by Cait London
“Well, shit,” he muttered when Sandy almost stumbled in a slight ditch. If Jemma broke anything, he’d be to blame. Then she’d have him dancing to her tune....
Dammit. He’d wanted to pound into her, to lose himself in all that fiery softness. His body ached now.... Dammit.
*** ***
When the first of May lay green upon the land, the recent rains feeding the creeks and fields, Hogan leaned back against his extended-cab truck.
At one o’clock in the afternoon, Kodiak was like any other quiet Western town, and he’d missed the friendly warmth of families he’d known. He’d grown to enjoy the shopping trips with Dinah, Carley, and Jemma and it was time for more potting and planting.
He was just discovering how much he liked the feminine spring ritual. When Jemma bent over the pots, digging with her spade, her hair all propped up into a cute little topknot, her hips were nice and round and just about two handfuls— if he’d dared.
Hogan sighed. All in all, he was enjoying himself— if only Carley wasn’t in danger....
He’d missed rural Montana, the timeless spring planting and the town he’d known all his life.
Kodiak was a single main street lined with two-story adobe stores that had been redone with contemporary signs. Jedidiah Kodiak, the drover who never returned to Texas after that cattle drive, had married a mountain man’s daughter. Jedidiah’s statue stood in the center of the small city park. Small dark taverns that had operated since the town’s rip-roaring gold days now had neon beer signs. The two small friendly cafes were always busy, the grocery stores still locally owned, untouched by large chains.
A small bakery, a real-estate office, the sheriff’s department and a combination drugstore and dry goods store completed the picturesque street. Just off Main Street, new and used tractors were sold and repaired. The nearby gas station still catered to teen boys and their vehicles. The lumberyard stood on the other side of the street, racks of new plants standing in green rows in front of it. A sign read, Chicks Inside.
Cars and trucks lined Kodiak’s streets, talk of cattle prices, horse breeding, and crops drifted pleasantly on the air. The two-story house with the big painted sign in the front yard was the local museum, tended by Kodiak’ s Historical Society.
Hogan turned his face up to the sun and thought of Jemma. He’d enjoyed that quick flash of awareness when she came too close.
Wrapped in the novelty of letting a woman know that he was coming after her, that he wanted her for his own was a game he’d learned to enjoy.
Wary of him now, Jemma did not come near him. Teasing her with a brush of his finger across her cheek had become addictive. Hogan had made a point not to miss meals at his father’s now. Sitting beside her, nudging her with his knee, putting his arm across the back of her chair at meals was sheer pleasure. Jemma was as aware of him as a mare of a stallion— and he intended to claim her.
Since that kiss, he’d fought the need to go to her, to finish it, to make love to her, crazy or not.
But every hunting instinct in Hogan, his male senses, told him that he would make love to her and soon. She wouldn’t be thinking about that television producer or anything else in her whirling, fast-paced life, but him.
Maybe those instincts went back to his frontier blood, to his dark heritage, but Hogan knew he would claim Jemma.
Claim her. Hogan smiled at his thoughts as a familiar boy tossed a softball to him. Hogan tossed it back and settled firmly into his thoughts about Jemma. He’d known experienced women who wanted no more from a relationship than he. Hogan had never actively pursued a woman, or wanted to make her his own, exploring his fascination.
But corralling Jemma lifted every predatory male instinct in him. There was more than the taut sensual hunger tormenting him during sleepless nights. Jemma delighted him, filled him in some way he hadn’t known, and tangled his shadows with sunlight.
He’d had a taste now and he was addicted. He was eager as a boy, just looking at her walk set him off, drooling.
He smiled at the boy who had merged into a pack of others. It was a fine time in life for an experienced man to discover that a special woman excited him, made him feel alive and eager. But then he’d never been a boy flirting with girls; he’d taken and given, but not that dark, deep essence of himself.
Whatever prowled inside Jemma, that hungry ache she filled with plans and money, wasn’t sweet.
Hogan watched a mud-splattered truck pass, the back loaded with feed sacks.
