ANGEL MEETS THE BADMAN

by Maggie Shayne

  Swallowing hard, Jake shook it off. It didn't mean anything. And he told himself the guy could be a perfectly decent human being. That not all cops were like the ones he'd dealt with here. He thought it; he just wasn't sure he believed it.

  He stepped off the bottom step onto the flagstone walk.

  "So you don't know anything at all about her, then?" Tante Flossie called after him.

  He shook his head. "You seem to have the girl's entire family history, chère. What more could there be to know?"

  "Oh, go on!" She waved her fan at him, and Jake sent her a wink, then headed out to the shed for his toolbox.

  But he couldn't help the little shiver of unease that worked up his spine. A cop in the lady's family.

  He'd never liked cops. They still made him nervous, even though he hadn't so much as run a stop sign since he got out of prison. Cops. Hell, no wonder she'd seen him for what he was right off.

  She'd probably seen enough men like him to know them on sight. She'd probably taken one look at him and thought she had him all figured out. And if she hadn't before, then she certainly would have once he'd told her he was an ex-con. Just like every cop he'd ever met, Sara Brand probably figured that was all he was. That there was no more to him than that label.

  He didn't care, he told himself. He didn't care in the least what that flighty little, uptight female thought of him. Not in the least.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  « ^ »

  Jake carried the toolbox back along the path. The cabin with the leaky pipes was farther away than the one where she was staying.

  In spite of himself, he felt his gaze drawn to Sara Brand's bungalow as he passed. He didn't like that she was afraid of him. He didn't like that she was related to a cop or that she seemed to have judged him on sight and found him lacking.

  He didn't like anything about her.

  He especially didn't like what she was doing just now.

  She had changed into a pair of cutoff denim shorts and a tank top, and was lying in the swamp grass in the shade of a cypress tree, just at the edge of the bayou, reading a book. She must be pretty engrossed in that book, too, he thought. So much so that she hadn't seen him walking past and didn't feel his eyes on her right now. And she should feel them.

  Because when they roamed her body, Jake felt as if he were touching her. Hell.

  He wasn't going to go out there. God knew he'd already seen way too much of those legs to want to see any more. He knew they were shapely, slender but not skinny. Sexy but not long. Thanks to her little tumble when he'd startled her at the bungalow, he'd seen just about all there was to see of those legs, including the very sensible white cotton panties where they ended.

  No, he didn't want to see any more.

  Besides, she was perfectly safe out there. The gators wouldn't venture so near. And he didn't imagine she would be dumb enough to wander any farther.

  Would she?

  Shoot, she might.

  Shoot, she already was.

  Even as Jake looked on, that ridiculous female sat up, rolled her neck, stretched her arms—which made her breasts seem to strain for freedom against the tank top, and made Jake want to close his eyes and groan. He did groan. Didn't quite manage to close his eyes, though. Then she looked curiously into the darkness behind her.

  Jake set the toolbox down on the path and watched her. Her back was toward him now. Her hands, small hands, he recalled, and soft, reached back to brush at her perfect, rounded backside, and he got a rush imagining what that would feel like under his hands.

  She took a couple of steps past the first cypress tree, looked around. She craned her neck and looked farther.

  Hell. Jake sighed heavily and started forward.

  Sara liked to walk. It helped her to think. And the fact that the unpleasant Jake Nash had warned her not to go into the bayou made her want to walk there. He was so sure he could scare her. He didn't have a clue about her. She'd been scared by the scariest, and he didn't even begin to measure up, with his ex-con talk and his dark looks.

  He'd probably done time for some barroom brawl. Shoot, who hadn't? All her cousins had. Even Garrett, and he was a sheriff, for crying out loud! And Wes had even served a prison term. Didn't make him scary.

  No, her fears were her own and had nothing to do with Jake Nash or his deep dark past. To hell with him.

  She had so much to deal with just now. She just wanted to walk.

