by Anya Nowlan
He’d at least done her the favor of not searching through her stuff, and she was thankful for that. He obviously had some manners. The little statue still rested in her pocket and her duffel had been kept in pristine condition as well, though she didn’t have much in there that she was worried about. Might just be best to hide the ropes, pickpocketing gear and her lock breaking stuff from the eyes of the local law enforcement, though.
It was a life she’d tried to leave behind, but old habits came easily when you were left with nothing and suddenly out on your own again. Her stomach clenched a little at the thought. Still, being on the run was better than being ripped to shreds by her ex-boyfriend. So she had that going for her.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why not?”
“Uh…”
Sonya’s interest perked up. Had she caught the Lieutenant Commander being bashful? Oh my. She was half-expecting to see him blush a little, but no such luck.
“You don’t think you’d be the kind of man women would line up in troves for?”
“Not exactly, no,” he replied glumly, turning his gaze to the computer and tapping a few keys to open up a new report.
“I think you’re selling yourself short,” Sonya said in earnest.
Though she hadn’t come to Shifter Grove with the express plan of roping herself a panther cowboy, she would have been lying if she said that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. Especially now that she saw him. He was all sorts of yummy, and he didn’t even realize it.
But, of course, that would have been insane. A tiny voice in her head still urged her to caution. Even nice guys could turn out to be bastards. Not that Blade had ever struck her as nice.
Diesel started typing on the keyboard. She had half-expected him to be the kind of guy who had to hunt and peck, but Diesel kept his eyes on the screen as he filled out one column after another. Sonya shifted uncomfortably on the chair, trying to peek over the edge of the laptop and see what he was doing. Diesel cocked a brow at her, and she settled back down with a sigh, crossing her arms over her chest.
“What are you doing now?”
“I’m filling out a report on you,” he said coolly.
Diesel plucked something out of his pocket, and Sonya’s stomach dropped when she realized it was her driver’s license. She lunged across the table in a desperate move, but before her fingers could lock around the small plastic rectangle, Diesel’s iron grip was on her wrist and he was up on his feet.
He pulled her to him as if she were nothing more than a ragdoll, and Sonya gasped as she was slammed into his hard body again, both of her wrists now somehow engulfed by his hand while he kept the driver’s license above her head with the other. The air felt thicker, like it was pressing down on her lungs. Her heart pounded in her ears and heat spread through her where he touched her, just like the night before. It was like standing too close to the fire and considering whether or not jumping in headfirst would be the smartest thing to do.
He let go of her and stepped back, sitting down after a second of hesitation. She saw the look that crossed his face. There was something about being so close together that got both of them revving with excitement, and frankly, Sonya wasn’t sure what to do with it. She brushed a hand through her dark locks, trying to regain her composure, her pleading eyes still on him.
“Please don’t,” she said with a small voice.
Diesel looked up. His neck was red, though his expression remained calm.
“Why?”
“Because… I… Just, don’t. I can’t tell you why. Just if my name shows up in the system, I’ll be in trouble. He’ll f…“
She quieted quickly, but Diesel had obviously caught her slip.
“He’ll what? Find you? Who’s ‘he’? Are you in trouble?” he queried.
Harnessed fire blazed behind his eyes and the subtlest shift went through his body. She could feel it more than see it. Like he had gone from resting to ready to battle in a split second, just because she implied she might be in danger. It was sort of endearing, if not entirely hot to think that a man like him would be ready to go to battle for her. Sonya had to hide the smile she felt coming to her lips.
Stop it. What happened last time you thought a guy was all nice and protective? You’ve just got you, boo.
“No one,” she said with resignation, sinking onto the wooden chair and tucking her hands in her lap.
She looked at her intertwined fingers for a moment, noting the little cuts and scrapes she had on them from hanging onto the splintered wood at Blade’s house. When she glanced up, Diesel had leant on the table with his elbows, painting the perfect picture of the stern but understanding military commander, ready to impart wisdom and justice upon a misbehaving cadet. He wasn’t going to let it go so easy, that much was clear.
