Montana Wildfire (40 page)

Was
that
what he'd been talking about the night they'd left his sister's cabin? Was her lie about the gun what had caused the fury that had been festering in him for the past three days?

It didn't seem likely. A lie that small shouldn't prompt
that much
anger. And it wouldn't, Amanda thought, in a normal man. Jacob Blackhawk Chandler wasn't "normal," he was... well, he was Jake. Plain and simple, he was unlike any man she'd ever met. He was wild, unpredictable, and in possession of a savage temper with a very short fuse. He was also stubborn and arrogant, and he had a chip on his shoulder a mile wide.

Yes, it
was
possible her lie about the gun was at the root of his fury. Then again, knowing Jake, maybe not. The only way to know for sure would be to ask him. And Amanda couldn't do that. Jake wasn't here.

Carefully, she closed the revolver's loading gate, then tucked the pistol back in her pocket. Lacing her hands atop her lap, her gaze shifted to the door, and her mind strayed past the thin wooden panel.

Where was Jake now? More precisely,
who was he with?
Did she really want to know? Good God, no! The thought of Jake Chandler wrapped in the arms of another woman brought a crushing pain to Amanda's chest. Her breath clogged in her throat as the dull ache wrapped around her heart and squeezed tight. With each torturous beat, the pain grew, until it was excruciatingly sharp.

She told herself that despite their one night of lovemaking, she hardly knew Jake, that it shouldn't hurt so badly to imagine him with another woman. Unfortunately, she couldn't make herself believe a word of it. The image whirl winding through her mind
did
hurt. Unbearably.

Worse, she knew why.

With a stifled groan, Amanda balanced her elbows atop her thighs and buried her face in her hands. When, she wondered miserably? When exactly had she broken her own staunch rule
and fallen in love with Jacob Blackhawk Chandler?

Was it that first day, that first instant she'd seen him standing in that sunswept clearing? No, not then. He'd been rude and arrogant and annoying then.

Maybe it had been later that night when she'd glimpsed him walking naked and wet from the river? Maybe. Lord knows, the memory of
that
breathtaking, moonlit image had never been far from her thoughts since! But, as aware of him as she'd been, Amanda was certain that seeing Jake splendidly naked wasn't a strong enough reason to fall in love with the man.

Their first kiss. Could she have fallen in love with him that early on? Was it possible? She didn't know. Her heart still fluttered when she remembered the first claiming touch of his mouth on hers, remembered the way his tongue had plunged into her mouth, demanding her response. Even now, if she closed her eyes, it didn't take much imagination to remember the potent taste of that man. The potent
feel.

Amanda released a shaky sigh and dragged her hands down her checks. She supposed it wasn't important
when
she'd fallen in love with Jake, so much as that she had—and she had fallen hard. The range of feelings he aroused in her were incredible, complex, and stunning. He could make her tremble with a glance. One silkily uttered word, one feather-light touch, and she was hot and breathless. No man had ever done that to her before. But Jake did. And he did it so damn easily!

It had to be love. Nothing else explained the confusion roiling inside of her, the feelings that had been there almost from the first, each raised to a higher pitch with every day she'd spent in Jake's company. Why else did he consume her thoughts so completely? Why else did the idea of him being intimate with another woman feel like torture?

Worse, much worse... why, why,
why
had she fallen in love with a man who could never love her back? A man who saw not one world separating them, but two?

Amanda curled up atop the hard, lumpy bed and closed her eyes. What should she do now? Should she keep the information to herself? It wouldn't be easy; even now, she bubbled with the need to tell someone—to tell
Jake.
On the other hand, telling him the truth would leave her open to yet another rejection.

Her tolerance for pain had always been low. Until recently, until Jake, Amanda hadn't thought it possible to hurt more than she had the day her father had shipped her East. Now she knew better. She'd dealt with the pain of her father's rejection... but that would be nothing compared to another rejection from Jake. Telling him she loved him, only to have him turn his back on her...

No, she couldn't do it. She simply could
not
do it! She couldn't risk that much. She couldn't risk losing a part of herself to a man who could never return her love.