  The smooth ground just beyond the trees looked to Sara like a trail. Like a well-trodden path of some kind that went right into the bayou. Certainly alligators didn't make paths like this one. So she decided to examine it more closely. Oh, she wouldn't go far. Just in case those grim warnings delivered by Jake Lucifer Nash had been intended to do more than just frighten her. She was 99 percent sure that was his only reason for delivering them, though. He'd disliked her from the moment he'd set eyes on her, and while she knew her jumpiness had slightly offended him—okay, deeply offended him, especially given his past—she still didn't think his nastiness was warranted.

  He was touchy. She probably should be a bit more understanding. Her cousin Wes was still extremely sensitive about having spent time in prison. Teasing him about it was the best way to get him to lose his temper. Not that anyone ever dared do that. But she knew it was a sore subject with Wes even now, and it had been a long, long time ago.

  Then again, he should be defensive. Wes had been convicted of a crime he hadn't committed. If he was still bitter, then it was no wonder, was it?

  But this man—this dark-eyed, intense, rude stranger—what about him? she wondered in spite of herself as she walked along the odd little path. What crime had he been convicted of? And had he been guilty of it?

  He was, she admitted to herself, a handsome man. So dark and so sinewy that he seemed to exude some kind of sexual aura. A musk or an electrical charge that would make even the most reserved female feel tingly when he looked at her. Or maybe it was just those eyes … the way he used them. Like hands. Having him look at her the way he had was like being touched in some uncharted erogenous zone.

  In college, some of her friends had told tales about certain men who could bring a woman to orgasm just by looking at her. She'd always laughed it off as one of those urban legends so many people would swear were true. Now she wondered. If it could be done … she rather thought Jake Nash might be the kind of man who could do it.

  Her stomach was clenching and her blood heating. Even though it was marginally cooler here in the trees. Maybe he didn't even need to look at her, she thought wickedly. Maybe just thinking too long about him could do it. Then she smiled at her uncharacteristic thoughts and tried to shake them off. Maybe she was crazier than Chelsea thought she was, to be so turned on by the first strange man she met, while simultaneously wondering whether he were a reformed ax murderer.

  A sound brought her head up sharply. A funny little sound. Like a … grunt.

  Or … maybe a man, clearing his throat.

  The old fear crept up her nape. She commanded it to go away. "No one is after me now," she reminded herself. Still, she stopped walking, since the noise had come from ahead of her. She probably ought to turn around and go back. But for some reason the thought of turning her back to whatever was up there was an unpalatable one. Instead she started walking backward so she could keep her eyes on the trail ahead and the source of that sound.

  The grunt came again, this time accompanied by skittering footsteps.

  Okay, she thought, backtracking faster. Alligators don't run. So maybe whatever was coming wasn't anything dangerous, and maybe—

  It came into sight. Dark, bristly, with coal-chip eyes and sharp, yellow tusks poking out from its snout. It was running right toward her.

  "What in the name of—"

  "Wild boar," a deep voice said, even as a hot, powerful arm snagged her around the waist and lifted her off her feet. She squeaked in alarm but quickly realized he was pushing her up onto the low-ha
nging limb of a nearby tree. And in a second, Jake Nash, that dark ex-con who hated her guts, was scrambling up into the tree with her.

  She clung to the tree trunk, staring at him in confusion as the bristly, mean-looking wild pig came running, grunting and snuffling in undisguised fury. Jake put his back to the tree trunk, wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her against him. "Get your feet up here," he said gruffly into her ear.

  "Oh, my God." She pulled her feet up, wondering how in the name of all creation a man's breath bathing her ear, the touch of a deep voice and the slight rasp of whiskers on her neck, could possibly feel so unbearably delicious.

  The boar stood beneath the tree now, not fooled in the least by their evasive maneuvers.

  Her back was pressed to the naked portion of Jake's incredible chest. His body heat was rapidly melting her insides. And it didn't help to realize that she was nestled snugly between his legs, while he had each foot braced on a limb on either side. She turned her head to look at him.

  "Yeah, I know, you don't like this, but it was me or him, lady."

