Run Wild (26 page)

By the time she pulled in alongside Trent she’d fully analyzed the pros and cons of having a really good man, which was a serious waste of her time, since she didn’t even have a man, let alone a good one. Not to mention she hadn’t been paying attention to where they’d been driving.

Trent’s boots crunched over the cold ground as he walked around the front of her truck, then paused on the sidewalk leading to his porch. He stood there, waiting for her.

A rush of nerves spiked inside Natasha. She didn’t have a room for the night. So many possibilities as to how the night might play out popped into her head. If she appeared nervous he would interpret it as her hiding something about the Williams murder. And she wasn’t, not really.

Natasha grabbed her purse, glanced around the truck to see if she needed anything else, and took a moment to lecture herself about getting her act together. Good-looking men came on to her all the time. None of them left her flustered or unable to function around them.

So did that mean she was worried about Trent as a man or as a sheriff? Crap! If Trent’s mood changed because he believed she had used him, called out to him, excitement in her voice, intentionally using the attraction he’d proclaimed existed in order to aid her father, she might be walking into a lion’s den, with the lion raging mad.

If that was the case and a bruised ego was at play here, as well as her character, Natasha needed to tread very carefully. Trent would show no mercy in retaliating. She shut off her engine, cut the lights, and engulfed her and her surroundings in darkness blacker than she’d ever seen before.

“Wow,” she murmured as she got out into the crisp, cold night and locked the truck.

“What?” Trent asked, still standing at the edge of the sidewalk.

She wasn’t clear if he was being polite and waiting to walk her inside or making sure she didn’t try running once he was out of his truck. Natasha decided she didn’t care. He’d brought her to his home, which meant nothing. There were no preconceived plans here. She’d go inside with him, and if the conversation went sour she would leave.

Natasha glanced at him and was unable to see his face clearly from where he stood in the darkest part of his yard. She adjusted her purse under her arm and gestured with her free hand. “It’s so dark. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it this dark outside.”

Trent snorted with either disgust or amusement. It wasn’t clear. “City girl,” he grumbled, and turned toward the house.

Once inside, Trent slid out of his coat, draped it over a wooden chair in the corner of his living room by his door, then waited for her to slide out of hers before reaching for it. She glanced at him, sensing the awkward moment stretching out between them.

“Scarf,” he said once he had her coat.

“Yes, it is,” she said, studying him as she unwrapped her scarf from around her neck. “Why are you acting like this?”

“Like what?” When she’d freed herself from the scarf, Trent took it from her, then walked out of the living room without waiting for an answer.

She sighed, exasperated. If he behaved like an ass because she’d kept him from stopping her father, he would do it alone.

“Wait a minute,” she said, looking around the living room where she stood alone, then at the doorway leading into the rest of the house. “Where did you go with my coat?” she called out, then hurried after him.

The hallway led into the kitchen, where Trent stood, messing with his coffeemaker. There was no sign of her coat and scarf anywhere. She looked behind her, down the hallway where they’d both just come. There was one door, closed, before the living room. It was probably a hall closet and where he’d hung her coat. Which didn’t mean he was trying to prevent her from leaving, only that he had manners and didn’t throw her coat over a chair as he did his own. She returned her attention to Trent.

“Personally I’m inclined to have a beer. I figured you might want coffee.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Unless you want something stronger to warm up.” His gaze traveled down her body before returning to capture her gaze.

“What do you have?” For a moment she saw the same look in his eyes she’d seen when he first saw her on the road by the cabin. She forced herself to relax, reminding herself she controlled the shots here, as well as the delivery of information. There wasn’t any reason to be nervous around Trent, no matter how he looked at her.

