blaze and saluted, then jumped back with a shriek as the

glass popped and the remaining alcohol went up in a hot burst.

Sheepishly she glanced at the Mr. Peanut tin, which stood on a gatepost

and oversaw the bonfire from a safe distance, top hat tilted to a jaunty

angle. Through the wavy haze of heat it appeared to be moving, wiggling

like a hula dancer, dancing in celebration.

Lucy would have approved of the festivities wholeheartedly. In fact,

Marilee had planned on her friend standing beside her for the ceremonial

burning of the business suits. The bonfire signaled her change of

direction as she stood at this crossroads of her life. In one direction

lay the life her family had herded her down, a straight and narrow path

paved in concrete and stripped of scenery, a toll road that took

something essential out of her at each gate. In the other direction lay

the great unknown, all the mysteries of life, all the possibilities her

soul had yearned for. It was bumpy and hilly and wound through uncharted

territory that may be a little scary but promised never to be dull. On

the road less traveled there were no expectations, no standards to fall

short of, no boundaries, no burdens - except her own hesitancy.

She imagined her faintheartedness vaporizing in the flames. The funeral

pyre of the pinstripes and peplums was a symbol of her decision. No one

wore panty hose on the road less traveled.

Mr. Peanut seemed to wink at her from the other side of the heat waves.

Suddenly, a horse burst from the wooded slope beyond the gate, huge and

red, ears pinned, eyes rolling, mouth opening wide as it abruptly

changed gears from a dead run to a sliding stop. The head came up and

the powerful haunches angled beneath him, scraping the dirt of the ranch

yard, stirring an enormous, billowing cloud of dust. Marilee watched,

mouth agape, as the rider stepped down while the horse was still in

motion. He hit the ground running, his hat flying back off his head.

Rafferty.

He barreled toward her, his face set in furious lines.

Barely slowing down, he grabbed up a bucket, dunked it in the water

trough outside the gate, and kept on running in a beeline for her pyre.

"No!" Marilee launched into action, lunging toward him, arms

outstretched to try to push the bucket aside.

They collided ten feet from the fire, Marilee bouncing off J.D. like a

rag doll that had been hurled at the side of a moving bus. Crying out,

she stumbled and went down on her hands and knees in the dirt, only able

to watch in horror as he attacked her tribute.

The water splashed into the center of the blaze, dousing the magnificent

flames like a blanket. Rafferty kicked the edges of it, scooping the

powdery dirt of the corral into it with his boots and with his hands,

suffocating the peripheral flames and sending up mushroom clouds of

black smoke tinged with dust.

Marilee's heart sank with the dying flames. She sat back on her heels,

tears pooling in her eyes as he ran to the water tank and returned with

another sloshing bucket.

The fire hissed its last agonized breath as he doused it.

Her fire. The symbol of the death of her old life. Her tribute and send

off to her old friend. Ruined. Snuffed out, the way her old life had

tried to snuff out the fire inside her; snuffed out as Lucy had been

snuffed out. The anger and the frustration and the cognac swirled inside

her, rose up like a tide, and Marilee rose with it.

"You stupid son of a bitch!" she hollered, hurtling herself at him as

he backed away from the detritus of her grand gesture. "You stupid

shit-for-brains! That was mine!"

She hit him hard in the back, knocking him off balance, pummeling him

with her small fists. J.D. dropped the bucket and twisted around,

catching a knuckle in the mouth. Swearing, he stumbled sideways, trying

to fend off her blows with his hands and forearms. She came at him like

a wildcat, teeth bared, eyes narrowed, all hiss and claw, her tangled

hair tumbling into her face.

"Knock it off!" he bellowed, staggering back.

Marilee lunged at him again, half jumping on him, arms swinging wildly

as all rational thought burned away in the face of her temper. She

caught him leaning back, and they both tumbled into the dirt, coughing

and swearing at the dust that gagged and choked and blinded.

"That was mine!" she shouted again. "Mine!" Her first real act of

liberation, her homage to her friend, and he had ruined it. She lashed

out in retaliation in every way she could-hitting, kicking "Ouch!
 
You

bit me!" J.D. shouted, outraged, overwhelmed by the sheer force of her

fury.

