Tallchief for Keeps (15 page)

When she arrived home, Sybil was sitting on
her doorstep with her camera and magnifying lens. “We can shoot the pieces outside in a few minutes with natural light and have pictures in a snap. Meanwhile, I am
not
a happily married woman,” she stated. “Your brother is a huge, brawling, full-of-himself boy. He walked right into the house, kissed me with his swollen lip—right while my client Marcella Portway was on the phone, pestering me about her blasted royal Spanish gene. He actually eased me down to the floor and held me there, all muddy and bloody and…Mrs.

Portway raged on about her royal blood while he kissed me silly.”

Sybil blushed. “There Duncan was, huge, ragged and bloodied and grinning like a baboon. ‘Don’t blame me. I did it for Elspeth,’ he said. The strange thing of it is that he seems to like Alek.

“I could use a good cup of tea. I left them all with Megan, who is teething and not happy about anything. That should keep them from fighting. Duncan is cooking tonight, planning to wine and dine and candlelight me out of sleeping on the couch…and just maybe he will.”

Elspeth and Sybil went inside and Elspeth prepared and served tea. “I remember when you entered a brawl at Maddy’s to defend Duncan.”

Sybil sniffed elegantly. “I had to. There
he was having a fine time when I needed him to rescue Emily. He was the only one who could track her kidnapper and find her.”

“You’d do it again.”

“Of course. Alek shouldn’t pick on Duncan just when he’s properly tamed. Now show me what you have. I wondered when you’d get around to this.”

Elspeth pivoted to Sybil with a thought that plagued her. “Do you think a man can be celibate for more than five years?”

“I do. But he’d be a hungry one—” Sybil’s eyes widened. “Five years. That’s about when you went to Scotland, isn’t it? Before you changed? Don’t tell me that Alek has wanted you for five years—Don’t tell me that you knew him in Scotland and you and he and—So that’s what’s been going on between you. Something happened before…. Oh, yes! Tell me.”

“No. Duncan will get it out of you…there’11 be more stupid, overgrown boys’ brawls, and then Talia…I do not want to think about what she would do. She shouldn’t be upset now.” Elspeth decided not to ask Sybil more questions; she was too sharp, her mind trained to connect hidden implications.

“Mmm. I see what you mean.
But Duncan can’t get
everything
out of me.”

Elspeth shot her a disbelieving look. “He’s getting good.”

“I can still hold my own. By the way,
I know all about Alek’s little contract. You know it equated to the Tallchiefs’ capturing their brides, don’t you? That old macho thing about beating their chests and dragging off their women.”

“He’s apologized for
the contract. He was rather sweet about it Alek had his reasons.” Alek wanted to make her pay, to run her down, push her around and swagger off after his revenge. He ached for a child, a need coursing heavily through him to produce an off-spring, to have his line continue in the world after he was gone.

Elspeth swallowed. It must have cost Alek to back up, to apologize, but he had. She shook her head, clearing it. She had to find a way to exorcise him from her life, to peel him away from her heart.

Sybil sighed with dreamy longing. “I get all fuzzy when Duncan apologizes. I don’t know whether to take a broom after him for his crime…or to kiss him senseless. The light should be fine now. Let’s go take those pictures. From there, we’ll use computer tracing. The pictures are just double insurance.”

Alek sat on his porch and drew the shawl across his bare chest. He tipped the chair back against the new siding and settled into his thoughts. A brawl, bruises and hard physical labor couldn’t tear away his need to see Elspeth. Neither the sweat-lodge steam nor the freezing dip in Tallchief Lake could cool what she had ignited with one sultry look. He knew better than to push Elspeth now. He’d done enough with that damn, stupid contract.

He’d had his reasons, Alek argued against himself.

At ten o’clock, Amen Flats was settling in, lovers getting steamy and older folks holding hands.

The old tomcat who had claimed Alek yawned and curled into a corner. Sporting a chewed ear-and-a-half, the gray-striped torn yawned and yellow eyes looked at Alek as if to say,
Well, this is what to expect, chum…one ear chewed to hell and lonesome on a Saturday night. You get used to it.

