Tallchief: The Homecoming (11 page)

At five o’clock in the morning Liam slept beside Michelle, a heavy arm and a leg thrown across her as if she were his captive. She studied him, wondering who had taken whom in the tender battle last night. Later he found her in the steamy shower, those hot eyes, the color of smoke, heating the length of her body. “Did I hurt you?” he asked roughly, lifting her wrist for his inspection and kissing the fine inner skin.

“I like my privacy,” she whispered through the steam, suddenly shy with the man who had filled her body and explored her as if it were his right.

“You do?” he asked with a grin that set off the flurry of delight inside her heart. “Fine. I’ll leave you alone.”

By the time she’d recovered her breath, the bathroom door closed behind him. She hadn’t expected him to leave her alone, not after seeking her out until they were both exhausted. Nettled that he’d lost interest so soon, she found Liam lay sprawled upon his bed, stomach down, his black hair tousled and his lashes closed—sleeping like a boy without a care. She’d expected something sweeter than Liam falling asleep—breakfast, flowers, kisses and cuddling.

Yet there he sprawled, forgetting about her, stomach
down, a sheet covering his hips. She’d given him everything, and he’d taken and given back and now he didn’t care? Michelle tore away the blanket and sheet and still he didn’t move, breathing as if he were asleep. “Liam.”

“Uh.” The grunt wasn’t lover like, and she wanted her due—he could trouble himself for a kiss this morning after his demands last night.

“Liam,” she said more loudly, shaking his shoulders.

“Uh.”

“Liam,” she said more softly as she studied the length of his fine backside, the width of his shoulders tapering down to his waist, the hard muscle of his haunches. “Liam,” she whispered as excitement raced through her, the need to capture and hold and take. She tossed away the T-shirt she’d borrowed and poured herself over his back, covering her own with the blanket.

“Umm,” he murmured pleasantly as if coming to life when she moved her breasts against his back. “Umm…”

She nibbled on his ear. She’d never played with her husband, the intimacy now with Liam too exciting to refuse. “Wake up.”

He grunted at that—not exactly a tribute to her appeal. She could have killed him then, anger riveting her on top of him. She wondered where to attack, where to begin on the huge, hard body beneath hers. She smoothed the muscles of his arms, studying the flow of her hands over his darkly tanned skin, her toes toying with his calves. He was a beautiful man to explore—those long glossy lashes, the strands of tousled hair at his nape. She kissed him there and then on one brawny shoulder and the other—

Then Liam turned suddenly, grinning, before he tugged her close to nuzzle her neck with bear growls and tickles. Amid the happiness filling her and the surprising giggle erupting into the shadowy room, she discovered that Liam was more than awake and hungry again.

“Y
ou called them? The Tallchiefs? And asked them to help me? Listen, mister, I can take care of myself. I was planning on calling a carpenter—”

“You’ll need a top work crew, not one man.” Liam wasn’t budging, and only the lack of a telephone in her cottage kept her from calling for help. By seven that morning, she was scowling at him. He frowned down at her, the drizzling rain outside her soggy but unique home adding to the dark mood brewing between them. The Tallchiefs would be there later, after tending their family and chores, and she wasn’t in the mood for the man shaking his head.

“This house is
not
a waste of money,” she said as Liam reached above her head to catch a falling piece of plaster. He placed it in a bucket already filled with water-stained and crumbling drywall. He picked up the bucket, weighed the evidence in his hand and looked at her. She
shook her head, refusing to be drawn into one more skirmish about her beautiful little house, and began using a wet-dry vacuum on the floor rubble. “It’s just going to take a little more work than I had expected.”

“You don’t give up, do you?”

“Not when it’s worth fighting for,” she returned honestly, tears burning her lids. She turned from him, working furiously, the vacuum sucking up her sodden happiness. She’d been so excited, eager to show Liam her dreams. She’d described the tidy little home office where she could look out on to her garden. She could refinish unique furniture on her front porch. Standing beside the hanging ferns on her porch next summer, she could wave to the warm people in Amen Flats as they passed by on the road.

“It’s a doll house, honey. Built for play and not made for living,” Liam said quietly behind her, his deep voice soft and slow as if he weren’t used to tender logic.

She slashed at the tears in her eyes. How could she make him understand what she didn’t? That her life had been led in a fast-paced lane to make money, to build a career, and now she wanted a rest—She hadn’t planned to love the cottage, but she did: it filled a soft need inside her that she’d just recognized. “You don’t understand.”

The answer was slow in coming. “I’m trying. This place is going to take a lot of work.”

“It’s something I want to do, to build all my own.” The words sounded childish, even to her, like a young girl defending a doll house. “Okay, me and a good carpenter.”

Okay, me and a roofer and a plumber and a siding man and a drywall man…
she added mentally. Liam’s arms closed around her from behind and his cheek, rough with stubble, pressed against hers. He held her close and
warm against him while the rain dripped down in front of the porch. “You look good in my carpenter pants, the cuffs turned up, and in my coat,” he said finally. “You need a good pair of shoes—boots, maybe. It’s Saturday morning. We could go down to the café, have breakfast, and when the stores open, I’ll get you that pair of boots. I’d like to think that you’re wearing suitable shoes, not something that will come apart with a drop of rain. Then I’ve got to open the station, and the Tallchiefs will be here by then.”

