Too Close To The Fire/Too Hot To Handle (Montana Men 3)

TOO HOT TO HANDLE

TOO CLOSE TO THE FIRE

Montana Men Series 3

Jaydyn Chelcee

Erotic Romance

Secret Cravings Publishing

www.secretcravingspublishing.com

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A Secret
Cravings Publishing Book

Erotic Romance

Too
Hot To Handle/Too Close To The Fire

Copyright
© 2012
 
Jaydyn Chelcee

E-book ISBN: 978-1-61885-367-7

First E-book Publication: September 2012

Cover design by
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Edited by Colleen
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Dedications:

This book is dedicated to
Ginger Simpson, fellow author, confidant, friend, and one hell of a lady, and
someone who loves cowboys as much as I do. My life was blessed the day we met
online.

~Jaydyn
Chelcee

Acknowledgements:

Thank you, Jo Jansen of Beerwah,
Australia for your valuable help in answering numerous questions and patiently
supplying me with tons of information about Western Australia and correcting my
mistakes about your beautiful country as I went along. Any mistakes made are my
own, and I apologize in advance to the wonderful folks of Australia.

Laura Herbertson, fellow author
and my critique partner, thank you for answering the technical questions about
planes and plane crashes. I know I drove you crazy—again, any mistakes are my
own.

One final thing—a big hello to
the
Out There Group
in Australia, who took
Okie Connie
under their wings a long time ago.

Happy Reading,

~Jaydyn Chelcee

TOO HOT TO HANDLE

Jaydyn Chelcee

Copyright © 2012

Chapter One

There
are only two kinds of men—the dead and the deadly.

~Helen
Rowland

North Western Australia

The Kimberley

February 7, Saturday.

It
wasn’t pleasant flying with Taylor Spencer.

Even
for two people who detested each other, crowded like they were in the cockpit
of the plane, a little small talk would certainly help pass the time on such a
long flight.

Dianna
Remington huffed. Chit-chat with Taylor? Not if she left it up to him. The man
had the worst bedside manners. Not that he was a doctor or anything like that.
He was the Dancing Star’s accountant, but even an accountant needed a decent
bedside manner, instead of the hostile,
Don’t-Tread-On-Me
attitude he heaped on her head all the time.

What
the hell was wrong with a friendly chat? Ho! Taylor acted as if his jaw was
locked in place and it’d take a jack to pry it apart. He had ominous silence
down to perfection.

Why?

He
loved tormenting her. It was that simple.

She
slanted her gaze toward Taylor and sighed. In Dianna’s opinion, there was
nothing more menacing or more mysterious than a dark, dangerous, brooding man,
unless it was a dark, dangerous,
disgruntled
man. He fit the descriptions to a tee.

Taylor
might be silent, but he was also the proverbial spur jabbed up her ass! Too bad
she had to share the Cessna’s cockpit with him. Dianna tightened her lips.
Thank you, Jace, for the stimulating company
seated across from me.

She
really wished her elder brother hadn’t insisted she take the accountant with
her on the flight to Australia. She’d rather have her tonsils yanked out
through her nostrils than have Taylor forced to come with her. But Jace hadn’t
given either of them a choice. If she flew to Australia to attend Aunt Marion’s
funeral, then she had to take Taylor with her. No ifs, ands, or maybes.

Jace
used the excuse Taylor needed to check the station’s books for Raider while
they were on Damnboola Station, since Raider’s own accountant had gone
walkabout. She could just imagine her cousin’s stern face when she told him
she’d brought along the Dancing Star’s accountant. Surprise!

Personally,
she thought it was Jace’s way of getting his irritating new brother-in-law out
of his hair. She certainly understood why, she just didn’t like being the one
on the receiving end of all of Taylor’s mute hostility.

“Jace
and Raider owe me,” she muttered. “Big time.”

“What?”

“Ah-ha!
He does have a tongue.”

“Funny.”

Dianna
frowned. She didn’t know all the details of why Jace and Taylor hadn’t hit it
off, but there were problems from the moment the two men met.

“Are
you planning on looking at the clouds all day?” she asked.

The
damn silence was driving her nuts!

“Yep.”

He
didn’t even look at her as he answered, but stared out the window as if said
clouds were the most interesting things he’d ever seen. He reminded her of a
hot air balloon waiting to blow up in her face. Any minute now,
bang!
No telling how many nasty little
pieces of Taylor would rain down on her head.

Why
did he have to be so darkly handsome? So damn moody?

