Montana Wildfire (18 page)

"I knew the kind of trouble her sort would bring me, so I made it my business to stay clear of her. The problem was, the
lady
didn't take no for an answer. Cynthia was a spoiled white princess, used to getting everything she wanted before she wanted it. What she wanted was me. It was inconceivable to her that I would refuse. Which I did. Often. Hell, she was the boss's daughter. Off limits for that reason... and others.

"I wouldn't give her what she wanted, and that made her want it even more. She started to flaunt, to tease. I wish I had a greenback for every button on that girl's blouse that found it's way undone because... Lordy I'd be a rich man right now!

"After a few months of hell, I'd heard her silky love-words so many times I started to believe them. I really thought it was
me
who made her hot, not what I was." He sneered, caught up in the memory, and in the pain of betrayal that still sliced through him like a knife. "I took her to bed. I figured, what the hell? It was what she wanted, what she'd been begging for. And by then, it was what I wanted too. So badly I ached."

"You m-made love to her?" Amanda asked weakly, her mind spinning. Why,
why
did the thought of Jake Chandler with another woman hurt so badly?

"No, Amanda, we had sex. There's a difference. One I don't feel like getting into with you right now. Let's just say I gave her what she'd been begging for. Twice over and then some.

"The rumors started before the sheets were cold. It took a couple of months for them to drift back to me. Cynthia liked to brag that she'd bedded a savage and lived through it, scalp intact. Unfortunately, she talked too much, too loudly, to all the wrong people. It didn't take long for her daddy to find out his baby had been making it with a breed. Do you want know what he did?
Do you?!"

"H-he beat her?"

"Nope. His sweet little girl had been taken advantage of by a filthy savage, you see. Wasn't her fault, of course." Jake gritted his teeth, and his breathing turned ragged and hard. "No, he didn't beat her. He beat
me.
Repeatedly. With a shovel... until I couldn't see, couldn't walk, couldn't goddamn
think!"

Jake saw a flash of sympathy flicker in her eyes, and his entire body hardened against it. There was something else in her gaze. A question. He answered her ruthlessly, knowing Amanda didn't ask because she was afraid of the answer. And wasn't that a shame? Because the fact was, she'd started this, and now dammit,
he
was going to finish it. It was vital she know how poisonous this situation could become if things ever got out of hand between them. "Her daddy didn't cut me, Amanda.
She
did."

"What?"
Amanda gasped and sagged weakly against the tree.

"I made it back to the bunkhouse somehow, and planned to gather up my things and get the hell out. She was there waiting for me. The cut wasn't meant to wound, lady, it was meant to kill. You see, by that time Cynthia had realized just how big a mistake she'd made. She took it upon herself to rid the world of one more breed, and in the process rid herself of a problem that wasn't going away fast enough."

"But you just said you were going to leave the ranch! Did you tell her that?"

"Yup."

"And she didn't believe you?"

He shrugged tightly. "I don't know if she did or not. If so, she didn't care. She told me she had a reputation to protect, said no one would believe a word of her story if she didn't try to retaliate in some form or another."

"So she tried to
kill you?"

"
Tried
being the operative word there. Of course, even if she'd been lucky enough to succeed, it wouldn't have mattered much. She was a good little white girl. I was the dirty breed who'd forced myself on her. She had every right, Amanda. I, on the other hand, had no rights at all."

Her eyes misted with tears—for him, for his pain. Her voice cracked. "I... Oh, God, I'm sorry, Jake. I didn't—"

"Don't you dare!" If his shout hadn't clogged the words in her throat, the molten fire in his eyes would have. That, and the way his grip on her jaw turned savagely tight. "Save your pity for someone who gives a damn, because I don't."

When she flinched, he jerked his hand away from her. His voice harshened as he glared down at her. "I learn from my mistakes, lady, and I damn well
don't
repeat them. If you're smart, you won't ask me to again."

Jake shoved away from the tree. He didn't go far, just far enough to put some needed distance between them. His lungs were filled with the flower-soft scent of her, while his mind was filled with the bitter memories this woman had made him dredge up. The duo was potent—it tore clean through him—and his reaction to it was unnerving.

He pulled in a ragged breath and again felt himself being seduced by the clean, womanly smell of her. The way her scent merged with the piney aroma of the woods made for an erotic combination. It was a fragrance that Jake felt a sudden, overpowering need to run from—fast—or risk drowning in. And he couldn't do that. It wasn't allowed.

Jamming his hands in his pockets, he spun on his heel. The uncertainty in Amanda's tone made him hesitate.

"I'm not like her, Jake. I've never asked a man to kiss me before," Amanda said shakily. Until yesterday, men hadn't interested her. Then she'd met Jacob Blackhawk Chandler. His complexity fascinated her—she didn't know why, it just did. So did the passion his touch unleashed in her, the pain his grudging admission kindled deep in her soul. Pity was not the only thing she felt for this man—her respect for him was far stronger—but she didn't dare tell Jake that. She doubted he would listen even if she'd tried. "I... I just thought you should know."

His hair curtained his face and shoulders as only his head came around. Though he studied her closely, Jake detected no telltale color in her cheeks. Her green eyes were dark, shimmering with a sincerity he found hard to look at, let alone believe she felt. Was she telling the truth? Jake didn't think she was capable of it—she'd lied to him so many times already—but it was a possibility. One of several.

"Never?" he asked, agitated. She shook her head, and Jake felt his heart skip a beat and a small sliver of his pain fade. There was a part of him that didn't want to know the answer to his next question. There was stronger part of him that demanded he know. "But you asked me to kiss you. Why?"

