Montana Wildfire

by Rebecca Sinclair

  Until now he hadn't really been trying, she suspected. Now he was playing to win. When he ran out of the clothes he was wearing, he started betting those in his saddlebag. It was against the rules, but she allowed it. At the rate he'd been losing, the man was in for a long, chilly winter.

  Amanda glanced at her cards. It was time to draw. She had the option of discarding three out of five equally unpromising cards. She should think about retreating gracefully. In other words, she should fold.

  Frowning thoughtfully, she took stock of all she'd bet so far. Her hair ribbon, two stockings, her pantaloons, and her corset covering. All except the corset covering could be removed somewhat inconspicuously. The next thing to go, if she stayed in the game, would be her blouse. Followed by her chemise. Followed by her skirt. Followed by her... corset.

  Her corset!

  That corset's coming off. Tonight.

  Jake's words shot though Amanda's mind like a bullet. Her thoughtful frown turned into an irritated scowl. So that's what he was up to, why he'd suggested the game of strip poker. The rat wanted her corset! Amanda didn't know why she hadn't realized it sooner. It all seemed glaringly obvious to her now. In hindsight, didn't everything?

  "Your bet, princess." Jake took one last deep pull off his cigarette, then flicked it away. Neither noticed the fiery red arc it made through the night. "Well?"

  "I'm thinking," Amanda evaded, nibbling her lower lip as she studied her cards. Two of hearts, ten of diamonds, six of hearts, ten of clubs, eight of hearts. In other words, a disorganized mess. Too bad twos weren't wild. Still, she did have three fresh cards coming, and there was a chance, just a small one, that this hand would come together for her yet.

  "What's the problem, princess? Either you've got a pair or you don't."

  "I don't."

  His pause was just long enough to make her squirm. "Wanna bet?"

  Amanda didn't have to look to know where Jake's gaze was lingering. She could feel it smoldering over her breasts like a lover's fingers. Her heartbeat and respiration responded. Instead of commenting on his lewd remark, she let it pass and instead answered his original question. "I'm afraid I can't open, Mr. Chandler."

  "Pity, Miss Lennox. I can."

  She wasn't surprised. He'd had enough to open for the last three hands, but not the pair of jacks or better required to win. Was it her imagination, or had his poker game undergone a drastic improvement?

  Jake bet his saddle blanket. With her heart in her throat, Amanda called him by betting her blouse.

  He discarded one, then picked up the deck. His gaze fixed on her expectantly. "What do you want?" he asked, his voice rich with a meaning that sent her imagination soaring.

  Amanda felt a warm shiver splash down her spine, washing lower, as she forced her trembling fingers to remove the two tens and set them aside, face down on the grass between them. It was a gamble, yes—all poker hands were—but a possible flush was worth the risk. It was higher than three of a kind, which was the most she could hope for by keeping the tens.

  "Two, please," she said. Her voice low and silky, she specified, "Cards, Mr. Chandler. Two cards."

  "That's it?" One inky brow tipped challengingly high. "Just two? You're sure?"

  "Quite sure."

  "Positive?"

  "Yes," she sighed, and glanced at him. It was a mistake. One she realized too late.

  He'd spread his lanky body over the grass, and was laying on his side, his head propped on the palm of one hand, his long black hair curtaining his steely forearm. His other hand was poised near his waist, the fingers ready and waiting to deal Amanda her cards. Her gaze, all on its own, strayed past those cards, past that hand. His thin white underdrawers were a vivid contrast to the darkening night and his tight copper skin. The fabric wasn't as opaque as she thought it should be. Of course, she'd never seen a man's undergarments before. Maybe they were supposed to be almost transparent?

  Swallowing hard, Amanda glanced away. Her cheeks were flaming, her heart pounding furiously. She'd stopped breathing some time ago. Her palms felt moist, her fingers trembly, and... well, there were other symptoms—hot, vivid symptoms—that she thought it best not to explore or to dwell upon.

  Fool, fool, fool! Why did you look?!

  How could I not?

  "It's not too late. You can change your mind and draw three, princess. I won't hold it against you."

