by Kat Martin
The rest of the bikers slid to a halt, jammed down their kickstands, and rushed to join the fray. Josh and his friends were outnumbered more than two to one, but they were marines trained to fight.
Josh threw solid punches, drove an elbow into a biker’s stomach, brought a knee up hard beneath his chin. Whirling, he lashed out with a boot, kicking one of the men squarely in the groin. The biker grabbed his privates, doubled over, and rolled on the ground in pain.
Tory stood frozen but Josh kept moving. Hitting, kicking, throwing left jabs and right punches. When he pitched a red-bearded biker over his shoulder, sending him flying up on the porch, Tory’s trance was broken. She grabbed an empty lemonade pitcher and crashed it over the biker’s head.
Glass went flying and the man went down. He groaned, but managed to crawl away. She didn’t miss Josh’s quick grin before he turned and swung at a gigantic biker with a gray goatee and a sleeve of tattoos on each arm. The big biker’s nose exploded in a geyser of blood.
The tide seemed to be turning. Along with the others, the big guy ran for his motorcycle, silver with a red skull on the tank. The men cranked their engines and roared out of the yard, throwing dirt up behind their back wheels.
One of the riders pulled a gun and shot out two of the new barn windows as the group blasted back down the dirt road.
Tory’s heart was still pounding as the sound of their engines faded, their taillights turned onto the highway and shrank to red dots in the distance.
Josh strode toward her, moving like a big-screen superhero. Tough and strong, he was all smooth motion and no wasted energy. He pulled her into his arms and just hung on. Tory was trembling. She could feel his heart beating hard inside the wall of muscle across his chest, feel her own heart thundering.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “How about you?”
He reached up and touched a cut that slashed across his cheek. Then he grinned.
Tory huffed out a breath. Men. “So I guess that means you’re fine.”
“I can’t believe that just happened,” Natalie said.
“Weren’t the guys amazing?” said Britt, her eyes riveted on Cole. A cut ran diagonally through one blond eyebrow and one of his pant legs was torn above the top of his prosthesis.
“You were wonderful,” Britt said to him as he walked up on the porch.
Cole caught her face between his hands, leaned over and kissed her, hot and deep. “It’s been a long night,” he said gruffly. “Let’s go home.” There was no mistaking the husky note in his voice or what it meant.
Britt just nodded, a look of adoration on her face. Tory had a hunch Cole was no longer worried about proving his masculinity, though the way the two were staring at each other, odds were he’d be proving it again a little later that night.
Noah grabbed a dirty dish towel from the pile on the porch and handed it to Natalie, who wiped the blood off his knuckles and dabbed at his split lip. He wrapped his arm around her.
“You gonna call the cops?” he asked Josh.
“Not tonight. I’ll call the sheriff’s office in the morning.”
“We can give descriptions of some of them. They weren’t wearing MC jackets or helmets so we don’t know if they belong to a club.”
“We can tell the sheriff what happened, but don’t be surprised if it doesn’t do any good. Howler wouldn’t walk across the street to help a Cain.”
Noah and Cole knew about the animosity between Emmett Howler and the two Cain brothers.
“Asphalt Demons are local,” Noah said. “You think it was them?”
“No way. The Demons are friends of my brother’s. They might even be able to help us. What I can’t figure out is why anyone would come here just to cause trouble.”
Noah snorted a laugh. “Guys like that . . . they don’t always need a reason.”
Josh didn’t disagree. “Why don’t you and Natalie go on home? I’ll finish cleaning up in the morning.”
“You gonna need some help?”
“It’s your day off. Enjoy it. I’ll see you Monday.”
With a weary nod, Noah took his wife’s hand and led her off to his shiny Dodge pickup.
Josh turned to Tory. “I’ll walk you home.”
He stayed close beside her as they crossed the yard and climbed the steps to the front door of the trailer, examining his bloody knuckles along the way.