And
why did he do things he knew annoyed her just for the hell of it? Like now. The
way he ignored her got her dander up in a hurry. How anyone spent hours in
total, brooding silence was beyond her comprehension. Taylor made misery look
easy.

He
turned his electric-blue gaze on her and quirked a sable brow. Damn him, he
knew
exactly what she was thinking.
Yeah. Now she could add mindreading to the mental list she was keeping of his
irritating faults.

Moody.

Brooding.

Silent.

Smug.

Mind
reader.

Sonofabitch.

The
list grew daily. Hour by hour. Minute by minute.

Did
his lips have to twist with such smug satisfaction? She squirmed. Bastard. He
knew what he did to her when he turned those piercing blue eyes on her. It was
something he’d known from the first time he pulled her on his lap and kissed
her—weeks ago now, but she still hadn’t recovered from the humiliation he’d
dumped on her after the kiss.

Stupid!

She’d
melted in his arms and responded like some kind of desperate, Victorian old
maid starved for a man’s attention. He couldn’t get rid of her fast enough! Not
only had he dropped her on her butt onto the floor, but she’d had the
misfortune to overhear his conversation later the same day with his sister.
He’d belittled the size of her breasts to Kaycee.

Dianna
had known the kiss meant nothing to him. He’d made it plain when he’d said she
left him cold, but to poke fun at her figure—or rather lack of one—cut to the
quick. Remembering what she’d privately dubbed the
damnable incident
only hurt, so she tried to shove it from her
memory and added asshole to her mental list.

Taylor
turned away from her and settled deeper in his seat without uttering a word.
Dianna sighed. Well, he’d given her a whole nanosecond of his attention. But
hey, she gave him credit for staying busy. It was a tough job, but someone had
to count the endless miles of fluffy white clouds that soared past the window.

She
bet he never thought about the
damnable
incident
, and if he did, he laughed. Yeah, okay. So he didn’t like her. She
wasn’t dense, but his loathing was a lot worse than she realized if he
preferred counting clouds to conversation.

Anger
and annoyance mingled with frustration. All right! He wanted the flight from
Hell? There were ways to make damn certain he got it. She swallowed her hurt
and clenched the yoke.

There
was nothing she detested more than being treated as though she didn’t exist.
Dianna huffed, adjusted her headset and mouthpiece, and broke the silence.
“It’s not my fault Jace made you come with me. Can’t you at least talk to me?”

He
continued to stare out the window in sullen disregard. “I don’t like to talk to
you.”

He
didn’t like to talk to her?
Tough!
Her temper shot up another notch. “How would you like it if I exploded into
nasty assholes and shit on your head?”

Yes,
sir. Bet that got his attention!

He
turned to face her and cocked a brow. “Are all the assholes going to have a
bowel movement at once? Or are we talking about a single little plop—”

“Diarrhea
all over you,” she snapped. “I believe in letting ‘er rip.”

He
shrugged. “Been shit on by your family before, no virgin there,
babe.”

“Look,
I know it’s been a long flight,” she said, deciding to try and soothe his
ruffled feathers. Feathers that had been ruffled since Jace announced Taylor
was taking this trip with her. Since Taylor worked for her brother as the ranch
accountant, he’d had little choice if he wanted to keep his job. “We’ll land at
Damnboola in a few hours.”

No
answer.

She
gripped the yoke, imagining her fingers wrapped around Taylor’s strong neck.
“Say
something!
”

“I
don’t think strangling it to death will force words from it.”

Dianna
slanted a narrow-eyed look at him. She hadn’t realized she was actually choking
the yoke until his amused words. His lips twitched before he turned away. Oh,
now he found his voice and a sense of humor after she made a ninny of herself.
Miserable, horrible, man!

She
curved her lips into a saccharine smile. Damn if she’d let him see how his
attitude aggravated her. “You have anything else you’d like to share with me?
Words of wisdom? Questions?” She batted her lashes.

Crap!
He was coming back with something nasty, something worse than her diarrhea. She
saw the way his eyes lit with pure glee. She’d left herself wide open. Wretched
man!

“Is
there a door nearby I can open and shove you out? No parachute, of course.”

She
gasped. “Well, really! Is the problem between us that serious?”

“I
don’t like you or any one of your three brothers. Yeah, it’s a pretty big
problem. The sooner I can boot you out the door the better.”

“I’m
your pilot. You might at least fake civility. I could crash us, you know.”

Ooh,
he knew how to rile her temper! She’d had
it with him, starting all the way back to when he’d scorned her breasts. He was
going to pay for every snide comment he’d ever made about her or to her. She
didn’t care if he liked her or not. None of her brothers had done anything to
him, well, except for Jace marrying Taylor’s sister, but jeez, it wasn’t as if
Jace had twisted Kaycee’s arm.

