120 Mph

by Jevenna Willow

“What exactly is your problem?” She almost growled out her frustrations, which wouldn’t have been at all ladylike.

  Unfortunately, the bluest eyes imaginable rose and stared at her. Those eyes raised their corresponding brows, while a sudden smile filled the expanse of his firm, tipped mouth.

  “I did not think that I had one . . . until now,” he said.

  Didn’t have one? Of all the nerve!

  The sharp lilt to his voice set Sara’s world afire. Yet the condemnation in that tone somehow doused any fire faster than could be lit. Anger? Remorse? No, it had looked and sounded to go much deeper inside the man. He sounded . . . bothered.

  Good Lord! Was that his problem? She was bothering him, while a few minutes wasted shopping for old treasures and an accidental bump with the ass?

  Without much pause he added more, likely his sole purpose to force Sara into regretting having stopped at another yard sale on her way home from work. “And I know exactly who you are, Ms. Ruby.”

  She must have looked ready to contradict this fact, and state she clearly did not know him, and if she had wouldn’t have liked knowing him, because he continued with, “It is why I have been following you.”

  Eight carefully spoken words suddenly stalled the beating of her heart.

  “Y—you’ve been following me?” she questioned firmly, but with a mild stutter when finding her voice still intact, and the control of that voice located more toward the knees than within the back of the throat. “W—why would you be following me?”

  Okay. Time to do a quick assessment check . . .

  She would need a proper description when having to tell a sketch artist his more than prominent features. Strong jaw, blue eyes, dark hair, tall, about six-feet-two, leather jacket that fit like a well-worn glove, snug . . . no, not right. His pants weren’t at all snug; more the pity to all the women of the world.

  Jesus! There were a million men with this rather vague description to his person. She’d have to try a whole lot harder to assess all of him. Sara’s gaze darted to his pants.

  He didn’t seem to notice, while turning a hasty glance toward the old woman who was selling her treasured possessions, and who sat in a rocker nearer the farmhouse with knitting needles in hands.

  Two seconds later, his attention returned to her and Sara’s eyes had to be forcibly moved up to his face.

  Her handsome, leather bound stranger then stepped toward her, leaned his head near her ear, and all she could do was remain motionless, waiting out fate.

  “Why shouldn’t I be following you Ms. Ruby?”

  Chapter Three

  Sara took a huge step back, unsure what his intentions were, exactly. Her jean-clad rear bumped the table and rattled every bit of glassware upon it. At least eight thousand dollars’ worth of glassware—if put up for auction.

  She’d had enough of men trying to make her uneasy over the last week. Her mutiny grew.

  “Who put you up to this? Mike?”

  Sara felt uncomfortable by not only his nearness, but for the words to his following her home from work. She forced a smile to state any effort on his part would not work in his favor. It would be just the thing for Mike to do. Hire a man to follow her every move. Mike Derby couldn’t take ‘no’ for answer. Moreover, the guy was a real asshole. He’d been a bit bothersome as of late, and that bothering nature now looked to be more on a stalking level that might need the involvement of authorities.

  She wasn’t much into contacting the police, even if and when necessary. It was a trust issue more than a careless issue and one she couldn’t seem to get past.

  Sara had single-handedly closed the local strip club due to a health violation—alas, nothing more. It was as if all the men in town, who didn’t have large breasts to stare at, had too much time on their hands to pull childish pranks on those not as well-endowed. It wasn’t as if she’d killed someone. She put a few hookers out of a job, that’s all. And of course Mike had been the first to complain and the first to make Sara’s life miserable.

  Assholes’ shit didn’t stink any more than Chippendales’ would, yet they were a horse apiece in Sara’s book. Both jerks had been born from the Kingdom of Hotness.

  “I don’t know anyone named Mike. Should I?” he asked, as his strong brow cocked to state this as truth.

  Regrettably, that raised brow made her equally uneasy, and if done for what it was meant for, it sure as hell was doing its job. Sara was squirming.

