Tallchief: The Hunter (17 page)

She stiffened at that, but didn’t look at him. Instead, her heel crushed a new stand of grass. “Sure, and that’s why
you maneuvered me into contract work—why we shared those endearing exchanges. Do you realize how much my life has changed in two days? Everything I believed in has been ripped out from under me. I made a fool of myself, coming here, ready to do…I don’t know what, and all the time it was lies. I gave way into an impulse, a need and made love with you. Within hours, I learn I can’t trust you and this time for real.”

Adam wished he could go back in time and erase his deception as Sam. “I can only apologize. I understand now why Tallchief captured Una and Liam kidnapped Elizabeth to bring her back here. I would have done the same thing. It would have been much simpler. You’ll adjust. You’re logical and competent. You’ll make the right decisions and you’ll survive.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

He took her hand and she eased it away, not a good sign. She was looking at him as if he’d just flown in from another planet. He could feel her pull away from him. “I wasn’t expecting this, honey. But here it is—you and me.”

“No, we’re not here.” Jillian stood and suddenly her hand shot to his hair, holding it back from his face. She scanned his features and frowned. “I don’t know who you are, or who I am. And I’m not going to be pushed into anything. I’ve already been there, done that.”

“Now, sweetheart. Don’t do anything rash.” His tone warned, and the stubble of his jaw only made him look more dangerous.

Adam rose slowly, and Jillian still held his hair. “Don’t contact me. I’m finishing the contract with Sam. When I think of all the intimate things I told you—told Sam, I could just….”

Jillian blinked and remembered all the intimate things her body had told Adam. He’d opened her soul last night and she’d curled it around him; just soothing those masculine edges had given her peace.

“Let’s go into town and have breakfast, honey. You’ll
feel better after you’ve eaten,” Adam offered conversationally, as if she weren’t holding his hair in her fist. His expression was closed and hard, those gun-smoke eyes narrowed on her face.

She released his hair, her hand warm from the sleek texture. She rubbed her palm on her thigh, and still the feel remained. An image of his hair drifting across her skin the night before, sensitizing her body, shook her. The raw excitement and passion she’d felt earlier when he’d tracked her on the mountain still stunned her. Jillian-the-lady, was also passionate. She’d have to consider the images, and somehow make sense of them before she came apart. She’d controlled her life, and suddenly—with Adam—she was another woman, fierce, determined, angry, passionate, willful, sensually hungry. She lived for the moment, feeding on the fiery desire between them, when she thought her life had settled into a comfortable, safe one.

She wanted his baby—she wanted a part of him to carry inside her, to love, just as she perhaps loved Adam.
She’d given up all those dreams long ago, and they leaped to life and she feared them. She feared herself. “I’m going home to a hot bath. You’re not invited.”

“Well, then, take this with you,” he said before tugging her into his arms.

As though primed by the night of lovemaking, her body responded instantly, her arms shooting up to lock around his shoulders.

His fingers gripped her hair, tethering her as his lips slanted and took hers roughly. The kiss was hard, possessive and everything to ignite the woman within Jillian. She stepped into the fire, matching him, taking, just as he took. The greed within her sang and enveloped and flamed. They were just a man and a woman, on a plane where only they existed and burned and hungered.

Adam’s breath was rough against her face, and Jillian-the-lady, shocked herself by taking his hand and pressing it against her breast, and sighing roughly with pleasure.
When the kiss was finished, she stood trying to recover her breath and Adam coolly walked away to start chopping wood. She understood immediately—Adam had left her to choose. She could walk away, or she could come to him.

He grimly, methodically raised and felled the ax. Her instincts told her to go to him, to wrap her arms around him, to take what they could both have. But the cool stare he shot her set off her temper. “It won’t work!” she yelled at him.

She looked down at the foot she had just stomped. Adam was responsible for that. And for making her love him.

And for deceiving her.

And for her irrational behavior. But then, if she were a woman in love, was she supposed to be logical? Yes, she was good and angry, not a slow simmering anger, but a real thunderstorm ready to shoot lightning bolts at whoever crossed her path.

