Children of Destiny Books 1-3 (Texas: Children of Destiny Book 9) Page 19

  It was a perverse twist of fate that made him want a woman who hated him with a fierce, implacable fury that had lasted ten years.

  Something had happened to him in the MacKay cottage last night, something he hadn’t asked for, hadn’t expected and didn’t want. If there was one thing Jeb Jackson had learned in the thirty-two years he’d lived, it was that powerful feelings brought powerful consequences.

  He didn’t want Megan MacKay getting a grip on him. He wanted things to be as they’d always been. Megan MacKay was supposed to be his brat sister, someone he put up with, someone he looked after because he had to, someone he ignored most of the time. Janelle was the woman he would soon marry.

  Megan bent lower, and her bottom tilted higher—invitingly.

  Heat poured into his loins, and he couldn’t stop looking at her. There was no panty line. Shining spirals of red hair streamed over her backbone like flame. She was braless, too. Not that she was the bosomy sort who couldn’t go without a bra. Still, when a woman didn’t wear underwear, it made her seem freer. It made a man wonder. Just how free would she be in his bed? Jeb wondered, too, if she knew he was there, if she was only pretending not to know, if she’d gotten into that position deliberately to torment him. It would be just like her. Or was it something she just did all the time? Positioning herself so that any man who saw her would want to grab her and pull her under his body? Suddenly Jeb stopped and searched the hangar angrily for Lauro, but luckily for Lauro, the man was discreetly out of sight, probably because he’d seen the boss and wanted Jeb to think he was busy.

  Jeb moved closer. He wanted to touch her, to pull her into his arms, to taste her as he had done in his dream.

  “Planning another little trip tonight?” he drawled sardonically.

  Megan couldn’t have jumped higher if a snake’s fangs had sunk into her big toe.

  So she really hadn’t known he was there.

  She whirled around. Her green eyes were enormous, unfriendly, passionately afraid.

  His own feelings were equally intense. He was aware of a pulse in his throat throbbing like a jungle drum.

  She was beautiful with the muted sunlight in her hair, all honey and fire, exactly as she’d been in his dream. Hungrily, he imagined her naked. She would be long-legged and graceful rather than voluptuous. Golden-colored, all over. She would give a man fire instead of the sweetness Jeb’s women had always given him.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe he just wanted something different. Before he settled down with Janelle for good.

  One last fling before marriage.

  Whatever, he wanted this insane urge for Megan MacKay to pass quickly—before it got him into big trouble.

  Megan jerked her hose up from the ground and splashed water onto a wing.

  He had asked her if she were planning another little trip, Jeb remembered.

  “No,” she replied. Her single word was bitten out.

  “It’s a bad habit, wasting water, when you live in a desert,’’ he said smoothly, knowing the remark would rile her.

  “Bill me and I’ll pay for it,” she snapped, whirling back to him.

  Her hair was a banner of flame. Her eyes burned him.

  But he wanted her fire.

  “It’s still a bad habit,” he drawled lazily.

  “I’ve got lots of them.”

  “Don’t we all?” He grinned. “Bad habits make a woman more interesting. But I’m sure you know that”

  Her eyes flashed. “Why did you come out here?”

  He moved closer. He smiled when she stood her ground. He liked her staying close. “Are you planning your trip for tomorrow night, then?”

  Megan stiffened with alarm. “What I do on my own time in my own plane is my own business.” The water was rushing onto the concrete again.

  “Not when it’s illegal,” he murmured softly. “Not when you’re doing it on my ranch. I’m going to find out what you’re up to. Last night several of the vaqueros heard a plane flying low over the ranch, but when they looked up they saw no lights. They figured it was a drug dealer’s plane. I heard it myself. Lauro said you landed your Piper at ten o’clock. I figure it was you we heard.”

  Jeb was so close he could have touched her. He wanted to. He wanted to know if she would tremble again, if he had only imagined her trembling last night.

  She remembered the water and began to spray the Piper again. “Leave it alone, Jeb. It’s none of your business.”