Trent set the coffeepot, full of water, down next to the maker and turned to face her. “Beer,” he started, then moved across his kitchen, his agility and relaxed movements as distracting as the different moods that flashed in his eyes when he looked at her. “Or, if you prefer, wine,” he added, opening one of his cabinets and pulling out an unopened bottle. It wasn’t high dollar but not the cheapest wine a person could buy, either. He looked at the label, then showed it to her. “There’s also coffee,” he finished, nodding toward the coffeemaker.

Natasha got the impression he didn’t know a lot about wine. A closer look revealed the dust covering the bottle. Trent wasn’t a wine drinker. Had someone given him the bottle? Had he purchased it for a date that hadn’t worked out how he’d envisioned?

“The wine sounds good.” If she continued to stand there her nerves would rattle out of control again. “Where are the glasses?”

“Up there.” He left her to find them and opened a drawer, pulled out a corkscrew, then muscles flexed in his arm when he pulled the cork from the bottle.

Natasha was glad the wineglasses were easy to find as she leaned against his counter and watched the ultimate view of the perfect man displaying his perfect body. A memory of that body pressed against hers, hard as stone everywhere he touched her, helped raise the temperature in the room. Hell, all she had to do was watch Trent and she wouldn’t need anything else to fog her brain or raise her body temperature.

Trent poured her a glass, put the opened bottle on the counter, grabbed a beer out of his refrigerator, then twisted the lid off the longneck bottle. The full coffeepot of water remained on the counter, untouched.

Natasha sipped, closed her eyes, and allowed the wine to do its magic as it trailed down her insides, relaxing and warming her with its smooth taste.

“Tell me why you were at the cabin.” Trent leaned against the opposite counter, one booted foot crossed over the other, and took a long, slow drink as he watched her over the length of his bottle.

So much for enjoying the powers of a decent wine. She decided to enjoy another drink before engaging in battle.

“My father called my uncle,” she began, remembering Uncle Greg saying he had no problem with her telling the sheriff about the phone call.
I can handle that sheriff,
her uncle had said when she’d been home overnight. “He told my uncle to tell me it wasn’t him at the cabin.”

“Really?” Trent uncrossed his legs and straightened, his interest showing. “And how did he know we were at the cabin?”

It was the same question she’d asked. “And how did you know I was at the cabin?” she countered, making her move to lead the conversation while she had the chance. She gave Trent a knowing look. “The tracking device you had the owner of the bed-and-breakfast plant on me isn’t on me anymore.”

Trent’s expression didn’t change. “I had business out that way,” he offered with a shrug. “When I was heading back I saw the Avalanche. It wasn’t hard to figure out where you’d gone. How did you arrange to meet your father out there? Do you have his number?” he asked, the look on his face giving the impression he might leap and attack at any moment.

“I didn’t arrange to meet him. I knew he wouldn’t have left that message unless he knew we were out there. There was only one way he could have known. Why did you plant a tracking device on me, Trent?”

He drank a good portion of the beer, then put the bottle on the counter. When he walked to her, Natasha jumped out of the way, keeping a safe distance. Trent looked at her, his eyes sparking triumphantly, before focusing on the cabinets behind where she’d been standing and opening them. He took down a box of crackers and a package of beef jerky.

“You’re jumpy, sweetheart,” he drawled. “Either you’re preoccupied with whether or not I’m going to make a move on you or you’re leery over this line of questioning.” He reached into another cabinet and pulled down a couple of plates. Then turning to his refrigerator, he bent over and pulled out a few items.

Natasha stared at tight buns of steel, determined not to drool. She gulped down more of her wine when he straightened and took inventory on what he had in his hands. Summer sausage, cheese, a package of ham and something wrapped in foil. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Still it was a tough call on what looked more appetizing, the munchies he was preparing for them or the confident predator who moved with relaxed movements, muscles bulging and flexing.

“You didn’t answer the question,” she pointed out, and stopped herself from sipping more wine. She didn’t drink often and hadn’t eaten. Add an extra dose of charged energy in the air as their conversation leaned very close to confrontational banter that could turn into sexual foreplay with a moment’s notice and it would be smart to watch how much she drank.

