His second gal, though, she was something different; she was something special. Sure, they'd only been dating for a couple of months. But for one reason or another, she was all he ever thought about, and she'd become the reason why he didn't mind waking up at 4 am., because he could have coffee with her at her job after his morning run.
Chapter 3: Sam and Angela, Mount Lemon, AZ
There had been a time in Angela's life when she would never have imagine having to do manual labor. Sure, she'd waitressed a bit in college for beer money, but the whole reason she went to college was so she wouldn't have to hustle her ass off for pennies on the dollar. But ever since she'd been in protective custody, the only jobs she'd had were so-called "working-class" jobs. The Feds basically thought she would be too easy of a target if she went back into an accounting-based profession. They closest she'd come to practicing her chosen profession was working as a night auditor for a middle-of-the-road hotel when she was first moved to Omaha. With that particular job, you couldn't exactly call it accounting; it was more like data entry combined with customer service. But even then, the Feds found that there were still way too many similarities between the two, and arranged for her to work as a cashier at a truck stop. Now that was a miserable job.
The fact was, she actually found waiting tables at the modest Mountain Top Cafe to be somewhat satisfying. Despite its small size—the restaurant only had twenty tables—it was always busy and she was constantly moving. Her shifts would start, and in the blink of an eye they were over and she was prepping for the dinner shift and waiting for Sam to come and pick her up and take her out to lunch, or back to his place for a quickie.
That was the other bonus of the Cafe—she'd met Sam here, and he'd become a staple in her life over the last six months. It had been so long since she'd been in any kind of relationship that she'd almost forgotten how good it felt to be with someone.
Not only that, but she’d forgotten how it felt to be loved and adored by one person, and not be his dirty little secret. Despite her long ongoing relationship with Jonathan, it was still nothing more than an affair. Even though she was his near-constant companion, she was still nothing more than the "other woman". She was only a plaything, a disposable woman who was used for nothing more than her sex. After a point, there was no romance or love to their arrangement. In fact, for the entire span of Angela's romantic history, she had more or less always been the other woman, the home wrecker, the damaged goods. But with Sam, she was the only one, and he was the only one for her.
Of course, Sam didn’t know her as Angela Miller. To Sam, she was Diana Smalls from Springfield, Illinois. As Diana, she gave the impression of being a small-town girl, even though Springfield was actually the second largest city in Illinois. Her mother's family was all originally from Springfield, so she was able to recite details about the city and its history so that she made a believable native (she'd been from Springfield in every single one of her placements, and it was almost becoming a running joke for her). Like her last three federally mandated personalities, Diana was a working class girl with a semester of college under her belt and a couple of bad marriages. She had moved to Mount Lemon, like 90% of its new residents, for a fresh start.
But most long-time residents of the small Arizona town didn't consider hooking up with Sam Collins to be much of a fresh start. They considered it to be an invitation to a possible lifetime of misery and widowhood. Working for the Border Patrol wasn't exactly what you would call a dangerous job, but the people Sam was rumored to be involved with were dangerous.
She'd heard all the rumors about Sam being involved with the Sonoran drug cartels, coyotes, and a handful of corrupt politicians who profited from them just as much from illegal activities across the border as Sam did. But the thing was, it was all nothing but rumor, and considering the Spartan way that he lived, she had a difficult time believing he was taking money from anyone. Besides, the one thing most of the residents of Mount Lemon didn't know about was that Sam and his family were one of the wealthiest families in the state, so if he was on the take, he was doing it because it was how he got his rocks off, and she'd been with him long enough to know that money wasn't what got him off.
Just before dawn, like clockwork, Sam walked through the front door of the cafe and plopped his long cowboy body down at table #7. Whenever he was in town—which was most weeks, unless the Feds were putting on a big show at the border for the press—he would come in every morning when the Cafe first opened at 5 a.m. right after his run. Then, he'd usually stop by again at the end of her shift to see if she wanted a ride home (she only lived a few blocks from the restaurant in a faux-adobe track house, so most mornings she walked to work), which she would gratefully accept after nine hours on her feet.
She finished refilling the ketchup, mustard, sugar dispensers, and salt and pepper shakers while giving him small secret glances. She used to think that he didn't notice her stares when she was wrapping up her day, but it only took her a few weeks of dating him to figure out that there wasn't much that Sam missed. The man was a natural hunter, and he was aware of everything that was going on around him. One night at dinner, when they first started going out, he’d amazed her by telling her exactly how many people were in the restaurant, what they were eating, and how many of them were carrying guns. It was both amazing and frightening how observant he was; amazing because it was almost like he had a super power, but it frightened her because she often wondered how much he knew about her real life. Did he somehow know that she was actually Angela Miller, and he was pretending just as much as she was? The question sometimes kept her up at night, so she tried her best to avoid it entirely.
Once she was finished with her after-shift work, she sat down across from him with a Diet Coke for her and a coffee for him, and they stared into each other's eyes, grateful for the other’s presence and the simple pleasure of their daily routines.
