She nodded, unable to speak.
“You’re frightened, that’s obvious. Maybe of us, maybe of yourself. But you know I’m right. Payin’ us back the money ain’t gonna change the fact that you will want more from us than a helpin’ hand.”
It was an outrageous assumption, one that should have earned him a slap or at least a stern look and a rebuke. But all she could do was stare at the truth glittering in his almond-shaped eyes. He stood there, invading her space with his searing heat, while an entire parade of replies marched by unsaid. Then he turned and walked away.
“Got two more bags outside,” he said. “I’ll bring ‘em in. Then I’ll get Jayson out of your hair.”
His ass twitched seductively as he strode away, and her gaze fastened to it until he disappeared from the kitchen. His words held her in place, teasing her like the whispers that had toyed with her dreams. She stood there so long that by the time he’d returned, she’d only managed to gather her wits enough to pull out the loaf of bread.
“This is far too much food,” she protested when he set the rest down. “It’s just me and Sage.”
“What about your friend?”
“Yeah, about that.” She stuffed the bread in the cupboard beside the saltines and kept her back turned. “There isn’t any friend. I just didn’t want strangers thinking I was truly alone here.”
“You ain’t truly alone, Lana. Not anymore.”
She whirled back around, but he was already headed for the door. “Jayson’s fixin’ to put away his tools, so I’ll say good-bye.”
Lana had been dead set on tossing the men out, but now that Zane was in such a hurry to leave, she found herself following him to the kitchen door. “So soon?”
He paused. “We’ll be around if you need us.”
She didn’t get a chance to ask how before he was gone. “Thank you again,” she called out, but there was no reply except the sound of the screen banging shut.
The knowledge they were leaving stirred an uneasy feeling in her stomach. Fear rushed back in, and she all but sprinted for the front door. With a start she realized she’d left it unlocked while she’d been alone inside. For the first time in months, she’d not only felt secure enough to do something so foolish, she’d temporarily forgotten why she shouldn’t.
“You have to get a grip,” she told herself as she glanced outside. “These men are spinning your head around.”
Jayson had packed up his tools, and he and his boyfriend, if that’s what Zane was, were speaking in hushed voices. Zane jabbed a finger toward the front door, although neither man looked her way. It seemed like they were arguing, although too quietly for her to hear until she heard Jayson say, “Damn it, Zane.” Then he grabbed the man and kissed him into momentary silence. A strange tickle feathered Lana’s stomach at the sight.
Zane pulled away in obvious irritation and stalked toward a dusty brown truck at the bottom of the driveway. Halfway there, he spun around, went back, and grabbed Jayson by the front of his shirt. He yanked the man to him roughly and kissed him even harder, turning Lana’s tickle into a hot stab of need. He broke off abruptly and went to the truck, climbing inside this time.
Jayson picked up his toolbox and started to follow, then changed course suddenly and headed straight for the cabin.
With a gasp, Lana tried to hide from the doorway, but he’d already seen her. He took the porch steps in one hop and stopped at the screen.
“I was just closing the door,” she said, her cheeks burning. “You startled me.”
“Sorry. Seems I do that to you a lot.” He held up his hand. “Here.” Her spare keys dangled between his fingers.
“Oh. Thank you.” She opened the screen partway to take them, careful to avoid any chemistry-laden contact. “The car’s okay now?”
“That car is far from okay. Struts are shot, brake pads are thin, hoses are all worn. It could use a few hundred things.” He scratched at his arm.
“But it’s running for now?”
“Yep. I wouldn’t trust her out on the main highway until the brakes get done, though. That’s next on my list.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand. “I know, it ain’t necessary, and I shouldn’t outta. But I ain’t about to sit around worryin’ you’ll go off a cliff because I let you drive on faulty brakes. Just be careful in the meantime, okay?”
She nodded. “Thank you for everything. I appreciate all you’ve done.”
