Ride the Thunder (34 page)

Sleep was a welcome escape. Then the dream began. She was on the slope again, watching the bay horse wildly trying to pitch its rider. It was rearing over backwards and Max was falling. Inexplicably, the dream changed. Jordanna became the one roiling down the incline. She fought the nightmarish image, telling herself she was dreaming and making the person become Max again. But it kept switching. First it was Max; then it was herself. Back and forth. Back and forth. The moment came when her mind couldn’t force it back. She was tumbling to the edge, swept by the torrent of loose shale. She was going to fall to her death.

Something touched her shoulder and Jordanna grabbed for it blindly to keep from slipping over the precipice. But that something started shaking her hard, demanding that she wake up. The palm of her wildly flailing hand was stabbed by a sharp object. The pain snapped her awake.

Brig was bent over her. Jordanna was drenched in a cold sweat and shaking uncontrollably. The vividness of the nightmare clung to her. Not fully cognizant of what she was doing, Jordanna sat up and threw her arms around his neck in panic, needing the comfort of his hard arms. She wasn’t aware of his hesitation before
his arms circled around her wildly trembling body to hold her close. He picked her up and carried her to the fire, as if its heat could warm the cold terror within.

“I h-had this dream,” Jordanna tried to explain, stammering in a frightened whisper. She had to talk about it to end its possession of her mind. “I was falling down that slope. It w-was supposed to be Max, but it . . . kept turning into me.”

“It’s over.” The hard, flat statement offered no comfort other than the truth.

Her face was buried against his heavy parka, trimmed and lined with sheepskin. It smelled of dampness, horses, and smoke. Mixed in with the pungent combination was an elusive, musky scent of a man. Jordanna tried to control her gulping, agitated breathing, but it was hard to do when her pulse was leaping so wildly. She turned to rest a cheek against his jacket. Becoming conscious of the stinging pain in her palm, she lifted her hand. Blood was trickling from two small wounds. She wiped it on the sleeve of her heavy blouse, trying to figure out how she had hurt herself.

“You’ll never be able to wipe the blood from your hands, Jordanna.” Brig’s voice was low, pitched at an ominous level.

It shivered down her spine. Drawing away from the support of his solid chest, Jordanna looked into his face. The wide brim of his hat cast brooding shadows on his roughly chiseled features. The dark line of his full-broomed mustache looked even darker and more forbidding. The searing dryness and contempt in his dusty brown eyes was oddly menacing. Alarm skipped through her pulse.

“W-Why would you say a thing like that?” Jordanna was confused, angry, and a little bit frightened.

“What part is yours in this, Jordanna?” he continued in the same vein.

“In what?” She shook her head in blankness.

“Max’s death.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” She pushed out of his arms and rose to her feet in agitation.
The cold mountain air was making vapor clouds out of her breath. Jordanna shivered from the combination of cold without and cold within. She rubbed her hands over her arms to get rid of the chill, aware that Brig was on his feet as well. His accusing attitude intimidated her because of a nagging self-guilt. She tried to deny it. “You are insane, Brig.”

He caught her arm and spun her around, his grip bruising the soft flesh of her arms. “Why did you do it, Jordanna?” he demanded savagely. “Why?”

Part of her cringed from his glowering expression, but she faced him boldly. “I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Now, please let me go. You are hurting me.”

His answer was to jerk her hard against him and enfold her in a bone-crushing hold that threatened to snap her ribs. Her lungs had no room to expand and take a breath, and his mouth smothered her lips in brutal possession. The assault exposed the ruthless core of violence in him. Shaken by it, Jordanna weakly fought the blackness swimming at the edges of her consciousness. She couldn’t breathe. He was crushing the life from her and she couldn’t stop him. Her mind reeled toward the black void.

Then, as violently as he had taken her, Brig released her, almost throwing her away from him. Jordanna staggered backwards, fighting for balance and breath. His eyes were hard on her whitened face.

“Go to bed,” he growled through his teeth. “Get out of my sight!”

