The wheel automatically turned down the road that had led to his home for two decades, but now took him to a place he didn’t belong. His hand gripped the wheel so hard his fingers tingled.
Just short of the ranch’s long driveway sat the little white house that matched the address the dispatcher had given him. The petite woman had wispy, silvery hair that sat high on her head and bobbed like a little hat as she waved him down. He had known the woman, like most of the year-round residents, his entire life. His lips cracked as he forced a smile.
The woman made her way to the driver’s side window as he pulled to a stop.
“Little Danish, I was hoping you would be the one I got. I heard about the hand. I hope they find whoever it belonged to. Nasty bit of business if you ask me.”
He cringed as she said his childhood nickname. She was lucky she was pushing eighty or he would have had to remind her that he was almost thirty and nowhere near the appropriate age to be called “little Danish.”
Dane forced a smile. “It’s nice to see you, Mrs. Mullen. Can you tell me about the woman you saw?”
“I’m telling you, this is just strange. There was a little lady out here this morning walking down the fence line. It was about 7:30. I think she was thinking she could get away without being noticed. But she didn’t know this lady.” Mrs. Mullen pointed at her chest proudly. “There ain’t no way I’m gonna let the day pass me by. I had bread to bake this morning.”
The woman continued babbling as Dane pretended to listen about the details of her morning and what she thought the young woman was up to.
“Which way did she go?”
“I watched her for a while. She was headed toward the back forty of the Diamond. Ain’t nothing back there but a few horses.”
The chatter continued until he could politely pull away from the woman and head down the fence line and away from the assault to his ears. Surely by the end of the day the news of a trespasser would be circulating around Somers and he would be fielding calls and texts from people wondering what was going on.
There was a thin layer of crispy white frost on the grass and the barbed wire which stretched up the hill as far as he could see. After a couple of miles, he came over the crest of a pine-covered hill. A bare patch of barbed wire caught his attention where the woman must have gone through the fence. Of course he had put on his nice work shoes this morning; his feet would be soaked almost as soon as he stepped into the ranch’s deep grass. The call was getting better and better as the minutes ticked by. Not only did he have to be on the ranch, he had to do it without seeing his brother; if he didn’t get shot at, he would have to consider himself lucky.
The wire creaked as he pushed through it, careful not to get his uniform stuck on the rusty barbs. A head stuck up from over the ridge line. Instinctively, he reached for his gun.
“Stop!”
The blonde head disappeared before he could get a good look at her face.
Dane’s footfalls were muted by the thick grass as he rushed up the hill. He tried to control his breath as he pushed his legs up the steep ascent. The woman’s long hair flowed behind her as she sprinted down the ravine toward a dry creek bed. “I said stop!” His voice echoed off the empty hillsides and down toward the woman.
• • •
How had Deputy Burke found her?
An animalistic instinct to run, to get away from the man chasing her, poured through Aura like liquid flames. Aura’s human feet caught in the long, frost-covered grass as she tore her way toward the end of the ridge. If she could just get down to the bottom, then slip around the bend of the hill, she could get away.
If she could just get away, she wouldn’t have to answer any more questions or tell him about the macabre find she’d made in the back of Natalie’s pickup. She was already likely a suspect from the wayward hand — the last thing she needed to do was tell the police that she’d found a bloody camisole in her sister’s deserted pickup. They’d lock her away in a second and she didn’t have time to waste playing some small town cop’s stupid game.
The thought to shift into her palomino form passed through her mind, but she pushed it away. He couldn’t see what or who she was. He would never stop chasing her — it had happened before and it could never happen again. She was safer as a human, regardless of what Natalie thought. A horse was far more vulnerable.
She turned and glanced back over her shoulder at the muscular man. His jaw was set like it had been forged in iron. His hand was at his hip, gun at the ready. “Aura Montgarten, I said stop!”
The crash of his feet followed her down the hillside. He wouldn’t shoot her, would he? Over the decades so much had changed, but the new law wouldn’t allow for him to shoot her, would it? She picked up speed. Let him shoot. There was only one way to kill her and if he never got close, he would never get the chance.
“If you don’t stop, I will be forced to taze you!”
The sounds of his heavy breaths grew closer. He knew who she was. She had nowhere to run. She had to find Natalie, and she would stay in Somers until she did, so fighting with the local law enforcement didn’t seem like the smartest move.
Her feet refused to stop, but her mind forced them to slow.
There was a footstep behind her. His arm wrapped around her waist and his shoulder drove into the middle of her back, throwing her off balance. Her face smacked against the cold wet grass and her mouth filled with dirt as his body pinned her to the ground. Before she could stop him, he had her arms pulled behind her back.
She thrashed on the ground, fighting the sexy predator. His face was close to hers and the minty scent of his breath mixed with the masculine spice of his cologne.
It surprised her, but beneath her need to escape something else welled within her, something more primal, more voracious — was it desire? Was it a need for him to push her down in another way? How would it have felt if he was coming after her to make love? To press her against the ground and steal the kisses from her wanting lips?
