Tallchief for Keeps (19 page)

“Duncan Tallchief.” Sybil’s tone said she had plans to teach her husband a lesson. Duncan had the good sense to look sheepish, all six foot four inches, two hundred thirty pounds of him.

Alek sat up, propped a pillow behind him and said, “I’ll get you off the hook, Duncan. I arranged for a two-year exclusive contract in Denver. She’s too good, and I wanted to see her work hanging where people could enjoy it. I also wanted her away from the pack of you, so that I could persuade her that she likes me.”

“You weren’t on assignment?” Talia asked.

“My assignment days are over,
kid. It was a plain case of wanting to get Elspeth alone, and all of you, standing here right now, are proof of that need.”

“Why, Alek. You’re a romantic,” Sybil murmured. “And you knew Elspeth before, didn’t you?”

Elspeth let out a loud, protesting groan and closed her eyes. He took her hand, but she shook him off.

“We met five years ago when she
was studying in Scotland. When Talia’s wedding pictures arrived in December, there was Elspeth. I wanted her then and I want her now. It’s as simple as that.”

He waited for that one to sink into the Tallchief brothers. Click. Click. Click. All three brothers’ scowls locked in place. Alek frowned back.

“Nothing is ever that simple,” Calum stated, already digging at facts, placing them in a neat row.

Elspeth groaned and flipped to her stomach, jamming the pillow over her head; Alek placed his hand over the curve of her bottom. He answered Megan’s kiss and admired the satin ribbon she pointed to on top of her head. “Pretty, Meggie…Elspeth apparently is not taking appointments today.”

He placed Megan over Elspeth’s bottom and let her bounce as though riding her rocking horse. Elspeth groaned aloud as Megan gurgled, delighted.

“She’s never been afraid to face us,” Duncan stated, outraged. “You, Petrovna. Outside.”

Elspeth groaned again and wiggled up to sit beside Alek. She placed a pillow between them. Megan launched herself at her aunt, and Elspeth cuddled the baby against her. “Go away, all of you.”

Just looking at her with Megan started him thinking about—He sat back to admire the picture Elspeth made, rosy and warm from a night with him, a blanket tugged up to cover her breasts. He found a long strand of her hair and brought it to his lips. “She isn’t an easy woman, but faced with a shotgun wedding, I’d sacrifice.”

“Shotgun wedding. Try another
century.” Elspeth’s snarl caused him to grin. Alek soaked in the sight of her, hair wildly flowing around her, cheeks flushed with outrage and eyes leveling hot, steely threats at all the males in the room. “Petrovna, shut up.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After a warning look at Alek, Elspeth turned on her brothers. “Have I ever, ever butted into your love lives? I had plenty of opportunities between the three of you. When you were teenagers, it’s a wonder your zippers held the strain.”

Alek wanted to lick the gleam on her shoulders, but instead tugged on her hair. “She’s feeling a bit testy and worried about my reputation.”

“I thought I told you to—”

Birk glowered at Alek. “Huh. What did she do, drag you here? You outweigh her by a good eighty-five pounds.”

“My, the testosterone in this room
is fairly bubbling,” Talia noted with delight, inching away from Calum’s restraining hand. “This could be the makings of a new play.”

Alek ran his finger along Elspeth’s hot cheek and jerked it away before she bit him. “She came after me. This wasn’t my plan at all. I’m a regular old-fashioned guy. I’d prefer necking and dating and picnics and the regular route to…ah…a relationship. But there she was, determined to have me, and what could I do?”

Too incensed to speak, looked at him as though she’d like to tear him to bits. He jerked when her fingers pinched his thigh. After a quick search and another pinch, he captured her hand and brought it up on the blankets to hold it.

Elspeth’s muttering was the frosting on Alek’s well-devoured and sated cake. He knew he was glowing and grinning. “At least she’s not indifferent to me.”

“Idiot.”

Duncan snorted, drawing on his leather
gloves. “I’ve got a field to plow.” He glared at Alek and then at Sybil, who was smothering a grin. “I’ve got work to do. Any time, Alek. Name it.”

“They don’t call him Duncan the defender for nothing.” Sybil gave way to her grin.

Talia straightened the curtains at the windows. She glanced at the tree limbs connecting Alek’s open window to Elspeth’s. An experienced troublemaker, Talia knew exactly how Alek had traveled to Elspeth’s bedroom. “So, Elspeth. Are you keeping that dinner date with Jeremy Cabot? Or does this change things?”

