But first, he would have to smooth out the jagged edges of their bump in the road and work hard to get him to forgive the controlling, insensitive way in which he’d handled her earlier that day.
The library was quiet and empty, which didn’t surprise him, when he stepped inside. He was barely on time and as he walked towards the front desk and didn’t see Reece, a sharp pang of worry that she’d already left to walk herself home in the dark cut through his stomach.
“Hey, how’s it going?” he asked Mrs. Yeats who was organizing returned books behind the front desk. “Is Reece around?”
“She took off.”
“What?”
Fuck!
Mrs. Yeats seemed put off to have to stop what she was doing. “Went to the bar with some fella from out of town.”
“She’s at Libations?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped. “Do you see a crystal ball on this counter? That’s what she mentioned to me on her way out. Whether that’s really where she is or not is beyond my purview.”
“Always a pleasure,” he said dryly before racing out of the library.
Libations was caddy-cornered to the library, so Troy left his truck where it was and jogged across the street to the neighborhood bar that was aglow with amber lights.
Inside, he immediately spotted Reece sitting alone at a round table in front of the windows that faced Trout Street.
“Hey,” he said, winded, as he neared her.
She didn’t lift her eyes to him, only stared vacantly into the glass of red wine that was in front of her, and at first Troy thought she was so pissed at him that she couldn’t even look at him.
He was wrong.
“Hey,” he said again, giving her shoulder a little squeeze. “Why didn’t you wait for me at the library?”
It was then that he realized she looked dazed, like she’d been drugged.
“Hmm?” she murmured in a soft, far-away voice.
“Mrs. Yeats said you left the library with some guy from out of town,” he said, glancing around the bar for anyone who might be returning to Reece’s table. There wasn’t a second drink on her table, and no one seemed to be on their way over. “Hey, are you okay?”
As he pulled up a chair so that he could sit directly beside her, Reece’s hands began trembling.
It didn’t look as though she’d touched her wine, either.
He caught her shaky hands before she could take hold of the wine glass, and stared at her until she lifted her dazed gaze to meet his eye.
“What happened? Who brought you here?”
“Hot,” she murmured nonsensically.
Just as he was about to question her, she reached a shaky hand into the front pocket of her corduroy skirt, pulled out the amethyst he’d left with her last night, and dropped it to the table.
He picked it up and asked, “This got hot today?”
She slowly nodded and began swallowing very purposely over and over again, as he kept squeezing and massaging her shoulder. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was trying to come back into herself, lift out of the fog that had trapped her.
“Reece, did something happen?”
Her eyes began to come into sharp focus.
Then, after looking around the bar to get her bearings, she locked eyes with him and said, “How did I get here?”
“Mrs. Yeats said that you left the library with someone. Someone from out of town?”
“I don’t remember that,” she said, suddenly terrified. Her voice cracked with the threat of bursting into tears, but she held it together. “The last thing I remember was organizing the children’s section in the library.”
It was just like Angel Mercer, and thank God he wasn’t finding Reece out in the woods, naked. He should never have separated from her. Assuming that the daytime would be safe had been a mistake. A mistake he wasn’t about to duplicate.
“Do you remember a fella from out of town?”
She furrowed her brow and told him, “No.” But after a moment’s consideration, she said, “The crystal got very hot in my pocket a few times.”
It had happened to him as well.
He tucked the amethyst into his jeans and helped her off of her chair.
“Come on,” he said gently, as he cradled her, his arm cupped around her lower back as he shepherded her towards the door, “we don’t need to be in a bar right now.”
Outside, the crisp, fresh Wyoming air must have revived her, because the looseness he’d felt in her body vanished. She drew in a deep breath, pushed her red-frame glasses up her button nose, and ran all ten fingers through her brown hair as though she was trying not to come undone.
The next thing he knew, she had thrown her arms around him and was clinging to him in a desperate hug.
He held her tightly, their bodies pressing together from where they stood on Main Street. Cars rolled lazily by and pedestrians filtered in and out of the bar, but they remained in a solid, lingering embrace.
“I feel like I’m losing it,” she breathed into the firm wall of his chest as he held her.
“You aren’t.”
“You don’t understand,” she told him. “Today was like… like a hazy dream. I feel like I’m waking up now. I don’t see how—”
“Shh,” he told her, as he wrapped his muscular arms around her even tighter. He didn’t want to scare her by likening her experience to that of Angel Mercer’s or even Lucy Cooper’s, the waitress whose mind had been penetrated by the rogue werewolf out on Eagle’s Pass. “You’re safe now, “he told her. “I’m not going to leave you again, okay?”
“I shouldn’t have taken off this morning without telling you,” she apologized.
“Don’t worry about it,” he assured her. “Clients have a hard time letting go of their independence when someone from Quinn Security is assigned to them. What you did was normal and I’m only surprised that you didn’t do something like that sooner.”
“Really?”
He stroked his large hand down the back of her head soothingly. “I guess I’m going to have to entertain myself in the library all day from here on out,” he proposed, thinking out loud. “Maybe you’ll let me read what you have of that novel you’ve been working on.”
