Sleepless in Montana (16 page)

Hogan shook his head, Jemma’s call for help
familiar through the years. He noted the order of the names and
decided that this time, he didn’t mind being first on the list. He
stepped from the porch, shaded his eyes against the morning sun. He
found Jemma flattened outside a window, and clinging to the edge of
the roof. She was safe enough and impatient as always— he intended
to slow her a bit and enjoy the full-blown feminine froth.

Then Jemma scowled at him. “Don’t just stand
there, you idiot. I’m stuck, and you know it. Move the ladder from
the back side of the house, so I can get down. It’s easier
there.”

Hogan liked having her at his terms. “Drop.
I’ll catch you.”

“Get the ladder.”

“I told you to wear shoes with better
traction.” He locked his work boots to the ground and crossed his
arms, waiting.

“Oh, that’s just great. I’m about to break my
neck, and you’re pulling that ‘I told you so’ business... Ben!”
Jemma yelled, searching for an alternate Kodiak male.

A second-story window jerked open, and before
quickly closing it, Ben called roughly, “I’m busy up here. Get one
of the boys to help you.”

“Mitch and Aaron won’t leave their bathroom
plumbing job. I’m stuck with you, and I know that stubborn look.”
Jemma glared at Hogan, then sprang off the roof.

Reeling back from the impact of her body,
Hogan staggered and went down on the ground, Jemma on top of him.
He gasped air into his lungs and tossed away his confident male in
pursuit of female, good-morning mood. He realized his hands had
immediately gripped her bottom. He’d thought about doing just that—
filling both hands with Jemma’s softness and holding her tight
against him. He blew away the silky hair teasing his lips. “I said
‘drop,’ not ‘jump.’”

“And I said to get the ladder. Hogan, your
hands are on my butt.” She wriggled upon him, reaching behind her
to push his hands away.

He resettled them higher on her back and
Jemma braced her hands on the dirt beside his head, pushing away
from him. The movement sent her breasts against him, and Hogan
inhaled, deepening the contact. Jemma’s eyes were steely, her tone
cold. “You can let me go now. I’ve got to go take the cake out of
the oven.”

“Do you?” he asked, suddenly fascinated by
the sunlight firing her hair, the sweep of her smooth cheeks, and
the lush curve of her mouth. Hogan wanted to keep her just a bit
longer there in the bright morning sunlight scented of new grass
and spring beginnings.

Heat and sensual tension quivered in the
inches between their faces. Then Jemma wriggled upon him again and
Hogan fought a groan. He realized his hand was sliding upward to
cup her breast, and his body had just taken a sensual jolt.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked curiously,
peering down at him. “You’re holding me too tight. I can’t move. I
can’t breathe. Let go.”

Just there, on the side of her pale throat, a
telling pulse beat too quickly. Hogan wanted to taste that creamy
skin, to open his mouth over the flavor of her. “Is that so?”

“Hogan, let me go. You’re just being perverse
as always. This is just like that time you tied me up to keep me
from following you Sasquatches.”

Jemma pushed her hands on the dirt by his
head, levering away, her eyes wary before she scrambled to her
feet. She hurried toward the house, her loose sweat suit flowing
around her long legs. The wary glance over her shoulder both
questioned and denied that heated, hungry quiver that had passed
between them.

Left with his frustration, an annoying sense
that he had to kiss Jemma, Hogan surged to his feet. His hands
flexed with the memory of Jemma’s taut body, his appreciation of
her waist and curved hips and the rise of her bottom. Her position
over him had excited, her rich red mane cascading down, brushing
his face.

He regretted that momentary tightening of his
hands on her hips, the instinctive sensual rise of his body to
hers.

“I said ‘drop’, and she flies at me,” he
muttered, aware that he’d wanted her there in the sunshine, his
leashes straining. Unpredictable as ever, she could nettle the hell
out of him one minute and then make him want to make love with her
the next.

With Jemma around, anything could happen. As
if on cue, her window-cleaning spray bottle tumbled down from the
roof. With the ease of anyone in Jemma’s vicinity, Hogan
automatically reached to catch it in one hand.

He walked inside the house, a lecture for
Jemma storming in his mind.

“You’re strangling that bottle, and you look
as if you’d like to tangle with a bear,” Aaron said inside the
living room, heavily scented with pine cleaning agents.

