Tallchief: The Homecoming (5 page)

Liam frowned and rubbed the ache in his chest. He didn’t understand why he trusted Michelle with his son, or why J.T. was chatting merrily with her now.

He only knew that he wanted her—the raw, sensual pleasure of holding her tight against him. While one message slammed into his body, his mind told him that Michelle Farrell was off-limits.

Two days later Michelle sat cross-legged on Liam’s living room floor as J.T. proudly showed her his best toys. She knew Liam couldn’t wait to get her out of his rented house, and that was the exact reason she deliberately stayed. With J.T., he’d quickly towed away her car, the sooner to be rid of her—but she wasn’t that easily dismissed. Every once in a while she liked to pit herself against an impossible challenge, and Liam qualified as a big one. The repairs would take a week, the dealer had said, and she had all that time to work on getting Liam Tallchief woven into the Tallchief fabric.

Her motive was simple, she told herself: J.T. needed the expansive Tallchief family, to play with children, to enter the activities. Michelle had the background and talent for finding suitable niches, and if Liam wouldn’t take action, she would. Liam’s lone wolf act, keeping himself away from a family he obviously belonged to, wouldn’t help J.T. blend with cousins. If the Tallchiefs were ready
to let him do as he wished—well, she wasn’t. He would dig into a trench, and as time passed it would deepen, and J.T. would suffer the loss.

His rented house was small, very neat and barren. There were no pictures on the walls other than the bulletin board filled with J.T.’s color crayon drawings. The scarred hardwood floor gleamed, the kitchen no more than a cubbyhole off the small living room. The tiny bathroom she’d used that first night was immaculate, but the fixtures were old, the tub filled with rubber dinosaurs and yellow plastic boats. Proud of his room, J.T. had instantly tugged her into it. A sturdy wooden bed matched a battered dresser, and though not crammed with expensive toys, the room was clearly loved by the little boy. The other bedroom door remained firmly closed, like Liam Tallchief’s past.

After two days she’d settled in to nettle him. She recognized, with a soaring, eager sense, that she loved hunting out Liam’s dark little edges. He was the best entertainment she’d had in years, and a diversion from the interference of her parents in her life. Liam couldn’t say no when J.T. asked if Michelle could come in after their “date” of today. “Don’t you have something to do with Nick and Silver?” Liam asked her coolly from the kitchen as he placed the remnants of the meal in the refrigerator.

She savored the dark ridge of temper riding his deep voice. She’d brought take-out dinner to the station—J.T.’s favorite fried chicken, green beans and mashed potatoes—none of them touching on his plate—topped off by chocolate ice cream. “I’m giving my friends some privacy. My vacation is for three weeks, and I can’t hoard Silver every minute.”

She really enjoyed how Liam stared pointedly at the
clock on the wall. “J.T. should be taking his bath soon and going to bed,” he said.

“Good. Then we can talk. I still don’t—” Playing the audience for J.T., she clapped as a tiny car shot down a toy ramp and around a plastic curve. He giggled with delight and beamed when she kissed his cheek. Michelle glanced at Liam who had just inhaled sharply, clearly frustrated and displeased. “He’s a lovely child. I adore him,” she stated quietly. “You can stop wearing those carpenter pants…he’s growing up.”

Liam’s fierce scowl told her to back off, and she wouldn’t. An outsider to the beautiful valley, she knew how badly Silver and the rest of the Tallchiefs wanted to become closer to the man who preferred his shadows. She waited while Liam bathed J.T., and when the boy asked, she tucked him in, only to turn to his father’s dark expression.

When J.T.’s bedroom door was closed, Liam gripped Michelle’s upper arm and turned her to him. She glanced meaningfully at his hand and then up at him. “Don’t,” she said, aware that his thumb had started to caress her skin.

She feared the sensual interest in his eyes, that dark penetrating look. Liam Tallchief wasn’t a man to walk away from, and she wasn’t a woman for staying or for playing.

“I don’t have time to argue with you,” he said, dropping his hand. “You’re intruding in our lives. You’re not welcome.”

