Too Close To The Fire/Too Hot To Handle (Montana Men 3) (2 page)

His
body was rock hard. Months of physical therapy kept his muscles toned. His
biceps bulged. His thighs looked as powerful as an oak. When he looked at her,
something deep inside her recognized the sinister darkness in his soul. Like a
moth drawn to a flame, she’d fluttered straight into the fire, attracted to him
in spite of knowing she’d get her wings incinerated.

Unfortunately,
he felt nothing for her except contempt and hatred, all because he didn’t like
Jace.

Taylor
made it plain from the beginning he didn’t want to be at the ranch, even though
it had been necessary for Kaycee to get out of Reno fast to escape the wrath of
the heinous serial killer, Smitt Davis.

But
Jace and Taylor rubbed each other the wrong way from the beginning.

Dianna
cut her gaze at him. Yep. No wonder he irritated her. Taylor was back to
counting clouds. Busy man.

She
looked around the small cockpit, desperate for something to occupy her mind
.
She fiddled with the controls, paid
extra attention to the sweet hum of the engines, and silently approved their
droning music. Time crawled by in degrees. It was enough to put her to sleep.

Dianna
brooded like a sitting hen, until she couldn’t stand the quiet any longer.
Silence
was the pits! “There’s a thermos
of coffee under your seat if you’d like a cup,” she offered sweetly.

There.
It hadn’t hurt her to extend an olive branch. From now on, she’d kill him with
kindness. She’d sugarcoat every word. She’d behave and not rock the aircraft’s
wings. Besides, she could use a shot of caffeine or she was going to fall
asleep in all this wonderful silence.

Without
a word, Taylor retrieved the travel mug that came with the thermos and filled
it with the steaming brew. He blew on it, then took a slow sip. Smacking his
lips, he took a second and third swallow and sighed. Dianna waited patiently
for him to offer her a cup.

Fourth
and fifth chug, smack, sigh.

And
she waited—

Okay,
waiting was as bad as non-talking silence. She squirmed. Blast it! She wanted a
cup of coffee. Did she have to beg?

Six,
seven, and eight, smack, sigh.

And
he called her a terrorist? She really hated the man! “I could use a cup of
that,” she said between her teeth.

Kindness.
Kindness. She must remember to be kind. No rocking the plane’s wings, no
loop-de-loops, no matter how much he incited her wrath.

He
ignored her request.

Grrr!

“I
said I could use a cup of coffee, too.”

He
shrugged. “You’re driving.” Turning his face, he stared out the side glass.
“Stunning clouds,” he observed, as though their heavenly beauty held him
spellbound. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen any lovelier, so crisp and white,
nice and fluffy.”

“Uh-huh.
Anyone ever tell you you’re an asshole?”

“Not
lately. You plan to change it?”

Ninth
and tenth, smack, sigh.

“This
isn’t a race car, Spencer. It’s a frickin’ plane! I’m not driving. I’m flying.
I don’t see a stop sign anywhere, don’t see a danger zone. Pour me a damn cup
of coffee, before I crash this thing…and I’ll be picky.” She sent him a look
filled with spite. “I swear I’ll crash it all on
your
side.”

He
shot her a look. “Don’t make jokes about something like that.”

“Who’s
joking?”

“Honestly,
Dianna, you’re becoming a bore.”

She
ground her teeth and muttered beneath her breath.

“Oops.
Did you just call me
asshole
again?”

She
batted her lashes at him and bared her teeth like a shark. “If the shoe fits…”

He
eyed her for so long she started to fidget. Slowly, his gaze drifted from her
face and lingered on her chest. “You know, you’d be kinda cute if you weren’t so
mean and had a decent pair of
boobs
.”

She
might be kinda cute? Jeez! What an ass!

Dianna’s
temper soared up the chart and into the red zone. She tightened her grip on the
yoke and battled to keep from reading him the riot act. Okay, so her breasts
were small. He’d made it perfectly clear how he felt about them. That was just
it; he had no feelings for them at all. “I might not have generous breasts—”

He
snorted.

“—but
what I have are real and not stuffed with silicone or whatever the hell
surgeons are poking inside women’s breasts these days.”

“I
like silicone.”

“You
would.”

“What?”

“Never
mind, Spencer. Forget the coffee, I don’t want it anymore.”

He
gave her the same toothy grin she’d given him. “No problem. It’s forgotten,
kitten.”

