Sleepless in Montana (46 page)

At the sewing machine, Jemma smoothed the
sealed envelope and knew that Hogan’s ruffled and beautiful
feathers were going to take some stroking and comforting.

She’d order a book on shiatsu and Swedish
massage and how to construct a Swedish steam house. She’d seduce
him until he was blind.
Are you going to marry me or
what?

“You need a wife who wants children. I
don’t,” she whispered.

From what she had seen of Hogan and Ben, that
relationship was mending. Both men deserved more than a woman who
felt suffocated by the idea of children—

The envelope crackled in her fingers, and
five tickets spilled out onto the smooth wooden floor.

*** ***

Chapter Eighteen

“Hogan...” His name was no more than a
trembling whisper on Jemma’s lips, yet it staked his body with ice
and raised the hair on his nape.

He looked up from his rough, overlapping,
intricate sketches to see Jemma standing in his studio doorway, her
face pale.

“Hogan, look—” she whispered, her eyes wide
with fear as she held out small white tickets to him. “They were in
an envelope marked ‘Richard’.”

He hurried to her, wrapped an arm around her
and studied the tickets.

“Airline boarding passes,” Jemma said, as
though a giant hand were squeezing her throat. “I found them in the
pocket of a coat Mrs. Coleman had ready for the thrift shop... I
was just going to patch it up a bit. She must have wanted us to
know— Oh, Hogan, I think they match the dates when Carley got those
messages from the stalker.”

Just as he reached for the telephone to check
on Carley, Jemma gripped his hand. “She was supposed to be with
Savanna. I just called Savanna, and Richard came to pick up Carley.
They’re going hiking up to Willow’s cabin— Oh, Hogan, that’s where
the winds are so haunting, where the legend is—”

Her eyes widened as Hogan cursed, striding to
his office to open the file Jemma had made. He ran his finger down
the lists of dates, carefully comparing them to the tickets, as
Jemma leaned against him, her hand upon his chest.

“You were right. They match,” he said, and
felt the hair on his body lift, a chill passing through him.

“What are we going to do? He’s had her for
four hours, and it’s late afternoon.”

Hogan punched in Ben’s number and slammed the
receiver back onto the cradle. He slapped his hand flat against the
wall, clearly frustrated and worried. “Today was Mitch’s day to
watch her. Aaron, Dinah, and Ben are taking care of the last of the
branding. Mitch wouldn’t have left her—”

He picked up the telephone and rang Savanna.
She answered immediately. “Mitch has gone after them— up the
mountain. Carley had sent him on an errand to pick up pizza. When
Mitch had gone a little bit, Richard came by. He said he only had a
few hours and couldn’t wait. Carley thought Mitch would understand.
What’s wrong?”

The plastic receiver in Hogan’s hand creaked,
protesting his white-knuckled grip. With Carley in danger, there
was no time to ease gently into suspicions. “Savanna, Richard may
be Carley’s attacker, and I think he’s killed several times before.
We have boarding passes that match the dates of Carley’s Seattle
stalker.”

He outlined his suspicions briefly and the
silence on the other end of the line said Savanna was circling the
idea, not dismissing it. She spoke shakily, “He’s been gone several
times, but doctors usually do conferences and seminars. I thought
nothing of it. Yes, those girls that were murdered were his
patients, but he’s the only doctor in town.”

Savanna sucked in air, the hissing sound
revealing that she had reason to suspect Richard, too. “He’s my
brother, Hogan. Half brother. His father raped my mother during a
routine examination. She didn’t want anyone to know, and Ben kept
that secret. That’s why he was never a patient or allowed any of
you to be treated— ”

Her tone husky with fear, Savanna cried, “Oh,
God, I’ve been telling Richard everything about Carley, about where
she’d be— My mother told me how demented old Doc Coleman was, how
he kept rambling about finding that old mine. When Richard was a
boy, his father marched him up those mountains to find that old
mine— Oh, what have I done?”

Hogan pushed aside his fear and tried to
think logically— fear and panic would not save Carley’s life.
“Savanna— think. How would they travel? By horse or hiking, or does
Richard have an all-terrain vehicle?”

“An all-terrain, but that won’t carry two
people. What do you want me to do?”

“Stay by the phone. We may need you.”

