The Bride Wore Denim (34 page)

Award-winning author Kay Thomas continues her thrilling Elite Ops series. Fighting to clear her brother of murder, freelance reporter Sassy Smith is suddenly kidnapped and thrown into a truck with other women who are about to be sold . . . or worse. When she sees an opportunity for escape Sassy takes it, but she may have just jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

“Y
ou’re thinking too much.” She felt his words vibrate against the inside of her thigh as he kissed her there before easing up beside her on the bed. “Stop that.”

She smiled, not at all surprised that he seemed to read her mind. He sat up on the edge of the lower bunk next to her and took his own boots and socks off, then his shirt, jeans, and . . .

She closed her eyes.

He was going to be naked soon, and she had to say something first. He slid up beside her on the mattress and pulled her back to his front, with his back toward the wall. She felt the insistence of his erection against her bottom.

She started to turn in his arms, but he held onto her with an arm clamped around her waist. “Slow down. I just want to enjoy holding you a while. I’ve thought about this for a very long time.”

Really? That came as a complete surprise. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask how long, but when he trailed his fingertips back and forth across her rib cage, she quit thinking. Instead, she sighed in relaxed contentment. “I didn’t know it could be like that.”

Why had she been nervous about this for so long? She could tell him now. It’d be okay.

He kissed the side of her neck and whispered in her ear, “Well, I promise we’re just getting started.”

She tensed, and he absolutely noticed but misunderstood the reason.

He gathered her more snugly against his chest. “Don’t worry, we can take this as slow as you want.”

“You’d do that?” The mixture of relief and disappointment she felt was . . . confusing.

“God, Sassy. What sort of men have you—”

The sound of screeching brakes interrupted whatever else he’d been about to say. Sassy felt the momentum shoving her backward into his chest.

“What’s happening?” she gasped.

“I don’t know.” He tugged his arm from under her body to see his watch. “We’re not scheduled to stop for several more hours.” The stark change from relaxed lover to alert super soldier was dramatic. “Get dressed. Now.”

Bryan hauled himself forward out of bed and started shoving clothes toward her while Sassy was still playing catch-up. Her panties were inside out, but she slid them on at his urging without fixing them.

“C’mon, Sassy.”

The horrific screeching continued, intensifying as she pulled her jeans, sweater, socks, and boots on. She was lacing up as a rumbling shuddering started.

“Fuck,” Bryan mumbled.

“What is it?” She finished with the boots and looked up from her crouched position as the screeching abruptly stopped.

“Hang on!” He grabbed for her.

The rail car shifted, and she felt like she was in a carnival house ride as the compartment swayed wildly from side to side. The car tilted, and the bed she was sitting on flew up in the air. She hit her head on the bunk above, and the world went black.

Some things are sexier the second time around.

Cal Payton has gruff and grumbly down to an art . . . all the better for keeping people away. And it usually works. Until Jenna Macmillan—his biggest mistake—walks into Payton and Sons mechanic shop all grown up, looking like sunshine, and inspiring more than a few dirty thoughts.

O
kay, so admittedly Jenna had known this was a stupid idea. She’d tried to talk herself out of it the whole way, muttering to herself as she sat at a stop light. The elderly man in the car in the lane beside her had been staring at her like she was nuts.

And she was. Totally nuts.

It’d been almost a decade since she’d seen Cal Payton and yet one look at those silvery blue eyes and she was shoved right back to the head-over-heels
in love
eighteen-year-old girl she’d been.

Cal had been hot in high school, but damn, had time been good to him. He’d always been a solid guy, never really hitting that awkward skinny stage some teenage boys went through after a growth spurt.

And now . . . well . . . Cal looked downright sinful standing there in the garage. He’d rolled down the top of his coveralls, revealing a white T-shirt that looked painted on, for God’s sake. She could see the ridges of his abs, the outline of his pecs. A large smudge on the sleeve drew her attention to his bulging biceps and muscular, veined forearms. Did he lift these damn cars all day? Thank God it was hot as Hades outside already so she could get by with flushed cheeks.

And he was staring at her, those eyes which hadn’t changed one bit. Cal never cared much for social mores. He looked people in the eye and he held it long past comfort. Cal had always needed that, to be able to measure up who he was dealing with before he ever uttered a word.