In the end, she decided to do as she always did; take the cowardly way out. She would keep this disturbing information to herself, cherish it always, but she would
not
share it.

A tear trickled down her cheek. She sniffled loudly, the sound meshing with the rap of footsteps echoing in the hallway. She barely noticed the footsteps... until they hesitated right outside of her door. She tensed, swiping away her tears with her fist, and sat up. Her heart was throbbing by the time her gaze latched onto the door.

Slowly, slowly, the tarnished brass doorknob turned.

Jake Chandler was not a clumsy drunk. Just the opposite, in fact. Even after downing the gut-burning contents of an entire bottle and a half of bourbon he didn't stumble, didn't stagger, didn't slur. The only way to tell he'd consumed too much was by listening to the tread of his feet. When he was drunk, his feet made normal walking sounds. For a man whose gait was normally as silent as a cat's, that was unusual; it was also the only way to measure the true extent of his inebriation.

As he climbed up the shadowy stairwell leading to the second floor of Mulligrew's "The Finest in the Territory" Hotel, Jake's feet made noise. Not a lot of noise—the thump-thump of his moccasined heels was easily swallowed up by the rowdy laughter and tinny piano music drifting up from the drinking room below—but enough to tell Jake that he was in no condition to be doing what his mind only now registered he
was
doing.

His insides were hot as fire, his head feather-light. He couldn't remember how much bourbon he'd drunk. Had he finished that second bottle or not? Shrugging, he decided it didn't matter. While however much he'd drunk was enough to blur the razorsharp edges of reality, it wasn't nearly enough to bulldoze his obsession with Amanda Lennox from his mind. In fact, the more intoxicated he'd become, the more desperate he'd found himself for the sight and sound and smell of that woman. He had to see her creamy white skin, had to hear the sound of her voice whispering in his ear, had to drown himself in the flower-soft scent of her just one more time. He
had
to.

Just once more,
he thought as he concentrated on putting one foot evenly in front of the other until he reached the top of the stairs.
Yes, I need to be with her just this one more time, and then I'll... What? Stop wanting her? Not likely! Then what? What will I do after I've had her "just this one more time?"

I'll want her again!
his liquor-fogged mind answered without hesitation.
And again and again and…

Jake brought himself up short. His feet felt as though they'd been cemented to the bare planked floor as he hesitated on the stair landing. His grip on the railing turned white-knuckled tight. Good thing, too, since his knees felt suddenly weak. His expression couldn't have been more stunned if he'd walked face-first into an invisible brick wall. In a way, he had. Only this brick wall—the one that had sprung up all by itself in his mind—had a name. It was Amanda Lennox.

Jake sighed and shifted his weight until he was leaning back against the sharp corner of the wall. His thoughts swerved to the redhead downstairs, the one who'd spent the last two hours of her life molding her voluptuous bottom to his lap. He remembered each graphic suggestion she'd purred into his ear. He thought of her warm, ripe body. Of her blatant interest. And then he thought of his own surprising lack of it.

It had taken him a full hour, and God knows how much liquor, for Jake to realize he wasn't going to bed the redhead—although he suspected the woman herself had figured it out quite a while before him. It had taken him less than two seconds to realize
why
he wouldn't seek his release with her.

Amanda Lennox.

Right or wrong, she was the
only
woman he wanted, and he wanted her with an urge so strong it almost didn't seem real. It was Amanda's sweet white skin he craved to feel beneath his open palms. Amanda's curves he yearned to have complimenting his own male hardness. Amanda's airy breath he would kill to feel scorching his bare flesh, seeping into his bloodstream.

The redhead wouldn't do. Jake didn't want her. He didn't want what she'd been offering—or, more precisely, selling him. He didn't want a nameless woman, bought and paid for in a nameless saloon. A woman whose body he would forget long before sunrise. A woman whose face he would forget even sooner. He'd had enough encounters like that to last him two dozen lifetimes.

