Dodge the Bullet (24 page)

She watched Dodge walk down the hallway and
into the restroom. He came out a few seconds later and glanced her
way before heading out the side entrance near where they’d
parked.

She sipped at her beer and tried not to look
anxious, sitting alone in a dimly lit bar with a bunch of strange
men. When she saw two of the biker twins swagger toward her table,
she fled down the hallway, bypassed the restroom, and exited the
heavy metal side door where Dodge had disappeared.

The instant she’d cleared the door and it
swung shut, Dodge pushed her against the wall and ducked his head,
braced his weight against his elbow.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Burwick’s here.” He moved his face closer,
whispered in her ear. “He got into the white Taurus a second
ago.”

“Why are you pinning me against the
wall?”

“Unless you want to pee on the side of the
building or pretend to have a lovers quarrel, this is the only
explanation I have for us standing out here.” He nuzzled her neck
with his mouth.

Sarah braced her hands on his chest and
tried to push him back. He didn’t budge. All she could feel under
his soft cotton shirt was a hard wall of muscle. The feel of his
breath on her neck made her shiver.

“Sweetheart, we’re trying to be
inconspicuous here. If you act like I’m attacking you, you’ll cause
a scene.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry.” Sarah relaxed
against the wall. “Can you hear what they’re saying?”

Even to her own ears, her voice sounded
breathless with desire. Without thinking, she moved her head to the
side and gave him more of her neck to nuzzle. When she felt his
hand on her waist, a distant stirring swirled in the pit of her
stomach. It spread lower and her eyes drifted closed.

She opened her eyes when she felt Dodge pull
away. He stared at her face, his smoldering eyes fluttered between
her eyes and her mouth. At the sound of a car door, they both
looked back to the parking lot where Burwick slipped out of the
Taurus and walked toward a Mercedes.

“He’s leaving,” Sarah whispered.

The Taurus started its engine, catching them
in the headlights. Dodge ducked his head and brushed his lips
against her ear. “Kiss me,” he demanded and quickly turned to take
her parted lips with a force that had her pushing against him. When
the headlights starting backing away, Dodge gentled the kiss and
Sarah relaxed against his body. He eased back to see if Burwick had
pulled out of the parking lot just Sarah’s hips arched and she let
out a quiet moan. He pushed her back into the wall.

“Burwick’s making a call from his car,” he
said.

“Huh?”

She heard the crunch of gravel under the
Mercedes tires. “Here we go again.” Dodge leaned down to take her
mouth. She was ready for him this time and didn’t try to push him
away, but welcomed the invasion. When he ran the tip of his tongue
along her bottom lip she opened her mouth and whimpered.

###

Dodge heard the Mercedes pull into the
street and the German engine kick up to full speed, but he couldn’t
pull himself away from the body pressed against his while her
tongue did wicked things to his mouth. The side door of the bar
slammed against its hinges and Dodge and Sarah pulled breathlessly
apart. The drunken couple stumbled past them. The man tried to
gesture to Dodge with his head and only managed to head-butt his
girlfriend. Dodge tipped his hat and grinned, then looked across
the small alley to where Sarah stood motionless against the wall
where he’d left her. She licked her swollen lips and yanked her
shirt down from where his hands had inched it higher. She blinked
at him as if she didn’t know who he was or where they were.

“We should try to follow Burwick.” He tried
not to recall the feel of her body against his and the sweet way
she’d tasted just moments ago as he led her to the truck. Dodge
maneuvered out of the lot, but screeched to a halt at the road.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why aren’t you
going after him?”

He looked from left to right and back again
before dropping his hands from the steering wheel and easing back
in his seat. “I’m not even sure which way he went.” Dodge stared at
the dashboard. He didn’t have to look at Sarah to know she’d turned
a very bright shade of red.

###

“Oh.” When Dodge reached across to open the
glove compartment and brushed against her knee, she flinched. Their
eyes met for a moment before they both quickly looked away. “What
are you doing?”