He raised a brow that disappeared under his Stetson. “I reckon not quite all I done.” He gave a slight nod and put a finger to his hat. “See you later.”
He headed down the driveway with an easy stride, and she watched the pair pull away. The second the truck was out of sight, a keen emptiness descended. She shut the door and locked it before heading back to the kitchen.
When would she see them again? Zane claimed they would be nearby if she needed them, but they hadn’t left her any way to get in touch. Not that she should be thinking of getting in touch. Or touching in general, where they were concerned. Maybe they lived close by. But then, Jayson claimed he wasn’t established in one spot. She entertained a fleeting thought of offering him the spare bedroom, but she kicked herself mentally. That would be even dumber than giving it to a gun-toting redhead.
Jayel had been right about Shay Falls being the last place Lana should look for a safe haven. Zane and Jayson were dangerous, although in a very different way than she was used to. Their presence unhinged her until she forgot what she’d come there for—to hide until her life could settle into some kind of calm, safe rhythm. Jayson and Zane were neither calm nor safe.
Back in the kitchen, she started poking through the bags. “I hope he didn’t buy ice cream,” she said, digging through the closest bag.
She gasped when she pulled out one surprise after the other. “Rib eye steak? Oh, my God, lobster tail? Is he crazy?”
Sage was up on the counter in a shot. “Yes, there’s even something in here for you.” Lana showed her the toy mouse before dropping it on the floor.
Sage jumped down to bat the toy with her paws while Lana inspected the rest, barely believing how overboard Zane had gone. The man hadn’t picked up a few grocery staples. He’d apparently been trying to outfit a gourmet kitchen. High-end cheeses, butcher block meats, bakery bread, organic eggs, tender baby vegetables, and a couple bottles of wine filled her stores by the time she’d finished. Zane apparently gave her cooking skills a major benefit of the doubt, because she’d never cooked a rib eye or a lobster tail in her life. But that sure wasn’t going to stop her from trying.
She stared inside the fridge when she was through. “Wow. Just, wow. And you didn’t even want them to stay for dinner.”
To be fair, though, she hadn’t been the one to chase Zane off. He’d made his own tracks as soon as he’d prepped her for a show on Food Network.
Doing her best to put her wannabe heroes out of her mind, she started preparing her first real meal in days. She seared the steak until the kitchen smelled divine, deglazing the pan with red wine and then sautéing mushrooms in it. She was grinning widely by the time she sat down at the oval-shaped table, and she didn’t put down her fork until she’d devoured enough to take a hefty edge off her hunger. She’d been in such a hurry she forgot to melt butter for the lobster tail, but it hardly mattered. The meat was sweet and tender and the best thing she’d had in her mouth for ages.
That thought prompted a searing image of Jayson pressing her against the wall, exploring her with his tongue. Okay, maybe the second best thing.
Her smile faded as she glanced around the empty table. Zane and Jayson should be there right now, sharing in the meal they’d been responsible for providing. She pictured the three of them laughing over wine and easy conversation, and loneliness crept back in.
“Don’t be an ass,” she said, spearing a tender mushroom. “You’re romanticizing things.”
True. Even if they had accepted her offer, they would hardly be chatting away like old
friends. She’d be eating in awkward silence or suffering through stilted conversation laced with vagaries and double entendre. What if they’d wanted to stick around for dessert? What if they started kissing again right in front of her?
She stopped chewing mid-mouthful, thinking back on how they had looked together. A flicker of something, jealousy, perhaps, accompanied the heat spreading through her stomach.
Slicing her steak madly, she finished up and banished those thoughts. It was useless to dwell on fantasies she couldn’t live out. She didn’t need any more complications in her life. All she wanted was to be safe from the past and figure out how to build a future, preferably before she ran out of the financial means to do so.
