Montana Wildfire (8 page)

Amanda glared at his back. She watched him saunter out of sight; if looks could wound, Jacob Blackhawk Chandler would have landed on his knees. Exactly where he belonged. The man's self-assured attitude said he never doubted she would obey him. His confidence irked her, and for a split second she entertained the idea of continuing on without him, just to defy him.

What would his reaction be when he came back to the clearing and found her gone? Would he be angry or, as seemed more likely, relieved to be rid of her? She wasn't sure. Nor was it likely she'd find out. The urge to spite him was overridden by another, stronger demand: the need for sleep.

She was exhausted. Worrying about what had happened to poor Roger—dear Lord, she was thinking nice thoughts about the little hellion again; she
must
be tired!—had given her a headache. Concern for the boy's safety, as well as her own should his father find out what happened, had tapped more of her energy than she would ever admit to the man who'd just rudely deserted her.

Shifting her weight in the saddle, she was quick to discover that her head wasn't the only thing that hurt.
Everything
hurt. Muscles she didn't know she possessed were sore from spending so many hours in the saddle. With Roger, she'd stopped often to rest. Jake Chandler didn't allow stops—they ate in their saddle. At least,
she
did; he didn't have a saddle. And he never seemed to miss having one or to tire.

Her ankle throbbed from the jostling of the chestnut mare beneath her. Waves of pain radiated up her leg, sliced through her hip and rippled higher. The ache was dulled only by the weariness through which she perceived it.

As much as she wanted to continue searching—the sooner she found Roger, the sooner she could deposit him on his father's doorstep and collect her fee—Amanda knew how pointless it would be to continue looking tonight. The tracks were vague in daylight; they would be impossible to see in the muted light of a quarter moon. Though it was embarrassing to admit, she knew that had they ridden on for even half a mile further, she would have fallen asleep in the saddle. Even now her eyelids felt weighted and scratchy as she forced herself to blink.

Stifling a yawn, she gave a tug on the reins and guided the mare close to Jake's palomino. The two horses, while not really at ease with each other, were at least familiar with each other's scent. Their protests at being forced into close proximity were weak and mostly for show. The soft whickers and stomping hooves halted soon enough.

Good. That was one less problem to deal with. Trying to dismount and still retain some dignity... now
that
was going to be a lesson in coordination! Her wounded ankle screamed a protest when Amanda lifted her right leg over the saddle horn and got ready to dismount. Just the idea of putting weight on that leg made her cringe.

Rotten bastard,
she thought, and she glared at the shadowy spot where Jake had disappeared. Damn the man! He knew she was hurt. Would it be asking too much for him to stay long enough to help her dismount? Apparently so. He'd probably left the way he had for the sole purpose of forcing her to swallow her pride and call him back. In her sour disposition, she didn't put such underhanded treatment of a woman past a man like that.

Amanda's chin tipped defiantly. Well, if that
had
been his plan, he'd have a long wait. No matter what he thought,
she
knew she wasn't some elite "princess" who couldn't slide off a horse's back—wounded ankle or no wounded ankle. She would get down herself. Then, when Jake returned, she would gloat about her triumph—if she hadn't swooned from the pain by then, of course.

The idea of holding something over the man's black head to gloat about lifted Amanda's spirits somewhat. Now all that remained was trying to figure out how to get down. Her choices were limited. Actually, her choices were nonexistent. There was only one way to get off of a horse without assistance: slip off of the saddle and onto the ground.

Her seat was precarious. All the mare needed to do was sidestep and Amanda would tumble to the ground. That in mind, she tightened her fingers around the saddle horn. Her left hand curled around the grooved leather edge of the seat.

Pursing her lips, Amanda took a second to bolster herself for the collision of her feet hitting hard-packed earth. If she thought her ankle hurt badly now, it was nothing compared to how it would feel when she put weight on that leg.

"Do it." The shaky sound of her voice was less than comforting. "Just do it and get it over with." Amanda glanced down as she spoke. And instantly wished she hadn't. The pain must be distorting her perception, because the ground looked unnaturally far off. It also looked hard and cold. Unwelcoming.

