The Groom Candidate, page 2
“Burp and baby powder can be a deadly combination,” he brooded.
Chelsey Lang had just confronted him with the information Lacey had dropped into her lap. Chelsey really shouldn’t have tried to lay down rules for him—he’d speak to whomever he wanted, including the town’s bad girl—and their almost-engagement was off. For the time being, his prospects for a prospective bride were zero. Lacey’s kiss had taken advantage of his current womanless state.
Lacey had taken advantage of him! he thought, outraged.
“It’s October and I’m a Tallchief... I’m susceptible to weddings and babies,” he noted with a cough.
His eyes burned; smoke layered the lodge, the center hole was now completely covered. He realized suddenly that he had been tossing more wood to the coals and that the fire had ignited, hurling smoke into the small, tight sweat lodge. He reached for a towel and remembered it was at the creek, waiting for him after he plunged into the icy water. Birk grabbed the boughs covering the sweat lodge’s doorway and tore his way free of the smoke-filled lodge.
Freezing mountain air swept over his sweaty body. Pine boughs covered the center hole, damming the smoke; his horse and clothing were gone.
Lacey’s small work boots had left prints around the lodge. An expert hunter, Birk tracked her prints to where she had parked her motorcycle. She’d left him with his western boots, one sock and a brisk seven-mile walk down the mountain, through the deep, dangerous timber, to Amen Flats and Lacey’s house.
Birk grimly split the sock with his knife, whipped the lengthened knit between his legs, loincloth fashion, and tied a rope around his hips to tether it in place. He scanned the area and found the folded grocery sacks he’d stuffed in a plastic bag. Birk quickly fashioned the paper sacks around him, tying them with twine, and tugged the plastic bag over it all. He ignored the icy wind; he had his temper to keep him warm.
Lacey MacCandliss had stalked him—him, a Tallchief with years of tracking and camping experience.
“She is going to pay for this,” he promised grimly and began loping through the woods toward Amen Flats.
* * *
Lacey wrapped her arms around her and paced through the old bordello that she was constantly refinishing. She didn’t think of it as a “money pit,” but as a home that suited her and needed care. The original lumbers were the best, the structure sturdy, and because the frontier women of Amen Flats wouldn’t have Lil’s Place close by, the house was a respectable distance from town.
Outside, in the night, across the spacious old porch, down the wide steps and down the road were the families of Amen Flats, lights twinkling in their homes. Lacey had a home now, not a cold, dirty shack. She’d saved for years to buy the beautiful, elegant house, high on a knoll, overlooking all of Amen Flats. There was Calum and Talia’s house and their two-week-old baby, Kira. Up on Tallchief Mountain, Duncan had remodeled the old house and Sybil was seven months into another baby. Though she was bred of Celtic seer and Native American shaman blood, Elspeth didn’t seem aware of how she glowed—Lacey had seen enough of “the glow” to recognize a potential pregnancy.
While she was happy for the growing Tallchief family, Lacey wanted no children, no ties, nothing but absolute freedom.
She’d taken scraps and pasted herself into a secure, pleasant life that suited her. With Calum, the Tallchiefs’ business guru, helping her, Lacey had sold the old MacCandliss shack. Remodeled with leftover wood and roofing materials, the shack had made the down payment money on Lil’s Place. In the seven years since she’d lived in the old bordello, she’d reroofed, torn out every wall and strengthened the substructure. Every day off was spent making this discarded house strong, like Lacey had made her life. She’d torn away the rotted wood as if it were her past; she’d replaced it with new, strong boards.
She liked the sound of her work boots hitting solid wood boards, wide planks, with occasional rugs for her pets’ comfort. She loved looking at her house—her drawing table with its lamp, and another table used for a desk. A copy of her first check for building a deck on Lisa James’s mobile home was framed above it all. Her filing cabinets were stuffed with plans and contracts and payroll records. She’d built her business from nothing and now with four men as her crew, she had the remodeling contract for the church. Calum Tallchief’s fine accounting skills had helped her build a bankroll and a checkbook and a—
She had a mother who had been taking payments for three years and was coming back to Amen Flats. Calum hadn’t questioned her withdrawals from her account, but had asked if he could help. She’d refused him and Duncan, who managed Tallchief Cattle Ranch, the land owned by all the Tallchiefs.
