Caution

by Tara Mills

  Piper turned back and beamed at Pam. She couldn’t seem to help herself these days. “Chad and I will have a few nights together right here. Alice is going to take the kids so we can have the house all to ourselves then we’ll take a family trip to Disney World later.”

  Pam rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “I can’t imagine.”

  “We’re forming a new family. That’s how Chad and I want it.”

  “You’ll have connecting rooms for the kids, right?”

  “Of course.”

  Pam laughed. “At least you have that.”

  Piper grinned and raised her mug of champagne stamped with the words, Number One Dad on the side. As she swallowed she turned and caught Chad watching her with a thoroughly hungry look in his eyes. She choked on her bubbly, much to Pam’s surprise, and received a pat on the back.

  “Wrong pipe?” Pam asked with concern.

  “I’m fine.”

  Chad chuckled and excused himself from his group of friends and made his way over to his bride. The way he looked at her set Piper’s heart pounding like a Japanese gong.

  He spared a quick smile for Pam then tipped down and kissed Piper’s neck. “Hi,” he breathed into her ear on his way back up.

  “Hi,” she said back, going weak in the knees and melting against him. He caught her around the waist.

  An observant woman, Pam blushed. “I think I’ll just go and find my husband. Excuse me.”

  “Chad, we chased her away. That was rude,” Piper said faintly, her rebuke falling flat as her head fell to the side and Chad slid his lips up under her hair.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t help myself. You look gorgeous. Think you can spare a few minutes for your husband?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I know where the laundry room is.”

  Piper laughed and slapped him lightly on the chest. “Not now.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “We have guests.”

  “How can we break up the party? I could call the cops.”

  “Patience is a virtue.”

  “I make my own virtues.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Chad laughed and wrapped his arm around his wife. “I guess we mingle. I just need to touch you, is that okay?”

  “More than okay.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “Good.”

  • • •

  When Chad saw Angela Markland slipping away with his foreman, the potbellied, good-humored Hanson, he wondered if he should warn him but decided against it. Everyone ought to have a clear shot at finding love and Hanson was a big boy. He wished him luck. Who knew, maybe he’d be the man to tame the hot suburban beast.

  • • •

  After the last of their guests finally left, Chad pulled Piper against him and sighed.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever get you alone, Mrs. Thomas.”

  He lifted her hand and turned the ring on her finger, admiring the stones for a moment before pressing the band with a tender kiss.

  She smiled. “Mrs. Thomas.”

  He looked at the stairs over her shoulder. “You interested?”

  “We’ve done the stairs. How about a rain check?”

  He raised an eyebrow suggestively. “We have a nice laundry room we haven’t tried yet.”

  She considered it, briefly. “You said the appliances were a bit too high.”

  “For some things, maybe, but I have some interesting ideas.” He teased her neck with his teeth and lips.

  “Mmm, I’ll bet you do.” She shimmied against him. “Why don’t we start upstairs and work our way down?”

  “I’m all yours.”

  She smiled up at her husband’s sparkling eyes and leaned in for a deep and lingering kiss. “Yes, you are.”

  More From This Author

  (From Forest Fires)

  Drake Carver stumbled backwards away from his car and stared in disbelief at the split end of the tire iron in his hand. That single crack in the metal just transformed a simple flat tire into a very serious problem.

  “Great. Just great.”

  He looked around and as the gravity of his situation sank in, Drake lost it, his legendary self-control no match for sheer frustration.

  “Fucking piece of shit!” he yelled, adding a muttered curse for low-grade steel as well.

  He raised his arm, all set to batter the roof of his car when he froze. What was he doing? Lashing out in anger wasn’t going to solve anything. Still, admitting that didn’t exactly satisfy his need to do something. He spun away from his vehicle and sent the tire iron sailing into the thick weeds.

  That felt better. Drake took a deep calming breath and turned, looking up, then down, the quiet gravel road flanked close by denuded birch and poplar trees and tight clusters of spruce. Even though it was mid-April, at this elevation there were still large patches of snow running along the ditches and spreading into the deep shadows of the forest.

  He reached into the car for his phone and groaned when he confirmed his suspicion. No cell coverage in the wilderness.

