Revenge (9 page)

“You're right,” she said, biting the corner of her lip. “But just don't mess yourself up over Mr. Hotshot McKee. He's not worth it.”

“You don't even know him.”

“I don't have to,” Dani said darkly. “I know his kind.”

“I
won't have it, y'hear!” Jonah McKee glared out the window of his den into the black night, his fingers curling into fists of frustration. Slowly he turned and his voice was much lower, but still harsh with steely determination. “You're not to see her and that's that. How many times do I have to tell you that Skye Donahue isn't the woman for you?”

Max wasn't buying it. The old man's theatrics were beginning to wear thin. “Why?”

“What?”

“I asked why,” Max repeated as calmly as he could, considering that he wanted to wring his father's neck. It was all he could do to stay sprawled upon the tufted leather couch in the den, cradling a beer and watching Jonah's jaw set into a hard line of resolve. “Why is she wrong for me?”

“A million reasons!” Jonah barked.

“One will do.”

“First, she's not the same social station as you are, boy.”

“No one is,” Max replied, unable to hide the sarcasm in his tone. He sipped from the long-necked bottle and told himself to be patient.

“Next, she's too damned arrogant, won't do what you tell her to do.”

“Doesn't she do a good job at the company?”

“Damned good,” Jonah admitted. “But she doesn't like taking orders. I can see it in her eyes.”

“I don't plan on ordering her around.”

“Don't you? You're smitten, boy, and my guess is you're thinking about marriage.” Jonah poured himself a stout three fingers of Scotch and tossed it back in one swallow. He stared at his son in the mirror over the bar. “You're getting yourself in too deep with that one.”

“I just took her out once,” Max said, though he cringed at the words. Jonah was right. If he had his way he'd spend every waking minute with her as well as sleep with her. And he had thought about marriage, for the first time in his life.

“But you sniff around her at the office, get in early, stay late. Mark my words, she's got her claws into you, boy.”

Max laughed. “You've got it all wrong. I practically had to beg her to go out with me. I'm the one doing the chasing.”

“Bah!” Jonah splashed more Scotch into his glass. “You're so blind you don't know when you're being manipulated.”

“Good thing I've got you around to set me straight.”

“Damn right,” his father replied, ignoring Max's derision. “Now, you start paying attention to Colleen again. At least she's not after you for your money. The Wheelers are people like us. They belong to the country club in Dawson City, own a big spread
and
a chain of hardware stores. They travel in the same circles we do. And Colleen—” Jonah waggled a finger at his son “—she's a pretty thing, smart enough, but knows when to keep her opinions to herself. And she's no gold digger.”

“And Skye is?”

“She's always been after something more than she's got.”

“I thought you admired ambition,” Max said, tired of the conversation.

“I do. In my sons. But not in a woman. Gets their heads all turned around. Women need to do what their husbands say, make babies and keep their mouths shut.”

“If I were you, I wouldn't be spouting that philosophy too loudly. Rimrock has its share of feminists, Dad, and they'd love to draw and quarter you for those kinds of sentiments.”

“Like to see them try.” Jonah rested a hip against his desk. “Don't get me wrong. I don't hate women. Truth to tell, I think they're the most important thing God ever gave a man. But it's not natural for them to go out and get jobs and send their kids packin' off to baby-sitters and such. It's just not the way God planned things to work, Max.”

“According to you.” Max finished his beer and tossed the bottle into the trash can. “Last I heard, you weren't sitting on a throne on the other side of the pearly gates.”

“I'm just telling you what's best.”

“And I'm just telling you that you've got to let me live my life the way I see fit, Dad.”

“Not as long as you work for me.”

Max's mouth twitched. “Is that a challenge? You want to see if I'll quit?” He waited a beat and saw a flicker of doubt in the old man's blue eyes. “Well, I will.” Palms flat on the desk, he leaned forward so that his nose was close to his father's. “Not only that, Dad, I'll stay right here in Rimrock, start from scratch and beat you at your own game.”