She was hunting, too. And in this case, it was another man. Hogan didn’t like the thought of Les Parkins, her would-be producer, and Jemma in close proximity in her van.
So she’d gotten to him, so what? he thought angrily. Did she think she could just ignore that kiss, the way she went hot against him?
Les Parkins....Jemma was playing him, moving in to get what she wanted....
Hogan disliked her blatant flirting, the softening of her voice when she talked to Parkins on the telephone. He’d heard her talk like that other times, but this time, it nettled, set him on edge.
Hogan glanced at Jackson Reeves, who glowered at him from across the street. Jackson was a potential candidate as Carley’s attacker. The gas-station mechanic hadn’t been cooperative when questioned about his activities and whereabouts after Carley’s attack.
Jackson hadn’t liked Hogan since grade school. With a long criminal record of abuse toward women, Jackson had begun a brawl with Hogan. That was a mistake. Hogan’s contempt for a man who hurt women, children, and animals who could not fight back was put into a few neat jabs. He left Jackson sprawled on the station’s greasy cement floor with a promise to keep checking on him.
“I’ll get you,” Jackson had snarled.
“I’ll be waiting,” Hogan had returned, meaning it.
He glanced down the street and locked on to Jemma. With her hair aflame in the sunlight and her jeans hugging her hips and long legs, he turned to more enjoyable contemplations, like how she would look in nothing at all....
*** ***
“He’s still got it. Doesn’t have to do a thing, just stand there and women hover like flies.” Jemma watched Hogan, a worldly man at ease in the small Western town named after the Kodiaks. He seemed to be enjoying the day. In a black sweatshirt and black jeans, his hair tied at his nape with a leather thong, he’d captured the attention of several women, who had stopped to talk with him.
Carley shifted the catalog of upholstery swatches to her hip. “I can’t believe he’s in such a good mood. He’s so easygoing. He actually volunteered to take us shopping— not a drop of fear. Aaron and Mitch ran like the hunted. Ben actually paled, and they all headed for a tractor that needed repair.”
Jemma shivered just looking at Hogan’s long, dark, sensual stare at her. His hunger stretched across the distance, wrapped around her and punched every feminine nerve. Damn him, he knew how to make a woman want him, just by looking at her with those black eyes.
She hadn’t suspected that Hogan would want her, and as a prospective lover, he terrified her. He’d demand, every dark inch of his body would be hard packed and hot, and....
Jemma swallowed, remembering that hard ridge in his jeans, the way he pressed against her.... The way she’d dampened her jeans....
She could not afford to tangle with Hogan....
She shivered, despite the morning sunlight, aware that his long look had lowered, stroking her body. He had the look of a man who could wait for what he wanted, and he wanted plenty.
He was just too dangerous. She wanted men she could handle, manuever to her benefit. No way would Hogan ever soften, he hadn’t in all the years she’d known him.
A carload of teenage boys whistled at Carley and Jemma as they walked toward Hogan’s extended cab pickup. A three-year-old girl ran to him, lifting her arms to be held. With a quick grin, he picked her up, tossed her lightly in the air and braced her on his hip. An attractive woman, dressed in a green sweater and jeans, hurried out of the
grocery store, obviously in search of her child who was now sitting on Hogan’s shoulders, busily braiding his hair. The mother talked with Hogan, obviously enjoying his company, then lifted the girl down onto her hip. The girl stretched out her arms and Hogan bent for a kiss.
“Apparently, a woman’s age doesn’t matter.” Jemma tightened her arms around the cardboard box of paint, linoleum, and carpeting samples. She refused to look at the man she still tasted on her lips. She hadn’t anticipated the easy, seductive brush of his mouth, lifting, testing, and yet never connecting.
Damn him, she repeated. Hogan Kodiak knew how to play a woman’s senses, how to heat them into hunger.
Jemma knew how to kiss, how to pull back, how to tempt and yet not give. She wasn’t a tease; she merely refused to give more of herself than she wanted. But Hogan had made her come for him, demand from him. She hadn’t expected that slow seductive touch of his hands, those long fingers tracing her spine, stopping just above her hips.
