Too Close To The Fire/Too Hot To Handle (Montana Men 3) Read online

  TOO HOT TO HANDLE

  TOO CLOSE TO THE FIRE

  Montana Men Series 3

  Jaydyn Chelcee

  Erotic Romance

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

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  A Secret Cravings Publishing Book

  Erotic Romance

  Too Hot To Handle/Too Close To The Fire

  Copyright © 2012 Jaydyn Chelcee

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61885-367-7

  First E-book Publication: September 2012

  Cover design by Dawne Dominique

  Edited by Colleen McSpirit

  Proofread by Mahalia Levey

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Secret Cravings Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

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  Marla isn't looking for love or anything else from a man. Can Marla put aside her distrust of men for a younger man? Can Chris convince her he's not like other guys?

  *Hunting Jaguar, paranormal erotic romance:

  Rachel Hayes' father set out to prove the existence of the Miloni temple and the Jaguar people. Tumi is a descendant of the Miloni race and is sworn to protect their secret with his life. Will he be forced to uphold his vow at the cost of his heart and Rachel's life?

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  Dedications:

  This book is dedicated to Ginger Simpson, fellow author, confidant, friend, and one hell of a lady, and someone who loves cowboys as much as I do. My life was blessed the day we met online.

  ~Jaydyn Chelcee

  Acknowledgements:

  Thank you, Jo Jansen of Beerwah, Australia for your valuable help in answering numerous questions and patiently supplying me with tons of information about Western Australia and correcting my mistakes about your beautiful country as I went along. Any mistakes made are my own, and I apologize in advance to the wonderful folks of Australia.

  Laura Herbertson, fellow author and my critique partner, thank you for answering the technical questions about planes and plane crashes. I know I drove you crazy—again, any mistakes are my own.

  One final thing—a big hello to the Out There Group in Australia, who took Okie Connie under their wings a long time ago.

  Happy Reading,

  ~Jaydyn Chelcee

  TOO HOT TO HANDLE

  Jaydyn Chelcee

  Copyright © 2012

  Chapter One

  There are only two kinds of men—the dead and the deadly.

  ~Helen Rowland

  North Western Australia

  The Kimberley

  February 7, Saturday.

  It wasn’t pleasant flying with Taylor Spencer.

  Even for two people who detested each other, crowded like they were in the cockpit of the plane, a little small talk would certainly help pass the time on such a long flight.

  Dianna Remington huffed. Chit-chat with Taylor? Not if she left it up to him. The man had the worst bedside manners. Not that he was a doctor or anything like that. He was the Dancing Star’s accountant, but even an accountant needed a decent bedside manner, instead of the hostile, Don’t-Tread-On-Me attitude he heaped on her head all the time.

  What the hell was wrong with a friendly chat? Ho! Taylor acted as if his jaw was locked in place and it’d take a jack to pry it apart. He had ominous silence down to perfection.

  Why?

  He loved tormenting her. It was that simple.

  She slanted her gaze toward Taylor and sighed. In Dianna’s opinion, there was nothing more menacing or more mysterious than a dark, dangerous, brooding man, unless it was a dark, dangerous, disgruntled man. He fit the descriptions to a tee.

  Taylor might be silent, but he was also the proverbial spur jabbed up her ass! Too bad she had to share the Cessna’s cockpit with him. Dianna
tightened her lips. Thank you, Jace, for the stimulating company seated across from me.

  She really wished her elder brother hadn’t insisted she take the accountant with her on the flight to Australia. She’d rather have her tonsils yanked out through her nostrils than have Taylor forced to come with her. But Jace hadn’t given either of them a choice. If she flew to Australia to attend Aunt Marion’s funeral, then she had to take Taylor with her. No ifs, ands, or maybes.

  Jace used the excuse Taylor needed to check the station’s books for Raider while they were on Damnboola Station, since Raider’s own accountant had gone walkabout. She could just imagine her cousin’s stern face when she told him she’d brought along the Dancing Star’s accountant. Surprise!

