He was deeply tanned. Probably, she thought disdainfully, some body-builder type who hung out in gyms striking poses.
The light green eyes accepted and deflected her examination—and made her revise that last conclusion. No way this man played pretty boy for anyone. Maybe he’d been born well endowed or his work gave him muscles, but she knew without doubt that he didn’t spend time on weight machines to satisfy any vanity on his part.
“Sir?” she prompted. “Would you like to order?”
“Sir?” he echoed ironically. “Call me Zeke.” He grinned at her. “I’m not that old yet.”
The grin was her undoing. His mouth was wide with full, rich lips, and he had good teeth, though a trifle crooked. But that grin was full of knowledge, full of all the things Mattie had wondered about and wanted to learn in that secret, dark part of herself.
She knocked over a ketchup bottle.
He caught it with a deft movement. In his gaze, amusement danced. “Don’t get all flustered, now, Miss Mary.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“No, ma’am.” The grin lingered at the edges of that fine mouth. He sipped his coffee. “Get me a couple eggs, over easy, some toast and bacon and hash browns.”
Relieved, Mattie scribbled down the order, slapped it to the ring and spun it around, then escaped into the kitchen.
*
ZEKE SMOKED AND drank coffee idly, waiting for his food. A newspaper sat on the counter, but he didn’t pick it up.
Through the open door to the kitchen, he watched the waitress collecting plates from the dish machine. He’d been on one of his periodic restless road trips the past few weeks—this one down to the Gulf for the hell of it, and the new waitress had been hired in his absence. Not from around here, but he’d swear he knew her from somewhere.
She was hiding something, that much was sure. His eyes narrowed. Mary. If he asked her last name, she’d probably say Smith. Mary Smith from Peoria.
And he was John Doe.
He watched her as she put the plates away. A nice-looking woman if you liked the type, which he ordinarily didn’t. He preferred blondes, generally. Tall blondes, with lean bodies and hard eyes. This one was smaller, with tawny skin and dark hair. She tried to hide her figure under the loose-fitting uniform, but the curves were a tad too generous to be well hidden. Round breasts and naturally swaying hips. Her hair was short, but thick and silky-looking and he couldn’t help but admire the graceful turn of her neck above the white collar.
Nice-looking, with the emphasis on the nice. Probably Catholic school and the whole nine yards; a woman didn’t keep skin like that living hard.
Which meant she wasn’t someone he’d tangled with and forgotten. Zeke didn’t bother with good girls, sweet girls like this one. They were looking for things he just didn’t ever intend to provide for anyone.
He continued to watch her through the door to the kitchen. For a good girl, she sure had one hell of a mouth. Generous, with plump lips and a certain slanting curve at the corners that hinted the doe eyes might light with mischief when she wasn’t scared.
Maybe that’s what he remembered—a kissable mouth was his particular downfall, as he’d told himself more than once.
He wondered what a good girl had to hide, what she was running from.
And swore. A pretty mouth and a woman in trouble. Bad combination, especially in some sweet stranger he don’t know a damned thing about. An alarm bell triggered in his mind.
It would come to him. He’d figure out where he knew her from. In the meantime, he had troubles of his own.
The cook smacked a bell and slid Zeke’s order under the heat lamp. Mary wiped her palms on her apron and headed out to pick it up. Zeke caught her nervous glance in his direction, and taking the chance, frankly watched her breasts move under her blouse. It would irritate her. Push her away.
She pretended not to notice, but he could see by the flush in her cheeks that she had. “Would you like anything else to go with that?” she asked, slamming the thick plate down in front of him.
He looked at her. Big, big brown eyes, snapping now with both desire and fury. The unwilling desire sent a spiral of response through his nether regions, and he almost taunted her, just to see if he could kindle that flame a little bit. He almost said, “Yeah, I want you, nothing on it.”
But along with the desire and wariness in those enormous brown eyes, he saw innocence. It was one thing to play with a woman who understood the stakes, who didn’t expect a man to call back in the morning. Zeke had rules about virgins and innocents. “That’ll be it,” he said. “Thanks.”