He tossed a rag into a cleaning bucket and
briskly dried his hands on a towel. “To think I left my nice quiet
penthouse for this. There is no system whatever in this hell-bent,
steamrolling drive to redo the house. It’s been a month of fetch
this, do that. Mitch is enjoying the whole mess, so is Jemma.
Dammit, I’m in charge of the biggest account in my company, and
I’ve left it in a beginner’s hands. That creep better turn up fast,
or I’m going after him.”

Hogan suspected Aaron wasn’t frustrated with
his work alone— his mood stemmed more from the growing relationship
between Dinah and Ben. Aaron also wasn’t expecting Savanna’s light
treatment of him, dismissing his flirtation with her own and then
walking away.

Aaron grinned at Hogan. “Cleaning windows
now, are you?”

“Jemma dropped this—from the roof.” Hogan
tossed the bottle at Aaron, who set it aside. For once Aaron had no
fast return, no grin.

Aaron’s uneasy mood was matched by the other
Kodiaks, each for a different reason. The family coming together
amounted to several small battles with the war still to go. At any
minute the whole family could be torn apart by the very lies that
had brought them together.

“Whoever attacked her will wait until he
feels safe. He’ll come, and he’ll know that we couldn’t use alarms
or sensors because of the wildlife and cattle. He’s not going to
act soon. He’s getting the rhythm of our schedules. When he’s
comfortable with that, he’ll make his move.”

“I’m going to make him pay for this hell, and
if he manages to hurt Carley, I’m killing him,” Aaron stated
harshly.

“He won’t wait long. He’s too hungry, and
he’s waited too long. Right now, he’s just waiting for us to settle
down into a predictable schedule.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do. Once he feels
safe, he’ll make his move and then we’ll have him.”

He listened to Ben and Dinah arguing upstairs
and at Aaron’s tense face. “They’ll work it out.”

“He’s a rough old geezer.”

“She can handle him. Take it easy,
Aaron.”

Aaron shook his head, then came back with a
tease. “Look who’s talking. You look at Jemma like a hungry dog
after a bone.”

Hogan stared at him, and Aaron grinned.
“She’s got you hooked. Poor old Hogan.”

*** ***

In the living room, Carley was arguing with
Mitch about moving the bookcase again.

With a surprising display of temper, Carley
had hooked her foot behind Mitch’s and tossed him to the hardwood
floor. Hands on hips, she looked down at him. “You do not have all
the answers to my life, Mitch. I am not a neat freak. I just think
that we should take everything out of the living room before we try
to redo the hardwood floor. It only makes sense, Dumbo.”

Mitch stood up slowly, rubbed his butt, and
planted his hands on his hips, towering over her. Carley, dressed
like Jemma in sweatpants and a T-shirt, raised a furious face to
him. “Don’t try that older brother bully-stuff on me. Lay off,” she
ordered.

“You’re working me to death and expect me to
take it?” he raged. “Where did you learn that self-defense
move?”

“Jemma and I have trained for years. Expect a
lot of sitting on your butt if you try to muscle me around,” Carley
stated as she bent to roll a large braided rug.

“Oooh. I’m so scared.” Mitch said, studying
her as she tramped away. He glanced at Aaron and Hogan who had come
into the room, and wiggled his eyebrows in a leer. “She’s so sexy
when she gets mad.”

Upstairs, Ben raged, “What do you mean I’ve
‘been living in a cave’? I get out... I go to the tavern—”

“You are not hiding out at the Lucky Dollar,
Ben Kodiak. If I have to, I’ll come after you this time. Don’t you
dare walk out of here,” Dinah yelled furiously. “You’re going to
fill all those nail holes and sand them. You’re the one who made
all the bullet holes. Light seafoam green is just the perfect color
for this bedroom. Once the brass is polished on the bed, it will
pick up the light from the window. Here— use this window cleaner
and rag—”

Silence preceded Ben’s explosion. “I’ve got
better things to do than act like a mop-boy. Hell, no. I’m not
cleaning windows. I’ve got a ranch to run.”

Aaron’s expression was grim. “Home sweet
home. Just like old times. She’ll take off.”

“Don’t count on it,” Hogan returned,
remembering how Ben had greeted his ex-wife, like the love of his
life. “Dinah is tough. She started and built a good business.”

Aaron’s tone was bitter. “She had help from
the man she married after Dad. She left a man who needed her and
moved on with her life. She tore apart our family.”

