Sleepless in Montana (43 page)

In the doorway, Ben held his hat in one hand
and with the other, shoved a plastic-covered pie at Hogan. “Dinah
wanted to know if Jemma’s okay.”

Hogan took the pie and smiled. He knew that
it was Ben’s concern for Jemma that had brought him here. “Come
in.”

Ben looked out to the fields, clearly
uncertain. “That’s a nice little milk cow there. Aaron said you’ve
got chickens now. Dinah always wanted chickens. Wonder how milk and
eggs are going to mix with tofu?”

He looked past Hogan to Jemma. She hurried
toward them, dressed in an oriental-styled, long cotton dress,
splashed with jade bamboo and slit up to her thighs. Her feet were
bare, and she’d applied light cosmetics; large gold combs lifted
her hair up and away from her face, and allowed the back to cascade
in rich, dark red curls.

Jemma was just inserting Hogan’s earrings
into her lobes as she smiled at Ben. Shifting comfortably into a
hostess mode, Jemma did not appear insecure or wary as she had just
moments ago.

She nudged Hogan aside with her shoulder, and
drew Ben inside, closing the door behind him. She looped her arm
through his and drew him to the couch, sitting with him. “We’re
glad you came, aren’t we, Hogan?”

“I brought an apple pie. Dinah said it was
your favorite. I’d better be going...”

Ben did a double-take at the sewing machine
and the clutter of tropical plants with Jubal’s horns over them.
“Poor old Jubal,” he said, holding his hat against his chest as if
mourning a best friend. He squinted at the horns. “What’s that
yellow ribbon on them?”

“A sewing tape measure.” Hogan couldn’t
resist. “She’s going to decorate them with Christmas balls and
mistletoe.”

Jemma studied the horns. “Mmm, maybe a
eucalyptus arrangement with ribbons—”

Ben stared at her and shivered in horror.

“Poor old Jubal,” he said again. When he
recovered, he scanned the colorful material draped across the
couch. “Hogan, I always thought you’d have one of those barren,
no-nonsense homes.”

“She works fast, Ben,” Hogan said, amused at
himself. He’d never liked clutter or too many colorful
distractions, but now the clutter seemed perfect— even the tape
measure hanging from Jubal’s homs.

Jemma had dragged out his cherished buffalo
blankets, and Hogan couldn’t wait to see how she used them in his
home. “You should see the rest of the house.”

Jemma stared at him, clearly horrified. She
leaped up from sitting by Ben and grabbed the pie from Hogan. “I...
uh... wait just a minute. I’ll just take this into the kitchen
and... I forgot something. Wait here until I get back.”

With a dark, threatening glare at Hogan, she
hurried into the bedroom with the pie. He wondered what he’d done
wrong, when Ben cleared his throat and studied Hogan’s hat on the
horns. “I used to do that when I was feeling good. Are you feeling
good, boy?”

“Pretty good. How’s Carley?” When Hogan had
last seen Carley this morning, she’d been glaring at him from
Jemma’s van.

“Pretty mad at everyone and letting them know
it. There’s another hole in the roof. I needed a hideout for a few
hours and stole that pie. Shall we try it out?”

Hogan wondered what he’d done to upset Jemma.
“Jemma told us to stay put. I think we’d better do that.”

“She took the pie into the bedroom and not
the kitchen,” Ben noted, looking around the living room, cluttered
with decorating magazines, sewing, and plants.

He eyed the plastic sack of white fluffy
stuff and labeled it, “Pillow makings. Dinah’s been making them
while Carley was gone. She sure came back in a mood, ready to take
everyone apart. Mitch is sulking around like a whipped dog.”

Hogan had faith in Carley seeing reason; she
was set to make her mark, making the rest of them see her as an
independent woman. “She’ll even out. She’s just getting it out of
her system.”

“I know, but I’d sooner do anything than live
with a wrought-up female,” Ben muttered. “Dinah cried the whole
time. They’ve started to argue, mother and daughter, and that war
would scare even you. Dinah told Carley that she needed to rest and
that set Carley off. She’s not wanting anyone to tell her what to
do.... I like that eagle. Now that’s a man’s thing, even if it is
wearing a beret.”

Jemma hurried back from the kitchen; she had
circled the house from the bedroom and Hogan wondered why.

“Ben,” she said. “Hogan created that eagle.
It’s so fierce and dark like he used to be. See the pottery by the
plants— that big bowl with the pinecones in it? It’s got that
Kodiak bear on the bottom. Hogan made it. Isn’t he talented?”

