Read Tallchief: The Hunter for Free Online

times, and they wanted to help. By refusing, he’d hurt them. “Fair enough.”
    “Hey, Adam,” Alek called as he carried a bundle of shingles to the cabin. “Thanks for fixing the fence. I hear you looked ‘sweet’ in the kilt and plaid my wife made you.”
    “Sweeter than you, my dear,” Adam returned with a grin. Though a loner, he somehow at once felt at ease with the men.
    Alek took the light taunt and passed it back with a cheeky grin. “Ah, but you’ve yet to see my knees. Scarred a bit, maybe, but still a confection to delight female eyes.”
    “You’re full of it,” Birk noted with a light elbow jab to Alek’s ribs. “Get to work. You, too, Adam. If I don’t come back with a good report to my wife, Lacey, she’ll be out here remodeling. She’s good with a saw and hammer, and that’s the reason I fell in love with her.”
    “What I want to know, dear hearts, is how full of it you would be if your wives were here?” Adam asked.
    The rest of the men grinned and Adam smiled. It appeared that Liam and he had quite the family, and one worth defending against any revenge Jillian might plan, despite her assurance that she wouldn’t.
    But he wasn’t letting her go too soon, not before he’d had the answers he sought. Why had she lingered in his heart all these years? Why had just the sight of her tossed him back into life?
     

    Jillian sat in her SUV, studying the small cabin. Settled amid the cold, drizzling rain, the cabin windows seemed to glow gold through the night. It would have been a welcoming sight, if Adam Tallchief hadn’t been inside. The words they’d flung at each other scraped the silence inside her vehicle.
    Your family and friends broke my aunt’s heart.
    You killed my brother—or rather, put him in prison where he died.
    They were harsh words, lying deep and smoldering within their hearts and only torn free by stormy tempers.The grief Adam had caused her parents had hurried their deaths.
    She smoothed the small box she intended to give him along with a piece of her mind. Jillian had kept the feathers and brooded about her revenge, how she would track him down and make him pay.
    Payback wouldn’t work now, not amid his newly discovered relatives. She didn’t want them to know that he’d lied, testifying and causing the death of her brother.
    From their meeting this morning, Jillian knew that Adam’s resentment had not lessened. Jillian had kept his silver ring. But she wouldn’t have Adam thinking it meant anything—that the brief young love between them still warmed her heart.
    Bracing herself for another raw, spare-no-feelings encounter, this time on her terms, Jillian got out of her vehicle and tramped through the mud puddles. She rounded the twin heaps of roofing debris and odd lengths of lumber and found more on the porch. Pieces of worn linoleum lay heaped nearby. One glance told her that old wood mixed with new. The sturdy rug in front of the door was slightly frayed but serviceable, and Jillian scraped her boots, taking the time to brace herself just that bit before knocking. She tugged up the collar of her stylish full-length raincoat, and breathed deeply, calming herself before the storm that was Adam Tallchief. In that instant she saw him again in the plaid and kilts of dragon-green cut with stripes of vermillion. All male, defiant, angry, he was no gentle picture.
    Adam opened the door, dressed only in jeans. Clearly fresh from bathing and scented of soap, he impatiently swept the towel over his hair, around his throat and over his chest. His hair gleamed in the kerosene lamplight, standing out in shaggy peaks as he brushed it back with one hand and tossed the towel aside with the other. The rich, warming light behind him stroked the width of his bare shoulders and ran down his sides to his jeans. The raw visual impact of Adam’s hard, muscle-packed body wasenough to stun Jillian, and she realized she was holding her breath—years ago he’d had the same