Michelle turned to him, grabbed his coat and held tight. She shook him, because if there was anyone she wanted to understand, and to understand her, it was Liam Tallchief. She lied to save his pride—she could afford the price of boots better than he. “I’ve got boots. All I have to do is unpack them. I’m just having a bad spot, Liam. I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”

He eased a strand of hair away from her cheek, tested the softness between his thumb and finger. “Maybe it’s time you did. I like taking care of you. Do you just like to argue with me, or is it with everyone?” he asked easily.

“You’re more fun.” He excited her more than any game she’d played, more than any quest she’d known.

“That’s the first time anyone has ever said that. Do you really have that pair of boots? Or were you just trying to let me keep my pennies?”

“Oh, okay,” she admitted darkly. “I don’t have the boots—unless you mean ones to wear with long skirts. I thought I’d—”

“We had honesty last night, and nothing else will do now—for either of us. I can help you tonight and tomorrow. Emily is home from college and she’s snagged
my boy until Sunday night.” His soft, dark-gray eyes searched her face. “You need a place to stay.”

“I might. I can do amazing things in one day, and I just might have the whole house fixed by Monday.”

Liam smiled tenderly and kissed the corner of her mouth and caressed her bottom, tugging her close against him. “You can do very amazing things. How are you feeling now? Did I hurt you?”

“Did I hurt you?” she returned, just as concerned, her hands smoothing his face, tracing his eyebrows and lashes and nose. Last night Liam’s features had been honed by passion, his body hard and hot against hers, yet he’d touched her very gently, as though he feared to hurt her. Her hand slid down to his chest and the peak of a male nipple etched her palm, making her instantly aware of how much she liked to touch him.

“I’m a little stronger than you, honey,” he noted with a slow, taunting grin. “But if you don’t stop running those hands over my chest and looking at me like that, you’re going to find out that everything is in working order.”

His hungry, urgent kiss was enough to keep her walking on air the rest of the day.

At noon Liam stopped ordering tires and noted the Tallchiefs’ pickups parked around Michelle’s house. The rain had stopped, but the day was dreary and cold, autumn prowling before winter’s freezing temperatures. Hammers and saws sounded in the distance, just up the lane to that little house Michelle wanted badly. She could have anything she wanted, yet she’d chosen a home badly in need of repair. Plastic covered the windows now, and Duncan, Calum, Birk and the rest were heaping lumber upon a stack to be burned. The Tallchiefs acted as a fam
ily, and they’d chosen Michelle for one of their own. He couldn’t enter the family as easily, because he did not yet understand himself and the instincts that told him to claim Michelle.

Liam rubbed his neck and remembered Michelle soft beneath him, then later after the loving, grinning up at him as he foraged through his closet. Without the city suit and high heels, and in his clothing, she seemed little more than a girl—someone’s sweetheart.

His
sweetheart he corrected sharply, pushing away the images of another man kissing her…because her body had told him that she hadn’t made love for a long time. Neither had he, and he’d been slightly rough, regretting it. He’d needed her too much, needing that hot, sweet flow of her body, her eager, hungry mouth upon his skin. Even now, hours later, he treasured her soft, sweet, drowsy sigh that had slid against his neck.

She’d worried about his past, asked questions he’d tossed away long ago. Now he tossed away the nagging doubt that there was more. J.T. and his life in Amen Flats was too good now to mar by the past.

From his station’s gas pumps, Liam studied the activity at Michelle’s house. Birk, the owner of a construction company, was already on top of the roof—wooden shingles flying onto the ground. The Tallchiefs could have been Liam’s brothers, their coloring and build a match to his. But he’d never had a brother, and he didn’t understand the lighthearted ease that flew between them. Elspeth clearly ruled them, and Fiona could pounce on one “underdog” cause or another without the slightest hesitation, bringing the family’s groans. J.T. clearly adored them all. But Liam preferred to keep on the edges, where he was safe, never revealing too much of himself.

He frowned at the shouted orders, male voices carrying
in the distance. It didn’t sit easily, other men taking care of a woman he had loved well through the night and morning. Then, even though it was only noon on a busy Saturday, Liam reached for the Open sign on the station door, and flipped it to Closed. He picked up the telephone to call Emily, who wanted to eat and sleep and keep J.T., but who also needed college money. “I’m leaving the key to the station at the side door. If you know of anyone who wants to pump gas until six tonight, it’s hourly wages…. Yes, it’s fine if J.T. stays with Elspeth until you pick him up. When you’re ready, bring him home tomorrow, or I’ll have a hard time reclaiming him. I’ll come back tonight to close up.”

This was what he wanted for J.T., Liam thought as he drove his pickup to Michelle’s house—the family closeness that would hold against trouble.

