“Really? You won?”
“A time or two.” Lars grinned, showing a row of straight teeth. “Just because I’m an old coot doesn’t mean I don’t still have some life left in me.”
“I can see that.”
Lars rested his elbow on the table. “You want to have a go?”
“I don’t want to shame you, old man.”
“Scared I’ll beat you?”
Dade laughed.
Lars nodded toward his arm that he planted on the table and raised his hand. “Show me your stuff.”
“I’m on the job.”
“The bar is empty.”
“Hey!” Milo protested. “I’m here.”
Lars flicked him a look that said,
You don’t count
.
Affronted, Milo blew a raspberry.
“Jasper,” Lars called out.
Jasper poked his head out of his office. “What is it?”
“You mind if I arm wrestle your bartender?”
“Only if I can get in on the action.” Jasper bounced into the bar faster than Dade had ever seen him move, pulling a wad of twenties from his wallet. “A hundred on Dade.”
“You sure you want to make that bet?” Lars asked.
“Look at him.” Jasper waved a hand at Dade.
“Hey!” Milo hiccupped. “I want in on it too. I’ll back Lars.”
“You got a hundred bucks?” Jasper asked.
“Yep.”
“Then pay your bar tab.”
“How about this,” Milo negotiated, staggering over to the table where Lars sat. “If Dade wins, I pay my bar tab. If Lars wins, you erase my debt.”
Jasper stroked his grizzled jaw, considered Milo’s proposition. “You got it.”
Milo pulled up a chair, turned it around, and straddled the seat with the back against his belly. “Ringside seats. Let’s go.”
Dade tossed the polishing towel on the bar. This was ridiculous. “I’m gonna smoke you, Grandpa,” he told Lars. “You sure you want to be humiliated in front of your friends?”
“Your confidence is commendable,” Lars said. “But there is no real freedom without the freedom to fail.”
“Huh?” Dade blinked.
Jasper waved a hand. “Never mind. He loves quoting Eric Hoffer. It doesn’t make any sense to anyone but Lars.”
“Just remember,” Dade pointed out to Lars, “you asked for it.”
“You’ve met your match, old man. This one is cockier than Red,” Jasper said. “More muscles too.”
Dade took the chair across from Lars and locked eyes with his opponent. He was doing this for only one reason, to fit in with this bunch and hopefully get them more willing to open up about Red. He planted his elbow adjacent to Lars’s and they clasped palms.
“Ready?” Jasper asked.
Milo hiccupped again.
Dade narrowed his eyes.
Lars squeezed Dade’s hand.
“Ready,” they agreed in unison.
“Go!” Jasper signaled with a bandana he pulled from his pocket and flung it like he was dropping the flag at a NASCAR race.
Lars’s grip was steel, hard and unyielding.
Unluckily for the old man, in the SEALs, Dade’s nickname had been Titanium. He pushed back.
Lars grunted, dug in.
Dade set his jaw. This wasn’t going to be a slam-dunk. The old man was amazingly strong.
Lars’s eyes glistened in the muted lighting. “You’re stronger than Red.”
“I warned you.”
“I’m not scared.”
They sat locked in the struggle for a few minutes. Dade’s muscles flexed as hard as they did when he lifted weights, while his mind whirled, working on how to broach the topic of Red’s disappearance without looking obvious. Finally, he just decided to take the bull by the horns. He was tired of pussyfooting.
“Any speculation on what might have happened to Red?” he ask casually, as if just making conversation, which was kind of hard to do locked in a steel-trap grip with Lars.
“No telling,” Milo slurred. “Red was an odd duck. Sometimes likable as hell, sometimes nutty as Pearl’s pecan fruitcake.”
“I think he just left.” Jasper leaned one shoulder against the wall. “Some people ain’t long-term folks, you know?”
Like me.
He wasn’t long-term. Never had been. Never would be.
Dade raised his chin. “But he left without a vehicle? In the desert? Natalie told me he didn’t drive.”
“Probably hitchhiked,” Jasper surmised. “Truckers around here will pick people up even though they’re not supposed to. They know how dangerous it is to be out in the desert on foot for too long, especially in the summer.”
