The Old Man's Back in Town (5 page)

I grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the shelf, needing something to scrub the taste of Joel off my mind. “Here’s the deal,” I said, pouring myself a shot. “I spent the last few months trying to work you out of my system.” I tossed back the amber liquid, which burned all of the way down, firing me up. “I’ll be damned if you get to just walk back into my life and fuck me over again.”

The phone rang. I yanked the receiver off the wall. “What?”

I heard heavy breathing.

“What the hell do you want, damn it?”

“Mon-taaan-na,” a voice whispered.

I felt my eyes widen in surprise. I looked at Buffalo, who watched me, his focus unwavering.

“What?” I whispered back, my voice hiding down in my throat.

“I see you when you’re sleeping.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. There was something about the voice I recognized, something in the way he’d said my name, all sing-songy like.

“I know when you’re awake,” he paused between each line, letting them sink in.

My hand started to tremble.

“Who is it?” Joel asked.

“I know when you’ve been bad, Mon-taaan-na.” There it was again. “And you’ve been a very bad girl.”

“Who is this?” I voiced, my words sounding far away.

“Give me the phone,” Joel said, coming around the bar.

“It’s time for you to be punished,” the creep whispered. “And when I’m done, you’ll wish you were—”

Joel ripped the receiver from my hand. “Who is this?” he spoke into the phone.

I took several steps back, the creep’s words replaying in my head, sparking that déjà vu again.

Joel hung up the phone and turned to me. “What did he say?”

Then it hit me, an echo from the past. I knew that voice!

The fear gripping my lungs tightened in rage. “No!” I shoved past Joel, yanking the phone off the wall and throwing it on the floor where I stomped on it with my boot heel.

“Montana!” Joel grabbed me by the shoulders. “Stop it.”

I broke his hold, snatching up my 12-gauge. “Damn you, Joel.”

“What did I do?”

I back-stepped toward the swinging doors, glaring at him. “You came here to stop me.”

“From what?” Buffalo asked, half off his bar stool.

“Montana, give me the shotgun,” Joel took a step toward me, holding out his hand palm up.

“From what?” Buffalo asked again.

I spared him a frown. “From killing that son of a bitch I married.”

Joel took another step toward me. “Hand over your weapon before you hurt someone.”

“Negative,
Detective
Andersen,” I said in his cop lingo. “You need to get out of my bar before I fill you full of holes, too.” I glanced at Buffalo. “Lock the door on your way out, would ya?”

Without another word, I grabbed the bottle of whiskey, leaned my shotgun over my shoulder, and shoved through the swinging half-doors that led back to my office.

New Christmas Eve plan—prepare for a showdown with that rotten bastard I’d divorced and put behind bars for killing his business partner. I was done cowering at his threats.

“Montana,” Joel called from behind me. “Come back to me.”

“Go to hell!” I stepped through my office doorway.

He didn’t listen, following on my boot heels, shutting the door behind him and locking it.

I slammed the bottle of whiskey down on my desk, spilling some on the get-well cards stacked on it. “Andersen, your inability to follow my directions has always pissed me off.”

“Put the shotgun down.” He grabbed the 12-gauge from me, using it to tug me toward him.

“I’m done running scared.”

“Good. Give me your gun.”

“You have your own. Why do you need mine?”

“Two reasons—first, because you make me sweaty when you are swinging this thing around.” I let him take it from me. He placed it gently on the desk, the muzzle facing away from us, and then laid his Colt .45 next to it. “Second, because I can’t concentrate on talking to you when you have that in your hands.”

“We said all there was to say months ago.”

“You’re right.” He grabbed me by the front of my T-shirt, yanked me into him, and planted a hard kiss on my mouth. “Take off your pants.”

I glared up at him. “You think you can come slamming into town and land right back between my legs?”

“A man can hope.”

“You have a big set of balls, Joel Andersen.”

He grinned and buried his fingers in my hair, backing me into the desk. “You can admire those later.”

I met his lips mid-way this time, thirsty for a drink of him, tearing his shirt out of his jeans to touch the flesh I’d only been able to think about for way too long. He groaned when I raked my nails over his stomach, his mouth savoring mine, exploring then ravaging again. I clutched his back and plastered myself against him, soaking him up like a dry lakebed.

He stepped back long enough to peel my T-shirt off and toss it on the floor. In between kisses, his flannel shirt followed, then his thermal undershirt.

“Joel,” I said when he fell back onto my silver couch and pulled me down so I straddled him. “You have to stop.”

“Why?” he asked, his hands spanning my hips.

His lips trailed down between my breasts, his touch electrifying, lighting chills along the way.

“Because …” I started, and then moaned when his teeth nipped me through my bra cup.

My hands held him against me, as my body arched toward him and his tongue teased me through the cotton.

I closed my eyes, trying to focus on what I was trying to spit out. “Because …”

He shifted me on his lap, adjusting so that his rough edges dug into my soft spots. “Damn, I missed you, Shooter.”

I moaned under the gully wash of sensations I’d only dreamed about for months, my body coming to life like the desert after a spring gusher. The heat of his mouth left my breast then coolness followed when he blew on the damp cotton.

I shivered, closing my eyes, and finally found the end of my sentence. “Because you left me.”

He stilled under my body. “Montana, open those big blue eyes for a moment.”

I did, frowning down at him. His chest rose and fell rapidly, his face taut, his need shining bright in his green gaze.

“I came back here tonight to tell you that your ex-husband escaped from prison a week ago.”

