by Ann Charles
“Damn it, woman,” Joel grabbed me and yanked me against his chest. “Shut up and listen to me for a second.”
I blinked up at him. “You’re out of your jurisdiction, Joel, especially when it comes to touching me. Or have you forgotten that fact?”
He walked me backwards until I was up against my desk, his body tight against mine. “I haven’t forgotten a single thing about touching you, Montana. You’re pretty much branded onto my brain.”
The heat coming off him melted the layer of frost I’d built up over the last few months. Damn, I’d sure missed his rough edges.
“If this is your attempt to distract me from filling my ex-husband full of lead, it’s not gonna work.”
“Oh, yeah? I bet I can still give you goosebumps.” His long, black eyelashes lowered, his green eyes dark with carnal intent.
“If your brother sent you in here to deter me for some reason …”
“My brother doesn’t know I’m here. Nobody does.”
“Buffalo does.”
“Buff is going home.” He ran his lips over my collar bone, making my heart bounce around like a playful foal, the double-crossing muscle.
His tongue flicked over the pulse in my neck. “I want you, Shooter. No matter how much you piss me off with your mule-headedness, I always want you, damn it.”
Not exactly a Shakespearean sonnet, but his words made my head rummy anyway.
“I know you feel the same,” he whispered against my skin. “It’s in those big blue eyes of yours.”
I closed my peepers, trying to focus on the many ways I’d wanted to hurt Joel since our last conversation. “Kiss my ass, Andersen.”
“Sure thing. Take off your pants.” He gripped my hips, lifting me onto the desk, angling between my thighs. “Please tell me you’re still on the pill.”
I slid my hands along his broad shoulders, retracing the lines and ridges I’d missed. “It doesn’t matter. This is not going to happen.”
He covered my lips with his, touched his tongue to mine, and all hell broke loose in my chest.
I scooted closer to him, tearing at his shirt buttons. “Stop flirting with me,” I said, ripping open the last two buttons, leaning in to smell his skin then taste it. Warm and salty, like the desert hardpan.
I felt his groan vibrate against my mouth. “I missed you, Montana. All of you. Especially your smart mouth.”
“Stop talking before you piss me off again.”
He chuckled, lifting my chin until my gaze locked with his. “I thought about you day and night. Especially in the shower.”
“Oh, yeah? You have a funny way of showing it.”
He trailed kisses along my jaw, leaving a line of heat in their wake. “You’re the one who refused to come with me when I asked.”
Gasping as he nipped my earlobe, I said, “I don’t remember you doing any asking, just informing me after you decided.”
“I thought the ring said it all.”
I tugged his flannel shirt off his arms. “It was a full-sized nose ring straight off a bull.”
“I cleaned it first. Besides, it was symbolic—you could lead me around anywhere by it. Buffalo thought it was romantic.”
“Maybe you should have given it to him.” Joel’s thermal undershirt dropped to the floor. “Your communication skills have never been your…” I paused to swallow the excess saliva the sight of his bared skin produced, the dark dusting of hair pointing my eyes southward, “…your strong point.”
He tugged my T-shirt over my head. “And your stubbornness will be the death of you, unless I can help it.”
“That’s no longer your concern.”
“You and I both know that’s not true.” His fingers traced along the lace at the top of my bra, making me squirm. He leaned down and kissed the swell of skin just above the fabric. “You look thinner, sweetheart.”
“I’ve been busy,” I lied.
His gaze held mine, suddenly serious. “Tell me there’s nobody else in the picture.”
There never would be, but I had to salvage my pride, what little of it he hadn’t stripped from me yet again tonight. “Why didn’t you call me back, Joel?”
He cupped my face, brushing his lips over mine so slowly, so tenderly, like he wanted to savor them. I couldn’t hold in the moan that reached up from my heart.
“I’ve chased you since you wore pigtails, Shooter,” he whispered. “Just this once, couldn’t you have chased me?”
“You ran too far.”
