by Jeanne Allan
His hand tightened on her hip. “Regrets?”
J.J. ladled more water over him. “No.” The water ran in little rivulets down Luke’s chest. “Maybe.” She dipped her hand back into the water. “I don’t know.” She targeted one of Luke’s nipples with water droplets. “I don’t know what gets into me when I’m around you. Things like skinny-dipping are totally foreign to my nature.” J.J. slid away from him and moved across the pool, collecting their clothing, then waded back to the terraced rocks where Luke reclined. Handing him his briefs, she squeezed the water from her clothing. “I’ve never been the type who strips naked outdoors to do anything.”
Luke grinned at her wryly perplexed voice. “I don’t suppose it’s the sort of behavior lawyer ladies indulge in.”
Lack of clothing wasn’t the real issue, but J.J. couldn’t bring herself to discuss the physical attraction that once again brought about their downfall. She climbed up the rocks. “These wet clothes are going to be miserable to wear home.”
“You won’t need them under the sweat suit. Put the wet stuff in the bag.” He handed her a towel, and J.J. quickly dried off and dressed. Before she could put on her knit cap, Luke pulled her toward him and roughly toweled her short, damp hair. “I should have noticed you were getting it wet. Be sure you cover every single wet hair with your hat.” He led the way through the clouds of steam to where he’d tied the horse.
J.J. sat behind Luke, clinging to his waist, as they rode silently back to the ranch house through the star-filled night. Once, he halted Soldier and pointed. Two mule deer, their large ears alertly erect, stood stock-still, staring at horse and humans. When Luke nudged Soldier to move on, the deer abruptly turned and bounded away, their upraised tails flagging white in the pale moonlight. Proving they had more sense than JJ. They ran from danger; they didn’t move in with it.
Clouds hung low with the promise of snow as J.J. descended the courthouse steps. Filing Birdie’s various motions with the court had taken longer than she’d anticipated. Luke would be at the diner waiting. No doubt eating the last piece of banana pie. It seemed Susan always saved one slice of banana pie for Luke. Outsiders had to make do with whatever regulars didn’t want.
And JJ. definitely belonged in the outsider category. She could hardly wait to escape back to Denver where she belonged. Where she was wanted. No one wanted her here.
Luke’s behavior since their lovemaking in the thermal pool two nights ago clearly illustrated he regretted their actions. Not only had he not so much as stolen a teasing kiss since, but he no longer insisted JJ. spend every waking moment with him. No waking moment, in fact. No more requests to help feed the cattle. No more horseback rides. He showed up for meals and shut himself in his office after dinner. Were it anyone but Luke, she’d suspect him of inventing excuses to stay away from her.
He’d barricaded himself behind an impersonal civility J.J. found impossible to pierce. The past two nights she’d considered walking into his bedroom and tossing his reasoning back at him, that overexposure would kill off their physical attraction for each other. The realization Luke no longer felt attracted to her held her back. What if he kicked her out, or worse yet, what if he let her stay out of pity?
JJ. pulled her down coat snugly around her and set off toward the diner. She wasn’t keen about facing Susan again, but Luke’s suggestion they meet at the diner when they’d finished their individual business had been delivered in a challenging manner. J.J. had never excelled at backing away from a challenge.
Her steps lagged. She’d never been one to back away from facing the truth, either. Yet that’s exactly what she’d been doing the past few days.
She didn’t want it to happen; she didn’t know how it happened. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever. None of which changed the basic truth. She loved a man who was totally wrong for her. They had nothing in common. Their goals in life were at the ends of divergent paths. They couldn’t be more ill suited for each other.
Chaotic thoughts bounced around in her head as she slowly walked toward the diner, brooding over Luke’s good qualities. The respect he commanded in the area. The way he’d helped Tony and Sal. The way he took crises in stride, from runaway horses to early babies. The way he’d deliberately put himself in danger to protect Birdie from her husband. The affectionate way he talked about his uncle. His slow, sexy way of moving that seemed so effortless, yet accomplished so much. The way his hazel eyes changed when he was amused. When he made love.