Dianna
shot a glance at her breasts. She’d never worried much about their size until
Taylor came along with his pointed remarks. She filled a thirty-four B cup
nicely with a little left over. What did he want, for God’s sake, a double E
cup? “Men!” she blurted. “All you think about is a woman’s tits!”

“It’s
not all I think about. You have other parts that snag my curiosity from time to
time.”

She
gasped and flashed him an annoyed look. “I suppose when you were crippled and
all,
thinking
about anything else was
all you could do. I doubt even now certain parts of your anatomy function
properly.”

His
top lip curled. He raked her with a look she could only describe as feral. Damn
if he didn’t remind her of a wolf, a hungry predator that had her pinned under
his claws with every intention of relishing a slow meal.

“Anytime
you want to put your theory to the test, kitten, I’ll be happy to oblige.” His
hot gaze shifted to her bare legs. “Anytime.”

She
wished now she’d worn something else, instead of the short red skirt that kept
crawling up to her thighs. The tiny thong rubbing her clit felt like soft
velvet. She squirmed. Lord, she needed to get laid. Dianna darted a considering
glance at Taylor. Uh-uh. No way. Wasn’t happening. He’d gobble her up and spit
out the pieces. Her heart would never survive a relationship with Taylor
Spencer.

It
was all she could do to keep from tugging on the hem and dragging it back to
her knees, not that it would reach them, but she felt like trying.

Icy
contempt replaced the feral heat in his eyes. “You have no worries,” he
snapped. “I’m sure most men are completely turned off by your face and your
figure. Your legs aren’t any more enticing than your boobs. Don’t bother trying
to pull down the skirt…I’m not remotely tempted.”

Dianna
stilled her nervous fingers. “Then stop looking,” she said in a tiny voice.
God, did he have to hammer home the fact he couldn’t stand anything about her?
Talk about a punch below the belt.
Nice
shot, Spencer. What’s your encore?

She
couldn’t look at him or else she’d burst into tears. He was King of
slap-you-down-and-trample-on-you. She should have known better than to try and
fight him on his level.

Dianna
kept her gaze pinned straight ahead on the fabulous clouds he found so
fascinating.

Don’t
cry! Don’t give him the satisfaction of breaking you again. Just because he
managed to make you cry once before with his cheap shots, don’t let it happen a
second time. You know he’s a jerk.

She
blinked away the tears stinging her eyes and inhaled deeply. Well, score one
for the no longer silent man. When he decided to crawl out of his shell, he
knew how to punch a wallop. But then, he’d been slugging her with insults for
weeks. He’d made her life a living hell in Montana. She should be used to his
cutting words by now.

Defeated,
Dianna allowed her shoulders to slump. She knew she was no raving beauty, but
she wasn’t an ugly witch, either. She squared her shoulders. All right. Let him
have it his way. No more small talk. She wasn’t a masochist.

The
quiet bubbled and brewed until it grew into a monster. It ate away at the
cramped space of the cockpit. Tension danced around them like streaks of jagged
lightning.

Dianna
drew a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Jesus, even the walls of the plane
seemed to breathe with her, expand and shrink, expand and shrink. It was like
waiting for a ticking bomb to go off. Any minute now, the cockpit would
explode, and she’d be seated beneath a boiling mushroom cloud, trapped in the
fallout of the nuclear heat. Claustrophobia in the cockpit was a new sensation,
one that left her miserable.

She
turned her attention to the instrument panel and double-checked everything. The
only thing she wanted now was to land the plane and get as far away from Taylor
as she could, before she shamed herself and burst into tears. She didn’t think
her ego could take much more bruising.

Boom!

Abruptly
the tense quiet exploded with the bone-chilling blast.
Dianna jerked. “Oh, shit,” she screamed.

Taylor
jumped, spilling hot coffee on his jeans. “What the hell was that?” Brushing at
the wetness spreading across his crotch, he sucked in a sharp breath. “Fuck,
you think my dick is so useless you try to scald it off?”

“Jesus,”
Dianna muttered. That was a real blast, not one from her imagination. Flames
burst from the left front wing. Black smoke boiled into the clouds. The left
engine coughed and died.

Taylor’s
eyes flashed blue fire. “Stop pranking with the plane, Dianna. It’s not funny.
I didn’t know planes backfired, but stop messing around. I mean it.”

“Birds.”

“What?”

“They
flew into the propellers.”

“You’re
kidding!”