"So, how was your shift today?" he asked as he took a small sip from his steaming cup.
"It was good. I ended up making a little over $120."
"That's real good. Do you need a ride home?"
"What do you think?" she asked with a touch of laughter to her voice. "By the way, do you have anything going on this afternoon?"
"Not a damn thing. What did you have in mind?"
"Oh, I was thinking that once we get back to my place, you could fuck my brains out?" She took a long, flirtatious drink from the straw of her drink and watched as her lover practically melted from the force of her words.
***
The minute the two of them stepped into Sam's truck, Angela couldn't take her hands off of him. As he made the short trip to her little house, she nibbled at his neck and earlobe and massaged the bulge of his cock through his jeans. If she were just a tad bit younger and wilder, she would have had him pull down some back alley and fuck her silly in the bucket seat of the truck like some teenager. She knew it was impulsive, but that's exactly how he made her feel. Even though Sam was the gentlest man she'd ever known, there was something dangerous and animal about him. She brought that animal out in him, and made her want to do things that she never would have with her lovers in the past.
Luckily, she was able to keep it in her pants long enough to make it to the house, because her body was now wound up with the anticipation of having him inside of her and it was driving her absolutely crazy. They tumbled inside of the house, their mouths locked together, their tongues intertwined. Once the door was closed behind them, she began tearing off his clothes with reckless abandon. Buttons popped and he stumbled over his jeans as they coiled down his thighs.
God, but his body was amazing! Sam was forty-seven years old, and his body had seen its fair share of wear and tear, but it was like he was carved out of granite. Each muscle was clearly defined and resembled some kind of well-oiled machine. Whenever she felt his arms around her, she felt safer than she ever had in her life. She knew that no matter what dangers he faced, he could handle it. She'd never been
with a man like him before, and she doubted she would ever be able to find another one like him. For a brief moment, that made her a little sad because she knew this would all eventually come to an end once the Feds pulled her from Mount Lemon and relocated her to Florida or Washington or Idaho. She pushed the morose thought out of her mind and instead focused on the here and now
Once he was stripped down to nothing but his shapeless boxer shorts, she pushed him down on the couch and stripped down to her lacy black bra and underwear. Then she went down on her knees between his legs and yanked away his boxers. The sight of his erection never failed to take her breath away. It was particularly large, but like the rest of him, it was almost machine-like and elegant. She took him into her mouth and felt his entire body tense with pleasure, while she had already begun to taste the salty tang of his semen on her tongue.
Sam was in many ways like a sixteen-year-old boy, but what he most had in common with teenagers was that his first ejaculation was always quick and forceful, and she rarely needed but a minute or two to bring him to climax. Afterward, he could go for hours at a time without coming again, which was yet another reason why she had fallen for him so hard. She took his entire length down her throat and felt him erupt, and she greedily swallowed every drop.
Still panting, he pulled her into his arms, his mouth sucking at her neck; her collarbone; her small, pert breasts; her stomach. He then ripped her out of her panties and dove his face in between her legs, his thick tongue lapping at her engorged clit. She felt her body swelling with each deft movement of his tongue and mouth and, within minutes, he brought her to climax. At the peak of her orgasm, he put her legs on his shoulders and pushed his still-throbbing erection inside of her up to the hilt. The swift movement took her breath away for a moment, the pleasure of her orgasm doubling as he swiftly pushed in and out of her with all of his weight resting on top of her. Her body hummed with pleasure as she came again and again over the next forty-five minutes, until he finally exploded inside her and their bodies finally came to rest.
***
Something wasn't right.
Sam didn't quite know what it was, but from the minute they’d stumbled into Diana's tiny rental house, he felt as if something was off. It wasn't the sex—no, that was far from off. In fact, it was downright perfect. It was amazing how Diana made him feel.
It was something about the house. It felt like someone was watching them, but he knew that the blinds were drawn and the doors were locked tight. He supposed it could just be that his paranoia was working overtime. He had ditched out on a staff meeting, and he was feeling guilty about it. But this feeling seemed like something far more sinister. He knew it was probably nothing, but he knew he wasn't going to be able to shake the feeling until he checked out the house. After that, he would climb back into bed and sleep until hunger and restlessness got them up and moving.
He climbed out of bed—they'd managed to stumble into the bedroom after he'd finished up so they could be more comfortable—pulled on his boxer shorts, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he shuffled out of the bedroom and into the hallway and came face-to-face with the cause of his paranoid feelings. His eyes went wide and took in a young, well-dressed Mexican man. He had a shaved head, three tear drop tattoos under his left eye, and wore an expensive-looking suit. He looked just as surprised to see Sam as Sam was to see him. They stared at one another as if they were mirror images, and then the young man suddenly snapped to his senses and tried to draw something from inside his suit coat.
Sam must have really been out of it, because he had failed to notice the bulge just underneath the young man's jacket until that moment. But he had enough of his wits to realize that if he didn't move, he was a dead man. As the young man was pulling his firearm from its shoulder holster, Sam lashed out, punching the kid square in the throat and momentarily cutting off his oxygen supply.
