by Mandy Baxter
“Ali?” Carl scoffed. “Nah. There’s nothing goin’ on there. Trust me. Noah Christensen is into only one girl around here and it isn’t Ali Brown.”
Naomi’s cheeks flushed with heat. She’d hoped the electricity she’d felt between them over the past few months wasn’t imagined. Yeah, he came in to eat a lot, and over the course of six months, they learned almost everything about each other, but she didn’t want to read too much into it. He was single and for all she knew he simply didn’t like to cook. Besides, she did smoke the best rack of ribs in the entire county. “Maybe he just likes the food?”
Carl clucked his tongue at her as he swiped the order slip from the wheel. “Somehow, I don’t think it’s the ribs he keeps coming back for.”
A zing of excitement shot through Naomi’s bloodstream. She averted her gaze and turned from the service window to prevent Carl from once again witnessing how Noah affected her. Naomi had always been overconfident and street-smart. She didn’t get twisted up when a guy smiled at her. She was much too tough for those sorts of girlie emotions. But when Noah Christensen leveled his hazel stare at her, all bets were off.
He was the first truly good guy to ever turn her head. And that was a huge problem.
TWO
Noah gripped the steering wheel as he cruised down the highway toward home. Another night. Another missed opportunity. He was a total pussy. Even Ali had given him a hard time on their way back to the station, joking about how if he kept eating there every night, he’d weigh three hundred pounds before he got up the nerve to ask Naomi out.
Good lord, she was probably right.
What had changed so much in the past six months that he no longer wanted to live the free and single life? In a town with less than seven thousand residents, Noah couldn’t exactly be a serial dater. Like hanging out at the bar, no one wanted to hear that the sheriff had been whoring around town. That’s not to say he’d gone dateless the past couple of years. His brother Nate had hooked him up with his fiancée’s assistant eight or so months ago. And he’d gone on a blind date arranged by his brother, Carter, not long ago. The only one of his brothers who hadn’t tried to hook him up was Travis and that was only because his wilder sibling had suggested that one-night stands were so much better than dates.
Heh. Even Travis had abandoned his no-strings-attached policy a few months ago after he’d fallen in love with the woman tasked with improving his image. A bad boy no longer, Travis had been officially domesticated. Which made Noah the last remaining bachelor of the Christensen clan. He’d been totally okay with that, too. Until Naomi Davis came to town.
She tied him into knots. The way she dressed, skinny jeans or leggings, paired with a superhero T-shirt or long flowing tank top, with scuffed black motorcycle boots, drove him crazy. Her purple hair and precise makeup suited downtown Dallas more than sleepy Sanger, but she didn’t seem to notice or didn’t care. She was who she was and she didn’t make excuses or apologies for it. Noah liked that about her. And all he’d wanted since their first meeting was to get to know her better.
Which he’d wasted no time in doing. He knew more about her than he did half of the cops that had worked for him for the past couple of years. Her favorite color was black. She took her coffee with cream and sugar. Cheesecake was the one dessert she refused to share, and she’d rather listen to EDM music than anything else. She didn’t watch much TV, opting for a good book instead. She owned two cats and no dogs, but secretly wished she had a couple of pygmy goats in her backyard.
Despite their easy rapport, he’d been too nervous to ask her out time and again. Tonight was another example of one of his many wasted opportunities.
Noah hit the brakes and brought the truck to a skidding stop. What in the hell was he waiting for? If he didn’t man up, some other guy was going to scoop her up. Women like Naomi didn’t stay single for long. Hell, for all he knew she had a boyfriend somewhere. Probably a big, MMA-looking SOB who worked security at a trendy Dallas club or something.
He’d never live it down if he didn’t do something about his infatuation. Hell, it’s not like he wanted to marry her or anything. He could start with dinner and go from there. But he’d never know if she was interested in more than a simple friendship if he didn’t ask.
