Tallchief: The Hunter

by Cait London

  “At one time, I could have used it. I was too young for what was handed me. I couldn’t protect someone I loved. I made it, but she didn’t.”

  Duncan turned slowly to him. “Had we known, you would have had our support. Liam said you had a hard time of it. We were lucky to have the love of the community here in Amen Flats. Elspeth took mother’s place at fourteen, and I did my best…so did the others. It was hardest on Fiona as the youngest, because she wasn’t meant to follow rules. And she knew she had to, or we’d be separated.”

  He glanced at Joel and at Alek, who were already hauling a power saw setup into the old cabin. Birk was starting a generator on the back of his truck, preparing to hook up the power to the saw. “Looks like we’re in business,” Birk said.

  Unused to family milling around him, Adam tried to catch his breath. “I can manage. I’m used to camping—”

  Nick Palladin removed his Western hat and ran his hand through his dark brown wavy hair. “You wouldn’t send us back to our women, defeated, would you? We were sent here on a mission to build and bond. You have no idea what they can do once they set their minds to it. We’ll be home with the babies, and they’ll be roofing and sawing and probably talking about a quilt design as they work.”

  “It’s not an easy thing to take when I haven’t paid—”

  “Oh, you’ll pay. We share fencing work and herding and whatever else needs done, so it’s no free ride for you, chum. We’d be glad to have the help.”

  Adam nodded, understanding the give and take of bartering, and pushed his pride aside. They thought he was a homeless drifter, riding hard times, and they wanted to help. By refusing, he’d hurt them. “Fair enough.”

  “Hey, Adam,” Alek called as he carried a bundle of shingles to the cabin. “Thanks for fixing the fence. I hear you looked ‘sweet’ in the kilt and plaid my wife made you.”

  “Sweeter than you, my dear,” Adam returned with a grin. Though a loner, he somehow at once felt at ease with the men.

  Alek took the light taunt and passed it back with a cheeky grin. “Ah, but you’ve yet to see my knees. Scarred a bit, maybe, but still a confection to delight female eyes.”

  “You’re full of it,” Birk noted with a light elbow jab to Alek’s ribs. “Get to work. You, too, Adam. If I don’t come back with a good report to my wife, Lacey, she’ll be out here remodeling. She’s good with a saw and hammer, and that’s the reason I fell in love with her.”

  “What I want to know, dear hearts, is how full of it you would be if your wives were here?” Adam asked.

  The rest of the men grinned and Adam smiled. It appeared that Liam and he had quite the family, and one worth defending against any revenge Jillian might plan, despite her assurance that she wouldn’t.

  But he wasn’t letting her go too soon, not before he’d had the answers he sought. Why had she lingered in his heart all these years? Why had just the sight of her tossed him back into life?

  Jillian sat in her SUV, studying the small cabin. Settled amid the cold, drizzling rain, the cabin windows seemed to glow gold through the night. It would have been a welcoming sight, if Adam Tallchief hadn’t been inside. The words they’d flung at each other scraped the silence inside her vehicle.

  Your family and friends broke my aunt’s heart.

  You killed my brother—or rather, put him in prison where he died.

  They were harsh words, lying deep and smoldering within their hearts and only torn free by stormy tempers. The grief Adam had caused her parents had hurried their deaths.

  She smoothed the small box she intended to give him along with a piece of her mind. Jillian had kept the feathers and brooded about her revenge, how she would track him down and make him pay.

  Payback wouldn’t work now, not amid his newly discovered relatives. She didn’t want them to know that he’d lied, testifying and causing the death of her brother.

  From their meeting this morning, Jillian knew that Adam’s resentment had not lessened. Jillian had kept his silver ring. But she wouldn’t have Adam thinking it meant anything—that the brief young love between them still warmed her heart.

