Demon Hunting with a Dixie Deb (31 page)

Marshmallows, if Burke and Furr had ratted Mr. Houston out to the paper, he'd be mad as a hornet. It would take every ounce of charm in her arsenal to convince him to give them another chance.

“No one was hurt in the log spill, Mr. James. You can put that in your paper. It was an accident.”

“Is it true two men were fired because of the incident?”

Burke and Furr, no doubt about it. What a couple of widemouthed frogs.

“The matter is still under investigation,” Sassy hedged. “A final decision hasn't been made.”

She hoped.

She did some quick calculating and relaxed. The
Herald
came out Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Plenty of time to talk Houston into rehiring Burke and Furr.

“My source says there have been a number of accidents since your brother died,” James said. “There are rumblings among the men that the mill is cursed. Any comment on that?”

And say what? That she suspected her evil man-eating great-aunt of supernatural sabotage? That would make a heck of a front-page spread. Better give the reporter something else to write about.

She sent a zing of charm through the telephone. “I am
so
excited to talk to you, Mr. James. It's like meeting an old friend.”

There was a startled silence at the other end of the line. “It is?”

“Oh, my, yes. I've been a faithful follower of the
Herald
for years. I thought your article on powdery mildew in roses was brilliant. I never would have guessed that spraying cow's milk on plants was an organic way to slow the spread of the disease.”

“Well, I—”

“And your piece on the plight of the old Harmon Theater brought me to tears,” Sassy said. “Your passionate outcry against the ravages of time and neglect single-handedly moved me to write the Pride of Hannah a five-thousand-dollar check. A magnificent building was saved because of
you
, Mr. James.”

“Thank you. I'm sure the committee—”

“May I call you Robin, Mr. James?”

“Uh . . . of course.”

“Well, Robin, as I'm sure you know, I'm not from Hannah. But I feel as though I know this town because of your journalistic skills, and I want you to know—”

“Miss Peterson?”

“Call me Sassy, please.”

“Sassy.
Are
you staying in Hannah? Word is you've decided to run the mill.”

“That's right. I've decided not to sell.”

“How does your fiancé feel about that? The Bodifords are a distinguished old Fairhope family. Is your fiancé willing to give up his life there and move to Hannah, or will you commute?”

“Um . . . well.” Sassy floundered. Somehow, she'd lost control of the conversation. “My decision to keep the mill was sudden. Wes and I haven't had a chance to discuss things.”

“Why not? He's been holed up at the Hannah Inn since yesterday.”

A
call to the Hannah Inn confirmed the reporter's tip: Wesley Bodiford was staying in room number ten. Had checked in yesterday and hadn't been seen since.

Wesley
. In spite of his anger, fastidious, exacting, superior Wesley had taken lodgings in a crabfest fleabag motel to be near her. Sassy was deeply touched. That was beyond sweet. It was positively Nicholas Sparks.

And she was going to reward his steadfastness by ending things. If this were a Disney movie, she'd be the bad guy. Not a role she'd imagined for herself.

But she couldn't marry Wes no matter how Nicholas Sparkly he was. She didn't love him.

Bunny rabbits, she dreaded this.

Turning into the motel parking lot, she maneuvered the Maserati across the potholed asphalt and pulled into the slot next to Wes's car. If anything, the run-down lodge was seedier in daylight, a postcard for the tawdry and derelict. Acne spots of mildew pimpled the white stucco walls. A miniature replica of Jeb Hannah, town founder and Spanish-American War hero, tottered atop a rickety metal pole, sword in one hand and a glowing red peanut in the other. A faded Ford Maverick with plastic sheeting duct taped over the back window squatted on the other side of Wes's car. The gleaming BMW stuck out in the sleazy surroundings like a pair of Manolo Blahniks in a thrift store bin of used flip-flops.

Wes might as well tape a sign on his car that said
Steal me
, and be done with it
.

The precarious and unprotected location of Wes's beloved car was a testament to his distraught mental state. Pity and regret squeezed Sassy's heart. Angered and hurt by her imagined infidelity, he'd taken refuge in the run-down inn and refused her calls, retreating into the dark recesses of the dank motel room to drink himself into a lovelorn stupor. She could see him now, flopped on the cheap mattress and polyester bedspread, bloated on junk food from the vending machine and drunk as Cooter Brown.

She turned off the engine, steeling herself for the coming scene.
Kind but firm, Sassy. You can do this.

“Stay here,” she told Grim.

She marched up to room number ten and rapped on the door. There was no answer. A steady thumping accompanied by tortured groaning came from inside.

Wesley was exercising. That was a good sign, right? Cheered, Sassy adjusted her mental image of him. Wes hadn't given in to despair. He was going for an endorphin high. Good for him for being positive and proactive. Vigorous physical exertion was much healthier than drowning one's sorrows in demon rum.

She raised her hand to knock again, and a large masculine hand wrapped around her wrist.

