The Seduction Of Fiona Tallchief Read online

  “Keep me posted,” Joel finished, and settled back in the sunlight with his thoughts. United, the three brothers were tough, determined and capable of accomplishing anything. Once Joel delivered what Fiona wanted, the game would be on.

  Joel found himself smiling. He swung open the door to the barn, patted Eunice’s broad hind end and circled her. He stopped and studied her, noting her little eyes were warm and friendly. He stepped up on the truck, jerked open the cab door and pulled out the Simple Everyday Elephant Care handbook. Flipping through it, he braced himself for Eunice’s inquiring trunk. After a moment he eased Eunice’s trunk away from his lap and said, “Come on. You need some sunlight and exercise. You shouldn’t be any trouble to get back into the barn. According to this and Fona’s notes on you, you’ll go anywhere for peanuts and a good Elvis Presley song.”

  Four

  Over the top of a bouquet of lush red roses Mr. Higgins had ordered for his wife, Fiona studied her brothers. On their mid-morning coffee break, Duncan wasn’t really interested in her ferns, even though he loved growing them; and Calum was an unlikely fan of calla lilies. Birk, the father of his two-month-old daughter, Willow, was prowling through a new shipment of baby’s breath as if it fascinated him.

  Fiona took her time arranging, snipping and dressing the bouquet, letting her tall, brooding brothers prowl around her tiny shop cluttered with a rainbow of flowers, greeting balloons, and bows. Periodically, as if checking the doors to the fort, they glanced at the door leading to her upstairs apartment and to the narrow, cluttered hallway leading back to her tiny, but efficient greenhouse.

  “Okay. You’ve come. You’ve looked and you’re wondering,” she stated with a smile. She loved them without reserve, and that love spilled over onto the women they had married and their families.

  Duncan, Calum and Birk lined up against a counter and folded their arms across their respective broad chests. Duncan, the eldest, wore his ranch clothes, a rugged Westerner down to his boots. His mouth, grimly set, was softened by a smudge of Sybil’s new russet lipstick. A former meticulously groomed businessman, Calum wore a sweater his wife, Talia, had knitted him, one sleeve too long and turned back and another too short. The white spots on his jeans indicated bleach and his usually neat hair was rumpled, his lips slightly swollen. Talia delighted in leaping into his well managed, organized world and kissing him until he steamed.

  Birk, dressed in his construction clothes and work boots, had a pink baby rattle tucked into his shirt pocket. Peeking over the top of his other pocket was a bit of feminine lace and a tiny bra strap; he’d just come from taking Willow down to see her mother, Lacey, at the construction site. Lacey and Birk shared and alternated parenting and Tallchief Construction duties.

  Fiona adored them, each deeply in love and still finding time to worry about her. She grinned at them. “I know you didn’t just drop in to check out my fresh-cut flowers. I don’t need furniture moved in my upstairs apartment or my water spraying system checked.”

  Fiona glanced at her front display window and smiled as Elspeth swept into the shop. Tucked closely against Elspeth was three-month-old Heather Petrovna, with a cap of wild black curls. “I was just in town seeing to a shipment. The gallery in Denver is doing a marvelous job displaying my new merino shawls.”

  The big, tough Tallchief brothers melted into warm jelly, gathering around Heather, who blinked up at them with big gray eyes. Duncan hugged Heather against him. “Daniel has over six months on you, but you’ll be catching him soon,” he crooned, kissing the tiny fingers that had wrapped around his finger. “Megan can’t wait for you to play dolls with her. I’ll come to your tea parties just like I did with Mommy and Aunty Fiona, and so will Daniel.”

  Sunlight slid in a shaft through the shop’s window, touching the Black Knights and Elspeth, each with glistening black hair and smoky gray eyes to match Fiona’s. They were the best part of her, settling the emptiness in her heart, if only for the moment.

  “Okay, I’ve been up to something this past weekend,” she admitted, feeling guilty because they had always worried about her. “But I can handle it, it’s something I want to do, and I’m really, really good at doing this.”

  “She’s always had that defiant look when she knows we’ll disapprove of whatever she’s got bubbling on her back burner,” Calum noted clinically.