Dade shifted his gaze to Lars. “You got a theory.”
For a long moment, Lars said nothing. He was biting down on his lower lip and sweat was trickling down his temple. The veins in his arm bulged. “Me?” He grunted. “I think he’s off on a vision quest.”
“Vision quest, huh?” Dade put a bit more muscle into it and Lars’s arm trembled on a downward trajectory. “What makes you say that?”
“Red’s enamored of Indian culture, especially charmed with the concept of vision quest. He was also fascinated with the Marfa Lights. Went out there a lot. Red was searching for something.”
“Something like what?”
“Spiritually.”
That was a load of horseshit. Red wasn’t given to metaphysical claptrap. Then again, it had been two years since he’d seen his buddy. A guy could change a lot in a short amount of time. “Seems an odd concept for an ex-Navy SEAL.”
“He was looking for his place in the world. He was a troubled guy.”
Had Red gone off to find his place in the world? But no. There was that Mayday message. He wouldn’t have sent it if he wasn’t in some kind of trouble. But what?
Lars was chuffing out his breath in short, ragged pants. The sweat was flowing down his head now as he struggled against Dade’s hand.
Dade could have taken him down right then if he wanted, but he’d finally gotten the conversation rolling about Red and he wanted to take it as far as he safely could, so he eased off on the pressure just a hair.
Lars pounced on the opportunity and came charging back, the momentum momentarily giving the older man the upper hand.
Milo hopped up, threw the bandana on the floor. “Wipe off my debt, mother effer,” he crowed.
“It ain’t over till it’s over,” Jasper said dryly.
“Let’s say you’re right.” Dade stared into Lars’s eyes. “How long would a vision quest normally last?”
“Two, three weeks,” Lars mumbled, his fingers squeezing tighter.
“How long has Red been gone?”
“Took off over a week ago,” Jasper supplied.
“Stop talkin’ to him.” Milo jumped up and down like a flea with ADD. “He’s concentratin’.”
Everyone ignored Milo.
“Isn’t anyone around here worried about Red?” Dade asked.
Jasper straightened, shrugged. “He’s gone off before. I was close to letting him go because of it, but he was such a damn good bouncer. A lot like you. Never had to raise his voice. Just talked real nice and deadly and people always backed down.”
“Yep. Red once told me in a smiling whisper that if I didn’t calm down he was going to rip my head off and shove it up my ass,” Milo supplied.
Lars grunted and gave a hard shove, trying to go in for the kill. “I doubt he’ll be back.”
“No?” Dade stiffened his biceps, holding in place.
Ain’t gonna happen, old man
. “What makes you think that?”
“Feeling I get.” Sweat pooled at Lars’s lip. “Why do you care so much?”
“Just curious after that Mexican woman visited me in the night.”
“Most guys wouldn’t be complainin’ about finding a pretty señorita in their hammock,” Milo said.
“Is that the only reason you want to know?” Lars asked, the loose skin under his chin wobbling.
Dade arched an eyebrow. “Why else would I be asking?”
“You tell me.”
“What?” Jasper chortled. “You think Dade is a cop or sumpthin’?”
“Why would a cop be looking for Red?” Dade asked.
Lars and Jasper exchanged a look that Dade couldn’t decipher. “Is there something I should know about my predecessor?”
“Nothing,” Jasper said. “Just show up, do your job, don’t ask too many questions, and all will be well.”
Was that a warning? Or was he reading more into the conversation than was truly intended? One thing was clear, if he had any hope of finding Red, he was going to have to confide in someone. The subtle approach wasn’t cutting it. He looked from Milo to Jasper and then back to Lars. He wasn’t about to trust these guys.
Who could he trust in this town?
Natalie.
If he dared to trust anyone, it was Natalie.
“How long you fellas gonna go at this?” Milo whined. “I’m gettin’ bored and Judge Judy is about to come on. Gotta get my fix of Judge Judy. She’s hot for an old gal.”
“We’re finished,” Dade said, and while he stared Lars squarely in the eyes, he slammed the other man’s hand down onto the table.
