Relentless in Texas

by Kari Lynn Dell

  “How did you hear…” Then his eyes widened in comprehension. “Oh shit. I forgot about the vent.”

  He shoved his tanker-sized, insulated coffee mug into her hands and jerked open a drawer to pull out something puffy that had once been white, decorated with a picture of…was that Winnie the Pooh?

  “A disposable diaper?”

  “One of Quint’s.” He flashed a quick, electric grin. “They’re also good for absorbing noise.”

  She took a sip of the coffee, surprised to find that he took it with sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. She took another, bigger sip, enjoying the view as he pushed aside papers and scrambled onto his desk. His hair was the usual rumpled mess of finger tracks and his jeans the right amount of snug across prime hindquarters as he reached up to pry off a vent cover.

  “I usually keep this blocked so the noise doesn’t travel up into the apartment, but I forgot to put it back after we had the ducts cleaned.” He stuffed the diaper inside the vent, the loose hem of his T-shirt sliding up to expose the taut, bronze curve of his back.

  Carma leaned against the doorframe and shamelessly gawked.

  “There. That’ll fix it.” He shoved the vent back into place and hopped down, light as a cat.

  Meanwhile, the secondhand aggravation still crawled along her nerves. This had always been the problem. She sucked up emotions like a sponge, but it was a helluva lot harder to wring them out again. The first step was getting rid of the source. “Thank you. Now go away.”

  He did an almost comical double take. “Excuse me?”

  “Go. Away. I’ve had all of you I can take right this minute.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Maybe you should crawl back in bed and try getting out of the right side.”

  “Too late.” She was amazed at how easy it was to fling his attitude back at him. This man brought out the worst in her. Or was it the best? She flicked her hand. “Go have breakfast with your son, and don’t come back until he’s gone to school.”

  He stared at her in disbelief. “I have things to do.”

  As if to verify, the cell phone on his desk rang. Carma reached over and snatched it. “Good morning, Sanchez Trucking. Gil’s not available at the moment. Can you call back after eight?”

  “He’s not in yet?” The voice on the other end of the line sounded as stupefied as Gil looked.

  “Not today.” She thanked the caller and shoved the phone into his hand. “There. See how easy that was?”

  He actually growled. She countered with a sunny smile and turned to stroll to her own desk, taking his coffee with her. After a few moments of simmering silence, he said, “Fine. Enjoy yourself.”

  Instead of the expected stomping followed by the slam of the hallway door, she heard his footsteps pause, then march back in her direction.

  Uh-oh.

  His face was hard and his eyes had an unholy gleam. He skirted her desk, spun her around, and stepped so close that his thighs pushed her skirt up and his jeans scuffed along the bare skin of her inner thighs—and about a million nerve endings wired directly to vital parts of her anatomy. Bracing a hand on either arm of her chair, he leaned in until they were eye to eye, nose to nose, his breath playing across her mouth and sending a whole new surge of Oh God, yes please racing through her body.

  It was all she could do not to cower. Or pounce. “What?” she asked.

  “This.” And he kissed her, a demand that stirred an instant response low in her belly. She reached up to grab the nape of his neck, the clipped hair on his nape bristling against her palm as her system revved like the caffeine and sugar had been injected straight into an artery.

  As abruptly as he’d started, he pulled away.

  She blinked up at him. “What? Why?”

  “I never thanked you for saving Quint’s neck last night.” He pivoted on his heel and retraced his steps down the hall, calling back over his shoulder, “And I’ve been craving another taste of you.”

  He did slam the door behind him, a sharp exclamation point on the end of the statement he’d so thoroughly made. Carma let her breath trickle out as she leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs, and let one bare ankle swing while she waited for the arousal zinging through her to settle. Damn, that man could kiss. She took a sip from the mug, rolling the coffee over her tongue. It tasted like Gil’s intentions—black as sin and guaranteed to give a girl heart palpitations.

  She had almost thirty seconds to savor it before his phone rang and his computer started beeping.

  * * *

  To his credit, Gil contented himself with lifting one I-told-you-so eyebrow when he collected his stack of messages.