She wondered how she measured up. It’d been a long time since he’d laid eyes on her, and the last time he had, he’d been furious.

Well, she was the one that came here. She was the one that needed something. She might as well speak up, even though what she needed right now was a drink. A stiff one. “Hi, Cal.” She went with a smile that surely looked a little strained.

He stood with his booted feet shoulder-width apart, and at the sound of her voice, he started a bit. He finally stopped doing that staring thing as his gaze shifted to the car by her side, then back to her. “Jenna.”

His voice. Well, crap, how could she have forgotten about his voice? It was low and silky with a spicy edge, like Mexican chocolate. It warmed her belly and raised goose bumps on her skin.

She cleared her throat as he began walking toward her, his gaze teetering between her and the car. Brent was off to the side, watching them with his arms crossed over his chest. He winked at her. She hid her grin with pursed lips and rolled her eyes. He was a good-looking bastard, but irritating as hell. Nice to see
some
things never changed. “Hey, Brent.”

“Hey there, Jenna. Looking good.”

Cal whipped his head toward his brother. “Get back to work.”

Brent gave him a sloppy salute and then shot her another knowing smirk before turning around and retreating back into the garage bay.

When she faced Cal again, she jolted, because he was close now, almost in her personal space. His eyes bored into her. “What’re ya doing here, Jenna?”

His question wasn’t accusatory. It was conversational, but the intent was in his tone, laying latent until she gave him reason to really put the screws to her. She didn’t know if he meant what was she doing here, at his garage, or what he was doing in town. But she went for the easy question first.

She gestured to the car. “I, uh, I think the bearings need to be replaced. I know that I could take it anywhere but . . .” She didn’t want to tell him it was Dylan’s car, and he was the one who let it go so long that she swore the front tires were going to fall off. As much as her brother loved his car, he was an idiot. An idiot who despised Cal, and she was pretty sure the feeling was vice versa. “I wanted to make sure the job was done right and everyone knows you do the best job here.” That part was true. The Paytons had a great reputation in Tory.

But Cal never let anything go. He narrowed his eyes and propped his hands on his hips, drawing attention to the muscles in his arms. “How do you know we still do the best job here if you haven’t been back in ten years?”

Well then. Couldn’t he just nod and take her keys? She held them in her hand, gripping them so tightly that the edge was digging into her palm. She loosened her grip. “Because when I did live here, your father was the best, and I know
you
don’t do anything unless you do it the best.” Her voice faded off. Even though the last time she’d seen Cal, his eyes had been snapping in anger, at least they’d been showing some sort of emotion. This steady blank gaze was killing her. Not when she knew how his eyes looked when he smiled, as the skin at the corners crinkled and the silver of his irises flashed.

She thought now that this had been a mistake. She’d offered to get the car fixed for her brother while he was out of town. And while she knew Cal worked with his dad now, she’d still expected to run into Jack. And even though he was a total jerk face, she would have rather dealt with him than endure this uncomfortable situation with Cal right now. “You know, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it, I’ll just—”

He snatched the keys out of her hand. Right. Out. Of. Her. Hand.

“Hey!” She propped a hand on her hip, but he wasn’t even looking at her, instead fingering the key ring. “Do you always steal keys from your customers?”

He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow at her. There was the smallest hint of a smile, just a tug at the corner of his lips. “I don’t make that a habit, no.”

“So I’m special then?” She was flirting. Was this flirting? Oh God, it was. She was flirting with her high school boyfriend, the guy who’d taken her virginity, and the guy whose heart she’d broken when she had to make one of the most difficult decisions of her life.

She’d broken her own heart in the process.

His gaze dropped, just for a second, then snapped back to her face. “Yeah, you’re special.”

He turned around, checking out the car, while she stood gaping at his back. He’d . . . he’d flirted back, right? Cal wasn’t really a flirting kind of guy. He said what he wanted and followed through. But flirting Cal?

She shook her head. It’d been over ten years. Surely he’d lived a lot of life during that time she’d been away, going to college, then grad school, then working in New York. She didn’t want to think about what that flirting might mean, now that she was back in Tory for good. Except he didn’t know that.

A kiss is just the beginning . . .

Pinterest Perfect. Or so Annie Carson’s life appears on her popular blog. Reality is . . . messier. Especially when it lands her back in one-cow town, Brightwater, California, and back in the path of the gorgeous six-foot-four reason she left.