“Look, it’s a long story. One that has nothing to do with me crashing into your house – totally by accident, I still maintain. Do you really want to ruin the life of a nice girl by filing a police report on her? You’re not that kind of guy, Lieutenant Commander Wake, are you?”
She batted her long lashes and pursed her lips, trying her best good girl impression. He wasn’t impressed.
“It’s sheriff Wake now,” he murmured in reply, but she could see the hint of a smile on his lips. That sexy, stern smirk she’d seen on him a few times. The one she was sure he’d wear when he was teasing her and that she could kiss off his lips, or turn into a growl that travelled straight through her. Sonya felt her body reacting positively to that thought. Oh yeah. Kissing him would be delish, even if Diesel Wake intended to be impossible every step of the way.
“Let’s settle on Diesel for short,” she quipped, ignoring the humph she got in response. “I’ll do whatever you want. Hang out in the cells for a couple of days until I learn my lesson. Or rake leaves or school children or help the elderly cross the road. Whatever, man, I’m down. Just don’t file that report. Please.”
The last words came out as heartfelt as she could make them. There was a note of pain and worry in them, and by the way Diesel’s eyebrows lowered, he seemed to have caught it. After giving her a long, judging look, he put the driver’s license down in front of him on the table.
“Fine. Public service. You don’t leave my sight until you’re done with it. After you’ve paid your penance, I’ll give this back to you,” he said, pointing at the license.
Sonya found herself nodding along. A little shiver passed along her spine when he said that she’d be with him the whole way. It meant she couldn’t run, but it also meant she could keep looking at this positively unnaturally hunky sheriff. Not a bad tradeoff, if you asked her.
“Cool! And what’s the public service?”
That was the first time she’d seen a truly devilish grin pass over Diesel’s features. It was just the right kind of wolfish and boyish, like the look a guy gets when he’s just thought of the best prank ever.
“I’m sure I can figure out something for you,” he said, sliding the driver’s license into his palm and depositing it in a small safe under his desk.
Fuck. The hell’s he plotting?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Diesel
Diesel could hear Sonya gritting her teeth from a mile away. He leant against the side of his truck, watching her with an impassive expression plastered on his face, but roaring with laughter on the inside. Sonya kept throwing him dirty looks as she scrubbed the streetside wall of Danni’s Salon, the only hair parlor in Shifter Grove. It had been tagged during a recent bout of trouble with a particularly rowdy bunch of teenagers, and Diesel couldn’t think of a better way of teaching Sonya how to keep things on the straight and narrow than to show her just how much it sucked when her shenanigans caught up with her.
Besides, it wasn’t a bad view. Sonya was wearing a tank top and black jeans that clung to her curves in the most inviting ways. It didn’t take much more than seeing her bend over to take Diesel’s thoughts down all sorts of dirty paths. He had to keep hims
elf from licking over his lips as she knelt down to get a few spots lower on the wall.
“You two sure you don’t want some lemonade or something?” Danni asked, appearing next to Diesel with a worried look on her face.
She was a young human woman who had moved to Shifter Grove a few months ago in an attempt to get away from a string of unfortunate boyfriends. At least that’s what she had told Kacey, Warren’s wife. Warren had relayed the information to Diesel when the new sheriff in town had started creating files on the local inhabitants in an attempt to get to know them better, and to figure out if there was anyone he’d need to keep a closer eye on. Whether it was for their safety or the town’s would remain to be seen.
Diesel figured there was more to Danni than just the desire to leave some shitty boyfriends behind, but whatever it was, it was nothing the town would need to worry about. She projected a slight air of sadness underneath that bubbly and kind exterior that Diesel kept picking up on every time he came across her. Danni’s parlor had just been the right building at the wrong time, and Diesel agreed with Warren and the rest of the founders that stuff like that was on the town as much as it was the single inhabitants – when they could help out, they would.
