Montana Wildfire (41 page)

Thin Billy's eyes widened, his shocked attention straying over his friend's beefy shoulders. His gaze met cold steel grey, and held. His gaunt jaw loosened and his mouth gaped open. At the same time, his cheeks drained a chalky shade of white.

If Jake had wondered if the two men would fight for each other, Thin Billy's reaction took care of that. They wouldn't. Not if they were smart. Then again, considering what they'd been about to do...

Jake's attention shifted to the door. It was a miracle the wood didn't combust, his gaze was that hot, that furious. He thought of Amanda, of what these two men would have done to her had he not come along when he had. His gut kicked, hard. His heart was pounding fast and furious, each beat pumping more and more fury into his system, wiping away the fog of liquor, wiping away everything except the image of his woman being violated by these two filthy pieces of white scum.

Had he ever wanted to kill a man as badly as he wanted to kill these two? If so, Jake couldn't remember it. No fury he had ever felt before matched what he was feeling now. No
fear
equaled the fear that was eating at him from the inside out.

Good God, if he hadn't come...!

"H-hey, now just a minute, mister," Fat Cal stammered. It took a conscious effort not to let the lump in his saggily fleshed throat bob too much. Any movement, no matter how slight, could sink that blade right in there. "Listen, f-friend, we wasn't gonna do nothin' to the woman."

"Right," Thin Billy agreed nervously. He shifted from foot to foot, licking his fear-parched lips at regular intervals. "We was just—we was just gonna keep her busy till you got back is all. Ain't no crime in that."

Jake's gaze stabbed through the thin man. "You don't call rape a crime?" he said, his gaze sliding contemptuously from the top of the man's dark, wispy head to the tattered toes of his boots. A cold, satisfied grin curled over his lips when he saw Thin Billy take an instinctive step backward.

"Rape? Wouldn't've been no rape," Fat Cal huffed. "Hell, no." He grunted when the arm around his waist tightened. The air whooshed from his too-full lips. After a full minute of the pressure, his cheeks took on a bluish tinge.

Jake angled his head so his lips were close to the fat man's ear. The stench of Fat Cal's body was strong, but not nearly as strong as Jake's fury. "You don't call rape a crime?" he repeated slowly, precisely.

The arm that threatened to snap the fat man's ribs loosened enough for Fat Cal to swallow a gulp of air. The hallway filled with the sound of the fat man's gasping and wheezing. The raspy noises almost masked the sound of the thin man's steps. From the corner of his eyes, Jake saw Thin Billy easing his way toward the stairs, clinging to the wall, to the shadows. The expression on his gaunt, haggard face said he was praying to get away undetected. Pity it was too late.

Jake's gaze swung to the side, freezing Thin Billy in his tracks. The small man shivered, molding his back against the planked wall. "Come here, Billy."

For a second, Jake expected Thin Billy to make a run for it. And then the little man's gaze shifted to the blade poised against the folds of his fat friend's throat... and he saw the big copper hand that looked more than capable of ending two lives in just as many strokes.

Thin Billy sucked in a deep, shaky breath, then cautiously eased closer to Jake.

Had Fat Cal guessed what Jake's intent was, he might have tried to make a run for it. As it was, the hand wielding the knife left his throat for only a fraction of a second—just long enough for a rock-solid copper fist to slam the hilt of the knife into that sweet spot between Thin Billy's lanky shoulder and neck—before it returned in lightning time.

Thin Billy's eyes rolled back in their sockets, and his body slid quickly down the wall as his knees buckled beneath him. He slumped to the floor with a
thud
that sounded hollow, and not nearly satisfying enough to Jake. For now, it would have to do.

Fat Cal still hadn't caught his breath. The air cut through his lungs with choppy, raspy sounds, but his sudden whimper was distinct enough to drag Jake's attention back to him.

"Last chance to answer, Cal. Do you call rape a crime?"

