Light My Fire: A Loveswept Classic Romance Read online

  She quickly rolled off of him, sending a spasm through him that he was helpless to hide.

  She pushed upright and scooted up alongside him. He opened his eyes to find her staring down at him, her expression part anxious, part furious. He focused on the former.

  “I’m okay,” he lied.

  “You’re anything but okay.”

  Thrashing sounds got both of their attention, and they turned to find the baby llama renewing her struggle.

  “Shh, cria,” T.J. crooned. “It’s okay, baby. It’ll be okay.” He turned back to Jenna, whose expression now included confusion and curiosity. Good, he thought, now I’m not alone. “Go soothe her, she seems to listen to you.”

  She stared at him for a second, questions clear in her eyes, but silently did as he asked, scooting along the edge of the muddy streambed to get as close to the baby as she could without getting stuck again.

  “It’s okay. Calm down,” she said. The baby struggled for a few more seconds, but Jenna continued to talk to her, and eventually the llama quieted and turned her head, looking straight at Jenna.

  T.J. watched her along with the exhausted, frightened animal. She was a woman with a strict rule of self-reliance, yet there was no denying that gentility and compassion were also a natural part of her. He wondered again what had happened to her to make her work so hard at stifling her softer side. “You have a way with animals,” he said.

  “Good thing my folks aren’t here to hear you say that,” she said somewhat distractedly. She was looking around, probably trying to figure out some way to get the baby loose.

  T.J. weighed the wisdom of following up on that tantalizing bit of personal information, but finally figured he had nothing to lose by asking. “Your parents don’t like animals?”

  She stilled, but only for a second. He sensed she’d spoken without thinking and would pull back now. He was surprised when she answered.

  Looking back at the baby, she said, “Quite the opposite. They breed horses and range some cattle. Then there’s the chickens and goats, a few sheep last I heard, the barn cats who manage to keep the haylofts filled with kittens, and a farm dog or three.”

  “I take it ranching isn’t your goal in life.”

  She shook her head and blew out a short breath. “You take it right. I ride okay, but running a ranch was not something I ever yearned to do.”

  Before he could ask what she did yearn for, the baby began wiggling again, the slowly drying ground giving it a bit more traction this time. T.J. braced himself to get up in case Jenna needed him, but the baby settled back down as soon as she had accomplished her goal: getting closer to Jenna. T.J. smiled and tucked his arm behind his head, watching as Jenna edged closer until she could reach out and touch the baby’s muzzle again.

  “Careful,” he warned. “I’m not sure I’m up to getting you out of there again.”

  “And here I thought you lived to rescue.” Her expression remained soft as she continued to look at and stroke the baby. “Spit on me again, you big overgrown sheep, and you’re on your own,” she said, her voice every bit as gentle as her smile.

  T.J. chuckled. There might be more soft edges to Jenna than he’d thought, but she’d never go completely soft on him. A sigh whispered out of him, and he relaxed back on the ground, the image of Jenna going all soft on him—and under him—filling his mind. Lord, what a tantalizing mix her strength and softness would make. Untamed. Raw. Wild. Those were the words that came to mind when he thought about what making love with Jenna King would be like. Evenly matched. Oh yes, that too. In body and in spirit.

  He closed his eyes, but the images remained, as he knew his craving for Jenna would remain. He grew hard again. It was an additional ache he didn’t need right now. “So your parents wanted you to take on the family business?”

  Prodding her in the hope that she’d go all stiff and quiet and shove that wedge back between them was not a noble route for him to take. He wasn’t happy with himself, but he had to survive this too.

  “Actually, that was my older brother’s burden. Not that he would have minded. He loved ranching. It was in his blood. I left as soon as I could.”

  Again, she surprised him. His reaction did too. He was intrigued and not remotely disappointed that she’d opted for more talk instead of clamming up on him again. He lifted his head in time to catch the flicker of pain that flashed across her face, taking her smile with it when it fled. Her expression was carefully neutral now. She continued to stroke the baby.