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” Dane growled.
Aura pulled at her arms, trying to pull them free from his vise-like grip, but his fingers refused to budge. He sat up on top of her, his muscular thighs wrapped around her middle. The heat of his body crept into the chilled skin of her back, making the desire that nibbled at her grow more ravenous.
She turned so she could see him. His face had the same forged look. His eyes drilled into her with an adrenaline-laced fury; as if she was a beast he was hell-bent on destroying. With the strength of his features and the ferocity of his gaze she was under his control and a strange need sprang up from her core. She liked this. She liked his body pressing against hers, holding her down, and for a moment, controlling her. She couldn’t feel this way. Not about this man or any man. Not now. Not here. No one could control her.
“Why in the hell did you run?”
The course dirt at the corner of her lips fell into her mouth as she moved to talk. “Why did you chase me?”
Dane sat back a little, shifting his weight from her back to her ass. “I’m trained to run.”
Well, so am I …
“You were reported for trespassing on the Diamond Bar Ranch. Are you aware that what you are doing is against the law?”
She had seen the red No Trespassing signs, but admission was tantamount to guilt. She wasn’t about to be sent to jail for some stupid law — not when her sister’s life could be at stake.
“Get off of me,” she grunted.
“You gonna run?”
The muscles of Aura’s legs tensed as she thought about running, but she shook her head. She couldn’t act like a fool. If she went to jail there would be no one to help Natalie.
Dane’s fingers uncurled from her wrist and her arms freed. She wiggled and Dane sat up, slightly allowing her just enough
room to roll over and face him.
The anger in his eyes melted away as he looked down at her. The warmth of his body seeped into her like a warm cup of tea after a long day, and she basked in his inadvertently calming touch. Without thinking, her hands dropped to the tops of his thighs. A spark jumped between them, through the thin cloth of his pants and through her body, straight to her heart. His eyes softened and his body relaxed under her touch.
He seemed to shake his head slightly as if he was fighting the voices in his head. “What were you doing here, Aura?”
Something about the way he looked at her, like she was the woman in his life instead of a stranger pinned beneath the legs of an officer, made her want to tell him the truth — that she was in Somers to find her sister. She didn’t want to be alone in carrying the weight of Natalie’s disappearance anymore. Maybe Dane could be just the man to help her.
“I need to get back into the timber.” She thought about the shirt that she had stuffed in her back pocket, but hesitated in telling him anything about her sister. She was already likely under arrest for trespassing; things would only grow worse if she showed him the blood-covered shirt.
“You were going to trespass through the ranch to get back into the timber?” His hands dropped to hers and he had a confused expression on his face. “Why?”
“I needed a good run.”
“You needed a run? Through a ranch you have no business being on — alone?”
“No.” She turned her palms up to him, letting him run his rough thumb over her sensitive skin. Her heart raced with excitement. “Now I have you to help me get onto Shirley Mountain.” She jerked her head in the direction of the mountain that sat to her left.
“Have me?” He flashed a wicked smile. “You think I’m going to hang out with some drifter who thinks she can trespass where she wants, whenever she wants?”
In a moment of shear madness, she pulled her hands from his, reached up, grasped his black uniform, and pulled him down to her. He didn’t resist. His mouth tasted like peppermint as she pulled his lip into the edge of her mouth and sucked. A quiet needy moan rumbled from his chest as their kiss deepened.
He pushed his hand up behind her ear and ran his thumb over the skin of her cheek, stroking the need she felt for him. She wanted this. Him. Here. Now.
“You’ll help me. Won’t you?” She let her nymph magic go to work as the sweet seduction dripped from her words.
His other hand moved between her shoulders, never stopping their hungry kiss.
“Whatever you need. I’m yours. I promise,” he replied, his voice hazy with her spell.
The man’s full lips moved with hers, his tongue flicked against hers making the dampness grow between her thighs. He let go of her face and grabbed her hand and pushed it up over her head, into the moist grass.
He pulled back slightly, but his lips still touched hers. “You’re so fucking sexy.”
His words filled her with an unbridled excitement and she took his lips hard, like a wildfire overtaking virgin timber. Many men had wanted her, but Dane was so much more than most — he was a predator and she the prey, the hunter and she the hunted.
Icy winds picked up around them, forcing their bodies closer together. She ran her fingers around the top of his belt and slowly unclipped his gun. Her right hand slid up under his shirt, covering the motion of her left. He moaned as her fingers caressed the firm muscles of his core. Was he this muscular everywhere?
Her mouth pressed against his and she raised her hips against his responding body. The gun steadily moved from the holster as she pulled. She slipped it free and slid the cold steel under her back.
She reached back up and unbuttoned his uniform top and pulled it from his shoulders, uncovering the white tee-shirt he wore beneath. The muscles of his chest pressed hard against his shirt, showing every perfect line and contour of his work-strengthened body. She dropped the black shirt with the badge pinned to it to the ground beside them. A sense of guilt filled her as she thought of what she had done, but she needed to protect herself.