“I
would not kid about something like that, Spencer. Oh, God!” She whipped her
head to her left and gasped. “Part of the left propeller just flew off. And
there goes the other half!” She dared a glance at Taylor. He was staring at her
as if she’d suddenly grown a third eye.

Her
nerves twisted into a sick knot. Her bowels loosened. She thought for sure she
was going to discharge the explosive diarrhea she’d threatened Taylor with
earlier. Her bladder screamed with sudden fullness. Her breath rose to the back
of her throat and sealed off her airway like a wedge of cement.

This
was so not good!

The
1985, twin-propeller Cessna plane she was flying was big enough to carry five
passengers, plus her, and a passenger up front. They were at least six thousand
feet. The inevitable crash was going to take several minutes—an eternity—but
this was a small plane. What were their odds of survival? Not much.

Boom!

Taylor
slated a suspicious glance at her. “Are you going to tell me that was birds,
too?”

“That,”
she said faintly, clenching the yoke as
wave after wave of terror washed over her, “is the voice of trouble!”

Chapter Two

Show me a sane man and I will
cure him for you.

~Carl Gustav
Jung

North Western Australia

The Kimberly

February 7, Saturday

“Define
trouble,” Taylor said, panic rising in his voice inside the cockpit. “Trouble
is my appendix rupturing or my asshole exploding. You know, diarrhea, something
you’re apparently fond of, but the front of the plane is on fire. That’s more
than a
little
trouble.” He ripped her
apart with his hateful gaze. “Damn it, I knew you were a winged terrorist! All
you need is scales and you’d be a mean-ass dragon.”

Dianna
bit her lip. “Technically, the front of the plane isn’t on fire, just my left
engine.”

“Technically,
I don’t give a shit! What’s happening?”

“You’re
so smart, Spencer,” Dianna cracked, clutching the yoke tighter, “you figure it
out.”

The
aircraft bounced around, shaking violently as it hit pockets of air.

Taylor
swore savagely. “Okay, the little thing you did with the wings wasn’t funny,
but this really is not funny. See? I’m not laughing. This is me being serious.
So stop trying to scare me. Please God, let this be another one of her mean
pranks. Let the vicious witch be joking.”

Dianna
cut her eyes toward him. “Are you praying out loud? About me?”

“Yes.
Something wrong with that?”

“It
gives me the creeps, especially the part about the vicious witch. You gotta
make up your mind. Am I a witch or a winged terrorist?”

“Both!
You’re a terrifying witch, part devil, part dragon!”

The
plane’s right engine coughed.

Taylor
looked horrified, his eyes wild. Sweat poured down his face. “I can’t face
death again. The last time I was injured was a nightmare. So cut it out,
Dianna! Your childish pranks are getting old, fast.”

“I’m
not doing this on purpose, Taylor.”

“Please,
God, You and I know she’s rabid. She’s just trying to scare me.”

“Puh...lease.
Do you really think I equipped the
plane with fly-away parts and a free fireworks display?”

Taylor
eyed her. “For God’s sake, woman, you’re panting like you’re about to give
birth.”

“So
are you!”

“I
mean it,” he snapped. “You’ve had your fun.” He made a sharp motion with his
hand toward the front of the plane. “Start the engine back. You don’t have to
crash us just to force me to talk to you. I’ll talk to you. Hell, I’ll burn
your ears with twenty-four-hour-a-day conversation. I’ll give you every cup of
coffee you ask for. Start the friggin’ motor!”

Dianna
rolled her eyes, took a slow, deep breath, and adjusted her mouthpiece.
“Mayday! Mayday! This is C-flight eight-seven-five-three-one. Repeat. C-flight
eight-seven-five-three-one. Mayday! Mayday! Anyone in the area, my location
is,” she hesitated, darted a glance at the nice, sturdy instrument panel and
groaned. None of the dials were working.

Taylor
traced her hopeful gaze to the instrument panel. “Shit! What does that mean?
All those hands frozen, what does it mean?” He pointed at the instrument panel.

“It
means we’re really screwed without benefit of pleasure.”

He
jumped as the plane’s nose shot down, leveled off, and then the aircraft simply
dropped into sailing mode. “That felt peculiar.”

“Change
in gravity, leaves you with that zero feeling in your gut, like speeding over a
hill on a highway and suddenly dropping into a dip. As a rule, lightweight
planes don’t nosedive into a crash at hundreds of miles an hour, thank God, but
the landing isn’t going to be pretty. Fasten your seatbelt, Spencer.”

Taylor
snorted. “You really think it’s going to make a difference?”

