“I’m going to Texas,” he said while they drank coffee in her kitchen at the little white table. Clara, discreetly, left them alone.
“To see Sheriff Carson.” She nodded.
He laughed wryly. “Nothing gets by you.”
“Not much, anyway.” She sipped coffee.
“Do you see anything?” he asked.
She searched his eyes. The look was long and intent and she blushed and laughed. “No. I mean, I don’t see anything bad.”
He reached across the table and took her hand in his. “You know,” he said, “I could really get addicted to that pink blush. It makes me feel dangerous.”
She laughed. “You’re not dangerous. Well, maybe a little.”
He smoothed his thumb over her soft palm. His expression hardened somewhat. “You already know about the way I was shot.”
“Yes.”
He turned her hand over and looked at it instead of her. “There are scars. Some of them are pretty bad. I never wear cutoffs, even in summer. Or go bare-chested.”
“You think the scars would matter to me?” she asked softly. She smiled. “Silly man.”
His eyes jumped up to hers. “Are you sure? Or are you just guessing?”
She started to speak when Clara came to the door carrying her purse. “I have to run to the store. I’m out of walnuts!”
Tank stared at her.
She grimaced. “Well, it’s winter and we feed birds. We feed lots of birds,” she explained. “There’s this gorgeous woodpecker—”
“Yes, he drills on the wall outside every morning until we put walnut halves on the fence.”
Tank blinked. “Walnuts?”
Clara laughed. “We buy walnuts in bulk. The woodpecker loves them. There are two pairs of them. And of course we have the little birds that stay year-round.” She sighed. “But I’m out of walnuts and he’s outside my bedroom window right now. Can’t you hear that?”
They listened. There was a loud drumming sound, like wood being hit with a nail over and over again.
“It’s him,” Clara explained. “He won’t stop until he gets fed, and I’ve nothing to feed him. So I have to run to the market.”
“Be careful,” Merissa said.
“I’m always careful. I won’t be ten minutes.” She waved and ran out the door.
“Don’t run, there’s ice!” Merissa called after her.
“Okay!” Clara called back. There was the sound of a car door opening and closing, and then an engine that eventually fired up.
Merissa winced as the car made it out of the yard. “I had a mechanic check it out for me,” she said heavily. “It starts only when it wants to.”
“I’ll have my mechanic come over and see about it.”
“Oh, no, please. You’ve done so much for us already...!”
He smoothed over her hand. “I have to take care of my best girl,” he said softly. He tugged on her hand. “Come here,” he said softly.
That deep note in his voice melted her. She got up from her chair and let him pull her gently down onto his lap.
“You need to see what you’re getting into,” he said quietly. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it away from his muscular, hair-covered chest.
She was so fascinated with this view of him that she didn’t notice the scars.
That rapt stare made him laugh. He’d been uneasy about showing her what the bullets had done, but she didn’t seem to find him unpleasant. In fact, her stare was flattering.
He drew her hand to the muscles under the thick, soft hair. “Here.” He drew her fingers over the thick scars where the bullets had gone in. Two had hit him in the lung and collapsed it. Another had passed under his rib cage. Two had hit his legs, in the thighs, and it had taken several surgeries to remove splintered bone and repair muscle.
“I’ve never touched a man like this,” she faltered.
He smiled. “I like that.”
“You do? Really?” she asked softly. “I was afraid... Well, you know, some modern men think it’s really stupid that women don’t pass themselves around like drinks at a bar.”
“I’m not one of them. I’m pretty old-fashioned myself.”
She traced around one of the scars and winced. “This must have been horribly painful, Dalton,” she said.
He liked the way his given name sounded on her lips. She was soft and warm and sweet. He looked at her mouth and ached to catch it under his. The way she was touching him was very arousing.
He bent and took her lips softly under his. “You taste like black coffee,” he whispered, chuckling.
She smiled under his lips. “So do you.”
He drew her head down against his shoulder and looked long and deep into her eyes until she flushed at the intensity. He didn’t smile. Neither did she.
He looked at her mouth, pretty and slightly red from the pressure of his lips. “It’s been a long time since I felt so much hunger for a woman’s touch,” he whispered. “A very long time.”
His mouth pressed down on hers, gently parting her lips, moving under them with a slow, steady pressure that grew harder and hungrier by the second.
He lifted her closer, feeling her soft hand tangling in the thick hair on his chest while the kiss became so passionate that she moaned.
His hand found the hem of her T-shirt and moved under it, up to the frilly little bra that covered her. He unfastened it and found the firm, hard-tipped flesh with his fingers.
She gasped, but she didn’t protest.
“Trust me,” he whispered at her mouth. “But not...too far.”
He pulled up the hem and before she realized what he meant to do, his mouth opened on her breast, taking all of it inside, working the nipple hard with his tongue while he suckled her.
She cried out, a sound that penetrated his spinning brain as if from a distance. She tasted like the sweetest sugar on earth. His free hand went down her back, into the waistband of her jeans and around, over the soft flesh on her hip, around to the front, to her belly.
“Dal...ton?” she whimpered.
“Dear God,” he groaned.