Dane pushed her legs apart and rubbed his heat against her. The moan rippled from her lips. His hand found the hem of her shirt and he reached underneath. His rough fingers pulled down the cup of her bra and he thumbed her sensitive nipple. She lifted her hips to meet him as her need to possess him burned through. He slid his body against hers, showing her exactly how much he needed her in return.
Pulling in a raspy breath, he drove his face down against her neck. She moaned as he passed his body over hers again.
The grass rustled above them and there was a clatter of hooves on rock.
Dane sat up. Above them, on the ridgeline, was the ranch hand, Pat. He sat high in the saddle of a bay-colored horse. He leaned back and the leather of the saddle creaked.
A part of Aura was glad to see the surly cowboy — what had she been thinking in seducing Dane?
She pushed him off. He grabbed his shirt and threw it on over his tee-shirt as he tried to cover up the evidence of the mistake Aura had made.
“Goddamn it.” Dane reached down to his belt. “Where’s my goddamn gun?”
“Old Mrs. Mullen told me there was a trespasser.” Pat shifted in the saddle as he pitched his head back in a laugh. Aura noticed a bulge on Pat’s hip, similar in shape to the gun that rested under her back. “I guess this must be the new way you all are arresting law-breakers. I guess I can see why murder is on the rise.”
Chapter Four
What in the hell was he thinking? How had he allowed her to do that to him? It was like Dane was under some kind of spell. One minute he was arresting her and the next … well, the next he was making a goddamned fool of himself. And in front of Pat no less. Son of a bitch.
It was because of those eyes, those big sapphire-colored eyes. All she’d had to do was flash them at him, flick her little eyelashes, and he had been a goner. Not in the last five years had he experienced anything like what she had done to him in that field. Hell, he couldn’t remember a time a woman had made him lose his mind like that.
Dane slammed his hand against the steering wheel of the patrol car. The worst part of it all was that he’d loved every goddamned second of it — being in her arms, her pulling him down to her, feeling her writhe beneath him as he kissed her.
“You didn’t need to handcuff me,” Aura growled from behind the clear plastic barrier window.
“You didn’t need to touch my gun.” He opened the door to the patrol car, stepped out, and slammed it shut without waiting for her to respond. She’d already gotten him into enough trouble without bringing him into a verbal conflict.
She threw her head against the back seat in agitation. Dane reached down and checked his holster. His gun was still there.
The white ranch house where he’d grown up sat at the end of a long path of flat, sharp black stones covered in the leafy debris of the early fall. Planters filled with frostbitten flowers lined the path. The wraparound porch was empty except for a single chair where Zeb sat with his booted foot resting on his knee and a smug grin on his face.
Dane pulled the little notebook out of his pocket. This was just another call. His feet seemed to stick in place, like he’d stepped in a steaming hot pile of cow manure. The last time he’d seen Zeb had been the day he’d left this place and vowed he’d never come back. Fate had a wicked sense of humor. That’s what he got for saying “never.”
The boot-worn steps creaked as he stepped up and onto the porch. Zeb rocked slightly in his chair as he stared intently at Dane. Dane stared right back. His brother wasn’t going to take control of this situation like he tried to take control of everything else. Dane was the cop here, he was the authority. Zeb could respect it, or he could kiss his ass.
Zeb dropped his boot to the deck with a thud. “Hey, you got a little something right there.” He leane
d forward toward him and pointed at his lip.
Dane ran his finger over the edge of his lip. On his fingers was the smear of a faint pink lipstick. He rubbed his fingers together angrily until the stain disappeared.
“Mr. Burke, did you wish to press charges against this woman?” He jabbed his finger toward the car.
His brother leaned back in the rocking chair and put his hands down on the armrests. “What was she doing here? Going after my horses again?”
She’d been here before? Funny how she’d forgotten to mention it to him. Come to think of it, she’d not said anything about why she’d been on the property.
“You and I both know that there aren’t any horses back in that pasture.” He opened the pad of paper and lifted a pen from his front pocket. “Charges? Yes or no.”
Zeb peered out to the car. “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
Dane’s gut clenched and bile rose, burning his throat as he swallowed it down. “If you don’t tell me yes, I’m going to assume you are passing on your right to pursue legal recourse.”
“Tell her she has an open invitation to dinner.” Zeb gave a little wave in the direction of the patrol car.
Dane flipped the pad closed and stuffed the pen in his pocket. His brother would never change.
• • •
The air was humid and stale from her breath as it filled the little plastic confine of the patrol car’s back seat. Her butt was sore from sitting in the same place for so long and she shifted in the seat.
Dane’s brows were furrowed in an angry pucker. He could write her the ticket. She didn’t care. So she’d trespassed on the ranch. She had bigger things to worry about.
He got in the car and slammed the door shut. The car hummed to life. He spun it around and made his way to the icy road. The only sound was the crackle and sputtering of the patrol car’s radio.
The Nymph's Curse: The Collection Page 23