“It
might.”

“Not
likely.”

“Fasten
your damn seatbelt!”

He
ignored her.

“Fine!
Get your ass killed! Mayday! Mayday! This is Dianna Remington. I have two souls
aboard. We’re going down somewhere in the Kimberly.”

Taylor
gave a short laugh.
“Somewhere
in the
Kimberly?”

Dianna
ignored him and whispered a prayer as the aircraft lost altitude. It glided
toward the wild terrain below. Closer. Closer. Even without power, the gradual
descent was much faster than she wanted. Nothing was going to be easy about the
crash when it came. Okay. Okay. She had to think. Think! Wheels up. Hold it
steady. Keep it level. Level! Avoid trees.

There
were trees, way too many trees. She frowned. Why were there trees? This wasn’t
right. Shit! She might have managed a half-assed decent landing in the desert,
but not in this infestation of–of—
jungle?

As
her brothers were fond of saying,
It
isn’t the flying that kills you, but the takeoff or landing
.

If
Taylor and she survived the impact, chances of rescue were going to be slim.
She couldn’t say with any degree of certainty where they were, but she knew
damn well they shouldn’t be crashing into a rainforest.

Fear
surged through her and gripped her in its terrifying claws. Her heart skipped a
beat, maybe several, she didn’t know. Dizziness swept over her like the icy
fingers of death.

Realizing
she was holding her breath, Dianna exhaled slowly. Her voice cracked, “Last
known location, Western Australia, five hun–hundred mi–miles southeast of
Broome and ah—eight hundred miles so–south of Darwin.”

Taylor
shot her a look filled with incredulity. “That certainly narrowed it down.”

“Don’t
be sarcastic. It’s the best I can do, Spencer. Western Australia’s big. I don’t
know where we are, but I don’t think we’re in the heart of it.”

“Cut
it out,” he ordered. “It isn’t funny.” He held onto the dash with both hands.

“I
know. I’m sorry I made the crack about crashing the plane.
Ow!”
She jerked the headphone off her head.

“What?”

Crackles
and static filled the cockpit; then the radio went dead. Dianna stared at the
headphone.

“No use staring at
it as if you’re holding a spitting cobra in your hands.”

She shot Taylor a
look she knew was bound to be filled with fear. From the whiteness etching his
mouth, she figured he understood they were in a bad way. His remarks to her
about it all being a joke was his way of denying they faced death. She gave a
helpless shrug.

His
entire body shook.

Her
entire body shook.

Worse,
the plane’s tube-like body shook, which made them shake even worse.

Taylor
yanked the small transmitter from her fingers with trembling hands. “Help!
Help! Somebody help us! I’m being held prisoner by a lunatic pilot! She’s going
to crash the plane right after she shits all over me!”

Dianna
burst into hysterical laughter. “That is
so
not funny.”

“No?
Then why are you laughing?”

She
gaped at him, eyes wide with disbelief. “Because I’m crazier than you? For
heaven’s sake, this is not a joke! Give me the damn thing. It’s dead.”

“Who’s
joking? You’re right. You’re crazy as a brain-dead spider on a hot rock. I
thought I might as well join you in your insanity.”

“I’m
crazy? You’re way ahead of me, Spencer.”

“I
didn’t threaten to crash the plane.”

“Hang
on!”

“To
what?
”

“Your
ass, if you can reach it.”

The
cold look in his eyes said it all. If they survived the crash, he was going to
kill her.

* * * *

Taylor
didn’t want to die. But the idea wasn’t nearly as distasteful as the thought of
pain. He’d had a year of pain.

Surgery.

Pain.

Grueling
physical therapy.

More
pain. More physical therapy.

Hell,
Dianna was right. His dick hadn’t worked in over a year, at least not when it
came to getting hard. Up until a few days ago, he’d had a tube shoved up his
penis just so he could piss. He didn’t have either worry now. He pissed without
problem. The raging hard-on he got every time Dianna twitched her pretty little
ass under his nose told him his cock worked just fine. His legs? Not so good,
but getting better.

He’d
barely regained the use of his legs when Jace ordered him to Australia with
Dianna, all because of some aunt who’d suddenly died from a massive heart
attack. So here he was, he thought glumly, stuck with the last female he ever
wanted to be trapped with, and it looked like he’d die with her, too.

What
if his legs were re-injured in the crash? Or, God forbid, what if he ended up
with no legs at all? Shit! Why’d he have to go and think of something like
that? Being crippled was bad enough. It hadn’t just impinged his physical
abilities. It had done a number on him mentally, too.

