by Cathryn Cade
Peering over the top of her phone, she scanned the shadows of the trees, the old garage and then the hedge. her heart skipped a beat. There—a dark shadow, slinking along just on the other side of the hedge. A big shadow, although the wrong form for a human. Uh-oh, what if it was a wild animal of some kind? It was rare, but black bears and cougars did occasionally find their way to town. Photos on the local news proved it.
The creature paused at the old gate, and turned its head to peer at her. Sara relaxed with huff of breath. It was just a dog. A big, black German Shepherd, from the look of his head. And from his mouth hung a glossy sheet of plastic. A zip-lock bag with a few crumbs in one corner. The cookie bag.
Sara shook her head at the dog, laughing under her breath. This was the dog Jack had mentioned seeing the evening before. He must belong to the Vankos.
"You, sir, are a rascal. You stole the rest of the cookies, didn't you? Well, I hope the boys got some ... and that your master didn't."
She rose, and the dog moved, loping away along the hedge and out of sight. Back to his dog house, no doubt. She frowned to herself, though. He'd looked awfully thin. Anger flamed to life in her chest. Did that biker not take care of his own dog? Aargh, another thing to despise about the man! She loved dogs, and still missed Roly, the family mutt she'd grown up with.
She had half a mind to buy some dog food and leave a full dish by the hedge where this dog could find it. And some water. At least she could be a good example to the boys, better than their own father.
Since she wanted to explore the Airway Heights area anyway, Sara fixed her makeup, finger-combed her hair, put on a clean, black sleeveless top over her khaki shorts, and black flip-flops. Her crossover silk top was a bit dressy for a farming town, but it wasn't like she was going to be dressing up much this summer, so she might as well wear it now.
She drove carefully along the graveled drive, and out onto the paved county road, heading south and then east on Highway 2, the main thoroughfare through Airway Heights. The town contained the usual small town park, police station, coffee shop, chain cafes, and a very nice grocery, but no farm store.
Thus, Sara bought dog food at the grocery store, and two big, cheap plastic bowls that would have to do. She doubted the dog cared, as long as he—or she—got fed regularly. If the big, bad biker wouldn't do it, she would.
Late that afternoon, Sara looked up from the tutorial on leather-working she'd been reading on her laptop. She was studying, but she was also waiting for Stick Vanko to return, so she could give him a piece of her mind.
And yes, that was definitely the sound of a vehicle coming in. She listened hard—the car or truck was going to his place. But it was just a small car, not his SUV. The engine stopped, then a car door slammed. After that, silence. Not him, so not her business. She went back to her reading.
Sometime later, a big motor prowled in, again to his place. This sounded like his SUV. Closing her laptop, Sara set it on the coffee table, and rose. The sun had gone down, a shallow violet-tinged dusk settling over the fields.
She smoothed down her top, even though the sleek, black fabric showed no wrinkles, and went into the bathroom to check her face and hair in the mirror. For some reason, it seemed important that she present her most attractive appearance while confronting Stick Vanko and his guest, whoever they were.
Earlier, she'd set out both big plastic dog bowls by the gap in the hedge, one with water and the other with the high-grade dog food she'd purchased. The third time she'd checked, the level of food in the bowl had definitely dropped. The water, she wasn't sure about. From the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a dark shadow by the corner of Gran's old garage, but when she looked directly, it was gone.
The dog was here, he was hungry, and therefore Stick Vanko must be to blame. She, Sara would be the dog's advocate, even if she would rather chew dog food herself than speak to its owner.
When she heard a heavier vehicle door slam, she walked out of her house, across the yard, and slipped through the gate in the hedge. She'd practiced earlier, and discovered it was fairly easy to pass through the old gate, once one knew to push aside the branches of the caragana with a hand while sidestepping through, although this time a branch caught her cheek by her ear.
