by Cait London
Jemma took a deep breath and fired again. “I know what you’ve done, coming back here, remodeling this place and putting yourself right in front of Ben— you’re out to take Ben to task for everything you’ve held against him. You are absolutely, truly, one-hundred percent certified perverse. You think it’s time and—”
“Take it easy,” Hogan warned, uncertain if his leashes would hold when Jemma pushed too close to his raw, exposed edges. None of them knew how deeply he’d needed to know about his mother, needed to know who he was; he hadn’t let them inside to see that gaping pain and uncertainty.
“Don’t think I didn’t understand how you felt, a dark-skinned, black-eyed member of the family— Hogan, you positively wallowed in that status, looking down at the rest from your lofty perch.... I know how that feels, not being a part of a family. I wanted something in my life, too, and it just wasn’t there. Did I step into a big dark hole and pull it around me? No. But you did. You’ll tear them apart and yourself. Right now, you’re like some big, dark thunderstorm that can erupt at any minute.”
She paused, then continued slowly as if making a solemn promise. “But I may lay off you. I just may, if it will help Carley. I know that you will do everything in your power to protect her. I want your promise that you will not upset Dinah or Carley by arguing with Ben.”
“I haven’t seen him in years. I can’t promise anything—”
Hogan looked down to Jemma’s fist crushing the silk covering his chest. She’d ripped into him, sparing nothing.
“I can laugh,” he said, his pride jarred by her statement a moment ago.
“Really? I’ve never heard you, in all these years. I’ve never seen you really smile— You may not have seen Ben, but you’ve been tracking him. I’ve seen your expression when Carley or the rest say something about him. You’re storing every word, adding and subtracting. I know that look— I invented it and know what it means. You know his property value and how many cows he has—”
“Cattle,” Hogan corrected automatically and a bit sharply, with the impatience of a man bred to the West, dealing with city mentality.
“Fine, schmine. Cattle, then. You know what he’s got in the bank. I’m into computer tracking myself, and I found your marks all over anything concerning Ben Kodiak. We both know you could buy him out easily.”
Jemma pushed her face close to his, her eyes narrowed. “Now get this, Kodiak. I intend for this gig— everyone here, in Montana, at the same time— to work. I do not want anything to go wrong, to allow any arguments to leave Carley unprotected for one minute. One minute, Hogan. Got it?”
He stared down at her, giving her nothing. She leaned forward, eyes smoking, fists tight, and started hacking at him again. “Do you know how much work it is to get a mule-headed, slow-minded, dipped in bad memories and dysfunctional family like the Kodiaks all together in the same place? I’ve done it, and you’re not going to dig the scars deeper, Hogan Kodiak. I’ve worked too hard and I’m not getting any younger. Neither are you.”
For a moment, Hogan stared at Jemma, her eyes flashing like lightning ripping across steel swords. She wasn’t afraid to step into the past, or the future, and she wasn’t backing off.
“Take your hand off me, Jemma,” Hogan said too quietly, and knew that in another minute— He looked down to where her pale hand had slipped inside his shirt and rested against his bare chest. The contrast of male and female, light and dark, startled and excited him. Textures, colors, and forms, trapped in movement, had always been his downfall, his fascination, and Jemma was a mixture of all of them.
Stunned that his thoughts could run to Jemma-the-woman, he brushed away her hand and smoothed his wrinkled shirt, just as he would have liked to smooth away her interference in his life.
Jemma planted her body in front of him, her expression fierce. “Do you promise that you will try to get along with Ben?” she asked too carefully.
After warring with his need to end his passage, his quest for peace, Hogan nodded. “For Carley,” he said carefully.
“Yes, for Carley.” Her expression was worried now, looking up at him. “Do you think it’s a good plan, Hogan? Do you? She wouldn’t have left her job for any other reason than her family’s welfare. Do you think you and your brothers can protect her?”
At her first uncertainty, her concern for his sister, Hogan weakened. The dark circles beneath Jemma’s eyes said she’d missed sleep. He couldn’t resent Jemma when she loved Carley and would protect her with her life. “You shouldn’t feel guilty about this, Jemma.”