JJ. mentally slapped herself, deliberately recalling each and every instance of Luke’s stubborn, pigheadedness. Luke didn’t want her kind of wife. He wanted a wife on his terms. Terms JJ. couldn’t live with. She’d worked too hard, gained too much, to give up everything for hazel eyes and a sexy smile. Especially when the owner of those eyes and smile showed absolutely no inclination to give up anything for her.
Burton wouldn’t expect to come before everything else in her life. He wouldn’t want J.J. to conform, to compromise, to yield, to subordinate her life to his. He admired her independence.
She thought about Burton’s statement that he couldn’t love her if she loved Luke and promptly dismissed it. Burton still loved his Caroline. He didn’t need to know about JJ.’s temporary aberration. How long could it take to fall out of love with a man who didn’t love you?
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Mrs. Luke Remington, the big city lawyer who sticks her snooty nose where it don’t belong.”
Lost in her thoughts, JJ. had paid no attention to passersby. She realized her error too late. Ad Parker stood on the sidewalk before her, blocking her path. His breath reeked of alcohol. Hoping to avoid a public confrontation, J.J. nodded her head civilly, said, “Hello, Mr. Parker,” and started around him.
He stepped sideways, countering her attempt to pass. “Where’s my wife and kid?”
“It’s not my place to give you that information.”
“You know. Where’d you hide ’em?” He stepped closer in a blatant attempt to intimidate her.
J.J. stood her ground. “My advice to you, Mr. Parker, would be for you to consult your lawyer.”
“You can take your advice and shove it. I want Bird and my kid.”
His dirty, uncombed hair, unshaven face and disgusting breath made JJ. want to gag. “Excuse me, Mr. Parker, I’m late for an appointment.” She moved to one side.
He grabbed her arm, squeezing it hard. “I asked you a question. Where’s my wife?”
He wouldn’t assault her in broad daylight in the middle of town. “I suggest you take your hand off me, Mr. Parker,” she said as calmly as she could. “You aren’t doing yourself or your situation any good by behaving in this manner.”
His whole face curled up in a sneer. “Maybe knocking you flat would do me good.” He thrust his face into hers. “See how you like everyone in town laughing at you.” He twisted her arm. “You shouldn’t have gone around town bragging you took me down with those damned elk antlers.”
J.J.’s knees wanted to knock together, but she stiffened them with sheer willpower. People like Ad Parker fed on fear. “If people are laughing, you ought to look at your own behavior.”
“Shut up and listen to me and listen good,” Parker snarled. “Being Mrs. Luke Remington ain’t gonna save you. I’ll find Bird and teach her a lesson about leaving her husband. Then I’m coming after you.” He jerked JJ.’s arm hard. “An uppity city woman like you needs to learn her place.”
“Threatening me won’t do you any good.”
“Parker!” Ev Bailey’s voice came from across the street. “You’re in enough trouble. Back off from Mrs. Remington.”
Ad Parker had drunk enough alcohol to dull his brain and befuddle his wits. His eyeballs rolling wildly, he looked at the sheriff. “You back off, Sheriff. Me and Mrs. Remington are just having a friendly little talk.” He gave J.J.’s arm another painful yank. “Ain’t that right, Mrs. Remington?”
“I think we’re through talking,” J.J. said evenly, her h
eart racing. She disliked the cunning smile on Parker’s face. People gathered in the street, watching the little drama. JJ. wished they’d leave. Intuition told her Parker wouldn’t back down in front of an audience. Perceiving himself as humiliated once by J.J., he wouldn’t allow it to happen again.
A movement at her side, a quick glimpse of metal and JJ. felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. Parker had a gun. Ev walked toward them. Thinking fast, J.J. said, “You’re not the type who needs to use a gun to make your point, Mr. Parker.” She spoke quietly so as not to incite Parker into precipitate action. Ev’s sudden halt told her the sheriff heard and understood her warning. Feeling Parker shift his body, J.J. knew he was raising the hand holding the gun. Her heart pounded.
“Sissies like Parker always use guns, O’Brien.”
“I’ll show you who’s a sissy, Remington!” Parker forcibly shoved J.J. to the ground.