  T.J. wasn’t sure what to do. He felt worse now about prodding her. He didn’t want to upset her. For reasons he didn’t examine too closely, it was very important to him not to be another person in her life who caused her pain.

  He suspected she didn’t confide in many people, if anyone. It had to be difficult for her to do so now. Why him? he wondered. He doubted it was because he’d inspired any great devotion on her part. She’d made it more than clear what she thought of his rescuing abilities. Maybe she’d felt safer because he was a stranger. The idea of being a stranger to her bothered him.

  He didn’t know where they were headed in the next five minutes, much less the next five hours, but they would find a way out. It bothered him that in a matter of days or weeks she’d forget this interlude. He found it suddenly unacceptable that if she thought about him at all after this was over, she would remember him as a stranger.

  For a man who’d constructed his life on the basis of having no permanent ties to anyone outside the job, he knew this was a dangerous mental path.

  For a man who, for the first time in his thirty-one years, was beginning to miss having a personal life, it was even scarier.

  “My folks died when I was eleven. After that I was raised by my grandparents in the Northwest Territories,” he said finally. Maybe if he shared something of his past, she’d feel more comfortable. He ignored the truth that he wanted her to know him as well as he wanted to know her. “They ran a sawmill.”

  She turned toward him, her eyes wide. “Your family are loggers?”

  He kept his gaze steadily on her. “Yes. Three generations back. You a tree hugger, Ms. King?”

  She laughed. “Oh, I’ve hugged my share, but not the way you mean. I have a healthy respect for the forest. I understand the need to retain old growth, but I also understand the value of the lumber industry, both economically and environmentally.” There was a definite twinkle in her eyes. He was captivated.

  “Then why the surprised reaction?”

  He could swear her cheeks pinkened. Must be the sun putting some color back in her skin. No way could he make Jenna King blush. But the idea provoked his imagination further.

  “It was just, after my Paul Bunyan cracks, I thought it was too funny that—” She turned back to the baby, shaking her head once again. “Why don’t I just swallow my foot once and for all,” she said disgustedly. She looked back to him. “I’m sorry. More now than before. I know what it’s like being the subject of ridicule, and there is no excuse for doing it to someone else.”

  “It’s really okay, Jenna.” He waited, and she finally looked back at him. “Paul Bunyan comparisons were the least of my problems growing up. And I did grow up.”

  Jenna giggled, then stopped, seeming almost embarrassed by the outburst. “I wish I could be as blasé and good-natured about it as you are. Being five-foot-eleven by age fourteen was a nightmare for me.”

  “I imagine it’s a whole different ball game for a woman. I’m sorry it was tough for you. A shame we didn’t go to the same school. I’d have protected you.”

  She smiled at him, but her eyes were tinged with remembered pain. “Oh, I didn’t need protecting.”

  “Big brother?”

  Deeper pain flashed across her face, but this time she didn’t look away. “No, my brother died when I was fifteen. I was the oldest, and I’d learned long before that to fight my own battles.”

  “My turn to be sorry. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. I’ve l
ost other friends over the years, but losing family is something you never truly get over.”

  She looked down, but he saw her pull in a deep breath and release it on a long, soft exhale. “Yeah,” she said quietly.

  “Never leaves you altogether,” he said. “I was in my second year with the army when I got word that my grandfather died. Heart attack. By the time I arranged leave to go home, I got word that my grandmother had passed in her sleep. She’d been sick for some time, so that wasn’t a real shock. But both of them being gone so suddenly like that …” He closed his eyes for a second, then looked up at the now blazing blue sky. “I stayed awhile after the funerals to take care of all the personal stuff and make arrangements to sell the mill to Pap’s foreman. His family had been in logging every bit as long as mine had. It was all arranged, they’d both been really smart about setting things up for when they were gone. Still … it hit me really hard then how all alone I truly was. Almost worse than when I was a kid. I’d always been independent, not really a loner, not by choice anyway. I never doubted my ability to take care of myself. Far from it. I guess that’s why it surprised me at how hard it was to adjust. I don’t know—” He broke off and laughed a bit self-consciously. “Gee, this is an uplifting topic.”

