by Cait London
Fiona fought to keep her hand from trembling and quickly finished feeding him, too aware of the bedding lying low on Joel’s flat muscled stomach. He was definitely aroused.
“Your hand is trembling. Don’t be afraid. You don’t need to be anymore,” he said softly when she had finished.
“I am never afraid,” she shot back and glanced down at his hand, which had come to rest on her thigh so lightly that she hadn’t noticed. She eased it from her, wary of any contact with Joel.
“Aren’t you?” he taunted her.
“I’m not in the market,” she said flatly, aware that the conversation had taken a curve, undercurrents running through the air between them. She stood to her feet, eyes locked with Joel’s green ones.
“Thanks for bringing me flowers. I’ve never had a woman bring me a bouquet before. You’ve done a nice job cleaning up the place.... When you’re steaming, your eyes are the color of smoke. Why don’t you tell me what really bothers you about me?”
Fiona straightened. Whoever Joel was, he knew just how and where to place his verbal jabs. She refused to answer, glaring at him until finally with an arrogant, pleased smile he turned his back to her and yawned. She, who had saved him, patched him, nursed him, cooked for him and cleaned, had been dismissed Few people dismissed Fiona Tallchief, but she decided Joel wasn’t up to a toe-to-toe discussion.
Oh, yes, he was. She rounded the bed so that he faced her. “Joel. Listen up. I’ll help you start a new life. I’m good at that, reforming people, getting them set up You need a nine-to-five job, with insurance benefits, and a decent neighborhood...a tidy little apartment that you can afford and that you can call home. You’ll have to give up your old friends, of course. Because they’ll draw you back down into crime. You’ve got to return that flashy car. I’ll help you.”
He opened one eyelid and winced. “I’d like to listen to your offer to make an honest man of me, really I would. But right now I’ve got a few aches and pains. A steak might help my eye, making the swelling go down.”
Fiona tromped outside. She took a package from the apple box nailed to the outside of the house; in the cold temperatures, the box served as a refrigerator. Inside, she ripped open the paper, cut a piece off the huge steak and slapped it on his face. “There. Now will you listen to me?”
He eased the red meat from his nose to cover his blackened eye. “If I have to.”
She sat on the bed, bounced on it hard, to get his attention. “You have to.”
“Why don’t you come to bed, and we’ll talk about it?” The masculine drawl was meant to taunt her.
Fiona stared at him. Joel’s invitation had set her senses tingling, disturbing her. She pushed away her uneasy emotions and pushed on with her cause, just as she had always done. “I’m trying to reform you. You could listen, or at least invest energy in bettering yourself.”
“Talk,” he said with a yawn, and lay back, steak over his eye, arms folded in front of his bare chest.
“You’re too sleepy for it to have an effect.” She was too sleepy to be effective.
“Fine,” he murmured with another yawn. “I do need my sleep. I’ve had a hard week.”
Fiona stiffened, impatient with the man she was trying to reform. “You’ve had a hard week. Isn’t that too bad. I suppose thieving takes time and energy.”
“There was that mountain of cans at the store,” he added in a drawl, reminding her that she owed him. “I’ll treasure the bouquet you brought me. Tomorrow, when you come home from work, could you bring some magazines? I like ones about cars.”
“I just bet you do.” Fiona whipped the sleeping bag from the bed and quickly zipped it up, flipped it on the floor and jerked a pillow from beneath his head. She held it for a moment wavering between bashing him and letting the matter drop.
“This mattress is great,” he murmured sleepily. “Nice and soft, not too soft, but just right.”
“You are not Goldilocks in the three bears’ house. We’ll talk later,” Fiona said and dropped the pillow over his face.
At one o’clock in the morning, after taking away Joel’s steak, checking on Eunice and trying to sleep fully dressed on the floor, Fiona surrendered to the temptation of one of Joel’s soft T-shirts and a pair of his comfortable silk boxer shorts. Her car thief wallowed on a soft, warm bed, while she was left to the sleeping bag and a hard floor. The cab in the truck had a certain Eunice odor that Fiona could not abide.