She slapped the check on the counter and automatically refilled his coffee cup. Zeke pretended to ignore her, but as she turned back toward the coffee machine, he spied her hands. Burns. It triggered another sense of déjà vu. He frowned. “Mary. Where do I know you from?”
Her face went abruptly, sickeningly white. “You must have somebody else in mind,” she said, and hurried away.
Zeke felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. She was lying. And she was in trouble. Mary Smith from Peoria.
Right.
*
IN THE KITCHEN, over the roar of the dishwasher, Roxanne met Mattie. “Figures,” Roxanne said matter-of-factly. “I’ve been trying to catch Zeke Shephard’s eye since he showed up in Kismet. He walks in and takes one look at you and it’s fire.” She leaned over and sniffed Mattie’s neck. “Nope. No perfume.”
Mattie slapped her arm. “Just tell him if you want him. He doesn’t look like the type who’d say no.” She looked at Roxanne. Long blond hair and a lean body, with big blue eyes. “I can’t see too many men that would say no to you, anyway.”
Roxanne grinned. “Thanks.” She folded her arms across her chest and glanced out the kitchen door. “He wouldn’t say no, but I couldn’t catch him like that, either.”
“Catch him?”
“Yeah.” She lifted a shoulder with a coquettish smile. “One taste would never be enough. I’d want to hang on to him—at least for a little while. The woman that can tame him permanently probably hasn’t been born, but he could be coaxed to light for a few months, maybe.”
Mattie stared at her. In her other life, the women didn’t talk about taming men. They talked about engagement rings and weddings and finding a house. She licked her lips, curious. “Wouldn’t you fall in love?”
Roxanne nodded with a slight, one shouldered shrug. “Probably.”
“So how could you just sleep with him, knowing he would leave you?”
“Oh, honey. I pegged you for naïve, but I didn’t think you were stupid.” Roxanne tugged Mattie’s sleeve, pulling her over to look out the door to where Zeke sat, eating heartily. Against the backlight of the window, his hair gleamed around the edges with a deep, burnished halo. In a low voice, Roxanne said, “I want you to think about that man in your bed, with nothing on except maybe a sheet.”
Mattie shot her an alarmed glance.
Roxanne smiled. “Just try it.”
Slowly, Mattie turned to look at him. Her heart shimmered in anticipation, a strange danger, but the old ways of living had landed her in more trouble than she could fathom. Maybe Roxanne was right.
She inclined her head and let her eyes wash over the broad shoulders and lean waist, and she called up a picture—his arms bare, with that hair tangling over his shoulders, his skin dark against the white sheet.
“You see?” Roxanne said quietly. “It would be worth it.”
He blotted his lips with a paper napkin, and Mattie noticed his hands were as enormous as the rest of him. For one single minute, she indulged in her first experience with pure lust and let herself imagine what that hand might feel like, gliding over her body.
As if he felt her gaze, he looked up suddenly. Caught in the forbidden thoughts. Mattie didn’t immediately look away. He met her gaze levelly, without emotion, acknowledging her stare without revealing anything of his own. His lips pursed as if in though
t and still Mattie couldn’t stop staring.
He winked and blew her a kiss.
Mortified, she turned around and ran into Roxanne’s shoulder. “Oh, I’m so embarrassed,” she said, covering her eyes. “What a jerk.”
Roxanne laughed. “He’s cocky, all right. But that’s part of the game.”
A wisp of her heated imaginings brushed through her. Mattie shifted uncomfortably. “That’s not a game I want to play.”
“Too late, honey,” Roxanne said with a slow smile. “You already made the first move.”
Chapter 2
*
ZEKE KEPT A room above Bronco’s, Kismet’s premier beer/pool hall/hamburger joint, where he sometimes worked when he was in town. He stopped in to check his mail. None, which he’d expected. One side effect of cutting ties was a drop in mail. Whistling, he tossed his duffel on the bed, took a fishing pole from the closet and headed out.