  A loaded remark, if ever there was one. Her gaze snapped to his. His eyes sparkled wickedly, saying he knew exactly what lascivious thoughts were spinning through her head, corrupting her senses... and that he liked being the inspiration for them just fine. "Two, please," she repeated firmly.

  Jake shrugged tightly and dealt her two cards, himself one.

  Amanda knew in a glance she should have folded. While the queen of hearts was an admirable contribution to her flush, the four of clubs was not. Damn! Now she had the unsavory choice of bluffing or folding. She didn't bluff well, never had. Unfortunately, folding meant she would lose her shirt. Quite literally. Amanda now knew what the expression "between a rock and a hard place" meant. Not an elegant phrase by any means, but then, it wasn't an elegant feeling.

  Jake bet his empty saddlebag. Amanda bet her skirt. He saw her bet with his knife, and raised her with his horse—all he had left. She called him with her corset; stripping down any more than that in front of a man was out of the question. Since Jake had bet everything he owned—and when Amanda thought everything, she meant everything—she didn't dare contemplate what would happen if she won.

  "Well, Mister Chandler? What do you have?"

  "Read 'em and weep." Grinning, Jake laid his cards out on the moonlit grass. He did so slowly, as though to prolong her agony. Or his. "Three kings."

  Amanda gulped. "Does an 'almost' flush count?"

  "Nope. With a good little white lady like yourself 'almost' never counts." His grin broadened, and his eyes shimmered wickedly. "What've you got?"

  "You said I didn't have to show you my hand if I lost."

  "Lady, if you lost you're going to be showing me a hell of a lot more than your hand." His attention shifted to her hankie—still lying between them like a limp, sacrificial lamb—then rose once more. An inky brow cocked, but he was already aware of the answer to his next question. "Well? Did you lose?"

  She shrugged.

  "Amanda..."

  "All right! Yes, Mr. Chandler, as a matter of fact I lost my shirt. Do you want it this second, or could you wait while I go behind those pine trees to take it off?"

  At some point, Jake had picked up her hanky. Amanda's gaze snagged on his fingers. Was he conscious of the way he was caressing the white-on-white monogram? She certainly was. Very conscious of it.

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. "I think you've missed the point of the game, princess."

  "And what point is that?"

  "They don't call it strip poker for nothing." His gaze lifted, and burned into hers. "I want to watch."

  Amanda was glad she was already sitting, for the way his words drove through her buckled her knees. "How... vulgar."

  "Yup." Jake laid back, his inky head cradled in his palms. Her hanky made a crisp splash of white atop his dark chest. The scrap of cloth was covering his heart. He said lazily, "Strip, Miss Lennox. I want my winnings."

  Jake didn't think she would do it. Oh, he hoped she would—hell, yes—but he doubted it. What he did expect was for her to try and fast-talk him out of it. That, he was prepared for. He knew exactly what he was going to say when she started crying—the way any properly raised white lady worth her salt would do if found in a similar situation.

  Oddly enough, Amanda Lennox didn't look like she was going to cry. Nor did she appear overly intimidated when she pushed to her feet and glared down at him.

  What her stance lacked in meekness it made up for in the way of pride. Her chin was tilted in that haughty way of hers that never ceased to... annoy him. He thought that if her spine got any stiffer it would snap. H
er shoulders were squared, her jaw hard, her expression set with quiet fury. Her green eyes snapped with defiance as she lifted her fingers—trembling only slightly—to the top button of her blouse.

  It was Jake's turn to be glad he wasn't standing. Christ, she was really going to do it. He'd thought he would be able to go through with this, he really did. But now that the moment was at hand, he couldn't. His restraint was shot; raw and chafed. If she finished unbuttoning that blouse...

  "Don't." He was on his feet in a heartbeat. His silent steps cleared the space between them in two. She gasped when he ensnared her slender wrist in his fist, but Jake didn't care. Scaring her right now was the least of his problems. Amanda had managed to work the top three buttons free. The wedge of tempting white flesh she'd revealed was killing him. Another button and he'd be lost. His voice went husky and gruff. "Just give me the damn corset and we'll call it even, okay?"

  She kept her gaze trained on the hand he'd coiled about her wrist. Her tone was edged with suspicion. "But I have to take off the shirt to get to it."