Rubbing the sting, she noted the small car, a cheap model but with a flashy silver paint-job, parked by the steps leading up to the door of the two-story white farmhouse. Beyond it, angled in the drive as if he'd stopped there in a hurry instead of continuing on to the open barn/garage, sat the large gold SUV she'd seen leaving earlier in the afternoon.
He might have company, but she would not be denied her chance to remind him of his basic duties as a dog owner.
Sara took a shaky breath, put her hand on the railing of the stairs, and prepared to ascend to the wide, wraparound porch. A light was on inside the screen door.
She raised her hand to knock, but froze, her heart nearly stopping as a piercing feminine shriek sounded inside the house. "You bastard! Let me go, lemme go—"
"Shut up," a deep, cold voice ordered, cutting the woman's voice off like a club. "You'll get your ass back out of my house and in your car where it belongs. I want you off my property in one minute, you hear me?"
"What?" The shriek had dropped to a whine, but it was nearer. "But I came to party with you, baby."
Sara side-stepped, pressing herself against the porch railing, and just in time, for the screen door flew open and a woman erupted. She wore a pair of red stiletto sandals that wrapped high around her slim ankles, and absolutely nothing else.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The naked woman was the brunette from the barbecue at the clubhouse, Sara saw with the clarity of shock. Her slender body was on full display, her enhanced breasts standing out like beacons.
Stick Vanko pulled the brunette out of his house with a big hand on her upper arm, and then gave her a shove that sent her skittering down the stairs to come up against her car, hands up before her, eyes wide like a startled doll, long hair flying around her shoulders.
"Bastard!" the woman pouted up at him. "I was gonna do anything you wanted."
"I don't want anything you're willing to do," he told her, braced wide-legged on his top step, his back to Sara. "All I wanna know is how the fuckin' hell you got into my house."
The brunette's eyes darted one way, then another. "Marta sort of ... left her phone on the counter at the clubhouse. Your code was on there."
"You share it with any of your bitches?"
"No!" Her look said she hadn't wanted to share him with anyone.
He grunted. "Now git, and don't come back around here. If I want a woman, I let her know. She doesn't approach until then."
At this, the brunette noticed Sara, rigid and mute in the corner of the porch behind Stick Vanko. Oh, crappity, crappity hell—Sara had been hoping against hope that the pair would conclude their loud, virulent drama and go their ways without ever noticing she was here. Guess her cloak of invisibility had failed her.
"You," the other woman hissed. "What are you doing here, you fat cow? He never comes back for seconds, everyone knows that."
Wait, what? Before Sara could get her brain or her mouth to function, Stick Vanko stepped sideways between them, leaning forward to growl, "You don't talk to her. Shut your mouth, and get gone."
The woman quailed, then put one hand to her large breasts in a gesture that looked more theatrical than modest. Also, Sara noticed she didn't attempt to cover her mons, which was waxed to a tiny triangle. "But my clothes, Stick."
"You'll leave without them, bitch. Now get gone—and after this, you're not welcome in my club until I say, either."
With a half-whimper, half-hiss, the brunette flung herself into her car and slammed the door. The engine roared to life, and she hit the gas, backing out so fast her car tires screeched on the pavement of his driveway.
Sara watched her go, her brain a fizz of static. Had she really just witnessed that?
Then, as Stick Vanko
turned toward her, she looked up at him, and blurted the first words that occurred to her. "She broke into your house? That's ... who does that, just for sex?"
The cameras mounted on the eaves of the house and the keypad box beside the door pretty much announced, 'surprise visitors not welcome'.
Something changed behind his icy, terrifying facade. His gaze warmed, and dropped to her mouth, then lower to survey her in a long, deliberate look. When he looked back into her eyes, the evening seemed to have gotten at least fifteen or twenty degrees warmer.
"No one does that, blazhinka. Now you, you came and knocked on my door. I like that. You can come in."
Sara blinked. "What? No!" Her face flamed, along with other parts she refused to acknowledge. She scowled up at him. "I don’t want to come in. I am not here for sex, Stick Vanko, so you can just tuck that gigantic ego of yours back in your—your pants or wherever you keep it."
