Chapter 6
Steel
Coffee.
I poured another mug full, hoping it would eventually wake my ass up. It was already after one in the afternoon. How the hell had I slept so late? That’s right. I’d been up half the night. Plus, for the first time in months, I’d gone off the deep end. Whiskey and beer. A terrible combination.
At least when morning hit.
As I brought the edge of the thick ceramic to my lips, I stared out the window into my backyard. The recent storms had left it a mess. With winds in excess of fifty miles per hour, Missoula had been lucky there’d been no fires close by. California hadn’t been so lucky, the huge front causing havoc.
Yeah, maybe I’d take my day off and do a little work around the yard. Or maybe I’d go back to bed. I was freaking exhausted. Enough so I had to lean against the counter to stay upright. I took a couple of swallows, wishing I could mainline the stuff.
I had a bad feeling that nothing was going to keep me awake today.
Time for a shower and to grab some grub. I was a mess. I held out my hand, staring at the bruises. As soon as I flexed then fisted my hand, I winced. I’d gone a little off the deep end with that as well, finishing two more beers while fighting my invisible enemy on the punching bag.
Fuck. Maybe being worn out was good at this point. I started to turn away to head to the shower when I noticed something in the backyard. Leaning forward, I strained to figure out what I was seeing.
Someone was in my backyard. And they were trying to break into the storage shed. What the fuck? In broad daylight?
Without hesitation, I slammed my mug down and took long strides into my bedroom, yanking the weapon from the dresser drawer where I kept it. I checked the ammunition but left the safety on, not bothering with shoes.
I rushed outside, but as soon as I did, I couldn’t see a thing. Yet someone had been there. I wasn’t seeing things. As I moved toward the shed, I heard a sound. Was that a dog barking? A puppy? What?
Movement caught my eye and I took off running. The fucker wasn’t going to get away. I didn’t have many things of value in the shed, but that wasn’t the point. No one dared come on my property and think they were going to steal from me.
I noticed the culprit seconds later at the same time I heard someone screaming. While I lowered the weapon, I continued running. Suddenly, there was a blur of activity in front of me.
“Damon!” The scream was sharp, full of terror.
More movement, a head popping up.
A bark.
What in the hell was going on? I didn’t stop, moving closer. More movement. Then another blur.
“Get away from him!”
A woman appeared from the thick of the trees.
“Mommy. A puppy. Can we keep him?”
While I stopped short, confused as fuck, the woman racing toward me didn’t. I didn’t see what she had in her hand until it was too late.
“You bastard!” She was only a few feet away, swinging a huge object she’d grabbed off the ground.
When it connected, I was down for the count, pitching backward from the force used and tumbling to the ground. The wind was knocked out of me and so was the weapon I’d been carrying. “What the fuck?”
“Damon. Come here, baby.”
“Mom. See the puppy?”
“Take the puppy and go back home. Okay?”
Whoever the woman was, she had an edge to her voice, but not like the goddamn edge I had to my anger. She’d hit me with a branch. A fucking branch. I remained dazed, staring up at the sky. With a slight drag of my tongue, I tasted blood.
“What’s wrong, Mom? I just heard the puppy cry and I saved him. He was tangled in some rope and I got him out. We can keep him. Right? Right?”
“Damon. Just go back to the house. Do not stop anywhere. Take the puppy with you.”
Wow. Her voice had a lilt as well. I’d call it sultry if I wasn’t in pain.
“Okay. Come on, little man,” the kid said, happy as could be while I remained in pain. “Mom said I could keep you.”
With a grunt, I sat up.
She was still there, holding the huge limb in her hands while keeping several feet between us. “Who are you? Why did you pull a gun on my child?”
I struggled to stand, shocked I was still in a fog.
“Don’t come any closer or I’ll have to hurt you!”
Somehow, I managed to laugh. “Lady, I don’t know who you are, but you already managed to do that.” My face and neck hurt like a son of a bitch from where she’d hit me.
“Yeah? Well, it serves you right for attacking a little boy.”
The woman wasn’t kidding. “Really? From where I was standing, it appeared he was breaking into my shed. And I didn’t attack him.” I’d been in the middle of a few barroom brawls in my life, but purposely attacking a kid wasn’t cool.
“Oh, no? You could have fooled me, buddy.”
Buddy? She was seriously the angriest woman I’d encountered in a long time and I’d faced a good dozen nasty girls who all had something very colorful to say about me.
Only one or two my fault.