Eyeing him warily, she stumbled to her sleeping bag and hurried inside to its warmth. She was shaking as violently as after the nightmare. His brutality had turned him into a stranger—one with intimate knowledge of her. Jordanna shuddered and curled into a tight ball.

P
AUSING
, B
RIG GLANCED
at his reflection in the large-paned window of the bar front. He hadn’t slept much in the last two nights. He hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. He looked haggard and tired, and he damn well felt that way, too.

After he had reported Max’s death, he’d made arrangements for the body to be shipped to New York. The authorities had seemed willing to accept his account of the accident with few questions. They would be talking to Fletcher, Jordanna, and Kit to corroborate it, but Brig had no doubt that they would. The thorn-covered briar was still in his pocket, needling him with its pressure as surely as if it were against his skin.

Staring at the Coors sign, Brig wondered what had prompted him to arrange to meet the three “witnesses” here Lord knew, he wanted a drink badly to burn out the savage bitterness in his throat. But it wouldn’t do anything to ease the hot ache in his stomach.

With a burst of impatience, he walked to the door
and pushed it open. His long, lazy strides made scuffling thuds on the hard floor as he crossed the room to the counter bar. The place was dim and empty of customers at this hour of the day. Brig walked to the shadowed corner at the end of the bar.

The bleached blonde had laid her cigarette down when he entered, her face lighting up as she recognized him, “Brig! It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.” Her greeting came out in a sweet rush of pleasure.

“Hello, Trudie.” Brig tried to sound pleasant, but the words came out terse and lacking warmth. He sat down on the last stool, hooking a heel on a metal crossbar and resting a boot on the tarnished brass footrail. Taking off his hat, he set it on the drink-stained countertop and tiredly combed his fingers through his hair.

“You look like you’ve been through the mill.” Trudie had moved to his end of the bar. “What happened? Did you lose your razor?” she joked.

“I had other things on my mind this morning.” He rubbed the dark stubble on his jaw. The stiff growth made a rasping sound against his calloused skin.

“Where have you been?”

“I just spent the last two weeks in the mountains.” Brig didn’t elaborate. He didn’t want to talk about the hunting party or Max’s death. In order to make the arrangements to have the body sent back to New York, he’d had to identify himself as a cousin. The news would spread through the small community fast. Thankfully, the notification of Max’s ex-wife and children was being taken care of through legal channels and Brig hadn’t needed to assume responsibility for that.

“Two weeks?” A mocking smile curved the red mouth. “It’s a miracle you bothered to shave at all during that time.”

Brig could have told her that for the bulk of those two weeks he’d had reason to want a smoothly shaven face. He wouldn’t have wanted his rough stubble scraping
the creamy smoothness of Jordanna’s soft flesh. To mar that perfect body would have been a crime, especially when there had been so many ways to arouse a quivering response without inflicting pain. He’d tested nearly all of them on his willing apprentice.

“Beer?” Trudie asked.

“Scotch.”

She lifted an eyebrow in surprise. “I’ve never known you to order the hard stuff. What are you doing? Drowning your sorrows?” She said it in a light, bantering tone, but it was too close to the truth.

“Changed my mind,” he said curtly. “Make it a beer.”

“Whatever you say,” Trudie shrugged and looked at him oddly. She pulled him a glass of beer and set it in front of him. “How long will you be staying in town?”

Her gaze held both question and invitation. Brig rejected them both. There was a fleeting impulse to use her the way he had been used. If he went to bed with her, it would only be for sex and he wouldn’t have to guard against any other emotion. But it wasn’t what he wanted.

“Not long. I’m meeting some people here.” He unbuttoned his heavy parka and let it hang open. Resting his elbows on the cushioned edge of the bar, he sipped at the beer and wiped the foam from his mustache with the back of his hand.

“Oh. Did Tandy and the boys come into town with you?” Trudie guessed.

“No.”

