Free Montana Wildfire by Rebecca Sinclair Page B

thinking about her. Fantasizing about her. His blood still boiled, his gut still churned, and his...
    Jesus, he was hot for her still!
    That knowledge hit him like a fist to the gut. It drove him to double the already furious pace of his arms and legs. The frigid water wasn't working the way it was supposed to. It didn't cool either his body or his mind. It sure as hell didn't diminish the throbbing ache in his groin. Tonight, his body had a mind all its own, and swimming in an ice-cold river wasn't what it wanted.
    What it— he —wanted was Amanda Lennox. He wanted her soft and willing... as hot and as hungry for him as he was for her.
    In other words, he wanted what he couldn't have.
    Ever.
    Soft and willing or hard and fighting, it didn't matter. He couldn't have her. Not Amanda Lennox. Not tonight, not any night. The memory of her creamy white skin and the way it glowed like expensive porcelain in the moonlight told him why. The sight of his own copper flesh as he stopped swimming and waded to where the water was only waist-deep confirmed it.
    Amanda Lennox was white. Worse, she was a society snob, born and bred. A— shudder —lady to the core, she was off-limits to a filthy half-breed like himself. It didn't matter that he'd been raised white. It didn't matter that his only memories of his mother's tribe—hell, of his mother, for that matter—were so vague they were virtually nonexistent. The white man's blood pumping through his veins mingled with the blood of a savage. And that, when it came right down to it, was all that mattered to white people. All white people.
    Amanda Lennox was no different. And why the hell did that knowledge disturb him so damn much? Why did she disturb him? He didn't know, but she did. There was something about her, something illusive and indefinable, that made him hungry. That made him remember things best forgotten.
    Jake had never been one to put stock in memories. In his life, there had been few incidents worth reflecting on for more than a passing second or two. Even those fleeting recollections weren't greeted fondly. This time was no exception.
    He'd been twelve years old the first time he'd realized he was different. Oh, he'd known it before then, sure, but no one on his father's spread had dared to come right out and say it, so he'd never thought it mattered. His innocence came to an end the night the foreman's son had cornered him out behind the barn.
    Stuart Price. The name twisted through Jake's mind, bringing the familiar ugly face, the familiar surge of hatred.
    Price had made it clear that it was high time the little red-skinned boy learned his place. Jake's place, he'd found out shortly, was face-down in the rich Montana soil—if not buried six feet beneath it. Price said he'd decided that Jake's weekly visits to their white neighbor's daughter were not proper, and would no longer be tolerated... just before the brawny fourteen year old had planted his beefy fist in Jake's face and broken his nose.
    Jake had learned a lot of things that night. The first was just how nasty the word "breed" could be snarled. The second was that a white boy was never, ever to be trusted. The third, and most important, was that if he was going to survive in this life, he'd better learn to use his fists—because there was a whole world of Stuart Prices out there, and he was damn well going to need to know how to fight.
    Jake shook his head and scowled, his palm absently rubbing the back of his still-damp neck. He hadn't been a good fighter back then. Oh hell, who was he kidding? He hadn't been any kind of fighter. His father was a big bear of a man who, because of his size, had never needed to use his fists. Whether by intent or neglect, Yancy Chandler had never taught Jake how to protect himself. After the night Stuart Price had beaten him to a bloody pulp, Jake had learned to fight back. Damn straight, he had! In fact, as with everything else, he'd taught himself.
    Prejudice. That was the