  Fiona smiled brightly at them, stepping into the game dappled with love and teasing. “You know I only cook enough to survive. I’ve been living off real food at your tables since December.”

  Elspeth looked at her brothers’ dark, intent expressions and said, “You’re not getting it out of her. She’s got that look. See the angle of her chin and the fire in her eyes? On the other hand, maybe Fiona would like to come to my house for dinner tonight and I’ll cook your favorite spaghetti. Alek will be gone, working late at the paper and you can help me with Heather.”

  Fiona grinned. “Can’t. I’m busy. Intrigue, you know. The bubbling pot and all that. You can’t get it out of me, either, Elspeth. Not for sweet little dumpling Heather, or tasty pasta and fresh baked bread. So Alek won’t have to leave his nice warm house tonight, just so you can pry my dark secret from me, torturing me with second helpings and old movies that make me cry.”

  Elspeth sighed. “It used to work on you.”

  Duncan scowled. “You’ve been moping around here for months, looking like nothing could bring out that wicked, impish grin from you again, and—”

  “Suddenly, you’re revved up and blooming,” Calum finished. “You’ve got that—”

  “Look,” Birk supplied. “Fiona the fiery is back in business.”

  Fiona placed a rosebud over one ear of each of her siblings. “One last run,” she said. “Then I’ll settle down. This really has to be done. Oh...no...” she finished as a low-slung Corvette squealed to a stop in front of Hummingbirds.

  Joel erupted from the small car with all the force of a volcano, leaping onto the sidewalk with a small, paper-wrapped object under one arm. He was dressed as she had first seen him, in his worn jacket, jeans and boots. He scowled down the length of Amen Flats’ Main Street and then strode through Hummingbirds’ front door.

  The little bell overhead tinkled merrily in direct contrast to Joel’s dark scowl. He surveyed the Tallchief family coolly. “Let’s skip the introductions. You’re Duncan, you’re Calum, you’re Birk and you’re Elspeth. All Tallchiefs.”

  Fiona’s heart stopped as Joel leveled a dark, deadly glare at her. He’d shaved, his rugged jaw clenched tight and unyielding. The distinctive cleft in the center of his chin reminded her of someone...dressed in an expensive suit. Someone who, drenched in the sludge she’d just poured over him, looked as though he could pack her over his shoulder. “You are Joel Palladin. Joel! I should have—Get out of my shop, you—”

  “I am not—repeat—not a predator of the environment.” He placed the small, wrapped package on her counter, amid the roses she had been arranging.

  “Palladin?” Duncan asked slowly, as if testing the name.

  Joel turned to look at Duncan. “That Palladin,” he repeated firmly.

  A look that Fiona did not understand passed between her brothers and sister and Joel. One by one, he met each of their questioning looks and then turned back to Fiona.

  She had no time to deal with whatever ran between Joel and her family; she had no time to waste in tearing Joel apart.

  “This could get messy,” Fiona said firmly, standing on tiptoe to look over Joel’s shoulder at her family. “You might want to leave.”

  “Not a chance,” they returned just as grimly.

  “Open it,” Joel ordered, his deep raw tone slicing into the air.

  “No,” she shot back, furious with him.

  “Fine. I will.” Joel’s big hand whipped away the paper to reveal a small wooden chest, decorated with Celtic brass buttons. He shot the words at her like bullets, repeating Una’s legend, “To complete the circle, an unlikely love of the batt
lemaiden will come calling, bearing his angry dragon on one arm—”

  Joel ripped off his worn leather jacket and tossed it to the counter, revealing the dragon tattoo on his arm. He continued to quote as he drew on his jacket, the collar up, “The angry dragon on one arm and the sewing chest to win her heart. Fantasies and legends...darn...you just can’t beat ’em.”

  Fiona shook, rage blooming in her. “You weren’t sleeping when I told you that!”

  Joel’s eyes flashed, emerald bright, between his narrowed lashes. “Darling, I was fascinated by every word.”

  “Sleeping? You slept with him? That doesn’t sound like you,” Duncan asked sharply.