When she acted like she was prepared to take another swing, her gaze falling to my hand, I grimaced and shoved the weapon into my waistband behind my back.
“Okay. See?” I even sealed the deal by holding up my arms, but she didn’t act like she was having any of it, preferring to glare at me with her soulful eyes.
Eyes that could drive a stake right through a man’s heart.
Eyes that could easily crush a man’s spirit or elevate him to the highest level.
Eyes that any man should be hungry for when driving his hard cock deep inside her sweet little pussy.
And where in the hell had this shit come from? She’d somehow put a spell on me that even blinking several times didn’t seem to fade.
“Look, lady. Maybe we should start over.”
“I’m not a lady.” Her words surprised her. I was able to enjoy the way her luscious mouth twisted in irritation and uncertainty.
Her slight confusion also allowed me a moment to enjoy studying her physique. She was stunning, more so than any woman I’d laid eyes on in my life. With burnished copper hair pulled into a high ponytail, luminous green eyes, and a voluptuous body made for sin, my balls were notably tighter.
“Alright,” I agreed at a risk to my own safety. “Now that we have that settled. Why don’t you tell me what the hell your little boy was doing?”
She snarled. Like a wolf. Or another kind of beast. She would have made a good cavewoman, and I believed that she’d take another swing.
My head was killing me, a little ringing still in my ears.
“Are you braindead? Well, of course you are. Anyone who brandishes a weapon at a seven-year-old child is definitely braindead.”
“He’s seven?”
“Well, almost eight, but don’t remind him. As it is, he’s already intent on growing up too fast.”
Now that she wasn’t screeching, her tone of voice was as seductive as everything else about her. Including the tight tee shirt clinging to her full breasts. I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off her and she noticed.
“Would you stop that?”
“What am I doing?”
“Leering.”
This was getting us nowhere. “Why don’t you drop your weapon so we can talk and try and straighten this out?”
She moved from foot to foot, dropping her gaze more than once. I couldn’t help but notice her eyes had landed on my crotch. What a naughty woman she was. When she exhaled and dropped the limb, I took another deep breath.
Maybe I’d walk away with only a few scratches and a huge gash on the side of my head. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Her sneer was competition level. “Who are you?”
“I could ask you the same question, only you haven’t answered my first one.”
“Which was?”
“What was that kid doing?”
“That kid is my son, Damon, and are you braindead? He was rescuing a puppy.” Her eyes opened wide again and she glanced toward the forest where she’d come from. “A puppy. Oh, shit.” Now her face was flushed. With her chest rising and falling, she finally glanced at me once again. “It’s you.”
This time as if seeing a ghost. “What? What do you mean it’s me?” Had we met before? No, I would have remembered meeting someone so gorgeous.
“Nothing. Fuck. Fuck.” The last two words were hissed under her breath. “Not happening. This is not happening.”
There was something entirely different about her behavior. When she closed and reopened her eyes, she didn’t just do so once but three times. Was she hallucinating, possibly seeing me with horns?
The little devil in me grinned and I wasn’t certain why.
Hold on. She’d told the kid to go through the trees back home. Oh, great.
“Oh, yes, it is. Do you live around here?” This had to be the new renter. Fantastic. “If not, I just might call the sheriff.”
Whatever dark spell my appearance had provided was instantly shattered, her harsh glare returning. “Look, buster. My handsome, talented, precious son was exploring his new environment. I’m sorry he stepped foot on your oh-so precious property, but he cares about abused animals.”
“Abused? Are you insinuating that I abused that dog?”
“He’s a puppy and yes, I am. Let’s take a look at where you were keeping him.”
I’d be damned if she didn’t stomp off toward the back of my shed. I stood in awe and shock, watching as her long thick hair whisked back and forth as she went.
And me being me, a man some people would call a cad, thoughts of using her mane of hair like a leash while doing some very naughty things to her luscious body popped into my mind.
And rarely did a woman excite me.
She disappeared around the corner and I threw my face toward the sky. “Un-fucking-believable.” This wasn’t how I wanted to spend my day.
And she still hadn’t told me what I needed to know.
Still in some level of shock and awe, I followed her as she tromped around to the back. How far did she think she was going to take this? I was curious as hell. She certainly had a set of balls on her.
Her head snapped up quickly with my approach. In her hand was a suspicious looking thick rope. Which did not belong to me. When she noticed me, she issued a hiss that held venom deep within the tone. Thank God she wasn’t a witch.
Or maybe she was.