Too Close To The Fire/Too Hot To Handle (Montana Men 3) (9 page)

Dianna
packed wet cloths around his hand and throat, but it didn’t seem to help. His
breaths were faint and raspy. She wondered if his throat was as swollen as his
hand. She dipped two T-shirts in the ice chest of rainwater and washed his face
and chest. She alternated the wet shirts, sponging his body over and over.
Nothing helped. His skin remained hot and dry, his breaths raspy and labored.

She
trickled water past his dry lips and down the back of his throat. She spent
time agonizing over what ifs.

What
if his throat swelled closed? What if he choked to death? What if he stopped
breathing? What if his tongue blocked his airway? What did she do if any of
those things happened?

She
eyed his swollen hand. Blisters had popped up near the sting site, ruptured and
were now weeping. She tore a shirt into bandages and wrapped it around his
hand. At least his chest wasn’t as red as it had been, and the ruptured
blisters there from the burn had started to scab and no new blisters had
formed.

Dianna
peeled one of the oranges and squeezed juice down his throat. He moaned and
twisted on the bedding. His temperature raged, his body hot and dry. She’d
never known anyone who was allergic to stings or had a bad reaction to a
scorpion’s sting. Then she saw his tongue! Dear God, it was so swollen it
filled his mouth and was beginning to push out of it. His lungs heaved.

Quickly,
she turned him on his side, praying that would somehow ease his breathing,
maybe keep his tongue from blocking his airway. “Oh, Taylor, I’m so sorry,” she
whispered and brushed his damp hair back from his face.

He
moaned and pushed her hand away. “Thirsty,” he said around his thick tongue.

She
gasped and grabbed a bottle of water. “You’re awake!” She lifted his head. “Do
you think you can swallow some water?”

Most
of it trickled back out, but he managed to get a little down. He closed his
eyes and dragged in a deep breath. “Cold. I’m freezing.”

“Freezing?
But it’s—”

His
sudden shaking cut off her words. She piled clothes on top of him, but still he
shook and thrashed restlessly. “Don’t do this to me, you stubborn man.”

“What?
Don’t…do…what?” His teeth clicked together. “I’m…hot.” He shifted restlessly,
kicking at the clothes she’d piled on top of him.

Dianna
leaned over him, felt his face. “God, you’re burning up!” Tears filled her
eyes. “Damn you, Taylor Spencer, you’re scaring me! Don’t think to escape me by
dying. I’ll come after you! I swear I will. I love you, you hateful man!”

“No…you…don’t…just
want…my cock…”

Dianna
laughed. “I do. I do want it, but I love you.”

“Knew…you…loved….”
His words trailed away. He closed his eyes and shivered. “Cold.”

She
wiped the tears away and piled clothes on top of him again. The day passed
slowly, with Taylor thrashing restlessly and groaning. On and on through the
endless day she struggled to keep him hydrated, made certain he could breathe
and was breathing. The rain stopped for about an hour, then returned with a
vengeance. Dark settled in and closed around them like a shroud.

Her
heart sank as Taylor’s chest rose and fell with labored breaths. She shivered
and wondered if they’d survive their second night in the rainforest.

Chapter Ten

Sometimes
the act of courage is a small one.

~Lauren
Raffo

North Western Australia

The Kimberly

February 8, Evening

Dianna
woke to the deafening calls of a variety of parrots and cockatiels and Taylor’s
distinctive moans. Late evening shadows settled in around them. Inside the
shelter, it remained semi-dark and humid. God, she was sick of the rain, sick
of being trapped inside a little bitty hut with barely enough room to turn in
her sleep.

The
rain beat down relentlessly. She didn’t think it had stopped all day. It was
enough to drive anyone nuts! She propped herself on one elbow and checked on
Taylor. He’d thrown off her fur coat. Damn! He was shivering. Diana traced her
gaze down his bruised and blistered chest. Goose bumps stood up like tiny
soldiers marching across a desert. “Taylor?”

