Renegade Man

by Parris Afton Bonds

  Glancing up at him through her lashes, she smiled hesitantly. “You’re very quiet, Jonah. What are you thinking about? Gold? That glittering prize at the end of your rainbow?”

  “No, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t.” He dumped the potatoes into the sizzling grease and turned to face her, damning his need for her. “What are you going to do when Chap comes back?”

  She stiffened. “What happened between Chap and me was over years ago.”

  “Was it?” He was past the boundaries of control now. “Or are you still aching for him to hold you in his arms—like this?” He captured her in an angry embrace, his hands clamped on to her ass, pressing her slender body against his.

  She stared up at his face, her dark brown eyes wide, her soft lips parted and trembling, her breath shallow and rapid. Something in her expression told him that she realized she had pushed him too far. “Chap was there, Jonah,” she whispered. “You weren’t. Your mind—your soul—was committed to far places and high adventure. You had a wildness, a restless zest for living. I— you—I admit my love for Chap grew partly from my need to escape the lure you held over me even then. Chap was solid and real.”

  “As real as this?” he growled. His head swooped down, and he closed his mouth over hers. Grasping her hair at her nape, he held her immobile, her mouth to his own. His teeth ground into her bottom lip as he forced her mouth open. His tongue slipped past the barrier of her teeth. The kiss deepened, and his tongue took its pleasure from her sweet mouth. It was a kiss that melted the great chill in him.

  His hands slipped under her shirt, taking the fabric with them, and moved up her ribs. The front of his jeans scraped against her bare ribs as his thumb found her nipple. Her heartbeat thudded wildly against his palm.

  She splayed her hands against his chest and started to struggle. When he raised his head, releasing her lips, his glazed eyes focused long enough to catch the momentary fear in her gaze, putting a quick halt to his passion. “Jonah,” she sobbed out.

  “What is it?” In his ears, his own breath was frayed, his voice harsh. “This is what you’ve been wanting, isn’t it? To be treated as a woman? Or did I guess wrong about the game you’ve been playing all night?”

  She stared at him long and hard, her breath rasping between her parted lips. “No. But not out of anger, Jonah. Not as if you’re getting even with me for what happened in the past.”

  He dropped his hands from her rib cage. Rage at her, revulsion at himself, tore through him. A muscle ticked at the side of his neck. “Just what the hell do you want from me?”

  “I want you to care!” she gritted. “I want it to be more than just sex for you!”

  He frowned, and she hurried on. Her hands were pressed against his chest, her eyes pleading. “I’m not deluding myself. I know you’d never want to bind yourself to anyone permanently. But couldn’t you show you care, Jonah? Is that asking too much?”

  Yes! he wanted to shout. But the smoke that began drifting from the frying pan cut short his inner agony. He spun around and turned off the kerosene stove.

  Rita-lou shoved a flour sack at him. “Here!”

  He dumped half its contents over the grease fire, and the fire lowered, but didn’t go out.

  “Make a wish and blow it out,” she said, smirking.

  “Cut the wisecracks.” The camper was filled with gray smoke now, and he grabbed a dishcloth, then picked up the smoldering pan and carried it outside. The cool mountain air rushed over him, cooling his own smoldering desire.

  He turned his eyes up to the stars splattered across the black sky. He couldn’t make the mistake of touching her again, he thought. Because he didn’t think he could have her body without surrendering his soul.

  That night he awoke, the sheets tangled around his body and soaking wet with sweat from wanting her. And he had thought he was over her.

  Across from him, she slept easily, unaware of the danger.

  Chapter 8

  “No, no! Look, Ritz, you’ve gotta keep control of the nozzle or else you’re gonna suck up sagebrush and cow chips, even that tent stake, for God’s sake!”

  She glared up at him, squinting against the blazing sunlight. “You look, Blackbeard! If you don’t have the patience to show me how to handle this pile of hardware, then don’t volunteer.”

  Hands on his hips, Jonah drew a deep breath that expanded his bare chest, then slowly exhaled as if he had been counting to ten. The burnished gold hair matting his chest was damp with sweat. “All right, all right. Back on one knee. Okay, all you have to do is angle the hose across your thigh. Keep a grip on the nozzle—that’s it—and toss away any stones or driftwood that are too big.”