“Speak for yourself.” The shawl,
light and soft, whispered across his skin, the fringes tangling in the hair on his chest. He rubbed them against him and wished for Elspeth’s hair. Alek propped his western boots on the railing, settling in for a long, lonely night. An owl soared across the sky, and Elspeth’s front door creaked. She was probably coddling the hungry strays at her back door. Alek grimaced…maybe he was a stray needing a home and he certainly was hungry. He tried to ignore the lurch of his heart and damned his weakness for her.

Marcy Longfeather cruised by in her convertible and blew him a kiss. Gossip said that Marcy could age a man in hours. “Call me anytime. I’m in the book,” she called to him.

Marcy held as much appeal to him as cold oatmeal. He’d never liked a woman who slid her hand into his back pocket when he wasn’t prepared. A hefty supply of multicolored, super-duper condoms, waved beneath his nose at the local coffee shop, brought out her cold-oatmeal appeal. He preferred—He preferred Elspeth.

Alek glanced at Elspeth’s darkened studio. She was probably weaving those mind-blowing hangings by candlelight, the graceful movements of her arms telling a story that would ignite any red-blooded male. Alek groaned because now he knew that Elspeth sometimes wore only a T-shirt to weave. Visions of the taut peaks of her breasts, the gentle, soft weight swaying to her movements, had haunted his sleepless nights.

He inhaled the cool night air and watched newly hatched moths cluster around a street lamp. Caruso’s music drifted from a distance away, and dogs howled. Alek smoothed the shawl across his chest. It was going to be a long night.

The torn sniffed the air; he leapt to his feet like a young cat, arched and stretched. With his tail high, he pranced lightly down the steps, headed for Elspeth’s house and welcoming female company.

“Deserter.” Alek reached for a can
of beer and stroked the shawl. His fingers curled to the can, then released it as Elspeth moved quietly up his porch. The single black braid swung down her neat white blouse and dangled at her waist. He admired the loose fit of her gray slacks and wanted to strip her then, taking her on the front porch.

“Here.” He tossed the shawl at her. “It’s yours. Forget about the contract. You’re free.”

“You don’t like my work?”

Alek spread his scarred fingers and studied them. He didn’t want to hurt her on any level. “You’re talented. There’s not another artist like you. But you’re not under any obligation to produce for the gallery. I’ll see to it. It was a stupid move on my part.”

“How kind of you. And you’re right. It was stupid. Mark agrees.”

Was that a smile lurking in her tone? Because he felt too exposed, too raw and aching, and wanted his pride, Alek plopped the chair to its feet and stood. He pushed his hands in his back pockets to keep from grabbing her. “Well?”

Elspeth’s slender fingers flowed over the
shawl, and his body jerked into a tight knot. She touched it reverently. “It’s beautiful. No wonder Una loved it so.”

“It’s yours. You should have it.”

“Thank you.”

She placed it around her, and Alek went weak. He brushed the tangled, fiery fringes with his fingertips and found them shaking. The shawl flowed, clinging to her slender body, fringes catching the soft night breeze. She looked exotic and yet untouched. But Alek had touched her, had taken away something that she would never get back. “You look good in it.”

Unused to compliments, Elspeth bowed her head. When her head came up, her expression sent him reeling. She frightened him, and Alek took a step backward. “I don’t want you to feel…obligated on any level.”

Her lips curved, enchanting
him, and she slanted him an amused look. “For a shawl? Come on, Alek. I could have taken it any time I wanted.”

“From me? I doubt it.”

“You know, there’s just something about taking you down that appeals.” She took another step toward him, and the look in her eyes caused him to blink. He hadn’t expected the sultry look, as if she had chosen to feast upon him and was considering where to start.

He took a step back and found his hips against the railing.

She came close to him, placed her
hands on his shoulders and watched him. She was taking him apart, examining him with those smoky gray eyes and trying to see beyond bones and scarred skin. He wasn’t a mystery, yet Elspeth kept hunting what ran beneath the surface. The shawl’s fringes caught on his skin, lifting with his sudden breath.

“What are you doing, Elspeth?” he asked unevenly, uncertain of himself and of her. In another minute, he’d be lifting her in his arms and devouring her. He had to get her out of here, to a place where she’d be safe.,.. He sucked in his breath as she leaned closer.

“I’m waiting for you to kiss me, Alek. To see if you’re all show for my brothers and the town, or if you really mean it.” Her fingers touched his face, smoothing the stubble there.

She touched the earring, and Alek’s knees began to weaken. “Games, Elspeth?”