Yeah,
okay, she knew Jace had done some sorry-ass things to Kaycee, like hiring her
to muck out the stables when she was a qualified horse trainer and making her
pregnant, but that was their business. They were happy now.

The
point was you
never
pissed off the
pilot.

She
dipped the wings, curling her lips with satisfaction when Taylor gripped the
seat. Ha! That’d teach him to mess with the one in control.

His
face turned pasty. He flung her a calculated look filled with steely eyed
retribution. Dianna smiled. She had his undivided attention now. “Oh, yes,
sweet revenge is indeed sweet,” she cooed.

“Revenge,
my ass, lady, you’re a winged terrorist! You’re asking for it, and one day
soon, I’m going to give you exactly what you’ve been after since the day we
met.”

“And
that would be?” She gave him a toothy smile.

“Fuck
you.”

“Whau?”
Dianna felt the color drain from
her face. Her mouth worked, but for the life of her she couldn’t get another
word past her dry lips. Was he was saying he was going to fuck her, or was he
being his usual snotty self? Damn if she was going to ask for clarification.

Dianna
licked her dry lips and swallowed hard. “On second thought, don’t talk to me. I
like you better silent.”

She
rocked the wings side to side for emphasis and lifted a finely arched brow. “I
can’t say I much like you, either. But we’re stuck with each other. We could at
least be civil to one another.”

He
snorted. “You call pranking with the aircraft civil?”

Her
brows puckered. He’d spent half the flight with his fingers clamped onto the
edge of the seat. Talk about paranoia. One might think he had no faith in her
flying skills.

“Hah!
I’m a damn good pilot.”

“Give
you a little power, and you’re a petrifying terrorist behind the controls!”

“I
have excellent piloting skills.”

“Oh,
yeah? What about all those rough patches, the plane shaking and dropping
altitude?”

“Is
it my fault there have been several stretches of turbulence? I can’t control
the weather, for Pete’s sake. Besides, I owed you for the
damnable incident
.”

“What
damnable incident?”

“You
know what damnable incident.”

“I
have no idea what you’re jabbering about. Stop fooling around with the plane,”
he yelled. “You’re going to kill us!”

She
frowned as Taylor continued to grip the seat. His chest rose and fell in short,
sporadic pants. Sweat trickled down the side of his stubborn jaw. A white ring
circled his tight lips. He’d gone from pasty-gray to puke-green in zero point
three seconds flat.

Oh,
good Lord, he looked like he was going to puke! For her own sake, she stopped
rocking the plane’s wings. “You aren’t going to hyperventilate or hurl your
cookies, are you? Because I’m warning you, I don’t have a single barf bag
aboard.”

Taylor
flung an odious glare her way. “I’m not so uncivilized as to hurl my cookies.
I’m
civil!” He choked the word past
tightly drawn lips. “You
Remingtons
don’t know the meaning of the word.”

Dianna
flinched. He bit off the name “Remington” like he was spitting bullets. The
scorn on his dark face wounded. His eyes looked as frosty as the Antarctic
landscape.

“Isn’t
it enough your brother forced me to take this damn trip with you? Do you have
to try to kill me in this tin box, too?”

She
bit her lip. He was right. She shouldn’t have dipped the wings. It was
irresponsible. Childish. Beneath her.

Bull!
She owed him that one.

Still,
it was a lousy thing to do to her passenger. Especially knowing the terrible
automobile accident he’d been in a year ago with his sister. Dianna told
herself she was above petty revenge. She should feel ashamed. She did feel
ashamed. “Sorry,” she offered.

“Bitch!”

Huh!
So much for civility.

The
back of her eyelids stung. She tilted her chin. Stubborn pride kept her from
tearing up and bawling. “It’s taken me years to become the perfect bitch. I
practice every morning in the mirror to get this good. I’m rather proud of my
accomplishment. But hey, don’t talk to me.”

“Wasn’t
planning on it.”

Dianna
sighed. She was happy Jace had met and married Kaycee. She adored her new
sister-in-law, but Kaycee’s brother lacked a lot in the charm department. No
wonder Jace wanted Taylor’s happy ass gone from Dancing Star. What a sourpuss!

When
Taylor first arrived at Dancing Star Ranch, he’d been a paraplegic. Just
because he’d been confined to a wheelchair hadn’t lessened the fact he was
drop-dead gorgeous or sexy as hell, with those dreamy blue eyes and that
sensual mouth he knew how to use. He was the best kisser she’d ever known.