  He bent over her again. His arms were wrapped around her, his hands over hers, showing her how to hold the vibrating hose steady on her thigh. She inhaled his essence, a compound of male sweat, hormones and natural odors. She had to fight to keep from shuddering with the overpowering sexual craving to have him inside her. It was like craving chocolate an dknowing that it was bad for her.

  With Robert, her feelings had been precious, tender and sweet and deeply caring. Jonah made a chaos of her feelings. She felt dust devils and hurricanes, earthquakes and tidal waves. Feelings that were wild and uncontrollable, violent and elemental.

  Dear God, was there some flaw in her personality that made her care for a man who could never—had never—opened himself to her? Did she have some sort of emotional death wish? Or was she just a congenital idiot?

  She closed her eyes, but she couldn’t close out Jonah and the feel of his body against hers. After his dry sense of humor, she liked his body next: his powerful neck and shoulders, taut with tension; his perfectly proportioned torso; the long, hard thighs; the strong hair-dusted hands, their palms rough enough to snag delicate fabrics.

  And if that glorious body wasn’t enough, there was the lure of his face to contend with. Even when he was moody, like now, his face looked ruggedly beautiful. This afternoon his eyes and mouth were flat with petulance, but it was a manly petulance. And when he smiled, that crooked front tooth practically gleamed with its singular charm. How she loved that . . .

  “Damn it, Ritz! Will you pay attention?”

  She flashed him a look of pure disgust. “I’m trying to. But how can I, when you’re muttering like that?” He scowled at her. Beneath the brim of his Stetson, a vertical line creased the high bridge of his nose, and his mouth flattened. “This is the last time we’re gonna go over this.”

  She listened this time. Or tried to. Because what he was telling her was important if she was going to regain the two weeks of work she had lost to the stampede. When he thought she had his instructions down pat, he released her and stepped back, arms folded, watching her work on her own. The suction of the dredger, fitted onto his pickup bed, was powerful, and it was all she could do to hold the jumping hose.

  Magnum barked ferociously at the animated contraption, circling around it as if it was a coiling rattler. With her free hand, she began to dislodge the bigger stones from the path of the hose. Once it a¬most got away from her, and she sneaked a glance at Jonah. He pushed the Stetson to the back of his head and rolled his eyes skyward.

  “You don’t have to baby-sit me, Jonah Jones!”

  “You’ve got a smart mouth, Ritz. All right. You’re on your own, sweetheart!”

  She watched him stalk away, a loose-jointed, rolling gait that might have been that of a sailor but re¬minded her more of a trail-weary cowhand. The western sunlight shone behind him, outlining his forbidding height.

  The movement of the hose against her thigh forced her attention back to the dust swirling around her bare legs. This certainly wasn’t the delicate process she was accustomed to in excavating.

  For the rest of the day she worked with the dredger. Even after she shut it down, every bone in her body vibrated like a jackhammer. Her hands were scraped and bleeding from handling rocks, and several of her fingernails had broken off at the quick. Sweat, mingled
with dirt, coated her entire body, and her hair was stiff with red dust.

  Bath. The one word promised a glimpse of heaven.

  But she still had cigar boxes of shells, sherds and spearpoints to recategorize. Boxes in hand, she started back toward Jonah’s camp, only to be sidetracked by the Renegade’s deliciously gurgling, cool water. Its rippling surface sparkled in the sunlight.

  She settled the boxes securely in a U formed by a cottonwood’s roots and began to disrobe: tennis shoes and socks, jeans and shirt. Magnum dropped down beside the mound of clothing to nap beneath the cottonwood’s shade.

  The late-afternoon breeze, hot and dry, evaporated the sweat sheening her flesh. Clad only in her panties and bra, lacy things wholly impractical for her pragmatic career, she waded into the rushing stream. The fine sand scrunched between her toes. The cold water inched up her sun-heated flesh, topping her knees.

  Bliss!

  She began to splash her arms and chest with the water. Twice Magnum barked in his sleep, probably at an imaginary cat. Chuckling, she turned to waken him, and all the air rushed out of her lungs.

