Sleepless in Montana (7 page)

Hogan
. Jemma wondered if he could ever
be any woman’s. “He’s a lone wolf, that’s what he is, and he’s
licking his wounds. He’s going after Ben, positioning himself for
the kill, and I won’t have it.”

Still, she could trust him and his unwavering
love for Carley, Dinah, Mitch and Aaron. Jemma didn’t like him—that
cold, stony silence, or the way he walked away from her, all lithe
and rangy in that hunter’s stride, but she wanted him.

Jemma’s instincts told her to scoop all those
dark corners into her and make Hogan better, to please him. “I am
truly sick and demented. What woman would possibly want to cuddle
Hogan Kodiak?” she muttered.

He’d held her wrists once when she was
fifteen and trying herself against a twenty-three-year old man of
the world.

He’d flown to Dinah’s from his studies in
France, looking tough in faded jeans and a tattered black T-shirt.
She’d grabbed him, tumbled into his lap as she would with Mitch and
Aaron to scuffle and laugh.

But Hogan hadn’t laughed. Fire and passion
had leaped in his eyes, searing her, before he pushed her away with
a look of disgust.

As an adult, Jemma didn’t want fire and
passion, she wanted men she could control, just as she controlled
her life. And Hogan wasn’t one of them. Jemma took a deep breath
and repeated, “I can trust him. He won’t do anything to endanger
Carley,” to reassure herself that Hogan would play ball.

She’d wanted to hear Hogan tell her that her
plan would work. She was terrified it would fail, and Carley would
pay. Jemma hit the leather flight bag in the empty seat beside
her.

Hogan had held himself away from her,
disdaining to touch her.

Well, there were plenty of other men who
would, if she’d let them.
So he couldn’t stand the touch of her,
so what?
That just made him all the more fun to torment, get
under that dark skin, that stony expression, those hard blue eyes.
“Too bad, buddy. We’re in it for the duration.”

And Hogan’s need to take down Ben had
better wait until Carley was safe.
One thing at a time, Jemma,
she reminded herself.
Carley first, Ben second....

Jemma shivered slightly with the knowledge
that diverting Hogan from methodically destroying Ben wouldn’t be
easy.
Neither man was easy, an even match.

“Nice view, Hogan. You can see the Bar K
ranch perfectly, and your ranch was originally on the Kodiak
homestead before Ben sold it. But that was the plan, wasn’t it? To
prove to the old man that you’d made it? That you’re not going
away?”

*** ***

At dusk in the first week of April, the white
rumps of antelope bounced away into the shadows of the Crazy
Mountains.

From Hogan’s ranch house windows, the view
was magnicient: Newborn calves suckled cows in Kodiak pastures and
the foothills beyond the grassy expanse would have a blanket of
light frost in the morning.

Mitch tossed aside his black-leather jacket,
leaned back, and sipped his brew. He shared a look with Aaron, a
replica of Ben, his blue-eyed, blond father. “So Jemma has a
plan.”

“Dad is supposed to fake a terminal illness,
or so goes her plan. Trust her to come up with drama.”

Aaron kicked off his expensive Italian
leather shoes, and propped his stockinged feet on Hogan’s massive
coffee table. He leaned back against the couch, his beer braced on
his stomach. He flipped open the buttons of his shirt.

“Jemma probably has a dozen backup plans.
I’ve still got scars from the last ones. We’d better pull this off
quick—”

“Or that creep will go underground for
another eighteen years,” Mitch finished roughly.

Crouched by the fire, Hogan studied his two
brothers: Quick to smile and laugh, with black waving hair and the
black sweatshirt, Mitch’s black jeans, and biker’s boots heightened
his bad-boy looks.

Aaron was smoother, harder, his jeans
meticulous, pressed to a sharp crease, and his shirt custom-made.
“We’ll have to stay at the ranch— all of us. I don’t like the idea
of Dad’s faked illness, but it is a good cover, especially if
Carley won’t leave Seattle. We can protect her better here.”

Mitch snorted. “What about you, Hogan? You’ve
got a house here. You can’t logically stay at the old place.”

“I’ll be there often enough,” Hogan said. He
nodded toward the thick file Jemma had mailed overnight to him. He
almost appreciated her quick mind for details. The report was
thorough, mostly due to her relentless prodding; the detectives
would have closed their case long before, except for Jemma’s
insistence that they continue. She’d paid the bill, not wanting to
alarm Dinah or Carley.

