"Now that is one fine view."
Pulling her tow truck onto the gravel shoulder of Highway 94
behind the stalled Dodge stirred up a whirl of dust. Sunday
did a check in the rearview mirror. No lipstickβnot her
style. At least there were no grease smears on her face.
She hopped out into the evening air thick with the promise
of rain and sidled up alongside the stalled truck. The radio
blasted an old tune by Honeymoon Suite, and the volume was
probably why the fine backside bent over the engine didn't
immediately notice her.
Sunday licked her lips as she strolled her gaze over to the
tight-fit blue jeans that covered a touch-me-if-you-dare
ass. Long legs, slightly bowed, ended at well-scuffed cowboy
boots. Standard redneck gear. But there was something
different about the guy.
Not like most, her conscience whispered. Ignoring
the strange sensation of intuition, she tapped him on the arm.
"Whoa! Didn't see you there. Radio's too loud."
Tall, buff and handsome shot upright from under the hood and
flashed a dimpled smile that blinded her. A slight chin
cleft and barely there five-o'clock shadow emphasized his
square jaw. Short brown hair tufted haphazardly upon his
head. Waning sunlight glinted in his gold eyes, and he had a
thick lower lip marked with a tiny scar along the bottom right.
Sunday exhaled. Talk about a libido tease.
"Let me turn it down." The music was subdued, and he spun
around the front of the hood, dimples intact.
"You figure out the problem?" She bent over the growling
engine. Smelled like burned syrup; the engine could be
running hot.
"Not yet." He leaned in, brushing her long, bleached hair
with a tight, muscled bicep that the black T-shirt strained
to encompass. "Engine's still running, but the gas pedal up
and gave out."
"Might be the throttle cable."
"Think you can give me a tow to the next town?"
"Steele? That's twelve miles off. My place is just up the
road. I can tow it and check it out in the shop."
"You have a shop? Well, this is my lucky day. Gorgeous woman
drives up to rescue me,
and knows a thing or two
about cars."
Sunday shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest. The
thermometer had hit ninety before ten this morning. Humidity
measured on a tropical scale necessitated a tank top, and
she never wore a bra. Assuming a shoulder-straight stance,
she followed his straying gaze.
He could look all he wanted. She'd reciprocate. It wasn't
often fine USDA prime showed up on her stretch of the
prairie. The rednecks inhabiting this area were definitely
off her radarβ as she was off theirs.
It only took a time or two for word to get around when a
woman wasn't quite
right in the sack. The locals
avoided her like the proverbial plague.
Catching her gaze on the hug of faded blue jeans low on his
hips, she admired the dash of skin that revealed sexy, cut
muscles. Her favorite part on a man, that hard, angled ridge
that swept from hip to groin.
Bet under the black cotton shirt those abs were rock-hard, too.
Sunday dragged her eyes lower to center stage, and the
object of most importance. Nice.
"Wow!" His outburst redirected her attention. "Woman, I
don't think I've ever been so thoroughly checked out like
you just did. You want me to turn around?" He gestured with
his fingers behind his hips.
"Nah, I checked your ass as I was driving up. You'll do."
She didn't hide a quirky grin. "Come on, let's get your
truck rigged up."
One stranded traveler equaled one much-needed blessing.
Business had been poor. Sunday couldn't have given him a
ride to town if she'd wanted; the tow truck had just enough
gas to make it home.
They'd been listening to the same radio station, which the
guy noted as he climbed onto the passenger seat and shoved
aside empty root beer bottles on the floor with the side of
his boot.
The day had grown long and the sky sepia. Sunday navigated
the dusty country roads, edged by four-foot-high cornstalks,
to her fifty-acre plot. She lived eight miles out of Steele,
and liked her privacy, but necessity demanded she cruise the
freeway for broken-down and abandoned vehicles. She
certainly wasn't getting any jobs from the locals.
"Drier than a wasteland out there," he commented, holding a
palm before the air-conditioning vent. Sunglasses concealed
his eyes, but only added to his sexy vibe.
"It's going to rain soon. A lot."
"You think?"
"I know. Can feel it in my bones." She downshifted, but kept
her palm on the knob. The smooth steel jiggled in her grip.
With tall, dark and dimpled spiking the air with his sensual
aura, her imagination was running wild.
Sunday mentally cautioned her libido. Bad things happened
when she got so hot.
"You live around here?"
"Nope, headed home to Minnesota," he offered. "I was passing
through from Montana. Had to survey some land for a client.