She ran her trembling hands over her face. “I shouldn’t have had her out there that night. It was my idea.... I love her as much as you do.”
“She’ll be protected here,” Hogan said, meaning it.
“I know. It’s as if the Kodiak men were bred to protect her, as if destiny made you all so hard and tough for just this moment. You’ll catch him, won’t you, Hogan?”
For the first time, Jemma looked weak and tired, her usual vibrancy darkened by worry. She looked helpless and delicate and wounded, and even as he reached for her, Hogan knew she would make his life unbearable.
“Yes, like that,” Jemma whispered against his shoulder as his arms enclosed her. “I’m so scared, Hogan. You always know the right things to say. When things are coming apart, you’ve always been rock-solid. Say them now.”
“Carley will be safe. We’ll get him.” Against her vibrant warm hair, Hogan murmured what she needed to hear, though fear ran through him like an icy stake.
He held his breath, shocked that he was actually holding Jemma. She nestled against him, slender and feminine within his arms.
Hogan resented the need to hold her closer, to protect her. He’d known her since she was eight, scrambling up the roof with Carley to toss balloons filled with water at the Kodiaks. He shouldn’t have thought of her as a woman, but as his sister’s friend.
He frowned because, experienced in life, Hogan knew that Jemma had just aroused his sensual, prowling side. He didn’t like the idea, or the woman who huddled in his arms. He held his body taut, away from hers. “You should have told me sooner, Jemma.”
“I know. You always know how to make things right, but I thought the detectives could catch him—they couldn’t. I thought I could manage and not let it come to this, and Carley still doesn’t want Dinah or Ben to know about that night. She’s too afraid of hurting them—she’s just too afraid of anything. It’s bad enough for them to think she has a stalker now.”
Hogan held her a distance away. “You said there were detectives. I’ll want their report files. Do you want to stay here tonight?”
She shook her head, and a ripple of dark red hair caught the firelight, yellow citrine glistening in the highlights. “This visit is a secret between you and me. I don’t want the others to know that I want you to try with Ben. I had to see your face, to see your reaction. I didn’t want to hear that cold dispatch tone on the phone.... Do it for Carley’s sake, Hogan. You will, won’t you? For Carley? And for Dinah?”
Hogan raked her hair back from her upturned face, fisting all that rich, warm, silky color. “I’d die for Carley and you know it.”
Her smile was all slow, knowing, feminine pleasure. “I know. But I had to be certain that you wouldn’t ruin it by fighting with Ben.”
Hogan searched her pleading gray eyes and tried to isolate what fascinated him, that Jemma could reach into him and squeeze his emotions. “You’re asking a lot.”
“You’ll give a lot... for Carley and Dinah, won’t you?” she asked again. She was pressing hard, uncertain of Hogan’s bitterness against Ben.
“I would. Let me get this straight. Ben is sick, but not really. This is the reason we’re all going to make like a family, right?”
“For a start... I’ll work on the details. Now hold me just a bit more before I have to leave. I never break down, but—”
When Jemma began to shake and tears filled her eyes, Hogan tugged her into his arms
and held her tight, his hand cradling the back of her head.
“I knew I could count on you,” she murmured against his chest. “I always could. I couldn’t bear it... if anything happened to Carley. She’s been through enough.”
Hogan closed his eyes and Carley’s scream ripped through him again, the way she looked, clothes torn, trying to cover her body with her hands, the red marks on her face, arms and legs. When they’d turned into big bruises, imprints of a man’s fingers and fists, they sickened him almost as much as the terror in her eyes.
It had never gone away—the terror of that night. Carley had never laughed or smiled as she had before the attack.
The scene flashed through him once more and then died as Jemma’s arms gripped his body tighter, her breasts soft against him.
He stood, holding Jemma, his face lifted away from that rich color of her hair, the warmth in it. Maybe the words were in him, maybe they’d been stripped away, but he couldn’t tell her how much he ached for his sister, too.
Who was that bastard, that son of a bitch who had jumped Carley, stripped and hurt her? That sick, son of a bitch, had waited and was playing a game that had to be stopped.
