Driving Force

by Andrews, Jo

  No more rose-colored glasses. No more buying into silly, unachievable fairy tales. She had both feet on the ground now and knew to guard her heart. What was wrong with one wild, crazy fling?

  Something in the back of her mind whispered that she was lying to herself. She was playing with fire, risking too much, and she was doing it because she wanted him so badly. She shut that out determinedly. She just had to be careful. The present pleasure and the pleasant memories that would remain afterward would be worth it. All she had to do was keep remembering that nothing with Ian was permanent. That way she could enjoy herself and not become involved. Then everything would work out just fine.

  Ian never fell in love. He just had fun. So why couldn’t she? For Ian, sex was the indulgence of mutual desire and enjoyably shared sensation. He had the right idea. She had to start seeing things that way too.

  A sudden thought struck her. Was it mutual? He hadn’t made a single move on her since she had come to the ranch. Instead, he’d been actively avoiding her.

  That kiss had happened because she’d been there and available. The sudden flare of passion that had taken them both by surprise didn’t mean anything. So there was heat between them. But she didn’t have anything to offer him that he couldn’t get a hell of a lot easier elsewhere. Who was she to compare with all those gorgeous Shifter females he ran with? She couldn’t blame him for thinking she was just too much trouble.

  He’d decided she wasn’t worth the effort. Didn’t that just serve her right!

  Chapter Six

  “You want me to ramrod the men while you go hunting?” Taylor said blankly to Ian after breakfast the next morning as the hands were heading out.

  “For a while,” Ian said brusquely, ignoring Taylor’s scowl.

  “He thinks you’re goofing off,” muttered Sierra as Ian walked by her.

  “Don’t care.” Ian’s face was grim. “Hunting Arrhan’s my priority now.”

  She could sympathize. But the thought came to her that searching for a moving target in all those thousands of acres would not be easy, even if his complete attention was focused on it 24/7. There had to be a way around that.

  “Would you have time to take me into town?” she asked. “I need some things from the art supply store.”

  “Yeah, sure. I need to see Abel anyway.”

  “You’re not searching alone, are you?” She frowned worriedly at him. “Abel’s on duty during the day. He won’t be able to come with you.”

  “Nick will. We’re our own bosses and he’s not happy about this latest development either.”

  She glanced sideways at him. His tone was casual as he referred to Allie’s death, but his eyes had gone cat and the sunlight was reflecting glittering green sparks within his pupils.

  Picking up supplies for her work made a good excuse for Sierra to come into town and the arts and crafts store was just opening its doors when they got there. She didn’t really need the clay and glazes she’d just bought, but they were the tools of her trade so having extra around wasn’t a waste of money.

  “Let’s have a coffee,” she suggested as they dumped her purchases into the trunk of Ian’s car.

  Ian gave her a faintly puzzled glance. “Sure.”

  Millie waved to them as they entered the coffee shop and nodded cheerfully when Ian held up two fingers. At this time of the day, the place was busy with seniors having breakfast and hands dropping in between errands. Some of the faces did belong to strangers, but far too many were locals, who all stared when Sierra and Ian came in together. They knew Sierra was staying at the Raeders’ and from the whispers and the sidelong glances, every single one of them was thinking the same thing.

  Sierra’s face went hot. Ian didn’t notice. He was used to stares and whispers, and didn’t pay them particular attention. But Sierra had known what the town would think the minute he’d insisted she stay at his place. With his rep, it was inevitable. She just hadn’t realized it would be this embarrassing.

  Millie brought over their coffees, her gaze moving curiously from Sierra’s flushed face to Ian’s oblivious one, but thankfully she didn’t comment.

  “Just made some beignets, Ian,” she said instead. “Those bite-sized ones you like. Fresh out of the fryer.”

  Ian grinned. “Don’t have to sell me. You know you can always rely on my sweet tooth.” His gaze went out of the window. “There’s Abel. I want to talk to him. Be right back, Sierra.”