Joel was sleeping deeply, and she was still wide awake, thrilled with the progress of exposing Timba Simba Land’s proposed purchase of Eunice. While her mind streamed along at a hundred miles an hour, her body ached from exhaustion. She had to be at Hummingbirds in the morning, opening the shop as usual, or she could look suspicious. She got up, went to the bed and stared down at Joel. He looked safe enough, rather like her brothers, like someone she could trust. She eased on top of the comforter and drew the opened sleeping bag over her.
The old house creaked around her, the fire in the stove crackled, and Fiona sighed, wishing for sleep. She turned on her side away from Joel and back again. After fifteen minutes she decided to relieve her thoughts to the sleeping man, who wouldn’t remember anything. “Joel, old buddy. You’re not that bad, when you’re asleep. You’re the best therapy I’ve had in years.”
He began to snore lightly, the sound pleasant, reassuring her that he was asleep and did not hear her.
Fiona lay perfectly still, listening to the October wind and circling on her emotions. October, the month of their parents’ deaths, had always unsettled the Tallchiefs and raised their emotions—perhaps that was what she was feeling. The rhythm of Joel’s light snoring provided a sense of safety.
He made her feel safe. There was no reason behind that emotion, just the sense that if she needed him, he’d be there. Like her brothers and sister, Fiona thought, snuggling down beside his warmth. “I used to sleep with my cats, and you’re serving the same purpose, Joel. Poor Minnie, my cat at the shop. She’s probably lonesome right now. Of course, she has Abe and George, my lizards.”
Fiona listened to a branch rattle against a window. “I meant it when I said love wasn’t for me. But I saw it in Mom and Dad and in my brothers’ and sister’s lives. I won’t have anyone feeling sorry for me, Joel. I did what I had to do, growing up, and I was very good. Once the family wasn’t in jeopardy, I took off like a shot, and yet, a part of my heart will always be here...so I came back. Last Christmas, I knew. I had to stop running and settle down. The florist business was up for sale, and I’ve always loved growing things. I’ve been bored, Joel. Really bored, and the men I’ve dated seemed scared of me. I’ve terrified the men in Amen Flats for years, and they know I’m not sweet. The rest...the other men I’ve dated just seemed so...drab.”
He moved, shifting restlessly, and nudged his face against her cheek. Because he was still snoring lightly, she allowed the trespass and the pleasant weight of his arm sliding over her waist.
Fiona tapped her fingers on his arm, circling her thoughts. “I’ll get you back on the right track if it kills me. Eunice and I appreciate your help.”
She listened to the branch, scraping at the window. “I’ve been running too fast, Joel, and it has to stop. I feel as if I’ve given a piece of me away to each cause, and now there’s nothing left for me. I love growing plants and I’d like a real garden someday, but just getting Hummingbirds up and running and remodeling my upstairs apartment has been hard. I’m making my stand, Joel. Our family challenge is to stand and fight, and that’s what I’m doing. I’ll know what I want when I see it.”
She rubbed the tears from her eyes. “I’ll lose myself, if I don’t stop fighting, running here and there. I want a home, Mom’s things where I can see them and frames to put my family’s pictures in—not just the traveling wallet-size version in my tiny apartment over the shop. If home is where the heart is, Joel, then I’ve got to find it, because...”
She inhaled sharply, fighting tears. “I’m scared,
Joel. Really, really scared. That missing part of me wants something that I don’t know I can provide. My family is worried about me, and I hate that. Eunice understands. I tell her everything, even my need to experience a real laminating, heart-thundering, blood-boiling sexual experience. I know I’d want equality, that I’d want my share, because I’ve always been an active participant, and frankly I’m a bit greedy when it comes to filling my own more personal needs. Battling issues takes one part of me, but I am a physical woman, and a strong one. Sometimes the heat just pounds at me—you have no idea, Joel, because you probably take care of your sexual needs whenever you want, but I’m very, very picky, and a weak man won’t do. I’d probably kill him. Or scare him. So many men want this passive, yes-whatever-you-want kind of woman, which I’m not.”
On the pillow beside her, Joel groaned unevenly, and his body tensed. Fiona glanced at him scornfully. “Sure. Right You’re dreaming about it now, aren’t you? That’s because you know the moves and the heat and the final—whatever for men. Do you know that no man has even...”
