Chapter 3 No Goodbyes #4
Grimacing to cover how fast her stomach was flipping, she lifted her head to peer over the top of the containment ledge. “Well, look who’s driving my cattle across state!” Her words came out sounding much breathier than she wished.
He was looking like a heart-tripping western clothing commercial again, from his denim coat to the frayed hems of his jeans.
And don’t even get her started on the black felt Stetson pulled far enough over his eyes and the fake extra waves of hair that partially shielded her from the flames shooting from them.
He was hot from A to Z. No doubt about it. Probably knew it, too.
She lifted her chin an inch and plowed onward to her pending doom. “You could’ve saved both of us a lot of trouble by including me in your?—”
“This isn’t about me!” He spoke through gritted, hilariously fake crooked front teeth as he shot a harried look toward the service station. “This is about you hightailing it out of here before you blow my entire investigation to Kingdom Come.”
As usual, he didn’t try to soften the sting of his words. She wished she could make him understand that just because he was a head taller than her didn’t mean her feelings weren’t normal-sized. Wow, but he sure knew how to make her blood sing through her veins!
“Your investigation?” She sat up and slung her legs over the top of the containment ledge, letting them dangle there in sheer defiance. “Sometimes, you forget who’s working for whom.” No, not sometimes. Make that all the time!
By now, the cattle were bellowing at full throttle.
Throwing another impatient look at the service station, Tucker leaped into the trailer and clanged the door shut behind him. He made his way determinedly in her direction. It wasn’t an easy maneuver, considering how agitated the cattle were. They were tossing their heads, eyes rolling in fear.
She watched him with wide-eyed alarm, knowing the cows could unwittingly trample or crush him. He was taking a horrible, completely unnecessary risk to make a completely unnecessary point.
A squeal of protest skidded out of her as he reached into the goosenecked storage compartment and snatched her up. She tumbled against his broad chest, bumping her forehead against the brim of his Stetson.
A lightning-quick grab on her part kept his hat from sailing across the trailer. She jammed it back on his head a little harder than necessary. Okay, maybe a lot harder than necessary, making sure it was perched as crookedly as possible on his extraordinarily hard noggin.
“Are you trying to get us both killed?” She gave a pained yelp as something caught her ankle and gave it a sharp yank.
It took a second or two to determine that the strap of her duffel bag had gotten wrapped around her boot.
She went into mild contortions trying to untwist the strap so she could loop it over her shoulder.
To Tucker’s credit, he noticed what was going on and halted to give her more time to finish. “Hurry up,” he growled, craning through the slats in the trailer toward the service station.
“I am hurrying!” She was also trying her hardest not to think about how gently he was holding her. Or how good his aftershave smelled. Or how minty the whiff of his breath was on the autumn breeze swirling past her nose.
For a guy who could barely stand the sight of her—and the feeling was oh-so-mutual—he presented an unfairly appealing package. How in the world he was still single was something her slightly numb-from-cold brain couldn’t wrap itself around.
He finally lugged her higher against one shoulder in a Herculean balancing act to untwist the maniacal strap for her. She caught the duffel bag he shoved against her midsection, sucking in an oomph of surprise.
“If you think for one second,” she huffed, as he waded his way back through the agitated cattle, “I’m going to thank you for hauling me around like a sack of potatoes by abandoning my mission…”
He reached the doors of the trailer and did another one of his Herculean moves to open them and leap to the ground without dropping her, while also not letting any of the cattle escape.
“Show off,” she muttered during the split second her mouth was plastered against his ear on their way to the ground.
He set her on her feet—more like tossed her there—and glared menacingly down at her. “Why’d you cut your hair?” He swiped the glass bottle off the bumper, where he must have deposited it before entering the trailer, and stuffed it back in his pocket.
She reached up, stunned, to run her gloved fingers over the short ends resting against her nape. “It’s part of my disguise.” She’d all but forgotten her hasty trek through the hair salon on her way home earlier today.
“Good to know.” His jaw hardened even further. “Is that also why your eyes are green today?”
“They’re colored contacts.” She shrugged. “Why?” Somehow, she wasn’t getting anything good out of his cranky good to know comment.
“Because every stunt you pull risks putting us six feet under. Both of us.” He dipped his head to bring them eye-to-eye.
“Along with every innocent bystander in this parking lot.” He jammed a finger in the direction Chip and Cruz had taken off.
“The two punks on your payroll aren’t teddy bears, Mal. They’re armed and dangerous.”
Mal. He called me Mal. Her thoughts tripped and sprawled flat on their face the moment he uttered the shortened version of her name. Had he meant to give her a nickname? Was it what he called her inside his head? She was suddenly full of so many questions she feared she might explode.
He snapped his fingers in her face. “Did you hear a word I said?”
I sure did! The discovery that Tucker Snake-Eyed Pratt didn’t completely hate her made her heart sing loud and off-key. I heard you call me Mal!
His face turned a livid shade of red. Reaching for her elbow, he tugged her around the corner of the cattle trailer, and nearly plowed into Chip .
It took a moment for her dreamy thoughts to crash back down to earth…and wonder why the only child of her beloved foreman and bookkeeper had been sneaking around the back of the trailer in the first place.
“Giddy up, Casanovaaaaaaaa!” Chip spread his hands mockingly as he danced around them. “If you wanna take over the backseat for a while, bull hauler, I’ll take a turn behind the wheel.” He laughed uproariously at his own crude joke.
There was no flicker of recognition in the leering once-over he gave her, telling her that her disguise was working a lot better on him than it had on Tucker.
She gave herself a mental high-five for her new spray-on tan and the patched overalls she’d picked up second-hand.
Then she made her second snap decision of the day and decided to keep her act going.
She saw no reason to abandon her mission when it was working so well.
She slapped her hands down on her hips and faced Tucker. “I want my job back. What happened during our last delivery was a misunderstanding, and I’ll prove it.”
The next move was his. She waited, barely breathing, as the pulse in his left temple broke into a full gallop. What was about to come roaring out of him both scared and excited her.