  Carma dug all ten knuckles into her jangling skull. “Would you please make your computer stop that god-awful racket?”

  “If you give me back my coffee mug.”

  “It’s probably cold anyway.” Lord knew, she hadn’t had a chance to drink it. She shoved the mug into the hand he held out.

  “Thank you.” He practically beamed at her, the jerk.

  And then the stupid phone rang again and he took his coffee, his messages, and his fine ass into his office.

  She barely had time to take a breath for the rest of the morning, with drivers popping in and out, piling their paperwork on top of all the rest. At nine, Max stopped in to offer her a stack of packing slips for truck parts and her choice from a box of doughnuts en route to the break room. It was totally worth sprinkles in her keyboard. Gil came out of his office and stalked Max down the hall, talking on his wireless headset as he snagged a doughnut.

  She didn’t see him again until lunchtime.

  Her stomach had started to send out feed me now signals when a soft-bellied, sandy-haired man arrived with a paper bag that oozed the aroma of warm french fries. He greeted her with a wide smile. “Hello, Carmelita. I’m Kevin, from the Corral Café. Welcome to Earnest.”

  She thanked him, not bothering to ask how he knew her by name when she hadn’t set foot in the town proper. Gossip floated on the breeze in these places. Back home on the windy side of the Rockies, her dad liked to joke that smoke signals traveled faster than high-speed Internet.

  “Do you need money?” She hadn’t asked about petty cash.

  “Nah. Gil runs a tab.” Kevin handed her the bag and a photocopy of their menu. “Breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Part of your benefit package. Same goes for the Smoke Shack.”

  “Wow. That’s a nice perk.”

  Kevin rolled his eyes. “It’s the only chance you’ll get to eat most days. Lunch breaks around here tend to be optional.”

  When she stuck her head in Gil’s door, he held up a hand to indicate that she should wait while he listened to the latest person talking into his headset. She used the time to study his space. The dispatch office was like the cockpit of a spacecraft, crammed with monitors and electronics, including what she recognized as an old-school CB radio. On his left, two screens displayed the real-time maps that showed the locations of each truck along with current traffic and weather conditions and forecasts. A third monitor sat directly in front of Gil’s chair. His guitar was propped in a narrow gap between desk and table.

  When did he have time to play? All morning she’d listened to him scheduling loads, routing trucks through or around unforeseen obstacles, and dealing with either driver or customer complaints. And there were a lot of complaints. Carma hadn’t realized it was so difficult to drive to one place, load a pile of stuff, haul it to another place, and unload it. Now she was beginning to think pulling it off without a hitch was a minor miracle.

  “It’s not a problem.” Her ears perked at how friendly he sounded. “We’ll have a tractor down there by rodeo time tomorrow. The boys will love the road trip, and I could stand to get out of here for a couple of days.”

  Tomorrow? He was leaving for the weekend? A sharp jab of disappointment deflated her lust-filled
bubble. So much for the designs she’d been making on him.

  “Emergency road trip?” Carma asked, when he disconnected and swiveled to face her.

  He slouched in his chair, looking relaxed and pleased. “Jacobs Livestock has their stock in Huntsville this weekend, the clutch is going out of one of their trucks, and they’re supposed to leave for another rodeo in Arkansas first thing on Sunday. None of the shops down there can get them rolling before Tuesday—for almost twice what we charge.”

  Carma knew Huntsville. Her dad had worked on a documentary about the now-defunct prison rodeo there. “That’s almost to Houston.”

  “Eight hours from here.” Gil stood, pushing his clasped hands above his head and arching into a full-body stretch that made her want to run a slow hand down the long, hard curve of him, from throat to thighs…and everywhere in between. “If we’re on the road by six, we can slide right through Dallas-Fort Worth and stop for the night, then get into Huntsville in plenty of time for tomorrow afternoon’s performance.”

  She blinked her attention back to their conversation. “We?”

