Big Sky Country: Montana (The Americana Series Book 26) Read online

  "If—" Todd was angry and making no attempt to conceal it "—you'd taken the trouble to get to know Kerry, you wouldn't be so quick to insult her!"

  "I've never pretended to be the tactful one in this family." Riordan's mouth twisted into a cold smile to match the glacial color of his eyes. "You'll be wasting energy to defend the girl's honor to me. If you feel the necessity for action, go arrange for a table in the dining room."

  There was a seething moment of silence before Todd rose to his feet, impatiently signaling to Kerry to accompany him. Jill was forgotten as the couple exited the lounge. She studied the building ashes on the end of her cigarette, murderous thoughts racing impotently through her mind.

  "Well, Miss Randall?" Riordan's quietly challenging voice hadn't forgotten her.

  Her eyes were round and blank when she turned to him. "Yes?"

  "You're quite obviously in favor of this engagement. Aren't you going to defend your girl friend?" The deceptively soft tone sliced like Toledo steel through silk.

  "I wouldn't like to rudely contradict you, but I've seen Todd and Kerry together," Jill murmured with innocent apology. "I've noticed three things about them: There is a physical desire, as one would expect, but their feelings are essentially very strong and tender. And I think their personalities beautifully complement each other and fulfill basic needs."

  "Todd takes after our grandfather. His ambitions are political. Can you picture Kerry as a politician's wife? Her shyness, timidity will prove to be a problem in a few years." Jill slowly brushed the ashes off the end of her cigarette, unable to meet the intense scrutiny for fear her eyes would reveal her partial agreement with Riordan's assessment. "Todd should eventually marry someone like you who could be an asset to his chosen career," he concluded.

  "Like me?" A genuine frown of confusion puckered her brows, as she tucked a tawny gold strand of hair behind her ear.

  "An attractive…a beautiful woman to be his hostess and entertain the important people he will have to cultivate."

  "Really?" Jill tipped her head to one side as if considering his statement. "It's strange how our opinions vary. Whenever I see a man in public office who has a beautiful wife, I always have the feeling that he's lost touch with the common people. Besides, I think Todd would rather have a wife waiting at home than working beside him."

  Again the sooty lashes narrowed, making an unreadable smoke screen of his eyes. "That's a very interesting opinion. You're convinced that a marriage between the two would work."

  "I think it would work very well," she affirmed, trying to be offhand and not forceful with her statement despite her inner convictions.

  "Are you in favor of couples marrying while they're still attending college, and, in Todd's case, of Kerry supporting them for a few years while he obtains all his degrees? That's quite a strain on a marriage, don't you agree?"

  "Yes." Jill nodded. A sparkle of battle glittered in her blue eyes so she forced a smile to hide the antagonism he aroused. "Of course, if you were more kindly disposed in their favor, it wouldn't be quite as much of a struggle, would it?"

  "That's what you think I should do?"

  Riordan was leaning back, the ebony color of his hair darkened further by the shadows of the booth, his striking powerful features fully illuminated by the dim light.

  The unwavering study of his light-colored eyes made Jill vividly aware of the primitive charm he possessed. Her heartbeat accelerated briefly under the potent spell of his virility.

  Averting her head, Jill pretended a concentration in snubbing out her cigarette. She had to break free of the magnetic pull of his gaze.

  "I wouldn't presume to tell you what you should do." She laughed softly, giving the impression that the thought was ridiculous that a mere female could influence him one way or the other.

  "Wouldn't you?"

  The mocking words were said so softly that Jill wasn't sure whether she had heard them or only imagined them. There was no mistake the next time he spoke. His voice was clear and calm.

  "But you wouldn't disagree if I said that it's your opinion I should get to know Kerry better before l make my decision irrevocable."

  "Of course, I wouldn't disagree with that. There's nothing worse than estrangement between two brothers and I know Kerry would be deeply hurt to be the cause of any more harsh words between you and Todd." That was very definitely the truth. Kerry could be too sensitive. "And I certainly wouldn't want the two of them to do something so foolish as to elope, not when there still might be a chance for your differences to be reconciled."

