Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Raylan
Something was seriously wrong with my head, because despite knowing nothing could ever happen between us, I couldn’t seem to keep myself away from Lennix. With her in the room, I felt like a smoker trying to quit cold turkey while a pack of cigarettes sat on the table in front of me, taunting me.
She tried being discreet every time she attempted to move her chair away, but that space between us grated on my nerves something fierce.
Every time I looked down at those inches of empty air, my teeth ground together, like that space had personally offended me.
Before I could think better of it or tell myself to stop, I was pulling her back.
Pressing my leg against hers beneath the table or draping my arm over the back of her chair.
Anything for some sort of contact, no matter how small.
I got a hit just from the soft sweep of her silky hair against my fingers every time she turned her head.
Through the rest of dinner, she’d done her best to act like I didn’t exist, and damn if I didn’t find myself getting off on the little game we were playing, unbeknownst to anyone else.
If Zach had even an inkling of some of the thoughts going through my head regarding his little sister, he wouldn’t have hesitated to put his fist through my face right there in front of his entire family.
That wasn’t enough to stop me, though. Hell, even hearing Zach claim that shithead she’d been dating was too old for her hadn’t been enough to cool the fire that lit in my blood every time she was near.
And sitting at that table for an hour and a half, so close I could smell that sweet, warm star anise scent on her skin, just about did me in.
It was that draw I felt to her, the one getting harder and harder to ignore, that had me saying my hurried goodbyes to the Paulsons and Hightowers so I could follow Lennix out the door when the evening finally came to a close.
I hadn’t missed the moment, right after Zach and Rae announced their pregnancy, that Lennix seemed to go into some sort of daze.
While everyone else congratulated the couple, Lennix had frozen.
It hadn’t taken her long to come out of it, but I swore I saw a flash of pain in her deep green eyes before she blinked it away.
After seeing that, I spent the rest of dinner feeling like I had a cinderblock sitting in the bottom of my stomach. Part of my reason for following her out was because I wanted to check on her, make sure she was okay. But mostly, I just wanted a few more minutes with her. Any way I could get them.
“Lennix, hold up.”
She muttered a string of curses under her breath as I rushed to catch up with her. I’d half expected her to keep going just to spite me, so it took me by surprise when she actually stopped.
“What?” She turned to face me, and it was impossible to miss the look of wariness stretched over her beautiful face.
It had started right after Zach and Rae’s announcement and grew more pronounced as the evening wore on, and I knew I was responsible for a large portion of that look, if not the majority.
“What do you want now? You want to screw with me some more?”
A spear of guilt pierced my sternum. I held my hands up in surrender. “Not trying to screw with you. I was just wondering if you wouldn’t mind giving me a ride back to the barn on the way to your place. I rode here with Zach.”
“Oh.” She looked momentarily taken aback by my request.
I could have just walked; it was only a few miles.
But any additional time I could get, I was grabbing hold of.
It felt like an eternity passed before she spoke, and I thought she was going to shoot me down loudly and colorfully, probably adding in a ‘go fuck yourself’ for good measure.
I would have deserved it. But she didn’t.
“Fine. Come on.” She huffed out a breath and rolled her eyes like it was the biggest inconvenience in the world, but she still said yes. Grudgingly, but I’d take it as a win all the same. “Just . . . don’t talk.”
I mimed zipping my lips and followed her to her SUV, climbing into the passenger seat before she could change her mind and do something like run my ass over.
I did as ordered, staying quiet for the first couple of minutes of the ride, but I couldn’t stop myself from looking in her direction every few seconds, taking in her gorgeous profile.
Christ, she really was beautiful. I had no business noticing that kind of thing, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“For the love of god, what?” She cast me a glance, her brow furrowed, before looking back at the windshield. “Why do you keep staring at me?”
Busted.
I took that as my chance to ask the question that had been weighing on my mind. “Are you okay?”
Her head whipped back in my direction, her dark brows pulling together in a confused frown. “What?”
“You just look at little . . . I don’t know. Sad, maybe? Tired?”
She let out a humorless laugh as she shook her head, her ebony hair sweeping around her shoulders and catching the lights from the dashboard. “Wow. Sad and tired. One is bad enough, but both? You might as well have just said I look like run over dog shit.”
“What? No! That’s not—I didn’t mean it—”
My denial was cut off when Lennix slammed on the brakes so hard I jerked forward. The seatbelt locking and cutting into my chest was the only thing that kept me from slamming into the dash.
“What the fuck?”
“Did you see that?”