  “Me, the boys, and Tori’s coming straight here after work. She’ll drive the replacement tractor, and I’ll bring the tow truck to haul theirs back.” At Carma’s obvious surprise, he added, “Tori has a commercial driver’s license, and some weird kink about trucks. I don’t even think about what she and Delon do in our sleepers. You wanna come?”

  She blinked again. “To Huntsville, or the nearest sleeper?”

  He flashed one of those deadly grins. “Huntsville…for now. You might as well see some of the countryside.”

  Excitement trilled at the idea of jumping into a truck, rumbling through the night, and waking up on the other side of the state. “How will we all get home? There’s not room in the cab of one truck.”

  “We’ll rent a car for the trip back.”

  “Isn’t that kind of expensive just so I can ride along?”

  “Consider it on-the-job training. You can learn how to operate the onboard computer, so you know how it works from the driver’s end. And I’ll give you a rolling seminar on the trucking industry.” Gil laced his fingers behind his head and pushed his elbows back, biceps popping and his navy-blue T-shirt pulling snug over the fascinating ridges and valleys of his chest. “I don’t suppose you have a CDL tucked in your bag of tricks.”

  “Only a school bus endorsement, not heavy commercial. And I have no license at all until my mother gathers up seven forms of legal documentation to prove to the State of Montana that I am really me and she is acting on my behalf.” Carma scowled at the strip of taut stomach peeking from under the hem of his T-shirt. “Are you trying to show off?”

  He grinned and flexed again. “Is it working?”

  She curled her lip at him. He laughed but dropped his arms, rolling his shoulders. Carma had to bite her tongue to stop from offering to massage out the kinks. “Your lunch is here.”

  “Sweet. I’m starving.” He stood and deliberately brushed against her as he passed, a quick imprint of male flesh and a scent that hinted at shadowy woods and a bed of pine needles. She inhaled, savoring the wash of heat at the thought of being naked with Gil, surrounded by trees, earth, and sky.

  He would be magnificent in the moonlight.

  She lingered on the image while he rummaged in the bag of food, pulling out a Styrofoam carton and offering it to her. “Fish and chips special.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” He skimmed a knuckle under her chin, sending a shiver racing across her skin, but before he could do more, his infernal cell phone rang. He sighed and stepped away. “We’re rolling out of here at six thirty.”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  She stayed put until she regained the equilibrium he so effortlessly disrupted. Huntsville. The nearest truck sleeper. Up the stairs to the apartment. At this point, Gil Sanchez could take her pretty much anywhere he wanted.

  Chapter 15

  The prospect of getting out of town had improved Gil’s mood exponentially. Spending those hours on the road with Carma only sweetened the pot. Mostly alone because Quint had opted to ride with Tori and Beni in the newer and much fancier Freightliner, with life-sized images of Delon in action plastered on both sides. If they were going to send a truck cross-country with Jacobs Livestock, it might as well be a rolling billboard for Sanchez Trucking.

  Their tow truck was actually a truck—a semi tractor with a modified flat deck and low-roofed, cab-level sleeper, painted electric yellow with red and silver flames licking down the sides. Carma swung into the passenger’s seat, carrying a small wool duffel printed in a southwestern pattern of black, teal, and orange.

  “You pack light.”

  “It’s only overnight.” She tugged her denim skirt lower on firm, bronzed thighs. “And I don’t have a purse, or my wallet, or my phone, or even my ChapStick. Basically, I’m screwed if you decide to dump me out alongside the road.”

  Son of a bitch. Bad enough to be robbed of very personal possessions. She also had to rely on others for her safety and sustenance.

  Rather than dwell on the negative, he ran his tongue along his top lip. “Cherry ChapStick. Yum.”

  She gave a little shudder, then huffed out a breath. “It’s gonna be a very long drive if you keep making me imagine you licking me like a Popsicle.”

  “I live to torture,” he said, and put the truck in gear before he gave in to the temptation to drag her into the sleeper, start at her toes, and work his way up.

