Sleepless in Montana (19 page)

“And these are the Kodiaks’. I really only
brought my best collection. The rest are back in my new apartment.
It was a real buy, and it’s in a good location, too,” Jemma said,
her voice humming with emotion.

Taped to paper, or on a scrap of cloth from
where they’d been cut, the neatly stored buttons were carefully
removed from the red-velvet lining of a big metal box, black with
lush red roses.

She bent over the buttons, intent upon
memories, her fingertip circling each one as if it were precious to
her. “This is from Carley’s birthday dress when she was nine— we’d
just known each other a year then. This is from Mitch’s
blue-flannel shirt— remember? He’d never had a flannel shirt before
and at fourteen, he thought he looked pretty handsome, wearing it
open over a “Dirty Dogs are Best” T-shirt. Remember how he
swaggered, and we all wondered if those jeans were going to fall
down? His hair all slicked-back and curling at his nape?”

With a fond smile on her lips and laughter in
her gray eyes, Jemma turned to Hogan. “This is Ben’s, from an old
work shirt he’d tossed away. Look. I snipped a piece of the
material, too, just old worn flannel, but a remembrance of the man
I adored. He always gave me the old shirts before they were
discarded, saying the buttons would scratch the windows when the
shirts were just cleaning rags. But he knew how I loved
buttons.”

She traced the buttons with her fingertip.
“He gave me two of his mother’s— a pretty black one and an ornate
brass one. Here they are— I sewed them on a patch of black velvet
so they wouldn’t get lost. Dinah gave me this one... it was made
from shell, and she gave me a few of her mother’s— Dinah was
disowned, you know, for marrying Ben. But she loved him so much
that she never went back to her family, because they couldn’t
accept him, a rough Montana cowboy. She still loves him
desperately, and he loves her.”

Hogan traced the emotions racing across
Jemma’s expressive face, the angles soft with love. He touched the
wildfire of her hair, felt it cling to the rough calluses of his
hand, a delicate gleaming web as he held his hand a distance away.
She’d always been full of whimsy and dreams, dancing through life,
a romantic when it came to the Kodiak family. “You’ve got a
romantic streak, Jemma. Let it go. There are too many years between
them.”

“No, I won’t,” she stated fiercely. “I will
not, Hogan Kodiak. Don’t ask me to. Dinah says the split was her
fault... She realizes now that she pushed Ben too much at a time
when he needed to heal. She says she shouldn’t have wanted to show
him how much it didn’t make a difference, that Ben is a man who
takes his time healing and he would have healed if she hadn’t gone
in that cave after him. It’s that cave-thing you Kodiaks are
into... it’s so maddening. Carley has been in an emotional cave
since that night, and no one is making a move to heal. Anyone can
see you all love each other.”

Hogan flattened his hands on the table,
preparing for the path Jemma was certain to take. “Leave it.”

“You sound just like Ben. You’re so much
alike, despite your worldly artist-guy trappings. This white one
was from that dress shirt you used to have— Ben was angry with you
for tearing the sleeve, and you fought— Oh, Hogan, please make it
stop. Please end this.”

She was pushing him, her fingers pale and
slender upon the back of his hand. Hogan turned his hand, catching
hers. The bones within her hand, lying restless beneath the smooth
skin, were fragile and enticing.

The essence of woman, he thought— capable,
strong, and fascinating to him, the nails neatiy clipped when once
they had been long and tapered. The chameleon, he decided, a woman
who had to survive, adjusting for another role. He stroked the back
of her hand and slid two fingers down the shape of each finger
before looking up at her. “This isn’t your family, Jemma. Back
off.”

“I’ve made it mine— for Carley’s sake,” she
said firmly as if she’d taken an oath she’d never break.

Hogan didn’t like the quick surge of his
temper, the way he felt himself coiling to strike back. This was a
woman he wanted to make love to, tenderly, with meaning, and yet
there were rules.

He settled back in the cushioned booth to
watch Jemma’s eyes widen and her face pale. “Let’s talk about your
family for a change. Your real one.”

“What do you mean?” Her tone trembled enough
to make Hogan feel guilty, as if he’d slapped a kitten. Yet the
anger and frustration riding him was enough to slash at her, to
make her keep her distance— at least from his shadows.