  The tiny town of Haven was forty-five minutes behind him and his isolated cabin was a good fifteen minutes ahead — by car. At this time of year, it was extremely unlikely he’d even get a chance to flag down help. Judging by the unspoiled patch of snow he plowed through a mile or two back, he was the first person to drive this road in weeks.

  Thoroughly disgusted now, he chucked the phone through the open window and onto the passenger seat with a grim scowl on his face.

  Sure, he had a tent in the back and he could set it up if he had to, but it had been hard enough shifting all his gear to get at the jack and spare tire. He didn’t even want to think about how much crap he’d have to unload just to unearth his camping gear.

  The other alternative would be to strike out for the cabin on foot but a fifteen-minute drive meant what exactly when compared to an uphill hike? He couldn’t even say for sure how many miles he was dealing with. He’d be lucky to make it by sundown. Very lucky.

  But what was the point? He couldn’t do anything from there. He’d be better off trying to rope a moose and ride that back down to Haven. Rope he had, but wheels? Not anymore.

  He was screwed.

  Drake bellowed at the sky in frustration. As the impotent sound wafted away, he turned and kicked the tire as hard as he could.

  “SHIT!” he yelled in pain and hopped around on one foot.

  • • •

  Charley liked to say that her twenty-five year old pickup wasn’t so much beat to hell as it had character, and from all the dents and damage, a lot of character. She loved it because it refused to give up and die, even when other people struggled every winter to start their frozen engines, her baby always purred to life without hesitation. Charley admired tenacity, she could relate.

  Rounding a tight turn she started in surprise and stretched forward, peering through the pitted windshield. “What the hell? A rain dance?” Then she started to laugh.

  There was a man jumping around in circles up ahead, flailing his arms and chanting at the sky. Only when she got closer did the scene begin to make sense. Charley eased her foot off the gas pedal and pulled alongside the stranded motorist.

  Leaning across her bench seat, she called through the passenger window. “Problems?”

  The man limped over, his face a complicated blend of relief and annoyance.

  Charley’s grin wavered then flickered out altogether when she got a better look at him. Woof. Talk about a sexy babe in the woods! He looked like he just stepped out of a Lands’ End catalog. Not exactly her type but there was nothing wrong with admitting the obvious. Still, what was a clean-cut prep d
oing out here?

  “I’ve had better days,” he said. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you.”

  Charley laughed. “I’ll bet. Loggers aren’t even up here yet. How can I help?”

  He shot a hot scowl at his disabled car. “You wouldn’t have a tire iron would you?”

  “You don’t?” she asked derisively.

  Damn, Charley sighed. Her newly hatched flight of dark stranger fantasies plummeted back to earth with a wail of disappointment. Venturing into her woods unprepared was bad enough but admitting his ignorance utterly emasculated him. There was no way to overlook that one.

  His eyes narrowed and he pointed his finger at her. “Just wait.”

  He stalked over to the ditch and pulled a broken lug wrench out of the tangled weeds. Limping back, he held it up. “I don’t know if this ever qualified as a tire iron but I’d say it’s junk now.”

  Even from a distance, she could see the large crack in the metal. The end that was supposed to fit snugly over the lug nuts looked like a flower opening into bloom. Charley dropped all charges, perfectly willing to cut him some slack — on this at least.

  “You need to get yourself a cross lug wrench. There’s no way you could get any leverage with that thing anyway.”

  • • •

  Great, a know it all. Drake seethed at the unwelcome lecture on top of everything else.

  “I’ll remember that,” he said tightly.

  The young woman threw her door open and jumped to the ground. Her long hair flowed off the seat behind her like a royal train. She waited for it before closing the door.

  Drake’s mouth dropped open and he found himself staring in astonishment. How he managed to miss all that hair he couldn’t say, but he was absolutely aware of it now. Mesmerized, he followed the glossy cascade all the way down to the backs of her knees.

  Completely indifferent to his reaction, she gathered it at the back of her neck and twisted it into a skein that she tied into a single knot. Carelessly tossing the lengthy tail behind her, she sauntered around to the back of the pickup. Grabbing hold of the tailgate, she used the bumper as a step to hoist herself into the bed.

  Drake took a peek inside the bed and frowned. It was a mess, filled with tools and things he couldn’t even begin to identify. He watched in bemusement while she shifted her junk, tossing her knotted hair over her shoulder occasionally to keep from stepping on it. Regardless, it continued to sweep the dirty floor.