Other
than a brief flicker of his eyelids, he gave no other response. Getting water
down him through the night had proved hopeless. She’d spilled more on him than
she’d poured in him. She wished she had something to help reduce the swelling
of his tongue.

She
grabbed one of the oranges, peeled it, and dribbled juice between his lips. His
eyes popped open. He locked his fingers around her wrist and jerked her closer.
“You bitch! I told you to slow down. You’ll get us killed driving like that!”

“What?”
Dianna blinked. It took her a moment to realize he wasn’t talking to her but to
someone who walked across his feverish mind. “It’s okay,” she soothed. “I’ll
slow down. I won’t drive fast again.”

He
laughed. “You always say that.” He moved so suddenly, Dianna squeaked. Caught
off guard by the way he rolled her beneath him, she gasped. “Taylor! Stop it.
What are you doing?”

“You
want fast. I’ll give you fast. I’ve wanted to do you for a long time.”

“Shit!
Taylor, get off me.”

He
flipped up her skirt. “I need to get off. You can help me with that.”

“Taylor,
stop it! Stop!” She pushed against his heavy body. There was no budging him, no
dislodging him off her.

“I
wanna fuck you,” he said feverishly. “My God, I’ve wanted you for so long.” He
lowered his head, crushed her mouth beneath his.

His
lips felt hot and dry and tasted of orange. Oh, God. She didn’t care how hot or
dry his lips were, he had the tang of heaven on his mouth. His body felt rock
hard and solid on top of her. And oh, so delicious.

Oh,
Lordy, she so wanted to cave in, wanted to stop resisting and let him have his
way with her. His wide chest flattened her breasts. Yeah, silly her, she’d kept
her shirt off as he’d requested. She’d started several times to slip on a clean
shirt, but then she’d remembered how he’d said he loved her tits, and she just
couldn’t find it in herself to pull on the damn shirt. If he wanted to look at
her breasts, then he could look his fill.

The
firm length of his hard cock nestled against the damp heat between her thighs.
She needed this. It seemed she’d waited for this moment forever. Finally, he
was going to make love to her.

She
stopped struggling and surrendered to the demand in his kiss, willingly parted
her lips and allowed him in. Why fight the inevitable? Why fight what she
wanted?

His
tongue swept deep, swirling and coaxing a heated response from her. She melted
beneath him, dragged her fingers through his thick hair. “I’ve always wanted
you, Taylor. I love you.”

“Yeah?
You’ve always wanted this.” He slid a finger inside her and groaned against her
mouth. “You feel good, wet, warm, ready for me.”

Dianna
sighed and wiggled her hips. “I’m so ready for you.”

He
grinned, his eyes glinting feverishly. “I know.”

Taylor
held his cock, and stroked the hard length.

Dianna
groaned. “Maybe we should wait. You’re ill.”

“Honey,
I’ve waited long enough. No more waiting. I’m hard. You’re willing. Open for
me.”

He
didn’t wait for her response but nudged her thighs roughly apart. Without
saying another word, he guided the thick head toward her wet channel and sank
inside her in one hard thrust.

Dianna
flinched. She hadn’t expected him to be quite so rough in his penetration of
her.

“Mmm,”
he whispered. “God, you’re as hot and tight as I imagined you would be.” He
worked his hips like a runaway piston. He moved his cock in and out, in and
out, fast, faster, hard, harder, deep, and deeper.

Dianna
heard his ragged breaths, felt his body shudder. He buried his shaft deep,
clenched his teeth and growled low in his throat. The warmth of his release wet
her inside and spilled onto her inner thighs when he pulled out of her. Over in
a matter of seconds, she blinked. What the hell had just happened? “No. Wait!”
Her body felt incomplete and still needy.

Taylor
gave a dry, feverish laugh from the back of his throat. “Too late. Sorry,
honey, but I needed you too much to go slow. I’ll make it up to you next time.”
He dropped beside her and pulled her into his arms. “Your turn next time, Amy,
I promise.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “You felt good. Hot. Tight. Just
like every time we fuck. Mmm. Delicious. Night, Amy.”