He stood up, carrying her down the hall to her bedroom. He kicked the door shut behind him.
“Mama will be home...soon,” she choked out in a voice that she almost didn’t recognize.
“I’ll hear her,” he lied.
He slid her down on the bed and stripped her to the waist, throwing off his own shirt at the same time.
He smoothed his body down over hers, shifting her legs so that he could sink down between them, while his hair-roughened chest buried her soft breasts under it.
His hand went under her hips, lifting her into the sudden hard thrust of his body. “Beautiful,” he whispered, looking at her breasts as he moved roughly against her hips. “So beautiful!”
He was causing sensations within her that she’d never known. The pleasure was shocking. It lifted her body in an arch as she struggled to get even closer. She hadn’t the will to protest what he was doing to her. She loved the weight of him, the feel of him so intimately close.
“It feels...so sweet,” she gasped as he fed on her breasts.
“Imagine how it would feel inside you,” he whispered at her mouth. “Hard, and deep...”
She cried out. He smothered the sound under his devouring lips while his hips moved insistently on hers. She could feel him growing even more potent by the second.
“Merissa,” he groaned. “It’s been so long...!”
He unzipped her jeans. He was pulling them down when the sound of a car pulling up out front with its roaring engine shocked them into stillness.
“No,” he groaned again, shivering.
She held him tightly, kissing his neck. “It’s all right,” she
whispered. “It’s all right.”
“That’s what...you think.”
He managed to roll off the bed and went into her bathroom.
She got dressed quickly, opened the door and went into the kitchen. She peered into the window, seeing her disheveled reflection. Well, it might look as if they’d been kissing, but her mother wouldn’t suspect anything more. She hoped. She dabbed water on her face and wiped it with a paper towel.
The front door opened.
“I’m back,” Clara called.
“I’m in here,” Merissa called. She smiled at her mother. “Dalton’s in the bathroom,” she whispered.
“Ah.” Clara put the walnuts on the counter. “The car’s making funny noises,” she said sadly. “I don’t know what to do.”
“I do,” Dalton said from the doorway. He didn’t look disheveled at all. His hair was combed and he was smiling. “I’m sending one of my mechanics over tomorrow to have a look at it. But this time, he’ll come with Darby Hanes. So if anybody else shows up and claims to be sent by us, you call the ranch house first. Okay?”
“Okay. Dalton, you really shouldn’t,” Clara began worriedly. “I mean, you’ve done so much already...”
“We take care of family,” he told her. And he looked at Merissa in a way that made her cheeks go red.
Clara started to speak but didn’t.
Dalton just chuckled. “I’m going to be a pest,” he told her. “Sorry. But your daughter is like flowers to a bee. Can’t stay away,” he said, and his voice dropped an octave as he looked at her.
“I don’t mind,” Merissa said, her own voice full of soft meaning.
Dalton winked at her. He checked his watch. “I have to go,” he said. “I need to pack to get ready for the Texas trip.”
“You’re going to Texas?” Clara asked.
“Yes. I’m going to talk to Sheriff Carson and a couple of feds about my run-in with the drug cartel.”
“Not alone?” Clara continued, concerned.
Tank chuckled again. “Rourke’s got a buddy who’s going to cover me like tar paper,” he told her. “I’ll be fine.”
“In that case, I won’t worry.” She smiled. “Have a safe trip.” She lifted her head and groaned. “He’s still at it!”
They heard the tapping on the wood outside Clara’s bedroom window.
“The woodpecker.” Clara laughed. “I’d better go feed him before he breaks into the house.”
She took a package of walnut halves, opened it and walked toward the back of the house.
When they heard the back door slam, Tank pulled Merissa close and kissed her with a new tenderness. He drew back, smoothing his big hand over her blond hair.
“We’re going to be very good together,” he whispered.
She flushed. “Listen, I’m very... I mean I...I can’t...”
He hugged her tight. “I won’t ask you to. That’s a promise. I have something more permanent in mind.”
“Permanent?” she asked at his chest.
He smiled and drew back. “We’ll talk about it when I get back from Texas. Okay?”
She brightened. “Okay.”
He laughed and shook his head. “I wish I could take you with me. Listen, you watch where you go. Be aware of your surroundings. Rourke will be watching, but he can’t be everywhere.” His eyes pinned her. “I want you safe.”
“I will be,” she promised him. “You be careful, too,” she added. She bit her lower lip. “Airplanes are scary.”
“I’ve been riding around in airplanes half my life.” He laughed. “It’s safer than driving. Really.”
“Okay. Have a good trip.”
“I will.”
He kissed her again, hungrily, let her go and went out without looking back.
Merissa was still staring after him when her mother came back into the kitchen.
She put a comforting arm around her daughter. “He’s the one.”
“Yes,” Merissa said, hugging her back. “He’s the one.”
* * *
TANK WAS DISCONCERTED by his powerful reaction to Merissa, and, especially, hers to him. She really was hungry for him; that was evident. He should probably take a step back before rushing in headfirst, but caution was the last thing on his mind.
