I loved the feel of the power in my body. I liked knowing it was strong and capable. I liked knowing I could push myself to my limits and past and create new limits.
When it turned dusk, I headed back toward the parking lot. Dusk lasted a long time in the summer, and I figured I still had a good hour of decent light. All the same, tree shadows cast a gloom over the parking lot by the time I got there. I stopped to scan it before leaving the trail. A handful of cars and trucks were parked there, plus a van with a boat trailer. A couple of guys with kayaks loaded them into racks on top of their SUV. Nothing looked out of place.
I walked across to my car. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Damon Jizzwizard popped out from nowhere.
Turns out I was right.
Just like in the garage, he came out of the shadows on the other side of my car. He stopped between me and it, arms folded, legs spread like one of those gunslingers about to grab for his gun. He had muscles on top of muscles and looked smoking hot, not to mention seriously irritated.
I stopped ten feet away. “Did you forget how to use a phone and make an appointment?”
He let his arms fall to his sides, hooking his thumbs into his pockets. He eyed me with scathing disgust. “Do you think you’re invincible or something? Anybody could attack you. You’d be taken down before you knew you’d been hit. You may be good, but you’re not that good.”
His tone irritated the fuck out of me. Who was he to judge me? “Far as I can tell, you’re the only one out attacking me today.” After all, my mother was dead. I didn’t have any other enemies. I smiled. “I figure I can handle you.”
The fire of challenge lit his expression. “Can you, now?”
His gaze slid over me in the same measuring way I’d scrutinized him this morning. I wasn’t wearing much. A sports bra under a loose tank top and a pair of colorful jogging capris. His expression turned appreciative. His eyes sparked with sudden hunger, and he slid his tongue over his bottom lip. Seeing that, my insides melted, and the rest of me nearly followed. The man was sinfully good looking, and I had a feeling he’d know how to play my body like a violin.
I swallowed against my suddenly dry throat. “Yes. I can.” Dear God, I wanted to climb him like a tree.
He smiled lazily and moseyed forward. There was no other word for that slow, confident, loose-hipped walk. He stopped less than a foot away, and the heat radiating off his body warmed me like a fire. My nipples popped up into hard little pearls that I hoped the fading light hid. My sports bra and tank top certainly didn’t. Luckily I was already panting from my run, so the fact that he made me breathless wasn’t nearly so obvious. I fought the urge to squeeze my legs together to assuage the sudden ache there.
He lifted his hand and ran a finger feather-soft along my collar bone. I stiffened, feeling like a deer in the headlights. Half of me wanted to run, the other half wanted to lean into his touch and lick his chin.
“I might just let you try and prove it,” he said, his taunting tone telling me he knew exactly what he was doing to me.
“Sure,” I said, trying to remember what we were talking about. “Anytime you want your ass kicked, I’m available and very willing.”
The last made his eyes flare with heat. He perused me again in that slow, possessive way, and I swear my panties went up in smoke. I was about ready to throw myself on the hood of my car, spread my legs, and beg him to shatter my world.
His eyes came back to mine, and if anything, they’d turned hotter. His fingers ran up the side of my neck, and his thumb brushed my lips.
“Have dinner with me.”
That took me aback and doused me with ice water. I was having such fun with the angry-flirting thing. I was expecting him to double down on the sexual innuendo and ask just how willing I might be. So when he asked—or ordered—me to dinner, it caught me way off guard. It took a few seconds to recalibrate and focus. Disappointment washed through me, cold and black.
“Thanks for the offer,” I said, my voice turning business crisp. “I’m off the clock for the night, though. Maybe you should have your employer call me during business hours, like I told you this morning.”
I pulled away and took a couple of steps toward my Thunderbird. That’s as far as I got when he grabbed my arm and spun me back around. He was glowering and confusion intensified the storminess of his blue eyes.
“I asked you to dinner with me.”