“See what?” I asked in bewilderment, looking through the windshield at the small fraction of the gravel lane cutting through the field that was illuminated by the headlights. “I don’t see anything. It’s dark as hell out here. There’s nothing to see.”
She hugged herself closer to the steering wheel, her eyes scanning. “No, I saw something. It was out there—” Her words stopped on a sharp gasp right before she threw the door open.
“Christ, Lennix. What the hell? You can’t just run out into the dark.
You don’t know what’s out there.” Of course, she didn’t listen.
“Goddamn it,” I grunted, unbuckling my own seatbelt and rushing out after her.
It was that wild side Bill had spoken of earlier that night that had her rushing out into the night when anything could be out there.
All kinds of dangerous wildlife could be found roaming the ranch and foothills beyond once the sun went down. Not that she seemed to care.
She stood from where she’d been crouched down just off the gravel lane in the ankle-high grass as I rounded the hood. Lennix turned toward me, clutching something in her arms. The headlights caught on it, showing its matted fur was streaked with blood.
“It’s hurt,” Lennix said, her eyes wide and brimming with worry.
I closed the rest of the distance between us and finally saw what she was holding.
It was a puppy. One that, by the looks of it, was too young and tiny to be separated from its mother.
And it looked like it was seriously hurt.
If I had to guess, it had probably been attacked by a wild animal much larger and meaner.
“Someone probably dumped it out here with the rest of its littermates, left it for dead.” Lennix’s eyes flashed with a fire I was all too familiar with.
It was that side of her that made her nickname so accurate.
“You know, there’s a special place in hell for assholes who do this to poor, defenseless animals.
They deserve to be strung up by the short hairs. ”
There were many things Lennix was passionate about.
Her family, the bar and brewery, her friends.
But she was most passionate about animals.
She’d been that way her entire life. As a little girl, she’d bring all manner of wounded and helpless animals home whenever she found them around the sprawling ranch.
So it was no surprise she’d take the injury of this puppy so personally.
The animal in her arms let out a pained whimper, stealing both of our focus. “He needs help,” she said, desperation bleeding into her words. “We need to help him.”
I reached out and brushed my fingers down the little guy’s back.
I could feel the ridges of his spine and ribs, as well as the rapid rise and fall of his too-quick breaths.
Lennix was right. He was in pain and needed help.
There was just one problem. “Sweetheart, it’s after 9:00.
” The vet’s office was already closed, and in a town as small as ours, we didn’t have an emergency animal hospital.
The closest one was two towns away, and I didn’t know if the pup would be able to last that long.
She shook her head, reaching around and pulling her phone from her back pocket. “It doesn’t matter. Hardin will answer for me.”
Something about that sentence made my gut churn.
She had the phone to her ear before I knew it.
“Hey, yeah, Hardin. I’m sorry to call this late, but I have an emergency.
” She was quiet for a moment, and the smile that stretched across her face at whatever he said on the other side of that call had me clenching my fists.
“Oh, thank you, Hardin. You’re a lifesaver.” I suddenly had the desire to punch one of my oldest friends in the face. “Yeah. I’m on my way now. I owe you one, big time. See you in a few.”
My mind went down the unpleasant path of wondering exactly how she thought to pay him back for this.
Hardin was a good friend, and a good guy, but he was also a single man whose reputation with women was similar to my own.
Only reason his was slightly better was because he’d attempted the monogamy thing before and gotten married.
They’d even had kids. But when it imploded and they got divorced, Hardin swore he’d never do it again.
To make matters worse, he was also a handsome fucker with too much goddamn charisma for his own good.
Lennix moved then, heading back toward the car and pulling me from my musings. “Come on. I need to hurry and drop you off so I can get this little guy to Hardin.”
Like hell I was leaving her alone with that animal-healing son of a bitch. He’d play the hero for her, and Christ knew what would happen then. It would be a shame if I had to beat the shit out of a close buddy.
“I’ll go with you.” I blurted the words without a moment’s thought.
Lennix stopped halfway to the car and looked back at me in confusion. “What?”
“I’ll go with you.” I pointed at the little dog shivering in her arms. “I mean, you can’t really drive and hold him at the same time, can you?”
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and chewed on it for a second before finally relenting. “Yeah, okay. You drive. I’ll hold him. ”
She climbed into the passenger seat with the puppy while I jogged to the driver’s side, adjusting the seat way back so my much longer legs could fit.
Then I headed for the vet’s office, content to get a few more minutes with the woman I should have been staying far away from.