Lacey realized she was clenching her fists. She felt her strength and the calluses on her hands. She could manage her mother’s visit and the payments and continue as before—on her own, responsible to no one and no one taking care of her. She wasn’t a seventeen-year-old kid anymore, scared and alone in a shack because her mother had deserted her.
The flowers Lacey had held at Elspeth’s wedding hung upside down on the wall; there were dried wildflowers from Tallchief Mountain, herbs from Elspeth’s garden, and orchids from Alek’s father.
Birk had kissed her like he’d kiss a woman!
She jammed firewood into the huge woodstove sitting in the middle of the spacious interior, supported by huge oak beams. After the way he kissed her in front of the whole town, Birk deserved to cool off with a naked walk through the woods. It had taken her an entire week to catch him alone and vulnerable.
Bred of men who knew how to survive in the wilderness, Birk had run a winter endurance race when he was celebrating his twenty-first birthday. His bathing suit and moccasins had not lessened the savage masculine impact as he finished first of the pack. Out of breath, swaggering, and bold, Birk had been in his element, bred to it, his smile flashing at her—
Lacey wiped the back of her hand across her lips. She’d known everything about Birk and yet he’d managed to surprise her... snag her with that kiss. She didn’t want to think about the hunger in Birk’s kiss, or the feeling that she was coming home. He shouldn’t have wrapped his arms around her and lifted her to his seeking lips. She’d heard about it, that Tallchief kiss that let few escape, that sweet, tantalizing hunger that made a woman want to—
Dressed in his kilt, there was no mistaking the hardened shape of his body.
Birk Tallchief would not toy with her. She’d seen him charm enough women with one dark look and that deep, throaty laugh. Late this afternoon, Birk got what he deserved, stranded at his sweat lodge without his clothes.
Doris Muller had been eyeing him and if Birk took the Low Pass, she was only a good three-mile walk from the sweat lodge. He’d go there and get warm soon enough; Birk’s way with women was legendary. Another mile more and there was Frannie Simmons, who had always wanted a taste of Birk Tallchief. Lacey had no one but herself, wanted no interference in her life, and— Lacey crouched to gather the cats and dog following her into her arms.
Her mother was coming back to Amen Flats in November, just another month, and the one person Lacey had turned to for comfort shouldn’t have been Birk.
Lacey squeezed her lids closed, fighting the memories that came to haunt her. Her mother’s voice had been coarse, drunken— Get in that closet and stay there! Lacey looked at the spacious open design of her home. There were no walls, no closets now, only a cloth drape separating the bathroom.
Lacey plopped onto a stool and briskly unlaced her work boots, kicking them off. She whipped off her sweatshirt, shimmied out of her jeans, and strolled to the kitchen area, dressed in her long thermal underwear and her heavy work socks.
Her herd—a collection of cats and a dog, all mistreated orphans like her—followed at her heels. Gizmo, a black Labrador-Rottweiler yard dog bumped pleasantly against Lacey’s thighs, wanting her to hurry with his meal. She bent to pet Cynthia, an orange-striped mother cat she’d found at her back door and Nubbins, a black tom missing one ear and part of his tail, nudged her hand, wanting a petting.
“You’re my family, aren’t you?” Lacey whispered, uncertain as the painful memories enclosed her and tears began to flow down her cheeks. “You’re safe with me and you’ll always have enough to eat.”
Gizmo began to bark wildly just as the front door crashed open. Birk Tallchief, wearing his western boots, and a big silky robe splashed with hot pink flowers stood in her doorway. A fiery wash of aspen leaves entered with him and the wind lifted his shoulder-length hair, gleaming black in the light. His steel gray eyes found her at once, locking onto her like a warlock who had sighted his prey.
Lacey straightened when he entered her house, slammed the door behind him with enough force to rattle the windows, and walked straight for her. He crackled when he walked, a mixture of brown paper sack and plastic revealed beneath the silk robe. She wanted to laugh; she wanted to cry. Her safety, her defenses shattered like a brick wall slowly crumbling—
“It’s time someone paddled your behind,” he announced flatly, shoving up the big sleeves of the silky robe and jerking the sash tighter around his waist as he came to her. The robe flapped aside his long legs and Birk impatiently whipped the material around him. He scowled down at her, all enraged, simmering male dressed in a huge flowery silk robe. “One sock isn’t enough in freezing weather, Lacey.”