  Bracing herself for another raw, spare-no-feelings encounter, this time on her terms, Jillian got out of her vehicle and tramped through the mud puddles. She rounded the twin heaps of roofing debris and odd lengths of lumber and found more on the porch. Pieces of worn linoleum lay heaped nearby. One glance told her that old wood mixed with new. The sturdy rug in front of the door was slightly frayed but serviceable, and Jillian scraped her boots, taking the time to brace herself just that bit before knocking. She tugged up the collar of her stylish full-length raincoat, and breathed deeply, calming herself before the storm that was Adam Tallchief. In that instant she saw him again in the plaid and kilts of dragon-green cut with stripes of vermillion. All male, defiant, angry, he was no gentle picture.

  Adam opened the door, dressed only in jeans. Clearly fresh from bathing and scented of soap, he impatiently swept the towel over his hair, around his throat and over his chest. His hair gleamed in the kerosene lamplight, standing out in shaggy peaks as he brushed it back with one hand and tossed the towel aside with the other. The rich, warming light behind him stroked the width of his bare shoulders and ran down his sides to his jeans. The raw visual impact of Adam’s hard, muscle-packed body was enough to stun Jillian, and she realized she was holding her breath—years ago he’d had the same height, but his body hadn’t filled out to the whipcord leanness of this man’s.

  A large circular pattern of scars danced low on his side, while a scar slashed across his upper arm. A smaller one ran a thin pale line across his dark chest.

  Adam considered her a moment and pointed to his side. “I tried to save the world for a time. A shark gave me this, off the coast of Australia.”

  He pointed to his arm and to his chest. “Rhino poachers in Africa and a harpoon from an illegal whaler…. I’ve got a few others. Some seen, some not. But you already know about those. What brings you here?”

  “Here,” she said, after pasting herself together and pushing on with her mission. “Sarah thought this was important and said it belonged to you. She was dying and said there would come a time when you were less troubled. She wanted you to have this. I said I’d see that you got it. I only did it for her—not you. Here,” she repeated, shoving the box at him.

  A muscle contracted on Adam’s jaw, and in the shadows, those cool gray eyes narrowed, almost sleepily. But the tension springing from him wrapped around her, tight and burning. His fingers brushed hers as he took the box, tossing it to the table behind him. “Afraid to come in and visit a while, Jilly-dear?” Adam asked in a low tone that challenged. “Or would you like a spot of tea and cookies?” he asked over-politely, reminding her that her earlier hospitality had been lacking.

  “I’m not at all afraid of a visit with you, Adam, but I didn’t come for tea—I came to tell you what I think of you. I wasn’t quite done while you were telling me off earlier,” she said airily, refusing to be intimidated. When Adam opened the door wider, bowed slightly and swept his hand in front of him in an enter-my-abode gesture, Jillian swept by him.

  “I expected you within an hour of our meeting. It took you long enough to work up the courage to come calling.”

  “I don’t need courage to face someone like you. I was working.”

  The old wood cookstove’s oven door was open, clearly a source of heat. In front of it, the soapy water in a round galvanized tub said he’d been taking his bath. Various odd pots and cooking utensils ranged across the shelves near the stove, a metal dishpan for washing dishes sat on a crude counter. The single room smelled of new lumber, a bubbling stew on the stove and freshly bathed male. The odd collection of furniture ranged from an old rocking chair, big enough to be comfortable for a man of Adam’s size, and a large, sturdy, simple oak bed with a patchwork quilt.

  Adam’s few clothes were neatly stacked on top of an antique dresser, his backpack hung from a peg on the w
all. A braided rug made a circle in the center of the small room, and on the wooden table rested a thick file amid a triple-layer chocolate cake and two apple pies. A couple of pairs of socks, two T-shirts and a flannel shirt hung from a rope near the stove, and damp jeans had been tossed over the back of a chair.

  “You travel light, don’t you? There’s no more here than what you can stuff in a duffel bag. No attachments, no paycheck, no obligations.”

  “Lead on, Jilly. Slash right down to the bloody bone, why don’t you?” Adam crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked at her. “Well? From the expression on your face, you came to give me a piece of your mind. You can start anytime.”