Fishing calmed him. Always had. He liked everything about it: the quiet and the solitude, the play of sunlight on the water and through the trees, the smell of leaf mold beneath his feet and the faintly coppery scent of the stream. Kismet boasted some fine fishing, too. Only place there was better trout was on his land in Colorado, and he hadn’t been there in some time.
This morning, however, the gentle scenery only provided a backdrop for the nagging sense of déjà vu he’d felt over the new waitress at the café. No matter how he struggled with it, he couldn’t place just where he knew her from, and it was driving him crazy. A cynical, suspicious part of his mind wondered if she were some friend of Amanda’s come to mete out more revenge.
But that scenario didn’t quite wash. For one thing, she was scared. She’d gone so pale so fast when he asked her how he knew her, Zeke had thought she might really faint.
For another thing, she pricked his instincts. It had been a long time since he’d felt that scream along his nerves.
Leave it alone, he told himself. Stay away from her, let her solve her own problems.
Leave it alone.
But as he reeled in a nice string of rainbows, he found himself wondering over and over again why he thought he knew her. It might be something as simple as he’d seen her at some rodeo, but somehow, that didn’t ring quite right. He knew there was more to it than that.
The rainbows he took back to the bar, intending to hand them over to the boss, Ed, who would put them to good use.
The bartender, Sue, children in tow, was in to pick up her check. She looked as strained as she had when he’d left on his most recent road trip. “James still not working?” he asked, giving her shoulder a squeeze.
“He found some temporary construction work down in Tucson,” she said, shifting the baby on her hip. “It’s just hard when he’s gone.” She gestured ruefully to the children. “I’m worn out.”
The baby gurgled, reaching a chubby hand for Zeke and giving him a grin. “Hey, little bit,” he said, taking the baby. “You got yourself some teeth since last time, didn’t you?”
“Getting some more, too,” Sue said with a sigh. “He’s been so cranky.”
The baby grabbed Zeke’s thumb and tried to gnaw on it. “That’s nasty, sweet pea.” He tickled him to distract him and said to Sue, “I just caught a nice string of fish. Why don’t you bring the boys over later on and I’ll fry it up. Give you a little break before work.”
Sue smiled, and the expression eased some of the exhaustion around her eyes. “That would be very nice, Zeke. I’ve got to work at seven, so about five, I guess?”
“Who’s keeping the children?”
She smiled. “Is that a hint?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Zeke kissed the baby’s head and gave the two-year-old a wink.
The new waitress at the café flitted through his mind again. “Sue, have you met the new woman at the diner?”
“Mary? Sure. She’s been here three or four weeks. Seems nice enough.” Sue lifted an eyebrow. “Can it be the lone wolf might actually be interested in a woman?”
Zeke shook his head. “Nothing like that.” He frowned. “What’s her story?”
“I don’t know. She seems kind of skittish, doesn’t she?”
Zeke nodded. “Yeah, exactly.”
But he promised himself he’d leave it alone.
*
MATTIE GOT OFF work at two, and changed before heading to the grocery store. As she ambled toward the small place she had rented, her limbs tingled with the hard work of her day. Her purse was heavy with tips—Roxanne cashed hers in every day, but Mattie liked the stacks of silver quarters. She rolled them up every third day. The woman at the grocery store, which doubled as a bait shop, had taken to teasing her about it.
Kismet was not exactly a town. There was the Greyhound station and café, the bait shop and grocery store. A gas station served the tourists on their way to Oak Creek Canyon. Two liquor stores and a single bar completed the picture.
Which was why Zeke Shephard came as such a shock. How could she have missed a man like that?
She hadn’t. In spite of his insistence that he knew her from somewhere, there was no way Mattie had ever seen that face before.
The cabin she had rented was one of a series in a motel. The owner, seeing she planned to stay on awhile, had cut her a deal, charging her monthly instead of weekly for the quaint little place. Located a half mile from the café through gently rising pine forest and the red stones that eventually formed the famous Oak Creek Canyon, it was the most peaceful place she’d ever seen. No television or radio, but a tiny kitchenette and a sofa shoved beneath the window met her living needs.