“Actually, you ordered me. There was no question involved. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you have no earthly reason to want to have dinner with me, other than to get me cornered somewhere so that your employer can have a go at me. I’m not interested.” Which wasn’t entirely true. I was getting really curious about just what his employer wanted, but it’s not like I was going to let Damon Dickjuice know that.
“Bullshit,” he growled, his other hand coming up to clasp my arm. Then before I knew what was happening, he pulled me against him and was kissing me.
I don’t know what I expected. I was pretty virginal on the kissing end of things too. I’d barely held hands with a guy. Damon’s lips were softer than I’d expected. He took advantage of my startled oh! to slide his tongue sensually along my lower lip. I opened for more, and he obliged, slipping his tongue inside.
The intimacy of the touch shook me. I wanted more. I tentatively touched my tongue to his. He tasted divine. Mint, a hint of garlic, and something incredibly him, incredibly male. And oh my God, but my insides were doing crazy things. I felt like I was free-falling from an airplane. Except his arms had come around me, one holding me tight around my waist while his other hand slid up my back. He fisted his hand in my hair and made a low sound of hunger. I lost track of thought in that moment as his kiss turned from delicate exploration to passionate hunger.
If he hadn’t been holding me up, I’d have dropped to the ground. I heard myself moan, and I opened my mouth wider, inviting his hunger. I shivered all over at the sensation of his muscular body pressing against me, the heat of him throbbing through me, the smell of him making my head spin. I felt feminine and sexy and incredibly powerful at the eagerness of his touch. He was like a drug. Better than a drug. Better than anything I’d ever experienced before.
I don’t know when I’d put my arms around him, but I had a death grip on his neck, like he was the only anchor in a whirling tornado. He just pulled me tighter. I was on fire. I ached so hard that I swear if he touched me just once in the right spot, the one between my legs that actually seemed to hurt with how bad I wanted him, I’d have exploded.
I rubbed my hips into his, feeling the hard column of his cock against me as I searched for relief. He groaned and widened his legs, thrusting against me. I whimpered as electric pleasure jolted through my clit and lit my whole body up like a firework.
His hand left my hair, and I whimpered protest, pressing myself against him as if he were trying to get away. I so didn’t want to let this carnival ride end yet. But he wasn’t leaving. His hand dropped to my hip and glided up my side. He stopped with his thumb just touching the underside of my breast. For a second I stiffened like the mostly untouched, mostly virginal woman I was.
Then his mouth lifted from mine and his hot mouth dropped to my neck. I stretched to give him room, my fingers digging into his shoulders for balance. At the same time, his hand closed over my breast, his thumb skimming over my nipple in a butterfly touch. I gasped and arched into him. His arm around my waist tightened, and he repeated his barely-there caress. I shuddered. Why had I thought sex was overrated?
He nibbled along my jaw and licked the edge of my ear before scraping his teeth across the lobe, sending delicious shivers reverberating all the way to my bones. Everything inside me tightened around a liquid ache in my belly. I needed more. I wanted to touch him, skin to skin.
He lifted his head, his eyelids heavy, his gaze lingering on my lips before meeting mine. “Do you still think I have no reason to want to have dinner with you?”
It took me a
second to pull my fragmented brain together and sort out what he’d said. By the time I could put together a coherent thought, I was distracted by the ring of my phone through the cracked window of my car. It was Lorraine’s ringtone.
I pushed against Damon, stepping back as he reluctantly let me go. I staggered to my car, unlocked the driver’s door, and grabbed my phone.
“Hey,” I said, not taking my eyes off Damon Hotpants. He stared at me broodingly, looking like a thunderstorm about to erupt in wild fury.
“I need you,” Lorraine said, her voice strained. “I’ll text the address. Hurry. They want to kill him. We can’t let it happen. I won’t.”
“Kill him?” I repeated, but she was gone.
My lust forgotten, I tossed my phone onto the seat along with my water bottle and slid behind the wheel. Damon grabbed the door to keep me from closing it.