“I need to get cleaned up before I come over. I’ll see you in a little while.” Those amazing blue eyes slid down her body, as hot as the tip of a flame. He grinned. “We won’t have to be quiet tonight.”
Her stomach contracted and she smiled. “No . . .” she whispered softly.
Josh bent and kissed her, lingered and deepened the kiss before he turned and strode back toward his house.
He was still jacked up from the fight. In a different way, so was she. Seeing him in action was an amazing turn-on, the way he handled himself, the confidence, the beauty of his movements, the way his muscles flexed and tightened.
Josh would come over and she would be waiting. Knowing what would happen when he got there shot a curl of heat low into her belly.
It wasn’t until she started undressing that her thoughts returned to the bikers and what they had done. Why had the ranch been singled out? What was the cause of the men’s animosity?
But as Tory lay in the darkness waiting for Josh, no answer came.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Standing on the front porch of her little white-shuttered gray house, Brittany unlocked the front door and led Cole inside. They hadn’t talked much on the ride over, but Britt could feel his eyes on her, sense his hungry need.
She knew he wanted her. She wondered if he understood how much she wanted him. She’d been attracted to Cole Wyman since the day she had first seen him at City College, a blond god the girls all fantasized about. He’d had a serious girlfriend back then, gotten engaged before he’d joined the marines and gone off to war.
He’d been wounded in action, lost both his legs, and finally come home. He was single now and her attraction to him hadn’t lessened.
Britt flipped on the light switch as he closed the door behind them and a lamp went on next to the sofa. She felt his hands settle at her waist, big, strong hands turning her around to face him. Lowering his head, he kissed her, softly at first, then deeper, pulling her close, letting her feel his desire.
Hot need moved through her. She hadn’t been with a man since her fiancé had dumped her for her neighbor’s wife. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed being touched, held, kissed, until tonight.
Sliding her arms around Cole’s neck, she leaned into him and he deepened the kiss, taking it to a whole new level. She swayed, trembled, moaned into his mouth. Warm kisses traveled along her neck down to her shoulders.
“I want you,” he said. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the night I saw you at Jubal’s.”
“I want you, too,” she said, but didn’t admit she had lusted after him for years.
He unbuttoned the front of her blouse and stripped it away, unhooked her bra and eased it off her shoulders. One of his big hands cupped her breast and she felt almost dizzy. As he bent toward her, she laced her fingers in his thick blond hair and arched her back, giving him better access, letting him work his magic. He kissed her again, then lifted her up and carried her down the hall to the bedroom.
She could feel the uneven hitch in his steps as he moved, thought for the first time of the prostheses strapped to what remained of his legs. The thought slid away as desire burned through her, the desperate need that seemed to expand with each passing moment.
Cole kissed her as she unbuttoned his short-sleeved western shirt, pulled it free, and stripped it away. A dusting of golden blond hair fanned over his hard-muscled chest, arrowed out of sight below the waistband of his jeans.
She pressed her mouth against his skin and felt his muscles bunch, but when she reached to unfasten his belt,
Cole drew away.
“I haven’t been with a woman since I came back from the war. I don’t want to repulse you.”
Her heart twisted. “I want you, Cole. I don’t care about your legs. It’s not your legs that make you a man. It’s your heart and your soul.”
Cole looked down at her and something glistened in his eyes. He blinked and it was gone. He took a shaky breath. “I’m not ready,” he said with a shake of his head. “Maybe another night.”
Britt caught his arm before he could turn away. “Cole, please. Nothing about you could ever repulse me. We don’t have to make love. We can just sleep together. Please . . . stay with me tonight.”
Uncertainty moved over his features. He wanted to stay; she could see it. He reached out and gently touched her cheek. “Next time.” Bending down, he very softly kissed her. Grabbing his shirt off the floor, he turned and walked out of the bedroom.
At the sound of the front door closing, tears spilled onto Brittany’s cheeks. And the ache she felt for Cole would not go away.