“You couldn't.”

Max straightened and the light of challenge flared in his eyes. “Watch me.”

“For God's sake, don't dig yourself into a hole you can't possibly crawl out of.” He ran a tired hand around his neck. “Forget all this nonsense about Skye Donahue and quitting the company and just ask Colleen out.”

“Go to hell, Dad.” Without looking over his shoulder, Max strode out the door and headed toward the foyer. Voices raised in argument—his mother and Kiki debating how to dress a chicken from the sounds of it—drifted down the hallway.

Max didn't stop to listen, just left the house and climbed into his old pickup. He switched on the radio and shoved the truck into reverse.

He'd see Skye any time he damned well pleased.

 

Skye's shoulders ached from hours at the keyboard. She rubbed a kink out of her neck, then grabbed her purse and decided to call it a day. Though there were still a few more contracts to type, they would have to wait until the morning.

As she snapped out the lights, she heard the jangle of keys and quick, steady footsteps in the reception area. No one was supposed to be here. The hairs on the back of her neck rose as the door opened and Max strode into the suite of offices reserved for his father. Her heart was already knocking, but the sight of him caused it to beat a little faster. “I thought you went home,” she said.

“I did.”

“Forget something?”

His eyes found hers and her throat constricted. “Yeah.” He grabbed her hand and started pulling her through the offices so fast that she had to run to keep up with him. “I forgot you.”

“Wait a minute. What are you doing?” she asked, laughing and trying to catch her breath as they hurried down the stairs and out the front doors. Max paused to lock the building then hustled her toward his truck, which he'd left in a no-parking zone near the curb.

“I think it's time we got to know each other better,” he said, casting her a glance she couldn't begin to understand. He seemed angry, but not with her.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You'll see.”

“But I have to—”

“I already called your mother and told her I was taking you out. She didn't seem to mind.”

“Don't you think you should have called me?” Skye asked, a little irritated. She wasn't a thirteen-year-old girl staying out after curfew.

“Maybe.” He opened the door for her and she climbed onto the cracked seat. Once he was inside, he pumped the gas, switched on the ignition and joined the slow thread of traffic winding through town.

“I could have had plans,” Skye commented.

His head whipped around and his gaze bored into hers. “Do you?” His tone was hard, demanding the truth, and yet she saw deeper emotions swirling beneath the surface of his eyes.

“No, but—”

“Then don't play silly games, Skye. It doesn't suit you.” A tic developed under his eye as he squinted through the windshield.

“What is it with you?” she asked. “Have I done something to make you think that I need some good old caveman tactics?” She was flattered that he'd come and gotten her—good Lord, her heart was still racing—but part of her, the I'm-my-own-woman part, was a little incensed that he thought he could strong-arm her. So like a McKee.

“I just wanted to see you.”

“You could have asked.”

His fingers tightened on the steering wheel and a muscle worked in his jaw as if he was waging an inner struggle. “Would it have made a difference?”

“Yes!”

He slammed on the brakes, jerked the wheel around and skidded to a stop near the park. “Do you want to be with me?” he demanded over the noise of the idling engine.

“I meant you could have asked me to go out—”

“Do you want to be with me?” He grabbed her by the shoulders as if he intended to shake the truth from her. “Do you?” His face was a mask of determination and she could see the fine sheen of sweat on his brow, the tight lips, the anger simmering in his eyes.

“Yes, but—”

“Good!” He released her quickly, let out the clutch, ignored the speed limit and drove through town. The streetlights gave way as they slipped out of the business district and then closer to the outskirts of town, passed houses with picket fences and empty swing sets, sprinklers spraying water over parched lawns.

The road curved away from town into the surrounding hills and past the gravel drive leading to the old copper mine that had been a landmark in Rimrock for as long as Skye could remember.

“What's going on, Max?” she finally asked, when the lights of town glimmered in the distance.

“I just wanted to be with you. Alone.”