  Fiona slashed out her hand, silencing her oldest brother and turned to Joel. “You—you listened to everything, you jerk. Don’t be so shocked. Duncan. I’ve slept with men before, fully dressed and in my own bedroll. It’s not what you think. I had to rescue him—”

  She straightened, shocked and outraged by how much she had done for Joel Palladin. “I actually cooked and cleaned for you. You rich, spoiled, self-indulgent, environment-wrecking, arrogant, macho—”

  “She cooked and cleaned and slept with me. She’s determined to save me and find me a decent job,” Joel underlined Fiona’s words, fueling her temper. She wanted to hurl the new shipment of clay pots at him, one by one.

  He smiled coldly and leaned back against the counter. He lifted the chest’s lid idly and let it snap shut. “I haven’t looked inside, Fiona the fiery. You’ll be the first to see inside since the elderly lady, who owned it, polished the brass interior. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? That something...someone would wait for years for just the right person?”

  He turned to the other Tallchiefs. “We’re past the first courting stage—flew by it when she introduced that truck to the store. I had plans to present myself like a gentleman and try a customary date or two. You see, I had some grand notion that she might tell me she’s sorry for dumping sludge over my head, if I introduced myself properly and explained my position on the environment. But, oh, no. Fiona tossed all that away, plowed through it with all the tenderness of a bulldozer. There’s only one way to handle a woman like her. Jump into the storm and hold on. I think I can do that and give her what she wants. I’ve got the dragon and the chest. She’s temporarily mine it would seem, according to Una’s legend, and I intend to claim what is mine.”

  For a moment the Tallchiefs were quiet, and Joel surveyed them with the look of a gunfighter ready for a showdown. Fiona wanted to wrap her hands around his muscled throat and—

  “I knew she looked guilty each tune that truck, smashing into the convenience store, was brought up. You see, Joel, our parents were killed in that same sort of store holdup. But your handling of Fiona is not exactly—” Elspeth began.

  The Tallchief brothers looked dark, brooding and about to call Joel out onto the street. Fiona had to defend him; her brothers were tough country boys—on the other hand, Joel’s taut, grim look said he’d stepped into an alley or two in his time.

  “The oversaturation of old-fashioned males in this room is bad for my plants’ vibes. Palladin is all mine. Don’t you dare interfere. I can handle him,” Fiona stated very quietly, meaning it. “He’s out of his league.”

  After a long, tense moment, Birk asked, “What was in the eighteen-wheeler, Fiona the fiery?”

  She silenced Joel with a frown. “Keep out of this. Don’t say a word.”

  He shrugged, looking bored and innocent, and she could have dumped the plant food she’d been mixing on him.

  “She’s at her best when she’s all fired up, and I seem to have the ability to do that. I think she’s the most fascinating, beautiful—not in a classic way—but an enchanting, feminine blend just the same. Rather like a long, tall, very independent and capable, exotic elf.”

  He flipped open the chest, plucked out a small ring made of horsehair and blue beads and slipped it on her finger. “Sorry, you can’t have everything exactly your way, Princess. You’ve gone too far. You’re mine, you see, and you know it,” he added as he placed an intricate tiara made of brass, twisted into a Celtic design, on her head.

  Fiona discovered her mouth was open. She closed it and locked her eyes with Joel’s dark green ones. They were darker than ferns, more the shade of a meadow at sundown...or was it—She felt herself go light-headed and gripped the counter for support.

  His fingers winnowed through her short hair for a moment; when she slashed his hand away, he caught her wrist and leveled a look at her family. “We’ll be gone for a couple of days. We’re returning the elephant she stole in Missouri. I am an attorney, and it appears that I am also her accomplice. I really do not like my career and reputation threatened by a pachyderm thief. I’m certain you don’t want your baby sister brought up on interstate trafficking, grand theft and any other little thing she’s done, including ramming that convenience store.”

  He faced the Tallchiefs who were studying Fiona closely. “I’d rather not fight you, but I would. I won’t hurt her. I’ll treasure every shrewish word out of her mouth. I’ll protect her as if she were actually sweet and kind. I understand her, and I ask that you hold nothing against my son, Cody. He’ll be arriving at Christmas, and we’re trying to make a new life together. It’s a long shot, but I think it will work. Fiona and I are going to return her little pet, tie up those loose ends, and then I’ll bring her safely back here to enjoy the battle. Because—”

  “Fiona?” Duncan, Calum, Birk and Elspeth shot at her, worried about Joel’s bold claim.

