by Tami Hoag
“You want me to send Tucker up?” J.D. asked, trying to hide the resignation and sadness in his voice with a businesslike tone. “Make sure everything's ready for when we move the cattle up?”
“No, no,” Del mumbled, rubbing his scar, then its companion hidden beneath his graying dark hair. Sometimes he dreamed the knot of mended flesh was a screw he could remove and the whole top half of his head would come off and the serpents would crawl out and wither and die in the light of day. “No. Just want to be left alone. Leave me alone.”
J.D. watched him stagger away, his gait burdened by the leaden weight of the nightmares and torments that never left him. His heart ached at the sight. His uncle had been a good man once, honorable, strong. He had joined the marines and volunteered for combat duty because he was a patriot and his convictions ran deep. He had given himself in service to his country and his country had sent him back bent and broken, disfigured physically and mentally, a twisted shell that held little of the fine young man he had once been. He had gone away a hero and come back another responsibility to add to J.D.'s never-ending list.
When he turned toward the cabin, J.D. caught a glimpse of Mary Lee darting away from the front door, which stood ajar. His anger surging back full-force, he strode to the door and jerked it open. She stood ten feet from him, eyes wide, small hands clasped beneath an enormous pink mouth on her neon-orange sweatshirt.
He started to reach for her, then jerked his hand back and swung it in the direction of the door instead. “Get in the truck and don't say a word,” he ordered through his teeth.
Mari obeyed without complaint. She wanted to get away from Del Rafferty. There would be plenty of time to fight with J.D. once the cabin was behind them. She darted through the door and past the snake, then stopped to roll up the legs of her jeans and slopped through the mud to the truck. Standing on the running board, she toed her gooey sneakers off and tossed them to the back. With a curt hand signal, J.D. ordered Zip to the back also and climbed in on the driver's side. He didn't speak until they were pointed down the mountain and the woods had swallowed up the camp behind them.
“I told you to leave him alone.”
“You're not my father,” Mari said tightly. “You can't tell me what to do. Come to think of it, neither could he.”
He looked at her as if just the idea of her disobedience were incomprehensible. “I told you to leave him alone. I meant it. Did you think I said it just because I like the sound of my own voice?”
“I'm sure I don't know why you said it. You never bothered to explain. It apparently never occurred to you to say, ‘oh, by the way, Mary Lee, steer clear of my uncle because he's certifiably bizarre.' ”
J.D.'s grip tightened on the steering wheel as the pickup bucked down the logging trail. He clenched his jaw and blinked hard, as if his fury were impeding his vision. “You don't have any idea what you've done.”
“What I've done! Excuse me, but I was the one he tried to shoot.”
“He didn't try to shoot you. If Del had wanted to shoot you, you'd be dead now.”
“Like Lucy?” The words were out of her mouth before her brain had a chance to snatch them back.
J.D. shot her a narrow glare. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“What do you think it means?” she snapped. “Your uncle is a psychotic with enough guns to invade Cuba single-handed—”
“He's not psychotic.”
“He shot at me. He mistook me for a talking corpse—”
“He's got problems,” J.D. admitted grudgingly while wrestling for control of the steering wheel. The pickup roared a protest when he shifted gears, pumping the brakes as they angled down a steep grade. “I told you to leave him alone. If you'd listened—”
“If you'd bothered to explain—”
“I don't have to explain anything to you!” he roared, the anger and frustration tearing through him. He hated having outsiders messing with his life, his land, his family. He especially hated this one because a part of him he seemed to have no control over wanted her so badly. “I don't owe you nothing, lady, you got that? You don't belong here—”
“Oh, give me a break with that King of the Mountain crap,” Mari sneered, bracing a hand against the dash as the truck pitched violently from side to side. “It's a free country, your highness. I'm here and I don't give a rat's ass whether you like it or not. My friend is dead and I'm going to find out why. I don't care what you—”
“It was an accident! Christ, why can't you just leave it at that? It was an accident. It happened. It's over. Justice was served.”
“Not by a long way. I don't call a fine and a slap on the wrist justice. And frankly, there's something about this whole accident scenario that smells like an open sewer under a hot sun at high noon.”