“Kill him? Who? What’s going on?” He looked like a panther about to spring on prey, all coiled up to leap, muscles bulging, face intense. He was a testosterone explosion held in place by a very fine body.
“That is none of your business.” I slid the key home in the ignition and turned the engine over. It rumbled to life. I glanced up at him. “You should move.”
He gripped the top of the door tighter. “I want to know what that meant. Who is killing who?” His deep voice was so hard, it could have cut diamonds.
“Whom,” I corrected. I put the Thunderbird in reverse and started backing up.
“Rebecca, wait! You don’t know the danger—”
I didn’t hear any more. The big block V8 engine roared like a lion as I hit the gas and drowned out his words. Damon swore and the hand not holding the door started glowing blue.
Oh, no he didn’t. I gunned the engine and he yelped, leaping aside as I twisted the wheel, my tires squealing protest. As soon as I had room, I jammed the car into drive and floored it. The door swung wide, and I grabbed the handle and yanked it shut. I think Damon might have screamed my name, but I didn’t stop.
I made it to the driveway before a meteor of blue struck the trees on the left side of the entrance. They crashed into the road. I wasn’t sure I even had time to brake. Good thing I didn’t consider it. Instead I flung my own magic at the barrier. The tangled trees exploded into petals of pink light. I sped through them and out. I laughed out loud, wishing I could have seen Damon’s face.
I forgot about him when my phone chirped with Lorraine’s text. I fed the address into my cell’s navigation app.
Chapter 6
Thank goodness I had the GPS app, or I never would have found the place. It was tucked way back in the hill hollows outside Sweetwater where there were still a bunch of little farms and homesteads that had been in the same families for generations. I drove past the lush, irrigated fields, smelling the damp earth and the green pastures and the sweet scents of summer that wafted through my open windows.
I turned down a narrow gravel lane called, of all things, No Name Lane. Nothing like truth in advertising. I passed driveways, the lights from the houses beyond sparking in the dark like fireflies. I went left when the lane split and over a wooden bridge with no rails then followed the gravel road around to a ranch-style house. Cool, blue-white mercury vapor flood lights lit up the area. I could see several outbuildings and a big barn. The entire place was swarming with cop cars, fire trucks, animal control, and even the forest service.
Lorraine’s veterinarian truck was parked in front of the corral. I pulled up behind it.
“Ma’am, you can’t be here,” a uniformed officer said as he came trotting up. He had one hand on his holstered gun.
“I was called,” I said, carefully keeping one hand on the wheel as I pointed to Lorraine’s truck. “Dr. Tucker wanted me here.”
“I’m sorry but she’s not authorized to give anyone access. You need to turn around and leave immediately,” he said. “The situation is far too dangerous.”
“Wrong,” I said. “My friend calls, I come. She needs me, I come through. So I’m going to get out of this car and go find her.”
He drew himself up. He’d shaved his head into one of the coply crew cuts that looked good on about two people in the world. He wasn’t one of them. His face was round and doughy, despite his lean build. He looked young, like just out of high school. Maybe that’s why he’d gotten the haircut, so he’d look older and tougher. It hadn’t worked.
“Ma’am, I will arrest you if you do not leave this area immediately.”
I smiled. “I know.” I opened my door, and he took a step back, his hand tightening on the butt of his gun. I probably should have been nervous. Cops these days tended toward the shoot-first-ask-questions-later philosophy, and really, with all the potential threats everywhere, I couldn’t exactly blame them. On the other hand, Lorraine had sounded pretty desperate, and every minute I spent with Barney Fife here was a minute she wasn’t getting my help.
I shut my door. The young officer pointed at me. His finger was actually shaking. That wasn’t because of me. I flicked a glance toward the emergency vehicles. Something big was going down, something that had seriously freaked him out.
“Turn around and put your hands on the roof of the car.”
I didn’t bother telling him I wouldn’t do it. Instead I leaped into motion. The element of surprise. I’m both a long-distance runner and a sprinter. So when I kicked into gear, I’d disappeared between a fire truck and an ambulance before the boy wonder could get out an astonished, “Hey!”