So it was only natural that when Shifter Grove got its first felon, she’d be the one mopping up all the little nagging issues that Diesel or the others hadn’t managed to get to yet.
“I’d love some!” Sonya called over her shoulder, though Diesel could still see the crease of annoyance that clung to her features.
He chuckled slightly and smirked at the look Sonya gave her.
“I’m fine, thanks Danni. We should be done here any moment now,” he said, sweeping a hand over the pristinely clean wall.
“Looks great! I tried to get that stuff off myself, but I figured nothing short of industrial solvents wouldn’t even make a dent in it,” Danni said, smiling softly.
She had lovely blue eyes and that slightly fluffy figure shifters liked so much. Still, Diesel found his attention straying to Sonya more often than not.
“Just took a bit of elbow grease,” Diesel said as Danni peeled away to get the lemonade for Sonya.
“A little? My ass. I’ve been here for five hours. This is some cruel and unusual punishment, Diesel. Do I look like the kind of woman to be scrubbing?” Sonya said with annoyance as she stood up.
She reached her hands out to him, showing him how they were red and sore from sloshing around in water and peeling paint off of surfaces that were none too keen to give it up.
Nothing small about that ass, Diesel thought to himself, making that grin of his linger.
“You don’t look too bad on your knees, convict. If you’re finishing up here, we can go tackle your next assignment.”
Sonya groaned loudly, kicking her head back and looking to the sky like she was waiting for the hand of a shifter god to strike him down. Diesel glanced up, half-amused. Just a cloudless day with mild bursts of breeze – perfect.
“What now, then? I’ve scrubbed, painted, swept, cleaned, repaired and even fucking filed documents. The hell else do you have for me to do in this godforsaken town?”
***
“When I said you could come and help out with the gutters, that’s not exactly what I meant,” Rake said, eyeing Sonya’s curvy form trundling about on his roof.
Diesel shrugged good-naturedly. He’d been driving Sonya from one site to another for the past two days, keeping her well at work. He figured one or two more days would do the trick and he could ‘forgive’ her for breaking into his house. Not that he didn’t enjoy her company – she was a sassy little fireball and though being around her was physically difficult because of that attraction his animal had decided to feel for her, he didn’t mind the verbal sparring one bit.
In all honesty, it had taken him the better part of the last two days to work up the gumption to come and talk to Rake. With a sideways glance at Sonya, who was spewing expletives as she scooped muck out of the gutters of Raleigh’s large ranch house, Diesel turned to Rake. He leant one elbow on the truck and gave the man a long look – one that made Rake pull back a bit and raise his hands in front of him.
“Whoa. Whatever you’re glaring at me about, can we settle this over beers? I’d rather you not throw me around like you did Slate. I know I look marvelous, but most of my exercise these days is running after that damn woman of mine when she gets into one of her moods again.”
Rake flexed his arms with a grin that Diesel didn’t return. He had a bone to pick with the dastardly werelion, and he was damn well going to get it settled while Sonya was out of earshot.
“What the hell is up with the SassyDate ad?” he asked simply.
The sun beat down on them, scorching his neck. Diesel watched as Rake’s expression went from playful to serious and back to cheerful. He shrugged and hiked himself up to sit on the tailgate of Diesel’s truck.
“It was Liza’s idea,” Rake said.
Inwardly, Diesel groaned. Of course it was. Leave it to the wives of the cowboys to drum up trouble.
“Why?”
“She thought you could use lightening up. And she figured that since I knew you the best out of everyone in town, she’d send the gangs of women gaggling for your attention to me to filter through and find the perfect candidate. I think they talked it over in their little council of shifter wives and everybody thought it was a great idea to get you hitched and happy, whether you liked it or not. And how’d you find out about the ad anyway?
I’m not even halfway through the list of ladies vying to be your bride. Some killer dames in there, by the way. Apparently that Navy thing really works on them. If I’d known, I would have enlisted right alongside you.” Rake said, tilting his head to the side a bit.