Lacey slashed her arm across her face. She wouldn’t let him see her cry, ever. “It’s your own fault. You shouldn’t have kissed me in front of everyone. You’ve ruined my life. Now get out of my house—”
Birk bent down to look closely at her and Lacey hated the tear that lingered on her cheek and then dripped to her thermal shirt. Birk’s scowl changed and softened; he grabbed her arm, tugging her closer to him. He leaned down to study her face and ran a thumb across her cheek. “You’re crying.”
She glared up at him; she didn’t need his sympathy. She didn’t need anyone. She could take care of herself.
“Out. You have no idea what Gizmo can do to a silk robe. He’s an attack dog, you know.” She looked at Gizmo meaningfully, but the dog continued to noisily devour his bowl of doggie nuggets.
“I had to borrow this from Mamie Waters’ clothesline,” Birk stated ominously.
“You could have gone to Frannie’s or to Doris’s. They are miles closer to your famous sweat lodge. They drool when they know you’re up there, hoarding yourself. You could have gone to Duncan and Sybil’s—the Tallchief ranch is closer than Amen Flats. You had no right to kiss me like that... right in front of the whole town.” She fed on her anger at him, let it devour her, anything but the pain lurking in her past.
His, “What’s wrong, Lacey?” was too quiet, echoing softly in her anger, in her pain.
She pushed at his chest. She instantly pulled her hands back from the solid muscle beneath the paper and plastic, and eyed him. She didn’t want him looking at her with those familiar, concerned eyes. “You stopped kissing my scraped knees a long time ago, Birk.”
“Why are you really mad at me?” His hand brushed away a curl from her forehead, and stayed to scratch her head, a gesture he used to do when she was hurting as a child.
She wasn’t a child anymore and she didn’t want anyone’s sympathy. Lacey lifted her chin; she had her pride, it had kept her going since she could remember.
“Out,” she repeated, dashing his hand away.
Birk studied her taut expression and braced his boots on her floor, crossing his arms over his chest and looking the long distance down at her. “You’re hurting, Lacey. Want to tell me why?”
The question was too familiar, jarring her. “Those times are over, Birk. You can’t make everything right now.”
His black eyebrows lifted. “Can’t I? Why don’t you give me a chance?”
The child within Lacey told her to leap into his arms, to let him take care of her, just like all the Tallchiefs had always done. The woman in her told her that she could take care of her own business and that she didn’t want Birk too close to her. The woman in her tangled mysteriously, just looking at him—all six-foot-three inches of ill-mannered cowboy, dressed in paper and plastic and Mamie’s silk robe and his western boots. Maybe it was that part of Lacey that prodded her to tell Chelsey Lang that she and Birk had slept together—
Lacey scrubbed her palms against her thermal-clad thighs, wrapped her arms around herself and tapped her sock-covered toes on the rough flooring boards. She wasn’t a child anymore and she wouldn’t have Birk on a platter. “Eat dirt and stay out of my business.”
She pushed back the curls that had clustered on her damp cheek. He’d ruined everything; he’d changed the way he kissed her. She’d needed comforting. Her mother was coming back and—and Birk had changed the kiss, jerking away the underlying security she felt with him. Lacey rubbed her arms, feeling alone and vulnerable. There Birk stood, dressed in three-hundred-pound Mamie Waters’ robe, and his boots and wearing a sock as a loincloth—yet he had never looked more like safety.
Lacey couldn’t have him touch her; she’d cling to him and make a fool of herself. She was a grown woman now, not a child needing comfort. Lacey found herself running from Birk. She ducked under a line draped with her work clothes and drying over the woodstove. “Leave me alone!”
His hand flattened on the back door she had just reached, his body trapping hers. “You’re in your long johns, Lacey. You can’t ride that big Harley in your underwear and socks.”
“Who are you to tell me anything?” She ducked under his arm, swung around a beam and threw the bra hanging from a nail at him.