J.J. tried to scream at Luke to run, at Parker not to hurt Luke. Luke, who’d deliberately attracted Parker’s angry, drunken focus to himself and away from J.J. Her paralyzed throat muscles refused to utter a sound. She could do nothing but sprawl on the sidewalk and watch in terror.
Nothing else was required. In the blink of an eye, Parker’s gun clattered to the ground and he was rolling in the street, howling and holding his wrist.
Pulling out handcuffs, Ev ran across the street. A police car pulled up with two policemen. One jumped out, and he and Ev hustled a cuffed Parker into the back of the police car.
Luke helped a shaken J.J. to her feet. “You okay?” he asked, breathing hard.
She nodded, wanting nothing so much as to seek sanctuary in Luke’s strong arms. Hysteria hovered close to the surface, but JJ. thrust it aside as the policeman turned to her. In a seemingly unending ordeal, she answered questions while he wrote down her answers. Occasionally others spoke. Finally the police car drove away with its prisoner.
“You were right. He had the safety on.” Ev grinned at Luke. “And I was right. You’re as quick as you were.”
“Quick, hell. I felt as if I were wading through snowdrifts.” Luke glowered at J.J. “Why are you rubbing your wrist?”
“I fell on it, but it’s okay.”
Luke bundled her down the street and into his pickup. “They can look at it at the clinic.”
“I don’t need to go to the clinic. I’m fine.”
Luke pulled into the clinic parking lot. “They’ll check it out.”
“Did you hear me? I’m fine.”
“Don’t. Argue. I’m barely controlling my temper as it is.”
Luke’s rigid jaw and curt voice told her he wasn’t kidding. “Why are you mad at me?”
“Because you’re the one stupid enough to engage Parker in conversation. Didn’t the fact he held a knife on Birdie and me the other night tell you anything at all about how unpredictable and vicious and dangerous he is? If he hadn’t been so drunk he forgot he had the safety on, who knows how many people he could have shot.” Luke gripped the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles showed white. “Don’t you dare tell me you could have handled him on your own.”
“I wouldn’t waste my breath.” J.J. whipped up anger to melt the terror still sitting in her stomach like a block of ice. She jumped out of the pickup before Luke could walk around to open the passenger door. “I’m well aware you think me stupid enough to invite a deranged drunk to join us for tea.” Sticking her chin in the air, she marched into the clinic.
Later, her wrist bandaged due to a slight sprain caused by her fall, J.J. stomped past Luke on her way back to the truck. She saw no point in wasting breath giving explanations to an opinionated cowboy who thought he knew everything.
A long arm snaked around her to hold shut the door J.J. was trying to open. “Do you still want a piece of pie?”
“No.” Her answer came out colder than the frozen snow on the ground.
“I think I better eat a piece of pie,” Luke said ruefully. “Humble pie. A big piece.” Pulling J.J. backward against his chest, he held her close, one arm around her shoulders, the other encircling her below her breasts. “Ev and I were in the diner when Jack came running in and said Parker had been drinking and making threats against you and then he saw you coming down the street. Jack said he thought Parker had a gun...” His voice shook. “I don’t ever want to be that scared again.”
J.J. swung around, burying her face in Luke’s sheepskin coat. “You think you were scared... I was petrified, but then I heard your voice and I thought Luke’s here and everything’s okay, but then I got scared again because I knew you were giving him you as a target instead of Ev or me...” Shuddering with the horror of what might have been, J.J. clung to Luke. He held her so tightly, she felt the large button on his coat marking her cheek.
After a few minutes of soaking up Luke’s strength and comfort, J.J. lifted her head. “I haven’t even thanked you. You moved so fast...” Ev’s words came back to her. “What did Ev mean about you being as quick as you were?”
“Special Forces.” Luke opened the door and helped her up into the pickup.
“You were in the Special Forces? When?” JJ. asked as he swung in behind the wheel.
“Centuries ago, the way I aged today.” When the look JJ. gave him told him she wanted more of an answer, he said, “I enlisted in the army after high school and ended up in Special Forces. If it hadn’t been for the ranch, I might have made a career of it. Instead I stayed in long enough to prove to my dad I could hack it, then, instead of reupping, I came back to the ranch. Zane suggested I go to college to learn all the new ranching theories and range management techniques, so I put myself through with help from the G.I. bill.” He gave her a quick glance. “How’s your wrist?”