  Abel’s cruiser was pulling to a stop on the other side of the road. Through the plate glass of the window, Sierra watched Ian lope across the street and lean down to say something to him.

  Someone winding her way between tables on the way out stopped beside her. “So all that sniping finally paid off.”

  Sierra looked up, startled. “What…?”

  Carla Shore smiled at her in that sweetly poisonous way she had while her eyes remained cold and mean. She had been a year ahead of Sierra in high school, one of the popular girls who enjoyed making everyone else’s lives miserable and one of the reasons why Sierra had always kept trying to fade into the woodwork.

  “Finally got his attention. You’ve been in his face for years, but it never worked ’til now. You know it won’t last, don’t you? You’re fast food, sweetie. Just a snack to be forgotten the minute it’s eaten. Ian Raeder has a very short attention span. “

  “Yeah, but being…eaten is so much fun,” purred Sierra, fluttering her eyelashes. Carla didn’t intimidate her anymore. “Especially by that man.”

  Carla’s eyes went even more snakelike.

  “She wouldn’t know,” Millie remarked behind her. “You used to throw yourself at him all the time, didn’t you, Carla? Sour grapes, I call it, on account of Ian never looked at you.”

  Carla opened her mouth, clearly on the verge of saying something nasty. Then she must have noticed all the interested glances flicking in their direction. Even though she had kept her voice low and no one could have heard, the town’s avid observers knew something was going on. Carla shut her mouth with a snap, gave Millie a hate-filled glare instead and flounced off.

  “Don’t you pay her no never-mind,” said Millie comfortably, setting down a plate of beignets heavily dusted with powdered sugar. “She’s just jealous.”

  “There’s nothing to be jealous about,” muttered Sierra, avoiding Millie’s eyes. Even though Carla had actually helped Sierra’s hidden agenda by drawing attention to her that way, it was still embarrassing.

  “Pity. That boy’s crazy about you.”

  Sierra gaped at her. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Oh, the two of you have put on a good show for us over the years. But ain’t none of us surprised ’bout the way things seem to be turning out.”

  “Millie, you’ve got this all wrong! Ian is just helping out.”

  “I know. There’s this nutball after you. Don’t you worry none. We’re all on the lookout for him.” She patted Sierra’s hand cozily. “Ain’t nothing gonna happen to you, hon.”

  “Uh, thanks,” said Sierra, totally at a loss for words.

  “So I hear you’re helping Annie these days.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Sierra, seizing the opportunity not only to change the subject but also to bring up the reason why she had really wanted to come into town. “I’ve got to get back in time to help her with lunch. But then Ian is going to take me to see that old copper mine on the north end of the county.”

  “I’m what?” asked Ian, dropping into his seat. “These are so good,” he mumbled around the beignet he shoved whole into his mouth. Millie beamed at him.

  “Oh, sweetie!” exclaimed Sierra in a clear, carrying voice and Ian choked on his beignet. “You promised! I want to see that mine.”

  “Don’t you know better than to inhale powdered sugar, boy?” scolded Millie, thumping Ian on the back as he coughed. “Do you mean the Strebor property over near Acosta, Sierra? It was abandoned sixty years ago. It’s nothing but tailings and busted-up shacks and a h
ole in the ground.”

  “It has potential for a line of plaques I was thinking about designing. Falling-down barns and things are very textural.”

  “Textural,” repeated Millie blankly.

  “Trust me. It’ll look great. Ian said he’d take me there today. You haven’t forgotten, have you, baby?”

  “Well, different strokes,” muttered Millie and hurried off toward the till, where a customer was patiently waiting to pay.

  Ian swallowed with difficulty, then gulped at his coffee. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He had kept his voice low. Sierra didn’t.

  “So you have to work,” she said petulantly as if in answer. “You can take a few hours off, can’t you? You said you’d be finished by the afternoon.”

  “Can we discuss this outside?” He yanked his wallet out.