Later that night, after a bubble bath to soothe her nerves, she calmed herself by doing some meditation and offering prayers and incense to the god and goddess. She made the rounds three times before turning in, obsessively checking locks and turning off all the lights so nobody could see inside. Then she plugged in her charger and made sure her phone was within easy reach on the nightstand.
She settled in bed with the e-reader she hadn’t taken to the porch swing after all. She couldn’t very well sit out in the open, alone and exposed and focused on a book. He could be out there. The name almost crossed her thoughts, but she shut it down before letting it.
The story she tried to read failed to keep her thoughts off the day’s events, so much so that she fully expected her dreams of cowboys and Indians would return that night. As it turned out, the dreams did return. But this time, it was the nightmare that dragged her into a choking, dark abyss.
Chapter Four
Lana was back on the roadside in her dream, standing behind her broken-down car. The hood was popped open, and she could barely make out a man bent inside, fiddling with the engine. She could hear some kind of metal tool tapping.
“Jayson?” she asked cautiously, stepping around the side of the car.
She heard shoes crunching through gravel, a sound which instantly drove her heart into her throat. A face came into view. That awful face, with the leering smile and the dark, lifeless eyes of a shark.
“Hello, Violet,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“I’m not Violet anymore,” she pleaded. “I’m Lana now.”
“Not to me.”
He held a knife, wicked and curved and glinting in the light of a full moon. “Your hoses are bad,” he said, stepping closer. “I had to cut them to make sure you wouldn’t escape.”
She tried to run, but her feet sank into the gravel. She screamed as his arm reached out, long and unyielding. A slice of his knife took off her braid, which he held up like a prize. “No more magic now,” he said, shaking the strand. “Do you still feel safe?”
She glanced behind him to see glowing, yellow eyes and bared fangs. “Help me,” she pleaded with the wolf.
“He can’t help you,” was the last thing she heard.
Her shriek of terror followed her out of the dream and into her room, where she woke sitting straight up and screaming. The nightmare hadn’t even begun to fade when she felt hands on her arms, and her head whipped around to see glowing yellow eyes piercing the darkness.
“No!” she shouted, screaming louder and wildly flailing against the hands on her. “Let me go.”
“Lana, it’s okay,” she heard. “You’re okay.”
A man was cradling her to him, and he did feel warm and safe. Tears began rolling down her cheeks. “He tried to kill me,” she said. “My hair!” Her hands flailed up to find her braid still intact and lying behind her. “Oh, God.”
“It was a nightmare. But it’s over.”
“It’s never over,” she said shakily. “It’ll never be over while he’s still out there.” Then she jerked back. “Who are you? Who’s here?”
The bedroom lamp snapped on, and she blinked against the sudden light.
“It’s Zane, honey,” she heard. “You’re safe.”
“Zane,” she breathed, clutching her chest to try and still her thumping heart. He sat on the side of the bed, gazing at her with his hair hanging loose and his brow furrowed in concern. He wore old blue jeans and a pale blue sweater that clung to every rippling muscle. “What are you doing here?”
“You were havin’ a nightmare. A right bad one, from the sound of it.”
She sat up against the headboard and pulled the blanket over her. “How did you get in the house?”
“We were close by when we heard your screams,” he said. “We were afraid somethin’ bad was happenin’, so we forced the front door.”
“You broke in?” She clutched the blanket higher, up to her chin, and glanced around him. “Where’s Jayson?”
“He went to check the house and around back.”
Lana rubbed her eyes, trying to process his words with her brain still fuzzy. “So the two of you just happened to be strolling by in the middle of the night?”
“We were down in the woods, trackin’ that scent we lost yesterday.”
“You heard me all the way out there?”
“Werewolves have good ears. Sounded like you were bein’ attacked.”
“I was being attacked.” She heaved a sigh and cradled her head in her shaking hands.
She heard the scuffling of footsteps coming from the front part of the cabin. “Zane?” a man called out.
“Back here,” Zane replied.
Jayson appeared in the doorway, wide-eyed and somewhat disheveled. “She okay?”