  “I understand better than you might think.” Her expression remained somber. “What did you do? After the army, I mean. I take it you hadn’t planned to go into the family business either.”

  “I still work for Uncle Sam,” he said, clamping down his jaw a bit as the throb in his knee deepened. Talking was a tried-and-true method for directing his focus away from his pain. Talking to Jenna, listening to her, soothed something far deeper.

  A small smile curved her mouth. “The army is getting lax on haircuts.”

  “I’m not army any longer. I got out about ten years ago.”

  Her smile grew. “Oh, that’s right, now you rescue people. What branch is that again?”

  “Very funny. Actually, if my current boss found out about my little detour today, I’d never live it down.”

  “Is that where you were headed today? On your flight, I mean. Back to work?”

  One simple question, and it hit him like a ton of bricks. He didn’t want to go back. Several moments passed as the shock of that truth and all its implications began to sink in. She was staring at him, waiting. “I was going to Denver,” he said absently. Not go back? Ridiculous. Where in the hell else did he have to go? He’d just gotten done telling her he had no family. The Dirty Dozen was his family.

  And what did that say about him? his mind queried. His family was a team of specially trained agents whose only unifying bond was that they weren’t bonded to anyone. But he liked that, he responded silently. He fit in there.

  Lying there on his back, looking up at the blue October sky over forests of trees that had graced these Oregon mountains for generations, he suddenly saw his life in an entirely different way.

  He had fit in. Recruited by Seve Delgado right out of the army, he’d found his work for the Dirty Dozen to be the challenge he’d always wanted. They had fought long and hard against diminishing odds to complete the next-to-impossible tasks they were given. World-weary, jaded, and cynical were all words that could be used to describe any one of them. All except T.J. For a boy raised in the back of beyond, he’d looked at each Dirty Dozen mission as a new adventure and had tackled each one with exuberance that constantly made him the butt of his teammates’ many good-natured jokes.

  “You don’t sound too upset about it.”

  He looked over at Jenna. “No. I guess I’m not.” Saying it out loud somehow cemented the feeling. Suddenly, crawling all over the globe, risking his hide by pulling people out of impossible situations didn’t sound nearly as exciting as lying in the middle of Nowhere, Oregon, next to a llama stuck in the mud and talking to Jenna King.

  Maybe it was time for a new kind of adventure.

  Jenna watched as a bemused smile crossed his face. She didn’t know what to make of this man, this purported rescuer of people. He made her feel emotions she’d long ago determined not to feel. If she were honest, she’d admit he made her want to feel them. But she was weary of emotional honesty. Having been dragged repeatedly through that dangerous and painful minefield these last several months, she didn’t trust anything right now, especially her emotions.

  No more personal chitchat. She had enough on her plate. There was no room for T.J., no matter how delectable a side dish he might have turned out to be. The food analogy made her stomach grumble, reminding her of another problem they would soon face.

  She didn’t care if he flew to Denver or the moon when they got out of there, she told herself, she just wanted out.

  A sigh of frustrated resignation slipped through her lips as she resolutely turned back to the baby. “First we have to get you free.”

  The oozing muck was thickening fairly quickly now as the sun continued to rise and shine. She scooted a bit and reached over, snagging her mud-crusted crutch.

  “What’s your plan?” he asked.

  To get out of here so I can begin figuring out what I’m going to do with my life. And so I can begin forgetting you. She shut out the voices in her head, especially the soft ones whispering that forgetting T. J. Delahaye was not going to be the simpler of those two tasks.

  “The mud is getting firmer,” she said. “I think I can dig her feet out now. She should be able to get up then.”