The horses must have sensed her tension. The palamino's nose came up, the wide nostrils flaring as the stallion snorted, then sniffed the air. She felt the mare tense, a split second before it also snorted... and took a panicky step away from the other horse.

The world tilted.

The saddle melted out from under her. Amanda wasn't quick enough to stop herself from sliding. With a strangled cry, she flung her hands outward, ready to break the inevitable fall.

There was a racket to her left, but she had no time to look to see what it was. The ground was closing in fast.

Rescue came in the form of familiar copper hands. Strong arms encircled her thighs, tightening possessively. Before she could draw a breath, she felt the front of her hips being crushed against Jake Chandler's unyielding chest.

Their position was awkward. He'd been quick to catch her; perhaps a mite too quick. She'd barely left the saddle before he'd hauled her up against him.

She could feel the shelf of his shoulder cutting into her stomach. The hand she'd thrown out to steady herself was now trapped between his shoulder and her hipbone. The heel of her right fist ground into his other shoulder. Muscles bunched beneath his shirt as he took on her weight easily, realigning her body and molding her into the firm planes of his.

The sound of crickets chirping receded to the chaotic beat of Amanda's heart slamming against her ribcage. She sucked in a gasp. The pain in her ankle dulled until it felt like nothing so much as a harmless mosquito bite. It took an extraordinary amount of concentration, but she forced her breathing to regulate. Instead of deep, ragged gulps, she sucked in shallow, rapid ones. Her heart continued to race, pounding an erratic beat in her ears.

Distance. She needed distance, and a lot of it! Arching her back, Amanda put enough space between them to glance down at the top of Jake's head. She thought it was a good thing he was holding her right then, because otherwise she might have collapsed. Her knees went weak and watery.

His hair, only a few tantalizing inches away, was cast an appealing shade of bluish-black by the moonlight. There was no part, she noticed. The strands fell where they might; and the tousled way they did it was quite eye-catching.

Her fingers curled inward. She bunched his cottony shirt in her fists, fighting the urge to pry her fingers loose so she could bury them in that luxuriously dark mane. Would his hair feel as soft and sleek as it looked? And how would that defiant braid feel when she traced it with her fingertip? Amanda decided she must be more exhausted than she'd thought, because she was warring with an unreasonably strong urge to find out. Lord, what was wrong with her?

Jake stiffened. Invisible currents charged what little air separated them. The night crackled like static. A bolt of awareness jolted through him wherever their bodies met—and their bodies met
everywhere!
The contact made his skin smolder.

He felt Amanda tremble. With confusion? With fear? He didn't know. Nor did wondering about it stop him from tightening his hold on her or from absorbing her minuscule tremors with his body.

She was still afraid of him, he knew. She should be. Jesus, he'd given her every reason to be terrified. But this was different. Experience said that what Amanda Lennox was feeling right now had nothing to do with stewing about how explosive his temper would be when it finally erupted and was turned on her. Nor did it stem from her natural wariness of his half-breed origins. Oh no, the uneasiness shivering through her was rooted solely in sexual awareness. The awakening of dormant, innocent senses. Jake was sure of it.

A slow, humorless grin tugged at one corner of his mouth. He would have bet his horse that Amanda Lennox didn't have a clue as to what was making her shake so violently.

Jake tipped his head back. He opened his mouth to ask her exactly that. His mouth snapped shut. The words scattered on his tongue like so much dust when he realized how precarious their position really was.

He held her to him, but above. The back of her thighs were firm and round beneath his palms, her stomach soft and tight as it pressed into his right shoulder. That didn't bother him. Oh, no. What bothered him was that, holding her this way, craning his neck to look up at her, put his mouth mere inches from...

Jake closed his eyes and prayed his mind would instantly shut down, that he would stop feeling anything, anything at all. It would be better, safer for both of them if he did. But his mind had other ideas. His mind was busy entertaining naughty thoughts, while his body continued to feel every delectable inch of Amanda Lennox's softness... whether he wanted to or not.