“With ten children, the Delaneys were easy to
trace. They worked the green bean and fruit harvest in Oregon, then
moved up into Washington state. You and Carley were in the second
grade together until your parents moved. Somehow you found the
money to take the bus to Seattle, to play with Carley. No doubt
Dinah helped you—”

“You had no right!” Jemma shoved her hands
through her hair and scraped it back from her face, her eyes
blazing at him. He admired the dangerous sharpening of her pale
taut features, etched by anger. Then she was on her feet, pacing
the small length of the van, slapping the cabinets on both sides as
she passed. “You just had to do it, didn’t you? You had to step
into my life.”

He’d wanted to know more about her. What
drove her to cuddle a dysfunctional family? It had to be more than
friendship with Carley.

Now, seeing her pain, he regretted the
trespass. Hogan hadn’t made many mistakes in his lifetime with
relationships, or cared enough to feel guilty. He didn’t like
feeling guilty about hurting Jemma—

But Jemma was a fighter, slugging back at
him. She bent to hurriedly search a mound of buttons, pushing them
all into a line. She jabbed them one at a time. “Here. You know so
much. Meet my family. Mom. Dad. Penny. Sue. Mary Jo. Zoe. Freddie.
Timmy. Jeanne. Mack and Laura. Dad...”

She shoved the button on the towel. “Dad was
a foreman wherever he went. Mom...”

She pushed another button, a cheap white
plastic worn by many washings. “Mom struggled every day of her
life. They both did, with little education and barely enough to
feed us all. You’d think there would be love in a big family like
that, wouldn’t you? There wasn’t. My parents were two careless,
irresponsible, immature kids all their lives. They moved off one
time and forgot me. As kids, we had to protect each other, making
certain we were all in that broken-down truck before the folks took
off.”

She shoved a coat button on the towel.
“Freddie’s. Dead at fifteen from a fight... Mary Jo was sixteen
and—” Jemma’s voice caught, her eyes filling with tears that she
slashed away. “Mary Jo’s husband didn’t like cinnamon in her apple
pie and he was fast with his fists. She died in the hospital. She
was just sixteen, too.”

Hogan closed his eyes, guilty that he’d
struck back at her. He’d laid her open, the pain kept too long
beneath the surface. He knew how she felt, pressing it back...
“Jemma. Don’t.”

“No. You don’t like the nasty details, do
you? What’s the matter? Don’t you like reality? Or do you know the
rest— that Mom and Dad and all the rest died when the truck’s worn
tires finally gave out on that mountain curve?”

She slashed at the tears running down her
cheeks. “The funny part is, they probably didn’t miss me. I was
with Carley that week. No one even knew there was another child—
me. I was just fifteen and on my own by then. Ben and Dinah both
gave me money, and I took it because I had to. They knew my family
wasn’t buying me clothes or taking me to the doctor, and I wasn’t
telling that I was on my own.”

She slashed impatiently at her tears. “Dinah
made certain I had good clothes by saying Carley didn’t need them,
but I knew they were bought for me— I was taller than Carley. When
I wasn’t here, Ben sent me money every month, and I managed. I owe
them both now, and I’m paying them back by doing everything I can
to make this family see reason. I knew how to survive, and Carley
never knew, and you’re not telling her, Hogan.”

She slammed her fist down on the table, tears
shimmering in her eyes. Hogan who was more familiar with soothing
horses, didn’t know how to hold her, what to say— after all, he was
a Kodiak without a heart.

Vibrating with passion, Jemma hurled on
without him, deepening his guilt. “Don’t you dare tell Carley. She
couldn’t bear it, to know about my life, and she’s the very best
part of mine. There isn’t a truer heart in the world, and you know
it. I lived for the summer and holidays here. Somehow I managed
because I knew how— I’d had plenty of training with careless
parents. So there it is. The whole, not so sweet, picture. It isn’t
debt that keeps me hounding your family—it’s love.”

She slammed another fist on the table,
jarring the buttons and glaring at him. “Don’t pull that dark
closed-in cave look on me. You’ve got a loving family, Hogan, and
it’s time you got off your duff and pulled your share.”

Hogan settled back into the booth, forcing
his hands open and his temper into the night. “You can’t bring your
family back by saving another—the Kodiaks. You’re not getting me to
move closer to Ben. I had enough back then.”

