Sleepless in Montana (17 page)

*** ***

A week later, the mid-May night was fragrant
outside Hogan’s home, and he tried to concentrate on the promotion
of his new Kodiak “Autumn” line.

Showered, naked and comfortable after working
on his barn roof, he padded into the living room. Across the small
valley, the lights of Kodiak house were ablaze.

His need for Jemma sprang alive at every
turn, and she was too aware of him, blushing when she looked at him
and hurrying in the other direction. The tension dancing between
them was new to Hogan, making him feel alive. He was giving her so
much time and then—

On his drawing board, his new sketch for
Kodiak’s Fire Feathers collection waited. His new line of jewelry
was intended to be light and flexible, but what had stirred beneath
his drawing pencil was vibrant, almost alive, and almost pagan. He
preferred the subtle light designs, not the bold layered, almost
flamelike, feathers.

The past day of the Kodiaks’ emotions firing
at every turn, tempers battling, flashing over the dinner table had
taken their toll upon his creative mood.

Tranquility was not a Kodiak family trait.
During the day, tempers soared. Adults, no longer children and
coming back to their home place, demanded equal respect. Ben was
clearly on edge, but for once he hadn’t run for the safety of ranch
work.

A huge truck had brought a huge moonlike disk
for receiving television programs, and a big-screen television;
Aaron said he needed his “sports fix.” After a battle with Carley
and Jemma about soap operas— which Ben had strangely begun to watch
in the afternoons with Dinah— Aaron moved the big screen setup to
the bunkhouse.

Old Joe Blue Sky spent most of his time
catching up on Western movies. He made notes about the mistakes on
the portrayal of Native Americans. Joe’s damning of the Italian
actors, who played the warriors’ parts, could blaze at any
moment.

The memory of Jemma’s slender, agile and
curved body upon his own stirred Hogan’s shadows. His body had
responded too quickly, escaping his cool control for just that
instant. That kiss on the mountain pursued him in his dreams, and
when he awoke with a painfully hardened body, he immediately
hurried into a cold shower.

With a frustrated groan, Hogan drew on his
jeans, shoved his feet into his moccasins, and lashed them. He
threw on a light denim shirt and left the house.

The night called to him, the slight wind
drifting through his hair, moonlight on the rolling pastures—
shapes curled around him again, and he allowed them to flow into
him.

The shapes stilled and curled into a ball of
uneasiness when he spotted moonlight’s gleam on metal....

“So much for peace.” Moments later, riding
Moon Shadow, Hogan sat in the moonlight and watched Jemma’s
gleaming van glide toward his house.

His hunger for her immediately leaped to
life, reminding him of how long it had been since he’d been
sensually satisfied— or had he ever, choosing women who played the
same game? All he needed to do to start
real trouble
was to
jump into a flammable, sensual relationship before the rules were
laid down— and tonight he wasn’t that certain about himself, or his
need to kiss those sweet, sassy lips.

Always in control of his emotions, Hogan
didn’t like how Jemma could make him stop thinking... or focused on
his driving need to warm himself in all her fire. He wanted to keep
to his dark shadows tonight— alone.

“After that kiss, she should know better than
to come after me. Another woman would— oh, no, not her,” he
muttered.

He groaned as the van missed the curve and
lumbered down a slight incline. “Oh, hell.”

*** ***

Jemma revved the motor, but the van’s tires
remained sunk too deep into the mud.

The incline was not steep, or dangerous, but
slanted enough to prevent escape. She only hoped the mud did not
contain cow manure. But manure, or the world on fire couldn’t stop
her from hunting down Hogan in his lair and talking sense into him.
She jerked open the door, gauged the moonlit distance to the
ground, and leaped into the night.

Hogan’s solid body and grunt stunned her as
he struggled for balance, held her tightly as they toppled to the
ground. Winded, she braced herself away, and in the moonlight, his
fierce scowl almost frightened her. But she had a mission and she
needed him mellow and pliable and agreeable.

“Oh, hi, Hogan,” she managed
breathlessly.

Hogan released his grip on her and opened his
arms wide on the ground, away from her body. He sighed wearily.
“That’s twice you’ve landed on me. The first time I saw you
coming.”