Nobody else paid much attention to me. Most looked grim. Radios crackled and there was a lot of traffic in and out of the house, but that wasn’t where the tension was focused. Between the house and the barn was a big dog pen with a seven-foot chain link fence and a flat-topped square structure inside that served as a doghouse. The dog in question was chained to the house. He stood around four feet at the shoulder, with matted fur and what looked like swatches of blood where he’d been cut. He was thin, but even so, I guessed he weighed over a hundred pounds, probably closer to one fifty.
He prowled back and forth, dragging the heavy chain. Behind him, I could see two children huddled together inside of the doghouse. The dog growled low in his throat as he watched the emergency workers watching him.
“There’s no way to get a shot on the dog without hitting the kids, sir,” someone said.
“You don’t need to shoot him. He’s protecting them. We just have to get him to understand we’re not the enemy,” Lorraine said. She was standing in front of the pen’s entrance, her feet set, her hands on her hips.
I pushed between people to get close. “I’m here,” I said.
“Thank God.” She looked at a man who appeared to be in charge. He wore a gray uniform. “Sheriff Anderson, this is my friend Beck. She’s an animal whisperer, and no, I don’t use that term lightly. I saw her calm a rabid cat once. I promise she can get Ajax to let us take the girls.
At the mention of his name, the dog growled again.
The sheriff started shaking his head. “I told you, Dr. Tucker, I won’t put a civilian in that cage.”
“It’s safe enough,” I said. “He’s chained.” Not for long. As soon as I could, I’d pull that off him. The poor thing. “It can’t hurt to try.”
The sheriff didn’t speak for a moment then finally nodded and turned to the two officers beside him. Both carried rifles. “Maybe if she distracts him, you can get a bead on him. Take up positions and if you get a shot, take it.”
“Sheriff! He doesn’t deserve this. He’s protecting those girls.”
“Sorry, Doc, but I can’t take chances. Those girls need medical help as soon as possible.” He looked at me. “Do your best, ma’am.”
I strode toward the gate, not waiting for a second invitation. I prayed I could get Ajax out before the shooters got their shot.
Lorraine grabbed my hand as another deputy unlatched the gate, pressing a metal syringe into my hand. “He’s been starved and beaten, and the girls too. The fath
er attacked the mother and she killed him, but then she decided she was going to send her girls off to heaven. She’s in custody now. We’ve no idea how bad the girls might be hurt, but I can tell you that that dog protected them and kept them alive.”
One didn’t become a vet because one didn’t love animals, and Lorraine had a particularly soft heart when it came to hard-luck stories. I didn’t know how she’d come to be in the middle of this mess, but I was determined I wasn’t going to fail her.
“I’ve got this,” I told her with more confidence than I felt, my hand tightening on the syringe as I walked through the gate.
I have always had a weird calming effect on animals. For some reason they liked me and trusted me, even the wild ones and the rabid ones. I didn’t even have to use magic. When Lorraine got problem cases, she called me in to help, which I was glad to do. Animals might just be God’s greatest gift to the world, and I did whatever I could to look after them.
The bad thing was my animal whispering abilities took time. I usually started far away and crouching on the ground and slowly closed the gap between me and the animal until it let me touch it. That wasn’t going to work here. I didn’t have that kind of time.
The smell of dog shit was overwhelming. I almost threw up. The ground was practically paved with it. I’d be throwing away these shoes later. I strode toward the dog, covering the ground between us with a confident stride. I ignored the calls behind me to stop, that I was within the length of the chain. Ajax ducked his head and growled, his lips curling in an angry snarl as I drew closer. He tensed but made no move to attack, blocking my path to the girls.
I crouched so that I was at eye level with him. His eyes looked amber and intelligent. His fur was too dirty and matted to get any sense of what color he was, but his ears were like a German Shepherd, and his snout was long and pointed.
Putting the Fun in Funeral Page 4