  “Make sure you clear out of the way of those feet. The soles are padded, but the toenails can get you.”

  She turned. “Toenails? You mean hooves?”

  “No. I mean toenails. Two on each foot.”

  “Where did you learn about llamas? Not in Canada.”

  “Nope. The Andes Mountains. Peru.”

  Don’t ask, she schooled herself. You don’t want to know. Oh, but she did. You don’t need to know. She glanced back at him, his big, gloriously half-naked body all stretched out, a friendly smile on his face.

  “I was there for twelve weeks,” he went on, taking the decision from her hands. She supposed she could have told him to shut up, but that would be rude.

  “The terrain we had to work with wasn’t the greatest, but these guys”—he dipped his chin, indicating the baby—“go just about anywhere. They don’t pack out with much weight, but they never lose their footing, and they’re more reliable than mules or donkeys. They also have a three-part stomach, which is incredibly fuel-efficient, so they don’t eat as much either.”

  “A regular Wild Kingdom of llama knowledge.”

  “Hey, it was cold and lonely up there. You get to know your llama.”

  His grin was irrepressible, and she found herself returning it. “I’ll bet.”

  “You should be thankful. If I hadn’t understood the signs and warned you, that llama spit would have landed—”

  She raised her hand. “Yes, yes. Thank you ever so much.” She remembered him calming the baby down earlier. What was it he had called her? “What does cria mean?”

  “Baby llama. In Spanish.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if he spoke Spanish or any other language fluently and exactly what sort of job had taken him to the mountains of Peru and had he been successful and— She was chitchatting again.

  You’re doing more than that, Jenna. You like this man. He likes you.

  She abruptly turned back to the baby and began talking to her softly as she resumed the chore at hand, carefully wedging her crutch into the thicker mud and scooping chunks away, flinging them toward the drier land opposite the streambed.

  About fifteen minutes later she’d freed one foot and most of another. The baby had struggled several times, but she’d managed to calm her down each time by stroking her side or neck and talking quietly. T.J. had remained, thankfully, silent. Unfortunately, her rebellious inner voices hadn’t. She was exhausted, both mentally and physically, and didn’t know how much longer she could keep up the fight.

  Halfw
ay through unearthing the third foot, the baby decided she was through waiting and made a determined effort to get up.

  “Look out!” T.J. called.

  Jenna swung away as the baby began its awkward lunge upward, then scooted back as quickly as she could as the llama struggled to an uneven stand.

  “She’s huge,” Jenna said, staring up at the beast.

  “Fit’s right in here, then, doesn’t she?”

  Jenna snapped her gaze to his guileless teasing one, but somehow couldn’t take offense. After all, he was including himself in the joke.

  As if he could read her mind, he said, “Amazing how sharing a joke instead of being the butt of one can change your perspective, isn’t it?”

  She nodded, feeling her fragile wall of resistance to him fracturing once again. He understood her. Too well.

  The llama finally extracted herself completely from the mud and, after a moment spent getting her bearings, wandered toward T.J.

  “Maybe we should call her Babe,” T.J. suggested, lifting a hand from his supine position so the baby could sniff him. “You know, complete the Bunyan connection. I mean, she’s not blue, but she’s—”

  “Not a babe either,” Jenna said, covering her mouth on a snort of laughter.

  T.J. looked from her to the llama to her and back again. “Hey now, she may not be beautiful at the moment all mud-caked but—” Then his eyes widened and he laughed. “Oh,” he said, staring at the underbelly of the beast. “I see what you mean. Okay, so maybe Bob would be a more appropriate name.”

  His gaze caught Jenna’s, and they both laughed. The connection felt good and warm and right and—she abruptly turned away, pulled in a long, steadying breath, and scooped up her crutch. “Whatever his name is, he’s free now and looks okay to me. We’d better stop wasting time and figure out how the hell we’re going to get out of here.”

  SEVEN