Dianna
blinked.
“What?
Who am I?”

“Amy?”
Taylor shivered. “Damn, it’s freezing in here. You need to reset the controls
on the air.”

Her
mouth worked, but no words came out. She’d just been fucked by the man she
loved, and he had no clue he’d screwed her. Worse, she hadn’t even enjoyed it.
Tears welled in her eyes. She sniffed. “Stupid-stupid-stupid!” When was she ever
going to learn? She squirmed away from him and wrinkled her nose at the stickiness
between her thighs. “Oh, crap!”

Dianna
grabbed her bag and dug out the little round case of pills. Her heart sank.
She’d missed several doses. Had she missed enough to jeopardize her protection?
Quickly, she counted the missed days. Hell, she hadn’t taken any for the month.
She’d skipped over a week’s worth of pills. Was that enough to put her at risk
for pregnancy? How many could she safely miss?

Numb,
she stared at Taylor. What if? She licked her lips. Nah. She was probably still
safe.

Taylor.
His cheeks looked flushed. His breathing rapid. Sure it was. He’d just had a
rowdy round of sex where he was the only participant. She felt his forehead.
God, he was burning up.

“Amy,”
he whispered her name. “I love you, sweetheart.”

Dianna
ignored the tears that burned her eyelids. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t love
her. No, he didn’t love her. He loved some faceless bitch named Amy. She
glanced at the pills, closed the lid on the compact and tossed the container in
her bag. If he didn’t know whom he’d screwed, maybe he wouldn’t remember how
easily she’d given into him.

What
if he’d just made her pregnant? Her brothers would kill Taylor! Hell, her
brothers would kill her!

“Amy?
I’m cold. Come here and get me warm.”

“Not
in this lifetime,” she snapped.

He
frowned, slowly opened his eyes, but it wasn’t her he saw. His blue eyes looked
glazed with heat, fever hot, and unseeing. “Are you mad at me? I don’t
understand.”

Dianna
swiped a tear off her cheek. “I’ll explain it to you when you’re feeling
better.”

That
seemed to satisfy him. He closed his eyes. “I’m still cold,” he mumbled.

Soon,
she heard his soft snores.

Sleep,
as usual, didn’t come easy for her.

Chapter Eleven

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as
well make it dance.

~George Bernard Shaw

Western Australia

Damnboola Station

February 8, Sunday

“How
rough is the area where they crashed?”

Raider
Remington, owner of Damnboola Station, opened the door to the guestroom to his
American cousin, Wildorado, used whenever he visited Australia. It had been at
least seven years since Wild set foot on Damnboola—too long, as far as Raider
was concerned.

Raider
wiped a hand across his mouth for lack of something better to do. It was bad
enough Dianna had been on her way here to attend his mother’s funeral, and now
there might very well be two more funerals. Inside, his body trembled. It had
been years since he’d felt such a loss of control over his emotions. He sure as
hell hated to give Wild more bad news. Raider hesitated, chewing on his bottom
lip.

“It’s
all right, Raider. I know it can’t be good. I’m sorry about Aunt Marion.”

“Thanks.
At least she didn’t suffer.”

“So
how bad is this Kimberly region?”

“Bad.
The Kimberly is the hottest part of Australia. We don’t know how far off course
Dianna flew. Radar in Broome noted she changed direction several times without
informing them. She was all over the screen. They couldn’t raise her on the
radio to find out what was happening.”

“How
long did she fly off course?”

“At
least two hours. Maybe longer.”

“Survival?”

“That
will depend on where they crashed. If she strayed very far south or east, they
might have gone down in the Great Sandy Desert. It’s hot, dry, uninhabited, and
it’s big, over a hundred thousand miles big.”

“Jesus.”

“The
Tanami Desert is to the east, and the Gibson Desert lays to the south. It’s a
narrow window that they might have missed the deserts and crashed north. But
it’s not just the deserts. Worst case scenario, other parts of The Kimberly
have a lot of steep-sided mountain ranges. If the plane hit one of those…” His
voice trailed off. “You know.”

