Sleepless in Montana (21 page)

He stiffened as a light step sounded behind
him; an experienced hunter, Ben knew how to define sounds.

Then Dinah’s fragrance curled around him,
that light feminine scent, reminding him of flowers. When she came
beside him in the moonlit night, placing her delicate hands on the
weathered old boards, he didn’t move, couldn’t move away, fearing
he’d say the wrong thing, hurting her.

He stood there, a man missing a leg, damning
his inability to say what was in his heart. He swallowed, a tough
rancher more comfortable talking with a horse than a woman he’d
always loved. The ring on his chest seemed to burn his skin because
he wished he’d never—

“It’s a beautiful night, Ben. Is that Jemma’s
van soaring back to the ranch?”

“It is. She’s been holed up with Hogan.
Lately, the boy is getting to her and she’s backing up some,
running in the other direction, skittish as a filly with a stallion
chasing her. I wondered when he’d have enough of her bossing him
around.”

Dinah turned to look at him and Ben feared
looking down into her face— her beautiful face unchanged all these
years. “Do you think this will work, Ben?”

“Damn straight it will.” The thought of the
stalker putting his hands on Carley made Ben sick.

“Aaron and Mitch can’t stay here forever.
What will we do when time runs out and he hasn’t surfaced? What
will we do when they have to go back to their lives?”

Ben knew his sons. “They’ll stay until the
job is done, and he’ll come. He’s wanting her, fastened on her,
sick with wanting her to himself. Then we’ll get him.”

“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?” she
asked slowly, and he nodded.

Fury boiled in him, and he fought its
release. “The damned bastard wants my daughter. How do you expect
me to feel?”

Once the release of his emotions opened
slightly, the bitterness deepened and he turned to Dinah, disliking
himself even as he attacked her. “Feel sorry for him like you did
for me?”

He slapped his prosthesis, frustration
boiling out of him. “You should have let me bleed to death, Dinah.
I’ve been half a man since.”

She paled, her head rising for a battle as
Ben’s gaze ripped down the flannel shirt too big for her, her
slender legs sheathed in jeans. She looked no older than she had as
the bride he’d brought home to this rough country.

But this time her eyes weren’t filled with
hopes and dreams, they were filled with fury, lashing at him.
“Well, now, isn’t that progress. That’s the first time you’ve put
it in words, Ben Kodiak. And you’ve never been half a man.”

“Don’t be wearing my clothes, woman,” Ben
ordered. He felt uncertain now and pride demanded that he strike
back. The strength of her words, the certainty of them, had knocked
the breath from him. If he backed off, holed up, she might move
away.

If he pushed, she might push back, because
Dinah was strong. “You’re a strong woman, Miss Dinah. I admire
that. I always have. But I’d purely appreciate you not wearing my
clothes.”

She tilted her head, and that silky soft pale
hair slid on her cheek. “It was there. I wore it. You wouldn’t want
me to come running after you in my bra, would you?”

Ben tried to think, but his mind was reeling,
imagining her in just her bra— “Well, uh... I—”

Dinah laughed aloud, her delighted laughter
rippling through the night. “You’re blushing, Ben. I’ve embarrassed
you. You still can’t stand the thought of ‘unmentionables,’ can
you?”

Ben watched Jemma’s van skid to a stop; the
motor died as she leaped onto the ground and slammed the door shut.
“That rig cost a pretty penny,” he said, wanting to derail Dinah
from talking personal.

“Mmm. She can afford it. She’s determined to
get that television series, and from the looks of it, she’s been
tangling with Hogan again.”

“I’m not teaching her how to fly fish,” Ben
muttered. “I like my hide in one piece— Why did you come out here
to disturb my peace?”

The slender, feminine hand on his arm
should have been wearing his ring.
She’d come to ask something
of him, he saw that in her face, and wished he knew how to ask her
forgiveness.

“You want something for the boys and Carley.
You’ve got that look. What is it?”

“They’re not boys any longer, Ben,” she said
gently. Dinah studied him for so long and so intently that Ben
feared she would see the age and hard times riding him. “It’s time
to tell Hogan about his mother. Oh, don’t look like that, all
closed-down and your jaw set as if the words would never come
out.”

“I’m not good with words, and you know it.
Never have been.”