"I-it ain't... rape when ya take... a woman like that'un," the fat man managed to wheeze. "Any gal who'll... give it to a breed'll—"

The too-soft body pressed against Jake's front began to tremble—undoubtedly because the copper hand wielding the knife had increased its pressure. The blade sliced like butter through the top layer of the fat man's skin. Deep enough to draw blood, deep enough to sting like a son of a bitch and to leave a scar... but not deep enough to kill. Yet.

Blood trickled down Fat Cal's neck. It was absorbed by his grimy collar.

Jake uncurled his arm from around the fat man's waist and grasped the man's tattered shirt collar in his fist. Before Fat Cal knew what had happened his back had been slammed up against the wall. The back of Fat Cal's balding head collided with the wall hard enough to make the wood vibrate. A strangled gasp rushed past his lips. And then the knife was back at his throat, and Fat Cal thought better of making any sound at all.

Jake had to look down to meet the fat man's gaze. The eyes that stared back at him were narrow, the irises a swamp-water shade of greenish-brown. His flabby cheeks were fear-reddened, and the folds of skin sagging beneath his jaw shook with the violent trembling of his big body.

"Look, mister, we didn't mean no offense. If'n ya want to be paid for the whore's time... well, that's fine by me. I got me some gold dust."

Cautiously, Fat Cal's hand inched toward his pants pocket. He made it only halfway before Jake's words stopped him cold.

"The woman's mine. She can't be bought."

The swamp-green eyes widened. "Yours?"

"Mine," Jake growled, angling his head until their noses almost touched. Fat Cal's breaths rushed past his parted lips, blasting over Jake; the feel was hot, the smell stomach-rolling sour. "And make no mistake, I protect what's mine."

"I... well, yeah, I can see that ya do, b-but—"

Jake found that yanking Fat Cal away from the wall by his collar, then slamming him back against it hard, shut him up fast. "Damn straight I do. Want to know something else, Cal?"

"N-no." If he hadn't been trembling before, the furious glint in the steely eyes glaring at him, and the steady, capable fist curled around that knife, would have set Fat Cal shaking in his boots.

"I swear," Jake said, his tone low and edgy, "I'll kill any man who lays so much as his rancid breath on my woman. You dare touch her, you dare to so much as
look
at her again, and I'll kill you. Very slowly, very painfully. Do you understand me, Cal?
Do you?"

"Y-yes. Oh, God, yes!"

"Good. Now, get the hell out of here." With a shove, Jake sent Fat Cal stumbling clumsily down the hall. The man's tattered boots collided with his friend's prone body, but that didn't stop the fat man from hurrying toward the stairwell.

Jake plowed his hand through his hair and watched the man's meaty back disappear around the corner. Then he turned, his gaze fixing on the door. Or, more accurately, on the woman who stood framed in it. He was just in time to see Amanda tuck the pistol into the pocket of her skirt.

He'd sensed her presence there for a while now. In fact, Amanda Lennox was the only reason he'd spared Fat Cal's life. He would rather have killed the slimy bastard, but he didn't want Amanda to see him kill a man. He didn't want her to think any worse of him than she all ready did. And he didn't want to know why that was so.

His gaze slid upward, locking with shock-widened green. Her cheeks were pasty. Her lower lip trembled. So did the arms she'd wrapped tightly around her waist.

"Jake?"

"Don't say it," he sneered, slashing the hand wielding the knife through dead air. "Just... Jesus, lady, don't say it."

"But—"

With jerky motions, Jake wiped the blade down his thigh. A thread of blood marred the denim when he returned the knife to its sheath. His gaze was trained on the unconscious Thin Billy. "Pack your gear. We're leaving Junction. Now. Tonight."

He expected a fight, yet he wasn't entirely surprised when Amanda turned and walked back into the room. He heard the shuffling sounds of her doing what he'd ordered her to do.