Across the distance of the sunlight and her emotions, he stood immobile, legs braced wide, one hand holding the ax, watching her. She wasn’t certain how to handle the life that she had so carefully constructed, the safe life—because one look at him said he wasn’t bending now—all the choices were hers.

Adam stripped off his shirt and began chopping wood again. The May sun stroked his body, every muscle and cord in beautiful harmony as he moved. Jillian stared at him, her mouth drying. She’d held that body in her arms. She’d made him a part of her, so deep and hot that she’d never forget.

Adam was right. There was no going back, not after their lovemaking.
She moved in panic now, crowded by the years of fighting to find her own place in life. “It won’t work,” she whispered unevenly and forced herself to drive away.

With Adam, she’d jumped from fear of a man’s touch to the hunger for it. Desire, that feeling of her soul touching his as they made love, had changed her. Who was she?
How could she feel so primitive, so bold and wanton in his arms? How could she become the taker?

When Jillian made her move, he’d make his,
Adam decided a month later. The last of May was in full bloom, a spray of pioneer roses beginning to climb up the old cabin.

He hadn’t been able to give the launch of Nancy his full attention, distracted by memories of Jillian sighing sweetly against him. He worked on his truck, sanding and replacing and welding and tuning, but Jillian never left his mind. He thought of her sitting in it, delighted by her tractor drive, hugging the box of jars to her as if they were precious….

He glanced at the duffel bag he had packed a week ago; after a solid month of hanging on every word about Jillian, dreaming about her, he’d reached the breaking point. In the past, if a situation didn’t suit him, he wasn’t involved, but now he was, heart and soul. Jillian had finalized her contract with Sam the Truck and she wasn’t taking e-mail from the company. She wasn’t visiting the Tallchiefs.

“She’s holed up,” Adam murmured, and knew that he couldn’t wait much longer to see her, to talk with her, to hold her. Whatever Jillian was going through, she didn’t want any reminder of him. The complimentary sets of Nancy were refused at the post office.

She might well be carrying a reminder of their night on the mountain, and that thought, that hope bound him heart and soul.

Adam’s smile mocked himself. No doubt his ancestors sought to possess women by giving them children; or perhaps the biological need was there, lying in him all these years. The image of Jillian, holding his baby, sent a sharp tear of emotion through his heart. Those dreams from so long ago curled around him, but Jillian was a strong woman, sorting out her life, and she would have her own dreams and needs.

He could only hope that she didn’t hate him.

He looked out of the cabin window to the sunset spread
ing over the framework of Liam and Michelle’s new home. Working full-time on the house wasn’t enough to drain away the need to see Jillian. Or the need to hold her.

She’d made trips from town, but she always returned to that little cottage. Maybe it was her fortress, her safe place from the world.

What was she doing now, snuggling in that old bed beneath the quilt? Adam slapped his open hand against the wall, and pushed down the impulse to go to her. He hadn’t realized how instinctive the need to capture a woman was, until he’d listened to Liam speak of courting Michelle—“She held everything of me, all that I was, all that I wanted to be, right in her hand.”

Brooding, Adam slashed his hand across the stubble on his jaw. He could still feel Jillian move against him, still taste her, hear her voice, and she haunted every minute of his days and nights. He couldn’t leave and he couldn’t stay, not when he knew that the sight of her would cause him to go after her. It was no easy task for a hunter to stop hunting what he desired more than anything in his life.

He should leave, give her more time to think, but couldn’t, moored by the chance that he might see her again.

Jillian had years to unravel, and Adam had just discovered that he lacked patience when dealing with her. He glanced at the bag of wool, his share of the Tallchief shearing, and thought of Jillian weaving and spinning at Elspeth’s house, the serenity in her expression, the graceful movements of her hands and body.

A month was long enough, Adam decided abruptly, and reached for the bag of wool. Within minutes, he parked the pickup outside her cottage, hefted the bag of wool and carried it up her steps to her porch. He rapped on the door.