Her mouth curved again, secret and feminine. “Are you going to show me your house? You’ve been in mine often enough. You’ve been hammering and sawing until all hours of the night Something must have changed.” Elspeth moved to the door and waited, the slender line of her nape as vulnerable as Alek felt. He opened the door, and she moved inside to the darkness.

Inside his house, Alek’s
fingers found the shawl, gripped it and tugged her back against him. His arms instantly encircled her, his face pressed close to hers, caught by the fresh and exotic scent of her skin and hair. “You like playing with fire, do you?”

Against his cheek, her smooth one moved in a smile. “Maybe you’re the one in danger.”

She eased away, and Alek let her go. He pushed his hands in his back pockets to keep from grabbing her.

The shawl whispered secrets as Elspeth studied the house, and Alek sensed that another woman had worn it and had called up a man, beckoning to him. In the dim light, the soft material gleamed and dipped into her waist, traced the slender curve of her hip. Alek washed a fast, hard hand over his unshaved, taut jaw; in another minute, he’d be drooling.

“You’ve opened up the
rooms…there’s more space. I’m glad you didn’t use contemporary furniture.” Her fingers smoothed an old piano, battered from years of use at Maddy’s Hot Spot. Alek had liked the thought of happy people, clustered around the old piano and singing to the music. She glanced at the mantel, filled with framed pictures, and picked her way around unpacked cartons. Her fingers trailed over the shells he’d collected and set to catch the dawn’s light. She wandered into his office, touched the paper clutter and his computer. She studied his desk—two file cabinets set a distance apart and topped by an old door. “This is the heart of you, isn’t it?”

The heart of him thudded heavily, needing her warm and soft against him. Because he was afraid he’d frighten her if he pushed too hard, he asked, “What about going down to Maddy’s?”

Elspeth lifted an elegant eyebrow. “And face what you did to me earlier today?”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Thank you for that much.” She picked up a rock painted with a child’s hand, then moved to the swatch she’d woven in Scotland. She turned and studied the room, littered with bits of his traveling years, bits of people he wanted to remember. When she touched a framed picture of a little Eurasian boy and girl, Alek said, “Marta and Ben. I help them by one of those foster-adoption plans.”

“And these?” Elspeth touched other pictures of children and Alek nodded.

There was a picture of an Asian girl, blushing as a bride with her husband standing proudly near her. “Those two were young teenagers, living in cardboard boxes. They entered a medical training program and now they’re married.”

“With your help?”

When he nodded, she lifted a picture
of Doug Morrow, an arm draped around Alek. “The frames are new.”

“This is the first time I’ve stayed in one place long enough for frames. The pictures were getting battered. That’s Doug Morrow, a friend. When I was in Scotland this last time—I had some notion of finding a woman I’d met years ago.”

Alek shook his head. “It seems so long ago, and it was just months. I thought I’d go there and…find you…see if you were happy. It didn’t turn out that way. I was on my way here when Doug got sick, calling me to complete his assignment. I said I would. The assignment delayed my trip here.”

She glanced at her work, a blend of earth and sky and mountains wrapped in mist and sharpened by a spear thrust diagonally through it. Elspeth roamed to the pictures of his immigrant great-great-grandparents. “All immigrants of that time have a look, don’t they?

Dressed in black, half afraid and half joyous that a new life was theirs for the taking. I can picture Una lugging her precious dowry, some of it in the shawl on her back.”

“Mine came from Russia. They
were probably thinking about how soon they could get to Texas heat.”

Heat.
Despite the cool night, Alek’s palms were damp, and his hands shook. If he touched her—He jammed them deeper in his pocket.

Alek followed her to the kitchen, remodeled and gleaming, too clean and uncluttered. Her fingertip traced an open manual to the pasta machine. “Very nice…a new bread machine and a pasta machine and an electric wok.”

He didn’t want her to know that he ached for her fresh bread and that he’d tried to make his own, that he didn’t know how to make a home. “I’m not exactly a homemaker, but I’ll learn.”

If she found that old stew pot under the cabinet, she’d really think him off center. He loved the idea of that old pot bubbling with enough food to feed an army of kids.

She glanced down at the assortment of kitchen gadgets on the counter. “You’re certainly prepared. No more dishes from gorgeous blondes?”