  Personally, she thought it was Jace’s way of getting his irritating new brother-in-law out of his hair. She certainly understood why, she just didn’t like being the one on the receiving end of all of Taylor’s mute hostility.

  “Jace and Raider owe me,” she muttered. “Big time.”

  “What?”

  “Ah-ha! He does have a tongue.”

  “Funny.”

  Dianna frowned. She didn’t know all the details of why Jace and Taylor hadn’t hit it off, but there were problems from the moment the two men met.

  “Are you planning on looking at the clouds all day?” she asked.

  The damn silence was driving her nuts!

  “Yep.”

  He didn’t even look at her as he answered, but stared out the window as if said clouds were the most interesting things he’d ever seen. He reminded her of a hot air balloon waiting to blow up in her face. Any minute now, bang! No telling how many nasty little pieces of Taylor would rain down on her head.

  Why did he have to be so darkly handsome? So damn moody?

  And why did he do things he knew annoyed her just for the hell of it? Like now. The way he ignored her got her dander up in a hurry. How anyone spent hours in total, brooding silence was beyond her comprehension. Taylor made misery look easy.

  He turned his electric-blue gaze on her and quirked a sable brow. Damn him, he knew exactly what she was thinking. Yeah. Now she could add mindreading to the mental list she was keeping of his irritating faults.

  Moody.

  Brooding.

  Silent.

  Smug.

  Mind reader.

  Sonofabitch.

  The list grew daily. Hour by hour. Minute by minute.

  Did his lips have to twist with such smug satisfaction? She squirmed. Bastard. He knew what he did to her when he turned those piercing blue eyes on her. It was something he’d known from the first time he pulled her on his lap and kissed her—weeks ago now, but she still hadn’t recovered from the humiliation he’d dumped on her after the kiss.

  Stupid!

  She’d melted in his arms and responded like some kind of desperate, Victorian old maid starved for a man’s attention. He couldn’t get rid of her fast enough! Not only had he dropped her on her butt onto the floor, but she’d had the misfortune to overhear his conversation later the same day with his sister. He’d belittled the size of her breasts to Kaycee.

  Dianna had known the kiss meant nothing to him. He’d made it plain when he’d said she left him cold, but to poke fun at her figure—or rather lack of one—cut to the quick. Remembering what she’d privately dubbed the damnable incident only hurt, so she tried to shove it from her memory and added asshole to her mental list.

  Taylor turned away from her and settled deeper in his seat without uttering a word. Dianna sighed. Well, he’d given her a whole nanosecond of his attention. But hey, she gave him credit for staying busy. It was a tough job, but someone had to count the endless miles of fluffy white clouds that soared past the window.

  She bet he never thought about the damnable incident, and if he did, he laughed. Yeah, okay. So he didn’t like her. She wasn’t dense, but his loathing was a lot worse than she realized if he preferred counting clouds to conversation.

  Anger and annoyance mingled with frustration. All right! He wanted the flight from Hell? There were ways to make damn certain he got it. She swallowed her hurt and clenched the yoke.

  There was nothing she detested more than being treated as though she didn’t exist. Dianna huffed, adjusted her headset and mouthpiece, and broke the silence. “It’s not my fault Jace made you come with me. Can’t you at least talk to me?”

  He continued to stare out the window in sullen disregard. “I don’t like to talk to you.”

  He didn’t like to talk to her? Tough! Her temper shot up another notch. “How would you like it if I exploded into nasty assholes and shit on your head?”

  Yes, sir. Bet that got his attention!

  He turned to face her and cocked a brow. “Are all the assholes going to have a bowel movement at once? Or are we talking about a single little plop—”

  “Diarrhea all over you,” she snapped. “I believe in letting ‘er rip.”

  He shrugged. “Been shit on by your family before, no virgin there, babe.”