The door opened and Brig turned on the swivel seat of the bar stool. Fletcher walked in, followed by Jordanna and his son. His gaze flicked from the gray-haired man to Jordanna. Her slender, high-breasted figure was no longer padded with layers of clothes to keep out the cold. She was wearing slim-fitting, biscuit-colored pants and a creamy silk blouse with a brownish-tan furred jacket that stopped at her waist. They hadn’t seen him sitting at the shadowed end of the
bar yet. Brig made no attempt to disguise the naked hunger in his eyes as his gaze devoured her. But he couldn’t trust her an inch. Somehow she was in league with her father in all this. Brig hadn’t figured out what the son’s role was, but he was bound to be involved, too.

“We must be early,” he heard Fletcher say, but Brig still didn’t make, his presence known.

Three against one. Hell, he’d been outnumbered before and had managed to come out on top. That was dangerous thinking, he cautioned himself. Just because he had survived previous dangerous situations didn’t mean he’d make it through this one. He was vulnerable this time. He had a weak link in his defenses where Jordanna was concerned. True, he hadn’t gone near her since that night Max had died—when his lust to kill had equaled his lust to love. Not knowing which would win out, he had spurned her. The strain of keeping his hands off her was beginning to weigh on him and he didn’t know how much longer he could hold out.

“She’s the one, isn’t she?” Trudie asked softly, already knowing the answer. The twinge of hurt in her eyes held envy rather than jealousy. She had neither the beauty nor that touch of class needed to stand in Jordanna’s shadow.

A hard stone gate rolled down to shut out his expression as Brig flashed the blonde a brief glance, irritated that she had seen what he wanted buried. He stepped down from the bar stool, a leg scraping the floor at the shifting movement. Taking his beer, he walked toward the family trio.

The sound magnetically pulled Jordanna’s gaze to the darkened corner of the bar. Brig walked out of the shadows. Last night, she had slept in his bedroom, but this time alone. He’d left the ranch this morning before she was awake. He looked tired and irritable and prepared. Prepared? Why had she chosen that adjective? It fit, but prepared for what—and why? The hard thrust of his gaze started an inner tremor. Her emotions
were all confused—loving him and fearing him, hating him and wanting him, feeling safe and feeling threatened.

“Hello, Brig,” her father greeted him. “We didn’t see you when we first came in.”

Brig nodded but offered no greeting. “Let’s take this table.” He chose a better-lit table for four, then sat in a chair that put him in the shadows.

Her father took the chair opposite him, Jordanna felt distinctly uneasy as she sat on Brig’s right, with Kit across the table from her. The barmaid approached the table, a plumply curved blonde wearing too much make-up. She eyed Jordanna with a wounded, jealous look. Jordanna darted a sharp glance at Brig. She had never assumed that he didn’t have other women, but to be confronted with one of them in this bar was something she hadn’t expected. He saw her look, his jaw flexing. His gaze flickered to the blonde, then returned to her with a glint of satisfaction. Was his intention to show both of them that he wouldn’t be tied down to one woman? Or was he trying to tell her the newness had worn off and she bored him? Brig had certainly avoided her these last two days, except for that night when he’d raged at her and said all those crazy things that hadn’t made any sense.

“Can I get you something to drink?” the barmaid asked, smiling brightly.

“I’ll have a beer,” Fletcher ordered.

“Nothing for me, thanks,” Kit refused.

Jordanna looked up to the woman. “Would it be possible for me to have some coffee?”

“Sure. I’ve got a pot on the burner. Do you want something in it? Whiskey or anything?”

“No. No cream or sugar either, thank you.”

“How about you, Brig?” the woman asked familiarly. “Do you want me to put a fresh head on that beer?”

“No thanks, Trudie.” He, smiled at her and swirled the anther liquid around in the glass.

As the blonde left, Fletcher leaned back in his chair
and took his pipe and tobacco from his pocket. Filling the bowl with an aromatic blend of tobacco, he tamped it down and lit it with a pipe lighter. Brig seemed to concentrate exclusively on the man, watching his every move. Jordanna felt uneasy. There was brittle tension in the atmosphere around the table and she didn’t understand what was causing it.