It unnerved her how accurately he’d summed up her character. It made her angry too. “How very psychological of you,” she retorted dryly.
“I’ve seen a shrink.”
“Oh.” That startled her.
“I had a head injury.” He patted his temple. “All better now.”
“And your shrink encouraged this battlefield metaphor.”
He shrugged. “No, but there’s nothing he could do about it. I am who I am.”
“You don’t think people can change?”
“No,” he said adamantly. “I do not.”
She shook her head. “And you think that
I
have lived a limited life.”
“I could teach you a few things.” His expression was wickedly sexy, his voice seductive.
She gulped at the idea of all the things he could teach her. “Just because I’m from a small town doesn’t mean I’m an ignorant hick.”
“I never said that.” He stepped closer.
Luckily, the bed was between them, or maybe not so luckily. There they stood, just the two of them, a bed in the middle.
Dade was staring at the bed, the same as Natalie was. Were similar irrational images running through his head as were spilling through hers?
He surprised her by sinking down on the mattress.
Her gaze fixed on the breadth of his thighs. So powerful. She pulled a thin stream of air in through clenched teeth.
He bounced on the mattress. The box springs squeaked.
Natalie’s throat convulsed as a dozen downright dirty images filled her head. She imagined him stripped bare and lying in the middle of the mattress with a big, hard erection. Getting hard just for her.
Immediately, her face burned crimson hot.
“Comfortable.” He nodded and leaned back, bracing himself with his palms splayed over the covers.
Her heart was running a dead-heat sprint, rushing blindly down a track that promised nothing but trouble, but as much as she resisted, she couldn’t change the visions playing out like a movie—Dade pulling her down on the mattress beside him, stripping off her clothes, letting them drop to the floor, his hot mouth capturing hers.
And his hands!
Oh, his big masculine hands touching her in places and ways that she’d never been touched. She pictured her own hands skating over the rugged masculine angles of his body, deriving pleasure from inducing his needy groans. She imagined what he would taste like. Salty and slick like a raw oyster? Smoky, torrid, and honeyed like barbecue? Or maybe rich, hot, and sugary-sweet like fig-chili balsam?
She wanted so badly to find out.
What was she thinking! She never fantasized like this. Not so graphically, so heedlessly.
This man was a total stranger. He had dark secrets. Rebellious, back-door secrets. She could feel it in the way his gaze caressed her body. Feel it deep in her bones. He had an agenda, but she had no idea what it was.
Unfortunately, she wanted Dade Vega. Wanted him more than she wanted to take another breath of air. Undeniable fact. It did no good to lie to herself. For the first time in her life, she literally
burned
for a man. Grew wet just thinking about him. Her body was in tumult. Riotous.
He smiled at her. Darkly. Mysteriously. Dangerously. As if he knew every single erotic thought passing through her head.
Dear God, she was in so much trouble! How would she survive having this man sleeping under her roof?
If he’s The One, there’s nothing to fear.
And if he wasn’t? What if she was just going batty with sexual need?
Hey, well then maybe he’s the one to dispense with your virginity.
Great.
Thanks for that thought.
Now she was even more scared of what she might do. Or not do. How could she want something so much and be so afraid of it at the same time?
She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’ve changed my mind.”
“About what?” he asked.
“I can’t rent out Red’s room. It doesn’t feel right. He could return at any moment.”
“Are you sure that’s the real reason?”
“Absolutely,” she lied.
“What if he never comes back? How long are you going to hold on to the room?”
“That’s really none of your business, is it?”
He stood up on her side of the bed.
She stepped back, bumped into the wall. Dammit. Her knees were jelly. If he came any closer, they’d liquefy right out from underneath her.
“I don’t think that’s the reason at all.” He lowered his head. “I think I scare you.”
Determined not to be intimidated, Natalie squared her shoulders, used the cardboard box as a shield. “You do not scare me, Mr. Vega. Not in the least.”
“That comfort zone thing. I push you out of it.”
She held her breath. “You certainly think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”
He laughed, backed up.
Relieved, she exhaled.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wallet, counted off ten one-hundred-dollar bills. “Don’t worry, darlin’, you have nothing to fear from me. You just keep your distance and I’ll keep mine.”