  “Come on? Really?” she said tartly. “You have nothing better to do than to follow a woman to a yard sale?”

  He was too well dressed to be a crazed stalker. Pressed casual pants, expensive leather jacket, and under the jacket what looked to be . . . a tie? His wavy brown hair looked tailored under a barber’s care and wasn’t at all just plain brown as first thought. There was a light dusting of silver in the strands. His clean-shaven face and bright smile were a dead giveaway to his personal hygiene habits. Not a freckle or hair out of place.

  He wasn’t a slob and he cared about presentation . . . okay, she could work with that.

  Honestly, Sara’s second assessment had been done much more thoroughly for the potential sketch artist, and certainly not because she’d needed to check him out.

  Perhaps he knew Bill.

  Bill Hayer, in accounting, was angry all the time and for good reason. Nevertheless, a filthy kitchen was a filthy kitchen. And Sara had warned them to clean up their act. Eight days ago, she publically closed the club down. That closing looked to be for good, because once the doors were locked by way of Sheriff’s order, a few other sordid details started spilling out of the place of which Sara had nothing to do with by a simple closing of the club’s kitchen.

  Bill was leaving Sara nasty notes on her desk every morning, making sure she knew she was being watched. They hadn’t transcended into threatening, but she wasn’t taking any chances by calling his bluff.

  “You weren’t at this yard sale, Sara,” the stranger eased out of the corner of his mouth. “You were on your way home. And the bright red sale sign caught your eye . . . as I knew it would.”

  “As—as you knew it would?” she squeaked out.

  At least the words had been audible, first screamed from inside all the goo within her head, then tempered to simmering in the back of the throat and released as a croak off the tongue.

  “This is Depression ware Heaven,” he spoke flatly, looking her right in the eyes. “You would have stopped.”

  He’d made it seem as though he knew old stuff pulled her in like metal to magnet. Yet how could that be? She never saw this man before in all her life, and if she had wouldn’t have forgotten him. He had a charmingly handsome face.

  “And if I hadn’t stopped?” she clipped rudely.

  Another deep, entrapping smile came her way. This one loaded with dimple and delicious allure.

  “I would have followed you home, as I have been ordered too,” he admitted, checking Sara’s reaction to the admittance by another raise of his brow.

  “Ordered?”

  He’d been ordered to follow her? Why?

  Sara had to push forth her thoughts because every word out of her mouth made her tongue feel as if stuffed full of cotton and set to flame. The more that came out, the sicker she felt, and the more her gut tightened. She could sense her cheeks reddening. She certainly felt the sweaty palms. Christ! Even the back of her knees had sweat rolling down their length . . . and it was late October—harvest time—with a very brisk dip to the temperature. It was just too damn cold to sweat.

  Sara didn’t know what to do, or even how to react. Men, she could handle. A man who could make her afraid all of a sudden? Well, that was quite new to her.

  She wondered, should she simply grab a crowbar off the table from behind his back and hit him over the head with it? Then, make a run for it? There were plenty of weapons to use and within her reach. A full table of easily accessible articles that could do the deed, spread out by order of decay. On the other hand,
she could always stand her ground, confront the man on his tiresome jest, and simply be done with it.

  All options made her gag. She would never purposely hurt another. Nor would she avoid confrontation. Avoidance never suited her needs.

  “And who, exactly, ordered this?” she said crisply. She was trying to be nonchalant about how shaken up she was, but this was hard to do by how easily spoken it was from his tongue, and the fact her body was now trembling like a leaf caught up in a windstorm.

  The man’s smile grew even more. He checked it when the old woman on the rocker started moving their way.

  Without hesitation, he reached around Sara’s back, grabbed the salad bowl in hand, and never quite answering a question obviously made to him while Sara distraught, bought the bowl from the old woman for seven dollars and fifty cents. He’d made a blatant point to show the old woman the crack, bringing the price of the bowl down considerably.

  He must have seen Sara checking out the crack. He certainly did not look the type to notice small defects as dire imperfections in Depression Ware.