His mouth trailed down my neck. “I wouldn’t have run anywhere if you’d told me you wanted me to stay.”
I leaned back on the desk, tipping my head back to give him more access, wanting to ask if that meant what I thought it did, but the sound of glass breaking crashed through my lust-filled haze. I froze. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Another crash resounded. Buffalo!
“That.” I shoved him back, scooped up my T-shirt from the floor, and raced out the door, pulling the shirt over my head as I ran.
“Montana,” he said from the doorway. “Come back to me.”
I shoved out the swinging doors into the darkness and was halfway along the front of the bar when I realized the lights were off—all of them, even the beer lights I usually left on in the windows.
“Buffalo?” I said. My boot toe connected with what felt like a body, making me stumble to my knees, my hand coming down on something warm, wet, slippery.
A heavy, coppery scent filled my head.
“Oh, God. Buffalo?” I reached for his body, but it wasn’t there, just blood, pooled all around me.
Then I heard it, the breathing in the darkness.
“Hey, baby,” an all-too familiar scratchy voice said.
I froze, my heart throwing itself against my rib cage like it wanted to bust free and high-tail it out of town. Maybe if I just held still in the blackness, he wouldn’t see me.
“Aren’t you going to welcome me home?”
“Montana,” Joel said from the direction of the swinging doors. “Are you okay?”
I heard the click of a hammer being cocked back.
“Joel, get down!” I yelled.
A shot rang out over my head.
“No!” I screamed, struggling to my feet, lurching toward where Joel stood by the swinging doors. Only he wasn’t there.
A second shot exploded. Then a third, which tore across the outside of my shoulder, stinging like a son of a bitch.
I slipped, the blood slick as ice under my boots. On the way down, my skull connected with something hard. Pain flared above my left ear and ripped through my skull…
Goldwash, Nevada
December 24th
O holy night!
The stars are brightly shining…
“Would you turn off that Christmas crap and help me clean up all this …” A déjà vu gave me pause in the midst of throwing a wet rag at my cousin Buffalo, who nursed a mug of beer at the end of the bar.
Buffalo frowned at me over his glass. “Jeez, Montana, can’t you let a man enjoy a nostalgic moment? Where’s your—”
“Holiday spirit?” I finished for him, feeling like I was rehearsing for a play I knew from memory. Something was supposed to come next about Brunhilda, Buffalo’s fat bulldog, who lay splayed on her belly next to his bar stool snoring, but I changed it up. “I lost it when Joel left town.”
The bastard broke my heart and months later it still sat like a cold, cracked piece of granite in my chest.
I dragged a bucket of sudsy, ammonia-smelling water around to the front of the bar, pulling the stools out on each side of Buffalo, only to realize there wasn’t anything to mop up, except peanut shells. Hadn’t something been spilled here? Weird.
“I’m closing the bar early tonight,” I told Buffalo. “You want to come back to my place and hang out for a while? Watch a movie? I think the Western channel is having a Clint Eastwood marathon.”
Buffalo wiped the beer foam mou
stache from his upper lip. “Sure, if you don’t mind me bringing Brunhilda. I hate to leave her alone on Christmas Eve.”
“Are you afraid she’ll actually wake up this year for Christmas?” His dog stirred only long enough to snarfle down food, I swore.
He grinned and reached down to scratch Brunhilda’s head between her fake reindeer antlers. “She’ll perk up. Santa brought her a special bone.”
Brunhilda’s ears twitched at the word bone, but that was the only sign of life.
“I’m not interfering with any plans with your girlfriend, am I?” I asked.
“Didn’t you hear? We split up. She’s knocking boots with my neighbor now.”
“Oh.” How had I missed that in this one-horse town? I really needed to get my head out of the sand and get back to living. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He waved me off. “He has pigs. Her constant squealing doesn’t faze him.”
That made me smile. “Do you think you’ll ever find a nice woman, settle down, raise a couple of baby buffalos? You’re not getting any younger, you know.” Buffalo had two years on my thirty-six.