Love makes you feel like nothing else.
—MILLIE GREENWOOD
A
fter making up his mind to tell Natalie who he was and why he was in Cupid, Dade went to the B&B, only to find a teenager attending the front desk. The girl told him that Natalie was out for a couple of hours.
Good. That would give him time to run to the hardware store for a new deadbolt lock and start work on making that door safer. After filling in for the bartender who’d had to run a few errands, he didn’t have to be back at Chantilly’s until six.
Thirty minutes later, he was back and armed with the small tool kit he kept on his motorcycle. He filled Pearl in on what he was going to do.
“Thank heavens,” Pearl said. “Natalie’s a sweet girl and she thinks everyone is as kindhearted and caring and she is. It never occurs to her that someone might want to break in here. Me?” Pearl picked up a marble rolling pin sitting on the kitchen counter. “I sleep with this. Someone wants to harm this family, they’re gonna get a whup knot upside the head.”
“She’s lucky to have you,” he told Pearl.
“I keep telling her that,” Pearl said. “Now go do your thing. I’ve got fresh catfish to skin.”
Feeling properly dismissed, Dade went to the back door entryway, mentally rehearsing how he was going to break the news to Natalie that he was Red’s foster brother and he’d been deceiving her.
He had cocked his cowboy hat back on his head, crouched down, and was busy wrestling with both his conscience and the new lock that was refusing to come out of the plastic package, when the back door creaked open and whacked into him.
The knob caught him hard in the ribs. Dade grunted just as Natalie let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Instant adrenaline rushed through him. What was wrong? He dropped the lock, doubled up his fists, ready to battle to the death with whoever or whatever was threatening her.
Simultaneously, something metal crashed loudly to the tile floor.
He stepped back, yanked the door all the way open, leaving them face-to-face in the entryway.
Natalie, wearing the cutest little green skirt and crisp white blouse, met his eyes. “You!”
“Me,” he confirmed, struggling not to smile.
She seemed pretty pissed off. Anger creased her normally smooth brow and her bottom lip trembled. Yellow goo, white cream, and bananas—and were those vanilla wafers?—had splattered just about everywhere.
Banana pudding.
She was covered in banana pudding and looked like she could give Pearl a run for her money in the cranky department. She was
not
happy with him.
Dade searched for something to say to defuse the situation, but Natalie was working up a strong head of steam. He thought about charming her. Compliment her on how sexy she looked with her hair piled on top of her head like that. Tell her how much he wanted to pull the pins out and watch it tumble down her shoulders, but that would be like pitching gasoline on a forest fire.
He had scared her and that made him feel bad, but what she did next stunned him.
Without giving him any time to scramble away, Natalie reached down and scooped up a handful of vanilla wafers, whipped cream, sliced ripe bananas, and sticky yellow filling from what remained in the big metal bowl on the floor. She cocked her arm back and flung the banana pudding right at him.
A big glob hit Dade’s chest with a solid
splat.
“No you didn’t!”
She threw another handful and then another, peppering his shirt with it.
He jumped back as if he’d been shot, stared down at his chest dripping with goo. He spread his arms wide. “What the hell?”
“That’s for scaring the crap out of me, you bastard!”
“Well, maybe you should have the crap scared out of you,” he declared. “I could easily have been an intruder. You need to be more cautious, Natalie.”
She glanced down at the lock on the floor beside his tool kit and sank her hands on her hips. “Who asked you to change the lock on my door, huh?”
“I saw it needed repair so I took matters into my own hands.”
Her nostrils flared. “Where do you get off being so damn high-handed, Mr. Dade Vega?”
He pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. In the mood she was in, she was bound to take it the wrong way.
“I don’t know how they behave where you’re from, but in Cupid, people do not come into other peoples’ houses and change their locks without permission!” She flung a hand at him, sending a sprinkle of banana pudding spattering across his face.
He didn’t know what track was best. Whether to get mad right back or talk her out of her anger or just pull her into his arms and tell her how sorry he was that he’d scared her, but instead of doing any of those things, a deep throaty laugh rolled from his throat and he found himself issuing a smooth threat.