  Her brows went up. "Did you hear me complaining?"

  "I told you to stay out of the bayou."

  "I thought you were just trying to scare me."

  "Now why would I do that, when I managed to scare you just fine without trying in the least?"

  She blinked and lowered her gaze. He had her on that one. The pig grunted and snorted and ploughed around the leaves with his nose. It really didn't seem so different from an ordinary hog-farm type pig. She imagined what her sister would say when she relayed this particular tale. Looking up at Jake again, Sara felt her lips twitch. She tried not to, but in a second she was smiling.

  "What?" he snapped. "You find this amusing?"

  "Jake, we've been chased into a tree by a pig. You have to admit it's funny."

  "It wouldn't have been funny if that pig had gotten to you before I did," he said. But she did think she saw his eyes flash with just a hint of amusement, though he tried to sound very stern and serious.

  She looked down again. The pig looked up, and Sara got a better look at the nasty little tusks protruding from the animal's snout as it paced underneath them. Then her smile died. "I guess I owe you one. You might have saved my life."

  He met her eyes. She had to look away from their touch. "You're welcome."

  "Thank you," she replied. Then she smiled again. "But it's still going to sound like a comedy when I tell my family how I was rescued from the mean old killer pig."

  "Go on, pig. Get lost." Jake chipped pieces of bark off the tree and whipped them at the pig. When one piece finally hit the animal near its eyes, it turned and lumbered away, grunting all the way out of sight.

  "Safe to get down now?" she asked. She was a little breathless. Pressed to his chest like this, his arms still latched around her waist, it was no wonder.

  He looked at her. "Better wait a few minutes. Make sure he's not coming back." Then he settled into a more-comfortable position. And before she knew she was going to do it, Sara leaned farther back against his chest.

  She stiffened, started to straighten up, but he pulled her back again. "It's okay," he said. "Relax. You said that's what you came here to do, right?"

  "Well … yes, but not exactly like this."

  "No. I don't imagine this is what you had in mind. So … what is it with you, anyway? Split personality?"

  She felt her smile change to a frown as she tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, as jumpy as you were earlier, I expected you to scream bloody murder over being chased up a tree by a dangerous animal. What gives?"

  "Oh, that." She sighed, shaking her head slowly. "I'm not scared of animals. It's people I have trouble with."

  "Oh yeah?"

  She looked at him by tipping her head back. "Well, not all people. Just—"

  "Don't finish. I gotcha. Just ex-cons, right?"

  She tilted her head. "The only thing I have against ex-cons is that they're all so darn touchy about it."

  His brows went up. "So you know a lot of us, do you?"

  "Only my cousin Wes. But he's as oversensitive about it as you are. For the record, Jake Nash, my being a little … afraid of you earlier had nothing to do with your past or anything else about you. It's about me."

  "Yeah?"

  She nodded. "Yeah. And, I'm sorry you took it wrong."

  "So you're not afraid of me, then?"

  She shrugged. "Shoot, you just saved me from the big, bad pig, didn't you?"

  "A little role reversal, isn't it? The Big Bad Wolf saving Little Red for a change?"

  She swallowed hard. His eyes were all intense again. "I never said you were the Big Bad Wolf," she told him, softly. It was those eyes of his. They made her want things…

  Suddenly he slid out from behind her, steadied her with one hand and jumped out of the tree, landing on his feet just below it. He looked around, listened, then reached up. "I think it's safe now."

  "All right." She pushed herself off the limb. Jake caught her. His hands closed around her waist, thumbs digging into her breasts as her body plastered itself against his. Her arms automatically linked around his neck, and her feet hovered a foot above the ground. He didn't lower her right away, either. He just stared at her. Her face was close to his, and his eyes probed hers like spies in search of secrets. Then they slid lower, to linger on her lips.

  "Don't you, um, want to put me down?" she managed to say.

