Tallchief: The Homecoming (6 page)

J.T. giggled suddenly, clapped his hands, and Liam’s head jerked to his son. The boy began to laugh outright, the sound delightful. When Liam turned back to look up at Michelle, she didn’t trust his dark, dangerous look…nor her own wild mood. With as much dignity as she could scrape up from the rug, she managed, “I think I’ll just take a walk. Excuse me, please.”

In the next moment she was hurrying down the path
to Tallchief Lake, careless of the brush tugging at her head and body. She lived her life in logical one-two-three steps, acted logically, and now she’d just dumped a glass of ice water over a man’s head—in front of a family she adored. She began to run, careless of the cream silk designer blouse and loose black silk slacks. The strap of one Italian-made sandal tore away, caught on a bush, and she hobbled along the rest of the distance to the shore of the dark, brooding lake. A gentle wind stirred the reeds along the river bank and rippled the water.

Tallchief Mountain, etched with fir and pines, dappled with tiny meadows and jutting rocks, soared up into the sunset, shading the lake. Michelle hobbled to a rock, careful of the torn strap, and sank down upon it, ready to brood.

The chirps of frogs and birds and the sweet scent of lush grass wove around her as she sat, chin braced upon her raised knees, her arms circling her legs. She turned to the sound of a twig snapping, fearing a bear or a wolf prowling in the shadows before night. The outline of Liam Tallchief’s tall body was unmistakable, but just as predatory. Shivering again with anger, she turned back to study the dark, mystical lake, the waves gently patting the shore. “You’re too much trouble, even for a bet,” she said, meaning it. A second thought had her turning around again, searching the shadows. “You didn’t bring J.T. out here, did you?”

“No. I don’t want him to see the fight we’re about to have, and for once, playing with the Tallchief children, he didn’t care where I was. He knows I’ll be back. I’m always there when he needs me, but he’s too excited with his new friends—what’s this about a bet?”

“I bet Silver that I’d get you here, and I did. That’s all there is to it.” She didn’t want him to know that her
efforts were on her own behalf, too, not just to avoid Jasmine’s diapers. She wanted to see him again, amid the family that he obviously belonged within—

“All those dishes and scrubbing for a bet?” he pushed.

“J.T. was worth it. They’re his cousins. They’re a match for coloring and features, and so are you,” she added, and waved her hand airily. “Fight away. It takes two, and I’m done talking with you.”

“My relationship with the Tallchiefs is my business. And the next time you get bored and want to play, pick on someone else.” He snagged her wrist and tugged her to her feet. When she swung her free hand at him, he caught it, holding her immobile. “You’re going to go back there and apologize to that family for disrupting their dinner.”

While she was working up a good scalding brew of what she thought of him, Liam placed both her wrists in one hand and tugged the band binding her braid, tossing it away. Then his fingers were in her hair, working it free of the weave. When she struggled against him, her hair flew out into the slight evening breeze and whirled around her head. He sank his fingers into the freed strands, capturing her as he studied her furious expression. “You always get your way, don’t you? You’re used to plowing right over people to get what you want.”

She tried to toss her head and failed, her hair captured by his fist. “I got you here, didn’t I?”

“I would have come, anyway. Eventually. I like choosing the time and place. I just liked watching those expensively tended hands, decked out in those flashing diamonds, doing J.T.’s and my laundry.”

“You would not have—You haven’t visited with them in six months. Perverse, arrogant—You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? Trapping a poor defenseless woman,
out here—Don’t deny it. I see it in your eyes, in that grin. You’re enjoying taunting me—Why?”

“Someone has to. Everyone else just lets you run over them and you’re not defenseless. You’ve got a cutting tongue, lady.” In the evening shadows, with the moon beginning to peek over Tallchief Mountain, Liam’s devastating grin widened.

She stood still and tossed her head, looking away from him. When he tossed that reckless, boyish grin at her, he was too dangerous. She didn’t trust the pitter-pat of her racing heart for one moment. “You’ll get bored, holding me captive. That’s illegal, you know. You’ll—”

“Will I? You want to bet on that, too?” His gray eyes flowed over her hair, a thumb reaching to stroke a strand waving across her hot cheek. Desire poured from him, weaving around her, and, inexperienced with sensual play, Michelle shivered. “You want to slot me into a pigeonhole, to understand something that doesn’t concern you? At the Tallchiefs, Silver said you are divorced. Let’s talk about your ex-husband. He let you walk all over him, didn’t he? And then you walked out.”