“You’re right.” Trent glanced sideways at her, his hair falling in soft waves over his forehead as green eyes flashed defiantly. “You aren’t one of those vegetarians, are you?”

She grinned, shaking her head. “Make it clear if you don’t approve of a certain lifestyle, Sheriff,” she drawled.

“To each their own.” He returned to his task of slicing cheese and summer sausage onto both plates. “There aren’t a lot of vegetables around here, though. I’m definitely carnivorous.”

That didn’t surprise her a bit. “I like meat.”

He shot her another look, this one hungrier than the last. “Good to know,” he said in a softer, more guttural tone.

Natasha gulped more of her wine. She needed to put a stop to any suggestive comments or toughen up inside. “You were out of line dropping it in my purse.”

“No. I wasn’t.” He poured crackers, then handed her one of the plates.

“You have no right, legal or otherwise, to plant a tracking device on me!” she snapped, taking the plate and putting it on the counter next to her. “Then to pretend you didn’t have a clue about those bugs you produced out at the cabin.” She wagged her finger at him.

Trent moved fast, reaching to grab her hand when she dared stab him in the chest with her fingernail.

She was ready for him to pounce, having anticipated it since they’d arrived at his house. Yanking her hand back, she narrowed her gaze on his when Trent arched an eyebrow, his nonverbal response to her action obvious.
Push me and you’ll lose.

Natasha dared to look away first and reached for a round slice of the summer sausage.

“Maybe if you had left bugs out there that were ready to transmit you would have known if someone returned to the cabin,” she said casually, and popped a piece of Cheddar into her mouth.

“So it’s okay to bug someone else’s property, just not you.”

“I’m not anyone’s property.” Natasha looked up at Trent with a cracker in her hand. For a moment, her hand froze in position halfway to her mouth.

Trent’s jaw twitched, and a torrential fire ignited deep inside him, visible when she couldn’t look away from his penetrating gaze. Natasha swore she heard him utter the word “yet.” She prayed the look she gave him in return showed him she would never be any man’s property.

She gulped in a breath when the corner of his mouth curved and he grinned. “The bugs I had on me out at the cabin didn’t need to be preprogrammed into a computer.” Trent popped a slice of ham on a cracker into his mouth and appeared to down it with one bite. “I might not use a lot of modern technology on my investigations, but that doesn’t mean I’m ignorant to their uses and abilities.”

“I never said you were ignorant.”

He reached for the wine bottle when she finished off her glass and she held it out so he could refill it. Even his hands, with his long fingers, holding the bottle, appealed to her. This would be her last glass. It had to be. Not only would she be stuck here, unable to drive, but at the rate she was drooling over him, she would be begging him to fuck her before the night was over.

“Instead of explaining to me how you’re not hindering an investigation, you’ve been questioning my abilities.”

“Hindering an investigation?” she interrupted. “I came up here to help prove my father’s innocence.”

“Help who, Natasha?”

She stared at him.

“Help me?” he pressed, leaning closer and lowering his voice. “Because you’re withholding everything you know about this murder right now, aren’t you?”

“And you’ve told me everything?”

“That isn’t how it works, darling. I’m the law around here, not the other way around.”

“It’s how I work,” she hissed.

“No. How you work is to run home the moment things got tangled.”

Natasha couldn’t breathe. She would not let him throw accusations in her face, yet that was exactly what he was doing, and why?

“Nothing got tangled,” she said, hearing the ice in her tone. “You said so yourself; the evidence was damning.”

“So you went home.”

She ignored the chill in his voice. “Yes, I went home, regrouped, and brainstormed with my aunt and uncle.” Let him know she had resources he couldn’t touch, the best of minds when it came to investigating and hunting. She watched him grind his jaw, his eyes blazing, before continuing calmly. “After hearing about my father’s phone call I had new angles to approach, so I returned to Redding.”