“Oh-ho, you’re in for it now, missy.”
S
urprised by her own behavior, Natalie stood with her mouth hanging open, banana pudding dripping down her fingers. She was so mad at him for startling her—even as she realized he was only trying to do her a favor by putting a new, stronger lock on her door—that it took her a few seconds to collect her scattered thoughts.
When she’d walked through the back door and seen him crouching there, her mind had lit up INTRUDER and she’d simply reacted. Now the dessert she had planned for tonight’s dinner was ruined, plus she had a big mess to clean up.
She’d been so freaked out that she’d completely lost control—something that she seemed to do far too often around him—and she’d just started flinging spilled pudding without thinking it through.
Dade’s gaze caught hers, and from the diabolical look in his eyes, she knew she was in trouble. He wasn’t going to let her off the hook for this.
In one smooth move, he doffed his cowboy hat, stripped off his shirt, mopped his face with the garment, and then flung it behind him. Then he put his hat back on. Bare chested and with a cowboy hat on? Oh, yeah.
Her knees trembled. What was he doing?
He stalked straight for her.
Natalie gulped, spun around, and raced for the door. Her heart thundered. She was in such a crazy panic, not too different from what she’d felt that very morning when she’d slipped down the roof, that she wasn’t watching where she was stepping.
At the best of times, her right leg could not be relied upon, and in the worst of times, it was a downright liability. Her heel caught on the edge of the porch and she wobbled.
Oh no!
Her right leg collapsed underneath her and her hands flew into the air, sending her off balance and tumbling backward over the short wooden railing.
What the hell was this? Natalie’s a Klutz Day?
The next thing she knew, she was lying flat on her back on the cushioned patio chaise longue on the porch deck below the steps, staring up at a shirtless Dade standing over her.
“You okay?”
She nodded soundlessly.
“You sure?” He sounded genuinely concerned.
“Uh-huh.”
“Good.”
“Why do you say that?”
“ ’Cause karma’s a bitch,” he said, his tone taking on a seductive note that sent blood pulsing through her veins at the speed of sound. Sun-warmed canvas kissed the backs of her legs and her lungs spasmed, unable to draw in air.
Get up! Quick! You’re vulnerable.
Before she could lever herself up off the chaise, Dade was straddling her, one leg on either side of the chaise, right at the level of her waist, the bowl of banana pudding tucked in the crook of his elbow.
“Wh-what are you doing?” she gasped.
“Payback, darlin’.”
Defiantly, she raised her chin. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He dipped his hand into the bowl.
She shook her head, held up her palms like stop signs. “No, no.”
He nodded. “Yes, yes.”
“A gentleman would not do this.”
“See, now there’s the problem,” he drawled. “I never claimed to be a gentleman.”
Natalie’s breathing was thready and her heart was pounding and every excited muscle in her body tensed, eager to see what he would do next.
He leaned over to trace a trail of whipped cream over the fluttering pulse at the base of her throat.
She lay frozen, unable to move, to even think.
He dipped his head, planted a hot kiss on her neck, and licked the cream from her skin.
Natalie shivered, pulled the cowboy hat from his head, and sent it flying to the ground.
Dade’s hand swept to the hem of her skirt that had ridden up high, his fingertips strumming over her flesh as he edged the material up even higher.
“Those legs drive me crazy,” he murmured.
Legs?
Her
legs? Her scarred, mismatched legs.
She felt the summer breeze caress her skin, heard the distant
snap-pop
of firecrackers somewhere across the lake, saw the sheltering arms of the sycamore tree spreading its green canopy overhead, smelled his masculine scent so rich and pure and irresistible.
Little bolts of electricity were hopping up and down her nerve endings, sending all kinds of crazy, heedless messages to her brain—throw caution to the wind, throw away the rulebook, throw away everything because this was new and fresh and intensely glorious.
He lowered his head again and his mouth moved to seize her lips, lay claim to her, while his wicked hand was circling tight swirls along her inner thigh. Her arms went around his neck and she pulled him down on top of her. The chaise creaked under his added weight.