  The wide-eyed, "dumb blond" look was firmly fixed on her face. Arguing with a man as arrogant as Riordan only made him more stubborn. It was better to let him believe that she spoke with the wisdom of the simple and was not trying to threaten him into changing his mind.

  A measuring, thoughtful glance trailed over Jill's face. Then Riordan reached for his glass, downed the drink and replaced the empty glass on the table.

  "Shall we go in search of Todd and your friend?" he suggested with a side look. "They may have decided to eat without us."

  Jill gave a little nod of agreement and waited until he was standing to slide out of the booth. His gaze swept appraisingly over her when she stood at his side, a silver glitter that was faintly mocking. Not a guiding hand touched her, but she was very much aware of him walking beside her as they left the lounge.

  Chapter Three

  THE CONVERSATION at the dinner table was stilted. It would have taken only a few conciliatory comments from Riordan to ease the tension, but he didn't make them. Jill had thought her comments had made an impression on him. Looking back, she could see it hadn't made any difference in his stand against Kerry's engagement to Todd.

  There hadn't been any further confrontations, if that was a consolation. There again Jill decided it was because Riordan believed he had pushed Todd as far as he dared. But if Riordan's aim had been to make Kerry unhappy, he had succeeded. Jill couldn't remember seeing her roommate's face look so pinched and strained. Todd's look of concern and smiles of reassurance weren't as bolstering as they might have been if they were alone.

  While Riordan was occupied paying the check, Jill made the decision that Todd and Kerry should be alone. The sooner, the better. She could easily catch a taxi.

  "Todd," she spoke quietly, not wanting to draw Riordan's attention, "why don't you and Kerry go ahead and leave? I'll find my own way."

  "Are you sure you don't mind?" But the relief was in Todd's eyes.

  "I suggested it, didn't I?" Jill smiled. Kerry opened her mouth to protest, but Riordan was moving toward them, his deceptively lazy strides covering the distance swiftly.

  The way Todd protectively nestled Kerry deeper in the crook of his arm lifted one corner of his brother's mouth in a mocking smile. It remained there to accept Kerry's frozen goodbye.

  "I'll meet you here at seven in the morning for breakfast, Todd, before I leave for the ranch." It wasn't a suggestion, it was a command. Jill's lips started to tighten at his autocratic action, but she relaxed them instantly into a smile when the gray eyes swung to her. "Miss Randall." There was an arrogant inclination of his dark head in goodbye.

  "Goodnight, Mr. Riordan." She wasn't about to thank him for a miserable evening.

  In the hotel lobby, they parted company, with Riordan disappearing almost immediately, presumably returning to his room. Todd hesitantly suggested that he and Kerry should give Jill a ride, but she airily waved it aside. The pair insisted on waiting until Jill had telephoned the taxi company and received assurances that a cab would be dispatched immediately.

  Todd's car was pulling out of the hotel parking lot. Jill stared through the glass windows at the dark shape of Kerry's head resting on the driver's shoulder. The course of true love never did run smooth. Wasn't that the saying? It must be true love, because Todd and Kerry had actually had a bumpy start.

  "Don't tell me they forgot to take you with them?"

  Jill pivoted
sharply, her startled eyes focusing on Riordan. One arm held his jacket open, the hand negligently thrust in his trouser pocket. The other hand held a cigarette to his mouth, his eyes narrowed against the smoke curling from the burning tip.

  "Or did you arrange to be left behind?" Riordan added in a mocking taunt.

  For another full second, speech was denied her. A hand crept up to her convulsively working throat and she managed a jerky laugh.

  "You startled me." Her hair was caught in the collar of her light coat and she pushed it free. "Kerry and Todd weren't going directly back, so I decided to take a taxi. I-I don't like being the spare tire."

  Her voice was low and oddly breathless. He surely didn't think she had stayed behind on the offchance of seeing him again.