  “I’m concerned,” she began after a pulsebeat of trying to dismiss how her heart was racing, how the sight of him, the scent of him, stirred her. “I was at the grocery store and the gossip is that the Tallchief family has taken you under its wing. That the whole clan came out here today to work on this place and to make you comfortable. Michelle called, and though she was disappointed that you wouldn’t be staying with Liam and her, she thought that you might be here awhile.”

  Jillian met his shielded gaze and crossed her arms. “You’re not, are you?”

  “Are you?” The question-for-an-answer came flying back.

  “I told you I was leaving as soon as I finished the project.”

  “How soon will that be?”

  “Under a week to finish, if it’s acceptable to the client. If not, I have to either return the money or start all over, and that will take some time. I’m just getting started in this career, so it’s not likely I’ll return the money. You can’t do this, Adam. Think of Liam and J.T.”

  He breathed heavily, those steely, cold eyes narrowed now, a vein in his throat throbbing beneath his tanned skin. “Can’t do what?”

  “You know what. You can’t let them provide for you. You’ve got to make something of yourself. You’ve got to get a steady job.”

  “So now you’re telling me how to live my life again, is that it?”

  She leaped over his anger, thrusting at him, determined to make her point. “I care for the Tallchiefs. Elspeth has become a dear friend. You can’t just dip into their lives and take and live off them, then go on your merry way.”

  His hand raised and Jillian didn’t expect the finger that stroked between her brows. “You said the same before. Still defending people from me, Jilly? Maybe my relatives would have believed me all those years ago. Maybe with their help, you might have read the truth in the newspapers or heard it from the radio. Then you might have been forced to believe me.”

  Jillian pushed down her temper. “It’s a waste of time to argue with you.”

  She ripped out her checkbook, slapped it open on the wooden table and scribbled a hefty figure. “Here, this is road money, so you can be on your way.”

  “Money isn’t the answer, Jilly.” Adam dismissed the check on the table and his low voice said his temper rippled at the offer. “But then, raised as you were, maybe you don’t understand the difference. You always did what your parents wanted, didn’t you? Even offering yourself to save Tom.”

  She faced him, careless of her fists balled against her sides. He’d humiliated her all those years ago. Was it her pride that nicked at her now? Or the truth? “Leave my parents and my brother out of this. You’ve done enough damage.”

  This time, Adam’s finger stroked his jaw as he considered her. “Not quite. I’d be blind not to recognize the reaction you had when you saw me just now. Those amber eyes almost swallowed me. What’s the matter, Jilly? No love life?”

  While Jillian considered a proper flattening retort, Adam did the worst thing—he leaned down to brush her lips lightly. “To see if you taste the same,” he whispered as she tried to catch her breath.

  She shivered and fought the surge of fear curling around her, choking her.

  Adam frowned, pulling back. “You’re shaking, and you’ve just paled. You’re not angry now, Jillian—you’re afraid. Of me?”

  Locked in panic, Jillian fought the nightmare of her husband’s sexual attacks. Unable to move, she could only stare at Adam. “I—I’m not afraid of you.”

  The frown became a scowl. “We may be cutting and slashing at each other because of the past, but I’d never lift a hand to hurt you, Jillian.”

  She tried to speak, to make light of her reaction, and couldn’t. She could only stare at Adam, images and pain swirling around her, swallowing her.

  “Jillian, it was only a little kiss,” Adam said very softly. “Sit down.”

  Instead, panic threw her to the door. She opened it and ran through the rain to her SUV. She slammed the door, locked it, and sat shaking, her fists locked onto the steering wheel.

  When she managed to look at the cabin, Adam was standing in the doorway, his arms crossed. Then, as if he could not stand more of her, he stepped inside and closed the door.

  Jillian forced herself to calm, to breathe evenly, before she started the SUV. After reaching her rented home, she tried to work, but the creative design she’d seen in her mind escaped her. Images of Adam had pushed it away.