J.J. thought about Ad Parker flat on his back, moaning in the middle of the street, and she grinned at Luke. “Much better than Parker’s wrist.”
“I should have broken some of his bones,” Luke said savagely, “lots of bones.”
JJ. covertly studied Luke’s hard-edged profile. The lethal look on his face demonstrated how thin man’s veneer of civilization was, but she wasn’t nearly as shocked as she should be. Sinking against the back of the seat, JJ. realized what truly shocked her was the immense satisfaction she felt at Luke’s primitive reaction to a man threatening his wife. Even if she wasn’t much of a wife.
Tall candles, short candles, fat candles, thin candles, square candles and round candles, candles of every color, not to mention two pumpkin-shaped candles and a candle that might be an owl, stood in cups, saucers and candle holders. J.J. doubted she’d missed a candle in her thorough search of the house. The massed candles blazed from every flat surface in the living room. A fire roared in the huge stone fireplace.
Outdoors, snow fell as darkness descended. Upstairs the sound of the shower had stopped some time ago. Footsteps descended the stairs, and Luke stood at the outer edge of the candlelight. “What’s with all the candles?”
JJ. lit the two stubby candles on the small card table set up on the cowhide rug in front of the fireplace. “I felt festive.”
“Are we celebrating something?” Luke moved closer to survey the linen-covered table set with the best china J.J. could find.
“Sort of. That the situation in town this morning didn’t end in a terrible tragedy.”
“Worse things happen on Denver streets every day.”
“Not to me,” J.J. said. “I doubt Parker intended things to go as far as they did, but once he had an audience... I think he would have shot me and Ev, and who knows how many other people. You stopped that from happening. Thank you.”
Luke gave her a dark, narrow-eyed look. “Let me guess. When you rushed in to supposedly rescue me from Parker, I didn’t display the proper gratitude. This is your way of demonstrating how much more class you have, isn’t it? Because we both know J. J. O’Brien doesn’t appreciate men coming to her aid.”
After taking a deep, calming breath, J.J. said carefully, “I realize I’m to
o independent for your tastes, and while it’s true I prefer standing on my own two feet instead of relying on a man, I like to think I’m at least honest with myself. The truth is, I was absolutely terrified this morning.”
“I’m sure you would have figured out a way to take out Parker, spare the town and save the world’s population of whales.”
JJ. grabbed the back of the nearest chair to keep from throwing something at Luke Remington. “I’m giving you a choice.” She viciously squeezed the chair’s leather padding. “You can graciously accept my thanks, or you can watch me dump the pot roast in the garbage.”
A crooked smile greeted her words. “I wouldn’t want to waste the pot roast. Not when it smells this good.” He walked around the table and pulled out JJ.’s chair. “You don’t owe me any thanks. Ev called the town police from the diner, but we knew it would take them a few minutes to get there. We hoped when Parker saw Ev he’d regain his senses. If he didn’t.” Luke shrugged, and sat across from J.J.
“Super Sarge to the rescue,” J.J. finished. “That is why your uncle called you ‘Sarge’? Because you were in the army? Were you a sergeant?”
“Yes.” Luke devoted himself to filling his plate. “Dinner looks and smells delicious.”
“I know the occasion calls for chateaubriand, but pot roast is the fanciest I cook.”
“I like pot roast.” Luke forked a hunk of meat. “I don’t need anything fancy. You’re making too big a deal out of what happened,” he said to his plate.
“Saving my life may not be a big deal to you,” J.J. retorted, “but it’s a big deal to me. I’m sure Margo thinks it’s a big deal you saved Ev’s life.”
“Ev can take care of himself. Damn it, O’Brien, eat.”
J.J. started to argue, noticed the dusky stain on Luke’s cheeks and the realization hit her. Luke wasn’t being ungracious. The role of hero embarrassed him. Remembering his temper tantrum after she’d disarmed Parker in the kitchen, she couldn’t resist teasing him. Tenting her hands over her plate, JJ. rested her chin on her fingertips and widened her eyes. “It was as if a Texas ranger had ridden in and saved the town. You can put another notch in your six-gun, cowboy.”