His hands had moved over her, lightly, not caressing, just brushing, sensitizing her body and every nerve until she ached. She could taste the hunger, his desire, yet he controlled his body while hers was flung off into the white heat, aching for each touch.
She turned to glare at him now, and Hogan’s black stare revealed nothing. Then he began a slow devastating, taunting smile, and Jemma wished she could pick up the fifty-pound bag of potting soil and— She inhaled sharply.
She set the rules in her relationships, not that Hogan was a potential relationship. She chose the men she liked and never allowed them too close. A few dates, dinner and dancing, and she’d have enough. That raw edge to Hogan was not acceptable at all. Nor was the beguiling tenderness she hadn’t expected.
She had to remember his skill with animals. He could be seductive, and suddenly he was riding them....
Jemma shivered again, caught by the memory of Hogan’s tall dark rangy body locked with her pale one. She swallowed and missed a step down from the sidewalk; she quickly rebalanced and hefted the box tightly against her sensitized breasts. Hogan was definitely in pursuit and undaunted by her sharp barbs, or evasion of him. He just kept coming.
At the ranch, he’d blocked her exit of the barn, forcing her to step backward into the shadows. With a wall at her back, he’d placed his open hands on it, just inches from her face, his taller body heating hers, blocking out everything but him.
She’d been forced to look up the inches into his face, and when she did, Hogan’s long black lashes shadowed the sensual gleam in his eyes. His thumbs had brushed her temple, caressing her cheek.
“Get out of my way, Hogan,” she managed, her throat dry; her voice sounded breathless and sexy.
“You’re all nervous, Jemma. Afraid?” he’d asked in a husky tone that raised the hair on the back of her neck. She could have killed him for his knowing grin.
Air heated between them as Hogan’s finger trailed down her cheek, cool against the flush she hated. “We’re in this now, Jemma.”
“Oh, no, we’re not. You stay away from me,” she’d said.
His hard lips had lifted just that bit as though mocking himself. “Can’t.”
And just that quickly, he’d stepped back. For a moment, she couldn’t move, her legs weak. When she did, she managed to glare at him, lift her head and walk out of the barn into sunlight. And all the way, her backside heated as though Hogan was taking in every inch of her, devouring her....
She hadn’t expected that hot slap of desire, nor the tenderness and a feeling of coming home when she’d settled into his arms after that kiss on the mountain— his hands stroking her gently, his cheek nuzzling hers. Even more terrifying to her than his stormy hunger was the sense that he needed her, too. Hogan had never needed anyone....
She hadn’t expected the leaping of her heart when she saw him, when he turned and met her eyes as if he knew they were going to be lovers. Maybe she knew that, too, but making love with Hogan could be addictive and dangerous, and no easy time of it. He’d want more, take more than she’d want to give, and then he’d take even more....
A small boy came to slowly lean back against the pickup, mimicking Hogan. He studiously adjusted his small body in the same long-legged stance as Hogan’s, and crossed his arms over his thin chest. Hogan looked down at the boy and rolled one shoulder; the boy rolled his. Hogan studied the clear sky, and the boy lifted his head.
Jemma tried to breathe as the idea of Hogan, as a father, invaded her. She’d seen his patience with animals, who responded to him, but she hadn’t seen him win a small child’s heart. Clearly the boy adored him. She wondered, briefly, if Hogan had adored Ben in just the same way, watching and copying the typical western male stance.
Then Hogan reached into his pocket, carefully unwrapped a small lollipop, and stuck it in his mouth. After a moment, he gave one to the boy. Hogan crossed his arms again, clearly relaxed as he leaned against the truck.
The boy stuck the sucker in his mouth, checked Hogan’s stance, mimicked it, and crossed his small arms. Both males were clearly enjoying each other, the lollipop shifting as Hogan smiled. The boy’s sucker moved, and they grinned at each other. The boy reached into his pocket and showed Hogan a large white marble. Hogan crouched, took the marble, and shot it expertly against the storefront, watching it roll back to him. He nodded approvingly and handed it to the boy, who seemed delighted, running down the street to catch his mother.
