Sleepless in Montana by Cait London

own.
    Jemma glanced around the neat interior of her
small Cessna jet. She’d traded a neat little stationery business
she’d started for the jet; later, she’d trade it for a customized
travel camper van.
    She’d always been able to piggy-back
money-making ideas. She’d already set the first step in action, to
rope Hogan into her plan. Oh, he’d do it. Good old dependable
Hogan—at least when it came to his family. He wouldn’t like getting
along with Ben, but he’d do it.
    Jemma’s nimble mind churned on, balancing the
pluses, checking out the avenues.To protect Carley was on Jemma’s
top shelf, but there was no reason she couldn’t fill her time at
the Kodiaks by making a few dollars.
    She couldn’t afford to have a Kodiak battle
explode while she was promoting her fly-fishing idea to the
producer. She knew how to bargain, and she wasn’t letting anyone
make her feel incapable and dumb again.
    “I thought marriage might be worth the try.
Win some, lose some,” she muttered, aware of the bitterness in her
tone.
    She fastened her mind on Les Parkins, the
producer of a men’s outdoors television program. Attracted to her,
he wanted an affair. Les wasn’t having her, of course, but she
wasn’t blocking any doors to financial opportunity. By July, she’d
have him hooked on the idea. A mild flirtation with Les wouldn’t
hurt, not when Jemma stood to gain a television series. “He’s
coming along nicely.”
    Hogan’s image seared back to Jemma’s mind.
Trust Hogan to look as he had, dressed in a black-silk shirt, open
to reveal his tanned chest and the ridges of his stomach.
    His expression had been arrogant, disdainful,
but his body had moved gracefully within the flowing silk. The
firelight had gleamed upon his smooth chest, reminding her of a
polished metal statue. She’d wanted to place her hand on those hard
layered ridges, to smooth her palm down to....
    Jemma glanced at a DC9 passenger plane
gliding through the blue sky, preparing to land. That smooth white
trail in the blue sky was like Hogan, tearing across her life.
    Firelight had touched his cheekbones, on that
blunt masculine line of his nose, those black fierce eyebrows,
scowling at her as they always did.
    Jemma smiled tightly. She knew how to get to
him, dig at him, torment him until he responded, some of that calm
torn away to reveal the heat.
    Hogan had the effect of a fire that needed
fueling on her. She delighted in pushing him, the layers cracking
just a bit before all those wary angles locked into place.
    Her leather gloves gleamed as she gripped the
controls tightly, her thoughts veering back to Hogan. Always Hogan.
Aloof, distant, dark, swirling in emotions about his home place and
his past. The protector of the Kodiak family when Ben came undone,
when Dinah left, Hogan could rally the others around him, even
Ben.
    His father respected Hogan as a man who could
match him any day. He saw himself in Hogan, and understood him.
Wary opponents, they’d coldly slashed at each other through the
years, and forgiveness was eons away.
    Aaron hid his bitterness for Dinah, for
leaving Ben, but it was there. Carley’s defenses were a mile high,
despite the warmth running beneath those drab, loose fitting
clothes and her too-serious expression. More than anything, Jemma
wanted Carley to have the best, to have a life that filled her.
Jemma dreamed of Carley smiling, free and happy— before that
night.
    Jemma considered the stormy dynamics of the
Kodiak family. To her, they were dysfunctional pieces in a puzzle,
never quite fitting exactly right. Hogan clung to his outsider
status and fought Ben, who was powerless to escape the grip his own
father’s harsh ways had upon him.
    Then there was Dinah, loving them both, and
her children. Touched by a rawhide past and Ben’s accident, they
were a family of high pride and warring emotions, a hard family to
understand, but Jemma loved them.
    They were hers. Her family. Even
Mitch, the street orphan, who