Then he remembered Vanessa. She’d come to work for the brothers, babied them, petted them. Tank had gone overboard for her. And then they found out that she was a thief, a woman with no particularly fine feelings at all. He’d trusted her and he’d been, like his brothers, betrayed by her.
But Merissa was different. People locally knew her. She might have a strange reputation, people might even think she had supernatural leanings, but she was respected. She wasn’t the sort of person who’d betray him. Of course she wasn’t.
He had to stop thinking that way. He’d learned the hard way that women couldn’t be trusted. Before Vanessa, there had been another heartbreak. He was a sucker for a sweet smile; that was the problem. But this time was different. Very different.
“You look pensive,” Mallory said when he came in the door.
Tank made a face. “I’m getting in over my head,” he said.
Mallory smiled. “Happens to all of us. And then you get a baby and you go all crazy and buy closets full of baby clothes and furniture and big plastic toys...!”
“Oh, stop it, I’m not even married yet.” Tank chuckled.
“She thinks you’re hot,” Cane remarked as he entered the room. “Mavie says Merissa looks at you like she could eat you with a spoon.”
Tank actually flushed. “She did? She does?”
They laughed.
“It’s nice to see you with somebody we approve of,” Mallory commented.
“People call her a witch,” Tank reminded him.
“She’s uniquely talented,” he replied. “There are some unusual people in the world. We got lucky and found one in our neighbor. Well, two of them, Merissa and her mother,” Mallory added. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “we might have lost Darby if Merissa hadn’t had that premonition.”
Tank nodded. “That was pretty shocking. Until then, I never really believed in any of that psychic stuff.”
“Neither did I, honestly,” Mallory said. “But she knew about your attacker, too. You might be dead as well if she hadn’t interfered.” He shook his head. “She’s quite a woman.”
“Not bad-looking, either,” Cane added, laughing. He held up both hands when Tank glared at him. “Hey, I’m happily married and about to become a father.”
Tank laughed. “Sorry.”
There had been a bit of a rivalry between Cane and Tank over Bolinda, Cane’s wife, before they were married. It had been a rocky relationship, and at one time Tank had even flirted with her. But once he knew how Cane felt, he backed off.
“I like her,” Cane added, smiling gently.
“When you get back, Morie wants to have her over for dinner one night, after Christmas,” Mallory said. “It would be nice for the wives to meet her.”
“I agree,” Tank said. He sighed. “Well, I’d better get packed. I hate leaving. And Merissa was nervous about my flying. I usually enjoy it, but now it makes me concerned.”
“Driving takes longer,” Cane pointed out.
“So it does.”
“He just doesn’t like being out of control,” Cane told Mallory. “He’d fly the plane if they’d let him.”
“I can drive a tank,” Tank protested. “If I can do that, I’d be able to pilot a plane. I’d just need a few lessons.” He grinned.
They shook their heads and walked off.
* * *
HE WONDERED WHO Rourke had watching him at the airport. He waited on the concourse gate to board. The man would probably be
on the plane with him. But most of the passengers seemed to be families. There were a couple of businessmen in fancy suits. One of them was carrying a laptop in a case.
He drew Tank’s eyes. That man was tall, streamlined but muscular. He walked with a peculiar gait. Funny, to notice the way a man moved, but Tank had worked with a special forces group in Iraq that was assigned to a mission near his unit’s command post. He’d seen that walk before. It was common among men who hunted men. It was hard to put into words, but he recognized it when he saw it.
The man carried himself perfectly erect, no slumping there. He had jet-black hair that he wore in a ponytail down his back. It was as black as a raven’s wing. He wasn’t bad-looking. Women seemed to find him interesting. He smiled at one, a sophisticated woman by the look of her, and she seemed absolutely mesmerized by him.
He noticed Tank’s covert scrutiny and glanced at him from black eyes under heavy dark eyebrows. He had a lean face, deep-set eyes and a chiseled mouth. He looked dangerous. Odd, for a businessman.
Tank lifted his eyebrows, refusing to be intimidated. The man pursed his lips and actually grinned before he turned his attention back to the woman who was approaching him with a big smile.
Even in his best bachelor days, Tank had never been able to attract women like that. Well, some men just had the gift.
He thought about Merissa and smiled to himself. He wasn’t going to be interested in attracting women again, he decided. He had his own. His own. That made him feel warm inside, safe, protected. It had happened so suddenly that he hadn’t had time to think about the impact it was going to make on his life.
Merissa was innocent, a person of faith with high ideals. She wasn’t a woman for casual relationships. But he liked that. He wasn’t a rounder. He was feeling his age, although he was only thirty-two. He was growing used to the idea of having Merissa around. Maybe a child. A little boy who’d look like him, or a little girl who’d look like her. He recalled the very hot and heavy intimacy they’d shared on her bed, and how he’d almost died from the agony of having to walk away from her. Yes, they were going to be explosive together in bed. And he liked her. That was an important part of marriage.
Marriage! There. He’d actually said the word in his mind, the word he’d avoided for years. But it didn’t seem to hold the quiet terror it once had. Settling down seemed as natural as kissing Merissa’s soft mouth. He actually looked forward to it.
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