The sight of Hogan, playing with a child, all long and lean, his hair still braided from the girl hit Jemma like a truck, the impact taking her breath away. He’d be a perfect father....
Jemma shook her head, trying to dislodge the thought that weakened her knees.
“Jemma?” Carley asked with a frown. “You look a little woozy. Are you okay?”
“I’m just fine.” Jemma plopped the cardboard box into the truck bed and hit it with her fist. He knew he was upsetting her and he was enjoying it. He wasn’t a gentleman at all. He lacked manners and.... Why did Hogan have to jolt her with unexpected softness? Why couldn’t he just be the same old dark, brooding male she loved to torment?
Dinah came out of the feed store and Richard Coleman, the small town’s only doctor, walked beside her, his arms full of her purchases. Hogan took them from Richard, placing them in the truck, and Richard smiled at Carley and Jemma. “Savanna said you’d come home. Welcome back.”
“Hi, Richard,” Carley said, hoisting the thick catalog of swatches into the back of the truck.
“Hi, yourself. I don’t suppose you still have that ring I gave you years ago?”
She nodded. “You were always so sweet.”
“So are you. If that hay fever starts to bother you when the alfalfa blooms, come in, and I’ll check you for a prescription.”
“Hi, Richard. Are you still collecting butterflies?” Jemma asked, and instantly felt sorry for the man who had taken over his father’s medical practice. Richard was too shy, but nice, really sweet— unlike Hogan.
Richard’s glasses glinted in the sun, his hair meticulous. His narrow face brightened at the mention of his collections. “I’m into antiquity now. You should come to the house and see my collections. Just got in a Mayan bowl. You, too, Hogan. I understand you’re quite the artist. Your work might be a good investment for me. I’d like to see it.”
Hogan nodded and flicked Jemma a lazy look that said he remembered those sultry minutes they’d shared in the barn. She sniffed, turned up her nose, and looked away, just to show him she had no idea what his look meant and that she was unaffected. But her senses had jumped into high gear, tasting the kiss once more. Hogan was coming for her and she feared her response, because he’d take too much....
Hogan’s body was too close now, heating her back and his breath stirred the tendrils by her cheek. If she just leaned back, she’d be in his arms again, and safe....
Did she really want “safe”? With Hogan? No way, she couldn’t afford taking that risk, not with him. Every sense she had,
every experience she’d had in her life, told her that Hogan would take her by storm and the aftermath could destroy her....
Jemma moved away from him. But she wanted to run....
“Mom is planning a party as soon as we can. You’ll come, won’t you, Richard?” Carley asked.
“Just let me know. I’ll be there. Come to the house sometime. Mother would like to see you, I know.” He got into a sedate black Cadillac and spoke through the open window. “Got to get back to the work. Had to run home to check on Mother. She’s developed a few problems, but I’m just a call away. If you talk to her, you’ll note she’s a bit forgetful and says odd things. Age, you know, and the shock of Father’s dying. I’d better go. Savanna is holding down the clinic.”
“Poor guy,” Carley said after Richard’s car rounded the street corner. “His parents always wanted so much out of him. Savanna likes working with him. She says he’s very good and patient. He’s never married. He’s so shy, but nice. I remember how Jemma terrified him. He was never certain of what she would try or do.”
“I felt sorry for him. I know his father thought I was an evil influence. That old man had a nasty look I didn’t like. I once saw him pick up Richard by the back of his neck and drag him away from us because Richard hadn’t completed his college-level math project. It was summer and he was only a sophomore in high school. Savanna was younger than he, but says if Richard got less than an ‘A’ he was terrified. Mrs. Coleman was always so nice, but she acted like all the life had been pumped out of her.”
“You, Jemma Delaney, are an evil influence on anyone,” Carley agreed with a grin. “And you’re used to acting as you want. We lesser mortals sometimes have to do what our families want.”
“Mine didn’t care,” Jemma stated softly, and shrugged away from the big hand that rested on her shoulder.
She didn’t want Hogan’s sympathy; she didn’t want anything about him.
*** ***
Chapter Six