“I’m getting a pen to write down the tag
number of the Taurus. I’ll get Tommy to ask the sheriff to run it
through the system and see what he comes up with.” He threw the pen
in the ash tray. “I should get you home.”

The first sound on the long ride home was
the low voice of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” crackling over the radio. It
felt like a hint from God and echoed her own thoughts. She stole a
sideways glance at Dodge. The man sitting beside her in the eerie
stillness of the truck cab, the same man who drove her crazy and
who categorized women had kissed her silly and brought alive every
long forgotten nerve ending in her body. He’d done it again; he’d
turned her into a mindless pile of liquid yearning. But this time
felt different. Kissing him face-to-face, body-to-body had made
their connection much more personal. So many things she thought had
died with Todd had awakened with Dodge. She wanted to rejoice and
bang her head against the window at the same time.

When Dodge finally came to a stop in front
of the cabin, Sarah reached for the door handle. “Let me know what
you find out about the tag number.”

He nodded. “Don’t get your hopes up, it was
probably a rental.”

“Well…we tried.” She took a fleeting look at
his profile.

“We did.” He sat staring at the dash. “Will
you tell Tommy I’m waiting?”

“You’re not coming in?” She didn’t know what
she expected after the long and silent ride home, but she hadn’t
thought he’d drop her and run. She jerked the door open and slammed
it shut.

###

Dodge shook his head as he watched Sarah go
into the garage and close the door behind her. Tommy came out
moments later and slid into the seat beside him.

“Sarah said you saw Burwick, but didn’t get
anything but a license number from the guy he met.”

Dodge backed the truck out slowly and caught
Sarah’s bedroom light illuminate the window with a gilded glow. He
thought of her, peeling off that barely-there shirt and slithering
out of her tight jeans. He was hard as a rock again.

“Do you think you could get Darren to run
the number?” he asked Tommy. “Tell him it’s about a claim?”

“Yeah, he’d probably run it.” Tommy rubbed
his forehead and yawned. “So, what do you think?”

Dodge shrugged, tried to concentrate. “The
fact that Burwick is handling the details himself makes me nervous.
Whatever he’s planning will happen soon, I’m sure about that.”

“You still staying at Miguel’s?” Tommy
motioned out the window as they passed the caretaker’s house and
the truck found it’s bearings on the pavement.

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you bunk up with Sarah? I’m sure
she’d invite you in if you asked real nice.” Dodge only grunted.
“What the hell are you holding out for anyway? If I had a chance at
that…”

“The woman’s a distraction.” She’d proved it
conclusively earlier.

“Seems like a worthwhile distraction.”

###

Dodge dropped off Tommy at his house and
headed back to Miguel’s for another sleepless night. Sarah had
gotten under his skin, and thanks to Burwick and her own bullheaded
stubbornness, she’d seeped into his blood. The attraction had
gnawed at him for weeks. He’d admired the sweet sway of her hips,
her easy laugh and quick wit with the foolish notion that he could
resist her charms. He didn’t turn back to her place, but veered
eastward toward The Stand to see who was available to temper his
need.

Stan looked up from behind the counter with
a nod when Dodge entered and took a seat to scope the room. Barb
Whitehead sat at the end of the bar, drunk as she always was about
this time on a Saturday night. He couldn’t even stomach the thought
of talking to her. Mandy Smith worked the register at the Co-op.
She sat in a booth with two guys he didn’t recognize. He’d always
thought Mandy attractive, if not a little young. Her daddy Stet was
a three generation rancher known to drink too much a little too
early in the day. Mandy had always been kind and pretty, but Dodge
couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for wrestling her away from the two
guys at her side. He scanned the bar again and ordered a beer.

He considered calling Jenna Sweeny in the
morning and inviting himself up to Colorado Springs for the day.
They’d always made room for each other when their paths had
crossed. It was past time he made their paths cross. But he
couldn’t leave the ranch unprotected for a whole day while he
satisfied his needs. And just the thought of going to all that
effort for someone he wasn’t interested in made him feel tired. He
just needed to keep his distance from a certain sex-starved
landowner.

