Read Online Tallchief: The Hunter by Cait London - Free Book Online Page B

were the answers to the questions she had avoided? Were the feathers part of that?
    He stroked the soft, white dove feather and thought of Jillian. Why did the need to know her as a woman nag at him? Had time softened the almost-forgotten fury inside him?
    Why had he wanted to hold her close and keep her safe?

Four

    T

he next afternoon Jillian couldn’t wait to tell Elspeth her good news. She hurried into the bright sunlight and almost leaped into her SUV. Her exciting morning call had pushed away the sleepless night, haunted by Adam and his gentle touches, that last light kiss.
    She’d overslept, then awakened in a tangle of sheets to the business offer. Sam the Truck manufacturers had contacted her to do advertising layouts, and from the moment of the offer, she couldn’t concentrate on the almost-finished layout for Silver. The owner and creator was a very private man and he would be contacting her by electronic mail to discuss his ideas. If the business arrangements were suitable, she would sign a contract that would bring in better money, and would take her to bigger clients.
    Jillian’s hands clenched the steering wheel as she drove toward the Petrovna ranch, her mind a flurry of creative ideas and the sight of the Tallchief family all on the floor, playing with Sam the Trucks.
    She’d have to finish the Silver ad first, and she’d have to—In a corner of a sprawling field, she noted Adam amid a small flock of milling sheep. The rough wooden corner post for the fence was gray with age and sturdy enough to last into the next century. With the Rocky Mountains behind him, Adam looked rugged enough to last longer.
    Jillian carefully arranged her thoughts, just as she would in designing a layered collage—the most important image was on the top layer. Her personal “top” consisted of Adam and the problems between them. And that too soft kiss last night. It spoke of affection and concern, of gentleness and other odd notions she couldn’t imagine Adam might feel for her. It tugged her from the safety of her dislike for him and took her into a realm too vulnerable for her liking. On impulse, she pulled to the side of the dirt farm road and parked her SUV. It was time to set the rules straight between Adam and herself.
     

    Adam watched her as she tramped across the muddy field toward him. The thick pea-green army coat he wore had seen better days and his battered boots were locked to the mud. He looked as though he’d come thousands of miles to stand in this muddy field, the woolly sheep milling around him. The March wind picked at his shaggy hair and the sun gleamed upon it, blue-black, a contrast to the snowcapped, rugged mountains behind him. He wore the mix of Native American and Scots blood with that of a hunter, features harsh and unrelenting, his eyes steady upon her. He hadn’t shaved, his jaw darkened with stubble that gave him a hard look, and the dark shadows beneath his steel-colored eyes said he hadn’t slept any better than she.
    “It was the kiss,” he said quietly when she stood in front of him. “You’ve gnawed on it, and now you’ve come to tell me off again. I gave it as a gift, nothing more.” That cool gray gaze took in her yellow sweater and jeans, the cold mud clinging to her white canvas shoes. In her excitement, she’d forgotten her coat and shivered from thecold wind; she wrapped her arms around herself, determined to lay out the rules for him. He would know, of course, that she was cold, her feet damp, and that her need to see him was impulsive. He would know that she was trained to hide her emotions, that coming to see him now was a need too fierce for her to control.
    Her self-control and Adam weren’t a stable mix.
    She shook her head and her hand found the woolly pelt of a passing sheep, locking to it as an anchor. She braced herself to lie; she wouldn’t give Adam the satisfaction of knowing he had disturbed her more with his tenderness than his anger. “I didn’t