  "No, frankly, I don't. But I will." And he did. Slowly he clamped his arms tightly around her waist, slid her body down the front of his. It was blatantly sexual. It was a full-body caress. He was stroking her, slowly and masterfully—with his body. And when her feet touched the ground, he leaned down, and she thought he was going to kiss her.

  But he didn't. He stopped with his mouth just a hair's breadth from hers. And he said, "Maybe you were better off being scared of me, Sara Brand. Maybe it would be better if you stayed that way."

  "I … don't be silly. I'm not—I mean—"

  "Yeah, you are," he whispered. "And just so you know, I am the Big Bad Wolf, Sara Brand. If you aren't careful with me, I'm liable to eat you alive."

  Her stomach clenched into a knot so tight she thought it was turning to stone. He was so close.

  Why hadn't he kissed her yet? What was he waiting for?

  "So?" he asked her softly, so close now she swore she felt the feathery touch of his lips as they moved to form the words. "Are you ready to ask me yet? Because I really think it's time you knew, little Sara. I think it would be best for both of us."

  She knew what he meant. She didn't pretend not to. "All right," she whispered, her heart fluttering wildly in her chest, her eyes falling closed. "I'll ask you, even though I really don't care. What were you convicted of, Jake?"

  His lips touched hers, all too briefly. Just a fleeting touch, then they skimmed over her cheek, to her neck, to her ear. And he whispered, "Murder."

  Then he let her go all at once and turned to start walking back along the path.

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  « ^ »

  He walked briskly all the way to her bungalow and right on past it, pausing only long enough to snatch his toolbox up off the path and then continuing on his way.

  Sara watched him go, head tilted to one side. Her conditioning seemed to be at war with her hormones here, she thought silently. She ought to be scared to death of him. And yes, she had been—for about the first ten minutes she'd known him. That, she realized, had been her conditioning kicking in. The years she'd spent—her whole life, really—being wary of strangers wasn't a phobia but a necessity. It had kept her alive.

  Now that she no longer needed it, she'd found it irritatingly difficult to get rid of. But this … this thing going on inside her now was different.

  She wasn't afraid of Jake in the same way she'd been afraid of other strangers. It was a tingling kind of fear. He was dangerous, but incredibly sexy, and
she was drawn to him in spite of her fears. Maybe even … because of them.

  In her experience, she thought idly, men out to do harm were sneaky. They lied. They didn't come right out and tell you their criminal past. Jake pulled that history of his out and used it like a weapon to fend her off.

  In her experience men out to do harm didn't yank careless women up into trees to save them from rampaging wild boars, either.

  She smiled to herself. There was a lot more going on with Jake Nash than met the eye. It would probably be stupid and self-destructive of her to try to find out what.

  "But I'm perfectly safe here," she muttered, repeating Chelsea's mantra yet again. "No one here has any reason to want to hurt me. No one's after me anymore."

  She went into her bungalow, opened her suitcase and took out her laptop. Then she looked for the phone jack.

  An hour later she was skimming the newspaper reports on what had happened to Jacob Nash in the town of Gator's Bayou more than fifteen years ago. He'd been seventeen years old. He'd held up a liquor store, and the owner, a sixty-eight-year old man by the name of Bill Kendall, had suffered a fatal heart attack during the robbery. There was a very brief mention that Jake had called the paramedics and stayed with the old man, trying to perform CPR until help arrived. When he was arrested. There was a lot more mention of the fact that Mr. Kendall had been a local police officer for most of his adult life, until he'd retired and opened the little convenience store. The list of those surviving him sounded like a who's who of local politics.

  So that was Jake's deep, dark secret. Oh yeah, Sara thought. He was the very epitome of evil.

  Frowning, she wondered why he seemed to want her to think he really was that.

  Biting her lower lip, she decided to go back to the main house a bit earlier than she needed to for dinner, maybe see if any of the owners had returned yet. Maybe she would have time to visit with them before dinner. She glanced down at herself. Her legs were a bit skinned up, thanks to that rough tree bark. She was hardly dressed for meeting new people. Okay, so she would change first.