Montana Wildfire (55 page)

Jake stuffed the greenbacks into his saddlebag, then spun the white around. Leaning low over the horse's neck, he growled a command in its ear to go. Quickly. Now.

The people milling about Main Street had the good sense to scatter. It was either that, or be run down.

Amanda knelt on the hard, lumpy ground. Her smile was wide and proud. Every time she saw the first spark catch on a pile of dried grass and twigs she felt a heady surge of victory. Leaning forward, she blew on the first fragile teardrop of flame. Her smile broadened when it caught and quickly spread.

In no time the air was thick with the scent of burning wood, and Amanda was being warmed by the heat of a roaring fire. A sigh of contentment whispered past her lips as she sat back on her heels. Still grinning, she tucked the oversized box of matches into her saddlebag.

After a brief, almost guilty hesitation, she removed a can of peaches and a can opener from the leather bag. Stifling a yawn, she propped her back against the gritty trunk of a nearby pine and pried open the tin can.

There was a time when she would have turned her nose up at such a paltry meal. But not anymore. This was a delicacy! After days of eating nothing but jerky and beans, the peaches smelled sweet and syrupy and tempting beyond reason. Her stomach grumbled in anticipation.

She ate slowly, savoring each bit, letting the sweet, fruity taste linger on her tongue until it had almost disappeared before licking her lips and taking another bite. In no time she was scraping the bottom of the can, then shamelessly tilting her head back to drain every delicious drop of syrup.

Gone. Lowering the can to her lap, she sighed. This was her last can of peaches, and she wouldn't be getting more any time soon. Even if she came across a town that sold them, she didn't have enough money to buy them.

On second thought, she didn't have the money to buy
anything.
What little she'd had had gone into buying enough supplies to get her to Washington. Jerky and beans and an extra wool blanket had seemed like important purchases... at the time. Yet right now Amanda would trade them all for just one more can of peaches!

Not for the first time did she wish she hadn't acted so rashly. Throwing Edward Bannister's money back in his face wasn't the smartest thing she'd ever done in her life, though it had seemed a grand idea at the time. Now that Amanda was flat broke, the rebellious act had lost a lot of its appeal.

If she'd kept the money, she could have afforded to buy more peaches. She could also have bought a ticket on a stage instead of having to make the journey to Seattle alone, by horse. If she'd kept the money...

She wouldn't have respected herself, plain and simple. That was the
only
reason she'd thrown Edward Bannister's money back at him. Well, all right, maybe there was
one
more reason, but she didn't want to think about that. In fact, she'd gone out of her way to keep her mind clear of
those
traitorous thoughts for the last five days. She wasn't about to start thinking about them—about
him—now.

The money. She would think about the money—or lack thereof—because anything was safer than thinking about...

Jake.

The name arrowed through her and stabbed straight through her heart. A bolt of pain cut through her, hot and sharp and jarring. In five days, the intensity hadn't lessened a bit. If anything, the empty ache inside of her had grown; it was more acute, more consuming than ever.

Five days, Amanda thought as she sat back heavily, breathlessly against the tree. Was that all the time that had elapsed? Just five days? It felt like a year—the longest, loneliest year of her life!

She didn't realize she was trembling until she felt her fingertips vibrate against the empty tin can. Even with the fire blazing, she felt cold. Icy chills washed through her from the inside out.

And empty. She felt so frightfully empty. She—

"The can, princess. You forgot to bury the can."

A shaky smile tugged at Amanda's lips as she glanced down at the can. She remembered Jake telling her to bury waste so that animals wouldn't be drawn to the scent during the night. Normally, she did. Tonight she'd been so tired and confused and lonely that she'd almost forgotten to...

Her smile evaporated. The hairs at her nape prickled, and the skin there heated as though it had been scorched by an invisible flame. Awareness shot down her spine.

She stiffened, instantly alert. The snap of a twig brought her to her feet. She fumbled inside the pocket of her skirt, her trembling fingers searching frantically for the pistol she was rarely without. Though her narrowed gaze scanned the ring of firelight, she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Scowling, Amanda wondered if perhaps she wasn't losing her mind. These last few months had been traumatic, to say the least... it was possible. Maybe the voice she thought she'd heard
—Jake's voice?
—was a figment of her imagination. A product of wishful thinking?

"It
sounded
real," Amanda muttered under her breath, "but obviously it wasn't."

She waited a few more minutes—gun in hand, her body tense and alert-but heard nothing unusual. While she scanned the clearing a couple of dozen times, she saw nothing unusual either.

While her heartbeat steadied itself, her breathing remained harsh and erratic. She was no longer tired. The surge of adrenaline that fright had dumped into her bloodstream served to burn away fatigue. Right now she felt restless and... dirty.

She hadn't taken a bath last night because she hadn't camped near water. Tonight, she could hear the gurgle of the narrow creek where she'd tethered her mare a mere one hundred feet away. The crisp, cool water beckoned.

Five minutes later, after a thorough search, Amanda had assured herself that she was indeed alone. Five minutes after that, she was sponging herself off in the icy mountain creek.

The cold water made her gasp, and made goosebumps prickle on her arms and legs. Amanda didn't care. Being clean felt too wonderful, too rare. She quickly lathered and rinsed twice, then washed her hair, scrubbing viciously with her fingertips until her scalp tingled and the thick golden mass felt squeaky clean.

It wasn't until Amanda had toweled her hair semi-dry, and was in the process of heading up the bank wearing her only clean chemise—and clutching her clean, damp clothes to her chest for warmth—that she felt another prick of awareness at her nape.

Her shiver had nothing to do with the cold. It had everything to do with the shadowy line of trees her attention fixed upon. A twig snapped, and she blinked hard when she saw one of the shadows separate itself from the others. It was wide, that shadow, and shaped like a man. Her breath caught when the shadow took a step forward.