What he wanted, needed,
hungered
for now was Amanda. And
only
Amanda. His desire for her was like nothing he'd ever known. It was a fire in his blood that had sparked the first time he'd seen her; a fire that had kindled to an unendurable flame the first time he'd made love to her.

There was no end in sight. There was no hope of finally putting an end to the desire burning inside of him. At least, not when the very woman who inspired it was tucked inside a room located only a few dozen feet from where he now stood. She was so damn close, so damn accessible!

What would happen if he went to her now? She wouldn't turn him away. Jake knew it, just as he knew that to go to her would have to be the stupidest thing he'd ever done in his life! But he was tempted. Ah, God, was he tempted!

While he didn't slur when he was drunk, liquor always greased his tongue. If he saw Amanda tonight, in this condition, he might inadvertently tell her a variety of things she was better off not knowing—and he was better off not saying. Like why he'd been so angry with her. Like what he had—no, what he
hadn't—
found in her saddlebag three nights ago. He was just drunk enough, just desperate enough, that he might—
might
—listen to any convoluted excuse she gave him, because... Jesus, he was so damn hungry to hear one!

At this point, Jake didn't even care if she told him the truth anymore. And that scared the hell out of a man who put more stock in honesty than he did in breathing.

A vague shuffling sound tunneled down the hall to his right, coming from the direction of Amanda's room. While Jake's ears registered the noise, he didn't look in that direction. Why bother? This was a hotel, after all. People came and went regularly; the hour of day or night didn't matter much.

While the noise itself didn't snatch his attention, the voices did. Both were gravelly, thick, and as coarse as their owners—two stooped shadows he had to squint to identify as men.

Jake's hand hovered over the hilt of the knife sheathed on his belt. Even though he didn't touch it, the cold of the steel chilled his palms. Scowling, he concentrated on the voices of the two men. His blood ran cold as their words burned the dull edges of liquor from his mind.

"She's in there, I tell ya," the short, fat one huffed as he released the doorknob.

"And
I'm
tellin'
you
this is the wrong room," the other man, equally as short but thin as a rail, argued.

"It ain't. I saw her go in there with my own two. Ain't
no
woman in these parts ya can confuse with that one, pal."

"Not in Junction," his thin friend agreed, "but that ain't the point, Cal. The point is, if we barge in there and find out it ain't the right room..."

"It is," Fat Cal snarled. "I know it is. Trust me, Billy, the breed's woman is in there. I'd swear my soul she is."

Thin Billy stiffened. "Better start swearin' then. Cause if you're wrong... well, ain't no man lives in Junction's gonna want to see our grubby faces looming over his bed, Cal. And if there's a miner in there with his gal... well, he'll think we come to steal his dust and kill us fer sure."

"Ain't no miner. And ain't no one gonna get killed, just so long as we're quiet."

"Quiet?" Thin Billy huffed. "Yeah,
we
can be quiet all right.
She
won't be. Least, she won't be once she figures out what we've got in mind. And
I'd
swear to
that."

"Far as I'm concerned, she can make all the noise she wants...
after
we's done with her. 'Sides, once she's gagged and tied up, she'll be quiet enough."

"What if she screams before you gag her Cal? What then?"

"Think of what you're sayin', Billy! Any yellin' she does is just for show. Hot-damn, the gal's been puttin' it to an Injun. An
Injun!
Prob'ly be a nice change for her to spread those perty white legs for the two of us." Fat Cal chuckled nastily, and jabbed an elbow into his companion's ribs. "After she's had
us,
she ain't gonna welcome no piece of red trash back in her bed. I'd stake my life on it."

"That's exactly what you'll be doing if you open that door, Cal."

The soft, deadly reply didn't come from either of the two men. It seemed to take a second for Fat Cal to realize that.

When realization came, it came all at once—in the form of a steely band wrapped around his paunchy middle, crushing the air from his lungs. A knife materialized out of nowhere; before Fat Cal could blink, the long, thick, deadly blade was resting against his jugular. A sinewy body molded itself into his fatty back. The chest he was suddenly brought up against—and brought up hard—was lean and solid and strong. So was the arm that continued to squeeze the air out of him.