She tugged Ben up from the couch. “Come on.
You’ve got to see his studio.”

As Ben moved uneasily into the studio,
stepping into it as if it were a strange new world, Hogan noted the
new plants and more of his work splashed around the large, airy
studio. Willow’s sketchbooks were on a worktable, his mat cutter
beside them, and an array of new, empty frames stacked in a basket
he wove long ago.

Jemma looked at him. “I thought you might mat
these and write ‘Willow’ on the mat and—”

Ben ran his callused fingers across the
sketchbooks and when he looked at Hogan, his face was haunted. “I
was dead wrong. I should have told you. I guess I didn’t know how
to share what was in my heart.”

Old, fierce resentment instantly simmered in
Hogan. He pushed it away and turned abruptly to view the night
beyond his house.

Jemma stood on tiptoe to kiss Ben’s cheek and
then Hogan’s. “Everything is just going to be fine.”

“Why did you go into the bedroom and come out
of the kitchen?” he whispered.

Jemma scowled up at him and stood on tiptoe
to whisper back, “Would you want him to see my lacy underwear
hanging out from your chest of drawers? Or the bed, the way we left
it?”

Clearly Hogan had much to learn about living
with a woman, but he wasn’t backing up. “They’d better stay that
way, too.”

Then Ben moved to Hogan’s drawing table,
studying the Fire Feathers necklace design. His fingers hesitated a
moment, then reverently traced the sketch. “That would be her, all
right.”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Jemma asked, her
arm around Ben’s shoulders. Hogan noted how easily she moved into
taut situations, how her touch visibly settled Ben.

For just an instant, Hogan felt that old
isolation, and then Jemma’s hand slipped into his and she looked up
at him and the darkness slid away.

“It’s you, honey. All fiery and touched by
the wind,” Ben murmured.

“Me?” Jemma turned to Hogan, then peered
closely at the sketch. “It’s so different from your other work. Is
that really how you see me?”

“It’s you. How I see you.” He’d never felt so
exposed; his heart and soul was hers, and in Fire Feathers, his
emotions showed.

Her fingertip prowled over the sketch. “It’s
so exotic and almost pagan, yet very feminine. The feathers seem
almost alive.”

When Jemma’s tears shimmered in her eyes,
Hogan picked her up and held her close. With a nod to Ben, he
carried her into the living room and sat with her upon his lap.
Jemma’s quick soft kisses all over his face left him a little
light-headed and he knew he was grinning.

“I can’t go home yet,” Ben said moments later
as he carried in the pie plates. “I thought I’d sneak in after
bedtime. Carley and Dinah have got to wear down sometime. Maxi ran
out to see her sister. The boys and I had to cook and do dishes
tonight.”

“What about a game of chess?” Hogan asked. It
seemed natural with Jemma beside him to offer Ben solace, a
hideout. “The set is in that wall closet.”

Jemma yawned sleepily, her head nodding, and
Hogan eased her to lie down, placing her feet in his lap. He
massaged her feet— a comfort to him as well— and with a sigh, Jemma
began to sleep.

Ben placed the set on the coffee table. He
traced the inset stone and the black-and-white onyx pieces. “Nice.
I suppose you made it.”

Hogan nodded and drew a light woven fabric
over Jemma’s legs. “Your move.”

“That felt good,” Ben said later, after
another piece of pie and a slow, satisfying game which Hogan
won.

Ben looked at the sleeping Jemma, her hand
curled beside her face. “Poor thing. She’s all worn out— and Aaron,
too. She shopped the hell out of him and then ran him all night.
He’d just get started on one thing and she’d shove another at him.
He didn’t have the heart to put a stop to it, but said she was all
wound up and worrying about Carley. But now, he’s too tired to see
Savanna, and that’s going a bit. He said he’s had all the
hot-tempered women he can handle for a while. Savanna is balking at
the corral gate. She’s smart, too. Aaron would run all over her, if
she let him.”

The black kitten climbed up Hogan’s jeans and
teetered up the length of Jemma’s body, to snuggle against her
stomach. Hogan petted the kitten and looked solemnly at Ben. “That
bastard has time on his side. We need to draw him out.”

Ben cursed softly. “I knew something was
wrong— couldn’t pin it down, though. One minute she was like any
other tomboy, and the next, like a shadow.”