J.D. stared at her through slitted eyes, his foot easing off the gas. “What do you mean?”
Mari opened her mouth to answer him and had it shut for her as the front end of the truck flung itself downward and they came to a jarring halt. She slammed sideways into the dashboard and fell to her knees on the floor. J.D. banged his head on the windshield and pulled himself back, swearing loudly. He shifted the truck into reverse and tried to rock it up out of the hole, spewing mud in all directions as the tires spun. The pickup stayed rooted to the spot.
“Great,” he snapped, clambering down out of the cab and slamming the door.
Mari swung her door open and tumbled out, forgetting she was barefoot, annoyed at the interruption of their fight. She staggered and stumbled around the nose of the truck, struggling to keep herself upright on the steep hillside. Mud and dead leaves oozed up between her toes. Zip leapt out of the back of the truck and dashed off into the woods after adventure, a big grin on his face.
“Great job of driving, Rafferty,” Mari jeered.
He lifted a finger in warning. “Don't start with me, Mary Lee. I'm mad as hell the way it is.”
“You're mad? I've been shot at, kidnapped, had the pee scared out of me, and spent the last hour wondering if anyone would show up to save me before Rambo decided to skin me with one of his many knives and fashion lampshades out of my hide. If anyone has a right to be angry here, it's me.”
J.D. leaned over her, towering above her more than usual with the added advantage of standing uphill. “You don't have any rights,” he bellowed. “You don't belong here. I told you to stay away!”
“And I told you to quit bossing me around!” Mari shouted. She planted both hands against his chest and shoved him as hard as she could.
He shoved back automatically, knocking her off balance. Mari let out a little shriek and caught him around the knees as she slipped. Off guard and off balance, J.D. dropped like a felled sequoia, and they went down the hillside in a tangle of arms and legs and bodies, grunting, swearing, tumbling over each other.
They came to rest in a spot where the ground flattened out just before a huge moss-covered boulder. Mari was on the bottom. J.D. rose up over her, the heels of his hands digging into the soft ground on either side of her head.
She stared up at him, her deep clear blue eyes unfocused until she blinked hard to clear away the fog. There were twigs and leaves stuck in her hair and a bruise darkening on her cheek. Her lips were parted, her breath puffing in and out. The need that had gripped J.D. in its talons for days now tightened its hold ruthlessly.
Instantly the air around them seemed suddenly hotter, thicker, redolent with the ripe, fertile scents of the forest. Their gazes locked and held. J.D. moved slightly, experimentally, against her. Her breath caught. Her eyes widened. She made no move to protest.
“You make me so damn mad, Mary Lee,” he whispered. Mad with need of her. Every other emotion he had felt toward her—the anger, the frustration, the kinder feelings he wouldn't name—channeled themselves into the desire, making it burn hotter, brighter. It didn't matter that she was wrong for him. Nothing mattered except the need. “You make me want you,” he growled.
Ma
ri started to deny the charge but stopped herself. She could feel his erection against her and didn't bother to tell herself she didn't want him. She did. She wanted him with every fiber of her being. The need burst through her, radiating out from the hard fist of desire in the core of her, astonishing her. She wasn't the sort to live by her hormones. She didn't tumble into bed with just any man. And this man made her as angry as he made her hot. He was stubborn, arrogant, high-handed, hard-headed. She remembered thinking that the attraction that flared between the two of them was good for nothing but wild, hot, mind-numbing sex.
At the moment she could not for the life of her see what was so bad about that.
“I don't want you here,” he murmured, lowering himself onto her. He leaned on one elbow and with his other hand stroked the tangled strands of hair back from her face. His breath came harder at the feel of her breasts against his chest. “I don't want you here, but I want you so bad I can't stand it. I want you now. Right now. You gonna try to stop me this time, Mary Lee?”
It wasn't a challenge, it was her last chance. The moment shimmered between them, quivered with tension. J.D. stared down into her eyes, waiting. She was too aware of his arousal, too aware of her own. The sensitive flesh between her legs was pounding with need, aching for the feel of him, and he was more than ready to comply. Would she try to stop him? Did she want to?