She opened the door and his first sight of her squeezed his heart—she’d been crying and looked all soft and warm and cuddly. The scents of her bath and shampoo curled around him, the towel still wrapped upon her head, her bathrobe tied at her waist. He wanted to hold her—instead
he said flatly, “Wool. My share. It’s been cleaned and carded—I helped Elspeth. Make something…or don’t. I bought the farm from the people who sold me the pickup. I’ve never owned a home before, never wanted to. I may move into it—or not. I haven’t decided—I miss you. The spinning wheel comes with it, a big old scarred thing that seems to hum when it turns.”

He mentally mocked himself for not being able to tell her more—how he wanted to hold her now. He couldn’t bear to watch her struggle for composure, to bring up her shields, not against him.

Then she ripped the towel from her head and tossed it aside, her eyes lashing at him. Whatever was locked behind that firmed mouth wasn’t sweet from her expression. He turned and walked away, his belly still tight with tension as he drove to Liam and Michelle’s house to baby-sit J.T. Later, at his cabin, he stopped himself from calling Jillian. Time, he thought, she needs time to sort what’s important.

The next night, he found himself at her doorstep again. She had that unfocused look, as though she’d been working on the computer and the images still held her. Her hair was loosely knotted on top of her head, the short, flowered cotton shift making her seem more like Jilly-the-teenager, than a woman he’d made love to on Tallchief Mountain. He slipped Sarah’s locket into her hand, adding a kiss to it. In the locket was a picture of his mother and himself, the gold flower design worn smooth by age.

“It’s true, what my brother says, that a man’s love can hold his heart in her hand,” he murmured, watching her face, the way the shadows skimmed across it. Jillian frowned and opened her hand, the gold chain sliding between her fingers, the silver ring gleaming just where he had placed it. Then she slowly closed the door. Adam stood still, praying she would invite him in, but the lights suddenly clicked off.

Waiting for one word, one look wasn’t easy. Staying was more difficult, but Adam braced himself again the next
night. He handed her the wildflower bouquet he’d picked, mixed with heather from Tallchief Mountain. While he was waiting for just one word, she narrowed those amber eyes and bashed him with the bouquet, then shut the door.

“Progress,” he murmured tightly, and hoped her reaction truly was. Not sweet, but then what ran between them was more potent than he had expected.

By the first week of June, he was short-tempered, chafed raw by lack of sleep and not happy about his solitary life. He was ready to confront Jillian and give her what was left of his pride. In the grocery store, buying his supply of suckers for the children he baby-sat, the hair on the back of his neck lifted. Adam turned slowly to the fruit section, where he found Jillian scowling at him. He nodded and smiled.

“Marry me and I’ll make you a loom to go with that spinning wheel,” he offered, because the thought had long been on his mind, and he could use the pattern of Una’s pioneer loom.

The woman checking out his groceries was a grandmother who looked younger than her years. Adam ignored her smothered giggle, and caught the orange that Jillian had fireballed his way. He placed it on the counter. “That, too, please.”

After several oranges, the clerk began to sack them. “She’s headed toward the grapefruit. You must have really goofed. You Tallchief boys really know how to stir up your lady loves. She was a lady when she came here, now she’s pitching fruit at you.”

“Ah, thank you, Millie. ‘Lady love’ is just the right term. Do you hear that, Jillian? You’re my lady love. Hey, you’re good—” He caught the grapefruit that sailed his way, and the clerk happily bagged them. “When do I start on the loom, dear heart?” he asked lightly.

“Not the melons, honey,” the clerk called firmly as Jillian moved slightly in the produce aisle. “Avocados will do.”

“Avocados are too good for him,” Jillian noted, quickly walking past Adam on her way to the door. After glancing at the sucker he offered her with a smile, she shook her head. She smoothed her hair and straightened her blouse and sailed out of the store with her head held high.

“Try something a little more romantic next time,” Millie offered. “And if she’s not in a better mood by the time tomatoes are ripe, don’t come in here.”

Adam tilted his head to better watch the enticing sway of Jillian’s jeans and forgot what he was thinking.

“Give her time,” the clerk said. “Everyone knows a girl can’t resist you Tallchief boys when you’re in the courting mood.”

“Oh, she knows how to resist,” Adam said broodily and picked up the sacks he intended to leave on Jillian’s doorstep that night.