“We weren’t…”
Mack shook both of them lightly, enough to let them know that their excuses wouldn’t fly. “Time to get home,” he ordered, but he didn’t trust them to get home on their own. “In the truck!” he ordered.
The boys dropped their heads as they trudged through the rocks towards the Bronco with the sheriff’s logo on the side. They climbed into the back seat and Mack slammed the door shut. He knew neither of them would dare try and slip out.
“How in the world did you see us?” Tyler asked.
Mack smothered a chuckle. These boys were almost in plain sight and yet, they thought they’d been hidden. “The movement of your shoulder reflected in the moonlight hitting the pine trees overhead,” he lied.
In the rearview mirror, he saw the boys turn to each other, awe in their identical faces. “Awesome!” they whispered.
Mack had no doubt that he’d find both of them laying on their backs tomorrow, trying to see their reflections in the pine needles. And he was fine with that. No guilt whatsoever in lying to these boys, especially if it kept them out of trouble and safe for a few hours.
Five minutes later, he parked in the dirt driveway of their tiny home. Their mother, Penny Miller, was a good woman. She worked two jobs to make ends meet after her husband bailed on her and the twins. The whole town kept a friendly eye out for her boys. But every once in a while, it was up to him or his deputies to pull them out of trouble.
“Out!” he ordered, putting the Bronco in park while the boys slid across the backseat. “And apologize to your mother for being out late.”
As the boys scuttled off, Mack could hear them telling her about how they were going to find their reflections in pine needles tomorrow.
He’d barely gotten the Bronco in reverse before Penny burst out of the house. Sure enough, she was carrying a ceramic bowl of something.
“Evenin’ Penny. Boys are okay.”
Penny looked exhausted, but that was normal. She cleaned hotel rooms during the weekends and houses during the week. At night, she sometimes waited tables at one of the hotels closer to Denver. She probably worked about seventy hours a week and her exhaustion showed.
“Sheriff, thanks so much for bringing the boys home. I know they’re a bit of trouble lately and look like ragamuffins. I’m getting them new clothes as soon as my next paycheck comes in.”
“Don’t worry about it Penny. And don’t bother with new clothes in my opinion. Only a few more weeks until school is out and we both know, those boys will just tear up their clothes climbing up to Smokey’s Bend every day.”
Penny laughed and, for a moment, he could see the beauty she must have been twenty years ago. “You’re probably right, Sheriff.” She extended her hands. “Here. I made chicken and dumpling soup.”
Mack accepted the steaming offering. “Thanks Penny, but you know you don’t have to do this every time I bring the boys home.”
She shrugged and wiped her hands on the faded, flowered apron. “I know. I just…” she looked over at her tiny house and sighed. “They’re just such a handful, you know? I love them, but sometimes, I think they need bells around their necks!”
He laughed, not agreeing or disagreeing. “Well, good night.”
He set the covered bowl on the seat beside him, then reversed out of the driveway. Ten minutes later, he pulled up to his own home that resembled a basic log cabin from the outside, but he’d designed it with all of the bells and whistles on the inside. He’d given Reid and Brant, his older brothers, all of his savings when they’d started up their company. In return, they’d made him a stockholder and the company paid him huge dividends each year.
Gathering his gear from the back, he was just about to walk into the house when he remembered the soup. With a sigh, he retrieved the ceramic bowl, balancing it in one hand while he hefted his rifle and cold weather emergency gear in his other.
He shoved the door open with his foot. Locks weren’t really necessary in these parts. Besides, if someone needed a place to warm up, he’d rather they just turn the knob rather than break a window to get in.
He dumped the gear by the front door, propped the rifle up by his bed, then carried the soup into the kitchen. Without guilt, he dumped the soup down the drain. Penny might be a hard worker, but she was a horrible cook. Everyone in town knew. Too bad Penny didn’t.