  Sara stayed nearer the table, watching the unusual display of male arrogance—and dumbfounded by how shameful it had been. She dealt with jerks of every size imaginable on a daily basis, but this jerk just out-purchased her by way of cheat.

  He returned quickly, handed Sara the bowl, and gave her another easy smile.

  “Here.”

  Sara’s eyes became trapped to his. She grabbed the one hundred ten year old bowl before she could put much thought into what she was doing. It was either that or she dropped it on the ground.

  “Now I will have to follow you home,” he said recklessly, unsettling Sara even more.

  Her brow furrowed. “Oh? And why is that?” She clamped her hand tighter to the bowl. The only good dropping it would do her now would be to spite the man. She might have disregarded the bowl as a purchase, but eventually she would have caved and bought it herself. He had no need to do this for her.

  “You now have something of mine,” he openly admitted, reconfirming her suspicions.

  Yep. Tried and true jerk. Men like this guy only gave things away if expecting them back—with interest.

  His gaze slipped to the bowl. “I will have to come to you now . . . in order to claim what’s mine.”

  A smile and a nod, a half-second later he walked off toward his car, climbed into the vehicle while having purchased nothing more, and left Sara holding a bowl she hadn’t bought and of which she’d been informed was his.

  Thank God the bugs weren’t out. She would have captured a few—her mouth hung that far open.

  As her lips closed slowly, her gaze traveled to the man’s vehicle heading down the drive. Sara then took a deep breath and held it in her lungs with all her might. Even that didn’t help the fact a mere stranger she’d met at a yard sale told her something that had her quacking in her shoes.

  At the point where the driveway met the road, he turned his vehicle toward the direction of town. Oh, Thank God! If he’d turned toward her place, Sara would have passed out onto the un-mown lawn.

  Surely he’d only been teasing her about being paid to follow her home. But if not?

  Sara Ruby did not want to think about any if nots. The if nots of life absolutely terrified her.

  As she was about to walk back to her car, a bowl in hand she did not get the opportunity or pleasure to buy, she was stopped by the sound of the old lady’s voice.

  “Miss?”

  Sara turned the woman’s way. “Yes.” It was not as if she was stealing the bowl. She did watch the man pay for it all of two minutes ago. Alzheimer a real bitch, if this was the case.

  “That lovely gentleman told me to give this to you only after he left.”

  She shuffled across the unkempt lawn toward Sara. Her hand was holding onto a slip of paper.

  A hasty smile came with the offering as she held the slip of paper out for Sara to take, a knowing wink to follow.

  “He said I was to wait until he left before I could tell you about it.”

  Sara shifted the bowl under her arm to be able to grab the paper out of the old woman’s hand. It was folded in half. She was almost too afraid to read it, yet another reassuring smile came her way to aid the effort of opening the fold. It was probably his phone number. Conceited bastard.

  It read . . .

  Your place.

  Eight o’clock.

  Sara’s heart skipped a beat as her gaze edged toward an old woman’s sympathetic eyes; years of hardship and dedication to the cause etched into the tiny lines and sorrowful life on another’s face. Before she could even ask when the man had the time to write a note, let alone had given any such note over to her, the old woman told her, “Christian is such a good lad. He must have liked what he saw, to be willing to come right out and talk to you.”

  “Christian?”

  Her head nodded in agreement. “Oh, yes. Christian Mohr,” she told Sara. “From church.”

  “Ch—church?” Sara sputtered, simply allowing her thoughts a voice of their own.

  She must have spoken the word too loud because the old woman looked at her quite strange; a chastising gaze that drew the breath from her lungs.

  “Why, yes, dear. From the only church worth going to.” She moved closer to Sara as if to share a deep, dark secret between kindred spirits. “Christian is the new minister they sent us, and he is such a wonderful man. Isn’t he?”

  Sara’s eyes widened to beyond huge. “Minister?” came out of her mouth, unchecked. She firmly skipped over the dreamboat aspect. Or was it wonderful? Yes. The word wonderful had been said, not dreamboat . . . although Sara wasn’t at all convinced of this characterization.

