Tallchief: The Hunter Read Free

I stay. So I’m leaving. End of story. You can go now. When I complete this project, I’m leaving. I suggest you do the same as soon as you can make your excuses.”
    “Now that interests me. Why should I leave?” He wanted to see her without the shadows between them, and moved across the room. She looked up at him, her head tilted just that bit in defiance, her anger barely shielded. He reached to turn her face to the window’s soft light. The rain-snakes shadowed her fine skin, so warm and silky to the touch. She lifted her head to jerk away, and he gently tightened his hold. “I’ve only just discovered my missing brother and the whole Tallchief family. So again, I ask you why should I leave?”
    She frowned at him. “All right. If you can step into my life, I can step into yours—and you asked for it. You’re a drifter. I heard you came into town wearing pretty worn clothes. And look at those boots, the laces knotted and retied. I bet they’ve seen plenty of highway road when you were hitchhiking. You look like you haven’t been to a barber in a while. You told Liam that you don’t have a job right now, and you’re not looking for one. My guess is that you’re looking for a warm spot to settle before you move off, taking whatever you take. The Tallchiefs are a closefamily. You can’t use them. How long were you planning to stay? Long enough to get money for the road? What about your little nephew J.T.’s heart? He’s terribly excited about you arriving. He’s only four, Adam, and the more he is attached to you, the more it will hurt him when you leave.”
    J.T. had loved the present Adam had given him, a special collector’s issue of Sam the Truck with his friends. Adam was already in love with the boy, and half in love with Liam’s wife Michelle. Just staying at their home for a day and a night had told him that his brother was well loved. The warmth of their love permeated their home. An expectant mother, Michelle fairly glowed—a beautiful thing to see. Liam and Adam had lost a childhood together, but as men, they would build a solid friendship. It would be no easy task for Adam to leave his brother’s family. Jillian’s assessment of his wandering life raked at his pride; he’d been able to keep fresh, to establish a profitable toy company while traveling.
    He studied Jillian’s face. That fierce, rigid, simmering anger that ran through her tone, visible in her features, as well. He wished his fingertips hadn’t just caressed that smooth, warm skin. He wondered if he had unconsciously compared the women he’d known to her. Had he really hunted for a woman like her all his life? Why hadn’t he known until just now how badly she’d haunted him?
    He glanced at her left hand, locked knuckle-white to the counter. Those fine slender fingers had once brushed his cheek, her eyes asking him to take her—and she’d worn his silver ring. Now they were bare. “What happened with your husband? The family run him off, too?”
    He damned himself for slashing at her, for wanting to know everything at once, and maybe, to just see if she tasted the same, to kiss those luscious lips firmed now with anger. Once they had trembled and begged him to take her with him, to marry her. In exchange for recanting his original story and keeping his silence, he could have had Jillian and money and the Greens’ financial support.
    At sixteen Jillian had been the Greens’ sacrificial lamb—they’d been a family set on freeing their only son, the family’s male heir valued more than his female sibling. He remembered her father’s less-than-concealed offer of his daughter…a girl. A girl raised to please her family. The perfect daughter. He remembered, too, her frantic pleas. She’d known what they wanted—what she wanted. She wanted to protect her brother, and she wanted Adam, the high school leader in scholastics and sports, the potential All-American success.
    “Stand back from me,” she said, her voice low