“He’s growing up, Tallchief. He has a family waiting for him, and they’re waiting for you. I’ve been here only three days, and it’s obvious that you can be a real pain in the backside. It’s also obvious that the Tallchiefs are too patient, and I’m working on a time line to get this
whole gig flowing down the river of success. Now, I could mind my own business—”

“Yes, why don’t you?” he invited darkly. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Make time,” she tossed back. “For J.T.”

“You think I don’t make time for my son?” he asked warningly.

“You’re going to the Tallchiefs’ on Friday night, and J.T. is going to play with a whole houseful of children with the same black hair and gray eyes. You’re going to—”

“Am I? So you’re asking me for a date?” he asked carefully, a smile flirting on his gorgeous mouth.

Michelle blinked suddenly, trying to shake the thought from her. Why should she care if his mouth could soften? Why should she want to taste him? “It’s not a date exactly. You’re just coming. With J.T.”

Liam wasn’t going to be pushed by her. He wondered how she would react if he pushed back. “You’re afraid of something, Ms. Farrell, and you’re running. Tell you what—why don’t you do the dishes and the laundry, and that will give me thinking time while I’m working on the bills? I usually do housework in the evenings, because I don’t have time during the day.”

“Me? Do dishes and laundry?” Michelle glanced at the sink of dishes left from breakfast, lunch and J.T.’s snacks. On the table were more dishes, and on the floor in front of the washer and dryer were heaped laundry baskets of clothing.

“Growing boys make lots of laundry. Don’t forget to use the stain remover on the chocolate from the ice cream you gave J.T. There’s not a housekeeper or a maid in sight. For now, I do it all here, like I make the decisions about our lives.”

Clearly Liam was enjoying putting her in a position to leave or to stay and fight. “You should have a housekeeper. You could spend more time with J.T. You could hire a full-time baby-sitter and—”

“So you don’t know how to do dishes or laundry, but you’re telling me how to manage time with my son. For your information, lady, I tried just that—hiring a full-time housekeeper and baby-sitter. She mistreated my son. I’ll never forgive myself for that.” With that, Liam cleared the small table of dishes and walked into the kitchen.

“You’re willing to give up after one try—” Michelle looked down at the dishcloth Liam had just placed in her hand.

“Sorry. No rubber gloves. No hand cream.” He smiled then, one of those gorgeous, I’ve-got-you grins that caused her heart to race.

“You think I’ll leave, don’t you? You think I’ll back off because of a few dishes and a few conditions. I’ve met conditions all my life.”

“I’ll just bet you have.”

His tone lacked sincerity, and, challenged, Michelle elbowed him aside. “You’re right. I have a housekeeper and a personal assistant who keep things moving smoothly for me.”

“Gets the dry cleaning, gets the oil changed in your car, does errands for you? That sort of thing?” he asked too cheerfully, and she knew that he was mocking her.

He wasn’t the first to insinuate that her wealth made her life easy. “I’ve managed. My career is demanding. Most women in my position—”

“Oh, I see.”

Another insincere agreement hitched her temper higher. “Look. I’ll help with the housework tonight and tomorrow night, if what you’re saying is—that you don’t
have time to socialize. I’ll help make time for you, and you’ll have no excuse, will you?”

He lifted a black, gleaming eyebrow. “There’s the bathroom to be cleaned. The tub scrubbed, the floor—”

“All right, all right, all right. I get the point. I’ve butted into your life and you’re going to make me pay.”

“No one invited you—” He reached to the cluttered desk for a stack of envelopes, a checkbook and a pen, and strolled off into the living room. After clicking on a boxing match on the television, he sprawled in a big well-worn chair and smiled innocently back at her.

She could have poured the liquid dish detergent over his head when he said, “I won’t have time to go if I don’t get that refrigerator defrosted. Make certain you don’t leave any perishables out, will you? And use baking soda in the cleaning water. And I’d like a glass of iced tea when you get a chance.”

Two hours later Michelle plopped down on the couch and glared at Liam. She hurled the dust rag at him. “Just how are you related to the Tallchiefs?”