Sassy looked up at Grim with a mixture of relief and annoyance. “I told you to stay in the car.”

“I paid you no heed.”

“What a surprise.”

Grim tugged on her wrist. “Come. Let us leave this place. I am famished.”

“How can you be hungry? You ate an hour ago.”

He tugged on one of her ringlets. “I am a man of large appetites.”

He was giving her that look again. The one that made her weak and willing.

The moaning inside the motel room increased.

With an effort, Sassy shook off Grim's seductive spell.

“Mother-of-pearl, I have to do something before Wes gives himself a heart attack.”

Sassy put her hand on the knob and froze at a feminine squeal.

“That's it. Ride 'em, cowboy,” a woman cried. “Come for Mama.”

Sassy snatched her hand off the door like it was red hot. Wes was exercising, all right. Just not the kind of workout she'd imagined.

“I can't believe it.” Pink and red sparks of anger whizzed around Sassy's head. “I am such an idiot.”

“You are not an idiot,” Grim said. “He is a beslubbering, useless dog pizzle not worth the sweat on a gnat's wing. Give me leave and I will thrash the swag-bellied measle within an inch of his life.”

“You knew.” Sassy's skin glowed like a banked furnace. “That's why you tried to get me to leave. I've been kicking myself for hurting him and the whole time he's been with someone.”

She blew the door open with a wave of her hand and was slapped in the face by the odors of sex, mildewed carpet, and industrial-strength toilet bowl freshener. Clothes and takeout containers littered the floor. Wes was on his knees on the rumpled bed going at it doggy-style with a chubby woman, her large breasts swaying as Wes pounded her from behind. He was naked but for a black cowboy hat and a pair of black and turquoise tooled-leather cowboy boots.

Shock replaced anger. Wes. In cowboy boots and a hat. It boggled the mind. The closest he'd come to a cow in his life was the dairy aisle at Publix.

“Sassy.” Wes shoved the woman face down onto the bed and jumped to his feet. “I can explain. It's not what it looks like.”

Wes looked three kinds of ridiculous in the hat and boots. Mr. Happy bobbed hello and promptly deflated.

“Really? Because it looks an awful lot like you're having sex with my real estate agent. Correction—make that my
former
real estate agent.” Sassy spared the naked woman on the bed the merest of glances. “Hello, Dab. How long have you been slamming my fiancé?”

Wes grabbed a pillow and slapped it over his junk. “Seriously, Sassy. I am shocked by your language.”

“Seriously, Wes, is that my engagement ring she's wearing?” Sassy pointed to the sparkler on Dab's ring finger. “Your
grandmother's
ring, the one you were supposed to be having sized for me?”

“She . . . uh . . . wanted to try it on before I took it to the jewelry store.”

“And you let her because you wanted to have sex with her, a woman you hardly know.”

“He knows me plenty.” Dab tucked the sheet under her arms and gave Sassy a defiant glare. “We've been together since December. Since Wes drove to Hannah for
you
, little Miss Fairhope, and hired me to put the house on the market.”

“Since December?” Sassy's jaw went slack. She stared at Wes. “She's married. And she's ten years older than you.”

“Sassy,” Grim murmured behind her. “It matters not.”

Sassy inhaled and counted to ten. Grim was right. Wes could take a flying leap.

She lifted her chin. “Good-bye, Wes. We're done. The wedding is off.”

As Sassy turned to leave, Wesley's words stopped her.

“Don't be a child,” he said. “My father has a mistress. Lots of men have mistresses. It doesn't mean anything.
She
doesn't mean anything. She's nobody. A little something on the side.”

“
Wes
,” Dab wailed. “You said you loved me.”

“Shut up.” Wes gave Sassy a cold look. “You
will
marry me, Sassy. My father has made some bad investments. I need your money.”

“And if I don't?”

“I'll tell everyone in Fairhope I found you shacked up with two studs and a dyke. People will think you're a slut. Your mother will never be able to hold her head up in society again.”

Bum brrum brrrumble, the sound of drums filled Sassy's head and ears, drowning out Grim's growl of fury. And to think, but for providence, she would have married this louse. Wind swirled through the door, knocking over the lamp and blowing the stained coverlet off the bed. Wes's cowboy hat flew off his head and rolled across the carpet.

“You are a jackass, Wesley Eugene Bodiford,” Sassy said. “A complete unmitigated jackass, and I wouldn't marry you for all the tea in China.”

Ping.
A chime sounded and Wes sprouted donkey ears.

Sassy turned to the woman on the bed. “Keep the ring, Dab. I insist.”

Ping.
The chime sounded again.

“Ow.” Dab pulled at her finger. “The ring's stuck. It won't come off.” Her voice rose. “What am I going to tell my husband?”

Wes gaped in the mirror. His donkey ears were beauties, long, brown, and expressive. The inner folds bristled with thick, white hair. At the moment, they were twitching in alarm.