  "Yeah, you do, don't you? Dammit!" Jake inhaled sharply and glanced around. He scratched the underside of his chin with his free hand, his gaze fixing on the trees she'd mentioned earlier. He nodded briskly toward them. "Go ahead. I promise not to peek." Silently he added, Hell, I don't trust myself that much. And with damn good reason!

  While Amanda was confused, she certainly wasn't stupid. Jake was offering her a graceful way out of this mess, and she wasn't about to waste time asking questions. Nodding, she slipped her hand from the shackle of his calloused fingers. Clutching her collar together, she limped toward the cover of pine trees before Jake changed his mind. She was halfway there when his voice called out from behind, stopping her cold.

  "You realize you could have won, don't you, princess?"

  "I could have?" She nibbled her lower lip. "How?"

  "I was... out of funds. You could have bet your chemise in perfect safety, thereby forcing me out of the game."

  "Really?" Her head was spinning, and her knees felt weak and shaky. She could have won?

  "Yup. I guess the next obvious question is... why didn't you?"

  It was an honest question. For once, Amanda gave him an honest answer. Glancing over her shoulder, she met Jake's gaze. Even though he was standing mostly in shadow, his eyes were hot and probing, savagely bright. "My father taught me to play games fairly, Mr. Chandler. He didn't believe in cut-throat anything. It's an opinion we shared."

  "Strange man, your daddy. I'd like to meet him someday."

  "Yes, well..." Amanda glanced away, not wanting him to see the pain in her eyes, not wanting to have to explain it. If Jake asked, she'd be forced to lie to him again, and for some insane reason she didn't want to do that.

  When he didn't comment, she walked toward the trees, as glad for the distance separating herself from the confusion that was Jacob Blackhawk Chandler as she was for the privacy itself.

  Getting out of the corset was simple compared to putting the painful contraption on. She returned to the clearing in no time.

  Jake was gone, as was the pile of his clothes she had won.

  The knife sank into the tree trunk with a satisfying thunk.

  Jake watched the hilt waver from the force of the collision. Moonlight caught on what little of the blade wasn't buried in bark. Silently, he retrieved the knife. Gritty bark clung to the long, deadly blade, he wiped it off on his pants leg, but then instead of sheathing it, stared at the bright metal.

  The way the light reflected off the steel reminded him of Amanda Lennox's hair. The razorsharp edge, honed to kill, reminded him of her way with words, of how deeply they sliced.

  Yes, well...

  Jake shoved the hankie he was fisting in his left hand into his pocket. He couldn't stand the feel of it right now.

  Yes, well...

  He'd asked to meet her father. He'd been rejected. Stupid. Stupid! What had he been thinking of? Decent little white girls didn't bring savages like him home to meet Daddy. Hell, decent little white girls shouldn't know any half-breeds to bring home.

  But Amanda Lennox did. She knew Jake. And she sure as hell wasn't going to bring him home to meet her father. She'd made that clear. And... Jesus, it hurt.

  Jake was not pleased. He'd thought himself past the stage where he handed his feelings to white people on a platter, all but begging them to carve his insides to pieces. He shook his head, his hand straying to the scar on his neck, rubbing the puckered flesh, pinching it. He thought of the one white person—white "lady"—who'd done exactly that. She'd carved him good. In the process, Cynthia had taught him that all important last lesson he needed so desperately to learn.

  Cynthia. Dammit, he had to remember her, remember what she'd done, remember his own past mistakes and misjudgments. He had to cling to them. Only in that way would he be able to get through the next few days with Amanda Lennox. Only in that way would he be able to keep his hands to himself, and keep what was left of his soul intact.

  He'd do it. If it killed him, he'd get through it.

  Jake gritted his teeth, stepped back, lifted the knife and threw. The blade landed in exactly the same spot; the fit was so perfect there wasn't enough pressure to keep the blade buried in the tree trunk. It quivered, then tumbled to the ground.

  If it kills me, he thought as he went to find his knife, had been a poor choice of words. Because he thought it just might kill him to be so close to a woman like Amanda Lennox day after day. To sleep near her, night after night and not touch her... not kiss her... not have her writhing beneath him in the raw, primitive way he hungered for her.