Liam folded J.T.’s old diaper, scented of lemon wax and dust. He placed it on his knee and wondered how his son had grown so fast, wearing miniature shorts like his own. He knew little of the Tallchiefs, except that they were orphaned when the eldest—Duncan—was only eighteen, and they’d held the clan together, much to the admiration of Amen Flats. He wasn’t certain of the bloodline, except that he descended from the Scots bondwoman and the Native American chieftain who had captured her. There were letters in the wooden chest he’d found after Reuben’s death, and he couldn’t bear to open them just yet. The postmark had taken him to Amen Flats and for now that was enough.

Two pieces of flint rock, chipped and hard and obvi
ously treasured, lay within a dainty lace handkerchief. They were bound in a length of old red velvet by a leather thong just as old, and still fragrant with an elusive lavender scent. Then, tethered by the thong, was a man’s silver ring, dark with age, worn almost thin and circled by Celtic designs. Topped by a simple design of a mountain and a stick man and woman, a small ancient copper box held a bit of dry, frayed straw.

What did they mean? Did he have the right to know?

“…I mean, it’s easy to see you’re related by the similar coloring and features. But are you cousins or what? Well? Are you just going to sit there brooding? I won’t go away until I have answers, you know,” Michelle was saying impatiently. “You’d fit in perfectly, if you’d put out one little bit of effort.”

“What would you know of fitting in?” he asked too sharply, resenting the anger and frustration this woman could jerk from him. “You think you fit into this small town? You think you fit into my son’s life? You think you can push and shove and place people in neat little boxes and everything will be just fine?”

She crossed her arms and glared at him, then tossed her head to dislodge the strand teasing her cheek. “I fit in where I want to. If you weren’t so stubborn—”

“You don’t fit into a small town, and you know it. Maddy’s Hot Spot is the only so-called nightclub in town, and there’s not a spa in sight. The women here do their own washing and gardening, and they mind their own business.” Liam kept his voice down, resenting the woman tearing into his life. “You’re rich, spoiled, probably overeducated, and couldn’t manage a simple household budget if you tried.”

Michelle leaped to her feet, punched the television button off, and kicked his stocking-covered feet from the
footrest. “If I wanted to live here, in Amen Flats, and run my own household, I could.”

He didn’t bother answering, because the need to stand and kiss her sassy mouth was too strong. “Tell that to someone else, and run back to Daddy, why don’t you?”

“I pay my own bills,” she said, her voice quivering with emotion. “Where do you get off, anyway?”

“The same place as you. Now get out.”

“Friday night. Be there,” she said, shooting him a narrow-eyed look before tossing her head.

“Try ordering someone else around,” he returned more softly than the emotions racing through him. Then she marched out of his house and slammed the door behind her.

Liam rose to his feet, crossed the room and jerked open the door. Hours later he wished he hadn’t seen the moonlight playing in her hair and outlining the sway of her hips and the full curve of her breasts. His instincts told him to capture her, to claim that soft mouth, to fill his hands with her hair and keep her close until she—

The woman was pure trouble—a hot-tempered, pride-filled witch that kept him awake and restless for hours.

F
or his son,
Michelle thought as she watched Liam from Duncan Tallchief’s kitchen window.
Liam Tallchief would hole up, alone and wounded from whatever haunted him…but for his son he’d take a step into life.

His wrecker parked in front of the log and rock home that had been the Tallchiefs’ parents’. In the first of August heat, he wore a white dress shirt, turned back at the sleeves, and new Western jeans. He carefully unstrapped J.T. from his car seat and lifted him to the ground. Amid the cars and pickups of the assembled Tallchief clan, Liam held J.T.’s hand and looked up at the ranch house now occupied by Duncan and his family. Behind father and son, the summer sun spread across the lush fields of the ranch, and Liam lifted J.T. on his hip to better survey the ranch that had been inherited by the five Tallchief children.