Hogan remembered how the all-terrain vehicle
tracks were near the old cabin that they’d burned....

He glanced at Jemma, who had just cried out
to him and gripped his arm, her fingers digging in. “That ring he
gave her that summer she was attacked. Hogan, it’s carved jade and
very expensive. He’s been wanting her to wear it.... He thinks
she’s actually his!”

“Wait here.” He wanted Jemma safe; if he
found Richard, he wasn’t certain what he would do. Mentally
unstable, the doctor could hurt her in a melee. Hogan prayed that
Carley was alive—

“I’m going.” Jemma was already running out
the door to his pickup.

Jemma held Hogan’s free hand as they raced
onto the road, where Hogan paused. To the left lay the trail to the
mountains, and they would need horses and to the right was—

Hogan settled into that quiet calm that
served him best, and came up with, “He’s got her at his house.”

“But Savanna said they were hiking into the
mountains—”

“He’d want her where his precious collections
are. Richard is a collector, Jemma. He places his collections
together. He considers Carley to be his possession. He’ll want to
enjoy her visually with his other things.”

“And when he finds out that she isn’t a
virgin?”

Those girls who were murdered were his
patients. He was furious ... and then they were dead
, Savanna
had said. Despite his fear, Hogan calmly managed to reassure Jemma,
“Nothing will happen to Carley. We’ll get to her first.”

On the way to the Coleman house, Hogan
concentrated on driving fast but safely— because they were Carley’s
only chance.

He glanced at Jemma’s pale, taut face, her
hands clenching his single one so tightly the bones showed beneath
her skin.

Because he loved her and there was no going
back from the bond they had formed, and because now— with Carley’s
life endangered— his life stood out boldly.

He’d been in the shadows, coddling old pain
and resentment. Jemma had brought him sunshine and meaning to his
life; she was a part of him now, as much as his soul. He lifted the
chain that held his mother’s ring over his head and placed it in
Jemma’s hand. “I want you to wear my mother’s ring. It’s important
to me now.”

“Hogan, I can’t...”

“If something happens, if something goes
wrong, and I’m.... We don’t know what Richard will do, sweetheart,
and it’s important to me that you wear her ring. It’s a circle, a
circle of life and eternity. Life goes on, no matter what happens
to interfere with it. I want to know that you’re wearing my ring,
that you know you’re in my heart. You give me peace, Jemma. You
fill me.”

Then he bent to kiss her quickly; she was the
other half of his heart. “Left hand, third finger, Jemma.”

“You pick the worst times— like when you
threw those earrings at me.”

Shaking with emotion, Jemma freed the ring
and slid it on her finger, a perfect fit. “I’ll give it back when
this is finished. Ooo, I’m so mad. It’s just like you to think on
so many levels, when I can only concentrate on one and right now,
that has to do with Carley. I feel like I’m getting ambushed.
You’re just so intense and pushy. You’re so emotional. You’re so—
so just you.”

“Uh-huh,” Hogan murmured, but promised that
when Carley was safe, Jemma would still be wearing his ring.

At the Coleman house, Hogan stopped to
release Richard’s two Rottweilers. They silently obeyed his firm
command and touches as he let them know he respected them, but he
was in control.

A sound caught him, stilled his senses— a cry
of an owl, too early in the day.
Or was it a memory, a fear of
Joe’s owl legend? Or was it the truth, that the owl had come to
take Carley’s spirit away?

Hogan forced himself to push away the fear
and stood looking at the house, trying to draw cool logic into him.
He absorbed every detail, then silently turned the glass knob to
the parlor door.

Jemma gripped his shirt as they entered the
Coleman house and Hogan patted his thigh, pointing to the
Rottweilers and then down the dark hallways to Richard’s
collections. The dogs padded off and Hogan whispered to Jemma, “Go
find Mrs. Coleman.”

“But Carley—”

He shoved her gently and with a worried
backward look at him, Jemma hurried upstairs. As the Rottweilers
began pawing and circling a huge chest in the collections room,
Hogan motioned them to him. He quietly ushered them outside, and
returned to Jemma’s whispered, “Mrs. Coleman is sleeping.”

Hogan nodded and eased the chest aside. “The
dimensions on the inside of the house don’t match the outside.
There’s something behind this chest.”