  In her anger, she’d written the check for almost her entire bank balance. She’d left a high-paying job as an executive in sales to study graphic design. The leap from knowing what attracted a buyer’s attention to visually creating it had been easy enough. With classes and equipment to start her fledgling business, she’d drained her resources. The check to Adam left her finances stripped. But after her commission on the Silver perfume advertisement, she would have enough to leave town. Adam was a drifter; with her money in his pocket, he’d be gone before her. That was what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  It would be hours before she slept, because the brush of Adam’s lips was warm and safe, just as it had been years ago.

  How could he taste the same? Wild and free and mysterious, as if he needed to be caught and treated gently? As if she needed to fly with him into that wild, free world?

  Three

  Why had fear filled Jillian’s golden eyes? Why had she been so terrified by a simple brush of his lips? Did she hate him so? What had happened to her?

  Two hours after Jillian left his house, Adam paced the confines of the cabin, shoving his hand through his hair. He hadn’t wanted to know anything about New Pony news, and Tom’s death had surprised him. Using his laptop, Adam had researched newspaper archives to find the deaths of her parents and Tom. Tom’s obituary lacked the prison information and the cause of his death. There had been an auction to sell off the Greens’ furniture and their home. Through time, the other members of Tom’s teenage gang had carried on their family traditions as adults in New Pony, becoming “respectable.”

  Jillian must have been shattered. She thought little of him, except to hate him for her brother’s imprisonment and his death there. Yet that didn’t justify the leap of fear within her, that shivering, the paling of her face. Or did it?

  The newspaper’s archived account of her wedding to Kevin O’Malley had been detailed. The perfect wedding. But the bride’s expression hadn’t exactly been glowing; she’d looked stunned.

  Adam shook his head, his research answering his questions, but raising others. Once he’d protected another woman, one who had been abused by her boyfriend. Her body had tightened at the slightest touch meant to help or to comfort. Jillian’s expression was of that same, tight fear. He remembered Kevin O’Malley as a college student and two years older than himself. Kevin was rich, spoiled, a party boy and not exactly sensitive. The son of an ex-senator, his parents had designated his future in politics.

  Jillian would have been a perfect match with her quiet elegance, that intelligence, and would have improved his status in society and politics. His family’s money would have been needed by the Greens when they’d hit financial problems. They’d probably had to pay more than legal fees—Adam remembered the judge’s order, “Make financial restitution for the damage…Repayment is due for vandalism, theft and
stolen vehicles.”

  The good things in life had probably been handed to Kevin, including Jillian.

  Whatever had happened to Jillian, her scars were unseen. Adam rubbed his hand over his side, where the scars of a shark attack remained; in comparison, those he’d gotten from testifying against Tom were much worse and slower to heal. He still carried the pain of being unable to protect his failing aunt, and he held his grief deep inside.

  Adam shook his head; he didn’t want to think of Jillian in the hands of O’Malley. He didn’t want to think of Jillian at all—or did he?

  Passing the table, he opened the box from his aunt Sarah. The feathers, one white and soft, the other, the bold color of a hawk, were bound by a worn red ribbon. Adam’s fingertip stroked the soft dove’s feather, and in doing so, moved it within the ribbon. Now the feathers spooned, the hawk’s curving to the dove’s, almost sensuously, protectively, as though they had been fitted for life.

  Strange that his aunt hadn’t given the feathers to him earlier. She’d sometimes had odd turns to her, questions she hadn’t wanted to answer. Adam frowned slightly, remembering Liam’s question about their parents’ destination. Sarah had firmly stated that she hadn’t known where they were going, that they were to call upon arrival. When Adam had questioned her, she’d become upset and he’d stopped, sensitive to her grief.

  Yet, by asking Jillian to help deliver the feathers, she’d given him something of a father he couldn’t really remember. Though Adam had paid the rent on the safe-deposit box his aunt had left, he didn’t want to open it again. After her death, he’d been eager to get away from New Pony. He’d respected her wishes and buried her in Iota, next to her sister—his mother—and family. Then as she’d wished, he’d collected her brooches and family Bible with other mementos and tossed them into the locked box in the First National Iota Bank, careless of what else was inside. Sarah….

  Adam put the lid on the box with the feathers, just as he had sealed away his past. Now Jillian had brought it back.