He smirked, like he didn't believe her, and didn't care. He did that entirely too often. It made her palm itch to slap his handsome, aggravating face, and she'd never hit anyone in her life.
"You want to check my pants, and see what I have there for you?" His deep voice had dropped into that rough purr that made her breath hitch, and her core melt. "You can take it out, if you want."
Sara swallowed the insane temptation to look down and see if he was indeed hard, because of course he was—he’d just had a naked stripper in his driveway. Sara pressed her hands against the wall behind her. "No," she said. "No! That's not why I'm here."
He shrugged, and his teasing look slipped away. "So, you're not here for sex. Maybe you're here to tell me why you are sweet to my boys, giving them cookies behind my back?"
"What?" The man could change subjects faster than she could blink. “I sent the cookies home with them. I told them to ask you first."
"I found an empty plate by the gate," he stated, straightening, his face hard again. "So your plan won't work anymore than Misti’s. You want to sweeten me up, you come and knock on my door, or you come to my clubhouse. You don't go through my boys."
That was it. The top of her head was going to explode.
Fuming, Sara leaned up on her tiptoes and stabbed him in the middle of his rock hard chest with her forefinger. "Now you listen to me, you big Russian chunk of ice. That is not how I behave. The very idea of using two sweet, darling little boys to get closer to their father—that's disgusting. Especially when that father is you. I'd sooner get closer to a—a big snake."
She poked his chest again for good measure.
"For your information, your boys are welcome at my place any time. You, on the other hand—you keep the heck off of my property. And—and feed your poor dog. He's practically starving."
She shoved past him, and stomped down the steps to the drive way. Only to be swung around by his big, hard hand on her upper arm.
He tipped her face up with one finger and studied her, an odd look on his hard, bearded face. "Woman, what the fuck are you talking about? One, I don't own a dog. And two ... you don't tell me where I can come and go. I do that. And three ..."
What was his arm doing around her? And why was his hand on the small of her back?
Sara planted her fists on his midriff and pushed, to no avail. "Three, what?"
He smiled at her. "Three, this."
He bent his head and Sara reared back, pushing harder. "No! I don't even like you."
"I don't like you either. But I like your mouth, when you’re not talking." And he kissed her, until she stopped pushing and dug her nails into his shirt.
Then the kiss turned deep and caressing. Until his mouth, his taste and scent and his big, tough body against hers overcame everything else in a blur of heat and hunger for more. Sarah sank against him, kissing him back, because horrible as he was, Stick Vanko could kiss.
Unfortunately, he had to lift his head and use his mouth to speak again.
As Sara dragged her eyes open, he laughed, a deep, satisfied, smug sound. "Milaya, I think you like me better than a snake. Now go on home, and maybe I'll come over later. I have to get my boys in and to bed."
Sara jerked away from him in horror. Oh, God, she'd been draped over him like one of his club whores, with his boys right beside them in the SUV?
"The boys are in there?" She demanded, pointing at the SUV. "And you're—I mean, we're ... no! I didn't know they were here."
"Relax, they're sound asleep," he said, moving to open the rear passenger door. "Fishing wears them out."
Sara watched in consternation as he reached in, unfastened a harness, and carefully lifted out one of the twins, draping the sleeping boy over his shoulder with the ease of long practice. They looked so ... incredibly sweet together, this big, hard, dangerous man holding his son with such tender care.
Backing away, she fought to remember why she'd come over here.
"You don't make out with a woman when your children are nearby," she scolded. "That is just wrong. And ... the dog came from your property, so he must be yours."
He looked at her over his son's tousled, silky head, and winked. "And I say, you are feeding him, so he must be yours."
And then he walked away, around the vehicle to get his other son. Leaving Sara with nothing to say or do but hustle home as fast as she could go, because if she had to watch him holding two sleeping little boys, she might melt in a puddle in his driveway.