Carley’s scream echoed upward and Hogan
prayed—

He found the button that released the paneled
door and revealed a stairway leading to the basement.

Quietly Jemma followed Hogan down the stairs
to find Carley tied to a huge dragon-backed carved chair, decorated
in red-silk tapestry.

In the small, candlelit room, ornately
decorated with precious Chinese jade and erotic paintings, she was
dressed in a long gown, her eyes wide with fear. The heavy scent of
incense spread over the opulent setting.

Richard was dressed in black silk, sprawled
upon a chaise lounge. He watched her with half-closed eyes.
Enlarged glossy pictures of Carley hung about the room.

Carley’s eyes begged Hogan to help, and then,
following her stare to the intruders, Richard leaped to his feet.
“She’s mine now, the sweet, innocent flower of the Kodiaks. Their
precious baby.”

He lifted a long curved knife over Carley.
“My dogs usually let me know when I have visitors. They’ve been bad
boys and will have to pay.”

“Listen you—” Jemma stepped forward, and
Hogan drew her back. Richard was too close to Carley.

Hogan moved in front of Jemma. One dark
glance told her that he wasn’t arguing with her.

“Richard,” Hogan said, “only a weak man would
do that to a helpless woman, attack and stalk her.”

“I am not weak!” Richard raged, and the knife
glinted, turned toward Hogan.

“You are. We’ve all known that you are.
You’re jealous of the Kodiaks, aren’t you, Richard?” Hogan spoke
slowly, methodically, the deep sound hypnotic in the ornate,
heavily scented chamber.

Carley’s eyes were wide with fear as Hogan
moved closer to Richard, towering over him.

Jemma wrapped her hand in Hogan’s tooled
Western belt and held tight. If she had to jerk him back to safety
and defend him, she would. As if sensing her thoughts, Hogan looked
down over his shoulder at her.

“Don’t,” he said in a too-pained tone. “Just
don’t.”

Then he turned back to Richard, and Jemma
couldn’t bear to think about that knife sinking into Hogan’s
beautiful body—
her beautiful body, because he belonged to
her.

“What are you muttering about?” Hogan asked
in a low frustrated tone.

“If you get hurt, I’m never going to forgive
you. I love you.”

Hogan stiffened, but didn’t turn. She
wondered if he’d heard her. “Hogan, I said I love you,” she
whispered. “I’ve never said that to anyone before.”

“I’ll get back with you on that,” he
whispered harshly, after a heartbeat of silence.

“I had to tell you. What if we don’t live?
You’d never know how, how—”

“Shut up, Jemma... sweetheart, light of my
life, and keeper of my heart,” and then louder to Richard, Hogan
said, “Give me the knife, Richard. Everything will be fine. I’ll
see that—”

Richard jabbed at Hogan with the knife. “Stay
back. You Kodiaks thought you were kings— but I’ve had what you’ll
never have. I’ve had the best. You swaggered around with girls
swooning after you.... Even then, I knew that I would have the best
prize of all..... I took Carley from you. Nothing could stop me,
not even the almighty Kodiaks. Carley is mine. She knows it. She’s
waited all these years for me.”

“You killed Joe Blue Sky, didn’t you?” Hogan
asked in a too-soft tone that raised the hair on Jemma’s nape.

“Of course. I thought that was a nice
reminder to you that you were very vulnerable to me. Joe was
disposable— just a matter of withholding his medication for a few
moments— no trouble at all.”

He ran his free hand across Carley’s short
hair. “You really shouldn’t have cut your hair, my dear.”

“Has she really waited for you, Richard?”
Hogan continued talking softly, distracting Richard from Carley.
“Have you seen how she looks at Mitch?”

“I’ll kill him, too, after I finish you. Then
Carley is mine!”

The blast from a revolver echoed in the small
chamber. With a disbelieving look at the slight, elderly woman
standing on the staircase, Richard crumpled to the floor.

While Hogan freed Carley and held her close,
Mrs. Coleman used her cane to totter to her son. She bent to smooth
his hair. “He didn’t know I could walk. I hid that from him,
because I knew that someday, I would have to.... He was mad, just
like his father. I knew Richard was building something down here,
but he collects so many things, I thought he just needed more
storage room.... I mean, he
used
to collect.”