He sounded sincere and she sensed a need in his voice she couldn't begin to understand. He stopped the truck at the side of the road, near a bend in the river. “Come on,” he cajoled. He climbed out and reached into the back for a white paper sack.

“Where are we going?”

“You'll see.”

With the aid of a flashlight, he led her down an overgrown path. Berry vines crept across the dusty trail and cobwebs stretched out in the brush and lower limbs of trees near the edge of the pathway. The smell of water filled the dry air and the rush of the river flowing swiftly on its course mingled with the hoot of a solitary owl.

“I'm not dressed for this,” she said when her heel caught on a stone in the trail and she had to cling to his arm to keep from falling to her knees.

“Your mistake.”

“What? I didn't even know—Hey, what do you think you're doing?” she demanded when he swung her into his arms and carried her along the treacherous path.

“Saving you and your precious shoes.”

“My precious shoes are threatening to fall off,” she told him as her high heels dangled precariously from her toes.

Max thought for a minute, then grabbed one of the damned shoes and slid the heel into his back pocket. He did the same with the second shoe and Skye tossed back her head and laughed. Golden hair spilled over his shoulder and the scent of her perfume teased his nostrils. Her breasts were crushed to him, and as he walked along the familiar path, he knew why he'd had to see her. It hadn't been his father's order to avoid her, though that was the impetus, but the truth of the matter was that ever since he'd kissed her, nearly a week before, he couldn't stop thinking about her and what it would be like to make love to her.

Working in the same office with her had been hell. Somehow he'd managed to joke and talk with her and they'd met for lunch one day, but the more he saw of her, the more he wanted her.

He'd had more than his share of women. Including Colleen Wheeler. It wasn't so much that he was always on the make, but women were drawn to him because of who he was. He didn't kid himself. He knew half the girls who had chased him in high school had crushes on him because he was a McKee. Later, the women in college and in San Francisco had seemed to smell his wealth—no, his
father's
wealth—and had been interested. He'd only brought three home to meet his parents and each and every one had tried to cozy up to the old man.

But Skye was different. She didn't fawn over Jonah, didn't seem to care that he was one of the most powerful men in all of eastern Oregon.

Now, with her arms around his neck and her face pressed close to his, he couldn't think beyond this night. The trees gave way to a stretch of sandy beach that hugged the river. Moonlight shimmered on the ripples of the current, and on the far shore, cliffs rose forty feet into the air.

“I used to come here as a kid,” he said as he let her slide through his arms until her toes touched the ground. “Jenner and I would meet here, smoke cigarettes, drink beer and do all those grown-up things we weren't allowed to do at home.”

She stood at his side, her arm brushing his sleeve. “I didn't think you got along with your brother.”

“Sometimes he can be tolerable.”

“And you?”

“Never,” he admitted. “I'm always a pain in the backside. Just ask my old man.”

She tilted her face up to his. “I don't think he'd let you work for him unless he had a pretty high opinion of you.”

Max snorted. “He likes me as long as I do what he says.”

“And when you don't?”

“Trouble. Big trouble.” He dropped the sack he'd hauled from the truck onto the ground, then watched as the wind caught in her hair and moonlight painted the golden strands a pale shade of silver. “That's why I came looking for you tonight,” he admitted, touching her silken tresses with one finger.

“Because of some kind of trouble?”

“Jonah, in all his wisdom, doesn't think I should see you.”

“Why not?”

“He thinks I should date, and no doubt marry, someone he's picked out for me.”

“Who?”

“Doesn't matter,” he said and watched her brows draw together in frustration.

“Of course it does.” He heard the hurt in her voice.

“It's you I want to be with, Skye,” he whispered as if finally daring to bare his soul. “Only you.” He brushed his lips across her cheek and she shuddered against him. “I've never felt this way in my entire life.” She inched up her chin as if to argue with him but he captured her lips with his. The kiss shook him deep inside. When he forced her lips apart, she eagerly opened her mouth to him, and as he drew her to the ground, she offered no resistance.