  Yup, it was going to kill him, all right. And it was going to be a slow, agonizing death of the spirit, not the quick death of the body. But he would do it. Because he couldn't have her. Not her. Not him. Because he needed the money. And lastly, because he'd made the woman a promise.

  Yancey Chandler had raised no slouch. When his bastard son made a promise, he kept it... providing that promise was made to someone else. It was the promises Jake made to himself that he had trouble keeping. And none so much as the one concerning Amanda Lennox, the one about not putting his hands on her.

  She was tempting. Damn tempting. He wanted her in his bed badly. The itching in the fingers he curled tightly around the knife hilt told him right off that this wasn't going to be an easy promise to keep. That was a problem. A big one. It was Jake's job to see it didn't become an insurmountable one. The only way to do that was for him to remind himself often of who Amanda Lennox was. What she was. What he was.

  He could never, not for a second, forget the rules of the game. Because this time the stakes were too high.

  Chapter 10

  Jake was right.

  The corset had been taxing Amanda's stamina more than she cared to admit. While her blouse felt a little snug, at least without the corset she could breathe. Riding took on a whole new meaning. Her ribs no longer ached, and no longer did she become short of breathe or have to slow the pace because her sides hurt so badly. It felt heavenly to not have her middle bound up by those stiff, whalebone stays. She felt free, liberated, and depressed.

  Her despondency had nothing to do with her newfound ability to breath unencumbered. No, this feeling centered entirely on Jake Chandler.

  Three days had slipped slowly past since the night of their poker game. They were the worst three days of Amanda's life. Being cast aside by her father, being shipped East to school, even the tediously regimented days at Miss Henry's... all of it paled in comparison to spending countless hours—days... nights!—in Jake Chandler's silent, brooding company.

  Yesterday, Amanda had reached the conclusion that the man could not be called moody. Oh, no, when Jacob Blackhawk Chandler got in a bad mood, he stayed there. Indefinitely. The only way his mood went was down. His temperament had darkened by the day, and he always seemed grumpier at night. Like gathering storm clouds, the past seventy-two hours had seen the man's disposition go fr
om murky gray to pitch black. And there wasn't a ray of sunshine in sight.

  Amanda sighed and brushed back the bangs that wisped over her brow. The mare plodded through the shadowy woods, instinctively following the white.

  Her gaze lifted and fixed on Jake's rigid back. He was wearing the grayish-blue shirt she'd first seen him in. The cloth was slightly wrinkled from having been balled up in his saddlebag, but most of the creases had been ironed out by the heat of his body. The cottony fabric was damp with sweat; odd, she thought, since the day was chilly. The material clung to his shoulders, back, and arms, outlining and defining the bands of muscle rippling beneath.

  Jake turned his head to the side, his steely gaze inspecting the area. His hair was secured at his nape with a frayed leather thong. A few black strands on both sides weren't quite long enough to be tied back out of the way; they fell forward, framing his prominent cheekbones, softening the hard line of his jaw as much as it could be softened. There was nothing soft about the muscle throbbing in his cheek, or the brooding slash of his brows.

  Amanda recognized his expression instantly; she'd seen it enough these last few days to be familiar with it. He was... annoyed again. She wondered if losing Roger's trail for the third time in as many days was the sole cause of his frustration. Probably not. She knew it wasn't the sole cause for hers.

  She sent Jake a speculative look when he slowed the white and began scanning the forest floor. "Anything?" she called out.

  "No," he snapped. Not sparing her a glance, he tightened his knees around the horse's sides, clicked his tongue, and sent them plunging deeper into the woods.

  Amanda gritted her teeth and followed. She supposed it had been a foolish hope on her part that his disposition had improved from yesterday's brisk sourness... and the day before... and the day before that. She should have known better.

  Silence stretched taut between them as they picked their way through the woods. It took Amanda a full hour to realize they weren't going to stop for lunch. Finally, she pulled a strip of jerky from her saddle bag and gnawed on the chewy, salty meat. Oh, how she longed for a few precious seconds to sit on something other than a saddle that felt like it had been molded of iron... something that didn't sway and jostle her... something cushiony. Even the cold, lumpy ground would do—if Jake would only stop!