From the letters and faxes, Jemma had
insisted on a list of every sex offender in the area eighteen years
ago. She’d paid to have each located and their lives examined.

Hogan noted Jackson Reeves’s name. When they
were in high school, Jackson hadn’t liked Hogan taking away his
switchblade and breaking the blade. That incident and Hogan’s
blocking of his bullying might be the motive to hurt Carley.
Jackson would know of the Celestial Virgins rumor and Jackson liked
to hurt the unprotected— Hogan decided to chat with Jackson.

“There’s a possible serial killer around
here, and no one knows,” Mitch stated grimly as he flipped through
the file. He whistled at the fee Jemma had paid to separate
agencies. “She’s good. She’s hacked, bullied, and flirted her way
getting info from the police who don’t want to alarm anyone by
releasing the facts. Missing women.... Known virgins.... Or
supposed virgins.... Three of them in ten years.”

“He spread it out,” Hogan noted. “He’s been
practicing.”

Mitch nodded. “Maybe not just here. He’s
probably worked elsewhere, too.”

“We’re sure then, that it’s a man,” Hogan
stated flatly. “It was a man that night. Carley’s skin was
whisker-burned.”

“I wouldn’t leave a woman out. Maybe one is
involved somehow. Could be a woman, jealous of Carley, put some guy
up to it.” Aaron studied the file Mitch had handed him. “Jemma paid
a chunk for all this. Look at the matrix she worked up.... Those
women are all the same body type and coloring as Carley.”

Mitch knew about women being stalked; working
for social services, he’d seen too much. “Now he wants to finish
the job.”

“He’s not getting Carley,” Hogan said,
meaning it.

After the brooding silence, Aaron chuckled.
“You have to hand it to Jemma. Carley is in danger and wouldn’t
leave her job or let Mom sell the business. Ben’s request that his
family be together was a great plan.”

Hogan sat back to enjoy his brothers’
expressions as he dropped a Jemma-fact into their laps. “She’s got
others. Jemma’s trying to get a producer interested in starring her
in a women’s fly-fishing television series.”

Mitch scratched his head and shook it. “No
way. Not Jemma. She’d lay on the bank, painting her toenails while
we fished. Played her boom box loud enough to scare any fish
away.”

Aaron closed his eyes as if reliving a
nightmare. “I see hooks flying everywhere. I remember when we were
kids and she tried that beauty-operator thing—’’

“You looked great with orange hair.”

Mitch almost spewed his beer as Aaron elbowed
him. Mitch rubbed his side, bruised days ago by a terrified little
boy who had been living in the streets; the boy had thought Mitch
wanted more than to comfort. The couple who took the boy knew how
to handle him; he’d be safe. “Watch it.”

“I thought old Ben would faint when he saw
Carley’s spiked orange hair. But he didn’t. He just said, ‘Fix it,’
and walked out the door.”

Aaron hefted his brew, toasting Jemma’s
escapades. “Remember that time she wanted to be a chef? And if she
starts on that ‘relate and express your feelings’ psychology
crap—”

Mitch lifted his glass. “To Jemma. Aren’t we
glad she’s adopted our family? Aren’t we all just looking forward
to her schemes to bring us closer together? To make us better men?
To make us hug? Come on, men, let’s do a group hug.”

“Sorry, but if I’m going to be hugging, it’s
going to be a woman. I’ll be damned if I’ll take up knitting as
therapy, and I’m not into visualizing flowers in fields and
harmony. They should bar booksellers from selling any self-help
books to her— everyone suffers,” Aaron muttered.

The brothers groaned in unison and unspoken
memories filled the silence. They’d called each other through the
years, but building lives and careers had taken time. Now they had
Carley to protect.

Mitch studied Aaron and Hogan. “I’ve been
working with street kids. Hugs can do miracles— if they’re not too
terrified that you’re out to hurt them.”

“Sissy,” Aaron sneered.

Hogan’s thoughts ranged outside his brother’s
conversation. In his arms, Jemma had felt like a fragile little
shaking bird. He resented how he had tilted his head just so to
feel that untamed river of fiery silk on his skin, catching Jemma’s
scent— elusive, exotic and far more beckoning than expensive
fragrances.
Damn her.

“Have you seen the old man, Hogan? I came
back about three years ago and he wasn’t pleasant. I caught hell
about being a city-sissy when I didn’t want to shovel manure.”
Aaron didn’t want to show how anxious he was about returning to the
old house.