As the young man clutched at his throat, Sam threw his full body weight against him, slamming him into the wall. The blow had the opposite of the effect that Sam wanted, and it seemed to refocus the kid. The young man threw a lightning fast elbow, crushing Sam's nose and making him see stars, which gave him enough time to pull his piece: a silencer-fitted .45 Browning semi-automatic. He drew it on Sam, but just before he fired Sam managed to grab the young killer's wrist and twist his arm around, and the bullet that was originally intended for Sam blasted through the killer's eye.
Sam let the killer's body flop to the hallway floor and took a second to catch his breath. He had no idea who he had pissed off to warrant a hit man being sent after him. All he knew was that whoever sent the first one was more than likely to send a second one, and then a third one. And whoever could afford this kind of hired muscle most likely wouldn't stop until Sam and everyone he loved in Mount Lemon was dead. They weren't safe, and they needed to get to someplace safe and fast.
Sam rushed into the bedroom and shook Diana awake as he began to get dressed. She sleepily stared up at him, the ghost of a smile crossing her lips, but then suddenly her eyes went wide with horror.
"Sam—!"
"Diana, you've gotta get up and get dressed."
“Sam!" She yelled. "Are you bleeding?”
He wiped at his face and his hand came away bloody. No, it wasn't his blood, it was blowback from what was left of the killer's head.
"I'm fine, Diana. I'm fine, but you need to get dressed now."
They both quickly pulled on their clothing in silence and Sam led Diana from the bedroom, attempting to shield her from seeing the body slumped on the floor, but there really was no way she could avoid seeing it. She was surprisingly calm, and only let out the tiniest gasp as they stepped over the lifeless mass.
He ushered her out to his truck, keeping a sharp eye out just in case there was someone watching them. As he turned over the truck’s engine and pulled away from Diana's small house his mind was racing, trying to think of somewhere he could take them where he knew they would be safe and he could figure out his next move. Unsurprisingly, the one place he thought of as truly safe was home, back on the ranch.
Chapter 5: Henry, Apache Junction, Arizona
The dream always starts out the same.
Me and my spotter Chuck are moving across a high desert ridge across a rough, crumbling trail. Our destination is a small brush-covered plateau. We both know that we shouldn’t be moving during the day, but orders are orders. We’ve been told our target is on the move and we need to be in place. Mind you, we haven’t been told what or who our target is. That key piece of information is on a need-to-know basis, and at the moment neither me or Chuck need to know jack and shit. We just need to be in place and ready for our next set of orders.
The sun is beating down on us hard. It’s easily 115º out and we’re both turning into puddles. I’m used to the heat—I grew up under this kind of sun, in this kind of territory. But Chuck, Chuck’s from Portland, Oregon, born and breed, and even though we’ve been in-country for a month, his body has never gotten used to it. In the dream, he’s bitching up a storm. He’s going off about the heat, about Command, about the assignment, about how much he hates bananas. Some of it is garbled altogether or his voice sounds like the adults in the old Peanuts cartoons, an off-kilter horn noise. But he’s making me smile, he’s making me laugh. Chuck’s my best friend; we’ve been hanging since basic. The only people I’m closer to are my brothers, except he’s a hell of a lot funnier than Scott and Paul.
The more we walk, the farther and farther away the plateau seems, but neither of us notices because we’re laughing like hyenas at something, and that’s when the wind kicks up. That’s when the sound of rotor blades fill my ears. I’m looking around, trying to find where the noise is coming from. I keep thinking, maybe they’ve decided to call the mission off. Maybe they decided to send a bird to take us back home. Chuck doesn’t seem to notice the sound; his mouth’s still moving a mile a minute. Finally, I spot the bird. It ain’t one of the big Black Hawks we’ve got in-country. The thing
coming towards us is old, like the helicopter that TC on Magnum PI flew. Except this one has got a couple of M-134 machine guns mounted on it, and they’re spitting fire.
I’m stunned at first. I never saw the Taliban in a chopper before, and seeing it’s almost comical. In fact, I start laughing a bit, at least until the bullets start tearing Chuck to bits. His body is dancing and jerking around like he’s a marionette, his arms and hands flopping around as blood blooms and blisters his body, and then all of a sudden, he just drops, a heap of bones, and then the guns train on me and begin to fire. They rain down in slow motion and just as the first one tears into my chest—
I’m awake, my hand covering the puckered scar in the middle of my chest, and I feel my heart hammering against my hand. The sheets are tangled around me, soaking wet and clinging to me. I glance over at the digital alarm clock on my nightstand and see that it is once again 2:39 in the morning, the same time this same exact dream has rocked me out of bed since I’ve been home. The one upside of spending nearly two years in rehab relearning how to walk—hell, relearning how to do everything—is that at least in rehab, they pumped me full of enough drugs that I would sleep through the entire night without dreams. I sure as shit miss that dope, because at least then I got more than four hours of sleep a night.
Desired By The Cowboy (Love In Collin's Ranch 2) Page 2