“S
awyer?” All she could do was gape, wide-eyed and breathless—too breathless. Could he tell? Hard to say as he maintained his customary faraway expression, the one that made it look as if he’d stepped out of a black and white photograph.

“Annie.”

She jumped. Hearing her name on his tongue plucked something deep in her belly, a sweet aching string, the hint of a chord she only ever found in the dark with her own hand. It was impossible not to stare, and suddenly the long years disappeared, until she was that curious seventeen-year-old girl again, seeing a gorgeous boy watching her from the riverbanks, and wondering if the Earth’s magnetic poles had quietly flipped.

Stop. Just say no to unwelcome physical reactions
. Her body might turn traitor, but her mind wouldn’t let her down. She’d fallen for this guy’s good looks before, believed they mirrored a goodness inside—a mistake she wouldn’t make twice. No man would ever be allowed to stand by and watch her crash again.

Never would she cry in the shower so no one could hear.

Never would she wait for her child to fall asleep so she could fall apart.

Never would she jump and blindly fall.

Sawyer removed his worn tan Stetson and stood. Treacherous hyperawareness raced along her spine and radiated through her hips in a slow, hot electric pulse. He clocked in over six-feet, with steadfast sagebrush green eyes that gave little away. Flecks of ginger gleamed from the scruff roughing his strong jaw and lightened the dark chestnut of his short-cropped hair.

“Hey.” Her cheeks warmed as any better words scampered out of reach. The mile-long “to do” list taped to the fridge didn’t include squirming in front of the guy she’d nurtured a secret crush on during her teenage years. A guy who, at the sole party Annie attended in high school, abandoned her in a hallway closet during “Seven Minutes in Heaven” to mothballed jackets, old leather shoes, ruthless taunts, and everlasting shame.

He reset his hat. “Did I wake you?” His voice had always appealed to her, but the subtle rough deepening was something else, as if every syllable dragged over a gravel road.

She checked her robe’s tie. “Hammering at sunrise kind of has that effect on people.”

He gave her a long look. His steadfast perusal didn’t waver an inch below her neck, but still, as he lazily scanned each feature, she felt undressed to bare skin. Guess his old confidence hadn’t faded, not a cocky manufactured arrogance, but a guy completely comfortable in his own skin.

And what ruggedly handsome, sun-bronzed skin it was, covering all sorts of interesting new muscles he hadn’t sported in high school.

“Heard Grandma paid you a visit,” he said at last.

Annie doused the unwelcome glow kindling in her chest with a bucket of ice-cold realism. He wasn’t here to see her, merely deal with a mess.
Hear that, hormones? Don’t be stupid.
She set a hand on her hip, summoning as much dignity as she could muster with a serious case of bedhead. “Visit? Your grandma killed one of our chickens and baked it in a pie. Not exactly the welcome wagon. More like a medieval, craz—”

“Subtlety isn’t one of her strong points. We had words last night. It won’t happen again.” He dusted his hands on his narrow, denim-clad hips and bent down.

Unf.

The hard-working folks at Wrangler deserved a medal for their service. Nothing—NOTHING—else made a male ass look so fine. “Found this, too.” He lifted her forgotten bottle of scotch.

“Oh, weird.” She plucked it from his grasp. “Wonder how that got out here?” Crap, too saccharine a tone, sweet but clearly false.

He raised his brows as his hooded gaze dropped a fraction. Not enough to be a leer, but definitely a look.

Her threadbare terrycloth hit mid-thigh. Here stood the hottest guy west of the Mississippi and she hadn’t shaved since who-the-hell knows and sported a lop-sided bruise on her knee from yesterday’s unfortunate encounter with a gopher hole.

Maybe she failed at keeping up appearances, but God as her witness, she’d maintain her posture. “About your Grandma, I was two seconds from calling the cops on her last night.”

“That a fact?” The corner of his wide mouth twitched. “Next time, that’s exactly what you should do.”

“Next time?” She sputtered, waving the bottle for emphasis. “There sure as heck better not be a next time!”

That little burst of sass earned the full-force of his smile. Laugh lines crinkled at the corners of deep-set eyes that belonged nowhere but the bedroom. As a boy, he was a sight, as a man, he’d become a vision. “Why are you back? I mean, after all this time?”