Elspeth tried to reclaim her hand from Alek and couldn’t. “Alek and I are not going steady or engaged. Of course I’m keeping my date with Jeremy.”

That stopped Alek, who was foraging for
his shorts with his toe.

Sybil cradled her cup of coffee and sat on the end of the bed. “Don’t glower, Alek. Mmm. Tell me what you know about Una’s shawl, the one she seduced Tallchief with?”

“I did not seduce Alek,” Elspeth stated firmly, edging away from Alek.

“I found the shawl. Used it as bait/’ He jerked her back, glowering at her after a full minute of trying to identify one Jeremy Cabot, a man soon to die. “Is that the idiot that runs the office at the feed-and-grain store? The piece of blubber who tries to fit himself into that tiny red sports car?”

She sat very straight and smoothed her hair. “He’s always liked me. It’s been only lately, since his divorce, that I’ve thought he might have possibilities.”

Talia leaned against Calum, whose expression said he was putting lots of twos together. “You know, this reminds me of home, Alek. Remember when all of us piled into Mom and Dad’s bedroom and Dad kept trying to shoo us away?”

“Una’s shawl?” Duncan repeated too slowly in a tone resembling a growl.

“Get lost, and take your posse with you. Now.” Alek didn’t want to deal with the Tallchief brothers right now; they could take him apart later. He took Elspeth’s wrist; Cabot wasn’t getting her. Elspeth glared at him and tried to reclaim it. She picked up the pillow.

“You hit me,” he stated a heartbeat later, and blew a feather from his lips. He slashed a hand down his face and glowered at her, the woman who had swung the pillow with enough force to tear it He blew away another feather, tumbling down his forehead. Outraged that she would attack him after a night of lovemaking, Alek stared at her. When she didn’t act as though she’d apologize, Alek wrapped the quilt around his waist and stood.

He looked out into the morning sunshine. The sheriff was parked on the street, binoculars focused on Elspeth’s bedroom window. Beside him stood Elspeth’s first-grade teacher, Mrs. Schmidt, shaking her head. A squad of little boys on souped-up dirt bikes stared with blatant interest and open mouths. Alek cursed; the boys would learn soon enough how a woman could make a man act like an idiot.

“That’s mine,” Birk stated as Alek reached back to grab a kilt that had been flung over a chair. A spool of thread attached to the hem rolled to the floor.

“I’m sure you
won’t mind me borrowing your skirt, under the circumstances,” Alek returned. He stepped into the kilt, ignored the sewing pins jabbing him and crossed the limbs amid hoots and whistles from the Tallchiefs. Once in his bedroom, Alek slammed down his window. The phone ran a second later, while he was debating about which wall to take down. “Yes?”

He knew it was Elspeth by the soft breathing at the other end. She probably wanted the kilt back, but he served her a warning instead. “You date that jerk, and I won’t be held accountable.”

String circled Alek’s ankles, and he traced it from the kilt’s hem back to Elspeth’s window. Duncan appeared, grim faced, and jerked something between his leather-gloved hands. The thread at Alek’s kilt went limp.

Elspeth strained for control. “Alek Petrovna, don’t you dare hurt Jeremy. He’s been my friend for ages.”

Alek crushed the shawl. He intended to disassemble Cabot. “Will all that lard fit into a bucket?” he asked in a too-pleasant tone.

Then he looked at the kilt he wore and smiled grimly. For the moment, he was wearing it just the same as the rest of the Tallchiefs. He began to wind the thread around his fingers. He was keeping as much of Elspeth as he could.

“What’s that noise?” Elspeth asked as Sybil and Talia began laughing. Megan squealed in delight.

Alek finished his thread recovery
and glanced out his window. “Why, Elspeth-love, I believe that’s your brothers’ chain saws.”

“What?”

“It looks like they’re cutting off my access route to your boudoir.”

Her outraged gasp did wonders for his bruised ego. Alek slowly replaced the phone on its cradle. Beneath his window, Elspeth, dressed in a faded flannel robe that exposed her legs magnificently swooped upon her brothers. The revving chain saws died as they backed away from her accusing finger and found themselves against her house.

Though Alek couldn’t hear the words, from her expression, they weren’t pleasant ones. The brothers’ expressions changed from outrage to frustration. Duncan began arguing with her, Birk threw down his western hat and Calum shook his head. Talia and Sybil stood on the porch and laughed. Elspeth threw up her hands. She pointed to the new flower bed the brothers had tromped.