Slowly she shook her head.
He lowered his mouth to hers, sealing their fate. The instant their lips touched, the second his tongue slid against hers, all sanity was lost, vaporized by the heat that flared between them. He kissed her roughly, wildly, possessively. She locked her hands around the back of his head and kissed him back with equal abandon.
They tore at their clothes. The snaps of his work shirt pulled apart and her small, cool hands were on his chest, combing through the thicket of dark hair. Her fingers ran down over the taut muscles of his belly and back. He pulled her sweatshirt and T-shirt off in one tangle, barely breaking the kiss, and blindly flung the knotted mess aside into a huckleberry bush. Then her breasts were naked against him, and whatever scrap of reason he might have had left was incinerated.
Mari gasped at the touch of his body against hers. He was fever hot. Her every nerve ending was vibrating, quivering at the slightest contact. She was aware of each chest hair that brushed across her nipples. They kissed and groped, rolling around on their little plateau of ground, oblivious of the mud, the leaves, the twigs; blind to everything but passion.
They came up on their knees and J.D. bent her back over his arm and fastened his mouth on her breast, flicking his tongue against her nipple, then sucking hard, wringing wild cries from her. Mari's fingers tangled with his at the waist of her jeans, fumbling with the button, wrestling the zipper down.
Pants and panties were shoved out of the way. Her legs parted and his big hand found her most tender flesh. Hot. Wet. Aching for his touch. He parted the delicate folds with his callused fingertips and she arched against him, inviting him, begging him.
Mari twisted and bucked against him, mindless with need, desperate for the feel of him inside her. She worked a hand between their bodies and held him, pulling on him, rubbing him through the soft fabric of his old jeans, wringing a deep moan up from the depths of his chest.
Dragging his mouth down to her breasts again, he kissed her and nipped her as he tore his belt loose and struggled to free himself. Mari pushed him back, sinking to her knees in the soft ground, kissing his chest. Eager to please and torture him as he had her, she found the brown button of his flat male nipple and captured it lightly between her teeth, rubbing the tip of her tongue back and forth across it. She shoved his hands aside and fought with the fly of his jeans, wrenching the zipper down. His white cotton briefs were tugged down quickly, and he was in her hands, as hard and smooth as a steel rod, hot and heavy and throbbing with life.
J.D.'s control broke at the feel of her fingers closing around him. He shoved her back down and mounted her, driving fully into her in one powerful thrust. She called his name and came immediately, powerfully. J.D. gritted his teeth and hung on as her woman's body tightened rhythmically, exquisitely around him. Her fingertips dug into his back. Her wild cries called him to join her in ecstasy. Beyond holding back, he began to move, pumping in and out of her, reaching deep with every stroke.
“Wrap your legs around me, Mary Lee,” he commanded, then groaned as she did so, pulling him deeper still.
Mari locked her thighs around his hips, her arms around his heaving ribs, then she tucked her head against his shoulder and hung on for the ride. She was past identifying individual sensations. There were no words for the place he was taking her. Paradise had been found in that first moment of joining, but he was taking her beyond paradise into uncharted territory at a pace that stole her breath. The heat was engulfing them. She was on fire with bliss. Every thrust touched a place inside her no other man had ever managed to find.
The second explosion was even more enormous than the first. Behind her eyelids everything went white. She heard J.D. groan as he buried himself deep one last time and came in a hot rush. Then time and space ceased to exist.
Awareness returned layer by gossamer layer. She was breathing, a chore that consumed her concentration for several moments. When she thought she had it mastered, she worked at opening her eyes. Her eyelids seemed to weigh ten pounds each and required incredible mental stamina to raise. When the feat was accomplished, she was staring into J.D.'s ear. He lay heavily on top of her, motionless.
“Are we still alive?” she asked in awe.
He raised himself up slowly. His chest was heaving. There were bits of dead leaf caught in his chest hair. Mari reached up and gently brushed it away, focusing on the task, putting off the inevitable.