She let out a wet laugh that told him she’d been crying, and he tipped her chin up so that he could look into her teary eyes.
He would’ve offered her more reassuring words, but she pressed her lips to his in a kiss that he hoped would never end.
“Take me home,” she breathed, staring up into his eyes.
“I’ll do you one better,” he countered with a little grin. “I want to show you my favorite spot in all of the Fist.”
Chapter Sixteen
REECE
Reece had never known terror like that of realizing her mind had gone blank and not being able to recall hours of her life. Where had they gone, those hours, the memories of that time that should’ve been mentally available to her? Why would she have been overcome with sudden and unexplainable amnesia? It chilled her to the very bone. And all she could do was try with all her might to rest assured that between Mrs. Yeats’ comment to Troy, as well as the bartender’s account at Libations, which Troy had squirreled out of the kid, having popped back into the bar for a second before they climbed into his pickup truck, she hadn’t run off into the wilderness and done anything crazy. She had left the library, crossed the street, and entered Libations. Nothing more and nothing less. Innocent. Non-mysterious. Uneventful.
But with whom?
Both Mrs. Yeats and the bartender had mentioned the man she’d been with, how he’d been wearing a nice suit, but it didn’t compute in Reece’s brain.
The creepy real estate man—who may or may not really work in real estate—had given Reece the creeps and left the library in the morning. To her recollection, he hadn’t returned. But then again, Reece couldn’t recall much about the latter few hours of her work day.
Complicating matters was Troy’s guarded, horrified expre
ssion when he’d learned that the man who had escorted Reece into the bar had been wearing a suit. Troy had held her a little tighter, having learned that detail, kept her a little closer, and laced his fingers through hers a little harder.
They’d driven out east, almost beyond the Devil’s Fist town limits, where the plains opened up and the sky seemed to swallow the earth. The wilderness had tapered off until it disappeared and the land was a darkened sea of dusty, flat terrain peppered with sprouting tufts of bluestem grass. He’d pulled over once the twinkling lights of the Fist had disappeared behind them and killed the engine.
He’d helped her out of the truck and brought her to its bed, popped the back door down. Once they’d climbed up into the bed of the truck, he’d spread out a number of woolen blankets, and here they were, lying on their backs and gazing up at the breathtaking constellation of stars that filled the night sky.
Troy had his arm wrapped around her to cradle her head and make sure she was comfortable. The way he was holding her, using the hand of his other arm to caress her stomach and cheek in a soothing, lazy fashion, put her entirely at ease. She could almost forget the terror that had consume her. Almost.
Without thinking, she said, “I feel like he’s after me.” Troy didn’t have to respond to know exactly what she was referring to, and who. “I feel like he thinks Angel Mercer isn’t enough, like he wants me, too.”
“I’m not going to let that happen, Reece.”
“I remember him in the library,” she finally admitted. “The man in the suit.”
“You do?”
“He came in last night when it was raining, then again this morning.”
“Reece, this is very important,” said Troy, lifting up onto his elbow so that he could look down at her. “Did the amethyst get hot when he was there?”
“Yes.”
The look on Troy’s face shifted from one of concern to one of deep, contemplative thought, so she asked him, “What are you thinking?”
“When I ducked into the library when it was raining, the amethyst was in my pocket. It got very hot as well.”
Gasping, she told him, “That’s when the man was leaving, Troy.” After a flashing moment of recall, she blurted out, “Dante! His name is Dante!”
“This is huge,” he said, sitting up and pulling his cell phone from his pocket. “This is how we’ll catch him!”
“I don’t know his last name.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “We’ll track him with the crystal, like a game of hot-and-cold.” Placing his cell phone to his ear, he waited while Reece heard the sounds of the phone dialing through. When his brother picked up, Troy barreled through the strategy of catching Dante that he and all of Quinn Security could employ. “If we go back to Sasha’s and get four more crystals,” he added, “then spread out throughout Yellowstone, throughout the town, and keep hunting, we’ll find him.”
It was a plan, the best they’d come up with so far, and Reece knew, deep down, that if all else failed, she herself could be the bait.
It scared her.
But once Troy had set his cell phone down on the blanket beside him and brought his lips to hers, the fear that had welled up in Reece’s chest ebbed away, and a new, arousing heat suddenly began blossoming between her legs.
“I can’t believe I hung up on you,” she said with embarrassment.
“I can take it,” he assured her, a sexy grin coming over his face.
He returned his lips to hers and as they kissed in the bed of his pickup truck with the magnificent constellation of stars shining down from the dark, dome sky overhead, she knew that this time she didn’t want to hold back.
“Wait a second,” she whispered.
Hastily, she unfastened her corduroy skirt and as soon as Troy realized her effort, he immediately took over the task. When he’d freed her of the garment, Reece splayed out in her blouse and cream-colored panties, Troy yanked his tee-shirt up and over his head, and started unbuttoning his pants.
The glint of hunger in his eyes was incredibly sexy, but she caught his hands and helped him onto his back so that she could straddle him, sitting up and running her hands over the firm wall of his muscular chest. Smiling, she drank in the sight of his countless tattoos. God, he was sexy. He even flexed his arms a little as if to egg her on—what are you going to do about it?