She cleared her throat, uneasy with forming the words, yet determined to continue her therapy with Joel. “My breasts are untouched, Joel. They ache to be touched and yes, tended very well, by an experienced lover. That’s all I want, an experienced well-matched lover. Make that a strong, physically fit, exciting lover. No commitment on either side. We both just take what we want, walk off and call it quits when the going gets rough...because I cannot handle any more emotional pain. I’ve just seen too much, and not only from when my folks were killed, but in the years I’ve been involved in environmental, human and animal rights.”
Joel’s arm shifted slightly, resting over Fiona’s breasts. She closed her lids, her body aching in response to the pleasant weight. “Oh, fine. Just what I needed.” She looked down at the dragon on his arm. His muscle flexed and it seemed to snarl at her. “You’re asleep, or I wouldn’t be telling you this. I’ve never told anyone, except Eunice, and she understands.”
Joel reeled back as the bright October sunlight stabbed his eyes. He braced one hand against the post supporting the old porch, and it promptly cracked, threatening to break. He began walking toward the barn, easing his body back to life. The woman sharing his bed for the past two nights was tough, experienced at making do and probably could camp in the Rocky Mountains surrounding the ranch with ease. She caused him to feel delicate. Fiona moved quickly, competently and knew the basics of bathing with a bucket. She probably did terrify most men, especially when she started talking about sex and how Eunice understood.
Fiona Tallchief had all the symptoms of mental problems, with that imaginary friend she’d been talking to in the truck. Joel could deal with Fiona creating someone to be her friend; therapy could rid her of the need for a Eunice. But the way that low, sultry voice sang and beckoned to him, and Fiona’s expression of her needs last night in bed, had caused Joel to awake like a teenage boy—
An independent and competent woman, she could stitch wounds, make do with diapers instead of bandages and knew how to handle a big truck and trailer up and down steep grades and curves. She’d brought flowers, stuffing them into an old fruit jar and making the barren, cold house seem like home.
The sight of her this morning, padding to the old cookstove in his oversize T-shirt and shorts and her socks was almost endearing. He wasn’t a man who treasured “endearing,” except with Cody.
He missed so much of Cody’s life, thanks to Joel’s ex-wife. The blame wasn’t hers alone, it was his for not pushing—Joel wondered if he was too late, if he could give Cody what he needed. Joel glanced at the field lying dormant near the barn. He was city-bred, just like his son, and they would learn together.
He glanced at the corral’s broken fence and the old garden spot. He’d bought the ranch because of his specific needs for Cody, to have something to rebuild, to grow crops and animals and to build a relationship with his son.
He turned, shading his eyes against the dappled sunlight, and looked at the old house. It was a start. It needed plumbing and basic carpentry, and after he got his tools from the car, he’d check the old motor on the well’s pump.
He retrieved the cellular phone tucked in his belt, and dialed Rafe’s private number. His grandmother, Mamie Palladin answered. “Rafe is flirting with my secretary and getting nowhere. The girl has more sense than to let one of you Palladin boys interest her. You boys will have to stop ringing when I’m on my treadmill. I can’t hear what’s going on. Rafe is wearing his gotto-protect-my-brother look and you’re the only one who I don’t know what you’re doing. I can’t hear the conversation as well when I’m puffing away, and I know you’re up to something, Joel, other than trying to rebuild your relationship with Cody. You don’t need Rafe’s help to get that old place up and running before winter...this project has ‘leave me alone’ Joel Palladin’s signature all over it. So you’re up to something. What is it?”
Joel smiled, loving his grandmother. Her interference had saved his life and his brothers’. “I try to keep you on your toes, Mamie. Otherwise you’d get bored.”
“Don’t you sweet talk me, Joel Palladin. I’ll find out sooner or later. I always do. I love you,” Mamie finished crisply.
Rafe picked up the line, and Joel tucked the mobile phone under his chin as he reached the barn. He lifted the board securing the barn’s double doors. “What’s Fiona Tallchief up to now?”
“She’s stolen an elephant and tucked it away somewhere,” Rafe stated just as Joel swung open the doors. He stepped into the darkness and ran into the hind end of an elephant.
“Is that right?” Joel asked softly after a moment, his eyes adjusting to the shadows. “I think I found it.”