Jake,
she thought, then instantly dismissed the idea. If Jake was going to come after her, he would have done it days ago. Besides, there was something about this shape—she wasn't sure exactly what—that didn't look quite right. Something that told her this man was not Jake Chandler.

Amanda dropped the pile of freshly washed clothes, barely noticing when they scattered over the ground at her feet. This time, she found the pistol in record time. She coaxed the hammer back with her thumb; the metallic sound of revolving chambers was loud and grating.

Did the intruder see how badly she was shaking? Could he hear the wild pounding of her heart, the ragged give and take of her breathing? Despite the brisk air and her recent bath, Amanda felt a bead of perspiration trickle between her breasts.

"You can come out now," she called, and was surprised that her voice gave away none of her anxiety. "The show's over."

A sense of déjà vu tingled down Amanda's spine when she heard grass crunch beneath boot heels, and saw the shadow take another step forward.

A sliver of moonlight glinted off raven black hair. A pair of light-colored eyes burned out of the shadows, burned into her. It might have been her imagination, but she could have sworn she heard a husky chuckle blend with the normal night noises. And then all she could hear was the clatter of her heart, and the voice that shot out of the darkness; the tone husky, thick... oh, so wonderfully familiar!

"Pity. That was one
hell
of a show, princess."

Amanda fumbled the gun. It fell onto the pile of damp clothes with a muffled
thump.
She didn't notice. Couldn't. Her concentration was fixed on the way that voice wrapped around her like a scrap of sun-warmed velvet. "Jake?"

"Uh-huh. Expecting someone else?"

"No. No, of course not. I-I wasn't expecting
you."

"I can see that." That, and a hell of a lot more than Jake thought his sanity could bear to see right now. For example, he could see the pale white chemise; the garment fell from her shoulders to her ankles in inviting white folds that looked like a splash of vibrant color against the night. And—he swallowed hard—beneath the nearly transparent linen he could see the dusky rose tips of her...

"What are you doing here, Jake?"

Her voice jarred his attention back to her face. Good thing, too! He'd been half a second away from stalking the space between them and hauling the woman roughly into his arms, whether she wanted to be there or not. That wasn't a good idea. Not yet, anyway. He was clinging to the shadows for a reason, wanting to give her only one shock at a time.

"Jake?" Amanda asked when he said nothing, but continued to stand there staring at her. Even through space and darkness, she could see the veiled hunger in his eyes. Well, all right, maybe she couldn't
see
it exactly, but she could
feel
it. Just as she could feel her own molten response. The irony of it was, Jake wasn't even all that close to her. He certainly wasn't as close as she would have liked for him to be!

"What am I doing here?" Jake repeated the question flatly and took another step forward, but not enough to reveal himself to her. "Why, I'm taking you up on your challenge, lady. It's about time you learned that you can't bruise a man's ego the way you bruised mine, then expect to turn and walk away from him. Maybe the pansies you knew back East would put up with that... but I won't."

His words were huskily spoken, filled with a raw, sensuous promise. They rolled over Amanda in a wave of acute, sexual heat, reminding her of how very long it had been since he'd held her, touched her, loved her. If the time came, could she deny him? Deny herself? "So, you've come to prove you're man enough for me? Is that it?"

"Yeah, something like that." His gaze glinted out of the darkness, raking her from head to toe. He missed nothing. Not the way the moonlight glinted off her long, damp hair, not the way the thin chemise hid so little of her charms. Nothing. "Come here, Amanda."

Amanda sucked in a sharp breath. She wanted to
—Lord, how she wanted to!—
but she couldn't. Her pride wouldn't let her. She'd told Jake once that she loved him, and she still hadn't gotten over the humiliation of his silence. She simply could not open herself up to that sort of pain again. It hurt too much.

"Dammit, Amanda, come here!"

"No!" She shook her head and forced herself to take a step backward. It wasn't easy. Despite the cold night air, every nerve in her body was on fire with his nearness, with the promise of his touch. Ignoring the needs of her body in favor of the needs of her mind was the hardest thing she'd ever done.

"Don't make me hunt you down, princess."

Amanda knew he was losing what little patience he'd had with her. Still, she took another step back. Her body tensed, preparing to run fast and far if it came to that. "I don't want you to touch me, Jake. I don't ever want you to touch me again."

"Why? I thought you liked it when I put my hands on you."

"You thought wrong." And he did. Because she didn't like it... she
loved
it. However, she wasn't about to tell him that. Her shredded dignity wouldn't allow it.

His voice lowered a dangerous pitch. "Careful, princess. You keep pushing me, and I'll be more than happy to come over there and prove just how big a liar you are."

Oh, that hurt! It had been weeks since she'd lied to him, and he knew it! "Why you conceited, no-good, miserable...
bastard!
How dare you—?"

"Shut up, Amanda." Jake took a step toward her. Another. "I didn't come here to fight with you."

"No? Then what
did
you come for?"

"This," he growled, and as soon as he was within reach, he grabbed her.

Amanda didn't realize how close he was until she felt his fingers manacle her upper arms. With a flick of his wrist, Jake hauled her up hard against his chest. The air rushed from her mouth... and was swallowed up by his.

With a growl, his lips crashed down on hers. The kiss was long, hard, raw. Hungry and demanding. Amanda didn't want to flower open for him, Jake could feel her reluctance, but in the end she did. Nor did he want to need to taste her so damn badly, but he did.

His tongue stroked her, plundered and mated with hers until he felt her fingers, fisting his shirt, loosen, open, and caress. He caught her whimper with his mouth, and a shudder racked his body when he felt her melt into him.