Popping the top on a beer from his fridge, he sat down in the leather chair and took a long pull on the beer. His thoughts drifted back to the soft, delicate skin of one gorgeous but temporary bar tender. Damn, she was a distraction.
Chapter 2
He made it a week.
Just one damn week!
Mack stood outside in the dark, worried about the woman!
Looking around, he wondered why there were so many trucks out here in the parking lot. More than had been here in a long time. The place was packed! On a Thursday night? What the hell was going on in The Bull Frog? Thursdays weren’t normally a hopping time of the week. They weren’t horrible for business, but he usually saw a mostly full parking lot on Friday and Saturday nights, when people from the city came up to their cabins or filled up the local hotels for a weekend of camping, hiking or fishing.
But there were even cars lining the side of the road.
What the hell?!
The door of The Bull Frog burst open, a blast of noise accompanying the emerging couple. He watched them for a moment, making sure they hadn’t had too much to drink before driving these narrow roads. But the couple didn’t head to their car. They…went into the woods? Huh?
Shaking his head, he turned back to the bar. They weren’t drunk and whatever they were planning in the woods was none of his business. They were strangers, not residents. If they wanted to get it on against the uncomfortable bark of a tree or the hard surface of a boulder, more power to em, he thought.
He needed to check on his latest temporary resident. After calling Cynthia this afternoon, he knew that her mother wasn’t doing well. Mona had been in the hospital for several days with acute pneumonia. That meant that Eve would be here for a bit longer than he’d anticipated.
Stepping into the warmth of the bar, he surveyed the crowd. A karaoke machine? Where the hell had that come from?
Whatever, he thought with a shake of his head. Again, none of his business. Cynthia would have to deal with the repercussions of whatever her friend did to her bar. Although, Mack was a bit shocked to see Joe Snider, the mighty Joe who caught the biggest trout recorded last year and had a reputation for being a surly curmudgeon, was belting out a Billy Joel song with a blond woman Mack had never seen before.
The enormous jars on the bar were also new. One of them was filled with purple liquid and, on the back of the glass, written in chalk on a black background, was the words “Ladies” and underneath it, “Lilac Beauty”. The other jar was emblazoned, “Hunters and Fishers” and then underneath “A Slug of?”
Interesting marketing concept, Mack thought.
He chuckled at the name of the cocktails as he looked around. Just about every guy in the bar had a shot glass in front of him, some had several. While the ladies were holding a delicate martini glass. Most of those glasses were empty too, but some still had dregs of the pretty, lilac liquid.
Damn, Eve what’s-her-name had done a good job of marketing whatever concoction was in those jars. But how the hell had she gotten so many out of towners up here? He supposed it was possible that they’d come up just for the night but…well, Minneville wasn’t really a hot spot for the city folk.
He saw another couple walk up to the bar, but Eve shook her head, obviously letting the two people know that they were cut off. They smiled to one another and laughed, then walked over to the karaoke machine and put their quarters in, selected their number and walked back to their table to wait their turn.
Other men had mugs of draft beer and some had bottles. But all of them seemed to have at least tested the new cocktails, if the number of shot glasses and mini m
artini glasses littering the tables was any indication.
Eve was talking animatedly to a group of rough, bearded men and must have felt his gaze somehow because she paused and looked around.
Eve felt the weight of his gaze against her skin like sunshine. Heat. Lust. Desire unlike anything she’d ever experienced before rolled over her like a wave. She tried to look away, but couldn’t. He was holding her captive. The noise and laughter from the bar faded away.
All she saw, all she was conscious of, was Mack’s green-eyed gaze as he stared at her across the room.
Annie, the only other waitress working tonight, rushed behind the bar, accidentally bumping Eve as she reached for another round for the customers at one of her tables. “Sorry,” she whispered to Eve.
“No problem,” Eve replied and straightened up. Looking around, she hoped no one noticed that she’d been entranced by the handsome sheriff. After chatting with some of the other locals, she’d learned that Mack Jones was a private man, but also that, on his days off, he regularly visited some of the other towns, coming back visibly more relaxed.