“My
ears
,” Wes croaked. “What the—?”

Sassy whirled around and slammed into Grim's broad chest. He stepped aside and she followed him onto the sidewalk.

She closed the door, muting the noise and excitement in room number ten. Someone sounded unhappy.

Make that two someones.

She smiled up at Grim. “Guess what? I'm not engaged anymore.”

“Thank the gods,” Grim said, and kissed her.

 

Sassy melted against Grim and kissed him back. Grim's body tightened at her nearness. She smelled of summer roses and amber and something else, a trace of something crisp and green, floral sweetness warmed by earthy musk and the refreshing clean scent of spring grass and growing things. All things Sassy: laughter and warmth, purity and power, joy and seduction in one delectable, maddening woman.

Rage, revenge, and guilt had been Grim's reality until this small, blithe woman had spun into his life, knocking him off balance and disordering him, shining a light on his bleak existence. In the span of a few days she had changed his world. There was no going back, with or without her. The thought of returning to the way he'd been before was unbearable. Grim's fierce, possessive warrior spirit had railed at him to take what he wanted.

What he
needed.

But the choice had to be Sassy's . . . though he'd thought ceding her to Wesley would kill him.

Sassy had chosen, and she had chosen him.

The vise that had squeezed Grim's chest for days eased. His knees buckled and he sat down on the pavement. He pulled her onto his lap and held her close, burying his face in her fragrant hair.

“Sassy,” he murmured. “I have suffered agonies picturing you with that worm Wesley. You cannot imagine.”

“I think I have a pretty good idea. ‘Beautiful beyond compare' is how you described the thralls.”

“No thrall can match your warmth and loveliness. Theirs is a cold beauty, the faint, distant glimmer of an evening star. But you . . .” Grim nuzzled her ear. She shivered in response. “You glow with the light of a thousand candles.”

“Humph,” Sassy said.

His lady pretended to be unappeased, but her body language said otherwise. She lay soft and pliant in his arms.

Grim grinned against the soft curve of her neck. “You are jealous?”

“Darn tooting.”

“I am glad of it. I would not suffer alone.”

The manager stepped out of the office. His unbuttoned shirt flapped in the breeze, exposing his flaccid belly.

“No canoodling in the parking lot,” he hollered. “Get a room or get out. Them's the rules.”

Taking Sassy by the waist, Grim lifted her from his lap and got to his feet. Sassy placed the flat of her hand against his chest and met his gaze. The sultry promise in her eyes made his heart skip a beat.

“You heard the man,” she said. “No canoodling in the parking lot.”

“Where would you like to go?”

She lowered her lashes, her cheeks flushed. “I don't care, as long as I am with you.”

Grim wanted to throw his head back and roar in triumph. Taking Sassy in his arms, he reached out with his mind. There was a startled shout from the manager as they shimmered and disappeared.

They reemerged in a leafy bower deep in the forest. The wind ruffled the treetops and the waterfall in the nearby grotto played a merry song. Sassy slipped from his arms. Turning slowly, she took in their surroundings.

“It's beautiful . . . so peaceful and quiet. Like we're the only people on earth.” She whirled about, her violet eyes wide. “We are still on earth, aren't we?”

Her rosy lips were parted. Grim wanted to taste them again, to trace her dimples with the tip of his tongue, to kiss away the faint worry line between her brows.

“Yes.” Without taking his gaze from her, Grim raised his arm and pointed. “The river house lies but a few leagues that way.”

Folding her arms tight across her chest, Sassy gazed in the direction of the river. “Oh.”

She was nervous. Sudden panic slammed into Grim. He was a warrior. Harsh. Uncompromising. Brutal. A man of action. War, he knew. The hunt, he knew. Sex, he knew, though only as a bodily function. A means to rid himself of emotion, emerging calm and emptied. Ready to face the enemy without distraction.

Sassy was not a thrall to be casually used and forgotten. She aroused him, delighted him, confused and frustrated him. He was easily three times her size, maybe more, but she terrified him. Sassy was a fever in his blood, a balm to his weary soul. He wanted her. He
needed
her.

Losing Gryff had driven him into exile. Losing Sassy would end him. What if he bolloxed things? What if he'd done so already?
What if she changed her mind?

He needed guidance, but from whom? Conall, perhaps.

Grim considered the notion and rejected it. Admit to his captain that he, a warrior renowned for his tenacity and ferocity in battle, was petrified by this dab of a woman?

Nay.

Who, then, to offer him counsel? Someone who knew him and Sassy, someone dispassionate.

“Abide here but a moment,” Grim told Sassy. “I would place wards around us for protection.”

Turning, Grim fled to the edge of the clearing, away from Sassy but not out of sight. He looked back. Sassy watched him, anxiety writ on her face. Cursing himself for a bumbling fool, he set about raising a shield, though his mind was not on the task.