Noah pulled back out onto the street and turned around to go back the way he’d come. He resisted the urge to flip on his lights and speed back to the bar. He had no idea what time she closed up for the night but if he didn’t do this now, he’d lose his nerve and god only knew how much ribbing he’d have to endure from Ali if that happened.
The drive back to the bar on the outskirts of town was only about five miles but it felt like five hundred. Nervous anticipation churned in Noah’s gut as he imagined every scenario possible from Naomi laughing hysterically in his face, to her tackling him in the parking lot and stripping him bare. Okay, so that might’ve been pushing it, but it painted one hell of a mental picture.
Noah turned into the parking lot. The glow of headlights near the rear of the building illuminated the dust particles swirling in the air as he brought the truck to a slow stop. The hairs prickled at the back of his neck and he reached to his right hip to unclasp the strap that stretched across the grip of his gun.
Something wasn’t right.
He killed the engine and jumped out of the truck. The usually brightly lit windows of the bar were now dark and only the floodlights at the front of the building had been left on. A high-pitched grunt of pain echoed from the rear of the building and Noah took off at a sprint, gun drawn. His heart lodged in his throat as Naomi’s outline came into view. A man held her by her shoulders and gave her a rough shake.
“Police! Get your hands in the air!”
At Noah’s barked command, Naomi’s assailant shoved her to the ground. He dove into his still-running car and took off with a spray of gravel. Noah shielded his eyes but could do nothing to protect himself from the bits of rock that peppered his arms and chest. He squinted in the direction of the fleeing car. It was too damned dark to get a good bead on the make and model and forget about reading the plates. As he hustled toward where Naomi had fallen, he grabbed his radio mic from where it was secured to his shoulder and called dispatch.
“Assault suspect, heading north on Main Street. Dark sedan. I couldn’t read the plates.” The dispatcher responded, but the words barely registered. His heart beat a million miles per hour and his breath raced in his chest. “Naomi?” He holstered his gun and went down on his knees beside her. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Noah brushed the dark strands of her hair away from Naomi’s face. Her eyes were wide and she shook with so much force that her fear vibrated through her into him. “Are you hurt?” he asked again. Her teeth chattered and she simply stared. Noah clamped his jaw down as a wave of anger crashed over him. “Dispatch, I need an ambulance at—”
“No!” The urgency in her voice made him pause. “No ambulance. I-I’m okay.”
“The ambulance can stand down, dispatch,” Noah said into his mic. “But keep a deputy en route to look for that sedan.”
The dispatcher replied, “Copy that.”
“Can you stand?” Noah turned his attention to Naomi.
She let out a shuddering breath and leaned against him. “Yeah.” Her voice trembled on the word. “I’m not hurt.”
Naomi might not have been hurt, but she was definitely shaken up. Noah swore under his breath as he helped her upright. If he’d been even a couple of minutes later, god only knew what might have happened to her. A wave of fear crashed over him and Noah forced it away. She was okay and that’s all that mattered.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
She looked up into his face with wide, fearful eyes. Her gaze darted low and to the right. “I’m not sure. I was headed to my car when he jumped me. He grabbed me by the shoulders and…” She brought her eyes up to his for the briefest moment. “When you showed up, he pushed me down.”
Noah’s
jaw clamped shut. It could have been the fact that Naomi was traumatized by what had just happened, but he couldn’t shake the sense that she was keeping something from him. “Did he say anything to you?”
“N-no,” she stammered. “Not that I remember.”
Her response was too evasive for Noah’s peace of mind. Then again, she’d been through a lot. Victims of crimes sometimes forgot details when they were still in shock. Maybe when she’d had a chance to calm down, and her mind wasn’t muddied by the adrenaline rush, she’d remember something.
There was more to it than Naomi being rattled, though. Instinct tugged at Noah’s senses and his gut sank. Was she hiding something from him? And why? He steadied her on her feet and Naomi gave him a weak smile as she straightened. The heat of her body left his and Noah missed it in an instant. He wanted to hold her. Comfort her. Protect her and beat the son of a bitch who’d done this to her to a bloody pulp.