What Jake hadn't expected, hadn't prepared for, was the after-shock of vibrations now shivering through his body. Fury had burned away all residue of the bourbon. His mind was working now, and it was working overtime. He was capable of thinking only one thought, and he thought it over and over. Like a chant he didn't know how to stop, he thought,
My woman... my woman... my woman.

The hell of it was, that was exactly what Amanda Lennox was.
His.
Jake may have been able to deny it before, but he couldn't deny it any longer. Whether Amanda realized it or not, whether she
wanted
it or not, she was his. Body and soul.

And Jacob Blackhawk Chandler kept what was his, even if he had to pay for it with his life.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Amanda bending over her saddlebag, stuffing something inside of it. Yeah, Jake thought, it just might kill him to keep her by his side. But it was a price he was seriously considering paying.

Jake's words echoed in Amanda's mind as she crammed her belongings into the saddlebag. There wasn't much to pack. If she'd been in the mood to reflect, she would have thought it sad that a woman who'd once had so much, now had so little.

My woman...

Amanda drew in a shaky breath as she rolled up her only other dress and shoved it into the saddlebag. Had Jake meant to say that, she wondered, or had they been meaningless words, said to scare off her would-be attackers? Did he even
realize
what he'd called her, or that she'd heard him? Did he know how very much hearing those words on his lips had meant to her? How deeply it had affected her? Even now her reaction was staggering.

She'd placed the gun atop the bed. It wasn't until she reached for it that something else occurred to Amanda. Something every bit as shocking. Something even more alarming.

The butt of the gun felt cool in her hand, hard and deadly. Knowing that there were five fresh bullets inside made her handle it with extra care. She lifted the pistol slowly, letting it lay on her open palm, her gaze riveted on the blue-cast barrel.

Stunned, her heart racing madly, she thought, I would have killed for him. If it had come down to it, I wouldn't have hesitated. I would have killed for him!

Her hand trembled as the impact of that realization hit her. Her fingers curled around the gun before it could tumble onto the bed. She felt Jake's gaze on her, and her spine stiffened. Slowly, her head came around.

He was standing in the doorway, his left shoulder leaning negligently against the frame. His arms were laced over his chest, his ankles were crossed. His lazy stance in no way suggested he was a man who had just come dangerously close to ending two lives.

The orange lamplight danced off his head, making his long, sleek hair glisten a rich shade of blue-black. Shadows played over his face, sculpting the hollows beneath his cheeks, making the already hard line of his jaw look even harder.

Their gazes met and held. Neither spoke, yet volumes of unspoken words hovered in the air between them.

Amanda was the first to glance away. She looked down at the gun. Then, with trembling fingers, she tucked it into her saddlebag.

And that was when it hit her.

Her saddlebag!

It had been lying in the corner of Little Bear and Gail's cabin when she and Jake had made love. When she'd awoke—no, when
Jake
had woken her—it had not been in the corner where she'd left it. Scowling, Amanda forced her mind to pick out frayed memories that were now three days old.

She distinctly remembered picking the saddlebag up off the chair. She remembered thinking at the time that something wasn't quite right about that. But Jake had been so furious with her... and all she'd been able to concentrate on was stilling her panic and finding out what had caused his anger.

Now she knew, at least she thought she did, and... dear God, she wished she didn't!

You'll get your cousin back if it kills me. And I'll get...

What? What will you get, Jake?

My money. Every last cent of it.

Amanda closed her eyes and sucked in a sharp breath. She held it until her lungs burned. She didn't realize she'd fisted handfuls of the saddlebag until she felt the worn leather crinkle in her grip.

The money. He'd found out about the money and...

She opened her eyes and glared down at the saddlebag. With trembling fingers, she rummaged through her belongings. Though she searched frantically, it took only a second for her to realize that what she was looking for wasn't there.

"Finally figured it out, did you? Took you long enough." Jake's voice was low and deadly; his ridicule cut into her as sharply as one of his knives.