  His handsome face was very hard, very male. His voice was just as hard. “It is when a federal agent calls me and says he’s got a warrant and wants to search my ranch.”

  “What?”

  Lauro stepped out of the hangar, and Jeb shouted to him, “Hey, Lauro, cut the damned water off.”

  Lauro did.

  Jeb turned back to Megan. “I just got off the phone. The feds think someone on this ranch is running drugs.”

  She glared at the useless nozzle of her hose and then flung it to the ground. “Th-that’s ridiculous.”

  “That’s what I told them. I said I’d look into the matter personally, and if I discovered anything amiss I’d inform them immediately. I gave the man my word.”

  “And?” She tossed her head back with an air of bravado, and her ponytail swung freely in the wind.

  “He agreed, of course—for now.”

  He wanted to take her hair down, to crush its thickness, its wildness, its sweetness, in his hands, as he wanted to crush her slim body against his own.

  “Naturally,” she said. “Doesn’t anyone ever stand up to you?”

  “There is one person.” Black eyes glanced off defiant green ones. “I thought you’d be pleased this place won’t be crawling with feds.”

  She shrugged her shoulders in an attempt at nonchalance. “Why should I care?”

  He wanted to grab her and shake her but was afraid to because he wanted to touch her so badly. Instead, he balled his hands into fists and jammed them deeply into his pockets. “You might find it difficult to explain certain facts,” he replied.

  “Such as?”

  “You flew to Mexico last night, and back.” He ground out the sentence. “Illegally. The feds were hot on your tail when your plane landed on this ranch. They were tracking you with airborne radar. You didn’t file a flight plan. You didn’t communicate with ground control. If information on that unauthorized flight were to get out to the right people, I hate to think how quickly you’d lose all of your licenses.”

  “And of course you know all the right people, and I’m totally in your power.” Her voice was unsteady, and she was shaking.

  He had her where he wanted her—scared—and yet if he were so all-fired powerful, why was he afraid to take her in his arms, why was he afraid she would try to slap him again as she had last night?

  “Of course, that’s me—all-powerful,” he said quietly, ironically.

  “And you’d do it, too! Just to get your way! Everybody and everything has got to be under the thumb of King Jackson.”

  He laughed. “Why should I bother defending myself? It never gets me anywhere with you. Besides, it’s a pleasant thought—having you under my thumb.”

  He held out his hands, pointing his thumbs toward her, and she jumped back.

  He laughed, and then as he looked at her, he stopped laughing.

  There was a profound silence between them as he moved closer, backing her against the plane. The familiar ache was in his gut as he studied her; it was stronger, hotter than ever before. He had only to edge closer, to touch her.

  He stood with his legs apart, looming over her like some monumental colossus. His eyes roved the length of her body, sliding over her green eyes and the wild, red hair that cascaded against her slender neck, lingering on her swelling breasts straining against the pink cotton-knit shirt. His gaze moved lower, tracing her narrow waist and the long, sleek curves of her thighs and hips in her tight, revealing jeans.

  Hot, furious color raced into her cheeks, making her more e
nticingly beautiful than ever.

  She drew a deep breath. So did he.

  Their eyes met, and for a long charged moment neither spoke.

  Hemmed in against the plane, there was nowhere she could run. She felt defeated, lost, afraid, and there was some new feeling, something worse than all the others. Wisps of flame-colored hair blew about her face as she struggled under the grip of this new, unwanted emotion.

  He didn’t understand what she felt, but he saw it. He watched her brush at her eyes as if she were afraid of tears. Her hand was trembling. For once, Megan seemed afraid to speak.

  Her eyes glistened, but no tears fell. He’d known her all her life and he’d never seen her cry. Not when her wild, half-Comanche mother had run off with that man. Not even when her father had disappeared and she’d lost her ranch. Not when Jeb had turned her former childhood home into a hunting lodge for his friends. Not even now when Kirk’s life hung in the balance, and she was terrified.

  She squared her shoulders and tilted her chin.