Flashes of that night hit Hogan and right
then, he was glad that Ben hadn’t known what Carley had looked
like— it would haunt him, too.

Ben looked at the single headlight searing
Hogan’s windows. “Late for visitors, isn’t it? Stay put— don’t
disturb Jemma.”

He rose and looked out into the night. “It’s
Mitch, riding that motorcycle like he was bound out of hell.”

Ben opened the door and signed for Mitch to
be quiet, pointing to Jemma sleeping on the couch, her feet in
Hogan’s lap. Mitch nodded and followed Hogan’s pointed finger to a
closed wine cabinet. He lifted an expensive bottle, studied it,
and, with a silent okay from Hogan, poured three glasses. Mitch
served the wine, set the bottle on the table, and sprawled into a
chair.

“Women,” he said in a hushed, frustrated
tone. “Women.”

“Amen,” Ben added darkly.

Mitch leveled a look at Hogan. “I’d
appreciate you not interfering with Carley and me.”

Hogan lifted his glass and studied the fine
amber swirls. Mitch was on edge, ready to fight anyone, anything,
and he wasn’t ruining Hogan’s pleasant mood. “How so?”

“Carley pushed me into telling how I got
these scars. She kept digging until she set me off, and I told her
things I’ve never told anyone...” Mitch’s face was dark with anger.
“You’re to blame, Hogan. Then she kissed me goodnight as if nothing
had happened.”

Ben shielded a smile, and Mitch refilled the
glasses of wine. “You think I’d want Carley to know those things
about me? How bad it was? You’re sitting there smiling, and none of
this is funny, Hogan. I felt like I was spreading garbage all over
her. She’s too sweet and innocent, and—”

Hogan ached for Carley, tearing through the
shielding layers they had wrapped around her. “Carley wants the
truth from now on, Mitch. It’s only fair. You know all about her
nightmares. Maybe she wants to know about yours.”

Mitch glared at Hogan. “Fine. Now she does,
so stay out of it.”

His temper eased, Mitch took a long slow look
at Hogan’s living room. “Holy— No wonder Aaron is dragging his
butt. I knew he was running all over the countryside buying
carrots, but she must have—”

Hogan lifted his glass in a toast; everything
seemed to be just right somehow. “To Aaron and old Jubal and the
almighty carrot juice. Ben, you’re taking a gallon of that
home.”

*** ***

Chapter Seventeen

“Carley has been picking at Jemma all day.
Jemma has been taking it, like she deserved it. But now she’s
starting to snarl—” Aaron nodded to where Carley had just leaped
from her saddle.

Dressed in jeans and chaps and a Stetson,
she’d been driving cattle to the temporary branding station. Now
the rope stretched tautly between her saddle horn and the calf.
Near the branding fire, Ben flopped the calf to the ground and
expertly whipped a rope around its legs. Dinah inoculated it and
Hogan burned the Bar K brand on its rump.

Hogan freed the calf and as it scrambled
away, he downed another that Mitch had just driven into the
branding station.

It was ten o’clock in the morning, and they’d
worked since four, driving the cattle into the pasture. Hogan ran
his forearm across his sweaty face. The roundup and the exercise
had momentarily relieved the tension of Carley’s stalker, and Hogan
was enjoying the physical strain, the familiar ritual of ranch
life. “We’re late with this, Ben. July heat and branding fires
don’t mix.”

“Should have been done two weeks ago, but I
had my mind on other things. First of July is okay in a pinch,” Ben
said, releasing the branded calf. An inspector would check the
brand, if cattle were sold or transported to another county.
“There. That ought to keep the cow cop happy.”

“Other things? Such as?” Hogan couldn’t
resist teasing Ben about Dinah, just to see him get flustered. It
was a new, enjoyable entertainment, watching Ben try hard to change
for his lady love.

“Hogan, damn it, you’re just as perverse as
ever. You know that Aaron and I have been reading books about men
and women’s relationships, and watching soap operas to see what
gets to women. All that takes time. It’s like hunting. You’ve got
to know the game and how they think. You and Mitch seem to have a
handle on that, but Aaron and I are just catching up.”

Ben straightened and rubbed his back as
Carley tromped up to Jemma, who was on foot, hugging and shooing a
calf toward them. “Holy— Here it comes.”

Hogan stood up and reached for the jar of
iced water Dinah had just handed him. Carley had been pushing Jemma
since early morning, the first time that they’d been in the same
area for a week. He hated feeling helpless as Jemma worried about
Carley and mourned their friendship.