  Staring at her, Jonah stood on the gravelly bank beside a yawning Magnum. His jaw was tight with tension, and anguish simmered just below the surface of his blank expression. “I heard the dredger engine stop—”

  “I . . . I got hot.”

  “Is there any reason why I find you in the water so often? Washing away your sins.”

  She should have been affronted. Would have been affronted a week ago. But her inner wisewoman suspected it wasn’t judgment that drove Jonah to castigate her but desire. He had to feel something for her. He couldn’t have been unaffected by last night’s kiss. The need to prove that she was a woman after three years of emptiness and frustration and denial— the need to prove that he felt something—made her lift her hands slowly to unfasten the bra’s front hook. Slowly she removed the bra, hoping to tantalize him, to torture him with the same need she was feeling. She let it float across the water to wash ashore near his scuffed boots.

  His body was rigid, his expression as dark as a thundercloud. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  She wasn’t going to let that frown deter her. “I told you I was hot,” she offered with a look of wounded innocence, but her mouth felt dry. “I’m cooling off – and making quite sure I wash away all my sins.”

  He glowered down at her. “Damn it, I’ve seen breasts before, Ritz. They usually come in pairs.”

  Embarrassment flushed through her, heating her flesh all over again. But she couldn’t cop out now. Her thumbs slid inside the elastic of her lacy panties. Nervously, she peered up at him through her lashes. “Good. Then you don’t have to bother to turn your head, do you?”

  He looked rough and mean. His voice had a jagged edge to it. “I don’t play games. You better be sure you know what you’re doing, sweetheart.”

  She swallowed. He was calling her bluff. Her thumbs inched the panties downward. Her lids closed, blocking out his fierce, hostile face. She knew she would regret what was going to happen, because she didn’t want it to happen like that between her and Jonah ... not something that was cold and taunting and careless.

  He knew what she was like, knew she never surrendered. Wouldn’t he leave her with any shred of her dignity?

  Grandpops would have said she was cutting off her nose to spite her face, but then, Rita-lou Randall had never been one to call it quits. She opened her eyes. Jonah’s expression scared her. His gaze followed the panties as she tugged them down, then came back to the golden fleece they had been covering.

  Battling the current, first on one leg, then the other, she tried to slip the panties off gracefully. He wiped his arm across the back of his mouth, a gesture that didn’t bode well. Still, she tossed the soggy scrap of nylon and lace toward the bank.

  At that moment Magnum chose to remember he was a Labrador retriever and made a leap for the airborne article. With a cannonball dive that splashed water in her eyes and drenched her hair, the dog paddled toward her, the panties successfully retrieved and clamped as delicately as a wounded duck between his jaws. She wanted to groan at the humiliation of it all, but Jonah’s 90-proof grin cut her short.

  “Go away!” She glared at him through water-heavy lashes. She yanked the panties away from Magnum. “Get out of here, Jonah Jones. And so help me God, if you say one thing, I’ll... I’ll...”

  But he was already ambling away, chuckling loudly enough for her to hear.

  By the time she dressed and returned to his campsite, he was back at the picnic table, sifting the day’s tailings through a sieve and separating the impurities on white paper anchored by rocks against any sudden breeze. At her approach, a broad locker-room grin spread across his face.

  The man had a positively tacky sense of humor. She sent him a look of disgust. There was a certain dignity in animosity. Sailing past him, she pushed furiously at a damp strand of errant hair that chose that moment to tumble from her skewered topknot onto her nose. As she climbed the two steps into the camper, he called out, “It’s your night to fix dinner.” Once inside, she speedily changed out of the wet underwear and dirty clothing into a string-knit-top over an ivory teddy that made her look as if she was naked underneath. She knew exactly what she was doing: preparing for battle.

  Tugging on clean jeans, she mentally chided herself for leaving her white slacks at home, but they would have been impractical on a dig. She found her brush among the other personal toiletries she had stored in the small cabinet above her bunk and brushed her damp hair until it felt fluffy and flowing. Then she quickly dug into her shoulder bag and came up with a tube of lipstick. Lastly she riffled through the purse’s contents for a perfume sample and used it sparingly. There. Now she felt armed with a woman’s defenses against Jonah’s sea-wolf attraction.