After hours of planning how she could run him
down and trap him for a private conversation, Jemma struggled not
to rapid-fire her concerns at him. Hogan did not react well when
pushed too far. In his way, he was like a hot summer thunderstorm
rolling across the mountains.

Jemma struggled for a casual tone. “What are
you doing here?”

“What does it look like? I’m not having a
conversation with you on top of me. Get off me,” he said between
his teeth in a tone that reminded her of a yard dog’s warning
growl.

“Oh.” Jemma scrambled to her feet and held
out a hand to help him. She knew that he wanted her, but she’d put
her mission ahead of her safety. Hogan hadn’t made any move to get
closer to Ben, and it was time he did so.

Her other reason for coming to Hogan was that
she wanted to set up rules about the way he looked at her, those
stunning little brushes of his fingertips across her cheeks.

He had her so rattled, she couldn’t keep
track of ongoing business and had made too many mistakes her
bankbook couldn’t afford. She needed her predator-smart senses, and
right now they were focused on Hogan. Whenever he came near her,
they were alert, unbalanced, and ready to fire.

Hogan shook his head and came agilely to his
feet without touching her. Towering over her he glared down at her,
his hands on his hips. “If you want to mash me, do it on something
softer.”

Jemma smiled blandly; she forced herself not
to think of Hogan, all lean and muscled and dark spread out beneath
her.

“I was coming to see you.” She walked around
him and brushed off his back side. She jerked her hand away; she’d
almost followed the impulse to squeeze that hard butt. “Mud. You’ll
have to use spot cleaner before you wash those jeans. I think it
will come out though, but if you’re going to throw them away, I’d
like them. I’ve got an idea to make jean quilts—”

“Uh-huh.” Hogan shifted warily away from her
hand that had just brushed the crushed leaves from his bottom. He
faced her, his arms crossed, his expression forbidding, dark
jutting planes and long black hair catching the slight night
breeze.

Jemma swallowed as the image of the little
girl braiding his hair flipped through her mind and her reaction
then— that of thinking Hogan would make a great father.

Of course, he had her senses slanting into
oblivion, getting her off-track. And she couldn’t afford that, not
for a minute.

Fear enveloped Jemma.
Hogan could do just
that: get her off track and she’d be lost. She couldn’t go back to
that, letting someone else control the reins of her life. She’d
fought against that since childhood....

His expression shifted; she sensed him
studying her like he did the objects he would place into art. He
was considering every nuance of her hair, seeming to study each
flowing loose strand, the night wind lifting the waves, swirling it
around her.

He was seeing too much....

Jemma’s temper flared. Hogan’s quiet, solemn
nature never failed to set her off. She dug in to take him down,
trim that cool arrogance from him. “Well, what are you doing out
here anyway? I would have thought you would have been working, or
relaxing, or sleeping.”

“Don’t try to boss me around now, Jemma.
We’re not on Kodiak land, we’re on mine.”

He might have said,
My land, not Ben’s.
Get used to it.

But she hadn’t agreed to anything, and Jemma
always made her own choices. She refused to be pushed by this
irritating dark-skinned, black-eyed hard man.

“You are a Kodiak, Hogan. This—” she stamped
her tennis shoe and looked down in disgust at the mud that had
splattered up her jeans— and Hogan’s. “Is Kodiak land.”

Hogan stared at her for a minute, then slowly
looked down to the mud on his jeans.

When he shook his head and started to walk
toward his horse, Jemma hurried to follow. “You’re not going to
leave me here... alone... at night, are you?”

She listened to an eerie sound that lifted
goose bumps on her body. “Is that a coyote howling?”

“Yes.” Hogan gripped the saddle horn and
surged up into the saddle. “I’d prefer to leave you here.”

Jemma couldn’t have him get away, not when
she had to talk with him. “I was coming to see you,” she repeated.
“The least you can do is help me. What if Carley’s stalker gets
me?”

“He won’t want you, once you start sassing
him. You’ve got two choices— ride my horse back to Ben’s— or wait
out the night here. Either way, I’m going back to my place, not
taking you to Ben’s.”

“And leave my beautiful van? Or stay by
myself out here?” Jemma repeated and wished she hadn’t almost
screamed. She found her hand locked on his hard denim-covered
thigh.

The muscle beneath the cloth tensed, then
Hogan removed her hand. “You have a cell phone— call them.”