* * *
The echo of rifle shots rang in the distance, the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire kicking up dirt in the streets of the village. A group of marines had been caught out in the open. They hunkered down in a depression in the sand, pinned by sniper fire from a makeshift bunker at the top of a distant hill. With no way for the men to reach cover in the vacant mud structures that had once been a town, the sniper was picking them off one by one.
On the rooftop of an empty building eight hundred meters away, Josh lay flat on his belly, the crosshairs of the M40A5 on the tripod in front of him sited on the distant hill. He was settled in, waiting. Waiting.
When the sniper popped up to take out his next target, Josh pulled the trigger. The suppressed rifle shot made a faint thumping sound and seconds later, the top of the man’s head disappeared.
Josh breathed a sigh of relief. His men were safe, at least for the moment.
He had just risen from his position when he heard a scream and a man armed with a heavy steel knife rushed out of nowhere, slashing with his long, gleaming blade. Josh snagged the man’s wrist, gripped hard, spun, and sent the knife sailing off the roof.
Wrapping his fingers around the assailant’s throat, he—
“Josh! Josh, wake up! You’re dreaming! Wake up!”
Small fingers pried his hand away and his eyes popped open. He looked down to see Tory staring up at him, her pretty green eyes filled with worry.
Josh leaped out of bed. “Jesus! Jesus, Tory, I’m sorry.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face, wiping away the perspiration. “I shouldn’t have stayed. I should have gone home like I always do. I’m sorry.”
She didn’t back away, just grabbed her robe and followed him out of bed. “You didn’t hurt me. You just scared me.”
“I didn’t hurt you, but I could have. Jesus, I could have . . .” He bit off the words, didn’t say, I could have killed you.
“I know you’re upset. Was the dream something that actually happened?”
He glanced away, swallowed. “I was on a rooftop in Afghanistan hunting an enemy sniper. Guy with a knife came out of nowhere. We fought. I ended up breaking his neck.”
She fell silent. “You were touching me but you weren’t hurting me. I don’t think you would have.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. . . .”
“Is it PTSD?”
He sighed. “Not like my buddies have. Just an occasional bad dream.”
“Does it bother you to think of the men you killed?”
His jaw hardened. “I did what I was trained to do—protect our troops. I feel bad about the men I couldn’t save.”
There was no condemnation in her eyes. He shouldn’t have felt so relieved.
“Do you think you should talk to someone?”
“I talk to Cole and Noah and they talk to me. It helps a lot. The nightmares aren’t so bad anymore.”
She slid her arms around his waist and smiled up at him. “Maybe I can make you forget them completely. Why don’t we go back to bed?”
He was tempted. He loved her sexy little body, loved the way she could make him feel. But he was in too deep with Tory already. And the nightmares worried him.
Josh eased her away. “I think I’m going to head on home. I need to get to work anyway.” He leaned down and kissed her. “Get some sleep, baby.”
When he walked out the front door, dawn grayed the horizon. Was he a danger to Tory or someone else? Or was what had happened nothing more than a very vivid dream? What would have happened if he hadn’t awoken when he did?
Until he knew for sure, it was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.
* * *
First thing Sunday morning, Josh phoned Sheriff Howler. An hour later, a white extended cab pickup with bright blue SHERIFF lettering on the side drove up in front of the house and the heavyset sheriff got out.
Josh pushed open the screen door as Howler swaggered up on the porch.
“Daisy said you called, said you had some trouble last night.” Daisy was the older woman who ran the local sheriff’s department.
“That’s right. Bunch of bikers showed up and tore hell out of the place.” He tipped his head toward the strings of broken lights scattered around, the general mayhem he hadn’t yet cleaned up.
“Cole Wyman and Noah Beal were here. Ended up in a brawl. The bikers shot off a few rounds, broke some windows in the barn, took off and haven’t been back.”
“What brought them after you?” Howler asked. “You have a beef with one of them?”