And if there was one thing she was learning about Stick Vanko, it was not to show him any vulnerability. He was smart and he was ruthless. She might not believe any longer that he would coerce her physically as he'd threatened the day before, but he did seem to believe he could verbally intimidate her one moment, and then use her for sex the next.
Slim chance of that, buster. She was never putting herself in a position of weakness with him again. He'd tossed her aside for the brunette the night of the barbecue, and now, the memory of how he'd spoken to the woman, how he'd hustled her out of his house and made her leave, naked, made Sara shudder with distaste.
Yes, the woman had essentially stalked him, but still ...
No, nyet, nope. Fool her once, shame on him. Fool her twice, no one to blame but herself.
* * *
As Stick went through the familiar ritual of putting two sleepy boys to bed, he focused on them. They'd stopped for hamburgers on the way home for supper, so they would sleep through the night now.
Once they were settled in their beds, he went back downstairs and locked up, and changed the code to his locks and alarm system while he was at it. If that bitch Misti could get the code, so could someone with a lot worse in mind.
Then he called Marta.
"Stick," she answered, sounding breathless, and surprised. "Hello. What is it?"
"You left your phone on a bathroom counter at the clubhouse," he said, not bothering to moderate the ice in his voice. "Know what I found when I brought my boys home? Someone in my house. It was that bitch Misti, but it could have been anyone. I could have brought my boys straight into an ambush. I have enemies, you know this."
Marta gasped. "Oh, no," she breathed. "Oh, no. Ivan, prostite pozhaluysta, I'm so sorry. "
He cut her off. "I changed the code, but I don't want it on your phone again, you understand? You memorize it, and you don't write it down anywhere."
"Da. Da, I won't. I swear. I just didn't ... I never thought anyone would snoop on my phone."
"Anyone can do that now--even the boys. Don't be stupid. And if you had other private shit on there, change it."
"Oh, shit. You're right. I will, spasibo, Ivan."
He ended the call and jammed his phone into his belt again. He ran an impatient hand through his hair as he jogged down the stairs and out onto his porch.
The wide porch wrapped around most of the house. He scanned the bushes along the bottom of the porch, and around the big yard, paying special attention to the hedge between his property and Sara's.
Then he prowled the perimeter of his property, past the big b
arn that had been remodeled into a garage for his SUV and motorcycles, with space to work on the bikes in the rear. He kept the long grasses mowed back to the fence around the hay fields, so he could walk it, and to cut down on fire danger. Grass fires happened, and he didn't want to lose his place because of carelessness.
Then along the back of the open equipment sheds, and around the far side to the edge of a few huge boulders that long ago floods had planted out here on the prairie. They were smoothed by eons of wind and weather, nearly as high and deep as the shed, and the boys loved to climb on them.
The sheds, sided with wood silvered by time, and roofed in metal, were empty except for the John Deere tractor with a blade on the front he used to plow snow from the drive in the winter. In one bay, the boys had created a kind of fort from old pieces of wood and various junk. Their fort held an old blanket, and a few scattered toys.
He strolled back to the big yard that surrounded the house. A row of sturdy blue spruce towered along the west side of the property, a bulwark against the prevailing prairie winds. The yard, with its sparse grass, held two big, old maple trees and a few lilacs, the lower portions chewed back by the whitetail deer that ranged through in winter.
A big cedar play structure stood in the middle of the yard, a sandbox beside it. The boys' metal trucks and various plastic toys littered the area, and two ball caps lay discarded under the swings. These he picked up and carried back into the house, tossing them into the laundry basket as he passed through the mudroom.
Marta would wash them, along with the other laundry, when she came on Wednesday. She was a hard worker, and took good care of his house and his boys two days a week, which was why he would forgive her carelessness with the code.
Having been arrested along with her worthless older brothers for grand theft auto several years ago, it was hard for her to find work. Luckily for her, she'd ended up at the club house for a party, and when Peter heard her speaking Russian into her phone, he'd been curious.