“Her name is Eunice. Timba Simba Land—TS Land—has been reported for animal neglect, and the zoo has approved the sale of the elephant to them. According to the zoo’s spokesperson, Fiona Tallchief is a dynamic, forceful woman opposed to the sale. She tried allure, reason, and when she found that the zoo considered Eunice to be a piece of collateral and saleable property, she ignited. She’s the suspect in the—” Rafe began to laugh “—elephant kidnapping. Apparently she’s good at collecting things. She’s got you, doesn’t she? Collected you like a sack of potatoes, or something to that effect?”
“Stand by. I’ll call you back.” Joel hurriedly closed the doors and secured them from inside. He was small enough, in comparison to the elephant, to dive out the side door if she proved dangerous.
Joel was fascinated. As a child he’d never been able to get close enough to an elephant, and as an adult he’d forgotten or buried the wish. The elephant, not the largest he’d ever seen, was female, with an inquisitive trunk. Joel eased his lower body against his car and noted the peanut shells on the floor, fresh dung shoveled into a heap at one side, fresh hay and a washtub filled with water. To complete the cozy scene, a battery-operated tape deck played Elvis tunes, and a jar filled with daisies stood on a windowsill. Joel spoke quietly, not wanting to frighten the elephant, who seemed to wear a friendly smile, her tiny eyes flirting with him. He glanced at a huge ball and a child’s red wagon. The elephant shoved the wagon at him gently with her trunk, then she indicated the gunnysack in the rafters above his head.
Joel obeyed, climbing up the old ladder to dig into the sack and toss peanuts down into her red wagon. “Eunice” was scrolled on the ball and the wagon. “Eunice,” Joel murmured slowly. “Eunice, old girl. I thought you were a figment of Fiona’s mind. I don’t think anyone would call you a figment.”
After he descended the ladder and began to feed her, Eunice wrapped her trunk around him and swayed, enclosing him in an elephant hug. Uncomfortable and wary, Joel allowed his body to be fondled intimately as Eunice prowled for more peanuts. “So our friend, Fiona Tallchief, has some explaining to do, hasn’t she?” he asked Eunice.
The elephant’s trunk wrapped around him provided little soothing to Joel’s rising temper. He was a respected attorney, and an acc
omplice to grand theft. He allowed Eunice to hug him and sway as he called Rafe. “That elephant will be back in the zoo’s keeping by Thursday morning. Keep the press out of it.”
Rafe laughed. “Can’t. There’s a television bleeding heart named Brick who has exposed the somewhat-shady sale. Now tell me why you’re interested in protecting the lady. Or do you like wearing sludge?”
Joel disconnected the line and whipped off the tarp covering his Corvette. “Sorry, Eunice. I’ve got to make a little trip into Amen Flats to visit your friendly florist and kidnapper. I’ll be damned if I’ll be listed as an accomplice in the zoo’s break and enter and the transport of stolen goods across state lines.”
He backed the car out of the barn, closed the doors and stopped. Joel leaned back against the car and studied the mountains, the morning sunlight on the old house. Fiona Tallchief, all volatile, five-foot-ten, contrary, fascinating, sexy inches of her, was his and he was staking his claim.
He would taste her, enjoy her and walk away, closing that ragged, disturbing edge that had bothered him since she’d dumped sludge over his designer suit.
After chewing on the fact that she aroused him like no other woman had in his lifetime, Joel called Rafe. “Get Nick in on this.”
“Anything you want. This sounds serious.”
“As serious as it gets.” Joel checked his watch. “I want something dropped off at the ranch. Just bundle it up and have Nick parachute it down to me. It’s old, fragile and precious, so wrap it carefully. It’s eight o‘clock now. I’ll wait until eleven o’clock keeping Eunice company and getting to know her. That gives you three hours to get what I want and deliver it. This is what I want—”
He briefed Rafe, Palladin, Inc.’s project development affairs officer. Nick, a troubleshooter for Palladin, Inc., was the baby of the Palladin brothers. Nick could waltz a low-flying private jet through treacherous mountain canyons. The three brothers shared a bitter past, the ability to make any motor purr, an addiction to details, the love of their grandmother and a great big callus where man-woman love was concerned.