When he'd caught her to him, the rounded swell of her breasts had cushioned his cheek like a soft, voluptuous pillow—no doubt the reason she'd arched away from him. His eyes opened, his gaze darkened, and his lips burned when his attention fixed on the very tips of her breasts. They heaved with each of her choppy breaths, only a scant fraction of an inch away from his mouth. He had only to incline his head forward to...

Clamping his teeth together, he jerked his head back on his neck so hard he felt it crick. There was
no
jerking away from the delicious, petal-sweet smell of her; her scent surrounded him, engulfed him, ignited a desire in his gut the likes of which he'd never felt before and dearly wished he'd never,
ever
feel again; it was that strong.

His sudden movement made the sweep of his hair tickle the back of Amanda's knuckles. Dazed, she thought that, yes, his hair felt every bit as silky as it appeared. She'd wondered, now she knew. Wonderful. That was how his hair felt as it dragged over her hot, sensitive flesh.

An involuntary shudder rippled through her. It was answered by a tightening in the arms clamped around her thighs.

Their gazes met.

"Y-you can put me down now," she stammered. It was embarrassing to be the first to look away, but it couldn't be helped. The way Jake was looking at her—his silvery gaze deep and probing, as though he was seeing her for the very first time, and liked what he saw very much—made Amanda's stomach feel all warm and... well, fluttery. The sensation was deep, disturbing only in that it wasn't disturbing enough. In fact, it was dreadfully pleasant. "Really. I'm quite all right."

"What about your ankle?"

It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that he hadn't given a fig five minutes ago, when he'd wandered off and left her to her own devices, how her ankle was faring. A stroke of wisdom made her bite the words back. Amanda didn't doubt such a comment would rile his anger and instigate another argument. Truly, she was too tired, too jittery, and far too confused to fight with him right now.

Her gaze swept over Jake. His expression was hard and impassive. The muscle in his cheek had begun to twitch. Amanda wondered why, then decided she'd be better off not knowing. She said simply, "I think I can walk."

"You're sure?" he asked, and shifted to redistribute her weight. He almost smiled when he heard her soft, airy groan. "Your knees aren't feeling watery, are they, princess? They won't buckle the second your feet hit the ground?"

"Probab—
definitely
not," she insisted, and wondered how he could read her so easily. Weak and watery was exactly the way her knees felt. The way her
entire body
felt. That, and very warm, very aware of the hard male contours pressing against her.

Amanda pushed
that
observation aside, and tried to pull her abruptly scattered thoughts into logical order. It wasn't possible. The only thing her mind was capable of thinking about right now was the subtle change in the way Jake Chandler was holding her. Now only one of his arms was coiled around her thighs, while his free hand had blazed a path upward. The palm of that hand was cupping the small of her back. No, she amended swiftly, not the small of her back... his hand had settled on the upper swell of her bottom! Even through her skirt and the layers of linen beneath, she could feel the hot, branding imprint of his hand searing her flesh. It was sensation comparable to none. The hot flood of awareness that surged through her sent Amanda's proper Bostonian senses into a tailspin.

"Unhand me, Mr. Chandler," she demanded, her voice husky and sharp with the panic bubbling up inside of her. "I told you I could walk, now
let me down."

"Not yet."

"Why not?!"

His pause was long and fraught with a tension that gnawed at Amanda from the inside out. Her fingers tightened, clutching his shirt until her knuckles hurt from the pressure of her grip.

He didn't speak for so long that she'd convinced herself he wasn't going to. His voice, when it came, was so close his hot breath rustled the curls lying softly against her cheek. She started.

"I don't know about you, princess, but right now I'm just enjoying the view." His tone was as lazy and insolent as the silver gaze scanning her anger-reddened face. One corner of his mouth kicked up in a half-grin. His gaze dipped, searing first her lips, then the long, elegant taper of her creamy white throat. His attention settled on the swell of her breasts.

The look in his eyes was sheer fire. Amanda was surprised the cloth separating her skin from his hungry gaze didn't burn away. Lord knows, the flesh beneath her bodice felt as though
it
was smoldering!