Within the remodeled ranch house, children played in
front of the rock-hewn fireplace. The home was rich with love and all that was Tallchief, from the tartan draped around Tallchief’s spear, to the hand-hewn cradle with a new black-haired baby sleeping in it.

Michelle traced the summer-warm glass at her fingertips. If ever a man belonged to a family, it was Liam to the Tallchiefs. More than legends held the family together—and Liam and J.T. could use that love.

“You did it, and inside of one week. You won’t have to do Jasmine’s diapers,” Silver whispered at her side.

Michelle nodded, her mind instinctively dissecting Liam’s personality, trying to slot what she knew of him into neat pigeonholes. The profile didn’t fit, odd edges leaping out at her, unanswered questions nudging her need to know everything about him. While Liam would care for J.T., he was definitely a man who preferred the lonely shadows. Michelle shrugged mentally and, allowing for the kitchen’s heat, tossed the thick braid created by one of the beautiful children from her shoulder.

Whatever ran through Liam Tallchief, it wasn’t ice. When he’d held her, when he shot her one of those dark, sizzling looks, the jolt had burned through to her bones. She could still feel his muscles tense, as if he meant to keep her—as if nothing could tear her from him. She frowned, trying to place her emotions in neat order, and failed.

Duncan’s wife, Sybil, came to stand beside Michelle. “You’ve done a lovely thing, Michelle. Liam has been polite and cool, keeping to himself. We know he’s here for a reason and we don’t care. Elspeth was troubled from the first moment she saw him, and that’s enough. Some call her intuitive, but she’s more than that. Una had seer blood, and from Tallchief Elspeth gained her shaman strength. She’s an herbalist and a weaver, weaving more
into her products than wool—there is heart and love and strength—and she feels something deep for Liam.”

“I’m an outsider, but even I know this is right,” Michelle said softly. “That little boy is a mirror image of the other children, and Liam is, too—oh, look. The men have gone out to praise that beast of a machine. Look at that. Look at Liam and J.T. amid Duncan, Birk, and Calum. He’s the same—that black hair, slashing brows, those cutting cheekbones and rock-solid jaws—”

“He loves that little boy. Poor thing, he doesn’t know what to do with all those tall men who look like his father. Look at him cling to Liam,” Sybil noted.

“Aye, he does look like us.” Elspeth came to quietly stand at the window, her hair as glossy as her brothers’. Her gray eyes were dark with emotions, her expression still as if she waited—

At her sister’s side, Fiona laughed and juggled a sleepy baby on her hip. “Your Alek looks like a gypsy amid our brothers, and my Joel and his brothers, Nick and Rafe, look exactly alike. They’re gorgeous, aren’t they? Hunks, every one. They’re having too much fun out there alone. Let’s send the children down on them.”

When the other women moved away, Elspeth stood next to Michelle, and her silence as she studied Liam said more than words. “He’s come home,” she said quietly, drawing the Tallchief tartan around her, despite the summer heat. “He’ll find pain and he’ll find joy—”

Then Elspeth turned, the shadows lifting as she studied Michelle. “You’re a soldier, aren’t you? Doing what is expected and yet you’re wanting more. You’ve taken on a crusade because of your love of Silver, and in giving, you’ll find more than you could have ever believed possible for you as a woman.”

“What do you mean?” Michelle whispered, aware and
shaken by the strength of Elspeth’s statement. She smoothed the pearl studs in her lobes, chosen to reflect a polished professional image in a harsh business world.

“Time,” Elspeth returned. “With Liam, everything will take time to unravel. But you have your own journey, too, as a woman. You can’t always arrange life to suit you. It doesn’t place happiness in neat little niches. You like a good fight, a challenge to sharpen your teeth, and Liam has stirred your need to conquer. You’ll have a hard time of that with him. He’s like my brothers—savages one minute and scared in their boots the next, if a woman cries.”

While Michelle struggled with that, Elspeth turned to the window again. “Look there, amid the children—J.T. just starting to smile….”