  "I doubt that you would," he agreed with biting emphasis on "you." "But there's no need for you to take a cab. I was just going for a drive myself. I'll give you a ride."

  "You don't need to do that. There's already a cab on the way here." Frantically Jill glanced out of the window, catching the headlight beam as a car swung up to the curb beneath the covered drive. "In fact it's here now. It was kind of you to offer, though."

  Before she could reach for the door handle, his arm was already in front of her to pull it open. Ducking under his arm, Jill unwillingly looked into his coolly appraising gray eyes, reflecting nothing but her own image. The cab driver was approaching the door as she stepped onto the sidewalk with Riordan directly and disconcertingly behind her.

  "Did you call for a cab?"

  "Yes," Jill responded quickly.

  Riordan's hand closed over her elbow. "But the lady won't be needing one." Be pressed a bill into the man's hand. "For your trouble."

  The driver glanced at it, his face suddenly wreathing with a smile. "Thank you, sir." And the money was quickly shoved into his pocket as he turned away.

  Her lips moved to protest, but it was useless to openly oppose this man. At this point, it was better to accept his offer calmly than to make a fuss.

  "I hope I won't be taking you out of your way, Mr. Riordan," Jill said as his hand guided her towards the parking lot.

  "Not at all, Miss Randall." There was a suggestion of mockery in the deepening grooves around his mouth. "I had no particular destination in mind. I have a tendency toward claustrophobia whenever l spend any time in town."

  The car door was held open for her. Jill didn't comment until he had slid behind the wheel beside her. "You seem to fit in very well with the city environment." Her gaze wandered over the perfectly tailored gray slacks and black blazer and the molding knit of his turtleneck sweater.

  His gaze flickered to her briefly before he looked over his shoulder to reverse out of the parking space. "Do you believe clothes make the man, Miss Randall?"

  "Jill," she corrected absently, then answered his question. "You don't appear uncomfortable in them."

  "That's strange…Jill." He hesitated deliberately over her Christian name, making it come out husky and mocking. "I would have thought you would realize that a wolf in sheep's clothing is still a wolf."

  "Are you a wolf, Mr. Riordan?" Unwittingly her voice dropped the facade of innocence and became slightly baiting.

  "Call me Riordan. I'm a lone wolf who prefers to travel without the supposed benefit of a pack or a mate."

  Jill leaned back in her seat. Was he warning her? Did he think she was making a play for him? Surely not. She had not flirted with him once or given him a single indication that she was interested in him as anything more than Todd's brother and Kerry's future brother-in-law.

  Maybe he had become accustomed to women pursuing him. A lot of women would be attracted to that dangerous air he possessed. Catching him would be a challenge. Under different circumstances, she might have tried herself, just for the fun of it.

  "You can travel faster that way," she agreed. Directing her gaze out of the moving car window, she pretended an interest in the passing scenery. Silence seemed a way to end this vaguely personal conversation

  "Are you from Montana?" Riordan didn't let the silence last for long.

  "Yes. My parents live in West Yellowstone, where I was born and raised."

  "You must be accustomed to spectacular scenery."

  "Does anyone ever become accustomed to it? I hope not," Jill smiled naturally.

  "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

  "Four. Three brothers and one sister."

  "Older or younger than you?" Riordan asked, turning the wheel to guide the car around the corner.

  "I have a brother who's two years older than me. The rest are younger." She darted a quick glance at his averted profile, curious why he was interested in her family background. A germ of an idea took root. "Andy, my older brother, is the only one of us who's married. He met his wife when he was stationed with the Marine Corps in California. He called my parents up one night and told them he was married. It was quite a shock for all of us, but once we had a chance to get to know his wife, Sally, we all liked her."

  He turned his head slightly, running an eye over her face. "Subtlety is not one of your accomplishments, is it?" he suggested dryly.

  "But I've never failed to be persevering," Jill returned with a malicious sparkle in her azure eyes.

  "But your brother is your business and my brother is mine." The line of his mouth was inflexible, the firm set of his features yielding not one fraction to her honey-coated attempt at persuasion.