She knew exactly what they were implying, understood how the handsome sheriff relaxed when he left town, and Eve didn’t like that. Not one bit! Jealousy tore at her and she wanted to lash out at all of the Denver ladies who might have shared his bed and company.
Instead, she slipped into the kitchen to check the oven. The big pizza oven had long been ignored. Over the past week, Eve had turned it into a massive appetizer maker, pulling out yet another tray of what she called Fish Blobs and Firecrackers. Really, the fish blobs were just potatoes that had been cooked, skins on, mashed up, extra sharp cheddar cheese and lots of garlic added in, then scooped onto a tray and baked. The result was a crispy-on-the-outside-soft-on-the-inside delicious mouthful of mashed potato. Five for five bucks, ten for nine dollars. They were selling so fast, she couldn’t keep up with demand. The firecrackers were simple wonton wrappers filled with cream cheese, salsa, and sliced jalapenos, served with chipotle mayonnaise. She’d asked Annie to come in three hours early this week so they could prepare the appetizers ahead of time, so that they only had to bake up as many trays as they had supplies for once the customers arrived in the evening. The first few days of her crazy appetizer trials, they’d sold out after two hours, even after doubling and then tripling the number of appetizers prepared. Tonight looked like another sell out, since Eve hadn’t bought nearly enough supplies.
The miserable failure of her initial cocktails had taught Eve a valuable lesson. Name the appetizers and cocktails something disgusting and she mentally challenged all of these rough guys to at least try each one. And since there were so many rough and ready men sitting in the bar, she’d bought advertising space online, letting the ladies in neighboring towns, even as far as Denver, know that there were men available. Now the place was literally packed.
Business was booming! Every weekend, she came up with a new cocktail, named the drink something crazy and added two new appetizers with equally gross names. By nine or ten o’clock every night, she was sold out of everything and they were back to pouring beer and wine. The cash was rolling in and she’d deposited all of it into Cynthia’s bank account so she had cash to help her mother.
Tomorrow night’s cocktail menu included “man candy”. Just thinking about it caused her to search out the tall, manly sheriff. He was easy enough to find, since he was a head taller than the rest of the customers packed into The Bull Frog.
“He’s single, you know.”
Eve turned and looked at Annie. “Who?”
Annie laughed, downing a glass of ice water to cool off. The kitchen was hot with the pizza ovens cooking up the next batch of appetizers and the rest of the place was overly warm because of the crowd. She’d even opened the windows to let in the cool springtime air.
“Sheriff Mack,” she replied, nudging Eve with her shoulder. “Don’t even try to hide your interest, lady. I can see the drool on your chin. And don’t try to pretend that you were looking at any other guy in this place,” she scoffed. “Puleeze!”
“I’m not…!” But Eve shut her mouth when Annie only shot her a disbelieving look. Shrugging her shoulders, she sniffed dismissively. “Okay, so maybe I was. But he isn’t interested in me.”
Annie grunted. “Honey, that man is hot for you.” She poured three more beers, adding them to her tray. “He might not like it, but he is. So don’t despair. Just keep looking hot and adorable and he’ll figure it out.”
“I don’t…” she didn’t finish since Annie wasn’t listening anyway. She was carrying the beers off to her table and Eve sighed. She wasn’t adorable. Her hands slid down her hips, encased in leggings but with a long top covering up her abundant butt. She wasn’t adorable, she was round and cute. A significant difference, she thought.
Looking at the crowd once more, she didn’t spot the sheriff again and tried to ignore the sharp stab of disappointment. He was just another guy, she told herself. Nothing special about him. Well, other than his shoulders. She really liked broad shoulders on a man. And eyes. Yeah, Sheriff Mack had bedroom eyes. Eyes that promised something that, unlike a lot of men, he could probably deliver.