  “Look, I know it’s been a long flight,” she said, deciding to try and soothe his ruffled feathers. Feathers that had been ruffled since Jace announced Taylor was taking this trip with her. Since Taylor worked for her brother as the ranch accountant, he’d had little choice if he wanted to keep his job. “We’ll land at Damnboola in a few hours.”

  No answer.

  She gripped the yoke, imagining her fingers wrapped around Taylor’s strong neck. “Say something!”

  “I don’t think strangling it to death will force words from it.”

  Dianna slanted a narrow-eyed look at him. She hadn’t realized she was actually choking the yoke until his amused words. His lips twitched before he turned away. Oh, now he found his voice and a sense of humor after she made a ninny of herself. Miserable, horrible, man!

  She curved her lips into a saccharine smile. Damn if she’d let him see how his attitude aggravated her. “You have anything else you’d like to share with me? Words of wisdom? Questions?” She batted her lashes.

  Crap! He was coming back with something nasty, something worse than her diarrhea. She saw the way his eyes lit with pure glee. She’d left herself wide open. Wretched man!

  “Is there a door nearby I can open and shove you out? No parachute, of course.”

  She gasped. “Well, really! Is the problem between us that serious?”

  “I don’t like you or any one of your three brothers. Yeah, it’s a pretty big problem. The sooner I can boot you out the door the better.”

  “I’m your pilot. You might at least fake civility. I could crash us, you know.”

  Ooh, he knew how to rile her temper! She’d had it with him, starting all the way back to when he’d scorned her breasts. He was going to pay for every snide comment he’d ever made about her or to her. She didn’t care if he liked her or not. None of her brothers had done anything to him, well, except for Jace marrying Taylor’s sister, but jeez, it wasn’t as if Jace had twisted Kaycee’s arm.

  Yeah, okay, she knew Jace had done some sorry-ass things to Kaycee, like hiring her to muck out the stables when she was a qualified horse trainer and making her pregnant, but that was their business. They were happy now.

  The point was you never pissed off the pilot.

  She dipped the wings, curling her lips with satisfaction when Taylor gripped the seat. Ha! That’d teach him to mess with the one in control.

  His face turned pasty. He flung her a calculated look filled with steely eyed retribution. Dianna smiled. She had his undivided attention now. “Oh, yes, sweet revenge is indeed sweet,” she cooed.

  “Revenge, my ass, lady, you’re a winged terrorist! You’re asking for it, and one day soon, I’m going to give you exactly what you’ve been after since the day we met.”

  “And that would be?” She gave him a toothy smile.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Whau?” Dianna felt the color drain from her face. Her mouth worked, but for the
life of her she couldn’t get another word past her dry lips. Was he was saying he was going to fuck her, or was he being his usual snotty self? Damn if she was going to ask for clarification.

  Dianna licked her dry lips and swallowed hard. “On second thought, don’t talk to me. I like you better silent.”

  She rocked the wings side to side for emphasis and lifted a finely arched brow. “I can’t say I much like you, either. But we’re stuck with each other. We could at least be civil to one another.”

  He snorted. “You call pranking with the aircraft civil?”

  Her brows puckered. He’d spent half the flight with his fingers clamped onto the edge of the seat. Talk about paranoia. One might think he had no faith in her flying skills.

  “Hah! I’m a damn good pilot.”

  “Give you a little power, and you’re a petrifying terrorist behind the controls!”

  “I have excellent piloting skills.”

  “Oh, yeah? What about all those rough patches, the plane shaking and dropping altitude?”

  “Is it my fault there have been several stretches of turbulence? I can’t control the weather, for Pete’s sake. Besides, I owed you for the damnable incident.”

  “What damnable incident?”

  “You know what damnable incident.”

  “I have no idea what you’re jabbering about. Stop fooling around with the plane,” he yelled. “You’re going to kill us!”

  She frowned as Taylor continued to grip the seat. His chest rose and fell in short, sporadic pants. Sweat trickled down the side of his stubborn jaw. A white ring circled his tight lips. He’d gone from pasty-gray to puke-green in zero point three seconds flat.