Montan a Wildfire

Though he tried to shake it free, the image lingered for a long, long time.

Chapter 23

The light of campfire flickered, breaking the night's darkness in a ring of muted orange light. An owl hooted in the distance. A chilly breeze stirred the ceiling of leaves.

Jake saw and heard none of it. Sitting with his back propped against a boulder, he studied the soft, deerskin toe of one of his moccasins as though it held untold mysteries. But... Jesus, he didn't see that either. What he did see—much too clearly, even though he wasn't looking—was Amanda Lennox.

She was sitting on the other side of the fire, huddled from chin to toe beneath a threadbare blanket. His blanket. The firelight touched off reddish highlights in the hair wisping around her face. Her cheeks looked whiter than normal. Her gaze was huge, haunted and intense, piercing the distance that separated them.

The distance wasn't really so much. So why, Jake wondered, did it feel like it stretched on for miles?

Amanda had been great with the brat, Jake could find no fault with her there. While he'd buried Tom and Henry Rafferty, he'd heard her crooning to Roger. The kid had sobbed on her shoulder. Amanda hadn't complained, she'd soothed. Jake had found himself wishing she would hold him in her arms like that and help ease some of his own torment. Unfortunately, being in Amanda's arms was what had caused his torment in the first place, so he figured that probably wouldn't work.

It wasn't until after Roger had fallen asleep that Amanda had fallen apart, in her own way; quietly, with dignity. She'd retreated to the other side of the campfire with a cup of coffee she'd yet to take one sip of—Jake knew, since his gaze had rarely left her mouth—and she hadn't spoken a word.

Neither had he.

And that, Jake thought, was the worst part. This brooding silence that crackled with a tension that seemed louder than thunder somehow. The silence made the distance between them seem greater. In the past they'd made love, they'd fought... but rarely had Amanda ever been this goddamn silent. He had been, many times, but never her. It was... annoying. Grating. It shouldn't be, but it was.

Gritting his teeth, Jake yanked the small leather pouch out of his shirt pocket and, ignoring the pain to his injured arm, rolled himself a smoke. His gaze was still on Amanda; his fingers performed the chore by a mixture of memory and habit. He stuck the cigarette into one corner of his mouth and lit it, squinting against the brightness of the flame as well as the sting of smoke in his eyes. His lungs burned with the first, deep inhalation; it was a familiar, welcome distraction from festering thoughts.

"Amanda—"

"Jake—"

Their words tripped over each other. Both snapped their mouths shut and exchanged nervous glances for the other to continue. Neither did.

Jake exhaled through his teeth, puffing a stream of grey smoke into the air. He rested his head back against the rock and closed his eyes.

Amanda bent her legs and tucked her knees beneath her chin. She smoothed the blanket primly over her shins and gazed at the snapping flames of the campfire. "You know we're going to have to talk about this eventually," she said, her voice soft, as though she was speaking to herself as much as to him.

"Yeah, I expect we will. Eventually."

Her gaze lifted, trailing slowly up Jake's body. Past firm calves and thighs, past lean hips and taut stomach, past broad shoulders and bruised copper throat. His eyes were still closed. Even at this distance she could see the thick, sooty lashes flicker against the sculpted curve of his cheek.

The muted light cast his straight hair an appealing shade of blue-black. The red bandanna he'd knotted around his forehead to hold the strands back from his face looked unusually bright. The flickering shadows defined the hollows beneath his cheeks, made the already hard line of his jaw look granite-hard.

"Why do you do that?" she asked. They were the first words that came to mind, and Amanda said them only to break the tension that was threatening to drive her loony.

His brows lifted, but he didn't open his eyes. Instead, he put the cigarette to his mouth, leisurely puffed until the tip glowed hot and red, then released the smoke in a long, slow hiss. "Do what?"

"Wear your hair so long? Wear a bandanna like a headband?" Her gaze dipped to the sheath at his belt. "Carry knives instead of a gun like normal men do?"

"Are you saying I'm not normal, princess?"

Amanda squirmed and thought that maybe the silence, tense as it was, would have been better after all. Less condemning. Of course, it was too late now. "No, Jake. I'm saying you aren't like... well, like other men."

"White men, you mean."

She bristled. "I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to." This time when Jake lifted the cigarette to his lips, he didn't draw on it. Instead, he pinched it between his index finger and thumb and frowned. His arm throbbed a protest when he flicked it away. His eyes opened, and he watched the glowing tip arch through the night. It sizzled out on the snow-dusted grass outside the circle of firelight. "Lady, when the hell are you going to get it through that stubborn-as-all-hell head of yours that I'm. Not. White. Wishing my skin was lighter won't change the fact that it isn't."

"And wishing won't make my skin any redder," she countered tightly. "Have you ever thought of that, Jake?"

Her response—or maybe it was the firmness of her tone—seemed to take him by surprise. The force of his gaze snapped to her, making Amanda fidget. She saw his eyes narrow, saw the way he raked her face and neck and hands—every inch of white skin he could find—in a way that seemed almost condemning.

His voice was hard, edgy. "I've never wanted to change the color of your skin, Amanda."