Tallchief: The Hunter

by Cait London

  She studied him and decided he was ripe for her first attempt at flirtation. “I don’t know why I would want you, though. You’re oversize, for certain, taking up too much room in the sleeping bag.”

  “This wasn’t a one-time-and-forgotten experience for me, Jillian,” he stated firmly, and she remembered the words he’d said before they made love, as if he were taking a vow. Taking you here, like this, means more than you’ll know. I’ll be faithful to you and I’ll care for your needs as best I can….

  “I would call it several times, wouldn’t you?” She felt marvelous, awake and ready for anything life tossed at her. She stretched and yawned and snuggled, filled with pleasure from the past night and from the lovemaking to come—

  But Adam’s tone was cool, as if he’d set his mind on a task. “That’s just the problem. There’s no going back now. We can try, but last night will always be there.”

  She sensed his uneasiness and she didn’t want the happiness within her ruined. He’d said he had something to tell her, and whatever it was—she didn’t want to know. Nothing could be worse than what had happened all those years ago. Yet she knew that Adam would have his say and a chill ran through her. “Do you have to be so solemn this morning? I can deal with whatever happens between us.”

  “Can you?” he asked ominously. Then, quickly he blurted, “What if I were to tell you that I’m Sam?”

  Nine

  “Sam? You?” Jillian smiled, mentally comparing the two men. Adam—carefree, taking life as he found it, an adventurer, unconcerned about tomorrows or business. Sam—considerate, involved in the design and production of his toys, in the uplifting morals of each story he wrote, concerned about every detail of his employees’ and associates’ lives, operating at a high-tech level with computers and faxes….

  “Are you Sam?” she asked, going along with the tease and the image of Adam in a business suit.

  “Yes,” Adam stated firmly after a hesitation. The morning shadows deepened on the planes of his face, the angles more harsh and weary as a slash of light cruised his black blows and hit his jutting cheekbones. “I knew it wasn’t right, but I wanted to know more about you—what had happened to you. You do good work, Jillian, and you needed a chance to break into larger accounts. I knew you wouldn’t take an offer from me, but you might from Sam. Saying I’m sorry isn’t enough. I should have told you sooner. I tried to—”

  “You are Sam?” she asked dully after a long moment in which her heart stopped beating. I just made love with Sam?

  He gave her some unmistakable details that Sam would know from working with her. “I’m Sam,” he said, watching her. “I was about twenty-five and driving an eighteen-wheeler. I’d pass children playing in their yards, and think, ‘I’d like to give them something. I’d like to tell them to be kind to each other and to be safe by following the rules—the stop signs, the crosswalks, the railroad signs.’ Sarah did the same with me. Sam was born because I needed something to fill my spare time, the hours when I wasn’t working.”

  He shrugged lightly. “I wanted to have more money to donate for abused women and kids centers, like the one in Amen Flats, and to handicapped children. You have too much to deal with now, but I am sorry.”

  “Sorry.” The word fell flat into the cold morning as Jillian tried to place Adam’s image over the business one she had conceived of Sam. Sorry? she realized her voice had risen hysterically.

  She hurried to grab her borrowed sweat clothes, then decided she wasn’t wearing anything of Adam’s; she wouldn’t be obligated to him for anything more. Taking a stick in one hand, she foraged for her damp clothes on the bushes nearby while holding the sleeping bag to her chest.

  While she tugged her damp clothes inside the sleeping bag and squirmed into them, Adam sat still, staring at the fire as if he expected the worst. “You can’t wear those clothes, Jillian. They’re still damp.”

  “Do not tell me what I can do!” She sat up and jammed on her shoes. “What a joke. You must be very happy with yourself, taking pity on me, giving me that fat account, making me feel important, a part of the Sam the Truck family.”

  He stood, towering over her. “Pity had nothing to do with it. You’re good. You did a great job on the ads and now on designing the packaging. The brochure has more life than any of the other promotions.”

  “‘Promotions?’ ‘Packaging?’ What do they have to do with that—” She pointed to the mussed sleeping bag.