Diesel cocked a thumb at Sonya, who was just tossing her long hair over her shoulder as she scraped some dead leaves out and spilled them on the ground.
“She told me about it. She broke into my house a few nights ago and claimed it was because she wanted to meet me, that she’d seen my name on SassyDate.”
“Shit,” Rake said, chuckling. “I figured we could be real down-low about it, since you’d never visit that app anyway. I wasn’t banking on crazy girls showing up in town.”
“She’s not crazy. Sonya has something going on, but she’s definitely completely sane,” Diesel noted.
His tone got softer as he spoke about her, and he was sure Rake noticed and just glazed it over – like friends did when it looked like the other wasn’t quite ready to spill.
“That offer for beers still stands, you know. I wasn’t on board with the idea at first, but you gotta admit, you’re wound far too tight. What the hell happened, man? I don’t remember you being like this. You used to be a bigger bastard than I was.”
Diesel glanced down, considering the noses of his boots for far longer than he had any business to.
“Yeah, I’ll remember the offer. Just, do me a favor, take the ad down. I don’t think I have the mental fortitude to deal with women who are willing to throw themselves at some random guy like that.”
“You sure it’s that, not the fact that you already found the right woman?” Rake asked, his eyes twinkling with mirth.
Diesel snorted in response but was saved the disgrace of having to reply. Sonya cussed harder than most enlisted men did in the Navy and it made Rake cringe a little next to him. Diesel just chuckled – gotta love a woman with a smart mouth, or a dirty one, depending on the situation.
“You filled this shit up just to annoy me, didn’t you?” Sonya asked, grabbing a handful of twigs and dead leaves and flinging them in the general direction of Diesel’s head.
They fluttered to the ground just a few feet in front of Sonya, dribbling off the edge of the roof. It made her groan in frustration, and damn if it wasn’t the cutest little sound she could make.
“Hey, just because I don’t like heights, doesn’t mean I don’t take pride in the expertly grown mulch that has taken residence in
my gutters, burglar!” Rake called back.
“Who’re you calling a burglar?” Sonya huffed, standing up straight and with a grin on her face now.
“If the orange jumpsuit fits,” Diesel offered.
Oh, there was that look again. The one that told him she’d try to kill him in his sleep if she didn’t just get distracted by trying to fuck his brains out before. He was sort of hoping for the second option, as unprofessional as it was.
Rake’s words rung in his ears. He knew he’d changed, but perhaps not how much he’d changed. The fact that he was joking at all came almost painfully to him now, though it had been the most natural thing before. If that wasn’t a sign that he should be worried, he wasn’t sure what was.
On the other hand, the simple understanding that he was cracking light a bit meant that things were getting better, right? Diesel eyed Sonya, who was locked in banter with Rake, and smiled to himself – maybe the right kind of company was all he really needed? Even if she came in an impossible package, ripe with irritation and haughty comebacks.
He was sort of curious to find out. But how do you go from keeping a woman close to being incarcerated and then moving on to finding out more about her? Diesel was rusty on the romance front, but even he knew that it couldn’t be the smoothest segue.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sonya
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost guess you were trying to wine and dine me!”
Sonya leant back in the booth at Sunrise Diner, luxuriating in the feeling of the supple leather embracing her sore muscles. It had been a long day of menial labor and all she could really think about was getting some warm dinner in her belly and curling up on Diesel’s couch. Or, at least, that was what she had been thinking about before Diesel took a sharp turn and changed their regular evening plans.
So far, she’d only seen the town when she needed to do some work somewhere, and the day always ended with takeout boxes, minimum conversation and falling asleep at Diesel’s cottage. She hadn’t minded – doing the work had kept her mind off the fact that she really had no idea what to do with herself now, and though Diesel wasn’t usually a riveting conversationalist, being around him still made her all giggly.