“Huh. Look at that,” Alek mused as Elspeth stalked to the water faucet and turned the hose on her three brothers. After they were dripping and Sybil and Talia doubled over with laughter, Elspeth began pacing in front of them, her flannel robe flying around her legs. Duncan, Calum and Birk stood rigidly against the wall, until she pointed at them and scolded. One by one, they spit a distance. Elspeth shook her magnificent mane, threw up her hands and stalked into her house. “I love it when that woman gestures. She’s showing a real flair for it,” Alek murmured.

The three brothers tromped and huffed
and cursed and in the end packed up their chain saws.

Suddenly Alek felt much better and took the stairs two at a time on his way down to make breakfast.

He whistled while he fixed his cereal. After plucking away several pertinent pins from the back of the kilt, Alek sat down and propped his feet on another chair. He listened to the birds chirp, the revved-up teenagers’ trucks prowling on the street and settled into a happy cloud of morning-after—

His back door opened and slammed. “Alek! Where are you?” Elspeth’s tone was not sweet.

“In here, my love. Would you like breakfast? Have you come to court me or to drag me off to that shotgun wedding?” He was groggy on dreams, daft on making love with Elspeth and mellow with contentment. There was just something about seeing his lady love protect him. “You know Amen Flats isn’t really that boring—”

When cold milk and soggy cereal ran down his head and onto his shoulders, Alek shivered. Then he grinned and licked a flake from his cheek. He leered at the gaping flannel robe and the curve of her breast. “Things are certainly looking up, Elspeth-mine.”

“Jerk.” She ripped his shorts from her pocket and dropped them on his head.

“I’ll treasure that endearment forever.” Alek sat very still as Elspeth lifted the carton of milk and slowly poured it over his cereal and his shorts. He tilted his head to better appreciate the slope of her breast. “Are you going to make me spit, too?”

He got a delicious view of a taut, dark nipple when Elspeth threw up her hands. “I used to make them settle their differences that way—spitting contests to see who could spit the farthest.”

“I love a passionate, dominating
woman,” Alek murmured, and leered up at her. “Let’s try whipped cream next time.”

“Whipped cream…” Elspeth’s hand reached for the bed sheets, hovered and then she decided to leave them. She dusted the feathers from it and remembered how outraged he’d been, feathers drifting around his black, shaggy head and shoulders.

She picked up the abused pillow, and Alek’s scent clung to it.

A wave of stark longing washed over her, startling her. She couldn’t want him again. Not after last night, her body still aching from his. Yet images of Alek flashed through her mind, forcing Elspeth to brace herself against her emotions as she always did. She quickly made the bed and took a long, thorough shower, and the images returned. Alek, dressed in Birk’s kilt, created a memorable picture. Complete with breakfast cereal and extra milk, he looked delicious. He had sat very still while she poured, then smiled hopefully up at her with milk dripping off his nose.

His little-boy expression had changed too rapidly back to a dark, passionate one. He’d wiped his face with one big hand and leveled a glare at her. “You date Cabot and—”

Elspeth had reacted instantly, hooking one foot beneath the legs of his chair and pulling, sending him sprawling down in a mass of muscled, hairy legs and tangled kilt. She’d placed her bare foot on his cereal-spattered chest. “Hmm. Threats. Take a note, Alek.

Don’t ever threaten me…I have lived with arrogant, threatening males all my life. I have experience in dealing with them.”

Then, disgusted that Alek had provoked her and lay grinning as if he’d single-handedly won a football game, she had tried for an even tone. “I think I need to get out more,” she had stated elegantly before returning to her home.

She’d broken every rule that she’d ever made—losing her temper with Alek Petrovna. There was no reason she shouldn’t date Jeremy and add to a growing list.

Elspeth rummaged through the lacy lingerie
she’d stuffed into a pretty flowery box and selected a white lace bra-and-panty set. Her body told her that she’d strained every muscle while making love to Alek, and a few she hadn’t known existed. “And that is how it’s going to be,” he’d said after their lovemaking.

There was nothing sweet about Alek’s lovemaking, not at the center of it, while he held her on high on that fiery, throbbing pinnacle and still demanded more—Who was he to make rules about their love-making? To say what and how and when?

She couldn’t forgive him for unleashing her emotions, for exposing her need of him.

“Shotgun wedding,” she said, repeating Alek’s light concession. She had no intentions of getting involved with Alek.