Admitting all this to Jake's back had been one thing. Admitting it while staring into those probing eyes of his was something else again. Her hands moved backward, and her palms stung when she pressed them hard against the gritty tree bark.

She shrugged and looked away. "Last night, when you kissed me, you said it was to end the suspense, so we could get it off our minds and put it behind us. It—it didn't work. Not for me, it didn't. I—" She rushed on before she lost her nerve. "I can't forget what it feels like to kiss you, Jake. And I can't forget about how badly I want you to kiss me again."

Jake's expression hardened. No, his
entire body
coiled tight, like a complicated knot he couldn't even begin to unravel. "Great," he growled. "Just great. There's one tiny problem, princess... one minor detail you seem to ha
ve forgotten."

Amanda pressed herself harder against the tree trunk. The brooding look in Jake's eyes was frightening, yet it was also oddly intriguing. Mesmerizing. She couldn't tear her gaze away. "I don't think I've forgotten anything."

"Trust me, you have. You've forgotten that I'm a half-breed savage. A bastard who isn't fit to polish your boots... let alone look at you. Or kiss you. Or touch you."

She couldn't say it. She
had
to say it. Amanda made her lips form the words her mind was begging her to bite back. Words her heart was pleading with her to say. "But you want to." Then, much higher, much softer, she asked, "Don't you?"

Jake didn't answer. He couldn't. If he said the words, he would have to acknowledge the truth in them. And what would be the point in that? Society had laid the ground rules before he'd even been born. Jake just played the game. There couldn't be anything between a man like him and a woman like the one he now turned his back on. He had the scar on his neck—one scar of many—to remind him, just in case he ever forgot. Which he never did.

What he wanted didn't matter. What Amanda wanted
couldn't
matter. Jake wouldn't let it.

When he finally forced his feet to start walking, he didn't stop. Nor did he look back.

Amanda's rigid posture sagged. Her eyes stung with tears she refused to shed as watched him turn his back and walk away from her.

She remembered the day her father had told her he was shipping her East, to Miss Henry's school. He'd wanted her to learn to be a lady, like her mother had been. Amanda hadn't wanted to go. Her father had refused to listen. Finally, he'd given her no choice. The day the train pulled out of Seattle, with Amanda on it, she'd felt heartbroken, rejected, betrayed and abandoned. Unloved and unwanted.

She felt that way now, only this time the hurt cut deeper. She didn't think this wound would heal the way the last one eventually had. No, Jake Chandler's rejection would remain raw and open. It would always sting, a scar she could carry on her soul, just as Jake carried his on his neck.

It was going to take extraordinary self-control to not let Jake see how badly he'd hurt her, but she didn't have a choice. As always, she
would
keep her pain to herself.

She would rather die than let Jake get even a glimpse of it.

Smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt, Amanda straightened her shoulders and stepped away from the tree. Her heels crunched loudly over the moss-covered ground as she retraced her way back to their camp. She was careful to keep a good distance between herself and Jake.

When Amanda had agreed to compensate Jake Chandler for his services, she'd been sure she was paying an exorbitant amount of money for a minimal amount of work. Her original estimate about how much time it would take to find Roger had been a day if things went well, two if they went badly.

Things were going very badly.

She and Jake rode all day, stopping only when absolutely necessary to rest the horses or answer nature's call. At midafternoon, Jake picked up the pace. Amanda wasn't sure, but she thought she'd heard him mumble something about Roger and his kidnapper being three hours ahead of them.

That was an hour before he'd lost sight of the prints entirely. At least, Amanda assumed that was what had happened. There was, of course, no way she could be positive; Jake rarely spoke to her. Still, the way he noticeably started slowing the pace around four o'clock, stopping often to inspect the ground, said that was a very good possibility.

He didn't spot the prints again until it was almost dusk, and by then it was too late to track them for more than an hour.

Hate though she did to admit it, Amanda found a lot to admire in the way Jake milked every second of sunlight for all it was worth. He didn't give the sign they would be stopping for the night until darkness had completely enveloped them. By that time, her sore bottom was familiar with every inch of the hard-mold saddle beneath her. Her ankle throbbed and her head ached from gritting her teeth and worrying about Roger.

That she was worrying about the little monster again, Amanda did not take as a good sign. Exhaustion would have to explain it. Truly, she'd never felt this sore and tired in her life!

True to form, Jake led them into a tree-sheltered clearing, dismounted, then, without explanation or apology, rudely abandoned her the same way he had the night before. Amanda was again faced with the unsavory prospect of dismounting unaided. The rat!

This time, she slung her leg carefully over the pommel and slipped to the ground very slowly and cautiously. Last night's incident was still fresh in her mind—her heartbeat stuttered with the memory, her blood warmed. After Jake's earlier rejection, she wasn't about to risk a repeat performance.

Amanda frowned and glanced at her surroundings. She considered gathering up branches and sticks and starting a fire, but only briefly. She was still out of matches. While Jake had helped her build a fire last night, Amanda knew she couldn't accomplish the feat on her own. Besides, she was simply too tired and sore tonight to try.

Her body aching, she limped over to a nearby tree. The hard, cold, lumpy ground made an uncomfortable cushion beneath her sore bottom, and the gritty bark nipped at her tender back when she leaned against it. Despite that, she appreciated the fact that nothing was moving, nothing was jostling her and making her cramped muscles and throbbing ankle hurt even more.

Sighing, she closed her eyes and adjusted herself to as comfortable a position as she was likely to find. Of its own accord, her mind drifted down a sensual path lined with wet copper skin, long black hair, and piercing silver eyes.

Amanda's heartbeat accelerated, and her breathing went choppy and shallow. She promised herself that this time, even if Jake never came back, she would
not,
under
any
circumstances, go searching for him!