She spotted the man in question leaning down to talk with the customers at one of the tables in the corner, laughing at whatever someone said. He had a great butt. No denying it. Sheriff Mack had an incredible butt! It was…extraordinary. Was it as tight as it looked? Those long legs encased on the soft jeans…yeah, even his thigh muscles looked strong and tight. Rugged. That was the best word to describe Sheriff Mack.
Just then, he glanced over at her, catching her gaze. Once again, she was captured. The look…was steam coming off her? Probably. His look was just that hot and she was melting.
Then he was gone.
“Whew!” Annie whispered. “You two are going to burn up the sheets when both of you finally get down to business.”
Eve blushed, but turned away. “We’re not going to do anything,” she insisted firmly.
Annie laughed. “At least you admit there’s an attraction.” She walked off before Eve could deny it.
Chapter 3
“What are you doing, Eve?”
Eve jumped and stumbled slightly. Looking over her shoulder, she glared at the handsome man in the Bronco. “Why do you keep doing that?” she demanded, angry now. Unfortunately, her fury probably didn’t seem too threatening since she could barely breathe.
“Doing what?” he asked.
She wondered if he was mocking her, but the dim interior of the vehicle kept her from seeing his expression clearly.
“You keep sneaking up behind me! Could you please wear a bell or something?” she asked, wiping the sweat from her forehead, still taking in huge gulping breaths of air. Unfortunately, her efforts weren’t helping all that much.
His soft chuckle sent a shiver of awareness through her body. Dratted man!
“I don’t sneak.”
She turned and headed back up the street, wanting to ignore him, but he was too big to ignore. And too persistent. And too handsome. And…damn it!
“Then how do you explain me not realizing that you’re here?”
She didn’t want to think his laughter was sexy. After Annie’s comments last night, Eve was even more painfully aware of him. He was too distracting and she needed her space. She wouldn’t be in town long, just until Cynthia’s mother got back on her feet. A week longer, maybe two. Having just gotten out of a painful relationship that had left her humiliated and wounded, she wasn’t willing to step into another one just yet. Especially not with a man like Mack Jones!
The man in question shrugged and, because he wasn’t wearing his jacket now, the shrug was impressive. She itched to peel that brown uniform away and explore what was underneath.
Rubbing her forehead, she pulled her eyes away from those enticing shoulders. He was probably fat underneath anyway. It was the handcuffs, she told herself. He was most likely fat and blubbery and it was the
handcuffs that made her perceive he was all hot and sexy and muscular. She was simply imagining that the guy had muscles, when in reality, he was most likely soft and pathetic.
Right! And she was the Queen Mother!
“You’re just trying to annoy me, aren’t you?” she asked and turned around, ready to get back into her run. She eyed the hill with a sigh, and started moving again. Just one more mile, she told herself and then she would be back at Cynthia’s place. She’d eat ten of the sweet potato fritters she’d started making this morning. After this run, she deserved them and she wouldn’t feel any guilt over eating…okay, more like twenty of them!
“I’m just doing my job.”
“And that includes annoying me?” she snapped, then decided that talking would have to wait. It was hard enough jogging uphill. Add in a conversation and she was toast. Of course, if she was toast, she wouldn’t get any of those sweet potato fritters she’d planned to make for tonight’s appetizers. After the run she’d just put herself through, she needed those fritters! She deserved those fritters!
Okay, so she would have eaten the fritters even if she hadn’t gone out for a run this morning. But still…her righteous exercise would allow her to eat several of the cheesy fritters guilt free.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, driving right beside her.
She expended the energy to turn her head and glare at him, then focused back on running. It really was an impressively steep hill.
“Go away,” she gasped, increasing her speed. At least, if she was running, she could say that her pathetic gasping was due to exertion and not because he looked spectacularly good this morning. Even though he did.
Then again, the man wore the same thing every single day. She doubted he even took a day off. If he did, he didn’t come into town, so she hadn’t seen him out of uniform.
Taming Mack (Sinful Nights Book 3) Page 2