She touched the gray in his hair, her eyes
soft upon him. The gesture had his nerves quivering with a weakness
he’d probably have until his dying day.

“You can do so many things, Ben. You have
already, and you’re afraid for all of us. It’s time to let us do
our share now, Ben.”

Oh, God, he wanted her hand to touch his
face, just to feel her warmth against him again, even for a
heartbeat. His voice came out strangled, emotions twisting a lariat
around his throat. “What do you want?”

“Let them help. Let them do what they want to
help you and—”

“Charity.” The word dropped cold and heavy
upon him. “Charity. I’ve never asked for anything from them.”

“This is something they want to do, to
rebuild the Bar K.” Dinah straightened her shoulders. “We don’t
know how long this will last, Ben, and I’ve got to keep busy, so
does Carley. I told her how I had started that Montana jams idea
and the garden I loved and— oh, Ben, how I loved gardening. I’ve
been looking forward to it.”

He wondered how he could have ever refused
her anything, how he could have refused her love. Then he heard
himself say, “I never slept with Maxi. I know people talk, but it
wasn’t— isn’t that way.”

She smiled impishly. “I know. I never thought
that for a minute. You saw a woman in need, one carrying a child,
and you gave her a home. You raised Savanna as best you could.
That’s you, Ben.”

He shook his head, wondering if he was so
unappealing to women that she wouldn’t think he’d had another
woman— which he hadn’t, not since the last time he’d made love to
Dinah. “How do you know?”

“Oh, I just do. Your cat?” she said lightly,
cheerfully, and bent to pet the heavily pregnant female cat
obviously in love with Ben, twining around his legs.

“She just likes how the mice taste around
here.” Ben didn’t want Dinah seeing his affection for the cat he’d
named after her. He fought bending to pick up the cat, nuzzling
her, like he did when the lonesome times came upon him and the need
to touch something that wasn’t leather, machine, or horse. The cat
had been thin and weak, and he’d loved her on first sight. “Cat.
Shoo.”

“You’ll listen to our—” Dinah paused and then
grinned again. “Our boys, won’t you? When they come to you? It
won’t be charity, Ben. They’re Kodiaks, the same as you, with a
right to tend land that will be theirs and our grandchildren’s
someday.”

“They’re not like me,” he said, hearing the
bitter echoes of how he’d yelled at her, shut her out, hurt
her.

“You’re just doing fine, Ben.” She patted his
cheek, and Ben cherished the touch of his dreams. The words were
all locked in him like cold stones, and he couldn’t wrest them
free, to tell her how sorry he was—

“It’s okay if you wear my shirts now and
then,” he said quietly as she stood looking up at him and that old
sweetness curled around him.

“I know.”

“You know so much, Miss Sass.”

“That I do, cowboy. And there’s another
thing. Aaron is out on the roof, sitting up there watching us— Oh,
don’t turn now. Leave him to me, Ben. Don’t start snapping at him
and telling him to treat me with respect. He’s angry with me for
leaving you; he always has been. Let he and me work this out
without interfering.”

“You’re asking too much, lady. The boy
doesn’t treat you with respect.”

“Maybe he’s right, maybe I should have
stayed. But I didn’t. And now is a time to heal. Aaron and I can’t
do that with you standing between us, protecting me. Ben?” she
prompted urgently.

He nodded abruptly; she was right. Ben traced
Hogan’s tractor lights as they circled the old Holmes barn, sitting
on Kodiak land. The boy was like him and old Aaron, stubborn and
hard, clear through.

“He’ll be fine, too. Just think about telling
him.” Dinah stood on tiptoe to lightly kiss his cheek, and while
Ben dealt with that, she brushed her lips lightly over his.

*** ***

Chapter Eight

A half hour after her return to the Bar K,
Jemma stepped out the window and onto the roof where Aaron was
sitting. “Go away. Don’t start on me tonight.”

“Hold this,” she said, handing him the two
plates laden with food. She settled beside him and licked her
bottom lip, the one that Hogan had nipped gently, surprising her.
He was full of surprises and when he’d grinned boyishly, she’d
known her heart was flip-flopping loud enough to hear.

There wasn’t anything like diving into Hogan
Kodiak when he was heated up, but she wasn’t certain she wanted
more.