“It was only a nightmare,” Zane said, frowning at her. “I think.”
It was a leading statement, but she didn’t answer. She was too busy staring at Jayson. His boots were clutched in one hand, and a red plaid shirt was in the other. His pants were unzipped and barely riding on his hips. She wondered whether they’d really been tracking a scent, or whether she’d interrupted something a lot more personal.
He glanced at her and must have seen the questioning expression. “I was in a hurry,” he said, walking over to the rocking chair. He plopped down to tug on his boots first, conveniently leaving his bare chest on display. “We had to make sure you were okay.”
“It was just a dream.” She pictured him shoving Zane against a tree the way he’d pushed her against the wall. “Don’t let me keep you from, well, whatever you were doing.”
The comment hung in the air, and she wondered whether it sounded like an invitation. “You can go ahead and go,” she added hastily. “Don’t worry about me. I’m not really in danger.”
If only that were true.
“I do worry about you,” Jayson said. He stood up and slid his arms into his shirt sleeves, but he left the front hanging open. “We’ll have to figure somethin’ out about that front door before we go.”
“Why?”
“The door didn’t take it too kindly when we forced the lock,” Zane replied.
Her eyes gaped wide. “You broke my lock?” She jumped out of bed and frowned at Jayson, who had stopped short to stare at her. “My door can’t be left unlocked! It’s not safe.” Her voice rose to near hysteria. “This place was supposed to be safe.”
“We thought we were savin’ your life,” Jayson said. “Next time I guess we’ll just knock all polite like and see if the robber lets us in.”
“Please, just fix it,” she said breathlessly. “Right now.”
“We’ll put somethin’ in front of the door to hold it shut,” Zane said.
Her mouth dropped. “It won’t even close?”
“Probably not all the way.” He gave her a guarded look. “There’s somethin’ else. Your cat ran out. I’ll fetch her, don’t worry,” he added as she opened her mouth for a new stream of protest. “She likes me, remember?”
Her eyes closed while she tried to breathe evenly. “It’s like fate’s never going to let up until this is finished.”
“We are just talkin’ about a bad dream, ain’t we?” Jayson asked.
Her eyes opened through a blur of tears.
She swallowed thickly.
Jayson rested his hands on his hips. “Who? What’s Zane talkin’ about?”
Both men were staring at her now, and she finally realized she’d leapt out of bed wearing only a pink silk nightgown. She folded her arms across herself.
“We need to find Sage,” Lana said. “Before something finds her.”
Zane nodded. “Right.”
He headed from the room before she could blink. Jayson was still eyeing her with an expectant gaze. “Well?” he asked. “What did he mean?”
“I didn’t come here for a holiday,” she said. “I had some problems I needed to get away from.”
“What sort of problems?”
“The bad kind.” She shook her head, not sure she could get the rest out. “I don’t like talking about it.”
“If it’s that bad, I reckon you better talk about it.”
She paused, not sure if she should. Zane came back with the cat in his arms. “Sage!” Lana exclaimed. “You’re all right.”
Zane handed her over, and Lana hugged her close. “Guess she didn’t get far.”
“She was climbin’ a tree in the front yard. I got the screen to close for now so she can’t run out again.”
“Thank you.”
“Lana was just sayin’ she came here to get away from some kind of bad trouble,” Jayson said. So much for avoiding the subject.
“A man hurt you,” Zane said.
She looked up at him, startled. “How do you know that?”
Jayson swore. “Who is it? Where is he now?”
“I don’t know where he is. And I want to keep it that way.” She wandered on slightly shaky legs to the bed, where she sank down. “His name is Jonathan Tyson.” She forced the name past her lips and clutched Sage tighter. “And he’s a killer.”
“Jonathan Tyson,” Zane repeated. “I heard of him on the news. They caught him, didn’t they?”
Disorderly Cowboys [Lone Wolves of Shay Falls 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 7