  Millie had rung up the sale and was now bringing over a paper bag without being asked. Ian tipped the remaining beignets into it, tossed a ten on the table and grabbed Sierra’s elbow.

  “You’re working that side of the spread today,” Sierra went on in a clear voice that was sure to be heard by all the listening ears. “I could meet you there. You don’t have to come back home to pick me up. How about around four? That should give you enough time to get there.”

  “Sierra…”

  “Don’t be such a meanie.” Sierra stuck out her lower lip as he hustled her toward the door. “You don’t have to come if it’s such a chore. I can go alone.”

  “No! It’s not safe to…” He remembered himself and changed directions hurriedly. “To go into abandoned mines without another person with you.”

  “Oh, all right. So I won’t go into the mine until you come. I’ll just wander around the shacks. But I am going to take a look.”

  A muscle jumped into prominence diagonally across his cheek as his jaw clenched. Sierra couldn’t help smiling.

  “It won’t work,” he said savagely under his breath as they stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?” She grinned at him as they crossed the road to his car. “The glower is perfect. But now can you nod and pretend to be agreeing?”

  He gave her a furious glare, then jerked his head in a brusque nod. He was mad clean through, she thought ruefully.

  “I guess that’ll have to do.” She sighed.

  “Get in the damn car,” he said through gritted teeth, holding the door open for her.

  Sierra laughed and did. He slammed the door on her and stalked around to the driver’s side.

  “You’re just mad because I thought of it first,” she said as he pulled away from the curb.

  “I’m mad at your setting yourself up as a target! And before you say another word, no, you’re not coming with me.”

  “But I’m the perfect bait!”

  “Bait gets eaten.”

  She ignored that. “I should be there. It was my idea.”

  “Which you should have run by me first!”

  “You wouldn’t have agreed.”

  “Damn right I wouldn’t!” They were out of town and on the highway now. The car shot down the road, way over the speed limit. “I’ll go, because it really is a good idea and there is a strong chance that someone might show up. But you are not going anywhere near the Strebor mine. There’s no way in hell you’re risking yourself like that. You’ll stay on the ranch if I have to lock you in your room.”

  Sierra sighed. “You’re no fun.”

  “You see it as fun? This is deadly serious! Besides, it’s not your fight.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t in the beginning, but it is now. It became my fight the minute I shot that lioness. Isn’t that the way Arrhan is seeing things?”

  He didn’t answer. But his hands clenched on the steering wheel and his lips compressed into a tight line.

  “Besides,” she teased, trying to ease the tension, “you won’t be able to make me stay in my bedroom. I can pick locks.”

  “So I’ll handcuff you to the bed posts,” he growled back.

  “Promises, promises.”

  He glanced sharply sideways at her and she saw the heat flare in his eyes. Okay, maybe she shouldn’t have said that. She bit her lip.

  “Don’t play games, Sierra,” he said harshly under his breath.

  “Who’s playing?” she muttered, suddenly unable to look at him.

  * * * * *

  Ian closed his eyes for a moment. She couldn’t have meant what she said. It was just the usual banter they had always indulged in, sniping at each other, seeing how far they could push. But this was an edge he didn’t dare allow himself to be pushed over. Just her saying that had made his mouth dry up and his balls ache. He could just see her, her arms stretched above her head and fastened to the bed posts, breasts lifted, that glorious hair tumbling over the pillow, her body spread out on the bed for his taking…

  His whole body flamed and tautened. Instant erection. He shoved that vision violently away and concentrated fiercely on the road, trying to see nothing else, think of nothing else. Beside him, she was silent, her head turned to stare out of the window, her hands clasped tightly together in her lap. She had scared herself with that crack.

  The ranch came in sight none too soon. The moment he stopped, Sierra shoved her door open and got out in a hurry. He had to give himself a couple of minutes before following her into the house so as not to embarrass himself.

  “Anyone wants me, I’ll be mending fences in the north pasture until around four,” he said to Annie. “Then I’ll be knocking off.”

  “At four?” said Annie, surprised.