Wild
nodded and swallowed hard. “Yeah. I know.”

“Best
case scenario, if they survived the crash, you can’t possibly imagine the
problems they’ll face…snakes, spiders, flies, mosquitoes, no food, no water,
the heat, the rain. It’s the wet here, monsoons to the north if they crashed
there.” Raider paused as Wild’s face paled. “I don’t want to paint a picture of
pure gloom and doom. As long as they aren’t seriously injured, depending on
where they crashed, they can survive a few days.”

“A
few days? How few?”

“Temperatures
can reach up to a hundred and eight.”

“How
few?”

“A
couple of days without water—with it, I don’t know, a week, maybe, but not
long. They aren’t prepared for a hike in the Outback or a track through the
rainforest. Anything from flash floods to God knows what can catch them
unawares. There are hundreds of ways to die in the Outback, and believe me, it’s
a death sentence out there for those who have no knowledge how to survive in
the wilderness.”

“Dianna
spent summers here—”

“Yes.
She was a young girl, Wild. Colton and Silver taught her a few basic survival
skills, but that was years ago and nothing near the scale of what she’ll need.
Who knows what she’ll even remember?”

“Colton
and Silver are with the rescue parties?”

“Yes,
until the sun goes down. They’re both flying and searching in the northwestern
area, which is where her plane should have gone down according to radar. Still,
we’re talking thousands of miles. If they spot them, they’ll drop them water
and give the location so a chopper can fly in and rescue them, but they have to
return tonight for Mom’s funeral tomorrow.”

Wild
nodded. “I understand, Raider.”

Wild
knew in his heart that Colt and Silver, Raider’s younger brother and sister,
would search for as long as they had daylight. They didn’t live at Damnboola.
They each had their own stations, but those stations were still part of Damnboola.

“Kissy’s
here at the ranch?”

Raider
grinned and nodded. “Yeah, she’s pissed at me for not letting her go with
Silver, but I…you know.” He shrugged. “She’s a baby yet. I couldn’t bring
myself to let her get on the plane.”

“I
suppose she’s stubborn as a mule?”

Raider
laughed. “For a ten-year-old, she’s about as bullheaded as any Remington ever
born and twice as ornery, but I love her. She’s my baby.”

Wild
nodded. Raider had never denied Kissy was his daughter. He’d never said she was
either, but he’d raised her from birth when Kissy’s mother, Kate Griffith,
showed up one day and shoved the baby in Raider’s arms a week after the
infant’s birth.

“Take
her. She’s yours. I don’t ever wanna see her or you again.” Those were the only
words Kate said to Raider before she turned and walked away. She’d never
returned to the station. There was no doubt Kissy was pure Remington. She had
the Remington’s lanky frame and lazy walk and Raider’s deep blue eyes.

The
child sounded like Silver when she laughed and talked. She adored the man she
called Dad, but Wild had his doubts Raider was her father. He leaned more in
the direction of Raider’s father having an affair with Kate.

Rufus
Remington cheated on Marion plenty of times over the years, right up until he
was killed by a wild bull nine years earlier. Wild figured Raider claimed Kissy
as his daughter to keep his mother from being hurt and embarrassed once again.

Wild
admired his cousin for his sense of duty and closed-mouth approach to the
situation.

“You
wanna talk about it?” Raider parked his lanky frame on the side of the bed.
“Now don’t go getting that closed up look on your face, cousin. It doesn’t take
a genius to know that a man with your looks probably caught hell in prison.”

Wild
eyed him with the same regard he gave most lawmen—respectful, but aloof. He
didn’t let emotion sway him. He slid his gaze away and shrugged. “I figure if
you had any more information about the crash and rescue, you’d tell me.”

“Wasn’t
talking ‘bout Dianna and that man she has with her. Nothing new ‘bout the plane
crash I can tell you. Officials are searching. They’ll let us know as soon as
they have something. I meant do you wanna talk ‘bout your time in prison?”

“You
wanna talk about Kissy and who her
real
father is?”