Sort of going above and beyond his duties as the local sheriff, wasn’t he? Damn it. There was a distinct possibility he was too close to this one. He couldn’t let his feelings for Naomi get in the way of doing his job.
* * *
When Naomi was sure she could stand on her own two feet, she let out a slow, steadying breath. If Noah hadn’t shown up … She didn’t even want to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t shown up.
“Are you cold? I have a blanket under the backseat.”
She looked up at the sound of Noah’s concerned words. Still shaking, with her arms hugged tightly around her middle, she probably looked as though she were freezing. “I’m okay,” she said. “Just a little shaken up.” Truth was, Naomi couldn’t feel anything but the white hot fear that coursed through her. She’d really screwed up this time. There was no running from her bad choices anymore. It was time to face the music.
She’d learned to gamble from the best. Her dad had been betting against the house all of his life—and losing. You’d think that watching him sink lower and lower over the course of her childhood would have been enough to keep her on the straight and narrow. Or at the very least teach her how to make marginally mature decisions.
Yeah, right.
Naomi had known she’d needed to get herself out of Dallas before she self-destructed. The problem was, she hadn’t had the cash to start the new life she wanted. So she’d done what anyone with her life skill set would’ve done: she went to a loan shark to get the cash she needed to make her dream life a reality.
Now, it was time to pay up.
“Can you remember anything at all about the guy that attacked you?” Noah’s warm voice reached through her troubled thoughts to bring her back to reality. “Maybe something about his hair or eyes? Did he have any tattoos?”
Naomi knew everything about the man who’d attacked her. Including his name. “No.” Her gaze slid to the right. She couldn’t bear to look Noah in the eye while she lied to him. “It was too dark and it happened too fast.”
“Okay.” He was slow to respond and his brow furrowed. “Maybe something will come to you later. Are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital? You’ve got some nasty scrapes.”
She’d forgotten all about that. The pain didn’t even register. When Jack had shoved her to the ground, she’d been so grateful for the reprieve, the rocks and gravel cutting a path through the skin on her knees and palms had seemed pretty damned inconsequential. Noah’s concern did nothing more than intensify the guilt that congealed in Naomi’s stomach. She’d gotten herself into this mess. She wasn’t some random victim. And Noah treated her as though her safety and comfort were the only things in the world that mattered.
“I’ve had worse scrapes,” she said with what she hoped was a reassuring laugh. “A little hydrogen peroxide and a couple of Band-Aids should fix me up.”
Noah’s lips thinned. If it was possible, the severity of his expression made him even more handsome. “Worse scrapes, huh. You get thrown to the ground often?”
Great. Every time she opened her mouth it seemed she dug herself a deeper hole. “Not really.” Why did she feel more like a suspect than the victim when Noah leveled his stern gaze on her? “I just mean that there’s no reason to rack up an ER bill when my scrapes are pretty superficial.”
“You could be in shock, Naomi.”
Oh, she was definitely in shock. Shocked that Jack hadn’t even given her a stern warning before roughing her up. Shocked that, thanks to her dad’s history with the same men, she wouldn’t be given an extension on her loan. Shocked that by the end of the month, she’d have to come up with fifty grand or kiss her ass good-bye. At this point, shock was an understatement.
She was officially screwed.
“I’ll be all right.” She hoped that her now-steady voice would help to convince Noah. “I just need to get home, clean myself up, and unwind.”
“If you say so.” Obviously Noah wasn’t buying it. Crap. “I’ll take you home.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do,” Noah interrupted. He tucked her legs into the cab before he eased the truck door shut. “No arguments.”