  She shivered, Joel’s dark jade glance slamming into her senses and raising the hair on her nape. “It’s nothing. Really nothing to worry about. I’ve been in other—”

  Joel rounded the counter, trapping her effectively between it and the wall. He looked down at Fiona, who knew that she’d kill him—once her mind. heart and body weren’t in shock.

  “I’ll be bringing her back safely, because of this—” Joel swept her into his arms and placed his lovely, warm lips on hers as if in slow motion, tasting her, letting her know the shape of his mouth, his scent.

  If the kiss had been hard or claiming, she would have destroyed him. But it was filled with heather on the highland mountains and wildflowers in the spring and sunlit honey and butterflies. Beneath simmered a layer of hunger and need that she sensed would match her own.

  She flung herself into the kiss, caught his head in both hands and gave her mouth to him, extracting the hot, wild heat. This was what she’d sought, what she wanted, this wild, coming-home heat that settled her, even as it devoured her.

  While he was kissing her, Joel had picked her up in his arms. He was just opening the door to leave Hummingbirds when Duncan whispered something, and Joel lifted his lips long enough to say, “Yes. When the time is right, I’ll tell her.”

  Fiona blinked. “I intend to take you apart, piece by piece, you know. I’ll destroy you. Let me down.”

  Joel grinned, a reckless, quick, boyish grin that shocked her. “What a way to go.”

  He slid her into the seat of the open convertible as easily as if she were a child. Fine. Fiona thought, adjusting herself to the new battle that awaited her—Joel really needed a lesson. Elspeth came running from the shop and handed her the Tallchief plaid, a blanket woven in the design taken from Una’s Fearghus clan and altered to add the Tallchief vermillion stripe. “Take this.”

  Elspeth gently eased Una’s chest into Fiona’s hands, lingered a moment as Joel slid into the driver’s seat and revved the engine. “Aye,” Elspeth said quietly, looking at Joel and then at Fiona, who wondered when all her body parts would come to life, and when her fingers would stop trembling and her mouth would stop hungering—

  “Aye,” Elspeth said again, smoothing Fiona’s cropped hair and bending to hug her. “It’s time, Fiona the fiery,” she whispered. “Fight your lovely battles and come home safe to us. I’ll be weaving a new Tallchief plaid.”

  Fiona glanced at her brothers,
lined up beside the car, wearing rosebuds over their ears and glaring at Joel—who looked capable of brawling with them on the spot. Because she wanted the pleasure of ripping Joel Palladin apart herself, Fiona blew her brothers a kiss. A tear glistened on Duncan’s hard cheek.

  “I’ll kill you. You’re not up to dealing with my talents,” she remarked mildly to the man smoothly gearing the car and leaving Amen Flats.

  “I await your pleasure, Princess,” he returned grimly.

  She flicked him a lazy glance, disguising the energy racing through her, the excitement of battling a worthy, fascinating man. “I’m very good at what I do, Joel. I intend to make you pay. You listened to every single, intimate detail of my—”

  “Desires?” he supplied mildly and glanced at her hair. “With the wind riffling your hair, it looks like sleek glossy feathers. It’s blue-black and silky and only you could make that bad cut look exotic. It adds to your eyes. I’ve always liked the shade of smoke and steel. The Celtic headpiece suits you—primitive, intricate and feminine.”

  Off balance by his compliments and too furious to speak, Fiona pressed her lips together, still tasting his kiss. She wouldn’t talk to him, giving him nothing, until her temper quieted. She wanted to level Joel Palladin, demolish him, but honor demanded that she supply a temporary shot. “Sludge is too good for you.”

  He laughed at that, a carefree, boyish laugh that pleased her, and she smothered the smile playing around her lips. He geared down for a sharp curve and reached to take the nape of her neck in one hand, smoothing her skin as if he liked to touch her.

  Fiona shook him off and burrowed down into her Tallchief plaid, clutching Una’s chest. She intended to take Joel Palladin apart, piece by sizable piece. She would teach him not to dabble in her life.