It was the truth. Oliver hadn’t resisted anything she wanted, even the divorce. It was her father who fought— “Let’s talk about your wife, shall we?” she cut back at Liam.

She hadn’t expect the tender shadows enveloping him as he spoke. “Sweet, sensitive, loving. I loved her. She died when J.T. was born, and I’ll never forgive myself for letting her talk me into the pregnancy. She wasn’t well—”

“You regret your son? That beautiful, sweet baby?” Michelle’s statement cut harshly into the night.

“No. He’s everything to me. Karen gave him to me, and he was what she wanted, to leave a bit of herself
alive and healthy as she’d never been…. This is what I do regret—” Then his hand cupped the back of her head, and he took her mouth, searing her with heat, fusing his lips to hers. The stormy emotions locked her immobile and she could do nothing, but taste and feel. She slanted her head to tighten the fight, and the pleased, hungry growl coming from low in Liam’s throat was a unique, first pleasure. He freed her wrists and filled his fists with her hair, his mouth moving eagerly, hungrily upon hers. His scent filled her, the heat of his body, and she was soaring to a heavenly, exciting place she’d never been—

She had to capture him, to hold him close, and she touched his hard stomach, smoothed the ridges with her fingertips and heard his sharp inhaling breath against her cheek. He stood still, shivering, heat pouring from him, his hands trembling as they left her hair and began stroking her back. He was giving her a choice, she sensed, to take or to walk away—

Then those stormy gray eyes moved slowly down her body to the shirt torn by the brush on her run to the lake and freed of its upper buttons. His gaze locked on her breasts, clad in beige lace and with a big hand open upon her back, he gently eased her against him, watching the fit of their bodies. He breathed shallowly, his features harsh, and she knew that one word, one movement would free her.

She desperately wanted him to touch her, to cup the soft flesh he was studying, nestled against his chest, that dark passionate expression branding her. She held him tight, anchoring him close. This powerful, beautiful man wanted, and yet would not take without permission—She didn’t know how to tempt him, and when she breathed deeply, her flesh rising against his, he groaned unsteadily. Slowly, watching her, he lifted his hand to carefully, rev
erently mold her breast. His thumb ran across the crest of a hardened nipple and he circled it slowly. She could no more have moved than she could start her heart beating again—the magical touch sucked away her breath and made her head spin.

“Why haven’t you had children, pretty witch? The real reason, not the canned words you’ve prepared for others,” he asked roughly, caressing her as her hands slid upward in the storm of unsteady emotions, to dig into his hard, safe shoulders.

“I haven’t felt the need—” The rest of the words were caught by his lips, the kiss gentle now, searching and tempting and heating. His hands locked around her waist, then eased to her hips, fingers digging in slightly. She knew then, deep within her, that she’d needed a man to hold her tight, to test her strength as a woman. She needed a force equal to hers, to the wild, reckless calling within her—kept hidden too long. She parted her lips against the gentle nudge of his tongue and quivered as the kiss deepened, heat rocking their bodies, much as the earth trembled around a volcano before it released the red-hot lava—

Liam’s hands caressed a downward path to smooth her bottom and then eased her closer to his hardened desire. His whisper was hoarse and unsteady against her lips, “Don’t play games. I don’t. The air is filled with your body’s sweet warmth mixed with that wildflower—”

The statement was shocking, elemental, but she refused to acknowledge the damp warmth of her body, her arousal amid the other scents. The wildness leaped within her, hot and barely controlled and aching to be free—when had she ever been truly free? To take and give and—She’d always been controlled, but now she wanted
to tear away Liam’s white dress shirt and press herself against him.

“You’re aroused,” she whispered back, though they were alone in the cool August night beside the lake. The novelty of seducing a man as quickly and as thoroughly as she had Liam went straight to that empty, aching hole in her life, filling her with a warm, fuzzy womanly emotion she didn’t dare define.

“Could be,” he whispered, easing to nibble on her ear. “Probably not. It’s a condition that comes upon me infrequently, every few years or so. But you’re not my type, so I’m probably not aroused. If I were, and admitted it, you’d probably run back to your nice safe little office.”

“I don’t run. I have a huge office and I could seduce you right here on this rock and you know it,” she stated, the warm, fuzzy womanly emotion fading away, replaced by a nettling anger.

“Nope. I’m not in the mood,” he said quite cheerfully, and freed her, stepping back on the rock.