Jemma shook her head. “You know reception
isn’t good out here. You know what will happen. Ben will find out
that you could have helped and you didn’t— I might not be able to
keep myself from telling him. You and he will argue. Carley and
Dinah will cry. Mitch and Aaron will hunker off somewhere looking
like orphans. Then I’ll have to just try harder to get everyone
happy again.”

“Uh-huh. And we’d all suffer.” Hogan stuck
out a boot and his hand. “If you want to ride back to my place, my
tractor can pull you out.”

She hadn’t expected the ease with which he
lifted her into the saddle behind him. Because Hogan made her feel
safe and protected, Jemma wrapped her arms around his waist and
placed her head on his shoulder. Hogan stiffened within her arms,
but said nothing.

“I’m really tired, Hogan, and I just want
everything to go well. I think it is going well, don’t you? We’re
all learning how to make adjustments.”

He didn’t answer. Jemma couldn’t resist the
sudden emotions flying free of her control. She’d been pushing too
hard, wanting to protect Carley, and fearing for her. She hated
lying to Carley and if she discovered that Ben’s illness was
staged—

She hit his back lightly with her fist. “I
love this family. You know that, Hogan Kodiak.”

Hogan’s grunt confirmed nothing, but that
he’d prefer her to be quiet. Hogan liked silence and shadows and
thoughtful answers while she raced on in life, frustrated by
him.

She wiped her face against his shirt, drying
the sudden tears that leaped upon her when she was too tired. The
shadows of her life were there, too, but she could push them back
now, riding in the clear moonlit night with her arms around Hogan
Kodiak, his horse moving smoothly beneath them.

She was quiet, enjoying the ride, until they
reached his barn. Hogan dismounted and held the horse, standing
back to wait for her. Holding the saddle horn, Jemma was too
impatient and got her running shoe caught in the stirrup and hopped
with the other foot as the horse pranced nervously. “Hogan!”

His arm looped around her waist and he lifted
her free. There was just that tightening of his body, his arm
bringing her close and hard, and Jemma stopped breathing, caught by
his fierce expression. “What is it?”

Shaking his head, Hogan set her aside gently,
walked to the tractor, and started it. Then he slowly drove it out
into the moonlit field, leaving her behind.

Hurrying behind him, Jemma was out of breath
when he slowed, held down a hand, and levered her up onto his lap.
Once his arms closed around her, Jemma shuddered. “You’re a pure
beast, Hogan Kodiak. You know I’m terrified of the dark.”

“Just don’t touch anything,” he said, and for
a moment there was that low dark curl of amusement in his voice.
Jemma sat very still, too aware of the hard male body beneath
hers.

Hogan groaned once, his arms tightening and
Jemma sucked in her breath.

She shifted a little aside from that hard
ridge and he groaned again.

*** ***

“Stand back,” he said later, adjusting a
chain to pull the van up onto the road. He glared at her as she
stood in the moonlight as if he didn’t trust her and repeated “Stay
back. Stay put,” before climbing onto the tractor.

“As if I would want to be crushed by a
tractor or my van. He acts as if I don’t have any sense at all.
Well, I have plenty,” Jemma muttered as the van was pulled up onto
the dirt road.

In a fluid movement, Hogan leaped from the
tractor and bent to unloop the chain from her van. “Well, that was
easy,” Jemma stated.

When Hogan didn’t answer, she swatted him on
the back, just as she’d done before
that kiss.
A brotherly
pat, establishing that she was one of the Kodiaks.

Hogan straightened slowly, then turned to
her. “Don’t. Just don’t hit me with your elbow, swat me, punch me,
or pat me. I’ve had enough for one day.”

He had that hounded look. And that meant
Jemma was in control again. She loved teasing Hogan, watching those
dark solemn eyes light with temper and just that little bit of male
nostril-flaring was delightful.

She hadn’t realized she was smiling up at
him, until the tension spiked between them.

Her smile died. Hogan knew her too well, and
he wouldn’t play by her rules. Their kiss and his dark, searing
looks, his teasing had shaken her safety. She wanted Hogan to be as
he had always been for her— safe and predictable. “I’m doing my
best. When you want to get someone’s full attention, it’s best to
touch them.”