Carley’s shattered face, her bruised body, flashed in his mind again. Hogan fought his anger, the urge to wrap his hands around the man’s throat and squeeze slowly— after beating him to a pulp.
He didn’t like anger, didn’t like the grip it could take on him, but in his nightmares, Carley’s scream tore into the night and her savaged face and body haunted him.
Now that bastard was back, wanting more of Carley, toying with her.
And no one had told him before Jemma... Carley hadn’t trusted him. Why? Why wouldn’t she?
And that hurt...
After a time, Jemma stopped shaking, and Hogan eased her away, disliking the unsteady emotions she could arouse in him. He’d wanted to hold Jemma closer, to stroke that long curved back and fill his hands with her bottom— “You’d better be going.”
She smiled brightly, pushing her hand through the fabulous red mane he longed to hold like living fire in his hands. “Sure. Thanks. Don’t forget Mitch and Aaron will be here next week. Dinah, Carley, and me the week after. See you in two weeks. Bye.”
At the doorway, Jemma turned to him, her expression urgent, the taunting wiped away by fear for Carley. “Help me make this work, Hogan. Do not start with Ben. Let’s get through this. Find that bastard and make him pay.”
“He’ll pay.” Hogan forced his body to relax, muscle by muscle, pushing the rage from him. Or was his body tight, because he’d just held Jemma, responding to all that color and warmth, those smooth planes and softness?
He pushed away that thought. Not Jemma.
Jemma’s eyes locked with his, fierce gray warrior’s eyes in the face of a woman.
As her headlights ripped through the night, Hogan settled down into his thoughts, prowling through them. He couldn’t ignore his body’s need for Jemma, even as his mind told him that she was dangerous to him, to what he wanted.
After a moment, he turned and hurled his wineglass into the fireplace. “I’ll do what I have to do. I will find that bastard. Nothing is going to happen to Carley “
He looked up to the firelight dancing between the rotating shadows of the ceiling fan’s blades. Hogan breathed deeply, inhaling the fragrance Jemma had left behind— and the excitement. He didn’t like how his senses responded to her body, not at all.
With a groan, he picked up the ringing telephone. Jemma’s voice came across her car phone, clipped, professional, irritated, impatient— “This place needs more cell towers. Don’t feel too bad about burning out, Hogan. You’ve got enough work out there, and we can mass produce the designs, use cheaper grades of stones and market discount—”
He hung up and stripped off his silks, jerking on worn jeans. He needed a good mean horse and a long midnight ride to get that woman out of his mind. Her taunts jabbed at him, and Hogan stalked out of the house, nettled that Jemma had once more gotten to him.
One minute she was pure Jemma— hard, slashing, and fast-moving and the next she’d moved into his arms with the natural ease of a lover. Hogan eyed his bronze eagle. “I do know how to laugh.”
But the night was too much like that night, and with the horse straining beneath him, Hogan fought the sound of Carley’s screams....
*** ***
“I will have Carley Kodiak as my bride,” the man at the top of the stairs murmured. Killing the old man had made him high with power. It was always such a thrill to kill....
A dentist and an amateur mystery sleuth, the old man presented a potential problem and had to be eliminated. Now the fragile old man lay broken like a rag doll at the bottom of the stairs.
The old man could have led the Kodiaks to him, and that wouldn’t do. Not when Carley was on his menu... when she had that terrified look on the street, shaken badly after he’d sent her the panties. She was his and she knew it....
The Kodiak family together had always been powerful, though the killer was much smarter and in the end, he would have Carley for his Celestial Virgin, his sexual slave.
As teenagers, the Kodiak brothers had dreamed of finding the legendary cave where the Chinese women were taken when they were of no more use to the frontier prospectors. The Kodiaks imagined they could ease the restless maidens’ spirits, returning their bones to China. The Kodiaks thought they were smart, but they weren’t, the killer decided firmly.
He took one last look at the old man as he passed, satisfied by that trickle of blood from his nose and mouth. He stared at the man’s neck, the beautiful odd angle that said it was broken. He inhaled and relived how the old man had begged for his life.