“Nope. I’ve told you my thoughts about monogamy and matrimony too many times to count.”
“What happened with your parents isn’t genetic, you know. Marriages don’t have to involve flying cast iron skillets and burning pickups. Look at my parents. They were married for almost forty years.” And then Momma got sick and all of our lives went to hell in a handcart.
Buffalo slurped his beer. “Yeah, well you’re not setting the best example for happily ever after. First, you shacked up with a three-timin’ rodeo clown, then you married a killer, and then you hooked up with Joel Andersen, of all guys. You’re like the pin-up girl for Fucked-Up Life magazine.”
He had a point, but I didn’t need him needling me with it. “Kiss my pin-up ass.” I picked up the wet rag and whipped it at him.
He dodged it, chuckling.
“So marriage isn’t for me,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t make a go of it.”
“Monty, dear, you may not know a thing about picking the right guy, but you sure throw one hell of a Christmas party.”
He was changing the subject, as he so often did when I tried to bring up his future love life for anything other than his damned dog.
“I think this party was our best since Momma ran the bar,” I said, going along with him. Tonight’s drunken merriment replayed in my head as I kicked the mop bucket to the corner, including slurred caroling, random sloppy kisses, and a marriage proposal from a lonely widowed rancher who had a huge spread east of town. Too bad he was a leftover from the Paleozoic era.
I reached up to remove some tinsel hanging from the ceiling fan and the telephone hanging on the wall behind the bar rang. I jogged over to grab it then hesitated with my hand on the receiver. I’d gotten a rash of creepy calls lately, filled with heavy breathing and this skin-crawling, undecipherable whispering.
When I’d told Buffalo about the calls, he’d pushed me to tell the sheriff, but I’d resisted because the local law dog also happened to be Joel’s brother. While I liked to think my hesitation had more to do with not letting some heavy breather bully me into running with my tail between my legs, I had no doubt that my pride figured into the mix.
“I’m not sure if you know this,” Buffalo said, “but you need to actually pick up the receiver to make the phone stop ringing.”
I flipped him off and lifted the handset. “The Ugly Rooster,” I said, using my usual greeting.
A thick silence came through the line, sounding as if I’d tuned into some empty airspace out over one of the government’s testing ranges. I’d almost rather have the breathing. After the count of three, I hung up.
“Dead,” I answered Buffalo’s wrinkled brow. I double-checked to make sure the 12-gauge shotgun I’d brought from home earlier this week was still under the counter.
The bell over the front door jingled, making me jerk in surprise, raising the shotgun in reaction.
Buffalo hollered over his shoulder, “Bar’s closed.”
“I disagree.” The deep voice nearly made me choke on my tongue.
I gripped the shotgun, wishing I’d loaded it with rock salt instead of slugs.
“You brought out your big gun to welcome me home?” Joel Andersen asked, closing the door on the wailing groan of the Nevada winter wind. “I’m flattered.”
I put the shotgun down on the bar before I did something stupid like shoot Joel in the toe.
“Well, well, well,” Buffalo said, his tone low. “Would ya look at that—the old man’s back in town.” He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Am I leavin’?”
“Stay,” I said, my gaze focused on Joel as he crossed the bar floor, shucking his thick coat along the way. He must have thought he was staying, too. He was mistaken.
Joel was carrying, as usual, his Colt .45 riding in his shoulder holster.
Before I sent him back out into the cold winter night, I took a moment to drink in the sight of his wind-ruffled black hair, stubble-covered square jaw, and bright green eyes. My heartbeat ratcheted, my core cranked up the heat, and my mouth went dry.
Ah, damn. Hell was coming to Christmas.
Joel cozied up to the bar.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Like Buffalo said, the bar’s closed.”
“I heard him, Shooter.” My childhood nickname rolled off his tongue like he’d never deserted town and left me face down in a mud puddle.
He patted Buffalo on the back. “Hey Buff, I’m hanging around for a bit. Want some help with fixing up the ol’ Goldwash Grand?”