He grabbed her wrists, just as she pushed him hard, tumbling them both into the cold, black lake. When she surfaced, sputtering and angry, Liam was grinning at her in the moonlight. She splashed water at him, muttered about the ways she would murder him and began to work her way up the marshy bank. She slid, her shoe with the broken strap floating away into the lake with her not-so-dependable control. Liam snatched the sandal, stuffed it in his pocket and chuckled. When she turned to glare at him, he splashed her.

Michelle decided to retreat from the playful, boyish devastation grinning up at her. She turned and gripped the reeds, which came free, and she hurled them back at him. “Can’t take it, can you?” he asked, chuckling.

“I choose what I take,” she returned hotly, reminding him of his arrogant statement.

“Is that right?” Coming up behind her, Liam supported her bottom with both big hands, helping as she crawled the rest of the way up the bank. The undignified retreat nicked at her pride, and she wanted to fly at Liam, careless of the consequences.

One look down her torn silk blouse and slacks and Michelle rounded on Liam, quivering with anger. They stood on the flat rock now, his hands on his hips as he watched her struggle for words. “You’re muddy,” he said, watching her, waiting for her to ignite.

“I’m wet,” she finally managed. “I’m wet and muddy and not very happy at the moment.”

He tilted his head, eyeing her curiously as water dripped from his shaggy hair. “Is that the best you can do?”

“This is a French designer outfit, and now it’s ruined. Give me my shoe,” she said, snatching her sandal from his chest pocket.

While she glared accusingly up at him, Liam’s gaze slowly warmed a path down to her muddied blouse. The silk lay intimately upon her, outlining her breasts. In the moonlight her nipples peaked against the damp cloth.

Liam slowly began to unbutton his shirt, and Michelle’s heart began to race. She wanted to run—she wanted to hurl herself against him, fist his hair as he had hers and take…. Uneasy with her emotions and wanting to distract him, she began to talk. “The Tallchief bridal tepees are placed beside the lake—”

“Take off your blouse.”

“What? You can’t possibly—”

“What? Have you? Here?” He grinned down at her and waggled her head as if she were a child. “I’ll turn
my back,” he explained too patiently, watching her reaction. “You can wear my shirt back—yours reveals more than it hides now.”

“There’s no need to turn your back. We’re both adults,” she said, struggling to be worldly. He wasn’t forcing her to act prudish; she wasn’t. Her fingers trembled over the buttons as she met his look, daring him to taunt her further. Liam’s eyes darkened as he unbuttoned his shirt and held it loosely at his side. “Here. Hold this,” she said, handing her blouse to him.

He tucked a length of her shirt into his back pocket and, still holding her eyes, began to carefully ease her into his shirt. He buttoned it slowly, carefully, as if placing his thoughts in order with each button. “This cheap cotton is a bit more concealing that your silk and lace…. You’re a hothead, Ms. Farrell. A volatile woman—”

“Am not.” She resented the childish statement flinging from her lips. After all she was a businesswoman, an executive—

“Hot-blooded and sweet and bewitching,” he added, lifting her hair away from the shirt’s collar to study the strands clinging to his fingers in the moonlight. “But a little too much trouble.”

With that, he bent slightly and hefted her over his shoulder. While Michelle held her sandal and wondered what had happened, Liam began to walk back to the Tallchiefs. “You’d better put me down,” she yelled, and began squirming.

The big hand on her bottom kept her still and locked to him. Unused to being handled, Michelle tried her best to be poised—but then dangling over a man’s broad shoulder didn’t allow much for dignity. He did put her down in front of the assembled Tallchief family, and
when she whipped around to tell him exactly where to go, he grinned. “You said ‘put me down.”’

As if it were evidence before the jury, he reached to his back pocket and handed the muddy blouse to her. To the Tallchiefs standing on the big front porch, he said, “She can’t talk right now. She’s in a snit and she apologizes.”

Then he placed his big hand on her head and waggled it gently, playfully, until she slashed it away. Michelle looked up at his smile and the humor lighting his gray eyes and wanted to toss him onto the ground and thoroughly mash him, kiss that smile from his lips and explore that lovely, gleaming broad chest. But pride and temper ruled her, and she managed to grasp a small measure of control as she marched up the steps, carrying her shoe. “It was a lovely dinner and a lovely swim, and Mr. Tallchief assures me that he’ll be coming back to visit you. But I’m going home now, to Silver’s. Business calls, you know,” she lied with as much dignity as she could summon. “Thank you for the wonderful evening.”