D
ade prowled restlessly at the window, watching Natalie shuffle up the limestone path toward the house. She stopped once and cast a backward glance over her shoulder. When her eyes met his, she quickly looked away and quickened her pace. Peering into her soft sky blue eyes was like sinking into summer.
His pulse skittered.
Hell’s bells, he might have pushed her out of her comfort zone, but she’d done the same damn thing to him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so caught off guard.
He followed her with his gaze until she disappeared inside. What he saw was a small-town girl with a lot of responsibility and a big heart. She shouldn’t have been the sort of woman to grab him by the short hairs and make him pay attention, but inexplicably, he was mesmerized.
Dade was frightened.
Frightened because she made him feel things he wasn’t accustomed to feeling. Nice things, and Dade didn’t trust nice. He was also frightened because Red was missing. His buddy had just up and walked away from his possessions. Disappeared. Nice as this town might seem on the surface, he suspected a darker undercurrent ran through it. What in the hell had Red gotten himself mixed up in?
Natalie had accused him of being a rebel, but Red was the real rebel. He was the one who saw rules as a challenge just aching to be broken. Which was why Dade was having trouble wrapping his head around the fact that Red had chosen to settle down in Cupid, Texas, of all places. Why he’d even chosen to settle down at all. In that regard, he and Red were molded from the same clay. They’d both agreed a long time ago that neither of them was cut out for marriage or children. They were both too screwed up.
Red’s rebelliousness had gotten him into a lot of trouble in the military, but it had also saved Dade’s hide on more than one occasion.
Dade stared out the window, but he no longer saw Natalie’s quaint bed-and-breakfast. In its place was the old run-down farmhouse in Durant, Oklahoma, where he’d first met Red.
He was ten years old and freshly removed from his father’s house after the cops had confiscated three pounds of crack cocaine from underneath the bedroom floorboards. Dade had been scared, but determined not to show his fear. That was the only useful thing his old man had ever taught him—how to act tough.
He’d been belted into the back of the social worker’s gray Chevy Cavalier, scowling at the washed-out-looking woman in a baggy floral dress who’d come to the car, a false smile pasted on her weathered face. Behind her, he’d seen a clutch of kids—all boys—in the dirt yard bare of a single blade of grass.
“Well, well,” the foster mother asked. “Who do we have here?”
“This is Dade, he’s a really good boy. Right, Dade?” The social worker swiveled her head to give him a please-go-with-me-on-this expression.
He’d folded his arms over his chest, deepened the scowl, and said, “Bite me.”
“It’s like that is it?” Sighing, the foster mother opened the car door and motioned for him to get out. “Just once couldn’t one of them be civil?”
“He’s had it rough,” the social worker muttered.
“Haven’t they all?”
“Yes, but his story is sadder than most,” the social worker said in a muted voice and launched into his history about how his heroin addict mother had died of an overdose when Dade was four, leaving him to be raised by his drug-dealing father and his string of junkie whores.
Dade had tuned the women out, climbed from the car, and shifted his attention back to the boys peering at him with a combination of interest, distrust, and hostility. He’d caught the eye of the tallest boy, a stocky redhead with freckles sprinkled over his nose.
Red grinned and gave him the finger.
Unable to help himself, Dade grinned back. Best welcome he’d ever had.
It wasn’t a good home. It wasn’t a bad one. There was food. Not tasty, but plenty of it. There was a roof over his head and a routine. For most of his life, he’d had neither. Dade was adjusting, getting by, a few fistfights, but carving out a solid niche, until one night, two years later, the foster father came for him.
The man had a bulldog face—smashed in and jowly—and he smelled like whiskey, beef jerky, and motor oil. His name was Tank and he moved like one, heavy and lumbering, fully planting one foot before he moved the other when he walked. He worked for Jiffy Lube, ate corn nuts by the fistfuls, and perpetually carried black grime beneath his ragged fingernails. One hot summer night, he rousted Dade from his bed by slapping a dirty palm over his mouth.
“Shh, we don’t wanna wake your roommate.” He nodded to the sleeping boy in the upper bunk.