Michelle smoothed her hair, and the tight waves bumped gently beneath her fingertips.
Sunlit witch’s silk,
Liam had said, stirring that wild restlessness inside her. She had a temper, of course, but her mind ruled it—until Liam Tallchief. When he’d held her in the storm, she’d loved the wind in her hair, the rain on her skin and her lashes, her mouth. She shook her head, and her braid rippled down her back. She always did what was expected—except for leaving her father’s company and divorcing the son-in-law he’d handpicked. She kept very close to the rules and something about Liam Tallchief made her want to break them.

“I should have minded my own business,” she murmured, and wondered if she could manage a timely headache. Liam Tallchief was just too much. “You know he made me clean his house. He actually bargained with me, when he probably knew he was coming all the time. He’s contrary, illogical, and when I think of all the laundry, the bathroom and the floor scrubbing—‘Bring me a glass
of iced tea,’ he said. It was there in his eyes, taunting me, saying that I’d never lifted a broom or kept a house and that he wanted to play lord to my servant role, just to set me off.”

“Aye, he’s like the rest, a despicable pig,” Elspeth murmured, humor curling her lips. “And a challenge, just the same.”

“I’ve had enough challenges in my life, just to survive, and I’m not needing another one.” Michelle skipped the background check that she’d used to threaten him. Anyone with enough skills could have pulled the information out of the computers easily enough…and Liam knew it. There were many legal reasons why his name might not have been Tallchief, though he evidently was related. Why had he changed his name and his son’s? Why did he wipe the name Cartwright from him as though it were so much mud?

“You helped him. It’s not in you to sit on the sidelines when you see someone you love troubled, and Silver sees him like the outsider she was. She’s tried desperately to get him to come to their home. But he’s a hunter, like Tallchief, and my father was the best tracker in the country. Now my brothers are, and they like to hunt, treasuring the chase. I’ve an idea that Liam questions anything that comes too easily to him, like the invitations of our families. He’s very cautious and sets his own terms.”

“He should be more appreciative. You’re a caring family. You’ve all given Silver so much when no one else could help. When her twin died at sixteen, she almost did, too. I loved them both and I was so helpless. I just wanted to help all of you. This family is exceptional, and J.T. should be a part of it. Not every family could forgive the sons of the man who murdered their parents. Yet all three of the murderer’s sons, the Palladins, married Tall
chiefs. J.T. should know of the traditions of Una and Tallchief.”

Elspeth was silent, but smiled softly. She drew a tiny waving tendril from Michelle’s cheek, studying it in the filtered sunlight of the window. “The boy has snagged your heart and you’re fighting for him and maybe for yourself, too. Tallchief made many cribs, you know, to earn money for his family. Sybil, Duncan’s wife, is a genealogist and loves a good hunt for treasures. She brought the original one to Duncan, the one Tallchief gave to Una for their five babies. Una wouldn’t marry him without a dowry, so he made the first and gave it to his father to keep her pride. My mother worked on Una’s journals, and I helped. Sybil sometimes finds items related to our family. She’s always trying to find another crib. She’s working on that now.”

“Another Tallchief baby?”

“Maybe,” Elspeth said lightly and smiled lightly as she turned away.

At the dinner table later, J.T. sat on Liam’s lap and shyly smiled at Emily, Sybil’s college-age daughter. Emily tossed her red hair, and Joel Palladin’s preteen son, Cody, let out a love-struck, worshipful sigh. A known charmer and confident of her powers, she smiled at him and riffled J.T.’s hair. “Hey, little man. Why don’t you come sit on my lap and let your daddy eat his homemade ice cream?”

J.T.’s tentative smile said he wanted to, but—He looked up at Liam, who nodded solemnly. Liam had been too quiet, his smoky gaze slowly taking in the big family room. He tensed when he noted the barn board stamped with the Tallchief Cattle Ranch stick man and mountain, and his big hand crushed the woven napkin, the knuckles white.
Why had he frowned so fiercely?

He breathed hard, the vein in his throat throbbing beneath his dark skin. As though sensing Michelle’s study, his face jerked to hers, and she saw his pain, mixed with anger. He resented her seeing that—inside him where the dark mysteries flowed, into the man he was, kept from others. To let him know that she’d seen and would not be turned away, Michelle smiled sweetly and fluttered her lashes. She hadn’t much experience in touting feminine airs, but the moment was too good to pass.