I buy up abandoned tracts and auctioned land for
environmental-preservation efforts."
"Mighty responsible of you. So what's your name?"
"Ah, sorry. Dean Maverick."
"With a name like that, sounds like you should be riding a
mustang through a cigarette ad."
"Yeah? Horses don't like me. I'll stick with the Dodge." An
easy charm relaxed his lean frame on the seat, and he tapped
his fingers on a knee to the music. "What's your name?"
"Sunday."
"Really? Just Sunday?" Those sexy white teeth could render a
woman undone. "Does that come with a cherry on top?"
"Mister, if I had a nickel for every time a guy used that
line on meβ¦"
Well, she'd have a nickel. Guys didn't make passes at girls
who were more trouble than a tornado on a chicken farm.
But a nickel would get this one a lot more than a tune-up,
if he played his cards right.
Dean kicked the snack machine posted at the front of the
huge, three-story Quonset garage. The four-car-wide electric
door was rolled open, exposing one side of the building to
the weird brown sky.
A green-shingled rambler fronted by a faded wood porch sat a
hundred yards off. No flowers or yard decorations. Not a
single tree for miles. Nor were there visible employees. The
chick must live out here alone. She'd explained she took in
custom vehicles and anything the boys in the closest town of
Steele couldn't handle.
She seemed to like her privacy. Which struck him as odd,
because, damn, he'd never met such a gorgeous mechanic in
his life. Long and lithe, with a head full of chunky,
white-blond locks that twisted haphazardly down her back.
The thin blue tank top covered in grease smears made him
guess she was about a 36C, and her nipples were constantly hard.
One hand pressed to the snack machine, he glanced over his
shoulder. Yep, still hard.
Toeing the base of the machine, he shook his head to clear
the licentious thoughts. He so didn't need this right now.
He was on a schedule, and hoped like hell she could fix the
truck and send him on his way before sundown.
Because the werewolf did not like to be kept at bay.
Pressing the selection button again resulted in no candy
bar. He gave the machine one last kick, then strode over to
the truck.
"Your machine sucks."
She curled a look up at him from over the engine. Blue eyes
surrounded by ribbons of white hair. Mysterious and sexy.
And those lips. Dean knew exactly where on his body he'd
like to feel that mouth.
"So." He scanned the walls, cringing at the birch-tree
wallpaper that decorated the garage interior from floor to
ceiling. "You like trees."
"That I do."
"Me, too. Wild, free and forestedβthat's how I like the
world. So if you like trees, why are you here, in the middle
of hell knows where, far from any forested land I've seen
for hundreds of miles?"
"This is just where I am right now." She stretched forward,
groping deep in the engine. The move tugged her shirt high
to reveal a taut abdomen. Dean pursed his lips and nodded in
appreciation. "I've got a few maples up by the house.
Thinking about planting some pines around the garage," she said.
"Good luck with that."
He smoothed a hand over his abs. Should have eaten in
Bismarck. But was it hunger for food, or something more
visceral? Like flesh on flesh.
She nodded toward the open door. "There's sandwiches up in
the house. Why don't you run and grab us a few. Root beer's
in the fridge."
"Hospitable of you."
"Just lazy." She chuckled and swiped a hand over her cheek
to push back the hair.
And still those nipples called for some dedicated licking.
Saliva wet Dean's mouth. "Sandwiches? Right." A necessary
distraction. "Unlocked?"
"Yep."
"Boyfriend gonna chase me out?"
She smirked and reached down near the manifold. "That's a
chance you'll have to take."
"Can't promise I'll leave him in one piece," Dean said as he
strode off.
She called, "Don't get caught in the rain!"
"Don't like rain," he muttered, his boots shuffling over the
pea-gravel path up to the house. "And I don't like being
stuck alone with Miss Sunday Best when what I really need is
to get laid to calm the werewolf."
She had sent him a few
I'm willing signals. Hadn't
been able to drag her eyes from his body when she'd picked
him up.
A glance toward the garage spied the shapely figure
stretched over the truck engine. Maybe his luck would turn.
She'd spoken true. The only human scent Dean detected upon
entering the house was female. No lingering odor from
another male. Hell, hers was the only scent he could
scavenge, and that was tinted withβ¦something spicy? He
couldn't place it, but it would come to him.
There were indeed sandwiches in the fridge. Egg salad. Dean
gobbled one down and put back a root beer, then grabbed four
more plastic-wrapped sandwich halves and two bottles of pop.
