Chapter Six Gal Friday #2
Now the hunter becomes the hunted, I think as I realize that he must have known I left town, that I left town with Susie and was coming back. How else would he have known to wait just about here, on the road leading into Pine Ridge coming from the direction of the city.
“Did you tell anyone we were going to the city tonight?” I ask, squinting to see the faint glow of tail lamps on an otherwise deserted road.
“I told Maudie and Loula I wouldn’t be back until late. It’s not them, Sam!”
“I know it isn’t. I know who it is, and now he knows that you’re with me.”
“Is that bad?” Susie whispers.
“Not once I’m out of town, sweetheart. I want you to take a couple of weeks in Yonkers.”
“What? No! You’re in danger from this guy. What did he do? How do you know it’s him?”
“Instincts.” My voice is a low snarl. I can’t smell him. Couldn’t sense him. Not that fast, not with cars between us and no warning.
“Shouldn’t you call the police?”
I hesitate. How can I explain that I won’t be calling the police on this person if I catch him? “There’s not enough evidence to connect this man to the crimes I know he committed. He makes them look like accidents.”
“How do you know?”
“I... I was trained as an operative in a very similar fashion. But I use my training for good, the things that I went through... I use them to stop evil, Susan. You have to believe me.”
“I believe you. I’ll always believe you.”
I want to believe that. That she’ll believe me if I ever tell her everything.
“What kind of accidents?”
“Deaths.”
“What kind of deaths? Why?” Susie’s voice shakes.
For how tough she is, and how brave her taste in literature might be, she’s never experienced the ugliness of the world that I have—and I want to keep it that way. “You leave that to me, honey. I’ll take care of him.”
“How?”
Damn it.
I can’t explain that a werewolf can’t go to prison.
It’s kill or be killed—or have a wild beast that has no control, or in this case, a cruel, calculated control, in a confined space with dozens of men.
Maybe hardened murderers. Maybe men on hard times (God knows it’s about universal these days, even if we’re starting to turn the corner now that Roosevelt’s in office) who stole ten bucks to make rent.
In a night, there could be a hundred murders, or worse, dozens of murders, and dozens of new murderers made.
Innocent and confused guards and wardens would shoot, but lead won’t do much good.
“Sam, you can’t just shoot someone in cold blood! What if there’s more to it than you know? You have to have people stand trial. If you don’t, that’s no better than mob justice.”
She’s right.
To the world of humans, what I plan to do is wrong.
To the world of werewolves? There’s no other way.
“If I can get him to come along quietly, love, I’ll be happy. But if it’s him or me—or worse, you or him? He’s a goner every time.”
My heart is pounding. We almost went sailing off a cliff—or at least that’s what I was afraid was happening. If we’d been any higher up... My stomach quakes and threatens to dislodge my first taste of champagne and caviar.
Someone’s killing people, and the police aren’t doing anything? The army isn’t? It’s Sam, my Sam, from a little office in a little mountain town, alone, with only me to help?
I’m angry, indignant, and scared witless.
At least, partially.
Part of me also feels the thrill of danger, the rush of excitement of finally being in the breathless, heart-pounding dark, a handsome hero by my side.
But I don’t want my hero to be a murderer who skirts the law. Do I?
“If this man is just some normal operative, some gun for hire, even a crazed killer, I can bring him in, Susie. It’s only if... In a life-or-death situation.” Sam’s voice is soft and grim, his foot pressing the pedal to the floor as the engine screams.
Why am I suddenly afraid and aroused at once?
Because he’s like the cowboys and lone sheriffs in Wild West Adventures, fighting alone for justice, a six-shooter in his hand, with no time for wicked men, not out where the frontier lawmen dare not tread.
I shake myself. This isn’t a book. Not really, but some parts are starting to seem fantastical enough to belong in any of the dime novels I devour.
“After a harrowing escape, he gathered her in his arms, their bodies trembling with lust,” I murmur to myself.
“Do they?” Sam asks, voice still tense.
Well, mostly to myself. “A line from a book. A lot of them, actually.”
“I thought so. Dollface, this isn’t a book. This is real life. Someone could get hurt. And there are things... There are things I can’t tell you.”
“I know that,” I say quickly. Too quickly, because I’m learning every second that there’s more I don’t know.