J.D. studied her carefully, taking in her fading blush and hooded eyes. There was a bruise on her cheek. He couldn't remember whether she had it before. Her wild mane was snarled and tangled with twigs and crumbs of earth.
Christ almighty. They were in the middle of the woods, lying naked on a carpet of wet dead leaves. Around them life on the mountain went on as usual. A jay called thief! from somewhere in the canopy of branches above them. A yellow warbler sang merrily—wee-see-wee-see-wiss-wiss-u. A red squirrel darted past them and Zip bounded from between a pair of aspen saplings and gave chase, gracefully leaping over his master's prone form.
Embarrassment washed through J.D. He never lost control with a woman. Never. Even as a teenager he had managed his lust with an iron fist. It was a point of honor, part of the pledge he had taken all those years ago. It rattled him to think he could forget those hard lessons in the time it took to unzip his jeans.
Mary Lee was looking up at him now, watching him carefully. Mary Lee, the outsider. Mary Lee, heir to the throne of Lucy MacAdam.
Jesus, Rafferty, what were you thinking?
He moved away from her, jerking his pants up and fumbling with the zipper. Mari watched him, a cold, hard lump of dread settling in her stomach. It occurred to her belatedly that this was what was wrong with wild, hot, mind-numbing sex. Afterward, when the novocaine of arousal faded, you were left with whatever pains and problems were there to begin with. Rafferty didn't want her on his precious mountain. He couldn't look at her without seeing Lucy and Bryce and everyone else who was trying to take his homeland away from him.
She sighed and reached for the multicolored ball of fabric that was her shirt. Untangling the sleeves, she pulled T-shirt and sweatshirt over her head together, then shook her hair and tried to comb her fingers through it to dislodge the debris.
“Well, it was fun while it lasted,” she said dryly.
J.D. shot her a look as he shrugged into his shirt. She was trying to be tough. She was trying to be as nonchalant about this as Lucy would have been. But she didn't look tough or unconcerned. She looked fragile. As if she needed holding. God knew he wasn't the man to offer comfort or reassurance. He shouldn't have wanted anything more between them
than animosity. That was safest. That was best.
Their gazes caught. Her eyes were clear and huge, like blue glass jewels set deep beneath her dark brows. Her mouth was a soft, vulnerable bow, her lips swollen from his kisses. Possessiveness surged through him. He couldn't seem to stop it. He reached for her, pulled her into his embrace, his gaze locked on hers.
“If you think this is over, you'd better think again, Mary Lee.”
Mari blinked at him, breathless at the prospects his words opened up. “We're not finished?”
“Not by a long shot.” He bent his head and nuzzled her cheek, nipped her throat, her earlobe. He stroked a hand down her back to her bare bottom. His fingers cupped and kneaded the ripe swell of one buttock. He pulled her snug against him and growled low in his throat as arousal tightened again in his groin. “Hell, we just barely took the edge off.”
CHAPTER
13
THE TRUCK was dealt with. Upon arriving back at Lucy's ranch, Clyde, the traitorous mule, was dealt with. In the bathtub of the guest room the mud was dealt with. Then they dealt with each other.
Mari felt strangely shy with him, considering. The time that had elapsed had given the reservations a chance to take root. What would this mean? Where would it lead them? She didn't allow herself to answer. She wanted to live in the moment. She wanted to put the tangle of questions and doubts and fears on hold and exist just on instinct for a while.
J.D. seemed content with that idea as they stood in the tub. He focused his attention on her body, exploring with his hands and his mouth, experimenting with touch and pressure as the water rained down on them from the shower head. He seemed unhindered by qualms of any kind as he washed her back and chased the soap suds down with his hands, hands that then found their way around her rib cage and up to her breasts.
Dripping water all over, they found their way into the guest room. They fell across the bed, oblivious of the tears in the mattress and sheets, oblivious of everything but each other. The afternoon was cloaked in gray, the room cloaked in shadows that softened the chaos the vandals had left behind. Outside, another thundershower had rolled across the valley from the Gallatin side and the rain fell steadily, drumming on the roof and the skylight above the bed.