Hogan shook his head. He wasn’t looking
forward to seeing Ben so soon, either. He’d wanted to wait and
think. He’d been too busy remodeling the house to include a studio
and office, transferring his business equipment to the ranch— to
script the head-on meeting, that first dialogue. Or harden the
shields of his heart.

“I’ve been back, last spring. I needed to see
the fields and the new calves in them, replenishing life, spring in
Montana where the air wasn’t gray with exhaust. I meant to send a
note to you both, but forgot,” Mitch said.

He studied the amber shade of his brew and
added, “Dropped in on Ben because I missed his sweet temperament.
He gave me a life, and I respect him, because I know what could
have happened to me if he hadn’t. He’s rawhide rough as
always.”

He looked at Hogan. “You’re like him, Hogan,
in more ways than one. Arrogant, keeping to yourself, and hard
clear through. Old Ben went to bat for me, pulled legal strings,
and I hated his guts.”

Mitch’s gaze returned to his brew. “Old
Aaron’s portrait still hangs over the fireplace with old Jubal’s
sprawling horns and that old bear-stopper buffalo gun. Dad says
that Jubal was the first Kodiak Texas longhorn bull that made the
Bar K.... But the place is run-down. He and old Joe Blue Sky can’t
manage. We’ll be working our butts off.”

Aaron shot a sharp look at him. “Run-down?
Kodiak ranch? Twelve thousand acres and six hundred baldies? How’s
that possible?”

Mitch nodded grimly. “Twelve thousand minus
the two-hundred acres that Hogan just bought. The old man probably
knew that the family wouldn’t stay in boring old rural Montana.
Carley and Jemma didn’t want to ask us for help, because Ben
wouldn’t have it. But we’re here now, and he’s low on cash. He’ll
lose the place if he doesn’t get help.”

“He won’t ask for it.” Hogan hated that
tenderness for Ben, for a man who kept his pride and would
certainly lose it if he lost his family homestead.

“We’ll get him out of this jam,” Mitch said
quietly. “The old man deserves better.”

“He’s not losing Kodiak land,” Aaron stated
firmly.

They looked at each other, hounded men who
would protect Ben, even as they disliked how he had treated them as
youths.

Hogan didn’t like the idea of helping Ben,
because he knew the battles it would bring—but he wasn’t letting
the land go. All those years ago, when Dinah moved out, Hogan had
managed accounts Ben forgot to pay.

At fourteen, Hogan already knew how to
bargain for credit, and how to make payments. Ben had cursed and
fought the credit idea, nursing his pride. But he knew cattle and
the land, and with Hogan working beside him, the ranch had stood
firm.

At fifteen, Hogan was winning track medals,
making straight “A’s” and working past midnight on Kodiak accounts.
Sometime in those hours, he had worked on the ranch beside Ben.
Hogan wondered if Ben would ever forgive him; the son taking
matters into his hands, saving the ranch from the auction
block.

Ben had resented Hogan’s strength. Ben had
never once said, “I’m proud of you.” But there was admiration and
pride in just one flash of those hard blue eyes.

It wasn’t Ben Kodiak’s way to show emotion,
or give compliments, or tenderness for that matter, and Hogan
hadn’t expected hugs.

“Cow piles,” Mitch said flatly. “I’ve always
hated ‘em. Give me a city street any day.”

“Tractors at dawn.” Aaron groaned the words.
“Physical ranch work, not a nice sweet office and an accommodating
staff. How I love to walk into the office and have some pretty
young thing hand me a cup of coffee and a smile. I like to smell
their hair in the morning, just after they’ve washed it. Starts my
day off right. Barn manure doesn’t have the same appeal.”

“I’m betting on that ladies’ man-charm, bro,”
Mitch said. “Old Snake did a good job training you.”

Hogan couldn’t resist riffling Aaron and
Mitch’s smooth waters. “She’ll want to learn how to shoot, if she
doesn’t know already.”

Mitch sat up, instantly wary. “Carley and
Dinah can knock the eye out of a fly.”

“Damn. He means Jemma,” Aaron muttered in a
doomed tone and sank lower into the cushions. “We’ll all be
dead.”

“Shot in the butt, or hooked in the butt.
Gentlemen, which do you prefer?” Mitch offered dramatically.

Hogan stared off into the night and thought
about Carley’s stalker. He was out there now, and he’d waited,
practicing on those three women. A hunter who had waited, he wasn’t
going away. “He’ll come, and we’ll be waiting.”