Josh ignored a trickle of irritation. “I’ve never seen any of them before. You had complaints from anyone else?”
“No, just you.” The sheriff lifted his tan cowboy hat and scratched his head, settled the hat back in place, and tugged down the brim. “Seems like trouble has a habit of following you around, don’t it?”
Josh said nothing. From the corner of his eye, he saw Tory at the kitchen window, listening to the conversation.
“You’ll need to come down to the office and file a complaint,” the sheriff said. “Give us some kinda description.”
“All right.”
Howler stared off toward the dark red, newly constructed barn. “You know, Randy Stevens confessed to burnin’ down your barn. Jim brought the boy in hisself. Randy’s doin’ community service.”
Should have been a whole lot more as far as Josh was concerned, but it was better than letting the kid skate completely.
“His dad’s a good man,” Josh said.
“That he is.” Howler turned toward the smashed cold box, the pieces of red plastic scattered all over the ground. “I’ll keep an eye out. If I hear anything about these hombres, I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks. I’ll be in town tomorrow. I’ll stop by your office and file that complaint.”
The sheriff nodded. Tugging on the brim of his hat, he stepped off the porch and walked back to his pickup. Tory came out of the house as the truck drove away.
“I heard what he said. Looks like we’re the only ones they’ve bothered. I wonder why that is.”
She was standing just a few feet away. Josh couldn’t help thinking how pretty she looked in the morning, with her fiery curls and peaches-and-cream complexion. He ignored an itch to have her that was becoming way too strong.
“Linc and Carly stayed the night at Blackland Ranch. I talked to Linc earlier, asked him to see if he could set up a meet with Tag Joyner. Tag’s president of the Asphalt Demons. Linc called back. Tag’s meeting my brother and me at Jubal’s Roadhouse tonight.”
He smiled down at her. “You feel like a night on the town?”
Her big green eyes widened, but he saw none of the apprehension that had been there after she’d roused him from the dream.
“That sounds like fun,” she said. “I’ll talk to Mrs. Thompson when I pick up Ivy, see if she’ll babysit tonight.”
“Roadhouse isn’t much, but you’ve been
cooped up on the ranch awhile. I figure any place is bound to look good.”
“There is that. I hope Tag Joyner can help us.”
Josh looked at the destruction around him. “Yeah, so do I.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jubal’s Roadhouse turned out to be a wood-frame building outside the Iron Springs city limits. With its false front, wooden boardwalk, and double swinging doors, Tory thought it looked like something out of the eighteen sixties.
Spotting a row of motorcycles parked in a line out front, she caught Josh’s arm.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Those belong to the Demons. The black Harley with the silver conchos on the seat is Linc’s.”
Tory glanced up. “Seriously?”
Josh grinned. “Yeah. He and Carly rode over from the ranch.”
She had to admit she was impressed. It occurred to her that if Carly could ride a hot-looking Harley, she was ready to do more than walk and trot Rosebud around the pasture.
For years, she’d run a top-notch advertising team for one of the largest, most successful firms in Phoenix, earning a fat salary in the process. But something as simple as riding still remained a challenge.
A challenge she was enjoying and mastering a little more every day. Expanding her abilities felt good.
They pushed through the swinging doors together and stopped just inside. A jukebox played Willie Nelson, and peanut shells littered the floor. A long wooden bar stretched in front of them and the clack of pool balls resonated from the back.
Several female heads swiveled in Josh’s direction, openly admiring the tall, broad-shouldered cowboy in dark blue jeans, boots, and a pressed denim shirt. He was wearing his good straw cowboy hat tonight, and Tory had to admit he looked delicious.
Dressed in a short jeans skirt and a white ruffled tank that dipped low enough to show a little cleavage, she fit right in with the women, cowboys, and bikers who sat at scarred wooden tables scattered around the plank floors.
She was glad she was wearing her cowboy boots, even if they were plain brown and already a little worn. Her hair was getting longer, falling in loose copper curls that just brushed her shoulders.