“You just don’t get it, do you? You are my
family now, and you are not going to throw a fit over Ben’s
transferring cows into your name.”

Hogan snared her wrists, holding them as he
stood. He hadn’t asked anything of Ben, didn’t want to owe him.
“What?”

“Cows. Cattle. Whatever. His pride wouldn’t
let him take your money to fix up the house. You should have known
he wouldn’t go down that easy. He just transferred a good quarter
of his herd to your name, so be prepared for the tax statement...
Oh, no, you’re not,” she said, as Hogan moved toward the door.

She flattened her body back against the door,
blocking his exit. “You’re not going to Ben and get everyone worked
up.”

Hogan’s pride tore at him. “You know, I’ve
had just about enough of you telling me what I’m going to do.”

Jemma closed her eyes and when she opened
them, there were more tears shimmering over the soft gray depths.
“Please, Hogan. Can’t you let it go until we’re through this? Until
Carley is safe? Ben’s pride means everything to him, and he feels
he has to pay for the updating of the house and ranch. Let him have
his pride, Hogan; you’ve certainly got as much or more.”

Hogan reached out to crush her hair in his
fists, lifting her hair away from that fascinating face. No other
woman had ever reached deep inside him, and he didn’t like it.
“Jemma, you’re not the guardian angel of the Kodiaks. Take your
misplaced maternal needs and—”

And what? Begin her own family, take
another man as a lover?
Hogan was stunned by his desperation to
both comfort and claim her.

“ ‘Misplaced maternal needs?’ What about you?
You’re still trying to shove everyone around, and you haven’t
cleaned up your own life yet. When are you going to stop being the
observer, Hogan? When are you going to move into life and live it?”
she whispered. “And what about the grandchildren?”

The soft question had the impact of a
charging two-thousand-pound bull.

When Hogan’s thoughts began moving again, he
released the living warmth of her hair and pushed his hands down at
his sides.

“Artists are observers,” he repeated, backing
slightly. “I like studying lines and textures. I like movement and
emotions. I use them in my work, translate them,” he admitted,
nettled because he felt the need to explain his behavior and
because Jemma’s uncanny ability to pin down his emotions made him
feel too exposed.

“That’s a hole to hide in, an excuse. What
about your own emotions? What about your own desires and needs and
fulfillment? What are they? You may create beautiful work, Hogan,
but you’re living in a gray zone.”

Jemma threw out her hands. “I’ve had enough
of the moody-artist bit. You’ve got to get in the stream of life
and live it, Hogan. Not just watch everyone else in their
lives.”

Hogan resented the truth tossed at him by a
woman who wanted to remake his family and his life. At the moment
he felt like sliding into something hot and exciting, and it wasn’t
the “stream of life.”

Hogan braced his hips against the counter and
folded his arms over his chest. He knew that Jemma was set to
argue; the sight of her digging in, all fired up and ready to
ignite, fascinated him. He dreaded another cold shower, but
couldn’t resist pricking her temper. “You’re going to be difficult,
aren’t you? What’s this about grandchildren?”

Jemma rubbed her hands over her face, clearly
frustrated. “Do I have to explain the nesting urge or biology to
you?”

Then, too patiently, she said, “Carley,
Mitch, Aaron, you, all have the potential to be parents. When you
get done playing with Simone D’Arcy, you might want to settle down,
get married, and hold your own baby. All of you are way too old not
to have thought of that. That makes Ben and Dinah grandparents. You
wouldn’t want to have the sweet little babies torn apart like we
are now, would you? Jeez, you’re so exhausting, Hogan. It’s like
dragging you, step by step, into the living world.”

With a tired sigh, Jemma pushed him aside and
quickly put her prized buttons away. “I’m beat,” she said. “Go
home. I don’t have any more energy to work on you tonight. You
exhaust me.”

“What about your life? What about your
nesting urges?” he asked, more to defend himself than to know.

She sighed abruptly. “I don’t have them. I
raised all the children I wanted to when I was only a child.”

“That’s unfair, isn’t it? Living through our
lives? What about your own?”

She leveled a dark stare at him. “I’ve been
married. I didn’t like it, and, yes, it’s fair. Because Carley
needs this whole thing resolved, and you’re all standing at
opposite ends of any healing... Now will you please leave?”