  He wished he didn’t want her. He wished he’d never heard that plane, never gone to her cottage last night. He wished it were Janelle he wanted like this.

  Megan was the wrong woman.

  Yet never had he felt more powerfully drawn to another.

  Maybe it was her hatred that fascinated him. Maybe it had been eating away at him, bit by bit, getting inside him, without his knowing it was. Maybe it was just the challenge of her. He hoped that was all it was. He hoped this new insane fascination would die a quick death.

  But if it didn’t, whatever he did, Jeb had to keep her from knowing how powerfully she aroused him, because if she knew, she’d only use it as a weapon against him.

  “A man could boil alive out here today,” he murmured, knowing that it wasn’t the heat of the day that was beading his brow with sweat and making his shirt stick to him. “Be in my office in an hour,” he said. “And you’d better tell me the truth. Or it’s no more job. No more airplanes. Ever. You can continue living on Jackson Ranch, of course. I never go back on my word, and I promised your father you’d always have a home here. But that’s all you’ll have.”

  Her face went white, her hair seemed a lurid orange in contrast, and her eyes looked like green bits of hot glitter.

  No ordinary man with a grain of sense would have turned his back on a woman who looked at him like that.

  He turned, readjusted his Stetson. Then he let long, arrogant strides carry him quickly toward his Cadillac.

  But not quickly enough.

  Megan, lithe and slim-legged, chased after him. She was shaking. Her pale face was luminous with hatred. Her voice vibrated with charged emotion. “Don’t you dare turn your back on me, you coward.”

  “Coward?” He swore viciously to himself as he turned slowly to face her. Beneath the wide-brimmed Stetson, his dark face was half-shadowed, unreadable.

  “Your word?” she cried, and the harsh sound of her voice tore at him.

  His expression hardened.

  “As if you’ve ever been a man of honor.” She tried to laugh, but all she could manage was a hoarse, choked sound.

  He saw the anguish in her eyes, and he forgot his own fear. Her anguish was his.

  “You stole my home, drove my father away, bossed me around for years and murdered the wild animals that had roamed MacKay land as tamely as pets. Now you’re threatening to make sure I never fly again. Flying’s all I’ve got. I can’t stand the way you use the power you have over me! This is blackmail! You’re worse than any rattler. Vile! You’ll do anything to get what you want. Anything!”

  His dark eyes met her contemptuous gaze. He wanted to take her in his arms, to kiss her violently until she wanted him as much as he wanted her. The desire to do so was a hot, ungovernable force. He could feel his hands shaking, and it made him furious at himself, at her, that she could drive him so wild.

  She hated him. What wouldn’t she do if she knew she had him in the palm of her hand—right where she’d always wanted him?

  He steeled himself. He let his gaze narrow cynically. His voice was harsh. “I thought you figured that out ten years ago the night I won you and your ranch. I play to win, Megan. I always have. And I always will.”

  He was mad to have her, to comfort her, to help her.

  He turned away.

  *

  Fury washed her. She thought he was so arrogant he’d decided to coolly ignore her, as if she and the wrongs he’d done her were nothing. He thought of her as a possession he could use any way he wanted to. She was one of the little people on the ranch where he was king.

  Watching those broad shoulders move so coolly and haughtily away from her made something inside Megan break. She wanted to scream, to cry out, to strike out at him. But she knew he was so high above her, she could never really hurt him, and she struggled to control herself.

  What was so different about today? About this moment? Hadn’t the Jacksons been taking things and crushing people for a hundred years? It was all a game to Jeb. She was a game to him. Nothing more. She’d never mattered to him. Nor had her father’s ranch. Jeb had simply wanted the ranch to extend his hunting acreage, so he’d taken it, not caring that he’d broken up her family. And now it was her brother’s life he was playing with. Jeb didn’t care about Kirk. Not really. Kirk was just useful to him. Like a windmill. Or an oil well. Or a champion bull. Like Caesar, that damned mean horse he’d paid a million dollars for, that went around biting hunks out of people, even Jeb. To Jeb, Kirk wasn’t even as valuable as any of those.