  “Yeah. Sierra stays here. She doesn’t leave the house until I get back. And there’s gonna be someone told off to make damn sure of that,” he snapped at Sierra.

  With Annie standing there, she couldn’t say anything. But she stalked right after him, scowling, when he left the kitchen. He could tell she was going to keep arguing. This was her idea and she didn’t want anyone else carrying it through.

  “You may have set this up, but I’m playing it my way,” he said as he reached the front door, cutting her off before she opened her mouth. “You come out there and you’re gonna get me killed.”

  That stopped her. Her eyes widened, but she was still looking mutinous. “Ian…”

  “Maybe this won’t work and nothing’s gonna happen. But if they do show, you won’t have a chance against them. You’re not a Shifter. They’d have no trouble grabbing you. And if they have you, they have me. If they tell me to give myself up because they’ve got you as a hostage, do you think I won’t?”

  “You mustn’t do that! That would be stupid!”

  “But that’s the way it is! So what would really be stupid is putting yourself in their power. Do we understand each other?”

  “Yes,” she said reluctantly, but her eyes were blazing.

  He went straight out to the bunkhouse, grabbed one of the hands and gave him clear orders. Sierra didn’t leave the house for any reason whatsoever.

  “She sets one foot out the door, you’re fired,” he said flatly.

  “Got it.”

  “Anything happens, you call me.”

  He threw fencing posts, shovel, stretcher, sleeves and crimping tool into the back of the pickup and headed north to act normally until three thirty just in case anyone was watching. Mending fences was the kind of mechanical, repetitive work that didn’t require thought. One checked for defective posts, replaced them if necessary, used a stretcher to pull any snapped wires together until they could be fitted into a sleeve, then crimped the sleeve to permanently clamp the wires together. It was soothing if one concentrated on the job at hand and didn’t think about anything else.

  Three thirty came around, he tossed his tools back into the pickup and called Taylor. “I’m packing it in now.”

  “Right,” said Taylor curtly and broke the connection, his disapproval showing.

  He was going to have to do a different kind of fence mending
with Taylor later. But that wouldn’t be until this whole thing was over.

  The Strebor mine was some fifty miles north. He drove there without haste to maintain the impression this was something he’d been talked into and didn’t want to do.

  There wasn’t much to see when he got there, but he supposed it was possible an artist might call it picturesque. It was a wide, irregular bowl of hard-packed ground with not even weeds growing on it. A few tumbledown, weather-beaten shacks still survived, their crumbling walls silvery with age and striped with empty black gaps where planks were missing or broken. A rusty but solid metal grill covered the hole of the mine shaft so no curious tourist or teenager nosing around would accidentally fall in.

  It must have been tricky for Sierra to come up with a location she would have a reason to visit that was deserted yet still enough of a landmark that people would be able to tell strangers how to get there. She hadn’t done that badly with her choice. The two of them being in each other’s company would have set tongues wagging, the convenient isolation of the mine should attract Arrhan’s attention and directions here would be easy to follow. With any luck, Arrhan would buy it.

  He was careful to park well away from the shacks, out in the open where he wouldn’t get jumped. Hopefully, it would look as though it was a casual instead of a purposeful choice.

  “Sierra!” he called, climbing out of the pickup. “Sierra, you there?”

  Of course, only silence answered him. He made a show of looking at the clock on the dashboard, then walked away from the pickup, shaking his head. His aimless stroll moved him away both from the shacks, where enemies could be concealed, and from the pickup, which might give attackers cover. He eased even farther out into the open on the pretext of looking back up the road down which Sierra could be expected to arrive.

  There was a metallic thump behind him and he spun. A lion had landed on the roof of the pickup and was crouched there ready to spring, its lips twisting back from its fangs as it snarled. It wasn’t Arrhan. It was an adolescent male, close to maturity but not quite there yet.

  “You waiting for your human pet?” a sneering voice asked behind him. “We’ll wait too. Arrhan wants both of you.”