He closed the fridge, and a fifties-style pinup girl winked
at him from the calendar taped to the door. He'd seen the
same one on the office window in her shop.
"I like a chick into pinups," he decided. "Sunday Best out
there can pose over an engine in nothing but high heels and
a smile any day. Heck, I'll take her on a Tuesday."
A glance at the clock over the antique gas-burner stove
startled him.
"Already seven in the evening? I couldn't have been stalled
more than half an hour on the highway. Hell." The sky
outside had grown much darker since he'd entered the house
ten minutes earlier. "I hope this chick is good. I don't
have time to waste."
Arms loaded with sustenance, he pushed open the squeaky
screen door with a boot heelβavoiding the built-in cat doorβ
and stepped out onto the warped porch boards.
The sky opened up. Sudden, relentless rain beat down upon
his head and shoulders.
Turning back to peer through the screen door, Dean shook his
head, sucked it up and made a dash for the garage. He
wouldn't tuck his tail between his legs and hide in the
house. It wasn't him who hated the rain.
Arms loaded with snacks, Dean sprinted across the yard to
the garage. Propping one ankle over the other, Sunday leaned
against the Dodge and crossed her arms. She smirked. The
fellow had poor timing. She
had told him it would rain.
Soaking wet, he looked⦠eatable. The rain-doused shirt clung
to impressive pecs, and muscles across his shoulders and
arms she hadn't names for. Oh, baby, there was that tight
six-pack she'd been wondering about.
The sandwiches dropped from his fists in soggy piles near
his boots. He set the pop bottles down. "It's coming down
cats and dogs out there!"
Cats and dogs coming? Sunday knew for a fact that cats came
hard. But that was another subject entirely. And one she
would do best to put from her brain. Mustn't get her hopes up.
Okay, so her hopes were already so high they'd burst through
the stratosphere. Sexy stranger stranded in her garage? The
fantasy possibilities were endless. Too bad most men didn't
go in for
paranormal fantasies.
Weird was not a requirementβall Sunday needed was flesh on
flesh, hot and sweaty and furiousβbut often weird was
inevitable.
Still cussing about the rain, the man shook himself off.
Methodically. Working from head down to hips he shimmied
efficiently and expertly. Sunday had never seen a
person
shed rain in such a manner.
He glanced at her, and his eyes caught the overhead lights
and reflectedβ
"Oh, hell, no."
It wasn't something she would have picked up about the man
on sight. But she'd seen the shake, the mirrored eyes and
now noticed that his five-o'clock shadow had actually grown
to become stubble.
Sunday marched across the cement floor and lashed out. A
threatening hiss accompanied her defenseβclaws across his
square jaw.
The man growled like a dog and snapped his jaws as Sunday
swung through the move. Blood pooled in three thin lines.
"What theβ?" He touched his bleeding jaw.
Then his eyes changed. The gold orbs grew darker and the
pupils widened. An animal snarl preceded his lunge for Sunday.
Pushing her against the wall and pinning her wrists by her
head, he then shoved his entire body against the length of
hers to contain her struggles.
She hissed again, not caring that it sounded animalistic.
Instincts reacted before common sense, always. "You're a
damn werewolf!"
"Ah." He tilted his head and those dimples deepened. "How'd
you guess that one?"
"Normal men don't shake themselves off like that. Your eyes
are wild. And your beard's growing faster than mold on
cheese. Let me go!"
"Oh, no." He pressed closer. She felt his erection against
her mons.
Mercy. "You always greet your customers
with a kitty-cat scratch like that? Oh, wait one moonlight
minute. You know about me becauseβ"
He eyed her curiously, sniffing at the air before her.
Sunday watched the claw marks on his jaw heal over until
they were but crusted blood.
"You're a familiar?" He released her and jerked away as if
she were made of silver. Brushing both palms over his scalp,
he splayed his hands in frustration. "So I had the cat thing
right?"
Wishing she had a piece of silver to crush against the
creep's forehead, Sunday rubbed her wrists. She bruised
easily. Sweet, though, that she'd drawn blood. That'd show
him she wasn't afraid of much. A werewolf? Not exactly on
the top of her list, but she wouldn't flee with her tail
lowβnot this cat.
It couldn't get any weirder than this.
Stalking before him, flexing her fingers into fists, she
lowered her head and looked up through her lashes. "I think
you need to leave."
"You fix my truck?"
Stating the obvious wasn't going to help his case. It was
the throttle cable, and she didn't have a replacement. The
man had no means to leave.
"I called in to town for parts. A shipment arrives tomorrow
morning."
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