  It was the Jackson way: to want, to take, to rule.

  Megan stared after Jeb in impotent, raging fury.

  She hadn’t slept last night. Her old nightmare had come back to haunt her. She’d been afraid. For Kirk. Of Jeb finding out. Of Jeb somehow figuring out a way to stop her from going after Kirk.

  But there was this new feeling, too. She kept remembering the way Jeb had touched her last night, the strange, terrible way he’d made her feel. It had happened again when he’d backed her up against her plane. It was like she’d been a kid all over again, hungry for his love, wanting him again like she had back then, and him not really wanting her, just teasing her because it suited his ego, just playing with her as if she were some kind of new toy. Only now she wasn’t a kid. Now she knew that for all his money and power, he was no good. He was greedy and selfish and just plain hateful. He’d pretended to be her father’s friend. Then Jeb had taken everything that had ever mattered to her.

  Oh, why did he have to be so ruggedly good-looking with those hot, devil-black eyes? Why was he so hard and tall and dark? Even last night when he’d been sweaty and filthy, she’d thought him the most handsome man alive. He was masculine to the core. There was a coiled intensity in him, as if he’d lived his whole life without ever letting go. She wanted to know what he’d be like if he ever did.

  Why couldn’t she forget how his eyes had burned last night every time he’d looked at her? Megan knew the ranch needed money and that Jeb had a rich woman from California whom he was planning to marry her the way he’d married that other rich girl when he’d needed money.

  Megan knew there had never been any gossip about Jeb fooling around with women on a casual basis, but she’d always figured that was only because Jeb was so low-down and greedy, he never took a serious interest in a woman unless she had acres and acres of rich ranch land and barrels and barrels of oil.

  Jeb kept on walking toward his car as if he’d totally forgotten Megan.

  Megan’s eyes stabbed daggers into that broad, muscled back. Her emotions seemed to mingle and blur as they built in power. She felt pushed and afraid, terribly confused, too near the edge not to fall over.

  Never in all her life had she even come close to hysteria. But it welled up in her now, choking her, making her forget her pride.

  He was going to take her licenses away! Kirk could die!

  She kept watching the cocky tilt of Jeb’s Stetson and the infu
riatingly sensual cowboy swagger of his male hips in tight denim as he strode toward his car.

  He was lean and hard and indifferent.

  She ached to hurt him as she was hurting. To take him down a notch. To make him know fear as she knew it. To make him lose that careful veneer of cool control. To make him know the fierce, swift pain of hot, uncontrollable passion as she knew it. To make him know that he was only a man and not some god above it all.

  Scarcely knowing what she did, she ran after him, lunging at him when she caught up to him, attacking him, but his body was rock-hard from his outdoor life.

  Her puny blows fell weakly against his muscled back. All she succeeded in doing was to knock his hat onto the ground.

  “What the hell?” Jeb whirled around and clasped her to him.

  Just for a second, she wondered where Lauro was and if he and the other mechanic were watching her make a fool of herself.

  Then she forgot everything but Jeb. She dug her nails into his arms and cried out, using Kirk’s military vocabulary in a barrage of creative insults that brought a faint curve to those sensual, cruel lips.

  Jeb’s callused hands slid gently yet roughly down her arms, running over her trembling body, molding her against himself, forcing her to quiet, controlling her. She clung to him, feeling her hot skin against his heavy, throbbing form.

  “You bastard! You damned, cocky bast...”

  She lost her voice, lost the ability to shout the wealth of vivid insults that bubbled up from her heart.

  As if from a great distance, she heard his low, gravelly, soothing drawl.

  “Hush, Megan. Darling... You’re hysterical.”

  His lips were against her ear. In her hair. Against her throat. And she wanted them there, hot and seeking.

  “Darling...” The word echoed soothingly somewhere in her ravaged brain. She felt his hands caressing her, running through her hair. She felt the strength of him flowing into her tired, drained body, the warmth of him.

  “N-no. I’m not hysterical,” she sobbed. “I’m not!”

  “You’re scared,” he whispered.