His own anger kicked in as her kick came perilously close to ramming his

balls up to his tonsils. Grunting, he twisted and rolled, tumbling her

beneath him, pinning her with his weight. Gritting his teeth, he tried

to catch her fists as she rained blows on his head and shoulders,

grabbing one and then the other and pinning them to the ground beside

her head.

"Dammit, I said, quit!"

His voice boomed in her ears. Marilee strained and struggled in one

final burst, but to no avail. J.D. Rafferty outweighed her by eighty

pounds at least, every ounce of it muscle, and all of it pressed down on

her, stilling her against her will. They were nose to nose. His arms

pressed hers into the dust. An expanse of steel plate disguised as his

chest moved heavily against her breasts with every breath he sucked in.

His belly pressed against the most feminine part of her, the contact

unbearably intimate even through their clothes. His thighs, as heavy as

fallen logs, trapped hers and held her there.

Marilee glared up at him, too aware that she was powerless against him.

Powerless beneath him. The heat of his big body seared her through her

clothes in a way the fire hadn't managed. His breath came in ragged

pants, gusting against hers, his mouth no more than inches from hers.

Even through the static of her fury, the memory of his kiss came

back-carnal, possessive . . . insulting, insolent.

J.D. met the blue fire in her eyes and it triggered something primal in

him. Or maybe it was the way she felt beneath him. Or the memory of the

way she tasted in the moonlight. It didn't matter; his body responded

automatically, tightening, hardening. She shifted a little beneath him

and the feel of her sex against his belly damn near sent him over the

edge.

Damnation, he had gone too long without.

"You have a real way about you, Rafferty," she snarled. "Where'd you go

to charm school - the World Wrestling Federation?"

A growl was the only reply he gave her as he shoved himself to his feet.

Marilee scrambled up, trying to shake the dirt out of her clothes. It

had gone up her blouse and down the back of her jeans, working its way

into private cracks and crevices. It was in her hair and in her teeth.

And she had Rafferty to thank. Overgrown, macho bonehead.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" J.D. demanded, swinging an

arm in the direction of the charred remains of her fire.

"None of your damn business."

She stalked past him, feeling the need to put herself between him and

the mess. The ceremony had been personal. She hadn't planned on

witnesses or conscientious objectors. The idea of Rafferty probing into

it made her feel exposed, vulnerable. Vulnerable didn't seem a very

smart thing to be around a man like him. He was too tough, too forceful

to show much in the way of understanding or compassion. She had seen

that firsthand.

Of course, it was impossible to hide the evidence. It spread out behind

her, a black, smoldering, oozing stain in the middle of the corral.
 
She

couldn't hope to keep him from it.
 
He walked around to the other side,

scowling down into the ashes.

"What the hell-?"

With the toe of his boot he dragged a magenta gabardine sleeve from the

cinders. He picked it up gingerly by the unburned end and dangled it

down, grimacing as if there were still an arm inside it.

"It was a suit, okay?" Marilee snapped, snatching it from him and

tossing it back into the embers.

"You were burning clothes?" His gaze traveled down her with undisguised

skepticism, taking in her old jeans and the baggy purple oxford

button-down she wore open over an old Stanford T-shirt.

Marilee ground her teeth. "I was cremating my past. It was symbolic."

He stared at her as if she had just claimed to be from the moon.

"Men. You wouldn't know symbolism if you sat in it. I'm at a life

crossroads. I needed to make a grand gesture."

"Yeah, well," he drawled, "burning half of Montana to the ground would

have been a gesture."

"I didn't burn anything that wasn't mine."

"What if the barn had caught fire?
 
Or the house? Or-"

"What's it to you?" Marilee challenged, sticking her chin out as

she glared up at him. "They're mine too, so-"

"They're what?" J.D. felt as if he'd just run blind into a brick wall.

He actually fell back a step from the force of the mental blow.

A relapse of guilt deflated Marilee's truculence. She felt unworthy,

undeserving. She couldn't remember the last time she had called Lucy

just to shoot the bull. She seemed to shrink as the fight went out of

her on a sigh.

Raking back a handful of hair, she looked away from Rafferty toward the

beautiful log house.

"It's
 
mine," she said quietly. "Lucy left it to me."

J.D. watched her carefully as he tried to digest the information. He