Hanging around for a bit? How long was a bit? More importantly, why was Joel here? No, even more worrisome, how was I going to keep from ending up in his bed when just the sight of him had me wanting to vault the bar, lay him out with my fists, and then have my merry naked way with him?
Criminy, I’d seen centipedes with more backbone than I had when it came to the green-eyed devil in front of me.
“Free labor? You’re hired.” Buffalo snuck a glance my way. “But aren’t you gonna miss the wild Vegas nightlife?”
“No,” Joel answered Buffalo, but his green eyes held mine captive, a fire burning in their depths that practically made my skin crackle from the heat. “The nightlife here is much wilder.”
I took a step back before I got seared. “What do you want, Joel?” I asked, not mincing words.
His gaze dropped to the front of my shirt. “I need to talk to you, Montana.”
My body felt the invisible pull that was always there between us, lassoing me, tugging me in.
I grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the shelf, needing something to scrub the taste of Joel off my mind. “Here’s the deal,” I said, pouring myself a shot. “I spent the last few months trying to work you out of my system.” I tossed back the amber liquid, which burned all of the way down, firing me up. “I’ll be damned if you get to just walk back into my life and fuck me over again.”
The phone rang. I yanked the receiver off the wall. “What?”
I heard heavy breathing.
“What the hell do you want, damn it?”
“Mon-taaan-na,” a voice whispered.
I felt my eyes widen in surprise. I looked at Buffalo, who watched me, his focus unwavering.
“What?” I whispered back, my voice hiding down in my throat.
“I see you when you’re sleeping.”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. There was something about the voice I recognized, something in the way he’d said my name, all sing-songy like.
“I know when you’re awake,” he paused between each line, letting them sink in.
My hand started to tremble.
“Who is it?” Joel asked.
“I know when you’ve been bad, Mon-taaan-na.” There it was again. “And you’ve been a very bad girl.”
“Who is this?” I voiced, my words sounding far away.
“Give me the phone,�
� Joel said, coming around the bar.
“It’s time for you to be punished,” the creep whispered. “And when I’m done, you’ll wish you were—”
Joel ripped the receiver from my hand. “Who is this?” he spoke into the phone.
I took several steps back, the creep’s words replaying in my head, sparking that déjà vu again.
Joel hung up the phone and turned to me. “What did he say?”
Then it hit me, an echo from the past. I knew that voice!
The fear gripping my lungs tightened in rage. “No!” I shoved past Joel, yanking the phone off the wall and throwing it on the floor where I stomped on it with my boot heel.
“Montana!” Joel grabbed me by the shoulders. “Stop it.”
I broke his hold, snatching up my 12-gauge. “Damn you, Joel.”
“What did I do?”
I back-stepped toward the swinging doors, glaring at him. “You came here to stop me.”
“From what?” Buffalo asked, half off his bar stool.
“Montana, give me the shotgun,” Joel took a step toward me, holding out his hand palm up.
“From what?” Buffalo asked again.
I spared him a frown. “From killing that son of a bitch I married.”
Joel took another step toward me. “Hand over your weapon before you hurt someone.”
“Negative, Detective Andersen,” I said in his cop lingo. “You need to get out of my bar before I fill you full of holes, too.” I glanced at Buffalo. “Lock the door on your way out, would ya?”
Without another word, I grabbed the bottle of whiskey, leaned my shotgun over my shoulder, and shoved through the swinging half-doors that led back to my office.
New Christmas Eve plan—prepare for a showdown with that rotten bastard I’d divorced and put behind bars for killing his business partner. I was done cowering at his threats.
“Montana,” Joel called from behind me. “Come back to me.”
“Go to hell!” I stepped through my office doorway.
He didn’t listen, following on my boot heels, shutting the door behind him and locking it.
I slammed the bottle of whiskey down on my desk, spilling some on the get-well cards stacked on it. “Andersen, your inability to follow my directions has always pissed me off.”