Dodge had just pulled the tractor into the barn when he saw Miguel,
Kevin and Lyle head out to the water meter on the back side of the
property to check the day’s levels. Now was the perfect time to
confront little Miss Smarty Pants. He knew she was there. He’d been
watching to see if her truck had left all morning. Hell, he’d been
watching her since she’d slithered that sweet little body all over
him in the barn, then cried in his arms and made him vow never to
touch her again. And he was doing a pretty good job of it until
he’d kissed her--as long as thinking about her constantly didn’t
count. Of course, the guilt he felt whenever Kevin scowled at him
helped steel his resolve to leave Sarah alone.

His plan had worked fine until he’d come out
from the store late yesterday afternoon, still frustrated after
Tommy had confirmed that the car they’d seen with Burwick had been
a rental, and found a copy of one of her books sitting on the
passenger seat of his truck. He thought it odd that someone had
tossed it in, but he’d just shrugged and gone on his way.

As he climbed into his truck and made his
way toward her cabin, his mind reeled with images of Sarah draped
over him like a blanket. He groaned aloud. Damn it. It’d been hard
enough trying to sleep on Miguel’s uncomfortable couch, remembering
the feel of her breasts and the taste of her lips. And then he’d
picked up the book when he couldn’t fall asleep. He’d read the
story all right. All night long. Then he’d taken a cold shower
while his head spun with a whole slew of images playing like a
movie in his head while he should have been sleeping.

###

Sarah stood at the kitchen sink washing Lyle
and Kevin’s breakfast dishes. Although they’d both grumbled about
having to get up early in the summer, they got up every morning and
helped Miguel with his morning duties. They were learning first
hand how to make a ranch run efficiently. As much as Sarah hated to
admit it, she was jealous because they spent a good part of most
days with Dodge.

She hadn’t heard from him in over a week,
but not because he wasn’t around. She’d see his truck at the barn
in the morning and all throughout the day. Kevin and Lyle would
come home for lunch every afternoon with stories that began, “Dodge
this” and “Dodge that.” She wanted nothing more than to plug her
ears when they started talking about him. They were bonding, her
sons and the man she’d hoped to bed. She knew they respected him.
He was fair with them and expected them to carry their weight
around the ranch while he pitched in and did a lot of the grunt
work himself.

Sarah had wondered if Kevin would be able to
be around Dodge after what he’d seen and yet they worked together
every day as though nothing had ever happened. If only she could
act as if nothing had happened. If only she could turn her mind off
and stop obsessively wondering if he was thinking about her the way
she was thinking about him. It had to stop.

She had managed to channel some of her pent
up anger and sexual tension into one hell of a return novel. She’d
reached the halfway point and it was shaping up to be a very good
story. Her agent seemed equally excited. She’d emailed a few pages
after she’d gotten started and he was hounding her daily for
more.

Sarah had just sat down at her computer when
she heard someone banging on the door. She was surprised to see
Dodge on the other side until she saw the look on his face. He
scowled at her again.

“Hello.” She tried to be casual, but she
sounded pissy even to her ears.

“I found something of yours last night.” He
pushed past her into the house and left her to close the door
behind him. “One of your novels.”

Everybody’s a critic.

“I wish I’d never seen it.” He stood there
looking at her with his nostrils flared and his brows raised in
vexation as if she owed him an explanation.

She reached for the cover of the book that
dangled from his hand. “I wrote that book six years ago. What do
you want me to say? Sorry?”

Dodge sputtered and for the first time since
they’d met, he seemed at a loss for words. “Aw, hell.”

Sarah raised her brows and waited. He moved
past her and stomped into the kitchen, threw the book on the
counter.

“Do you know where I found this copy?” he
asked.

She lifted her shoulders as he pressed on,
more than a little grateful to have him in her house again.

“The passenger seat of my truck.” He sneered
at her as if she’d done it herself, then stepped to face her with
his hands on his hips. “Somebody threw it in the open window of my
truck when I was in town to getting supplies. Somebody wanted me to
take a look.”