He’d
treated his sister like crap for over a year, laying guilt trips on Kaycee for
the car accident. Blaming her for their father committing suicide had been
cruel and unjust.

Taylor
sighed, disgusted with the things he’d said to his sister. He’d hear the
asshole words pipe out of his mouth, and it was as if he’d turned into someone
else, as if it wasn’t him making accusations, him, angry all the time. Worse,
he’d resented her and anyone else who tried to help him.

Now
he was going to die before he got the chance to apologize to Kaycee.

Death.
He couldn’t escape the word.

Taylor
blasted Dianna with a fierce glare. This was all her fault. She’d jinxed them
with her threat to crash the plane. He slid his gaze over her hands. Her
fingers were wrapped around the yoke so tight her knuckles looked like bleached
bone. She had to be as terrified as he felt. They were losing altitude by slow
degrees, a miserably long time to anticipate dying.

She
alone struggled to keep the plane level so they’d land smoothly. No matter what
she did, it was going to be a belly-flop. Without power and landing gear, there
was no way she could manage a smooth landing, not with the rough terrain
rushing toward them.

He
drew a sharp breath. Why did she always bring out the worst in him? The woman
rubbed him the wrong way nine times to Sunday. It was those exotic, cat-green
eyes of hers. A man could drown in the vast ocean of her eyes. And her soft
lips. He’d tasted them once, touched her breasts once, and suckled the tight,
coral-tipped nipples.
Once.
Lord!
Taylor wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Once had
only whetted his appetite.

Damn
it, he didn’t want to die, not until he’d thoroughly sampled her. Not until
he’d had the opportunity to trace his tongue along the curve of her delicate,
shell-like ears, taste every flawless inch of her smooth skin, and bury his
cock between her thighs, at least once.

Sex
hadn’t been a part of his life for over a year—closer to two years, actually.
If they somehow lived through this crash, by God he was going to fuck Dianna.
Not only would it take the edge off his needs, he figured it was no more than
he owed Jace for screwing Kaycee and making her pregnant.

A
screw for a screw sounded fair to him. Getting even with Jace was a bonus.
Taylor refused to listen to his conscience. By no means was he looking for a
relationship with Dianna; simple justice for the wrong done to his sister
worked just fine.

Getting
emotionally involved with the Remington Princess would be tantamount to
committing suicide. As far as he was concerned, she was a piranha, a onetime
deal between the sheets, and a means to settle the score.

He
looked at her, saw the terror on her pale face and swore softly. Hell, he
didn’t have to be a jerk at a time like this. She was scared. Shit, so was he.
But he was a man, and as such, he could at least offer her comfort.

Taylor
leaned across the cockpit and placed his shaking hands over hers. She gave him
a wild look mingled with gratitude. Tears filled her lovely eyes. Her beautiful
mouth trembled. “I’m sorry.” She gripped his fingers. “We’re going down,” she
said in a shaky voice.

“I
know.” He clenched his teeth. “All I ask is that you don’t break both my legs
in the landing, or my back…been there, done that.”

She
laughed a faint, watery sound. “I swear I won’t. Hold on to me. I don’t want to
die alone.”

He
leaned as close as possible and drew her face protectively against his chest.
“Don’t look, baby.”

Dianna
buried her face deeper against his chest. “No. I won’t look. I don’t want to
see death coming at us.”

The
plane glided so smoothly, Dianna could hardly believe what was about to happen,
but she knew when they hit the trees and concealed rocks, the aircraft would
shear apart.

She
held her breath. Her heart beat so frantically, it hurt. Her lungs ached for
air. It would have been nice to settle things with Taylor before they died. Too
bad there was so little time left them. Too bad she wanted him, and he detested
her.

Wanted
him?

Shit,
was she in love with the big jerk? How could she be in love with such an
asshole?

“Here
it comes,” he whispered.

He
tightened his hold on her, tilted her face to his. “Look at me, Dianna.”

“Taylor.”

She
lifted her gaze to the window. Everything was such a blur rushing toward them.
Her breath hitched.

“No,
sweetheart, look only at me. Dianna, look at me!”

She
turned her head, and locked her gaze with his.

“That’s
my girl.” Slowly, he settled his mouth on hers. Her breath caught. Oh, yeah.
She was definitely a goner. She’d been a goner for months now. Why had he
waited so long to kiss her again?