Dade fought, kicking, punching, and grunting, but Tank soon had him in a boa constrictor grip and was dragging him outside the house and toward the barn.
The night was terribly cheerful. Crickets chirping. Lightning bugs flickering through the oak trees. Soft, warm breeze brushed against his skin. A smiley yellow half moon hung high in the sky.
Dread filled Dade. His body was stiff with it, his stomach ice and frost. Goose bumps rippled shivers over his skin. He dug in his heels.
Tank tightened the squeeze around his neck.
He couldn’t breathe. Bright sparkles burst behind his eyelids. A hellish fireworks display. He could no longer feel his limbs. His head throbbed and he was only vaguely aware of Tank kicking the barn door closed behind them.
It was hot and airless in the room crammed with rakes and hoses, hammers and saws and chains and car parts. An ancient John Deere tractor sat in one corner. A Chevy engine was perched up on cinder blocks in another. At the very back of the barn lay a rusty old army cot, and that was where Tank lugged him.
The pressure in his head was unbearable. He couldn’t scream. Couldn’t fight. He was totally helpless.
Tank flung him onto the cot, loomed over him. “This is gonna be fun.”
Dade hauled air into his desperate lungs, hungry to breathe, starving to live, terrified of what was going to happen next.
Tank yanked down Dade’s pajama bottoms.
No! No!
Weakly, Dade tried to double up his fists.
Tank laughed. “You think that’s gonna stop me, you stupid pup?” He cuffed the side of Dade’s head with a brick paw.
His ears rang so loudly that he wasn’t sure he heard the bam of the barn door clanging open. His vision was still blurry, but he saw Tank jerk his head up, spin around.
Frantically, Dade grabbed for his pajama bottoms, pulling them up as he swung his gaze to the barn door.
There stood Red, shotgun clutched in his hands.
“What the fuck are you doing out of bed?” Tank snarled.
“Step away from the kid,” Red growled.
Tank grabbed Dade up and yanked him in front of him, using Dade as a shield. “Or what?”
“Let him go or I’ll blow your head off.”
“Tough talk. Put down the shotgun, turn around, and walk back to the house, or you’ll be next,” Tank threatened.
Dade was bathed in sweat, his cotton pajamas sticking to his body. His legs were so weak he could barely stand up.
Red pumped the shotgun.
Tank audibly gulped.
“You wanna die today, fat man?” Red narrowed his eyes, looking like a carrot-topped Clint Eastwood in the making.
Tank splayed his palm to Dade’s back, pushed him with a hard shove. “Go on, get out of here. Both of you.”
Dade fell to his knees, his heart pounding.
With the shotgun pointed at Tank’s beer belly, Red came over and one-armed Dade to his feet, and then put Dade behind him. “Throw me the keys to your car,” Red told Tank.
Their foster father swore at them.
Red lowered the gun to Tank’s crotch. “Seriously, fucker. Give me the keys or I’ll shoot it off.”
Something in Red’s eyes must have told Tank he meant business, because Tank fished the keys from his pocket and tossed them on the ground. Dade sprang to retrieve them.
“Now lie down on your stomach on the cot,” Red instructed.
Sending them a look of pure hatred, Tank did as Red commanded.
“Dade, get that duct tape over there and wrap it around his wrists.” Red nodded at the duct tape on the saggy wooden shelf.
Dade taped up Tank, and then he and Red ran to Tank’s old pickup truck. Red got in behind the wheel, revved the engine.
“You know how to drive a stick?” Dade asked.
“I can drive anything,” Red boasted. He popped the vehicle in gear, and they took off.
“Where did you get the shotgun?”
“Stole it out of Tank’s gun case.”
“He keeps it locked.”
“Like I can’t pick a lock?”
“Why did you save me?” Dade asked, always suspicious of the kindness of strangers.
Red shrugged. “You remind me of my kid brother.”
“Where is he?”
“Dead.” He dropped the word casually but it fell onto Dade like a boulder.
“How did you know that Tank was gonna take me out to the barn?”
“Because I been there,” Red said.
The authorities didn’t find them until two days later when they got caught trying to shoplift a picnic ham from Wal-Mart. They were sent to a juvenile detention center, which as bad as it was, was better than the place they’d just left.