  His display of humor diminished visibly when he entered the camper. He eyed her clothes, and his nostrils flared, picking up her perfume. She had succeeded too well. And then there was the camper’s small size. They had no space to protect them from the sexual frustration that crackled between them.

  Saying nothing, he pulled on a navy sweatshirt whose seams were strained by his broad shoulders. His hair was wet, and he was clean and fresh-smelling, telling her that he, too, had washed in the river after finishing his work. The cold water hadn’t improved his mood. He wore a bad-tempered frown that drew his brows together over the bridge of his nose.

  Dinner was a silent, tense affair. The tuna sandwich she had fixed was dry in her mouth. Across from her, Jonah munched on his with an expression that told her he’d be just as happy chewing burnt cardboard.

  She wet her lips nervously. “You don’t like me staying here, do you?”

  “Your cooking’s not fit for a dog.”

  The fine hairs at her nape bristled. “If I remember right, Long John Silver, even Magnum wouldn’t eat the potatoes you charcoaled!”

  His eyes narrowed, and his jaw set in a hard line. “Those potatoes were charcoaled because you couldn’t resist seducing the old boyfriend cooking them.”

  “Boyfriend! I don’t think sworn-in-blood secrets twenty-five years ago and a few pecks on the cheek qualified you as a boyfriend.” She struck where she knew he was most vulnerable. “You didn’t have half the charm Chap did, Jonah Jones!”

  His expression became a mean sneer. “That doesn’t seem to bother you now. You seem more than willing to surrender your charms to me.”

  A part of her was pleased by his angry mood. Maybe it meant he did care beyond his obvious desire for sex with her. A little, anyway. At that moment she figured something out about Jonah: he believed that if he didn’t let himself need anyone, he couldn’t be hurt. He protected his vulnerability behind a shield of immense self-containment.

  She smiled coolly. “Maybe that’s because you’re here and he’s not.”

  “Sweetheart, I’ve sampled some of the most delightful charms in the world, and you don’t know what charm
is. It’s certainly more than flaunting your.. .assets. A dockside doxy can do that—and a whole hell of a lot better than you’ve been.”

  “Any inadequacy I may have hasn’t seemed to stop you from staring like a horny teenager!”

  He thudded his glass on the table, and milk splashed on his hand. “I’m going into town.”

  She slammed her half-eaten sandwich on the paper plate. “Well, so am I!”

  He stood up, towering over her. “Not with me, you’re not.

  She slid from the bench to face him. “Did I say I wanted to ride in with you?” She reached around behind him and grabbed her shoulder bag from the alcove above her bunk. Fumbling inside for her keys, she yanked open the door.

  A hand slammed it shut. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Slowly she turned, her gaze going from the sun-browned hand inches from her head to his face. The icy expression in his eyes told her that she had pushed him too far. This wasn’t her childhood friend. This was a violent stranger. An image of him in hand-to- hand combat jumped into her mind. He would be victorious. He could inflict pain. Her hips bumped against the door as she tried to move away, but there was nowhere to go.

  She gathered her courage, stilling her trembling lips. Her chin tilted haughtily. She spaced her clipped words for emphasis. “I beg your pardon?”

  He raked his hand through his heavy hair, and she could tell he was trying to get control of himself. After a long moment he reached out and brushed her neck with his knuckles, saying, “Ditching me for Chap was the smartest thing you ever did, Ritz. We would have been a mistake together.”

  She stared up at his shuttered green gaze, unsure of how to react. Then he released her from his spell by stepping away from her. “No sense in both of us wasting gas making the trip into Silver City and back.” He grabbed his hat from the peg. “Let’s go.”

  She wasn’t about to argue.

  The ride into Silver City was as silent as dinnertime had been. Jonah drove his pickup along the winding road fast and furiously. With someone else behind the wheel, she would have been nervous, but she didn’t doubt for a moment that he was in complete charge of the vehicle. After all, hadn’t he told her that he’d learned to navigate sophisticated submersibles under the most adverse conditions?