He smiled coldly. Carley’s screams had been much better. Beautiful, richly filled with terror...his Celestial Virgin.
The Kodiaks hadn’t found the cave, didn’t believe it existed. But it did, and it waited for Carley....
He’d have the prize of the Kodiaks, their precious little sister. Hell, why not, he thought, his smile growing. He deserved Carley.
They’d had everything, the Kodiak golden gods— each was talented, successful, charming. As high school sports stars, they were untouchable, and Hogan’s dark sensuality drew women— The Kodiak brothers had swaggered through town, showing off at rodeos.
He wasn’t jealous, of course, because he was superior to them. They’d had girls, but he would have what none of them had ever attained, a virgin. He would also have Carley— and in the cave, no one would hear her screams of pleasure.
He clutched the file folder he’d made the old man give him. He lit the old kerosene lamp, and tossed it into the cluttered office where it would catch on cloth drapes, quickly setting the house on fire. It would look like the old man was running for help and tripped, falling down the stairs.
The murderer laughed wildly and spotting an antique carved jade Buddha, swept it into his coat pocket— after all, old Doc Medford wouldn’t need it anymore.
*** ***
“I can handle this; everything is going just as planned. There’s plenty of time to get everything right.” Jemma circled the light plane over the Seattle runway approach.
Morning sunlight skimmed the clouds below her as she automatically checked the instruments and waited for permission to land. She was too tired, badly needing rest, but all the pieces were in place. She could trust the Kodiaks to act as a family to protect Carley. With Hogan in the mix, Carley was safe....
Carley would accept that Ben wanted his family together as he wound toward death. Mitch would come back from his social services work in Chicago; Aaron would fly in from his brokerage firm in New York. They’d put their lives on hold to protect Carley, and Ben would try to be less— just Ben, demanding, bitter, hurting.
“There isn’t any place safer for Carley than with her father and brothers,” Jemma stated firmly, believing it with all her heart and soul. Still, she liked repeating the litany, reassuring herself. “Hog
an isn’t ruining it. He knows it’s for Carley.”
Hogan was the same as he’d been when she’d seen him five years ago at Dinah’s home in Seattle. But he was harder, more stoic, as if he’d held in his storms too long, and they had eaten too much of him. He still resented his father, and hours ago, in his house, the fiercely bitter waves had slammed around her almost instantly.
She ached for him, not wanting to leave him. Maybe that was why she called back, taunting him, just to hear his voice. Despite the wars within Hogan Kodiak, he always seemed strong, secure. She hadn’t wanted to move into his arms, but instincts told her that she’d be safe there, that he wouldn’t refuse to hold her. A safe harbor, Hogan was one delicious-looking contrary male, with a maelstrom going on inside, bitterness against Ben, love for his family.
She could count on Hogan to help play this bastard, stop him from getting to Carley.
Jemma slashed away tears. She blamed her unsteady emotions on the tension of flying over the mountains in bad weather. She’d had to sweet-talk an aging playboy flight controller, land on an icy runway to refuel, and battle mountain currents with a small plane.
She was in no mood for Hogan to be tearing at her senses, for making her ache for him. “Damn him. Hogan still gets to me. He just always looks so lonely and brooding. I’m a sucker for that look, though I know he hasn’t a bit of softness in him.”
He’d had to be tough, surviving and caring for all of them through the years. He was always there, always calling— at graduations, sending presents, and he’d gotten a little colder each time, appeared more lonely, despite his success. A whole big piece was missing from Hogan, and she’d die for a real smile from him— just one really warm smile that reached those lovely, veiled black eyes.
She wiped away the tears streaking her cheeks and checked her instruments again.
At six-feet three inches, Hogan towered over her, and when he’d held her, there wasn’t a bit of softness in that hard rangy body. Always a man who liked to touch, drawing textures and images into him, Hogan’s body moved gracefully within his silk clothing as if it could be shed at any moment, as if he was accustomed to roaming his lair without it. He had smelled like— like Man, a clean, arousing scent that she associated only with Hogan.