  “Not a thing. That was real and if we took everything else and parceled it apart, that would still be good and true. The value is in the unseen, the intangibles—”

  She stared at him blankly, full realization of his deception curling around her, squeezing her. “You’re talking like Sam.”

  He shoved a hand through his hair. “I am Sam.”

  “Didn’t you think I’d find out? What did you think would happen then?” Dazed, Jillian sat with her legs crossed on the sleeping bag and shivered, the mountain chill seeping into her damp clothes. She tossed away the coat he tried to give her.

  “I thought we could make it work, Jillian. I still do.”

  She shook her head. “What ‘work’?”

  “You and me. We work well together on designs and ideas. There’s no reason we can’t work out our lives.”

  “I had one business marriage. I’m not having another relationship like that.”

  Adam’s gray eyes narrowed and in the dim light, his mouth firmed, that jaw locking in place. “You’re right in that. You’re not. There’s nothing cold about how you feel in my arms, Jillian. Whatever else has happened, you feel right.”

  “You mean sex? An affair?” The idea shocked Jillian-the-lady who had always thought she was frigid. She definitely had felt like a woman in Adam’s arms.

  “Now where would you get an idea like that?” Adam’s deep voice held anger. “I intend to marry you, Jillian—”

  “‘Marry?’ You and I? Now there’s a concept that frightens me. I’d be in constant upheaval, either ready to throw something at you, or—” She didn’t want to tell Adam that there was no telling how she would act with him nearby—for one thing, she wanted to fling herself at him now. After all her careful planning and restructuring her life into the peaceful zone, marrying Adam would be a disaster.

  The way he made her feel was too shocking. And then, there was the Sam matter. Marriage to Adam? A barrage of images slammed into her and Jillian knew that she had to sort everything out very carefully—including her family’s deception.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, watching her crawl back into the sleeping bag.

  It had their scent, Adam’s scent, and just for a time, she needed to remember their beautiful lovemaking—when the world seemed to be spinning just right.

  “I’ve had enough shocks in the past two days to last quite the lifetime.” Jillian turned her back to him and pulled the Tallchief plaid over her. “I’m going back to sleep. I woke up in a different world than last night. I don’t want to think anymore. When I wake up again, none of this will have happened.”

  “We made love—that happened…. Are you going to cry?” he asked warily, considering her.

  “No. But I may shout. And if a bear comes along, tell him I’m in the mood for a good fight. Good night.”

  “It’s morning, honey,” Adam said softly, with the sound of laughter in his tone.

  “Just go away and let me sleep.”

  Jillian pulled the sleeping bag over her head and closed herself away from the beautiful morning and the discovery that Adam was Sam. One thought held her, and she poked her head out of the sleeping bag to find Adam staring at her bra, very white in the morning sunlight, dangling from a branch with her torn briefs. “Adam? You did say I did good work, didn’t you? That is the reason I was contracted, right?”

  “Very, very good. It’s alive and it will appeal to my kids.”

  She fumbled and struggled and finally sat up. “Your kids? You have children?”

&nb
sp; Adam was very quiet. Then he stood, grabbed her bra and briefs and walked to drop them on her. “You’re awake now, aren’t you? Let’s get off this mountain before any more damage is done. Do you really think that I wouldn’t tell you something like that? I told you I was with another woman—we planned to get married. And neither one of us really wanted children. Now I do—with you, and that’s the whole shocking truth, Jilly-dear. I’d like to have my own family—with you…Jillian, my wife, wearing a gold wedding band instead of that silver one and lying beside me every night.”

  He inhaled very raggedly as if he’d caught a thought, but it wasn’t his first choice. “If I can’t have you with vows, I’ll take what I can get, as long as we’re together.”

  “Now that’s an image—you settling down,” Jillian finally managed to say when she caught her breath. She grabbed the briefs and threw them at him, a reminder that they’d forgotten everything but each other—and that he hadn’t told her everything before they made love.