Liam tore his fierce scowl from his face and met her smile, the warmth not rising to his eyes. Then he looked to the red Native American shield that had been Tallchief’s, and the old cradle rich with Celtic images and scarred by teething babies. Elspeth’s rugs and woven goods circled the home, and more than once, Duncan—known as The Defender—searched out Liam’s gaze. The message was from male to male, locking and holding and sliding away to pin Michelle. Unfamiliar with the dark intense look, Michelle shivered when Liam’s gaze brushed her mouth.

Fire and storms lashed at her again, drying her mouth and sending her heart fluttering in her throat. She knew she’d long remember the uncivilized hard taste of his mouth, a burning stamp across her own. She hated the trembling of her fingers locked to her iced water glass, an obvious note that he was getting to her. In another instant, if Liam did not stop that smoky, intent stare, she’d dump the—

From then on, J.T. moved into the mass of Tallchief children, his hand locked tightly in Emily’s. “You look enough alike to be one of my uncles and I’m going to claim you as another of my Black Knights. Duncan rescued me when I was a child, but I claim all the Tallchief men as my knights. They’ve been there often enough for
me. You can call me princess like they do, and I babysit, you know,” she said, grinning at Liam. “Can he ride horses? I’d take good care of him.”

J.T.’s eyes widened. “Horses? Me? Ride?”

Clearly the little boy worshipped Emily. One look at Liam told Michelle that he was already regretting the boy’s growing up. Then Birk bent to playfully nuzzle his heavily pregnant petite wife, and she elbowed him with enough strength to make him grunt. Retaliating, Birk brought Lacey’s small hand to his mouth to kiss her palm. The humble gesture was so sincere and filled with love that Michelle almost found herself sighing.

But then, she was a practical woman and she’d completed her mission, breaking a fingernail earlier as she had stacked his dishes in the cupboard. Liam Tallchief deserved no more of her time, though she hoped to see J.T. whenever she could.

“Da-da?” Ian Palladin, Fiona’s toddler son chirped and patted Liam’s arm.

“Case of mistaken identity,” Talia, Calum’s wife, said with a grin. “Poor baby is confused. Joel, Rafe and Nick Palladin all look alike, and so do the Tallchief boys, but Alek is a loner—”

“‘Boys’?” Calum, known as Calum the Cool, purred with a slow, hot look at his wife.

“Liam does look like one of the brothers,” Sybil murmured, tracing his features and then turning to study the matching ones of her husband, Duncan.

As the rest of the family talked and ate and teased each other, Michelle studied Liam, looking after his son, his expression sad. On a sudden impulse, she didn’t know why—because she wasn’t a woman who showed affection easily—Michelle patted his cheek.

His aching pain was quickly slashed away by searing anger. “Leave me alone,” he said too quietly.

“You made a choice and it was for your son. J.T. needs this and so do you, whether you’re liking it now or not…. Stand and fight,” she whispered back, shaking with her own anger. She jabbed a finger into his chest and didn’t remove it when he looked slowly, meaningfully down. She prodded him again, careless of the hard, tense muscles running beneath the cloth. “You took the name Tallchief, didn’t you? ‘Stand and fight’ is one of their phrases, used in hard times.”

“I choose what I take,” he returned curtly with a touch of arrogance much like Tallchief must have used.

“Then take this,” she murmured more coolly than she felt as she stood away from the table. She lifted her glass of ice water to pour over his head. While Liam glared at her and ice water dripped down his face, Michelle raised her head proudly. She wouldn’t apologize—not to him. Horrified, she stared at the water dripping to the place mat woven with Celtic and Native American images. She’d totally embarrassed herself and the expensive charm school that her father had forced her to attend. Her cheeks were hot, her dignity was on the hand-braided rug at her feet, and down the long table, the adult Tallchief family studied her. While smiles flirted around their mouths, their eyes held a knowing look.