He arrived just in time to see Michelle being passed out of the house, from brother to brother and on down the steps. She was shouting, threatening them all. She still wore the clothes he’d put on her, and that filled him with a dizzying pleasure—that she had kept him close.

The continuing drizzle muffled Michelle’s outrage. “All I want to do is to start refinishing furniture and put a few nails in the wall, just to see how it all works. I didn’t mean to turn on the water while the pipe wasn’t attached. I didn’t know the ladder inside wasn’t to be moved and I stranded Calum in the rafters. And who would know you can’t paint drywall when they’re not nailed to the walls?” she demanded as Calum tossed her to Birk. Liam was waiting at the end of the line, catching her as Duncan lightly tossed her into his arms.

Lying in his arms, Michelle crossed her arms and glared up at him. “Tell them that I am an—rather, I
was—a top executive and I know how to set up a concept and work with it until the product is finished.”

He adored her, Liam thought hazily as she scowled at him. She’d fight for what she thought was right, and during the night she’d pitted herself against him, gathering him deeper when he would have let her rest. A sensual woman who ignited at his touch, she filled his arms just right. He wondered then if he would ever tire of looking at her, of studying her moods. “You’re pouting,” he noted, enjoying the feel of her body in his keeping once more.

“Of course, I’m not pouting. I’m considering my options. They won’t let me help.”

Liam searched through stacks of replies, and pleasure ran through him when he managed a successful one, “They’re saving the really hard stuff for you. The executive decision making. Anyone can do what they’re doing—roofing, new lumber, plumbing, that sort of thing.”

“You think so?” she asked dubiously, studying the men moving efficiently through their tasks. Nick passed by, shouldering lumber easily, and grinned as he took in the picture of Liam holding a steaming Michelle. A carpenter herself, Lacey had stopped by to oversee Birk and the family that had claimed her as a child. Fiona had brought by housewarming gifts of potted plants from her florist shop. The scent of new lumber mixed with those of Elspeth’s stew and freshly baked bread, Talia’s lemon cake and Sybil’s apple pie.

Though the children were at home with their mothers now, the aura of a family filled the cottage. Liam went light-headed. Was that music in his head or happiness? Or was it coming from the sheriff’s car, the Italian tenors’ opera as the lawman stopped to chat? Michelle’s elbow
jab prodded him to answer her question. “Oh, there’s no doubt that you’re in charge. Your time will come. You’re really the one in charge here. Ask Birk. He runs a construction crew. Hey, Birk! Michelle wants to know who is in charge here.”

A man with a fiery wife who had run her own remodeling business and who had remodeled the old bordello they lived in, Birk was quick to grin and reply, “Michelle is the boss. We’re just doing the basics—the no-think stuff. Hey, stop kissing her and get up here. I need a man on the other end of this job, and don’t let her move the ladder again.”

“I’d rather you didn’t stay for this, Liam,” Michelle said the next afternoon. She turned away from the expensive gray car gliding up her gravel road to the man who had carried her to his home long after midnight.

With the Tallchiefs’ help the previous evening and this morning, the unfinished cottage was sturdy and dry, with a fire in the new woodstove. The windows had yet to be replaced, the plastic catching the cold winter breeze coming down from the mountains. The porch was sturdy, if not completed, and the pot bubbling on the woodstove would have to serve for meals and hot water. But with the new water lines functioning, she had running water and a bathroom—and not counting the extra lumber and sawhorses taking up space. The cottage had changed overnight and now at three o’clock in the afternoon, it was warm and snug, if not finished. She couldn’t wait to choose the linoleum for the kitchen and bathroom floors, to paint the walls, and once the wooden flooring was set and varnished, she would begin carefully furnishing the cottage. She wanted to search out treasures, restore them,
one by one, instead of hiring a decorator as she’d done before.

It had been an odd feeling, last night, having a man care for her, pick her up and carry her home and soap her down in the shower. Used to tending herself, she’d resented his grim care as he’d stuck her head beneath the spray, shampooing the sawdust and grime away. She’d grumbled and swatted and in the end dozed as he slid his T-shirt over her head and brushed her hair with a child’s Mighty Lou Super Brush. She was already sleeping by the time he came to bed, drawing her close and warm and safe.

In the late afternoon she could still taste Liam’s hungry morning kiss, awakening her with his desire. Her body still tingled and ached slightly from his, but she’d strained for release, matching him in her passion. Then they’d come back here, to work with the Tallchiefs until noon. Now, tired and alone with Liam, she’d wanted to enjoy holding him, to feel that solid muscle and heat wrap around her—

The approaching car marked the end of what would later seem like a dream—

“You’d better go now,” she said, bracing herself for the two people who would tear apart her brief happiness. She expected no less from them. The rivulets of rain on the plastic and the shrouding drizzle of autumn added to her sense of disaster.

“Stop muttering,” Liam said pleasantly as he smoothed the putty over the nails on the drywall.

She studied his back, the spread of his legs and his work boots locked against the rough, dry flooring and knew that he wasn’t leaving until he was ready. The slow drift of his steely gaze out to the car, then back to her,
leaped upon her already-taut nerves. “Liam, you don’t understand. This is private.”