  A thundering discovery vibrated over Jill with the suddenness of a summer storm. An intangible something had been troubling her ever since the first time she had seen Riordan, some little something that set him markedly apart from any man she had ever known. This very second she realized what it was.

  Riordan didn't like her. Not because she was beautiful or because he believed she was dumb. It was because she was a woman. Jill held herself motionless, letting her mind register the discovery. Riordan was a woman hater. No, hate wasn't the right word. He viewed them with contempt, mocking the sentimental yearnings of their soul and using them to satisfy physical needs. But why?

  His childhood couldn't have been much different from Todd's, and Todd bore no emotional scars from the evident separation of their parents that Riordan had referred to briefly. Had he fallen in love with a woman at some time and been rejected?

  It was possible, Jill conceded. He was a passionate man for all his impassive exterior. Not passionate in the erotic sense of the word, but in the depth of his convictions and feelings. He could carry a grudge for a very long time. Those gray eyes of his sliced through the fancy trappings of the modern world to leave only the basics. He wore the cloak of civilization when circumstances demanded, as now, but he was a man of the elements—primitive, ruthless, and strong.

  So very opposite to Todd.

  Jill brushed a hand in front of her eyes. Was this insight a blessing or a curse? She didn't want to know such things about Riordan. She didn't even want to think them.

  Forcing her eyes to focus on the passing scenery, Jill willed her mind to concentrate on it. They had turned onto the main street of Helena called Last Chance Gulch.

  Once it had been a gulch of the prickly pear and not a main paved street. That was in the beginning when four luckless prospectors had arrived to take their "last chance" at striking it rich. That July of 1864, they found color in their gold pans and by autumn, a hundred makeshift cabins made up the goldrush settlement & Last Chance Gulch.

  A town had been born. Last Chance Gulch was not a dignified name and survived only through the early months of the town's birth. Then the occupants changed it to Helena, naming the main street, where twenty million dollars in gold was mined, Last Chance Gulch.

  The old, weathered buildings provided fertile colorful history for Jill to dwell on. The south end of Last Chance Gulch had been the sight of Chinatown. The Chinese, who had provided much of the labor to build the railroads, also cultivated truck gardens and operated their own stores. They even had a long tunne
l beneath their particular section that they had used as a private opium den.

  The architecture of the old buildings was predominantly Romanesque. Stone arches and columns combined with frieze and cornice and heavy timbers. The car was turning around another corner, leaving Last Chance Gulch to pass the Great Northern Depot which once, before the earthquake, possessed a tall clock tower. Then Jill's attention was caught by the Moorish style of the former Shrine Temple, now the Helena Civic Center.

  "What are you thinking about?" Riordan interrupted the silence again.

  Jill could feel the cool touch of his eyes, but kept her gaze centered on the lighted street. "The city, its history," she shrugged.

  A shiver danced over her skin as she wished she had never met him, or been momentarily entranced by his arrogant harshly handsome looks.

  "Really?" was the aloofly disbelieving reply.

  The car slowed to pull into the curb in front of the dormitory entrance. The engine was switched off and Riordan partially turned to face her. The metallic glitter of his gaze shimmered over the gold of Jill's hair, burnished by the outside streetlight.

  His arm stretched negligently on the back of the seat, his hand only spare inches from her head. Jill tensed slightly, reacting to the latent animal instinct that warned her to tread lightly.

  "I thought you might be thinking of some new tactic to maneuver me into changing my mind." His voice was low and cynical.

  "Maneuver?" Jill swallowed. Her lashes fluttered, a gold brown fringe above deepening blue eyes.

  "Isn't that what you've been doing since we met?" The softly dangerous tone dared her to deny it.

  "I don't know what you mean," Jill protested weakly. Her facade as an ingénue was being stripped away by his slicing gaze and she was helpless to stop it. "If you mean, have I tried to convince you to give Kerry and Todd a chance? I have to admit that I have."

  "Do you honestly expect me to believe you're as innocent as you appear?" Riordan smiled coldly, his amusement secret and at her expense.