  Christ! She needed to learn when to keep her big mouth shut. She might as well have called him a psychopathic stalker for all the good it would have done her. The old woman was looking at her as though she was talking to a two-year-old, all of a sudden, and not an abnormally brilliant woman, with Masters’ degree in Criminal Biology—and no corresponding job to prove she’d even earned it.

  “Yes, my dear. Minister, as in . . . Man of the Cloth.”

  Sara knew exactly what Man of the Cloth meant. Trouble. And not the good kind, but the kind that would set a firm hand at her back to guide her through the gates of Hell.

  She turned toward the vacant space where the man’s—well, Christian’s car—had been. She had to think this through, very carefully. A minister was following her? Good grief! Why?

  Sara wasn’t a church-going woman. In fact, she’d never stepped foot inside a church in all her life. Moreover, that time included twenty-five full years of missed Sundays seated on a pew and twenty-five full years that had been turning into a lot of mad at God.

  Of course, she wouldn’t have been mad at anyone if He hadn’t taken her parents away just hours after her birth—a car crash and Sara orphaned within minutes—the rest of her life to end up in foster care for sixteen of those twenty-five years. Sara then shuffled from one home to the next, never really knowing where she belonged or if anyone really wanted her to begin with. She was actually pissed at God for making her an orphan. Yet that was between her and God, not Christian Mohr and an old woman having a yard sale.

  To make it far worse than it should be, the older woman spoke out, “Christian needs a good woman in his life.”

  “Excuse me?” Sara rushed at the aged face, dragged away from the slightly painful memories of which couldn’t be changed.

  “A good woman.” The old woman nodded. “Someone just like you, perhaps.”

  Dear Lord! She’d nearly made it sound as if saying so would make it so. A lie, if ever heard.

  Sara wasn’t minister’s wife quality. She was more the . . . Well, she didn’t have any particular qualities any man of greater quality wanted. As far as she knew, she was untouchable and undesirable.

  “Yes, um, I am sure he does,” she said flatly.

  A woman in that man’s life could have certainly do
ne more good than harm and would’ve been able to show him the ropes on how to behave when a stranger accidently bumps into him, and how to have used polite generosity as part of those lessons learned. As well, how not to make a stranger so afraid for her very life the moment he opens his mouth, that she was now shaking in her shoes.

  “But I am not that woman,” Sara declared firmly. She even shook her head to deny it as such.

  A simple smile came her way. “No? Well, just this once, I do believe that darling man knows what he wants, whether you want to believe it or not. In all good conscience I can tell you he’s been wrong once or twice. . .” Her pinched lips then confirmed there might have been a witnessed occasion when he was. “—But not this time. He was looking at you as if there was no one else.”

  Sara could not believe she was having this particular conversation with another, moreover, a stranger to discuss the needs of one who was out of earshot. Yet her curiosity had been piqued, and that warranted further explanations as to why a man just met on the front lawn during a yard sale was interested in her, and not someone more worthy.

  As well, why Christian Mohr had the intention to come to her home at eight o’clock tomorrow evening when he was not properly invited to do so.

  Without pause the woman added, “My dear, Our Heavenly Father works in rather mysterious, unexplainable ways. If He intended the two of you were to find each other, you would have. And that He did this right on my front lawn, of all places, was a sign from above.” She quickly turned on her heels and walked away, having said the last word, drawn back to her knitting.

  “Would and did?” Sara questioned under her breath. “As if.”

  She gave one last look at the old woman who sat down in a rocker equally as old as the woman. One last look made to catch the smile on the old woman’s face and the twinkle in her wizened eyes.

  From it, it was all Sara could do to make her feet move forward, toward her car and with bowl in hand.

  Once inside her convertible, she set the bowl directly on the floor mat. The bowl might only have a minuscule crack the naked eye would have missed if not looking for, but as was said, she didn’t own the bowl. Christian Mohr did.