Without another word, Noah shut the door. Silence settled in the cab and she watched Noah cross the parking lot toward one of his deputies. She’d been so shaken up, she hadn’t even noticed the other vehicle pull in. The two exchanged a few words before he headed back for the truck. Naomi didn’t want to admit it, but she was glad he’d insisted on taking her home. Jack might have taken off upon Noah’s arrival at the bar, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be waiting for her at her house. It was dangerous to get Noah involved in her problems, whether inadvertently or not. Naomi didn’t want to see him hurt, but she couldn’t muster up the courage to tell him the truth, either.
“The bar’s all locked up?” he asked as he climbed into the truck.
“Yeah,” Naomi replied. “I’d closed down for the night and was leaving when you showed up.”
Residual fear trickled into Naomi’s bloodstream and she shivered as Noah started the truck and pulled out onto Main Street. He eased his foot off the gas and reached to the backseat. “Here. Cover up with this.” He handed her a fleece blanket and this time, Naomi did as he said and wrapped herself up in its soft warmth.
“Thanks.”
“You really should carry a can of pepper spray with you.” Noah looked straight ahead as he drove. In the dark interior of the truck, his profile appeared sharper, stern. “I know that Sanger is a small town, but even small towns can be dangerous after dark.”
Was he chastising her? She’d grown up in the city and not under the best of conditions. She knew all about what dangers lurked after the sun went down. “I do,” Naomi replied. “On my key chain. I just didn’t think to use it.” More to the point, she’d known better than to use it. She was already in deep shit with Jack’s boss. Hitting the token henchman with pepper spray would have only made a bad situation worse.
“Okay,” Noah said. “Where am I headed?”
“Oh, right.” Her brain spun so fast, it took a second to remember her own home address. She recited it mechanically, the words and numbers barely registering.
Noah obviously knew Sanger like the back of his hand. He didn’t ask for any further directions, simply took off toward her house.
The rest of the drive passed in relative silence and that was okay by Naomi. She wasn’t ready—or willing—to answer any more of Noah’s questions and she felt her resolve slip each and every time she looked into his beautiful hazel eyes. He’d saved her bacon tonight and she wouldn’t soon forget it. No man had ever thrown himself in the path of danger for her before. If anything, she’d lost another small part of herself to Noah Christensen tonight and that scared the hell out of her.
“This is me.” She barely recognized her own voice as Noah pulled into her driveway. A cold knot of fear congealed in her stomach as she stared at the dark exterior of her house. She had no idea what waited for her inside the door. Shit. She turned to Noah and s
aid, “Would you mind walking me inside?”
His gaze searched hers and his brows drew down over his eyes. “I absolutely don’t mind.”
Thank god. Without him, Naomi wasn’t sure she’d be able to muster the courage to go down the walkway, let alone go inside the house. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Don’t worry.” The warmth of Noah’s voice banished the chill that settled on her skin. “It’s going to be okay.”
Somehow, Naomi doubted that.
THREE
Something wasn’t right. Naomi didn’t act like the victim of a random burglary attempt. It was only natural for her to be a little shaken up, but her behavior went beyond that. Noah couldn’t shake the sense of certainty that Naomi had not only gotten a good look at her attacker tonight, but that she knew him. A violent ex-boyfriend, maybe?
He’d searched every nook and cranny of her house, checked the closets, under the bed, even the storage shed in her backyard as well as behind the trees and bushes that surrounded the property. He’d made sure every window was locked and even then, Naomi had been on edge. Despite her constant reassurances that she was fine, Noah sensed otherwise. And when he’d told her he was leaving, the fear in her gray eyes had left him nervous and shaken.
Shit, you’d think he’d been the one who’d been roughed up tonight as on edge as he was. That nervous anticipation churning in his gut had never steered him wrong. His intuition told him something that he was reluctant to admit to himself. Naomi was in serious trouble. He only wished she’d open up and tell him exactly what sort of trouble it was.
He settled into his seat, reclining it slightly before he scooped up the fleece blanket Naomi had discarded earlier. Her scent clung to the fabric, roses in full bloom, and Noah inhaled deeply. It was pathetic how far gone he was, which was further evidenced by his decision to camp out in his patrol rig in her driveway for the night.