Riding the Thunder by Deborah MacGillivray Read Free Book Online Page A

restiveness had first started back in winter, though he couldn’t now precisely pinpoint the date. He recalled going to the refrigerator looking for something, though he wasn’t hungry. He wondered if the compulsive action was caused by lingering childhood memories when food had been scarce. That seemed logical. He’d noticed when watching television, he’d constantly flip channels; nothing held his attention. And women . . . they’d become like his incessant trips to the refrigerator—plenty of choices, but nothing for which he truly hungered.
    Jago couldn’t recall the last time he wanted a woman the way he ached at this moment for Asha Montgomerie—craved her until reason faded and age-old instincts to mate possessed his mind. What he felt for her was primitive, raw. It was dangerous. In more bloody ways than one.
    So odd, Trevelyn and he were twins, yet their approach to women was wholly different, dissimilar even from theirelder brother Desmond. Desmond liked women; he just didn’t like them to cling—especially after the novelty of the relationship wore thin. Trevelyn loved sex. He ran through women like one might a box of tissues when you had a cold. Strange to think of sharing a face and body with another being, yet inside that wrapper was a person poles apart. Trev was a tiger on the prowl. And himself? Jago sighed . . . not sure what he was anymore.
    The disquiet within him had grown worse after Sean Montgomerie’s funeral last May. Desmond, Trev and he had attended the service in England, sitting at the back of the ancient Norman kirk so that no one would notice them.
    His brothers and he had been obsessed with bringing down Montgomerie’s empire, vengeance pure and simple for their father’s death. It had taken years, but Desmond had finally orchestrated the man’s financial downfall, starting with claiming Falgannon Isle, Valinor Revisited and the estate in England, Colford Hall. Asha’s grandfather Sean had once put up those properties as collateral for a loan, then defaulted on payment. The deliberate act had left Michael Mershan with a loss of his personal fortune, and facing jail time for misappropriation of bank funds in granting the questionable loan. As a result of the scandal, he had committed suicide when Jago and his brothers were children.
    To say Desmond felt cheated by Montgomerie’s death was putting it mildly. His brother had wanted to look the old man in the eyes when he handed him the papers showing the multi-billion dollar empire Sean had built was crumbling and why.
    Well, the financial plans were still in place, and Desmond and Trev were pig-headedly determined to go through with them. True, there was a fortune at stake. Only of late, Jago questioned the whole idea. Montgomerie was dead. What did any of it really matter now?
    All he had to do was close his eyes, and that memory of Desmond at thirteen was in his mind. Just like yesterday, hesaw his brother, feverish, so sick he belonged in bed, yet dressing at three in the morning, getting ready to deliver papers. It didn’t matter that Des was sick, didn’t matter that he’d eaten nothing the night before, or that he’d sat and rocked their mother most of the night while she was in the grips of one of her black depressions. Des always did his paper route, knowing the extra money he brought in often meant the difference between them eating and not.
    That memory haunting his soul, Jago knew without hesitation he would walk barefoot through Hell for Des. If finally settling this business with the Montgomeries would give his brother the sense of peace he desperately needed, then Jago knew he’d walk on the hot coals of his conscience to do it.
    Taking another pull on the Swisher Sweet, he cast his mind back to Sean’s funeral. Asha and her sisters—Montgomerie’s granddaughters—had sat in the second row. Seven breathtakingly beautiful women, the