  “It’s time. We’ve lost enough of it.” Adam reached down to lift her up in the sleeping bag. His kiss said that he meant exactly what he’d said before he released her.

  Jillian promptly sagged onto the ground, sitting with the sleeping bag around her shoulders. She’d responded to that hot, wild kiss still tearing through her and the sudden emptiness and hunger had stunned her. Adam glanced at her while he methodically packed away the camping gear and saddled the horse. Jillian teetered between safety and Adam. Her body trembled as she folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not going anywhere, Adam. I’m staying right here, until we sort this out.”

  “Fine. You do that.” Adam walked over to her, scooped her up in the sleeping bag and deposited her on the saddle, swinging up behind her. He adjusted the bulky bag and enclosed her in his arms. “Let’s just call it a day, shall we?” he said as he began the trek down the mountain. “You’re not logical now. You need time to sort things out, and you’re too sexy when you’re all steamed up for me not to want you. And I’m wanting you pretty badly right now. Making love wouldn’t solve anything—not with the mood you’re in. And I’m not going to be blamed for taking advantage of you.”

  She’d always considered herself functional, intelligent and hardworking. “Me? Sexy?”

  Adam didn’t answer, his expression grim. Later, when they stopped to rest the horse, Adam peeled her from the sleeping bag and put her arms into his coat as if she were a child. He lifted her back onto the horse and bent to spread and roll the sleeping bag. Then Jillian knew what she had to do—He didn’t call out to her as she rode away on his horse.

  It was little payback for his Sam deception and it was not typical of Jillian to react impulsively. But then, after discovering the truth about her parents ruining Sarah’s and Adam’s lives, Adam’s lovemaking, followed by his Sam-admission, what woman wouldn’t be out of character?

  Jillian guided the horse through the trail used by the Tallchiefs for over a century and a half. All the expensive riding courses her parents had insisted on served her well over the rough terrain, the narrow path. She had the odd sense that she was another woman, one who had just discovered that she might not always act like a lady with the man she loved.

  A hawk soared overhead, reminding Jillian yet again of the legend. What were the rules? What were the boundaries? What kind of a match would they make—she steadfast and safe and predictable, and Adam…Adam. Adam. He’d made love to her so gently at first, and then with just the right touch of desperation in his trembling hands, his mouth burning hers.

  Well, then, Jillian decided, she’d just discovered that she wasn’t always a lady with Adam Tallchief.

  Suddenly, Adam stood beside the trail, the dappled sunlight spreading over his shoulders. He was breathing hard from running, his shirt torn open to expose his gleaming chest. His eyes, the color of cold steel, slashed at her as his hand shot out to capture the reins. “Having fun?” he asked.

  Stunned, Jillian took in that grim, rugged look of a Tallchief male on the hunt, and knew that he could find her anywhere. Bred from a Sioux chieftain, his ability to track in the wilds was natural. Danger clung to him; he would fight for what he wanted—and he wanted her.

  He considered her to be his—

  Jillian mulled her anger as she shoved a strand back from her damp cheek. She was a contemporary woman with equal rights. Adam Tallchief was just as much hers. She was sweaty and angry and upset as she’d never been before, and this time, she wasn’t certain that she could control herself.

  She should have been frightened; she wasn’t. Anger drove her now, enough to almost throw her from the saddle onto him. Jillian shivered at the thought—the primitive, unladylike image shocking her. Just as he looked now, hair caught by the wind, his eyes narrowed and that jaw contracting in anger, Adam could have leaped from the past, a man on the hunt. Jillian knew then how Elizabeth Montclair must have felt when she’d tried to run from the man she’d married.

  How the English lady had felt so long ago, when she turned to meet her husband, passion for passion.

  Jillian breathed unevenly—was she really a passionate woman? The answer coursed back through the pines—apparently, when it came to Adam, she was.

  “It’s dangerous up here. Don’t ever do that again,” he said as he swung up behind her and took the reins, his arms enclosing her. There was enough power and anger riding him now to hurt her, but he wouldn’t. She knew he wouldn’t; on a physical level, she trusted him, but not herself.