She waved to the owner as she passed the office. He grinned and waved back. Business was good today, she noted, counting the cars lined up before the discreetly scattered but plentiful cabins.
Hers was on the end, hidden away in the pines and ferns. Feeling a rich sense of well-being, she shifted her small cache of supplies to her right hip and scrambled in her purse for her keys. She ducked under a tree.
The motorcycle was parked in the place she’d have put a car if she owned one. Amid the silence and quiet greenery of nature, it was almost leeringly modern. All that chrome and the long handlebars and midnight blue tank.
Her stomach swooped and she froze, looking around for the owner of that dangerous machine. He sat on her small concrete porch, leaning against her screen door. One long, long leg was kicked out before him, the other bent so he could rest his forearm on his knee, and his shirt pulled tight over the muscles of chest and shoulders. On his face was a pair of mirrored sunglasses.
Mattie clutched her groceries and contemplated running away. The little game she’d played earlier with Roxanne in the restaurant now seemed hopelessly juvenile and embarrassing.
“What do you want?” she asked flatly.
For a long moment, he said nothing at all. Then he stood up and took off the glasses. He sighed and looked at her regretfully. “I want to figure out where I know you from.”
She’d been half expecting some sexy parry. Terror licked her lungs, as cold as dry ice, as cold as his hard face and direct eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Mmm.” He inclined his head and his hip jutted out to one side as he hooked a thumb in the belt loop of his jeans. “Then maybe you could tell me what it is you’re running from.”
How did he know?
It was too much. Mattie felt her arms go weak with rubbery fear. She felt her hold loosening on the bag she held, but helplessly watched as it slipped from her grip and fell to the ground.
The brown paper bag exploded on impact, scattering her supplies over the grass at her feet. She didn’t move immediately to pick them up; didn’t think her arms would follow the command.
Zeke just stood there, looking at her impassively, a lock of his wild long hair lifting on a finger of wind. “You dropped somethin’.”
She glanced down. Celery and apples and nuts nestled in the grass. A bottle of soda water came to rest against a bright blue box of tampons. Natura
lly. If you had to drop your groceries in front of some strange man, there was bound to be either tampons or PMS medicine in the mix. Murphy’s Law.
Nothing had to be gathered instantly. Mattie planted her hands on her hips. “I want you to leave. Now.”
“You know, Miss Mary, you can let me figure it out on my own, or you can tell me yourself.”
“Go away,” she said, shoving her bangs from her face.
He shifted. For a minute, Mattie thought he was going to listen to her. That he was going to swing those long legs over the saddle of his bike and ride away.
He crossed the small space between them and knelt in the grass. “Let me help you.”
“I don’t want your help. I want you to leave.”
“I know,” he said amiably, gathering loose apples into his long-fingered hands. “But I’m not going to just yet, so you may as well let me help you.”
Mattie stared at the crown of his head, looking at the fall of his hair over his shoulders. The main color was a glossy shade of pecan, but the sun had coaxed lighter strands through it, and it had the kind of texture that half curled, half waved, giving it a look of disarray. She touched her bare neck, remembering the feel of hair sweeping over her neck with an acute sense of loss.
At her feet, Zeke grabbed the box of tampons. “You’ll have to get the rest,” he said, and headed for the front door.
Hastily, she gathered the few items remaining. “Just drop it all on the porch,” she said. “I’ll take everything in.”
“That’s all right,” he said with a lazy smile. “I don’t mind.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That sexy Southern boy routine isn’t gonna work with me,” she said.
“No?” His grin—that devilish, knowing grin—said he thought otherwise.
“Put my things down and get out of here.” The bantering, lazy attitude disappeared instantly, as if it were a clear invisible shell he donned and dropped at will. Now the other man came through. Hard eyes that saw too much, a certain dangerous aura she couldn’t pinpoint exactly, but was as visible as his long hair. Through the thin white cotton of his shirt, she saw one shoulder bore a dark mark—a tattoo of some kind.
Bad Boy Heroes Boxed Set Page 102