Things about men and women, and my body, and the dangers of being in one of the adventures I thought must only exist in the pages of “trashy books” meant to make your pulse pound.
“I know you’re still doing something as a consultant for the War Department.
I know there are lots of things in Washington that must be top secret.
” Even the words make my lips tingle. “I saw how someone hurt you. First, your eye. And your gorgeous face.” I scoot closer as Sam races ahead, his headlights unable to keep the road illuminated more than a few feet beyond the shining fender.
“And now... This. Sam, what if we get stopped by a policeman?”
“I’ll show him my papers, honey, and tell him I’m after a lunatic playing chicken with his car. Damn it, Susie. We’ve lost him.”
I’m relieved and worried at once. Sam slows.
We’ve driven clear through Pine Ridge’s downtown (which is also its uptown, and pretty much its only town, just three little streets of shops and scattered houses), and now we’re all the way to the highway exit.
There’s no way to tell which way our assailant went.
“We could have had him if I hadn’t taken so long to get us out of that ditch,” Sam grumbles, slamming his hand down on the wheel.
I don’t tell him it wasn’t a ditch—it was down half a mountain. Well, a foothill that was mountain-like.
What if it had been higher? What if that man had stopped when we skidded off the road, pulled out a gun, and shot Sam? Or both of us?
“I want to go home,” I whisper.
Sam’s shoulders unclench. His hands fall from the wheel. “To Yonkers? I wouldn’t blame you, sweetheart.”
“No. Not to Yonkers.”
“I’ll take you back to the Dullahan place.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone,” I suddenly plead, grabbing his arm. I’m shaking.
He’s shaking, too, but not like I am. With intensity, as rage and determination run through him.
He finally tears his eyes from the road and looks at me.
“I’ll be fine, Sue. It takes a lot to hurt me.
But if you get hurt... That’ll kill me. I’ve never...
I never had a woman like you in my life.
I can’t explain how I know you’re the one for me, but it’s...
It’s deeper than just how easily we glide along together, or the way you could enslave a monk with just one kiss, or how brilliant you are, or how brave...
Don’t ask me to explain it. Just believe me. ”
“I told you I will. I do. Don’t ask me to leave you tonight.”
Sam licks his thin lips, beautifully shaped, thicker on top, sensual and stern by turns.
Lord have mercy, I’m really falling for him. I find I can’t take my eyes off his lips, even though I can barely see them by the scant light that comes in from the headlights shining outward onto the black, deserted road.
“People will talk if you come home with me. In all my years as a soldier, I never took a woman back to my digs. I want you to know that. I’m no angel, but I’m not some devil with women. It’s not that I never got lonely. It’s just been... It’s been a long time.”
“People will talk about me, anyway. I don’t care, Sam. I honestly don’t.”
“Someday you will. You might.”
“Oh, stop being noble. This is an emergency! Someone tried to kill you! What kind of a ‘Girl Friday’ would I be if I just left you to get shot?” I practically scream, stomping my foot on the floorboards.
Sam slowly puts the car back in gear and turns around in the dark. “You take the bed. I’ll sleep in the armchair.”
“All right. I won’t have my nightdress, but I can make do in my—my slip, I suppose.”
Sam tosses me a look that sends a shiver up my spine, one that’s hot and makes everything in my body coil like a wind-up spring. “I think you could make do in anything or nothing, Susie-Q.”
“Oh? Which would you prefer?”
“Well... I’ll tell you. There’s something about surviving that makes you feel like life is too short, and too precious not to say what you’re really thinking. You know?”
“I know. That’s why I told you I’m not leaving your side!” I exclaim.
“That’s why I’m telling you that even if I behave like a perfect gentleman tonight, I’d prefer you in nothing.”
I can scarcely breathe. Heat settles in my pussy, and the urge to touch and be touched is suddenly overwhelming. “Oh, Sam. Hurry.”
Hurry, she says.
I can hardly drive straight. I’m glad my little place is out past the church, with plenty of pines and empty lots.
There are a few houses that we pass, but all are dark.
I don’t think we have an audience, but I still hustle Susie inside, nostrils flared at the scent of the honey dripping from her sex.
She wants me.
I want her.
My wolf wants every inch of us to be combined, wrapped in a sweaty, primal tangle of rutting until her pounded pussy pops around my knot and I come inside of her.