  “I want to see proof that you really are Sam.”

  But Adam was silent, pulling her back tightly against him. His heart raced against her, and his breath swept roughly across her cheek, as if he’d give his soul to keep her safe.

  “Satisfied?” Adam asked four hours later when Jillian turned off his laptop. She’d prowled through his work, his contacts with the company, the memos sent in reference to Nancy’s development.

  “Quite.” She rose, nodded and walked to the cabin’s door. Her head bent as though she were thinking of speaking, and then she opened the door, closing it behind her.

  Adam opened it, leaned against the frame and crossed his arms as he watched her walk to her SUV.

  She paused and then looked at his pickup. Where it wasn’t rusted or dented, it gleamed in the morning sunlight. Jillian’s gaze took in the pickup and the cabin with its wood waiting to be chopped, and boards waiting to be disposed of, and the new tires stacked on the porch, with what looked like a newer pickup hood and a better fender. She’d imagined Sam in a sleek office and wearing a three-piece suit. A crow came to rest on the top of the house, cawing at her. Adam…Sam…Adam….

  Last night…this morning…lovemaking…secrets. She walked to the pickup and sat on the running board, glaring at Adam.

  He should have told her sooner. Adam walked slowly to her, and she didn’t move as he sat beside her. He longed to hold her, but Jillian was rocking slightly, shaking her head as she looked at the cabin.

  He’d waited a lifetime for her; making love with her only sealed his fate more. “If you peel everything else away, the basic facts hold solid. I care for you,” he said, tossing any pride to the wind.

  She stiffened at that, but didn’t look at him. Instead, her heel crushed a new stand of grass. “Sure, and that’s why you maneuvered me into contract work—why we shared those endearing exchanges. Do you realize how much my life has changed in two days? Everything I believed in has been ripped out from under me. I made a fool of myself, coming here, ready to do…I don’t know what, and all the time it was lies. I gave way into an impulse, a need and made love with you. Within hours, I learn I can’t trust you and this time for real.”

  Adam wished he could go back in time and erase his deception as Sam. “I can only apologize. I understand now why Tallchief captured Una and Liam kidnapped Elizabeth to bring her back here. I would have done the same thing. It would have been much simpler. You’ll adjust. You’re logical and competent. You’ll make
the right decisions and you’ll survive.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  He took her hand and she eased it away, not a good sign. She was looking at him as if he’d just flown in from another planet. He could feel her pull away from him. “I wasn’t expecting this, honey. But here it is—you and me.”

  “No, we’re not here.” Jillian stood and suddenly her hand shot to his hair, holding it back from his face. She scanned his features and frowned. “I don’t know who you are, or who I am. And I’m not going to be pushed into anything. I’ve already been there, done that.”

  “Now, sweetheart. Don’t do anything rash.” His tone warned, and the stubble of his jaw only made him look more dangerous.

  Adam rose slowly, and Jillian still held his hair. “Don’t contact me. I’m finishing the contract with Sam. When I think of all the intimate things I told you—told Sam, I could just….”

  Jillian blinked and remembered all the intimate things her body had told Adam. He’d opened her soul last night and she’d curled it around him; just soothing those masculine edges had given her peace.

  “Let’s go into town and have breakfast, honey. You’ll feel better after you’ve eaten,” Adam offered conversationally, as if she weren’t holding his hair in her fist. His expression was closed and hard, those gun-smoke eyes narrowed on her face.

  She released his hair, her hand warm from the sleek texture. She rubbed her palm on her thigh, and still the feel remained. An image of his hair drifting across her skin the night before, sensitizing her body, shook her. The raw excitement and passion she’d felt earlier when he’d tracked her on the mountain still stunned her. Jillian-the-lady, was also passionate. She’d have to consider the images, and somehow make sense of them before she came apart. She’d controlled her life, and suddenly—with Adam—she was another woman, fierce, determined, angry, passionate, willful, sensually hungry. She lived for the moment, feeding on the fiery desire between them, when she thought her life had settled into a comfortable, safe one.