Dade let out a sound of surprised delight and she melted into him, liquid fondue, overcome by a deep-seated sense of rapture. Exalted, she tightened her hold on his neck.
His tongue played with hers, teasing, coaxing. There was little room in Natalie’s life for play and she soaked up this ritual, the ceremony of getting to know him even as she knew this was dangerous territory. The closer she allowed him to get, the harder it would be to say good-bye.
But as always with Dade, she couldn’t seem to help herself. Whether it was chemistry or that damnable Cupid’s doing, she was lost. She was not going to get out of this relationship unscathed, so why not embrace the fall?
Why?
Because her life had already been filled with so much pain. The more she gave to him, the more she had to lose, and loss had defined her life. She could not willingly court more pain.
Not all loss is bad. What about your virginity? Wouldn’t that be spectacular thing to lose to him?
“Dade,” she whimpered. “Dade.”
“Yes, darlin’?”
“I don’t think—”
“Precisely,” he said. “Don’t think.”
“That’s not . . .” she started to say, but trailed off when his fingers slipped up to tug down the waistband of her panties.
His mouth was busy too, kissing back down her throat, headed for her breasts. Her nipples budded hard against the confines of her bra. Sensation after sensation rippled over her in relentlessly pleasurable waves.
For an insane second, she let it all wash over her, absorbing the experience, a sponge. Soaking up every last bit of what he was doing so that she could remember it later in minute detail. Forgetting that she was a B&B owner and any minute one of her guests could wander outside to find them in this compromising position.
Dade unbuttoned the front of her blouse with his teeth, and as each button popped open, a soft sigh escaped her lips. How talented and dexterous his mouth was! She wanted to build a shrine to his tongue and worship at it.
She drifted, ensnared by pleasure. Natalie had never in her life been so reckless and she wanted more.
Free.
With the air on her bare skin and the taste of Dade in her mouth, she felt incredibly, impossibly free. She was giddy with it. Her head spun and a sweet joy tickled the back of her throat. She was bright and shiny, new as a freshly minted penny. What pleasure! Greedily, she wanted more, more, more.
He went for another handful of banana pudding, smeared it over her chest, and lapped it off with a hearty laugh. “Best damn banana pudding I ever ate.”
“You’re shameless.”
“Yep. When it comes to you, darlin’, I’m ashamed of nothing.” With the skill of a magician, he whisked her panties off her so quickly she barely knew it had happened and he stuck them in the back pocket of his jeans.
Natalie sucked in her breath.
He placed feather-light kisses around her ear, the sound of his raspy breathing pushing her further to the edge. Blood hummed through her veins, setting up a sweet vibration.
Her heart beat against her chest as if it was trying to get out and merge with him. No man had ever been down there before. She was scared and worried and so very excited, and when he spread the pudding over her sensitive skin, she simply sizzled.
His tongue was doing crazy things to her—licking, lapping, tickling.
Oh wow, oh wow. How had she gone so long without ever feeling this?
While he pulled her skirt demurely to her knees with one hand, his other hand audaciously slipped up the inside of her thigh. He eased a finger inside her slick warmth and she let out a startled moan. Oh my, my, my. This was wrong, out here in the open, but it felt so right. What if someone came by?
A new, sharper thrill raced over her.
“Don’t . . .” she whispered weakly, “stop.”
“Don’t stop,” he murmured. “Got it.”
“No,” she whimpered. She placed her hands on his head, in a vain attempt to hold him back.
“Which is it, darlin’? Don’t or don’t stop?” He stood up and peered down at her, a dollop of whipped cream on his upper lip. His tongue flicked out to whisk it away, but not before the sight of it escalated the heaviness building low in her abdomen. She burned for him, every part of her, hot and ready and begging for him. He reshuffled her atoms, changed her in some fundamental way.
She peered up into his face. In that moment, he looked so intense, his face half shadowed by the sycamore tree, the other half doused in bright sunshine. The twin faces of Dade. His eyes were unfathomable, the earlier teasing evaporated.