Her blouse was buttoned down the front and he wasted no time working them open from the bottom up until the gentle breeze caught it and blew it off her shoulders. She pulled it the rest of the way off, as Troy cupped his large, warm hands over her bra-encased breasts, feeling her hardening nipples through cream-colored lace.
“You’re gorgeous,” he growled out, drinking in the sight of the lines and curves of her slender body as she straddled him and gazed down, her brown hair blowing in the breeze.
Reece pulled her red-frame glasses from her face, folded them, and set them on her skirt where they’d be safe.
“I should really start wearing contact lenses.”
“I like your glasses,” he said in a gravelly whisper. “They’re hot.”
She laughed. She’d never heard that one before. And then she began to move, rocking her hips and feeling his hardening, stiffening body between her legs, despite the thick material of his jeans.
He felt good. So good. Between her legs.
He’d wrapped his large hands around her waist, helping her move, pulling her harder against him, and soon he grazed those large hands of his down until he was holding the meat of her fleshy hips.
She moaned and as her eyes fluttered shut, as she savored the feel of him, he rose up, cupped the nape of the back of her neck, and pulled her into a deep kiss.
She was putty melting in his arms and he guided her down, turning her onto her back and angling over her. She wrapped her arms around his bare, muscular shoulders, their faces very close, and breathed with him, welcoming his hand to travel down the length of her slender torso, down across her taut and sensitive lower abdomen, until his fingers slipped under the upper hem of her cream-colored panties.
She moaned again when his firm, warm fingers found the folds of her aroused core.
As he gently probed between her legs, penetrating her and stirring up all kinds of heat and moisture—Reece was breathing heavily, eyes pinched shut, as she felt every inch of herself open to him—he groaned in her ear, “I think you’re the one.”
“Really?”
He looked at her, gazing deeply into her green eyes and as he continued to penetrate his finger farther and farther inside, delivering a sensual, internal massage that was bringing her to the brink of orgasm, he told her, “Yeah, really. Is that okay with you?”
She would’ve responded if she hadn’t felt the first swell of a sudden climax. A powerful, toe-curling clench came next and she gasped, squeezing her arms around his neck even tighter until they were moving together, cheek to cheek, as wave after wave of a warm, relaxing, and powerful orgasm began sweeping through.
“Oh, God, Troy!” she cried out as he brought her over the highest peak of her pleasure.
She could hear the smile shining through his raspy tone as he told her, “I could do this every night with you.”
Yes, that was what she wanted. Completely and without a doubt.
***
It was a starry, starry night, one that Sally-Mae would’ve liked, God rest her soul.
Rick was grateful for the crisp chill in the air. It was keeping him alert, but not necessarily agile. With the humidity rolling through Yellowstone, the damp chill had gotten into his bones. His joints felt stiff and his left shoulder felt sore where his rifle strap was hanging. His trigger finger was nimble, though, and he supposed that was all that mattered.
Damn Quinn brothers…
Word around town was that the Quinns had searched the eastern edge of Yellowstone, found nothing, thank God. They’d also searched for the rabid wolf, or wolf-man as crazy Lucy Cooper had so insistently referred to it, in the wilder
ness directly north of the National Park, and a one-hundred-acre area to its south that had nearly brought them to Rick’s own cabin.
He’d be damned if those boys found the crazed animal before he did. Not on his life. God forbid, they did, and the residents rallied together to get a street named after them. There weren’t that many streets left. For a disturbing moment, he considered whether or not Main Street would be up for grabs…
His jaw tightened and his teeth clenched at the thought, as he stalked farther along Lazy Man’s Trail—a narrow, dirt trail that cut directly northwest, starting at the Trail Office. As far as he’d been able to deduce, the Quinns hadn’t traveled this particular trail. They should have. It was the only one that cut clear through a mountain, the only one that man had carved out for the hikers. It was named Lazy Man’s Trail for this very reason. The terrain remained flat and anyone who crossed it would never have to suffer the increased heart rate that came with hiking an incline of increasing elevation.
It was the mountain stretch that particularly interested him, and he was almost there. The tunnel, to any animal, would look like a safe cave. It spanned approximately two hundred yards and at this hour was probably dark as hell. Perfect for hiding.
His flashlight flickered and he gave it a good shake, muttering, “Shit.”
The battery was on its way out. It was Rachel’s fault. She’d wanted to come out with him, but he’d never allow it. When she’d asked, she’d been minutes from being off-duty, first of all, and the county wasn’t exactly known for allowing overtime to this particular neck of the woods. But the real reason he hadn’t permitted her accompaniment was because, as much as it irked him, the girl was starting to grow on him. She was steadfast and stubborn, the latter quality not exactly ideal, but she had, in a certain sense, insisted on being Rick’s right-hand-man. It made him wonder what the precinct might be like if his Whitney had joined the force. Well, he supposed he’d never know. But Rachel was starting to fill some kind of void that he hadn’t necessarily even realized had been lurking in his heart. Keeping her out of danger, and in the office, was starting to feel more and more important to him. Why couldn’t she be the plucky receptionist who was always around for him to bounce his ideas off of?
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