Raider
clamped his jaw shut.

“Nope.
Didn’t think so.” Wild tossed his two duffle bags on the bed and scowled. “Look,
I know you just wanna help, but the only thing I’m willing to discuss is how
the rescue search for Dianna and Taylor is proceeding. I don’t do polite
conversation. Not anymore. I sure as hell don’t want to share the misery of
life behind bars.”

Raider
settled his icy blue gaze on him. “Prison was hell, huh?”

Wild
shifted uncomfortably. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’m not here
to discuss what happened to me there. It’s done. Can’t be undone. I lived
through it. Time to move on.”

“Done,
maybe, but not finished.”

“It’s
finished…for now.”

“Yep.
Thought so. You look for trouble, you’ll find it.” Raider had a habit of
talking about as slow as he walked. A tall, lean man made of long bone and
tough sinew, he rarely lost his temper, hardly ever smiled, and he tended to be
about as wary of females as Wild was of conversation.

“Don’t
think I don’t know that little gal lied ‘bout what happened. I knew it from the
moment she opened her pretty little mouth and started talking. That gal was
damned jealous of you paying attention to Pam Summers and not her.”

Wild
smothered a groan. He really didn’t want to discuss the lies Jayla Ross told
that day in court. “I hear you have a problem with a new neighbor. Some female
named Sabrina Holden, who happens to hold the best water rights around, and her
property sets smack in the middle of Damnboola? This gonna be a problem for
you?”

Wild
figured he’d neatly turned the table on Raider. Raider was a lot like him. He
didn’t usually invite words and had less to say.

Raider
coughed and scratched his chin. “Different kind of trouble. Let’s just say I
have her lined up in my crosshairs. I’m gonna bring that lady down before this
battle between us is finished.”

Wild’s
lips twitched. “Spoken like a true Remington.”

Raider
snorted. “True Remington or not, you got a lot of rage churning inside you,
cousin. Those skeletons rattling round inside you are gonna keep right on
dancing until you turn them loose.”

“The
only day I’ll ever let go will be the day after I make Jayla Ross pay for her
lies.”

“Have
you seen her since getting out of prison?”

“Nope.
Her family moved away right after I was sentenced.”

“She
came forward and finally told the truth, though, got you out of the prison she
got you sent to.”

Wild
nodded. “You think that makes up for the loss of my good name or for the five
years I lost or for what happened in prison?”

“I
didn’t say that, only that she tried to make things right for you.”

“She’ll
never make things right.”

“Not
until you get her in your crosshairs?”

“Like
you, I’m bringing her down.”

“Just
be sure of what you do. I know you feel you owe her.”

“Yeah,
I owe her. She was a spoiled, selfish, homely little brat back then, and since
her daddy is now a senator from Virginia, she’s likely worse.”

“Step-daddy.”

“What?”

“Yeah.
Hamilton Ross isn’t her real dad. He adopted her when he married Jayla’s
mother. Jayla was twelve.”

“How
the hell do you know all this?”

“When
you were on trial, I hired a private investigator to check out the Ross
family.”

“Jesus.
I had no idea. Why did you do such a thing?”

“Because
I knew she was lying. I wanted to know her motivations. Know her better.”

“Did
you learn anything?”

“Not
anything I could prove.”

“But?”

“I
don’t know. I didn’t like the smell, you know? Hamilton came out of it squeaky
clean, but I don’t care much for tidy white. It stinks. We all have dancing
skeletons. Her mother died in a very mysterious accident about two years ago,
just about the time Jayla came forward and confessed her lies.”

“Jayla’s
mother?”

“Yeah.
Her car went over a cliff.”

“Jesus
Christ.”

“Jayla
was in the car with her. She was flung clear, but the girl nearly died. Her
spleen was torn and her skull fractured. She was in a coma for weeks.”

“So
you’re telling me she paid for her crimes against me already?”

“No.
I’m saying be sure of what you want.”

“Why?”

“I
just never saw where that little girl was ugly. Spoiled? Maybe. Ugly? Uh-uh.”