That stopped him. Birk looked down at the flimsy white lace in his big tanned hands and blinked. His thumb stroked the small satin cup. Then he carefully hung it back on the nail and shook his head. “Lacey, if you want to stop a man, you don’t throw your bra at him.”
All Lacey’s nerves skittered to the top of her hot skin when Birk’s smoky gray eyes prowled down her thermal-clad body.
“You might try wearing one,” he suggested unevenly as the sensitive tips of her breasts hardened.
“Who needs advice from a guy wearing a sock?” she demanded hotly and leaped to a big bag of dog food, then to the new stairs she’d just built. She had taken a few steps on her flight upstairs when Birk’s hand wrapped around her ankle. Lacey jerked her leg and knew that he wouldn’t let go. “All right, bubba, you asked for this.”
She turned and leaped upon him; she’d always been faster and more agile than Birk and in another minute she’d be out the door—
Birk reeled back a few steps with the flying impact of her body, then his arms closed around her and he held her, her feet inches above the ground. “Do you want to tell me what this is all about?”
She attempted a kick and found herself lifted, carried like a child in Birk’s arms to a sofa. He sat, trapped her legs with his, and held her wrists. Plastic and paper crackled beneath her bottom. “You know that I’m good at this,” he stated. “Fiona wasn’t sweet either when she got riled. I held you like this when you decided you didn’t like me kissing Angie in the barn. You were only eleven then and you haven’t grown all that much. I can sit here all night.”
“So? You’re bigger. You’re stronger. And you were rolling in the hay with Angie. It’s a wonder you didn’t set the whole barn on fire the way you were kissing her.” Lacey glared at him and fought the tears brimming to her lids. “Don’t you have someone else to bother? Some bed you need hopping into?”
She didn’t like his quiet, cool look. When the Tallchiefs got that look, nothing could stop them. Pauline Tallchief had that look the day she took Lacey’s mother into a room and laid down the law. Jo MacCandliss’s hands had shaken for hours later.
Lacey looked away from Birk’s intent expression, her body trembling. Birk would get bored soon enough; he preferred holding tall, cool blondes with power curves. He shouldn’t have kissed her with the Tallchief super kiss....
Birk studied her. “Fine. Don’t talk. You always were a pouter.”
“Was not.” She hadn’t meant to speak to him. Lacey clamped her lips closed. Why did he have to know everything—almost everything about her?
“Were, too.” Birk’s tone held amusement and despite herself, Lacey turned to him. She managed a male work crew and she could manage Birk. “You shouldn’t have mauled me at the wedding, hot lips.”
“Hey, weddings get to me, okay? Elspeth is my first sister to get married. All those legends about the Fearghus dowry were coming true... first Duncan and the cradle, then Calum and the garnet ring and then Elspeth and the paisley shawl. I was emotionally delicate and you took advantage.”
“Grow up, Tallchief.” Lacey snorted delicately. “Me take advantage of the love-’em-and-leave-’em dating dynamo? Am I the last holdout against the great Birk Tallchief? What’s the matter? Are you missing Chelsey Lang?”
Birk scowled down at her, his body tightening around her. “Leave Chelsey out of this.”
“She dumped you, big boy. She’s the second fiancée to dump the great Birk Tallchief in less than six years. Now, I wonder what made them change their minds?” Lacey didn’t want to think about the dark jealousy devouring her when Birk flirted with women. He enjoyed women, loved them, and she could have kicked him each time he drooled over another curved Amazon.
“By the way, your clothes are in your saddlebags and your horse was headed straight for Duncan’s barn on Tallchief ranch. I tucked a note in, telling him not to worry. He’s nice, so is Calum, but you are not.” Lacey allowed herself a smirk; it was all she could do with Birk holding her wrists and trapping her legs.
Why was he smoothing her inner wrist with his thumb? Why was her pulse leaping to his touch? She watched Birk, the boy who had hauled her out from beneath the Tallchief house when she was hiding, brooding about her mother. He was the same and different—sage and sweetgrass scented his black glossy hair—and there were lines in his forehead and along his eyes—laugh lines, pale where the sun hadn’t touched them. A vein throbbed in his temple and a muscle slid into his unrelenting jaw. He looked like his father, Matthew Tallchief, the kindest man Lacey had ever known.