  Normally Gil would have skirted the edge of town, but today he rolled straight down Main to give Carma a drive-by tour of Earnest—a bank, the Watering Hole bar, the Corral Café, and the Kwicky Mart with the Smoke Shack barbecue joint a block behind. He waved at the defunct drugstore, cleared out to make a place for meetings and such. “That’s where Analise and Bing go for yoga.”

  “Cool. I’ll have to join them.”

  At the intersection with the highway, he stopped to wait for a battered pickup and stock trailer to clatter past, headed north. “Johnny Brookman’s ranch is up that way.”

  She nodded, because of course she’d know that if she’d come to see Bing. Gil turned south, showing her the school and the athletic fields, the feed store, and finally the worn but serviceable rodeo arena used mostly for youth events. And yes, he confessed, there was a G.A.S. somewhere in the scribble of initials on the water tower.

  As they put Earnest behind them, he pointed out the ragged edges of the Canadian River breaks, just visible before the road dipped below a long line of chalky bluffs. A house, barn, and corrals were tucked at the base, the driveway marked by a black iron gate with a J inset in the overhead arch.

  Carma twisted in her seat for a better look. “Is that the Jacobs ranch?”

  “Part of it. That’s Cole and Shawnee’s place.” A second, identical gate loomed ahead. The big, white frame house was set near the road and surrounded by towering trees, with a second, manufactured home across the driveway. Beyond there were a bunkhouse, a shop, a barn, more corrals, and an arena with bucking chutes. “The big house is Miz Iris and Steve’s. The other is Violet and Joe’s.”

  “When are your aunt and uncle inviting me to dinner?”

  “They’re in Brazil until the end of next week.” Gil shook his head. “And we’re not related, other than Violet being Beni’s mother.”

  “But your families have always been close.”

  “I guess. Before they got their own truck, Dad hauled their bucking horses to the rodeos and Delon and I tagged along whenever we could.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Yes.” His mind stumbled over a fuzzy, unexpectedly happy memory. The four of them crammed into the cab of the old white Peterbilt, his mother singing all the annoying kids’ songs with them, parceling out snacks, telling them ancient stories sprinkled with Navajo na
mes and words. For an instant time wobbled, then steadied. “After she left, we stayed with Miz Iris whenever Dad was on the road. And we always spent holidays and stuff there. The food was a lot better than at home.”

  The CB radio crackled to life, and Beni’s voice filled the cab. “Break one-nine. This is the Chaos Kid. You got your ears on, Big Brother?”

  Carma burst out laughing. “Oh my God. Those may be the best nicknames ever.”

  “They’re called handles,” Gil replied loftily. But yes, Beni’s was dead-on, and the drivers at Sanchez Trucking had tagged Gil for his habit of electronically peeking over their shoulders. Delon had designated Tori the Panhandle Princess, much to her amusement.

  They bantered back and forth for the next hundred miles, with Gil and Beni tutoring Carma on proper CB etiquette and lingo. Carma’s eyes sparkled as she clutched the mic. “This is so much more fun than talking on the phone.”

  “It’s a grown-up version of a kids’ clubhouse,” Gil pointed out. “Secret code names, a made-up language—all we need is a Keep Out, Losers sign and it’d be perfect.”

  She grinned, fingering the knobs on the radio. “I’m surprised you still have CBs.”

  “Low tech for the win. Hackers can’t mess with ’em, and they still work during tornadoes and hurricanes when every cell tower in the state is jammed.”

  A female voice crackled over the radio. “Glory Girl here. Sounds like you’re packing a spare, Big B. You bring a friend home from your last trip to the rez?”

  Carma barely stiffened, but it was enough, especially when magnified by the sudden, humming silence on the radio as they all waited for Gil’s reaction. Shit. What could he say over the open airwaves that wouldn’t make it worse?

  “You can call her Miss Karma,” Tori cut in, with a chill that could slice through skin and bone. “And you know what happens if you don’t show her some respect.”

  “Sorry,” Glory Girl muttered.

  Not really. But she would be the next time she rolled into the Sanchez shop. In the meantime, the fun had been sucked out of the moment. Gil frowned. “I wish I could say that wasn’t one of our drivers.”