“She had little choice. Ben wasn’t sweet back
then, to any of us. I remember him saying that Kodiak men didn’t
have good luck with wives.”

“The old man was right. None of us are
married. My ex-fiancée had a lot to say about my not fitting the
bill as a husband. Then let us not forget that I was actually
married— you were the best man.”

Hogan nodded. “I’m sorry that didn’t work
out. I thought maybe with Christina you would find what you needed.
She was a sweet girl.”

“That’s the problem. She was too sweet and
giving. I kept tearing her up all the time, and I reminded myself
of Dad. I didn’t like the image. She’s better off without me and I
heard that she married a nice guy and they’re expecting their third
baby. I didn’t want kids... I wasn’t ready to settle down.”

“Are you now?” Mitch asked with concern.

But Aaron was looking out the window to
Savanna’s car, just pulling up to the house. He headed toward
her.

Mitch looked at Hogan. “Guess that answers my
question. Never figured that one.”

“Things change. What’s going on with you and
Carley?”

Mitch shifted restlessly and they watched
Aaron open Savanna’s pickup door, bending down to talk with
her.

“I like Carley, always have. But you’re
right, things change.” He turned to meet Hogan’s eyes. “I’ll be
careful with her, Hogan. She’s special and the feeling.... Well,
the feeling is real sweet, just like her.”

*** ***

“Here.” Jemma leaned out of the kitchen and
handed a bowl filled with frosting mix and water to Hogan. She
slapped a large wooden spoon in his free hand. “You’re an artist.
Mix. Think of it as paint or clay or something.”

Teasing as she had always done when he
frowned at her, Jemma grinned up at him and dipped a finger into
the chocolate mix and stuck it into his mouth. Hogan caught her
finger between his teeth, just for an instant, just to let her know
she’d better stop teasing him.

“Beast,” she muttered, scowling at him.

When she soared upstairs, Aaron began to
laugh. “Hogan, my man, you should see your face. If it weren’t you,
I’d say the expression was pure lust.”

“I’ve lusted a few times in my day,” Hogan
said, uncomfortable that his brother had so easily read his desire
for Jemma.

“Not me. I’m pure as the driven snow,” Aaron
returned with a cheeky grin that said he wasn’t.

Just then Dinah came down the stairs, her
expression glowing. Ben followed, whistling a cowboy tune. He
patted Hogan on the shoulder.

“You boys need to lighten up,” he said
cheerfully. “Women need to be understood.”

“They’re killing us, Dad,” Aaron
muttered.

“I imagine we’ll all live. They’re just
making their nests. Women do that before they can settle down.
You’ve got chocolate on your mouth, boy.” He studied Hogan, who was
holding the frosting bowl and glaring at him. Ben quickly turned
away, shielding a grin.

“What’s that?” Mitch asked, strolling over to
Hogan. He dipped a finger into the frosting, tasting it. “Mmm. How
much does she need for the top of a little cake anyway?”

“Let’s adjourn to the barn. Grab the poker
deck,” Hogan said quietly, and walked out the door, carrying the
frosting bowl. Feeling cornered, assigned tasks by Jemma and
unsettled by Ben’s cheery turnaround, Hogan had had enough of the
Kodiak household for the moment.

Forty minutes later, Aaron spread his royal
flush upon the hay bale, raked up the dollar bills, and studied the
near empty bowl. “We’re dead men.”

“One of us is,” Mitch agreed, nodding toward
the barn’s window.

Jemma stormed out into the ranch yard, her
hands on her hips. One swipe of Mitch’s finger took that last of
the frosting before he called, “Hey, Jemma! Hogan ate all the
frosting.”

Hogan rose slowly to his feet, collected the
empty bowl, and walked to meet Jemma.

He jerked open the barn door just as she
pulled the handle on the other side. “Is this what you want?” he
asked.

At first her expression said she wanted to
murder him. Then, as he studied her, her eyes widened and she
backed up a few steps.

Hogan moved toward her and extended the bowl
toward her. “Well?”

“I... I... Yes, thank you,” she said unevenly
as he admired all that glorious color, the sun blazing in her hair,
the sweep of her cheek, the curve of her lips.

Jemma grabbed the bowl and hurried away.

Hogan traced the sway of her hips and inhaled
roughly.
Damn it. She fascinated him, and there was nothing he
could do about it.