I blinked. “That explains the strange calls I’ve been getting all week.”

“We’ve had an APB out for him since he disappeared.” He popped open the button of my jeans. “Yesterday, a convenience store owner down in Beatty recognized him and called the cops, but he slipped by them.”

“You sure it was him?”

“He bought unfiltered cigarettes, black licorice, and orange soda pop.”

That was him all right. “So you’re here on my couch on official police business?”

“Yes,” he said. His hand slipped inside of my jeans, his fingers dipping below the elastic waist of my panties.

“Well, I hope you have a warrant to get into my underwear.”

His grin lit his face with a wicked glow. “I sure do. It’s in my pants. Why don’t you reach down in my front left pocket and grab it.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Lawman. I’ve fallen for that trick with you before. It ended with me up against the side of your car with my bare ass to the wind.”

“What can I say? It’s my job to search for hidden weapons. On a night as dark as that one, I had to check out every single one of your nooks and crannies.”

I rocked my hips, rubbing against him. “You should be careful what you search for. If I remember correctly, you’re the one who ended up cuffed to your door handle that night with your pants around your ankles.”

He chuckled. “Good thing Rick was on duty. He still cries like a girl when he laughs his way through that story.”

I leaned down and ravished his mouth, slow and sultry, basking in the pre-glow of what his hips were promising to deliver.

He unhooked my bra single-handedly while I was distracted, his other palm still gripping my hips, keeping me tight against him. “Montana, sweetheart?”

“Mmmm?” I managed to get out while his hand got reacquainted with my bared breast.

“When I walked in that door tonight and saw you behind the bar all full of spitfire and sparks, I changed my mind about something.”

“About what?”

He pressed harder against me, the friction seeming to light his firecracker as much as it did mine. “Walking away.”

“From Goldwash?”

“From you.” His mouth took the place of his hand on my breast, his tongue flicking, while both hands lifted me enough to wrestle my jeans and underwear down over my hips. His pants hit the floor next.

“Just like that?” I halted the show, glaring down at him as he shifted free of his briefs. “You come back here and tell me you’ve changed your mind and I’m supposed to drop everything and let you back into my heart.”

“No. Just like this.” He pulled me down onto him, watching my face as he slid all of the way in, then out and in again ever so slowly, this time staying put and drawing my hips toward him.

“Oh,” I whispered, grasping his shoulders, arching my back to help him hit the spot, all of the spots. “Just like that.”

He let his head lean back against the couch cushion, watching me from beneath lowered lashes. “You have no idea how damned sexy you look right now riding me with your hair tangled and your skin glowing.”

“We always were good at sex,” I said between heavy breaths. “It’s the talking where we get stuck in the mud.”

“We’re doing fine right now.”

“That’s because you get all chatty when you’re inside of me. You’re the only guy I’ve ever been with who has conversations during sex.”

“How many guys are we talking about again?”

“Barely enough to shake a stick at.”

“Good.” He groaned and sat forward, closing the gap between us. “Damn, you’re always so wet.” He shifted me so that we fit even closer, helping me move faster. “Walking out on you was the hardest thing I ever did.”

The dust devil of need inside of me swirled faster, higher. “Then why did you?”

Joel picked up the momentum, seeming to sense that I wasn’t going to last much longer. “Because you wouldn’t marry me.”

I growled at the ceiling. “It’s just a piece of paper. We didn’t need it to tell us what we already knew.”

“You’re right. We didn’t need it, but I wanted it. I wanted you.”

“You had me, Joel.” I reached down behind me and scraped my fingernails up his thighs. “Like you do right now.”

He let go of my hips, his fingers occupied themselves in other creative ways.

“Tell me what you need.” His thumbs circled and rubbed, making me writhe with want.

“I need you to shut up and take me the rest of the way.”

“I love it when you boss me around, Shooter,” he said in a gravelly voice.

Without another word, he massaged and strummed all of the right buttons and knobs until I pulsed around him, squeezing him tight, making him cuss and shudder shortly after me.

I let my forehead rest on his shoulder, catching my breath, peeking at him out of the corner of my eye.

Joel stared at the ceiling, his Adam’s apple bobbing every few seconds as he caught his breath. “Call me old fashioned, sweetheart,” he said without looking at me, “but I wanted the vows. The cake, the rings, a ‘wife’ to sleep next to every night.”

Damn it, why did he have to ruin my afterglow with more talk of marriage. I rolled off him, grabbing my underwear off the floor. “You know I have a bad track record, Joel.”

“Stop living in the past. Look at what you have right here in front of you.”

I did. Warmth bubbled in my chest. Damn he was one big gorgeous chunk of flesh and bones. “I left a bite mark on your shoulder again.”

He touched the red spot, staring up at me. “I don’t want to live without you anymore. Come back to me, Montana.”

I pulled up my jeans and buttoned them, considering his words.

Let’s see, I could spend the rest of my life lonely and miserable and pining for the sexy stud sprawled on my couch, or I could have him in my bed every night, talking about how much he adores me while loving me up and down and all around.

There was no way in hell I was going to stumble back into the wasteland I’d lived in the last few months.

I grabbed my shirt from the floor, skipping the bra. “Okay,” I told him and unlocked the door, hauling it open. “Stay here while I make sure I’m all shut up for the night.”

“
Okay
?” he asked, adjusting himself and reaching for his jeans. “What do you mean
okay
? Okay you’ll come back or okay you’ll marry me this time?”

Something thudded out front.

I froze, straining to catch more. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Joel said, buttoning his fly.