  “Ah ha!” she cried, disentangling the lug wrench from a monster chain before holding it aloft like a victory cup.

  She leaped over the side to the ground and strolled to his car as if they had all the time in the world.

  In full light and up close, Drake realized she was actually quite pretty, in a natural, neglected sort of way. Free of cosmetics, he got the full kick of her pale flawless skin and the sprinkle of freckles on the tip of her nose. Then he noticed her haunting eyes. They were the palette of nature itself and he could see how they could mimic the stormy gray of a lake, the volatility of a thundercloud, or like now, the misty deep green of the pines behind her. It was stunning. If that weren’t enough, those eyes were framed by killer lashes that would have given Max Factor palpitations. But she obviously didn’t bother with mascara either.

  She crouched next to the car and her worn jeans tore a little more at the knees. “Yep, you picked up a rock,” she said, inspecting the tread. “Are you gonna be in the area long?”

  Her question jerked Drake’s attention back from the hair pooling on the ground behind her.

  “I’ll be here through the fall.”

  She looked up at him and he refocused on her face.

  “Then here’s what you do. You get to town and buy yourself a tire puncture kit and a portable air compressor. You’re going to need them on these roads. Consider this a wake-up call.”

  “I’ve got good tires,” he argued.

  She held up a hand. “I hear ya, but what you’ve got are passenger tires, meant for driving on nice flat, smooth pavement. We don’t have roads like that around here. What we have is sharp, hard gravel that can penetrate even the knobbiest treads when the conditions are right.” She reached for her cross bar and spun it in her hands to gauge the sizes before slipping one end over the first lug and cranking on the wrench.

  An evolved guy, Drake was generally secure enough not to be bothered by the prospect of getting rescued by a woman, but he was struggling with this one. It didn’t help that she was a swaggering goddess who didn’t seem to have a clue she was missing a “Y” chromosome. Nor was it easy to ignore the niggling suspicion that she’d already made some rather unflattering and inaccurate assumptions about him. The urge to set her straight was warring with the compelling need to run his hands down that waterfall of hair and neither was making any headway.

  As she fit the tool over the second lug and put some muscle into cracking it, he shifted from foot to foot, getting more agitated by the second.

  Unable to stand it any longer, Drake crouched beside her and nudged her in the arm with his elbow. “I’ll do that. It’s my tire.”

  She shrugged and stood, stepping back to let him in. Drake took hold of the wrench and continued, half expecting her to criticize the way he worked but apparently she found it satisfactory because she kept quiet. He wondered how often that happened.

  Once the tire was changed and the flat put into the back of his car, Drake pulled out his wallet. She was already getting into her pickup truck when he caught her arm and tried to press a twenty into her hand.

  “What’s that for?” she asked, shying away from the money.

  “It’s a thank you.”

  “You could just say thank you.”

  “But this is how it’s done.”

  “Not here.”

  “Take the money.”

  “No. If I accept payment then my good deed is nothing more than a business transaction and I don’t get to enjoy the simple satisfaction of helping someone. You wouldn’t rob me of that pleasure would you?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.” She spoke slowly, as if she was afraid he wouldn’t understand. “We help each other out here because it matters. Remember that when you come across someone in need of a hand or a ride.”

  Drake stepped back from the pickup and she closed her door.

  “Well, at least let me buy you a beer sometime.”

  She shrugged again. “Sure, if you catch me in town. Otherwise you can work something out with Dink and he’ll slide one to me the next time I pop in.”

  Was she kidding? “Dink?”

  “He runs the Pine Tree Tavern. He’ll write it up on the board if we don’t reconnect in person.”

  She moved to turn her key but Drake slapped his hand on her door and brought her attention back to him. “Then I’ll need your name.”

  Her pretty smile wowed him to his socks. “Charley Jensen.”

  “Charley?”

  “Charley.”

  “Drake. Drake Carver.”

  The attractive crease running along the left side of her smile deepened. “I’ll see you around, Drake.” She pulled away, kicking up a bit of dust behind her.

  Drake watched her tailgate disappear around the next curve. “Count on it, Charley,” he murmured softly.

  To purchase this ebook and learn more about the author, click here.

  In the mood for more Crimson Romance?

  Check out The Confession

  at CrimsonRomance.com.

 

 

 
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