She dragged an old blanket through the window
and wrapped it around her. Aaron had always been like a brother,
her relationship with Hogan was not the same any more. Hogan moved
too quickly, too intently, and had her simmering. She didn’t like
handing him any control. “This is like old times, isn’t it? Cold
night, pretty stars, and dark thoughts, right?”

He flicked a dark look at her, a male not
wanting his space to be invaded. He handed one plate back to her
and glanced at the turkey sandwich, laden with tomato and alfalfa
sprouts, then at Jemma. “You’re looking all hot and bothered.
Another argument with Hogan?”

“He’s going to teach me how to fish,” she
stated airily.

Jemma dived into her sandwich, ignoring him,
and for a while they ate in silence. Aaron watched his father lead
a half-broken mustang around the corral as Dinah stood by the
fence.

“She won’t hurt him, Aaron,” Jemma said,
meaning it.

“He’s showing off for her, and she’s letting
him. He never got over her. When this thing is over, and Carley is
safe, Dinah will be off again— big-city woman done with playing
country girl.” His words were bitter in the Montana night.

“Is that why you never married, because
you’re afraid you’ll get hurt? Or is it because you’ve never gotten
over Savanna?”

“We were kids back then. I’d come home from
college and thought I knew everything there was to know. She’d
changed overnight, a woman at sixteen. We were too hot for our own
good. She broke it off by going out with other guys, and I was
ready to move on, too—”

He glanced at Jemma, who had just laughed.
“Lay off. It’s just sometimes I think what might have been, if I
had stayed here... with her. She’s got a thing going with Richard
Coleman anyway. You can tell it by looking at them together.”

“Well, he’s nice. You’re not.” Jemma’s
thoughts flew back to Hogan, how he tasted, how he looked her over,
arrogant, cocky, with a grin she hadn’t expected. The rest of him
wasn’t as she expected either. He’d been aroused, hard against
her.

She took a small dried branch from the roof
and sailed it into the night, like she wished she could her shaken
emotions. She’d expected Hogan to be remote, not playful.

That kiss on the knoll had definitely tasted
of male hunger, he’d opened his mouth upon hers, his exotic,
mysterious taste had invaded her mouth, holding her head in place
like a—

She tossed away the primitive illusion of a
stallion holding a mare in place, nipping at her. In the van, he’d
held her beneath him—

His tenderness was even more earthshaking
than his passion. She’d always known that Hogan enjoyed touching,
feeling textures and forms shift beneath his fingertips. But she
hadn’t expected to be stroked or held like that, the gentle press
of those long fingers, shaping her breast.

He’d terrified her then, because she hadn’t
expected the sensual onslaught, the change from intense observer to
touching, to playful lover. Those long fingers had been so strong,
digging slightly into her wrists, Hogan’s face too warm against her
throat.

But then he’d be missing Simone and the
conveniences of their affair. A meticulous man, Hogan was not
likely to go shopping for one-night stands.

“I will not be taking up the slack,” she
muttered, resenting his need for a comfortable, convenient
substitute— herself.

“What?” Aaron asked, not really paying
attention to her.

“Your brother is a jerk. You and Hogan and
Ben and Mitch— all absolute jerks one minute and then like boys the
next. You and Ben and Mitch have a certain charm, but Hogan is
one-hundred-percent jerk.”

She pushed her hands through her hair, an
attempt to remove the taut feel of Hogan’s big, unrelenting fists
in it.

Aaron studied her. “You’re in a good mood
tonight. Hogan is laying off Dad, for now anyway, and that can’t be
easy. They’re circling each other now, though, and who knows when
that will erupt. It won’t be pretty.”

As she looked across the small valley, she
saw that every window in Hogan’s house was lit. He’d kept himself
apart all these years, and now, he’d be lurking there, fighting his
shadows.

Jemma sucked in the crisp Montana night air
and tucked her bare toes beneath the blanket. She promised herself
that she’d handle Hogan.

Mitch passed by the open window. “Found Ben’s
candy bar stash.”

He stepped out onto the roof and settled
beside Jemma. He handed each one a candy bar, then lay back with
one arm behind his head to study the stars. “I’ve been working the
irrigation ditches, damming for the overflow onto the fields. Even
my butt hurts,” he said finally with a long, weary sigh.