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“I don’t think so,” she said brightly. “I’m going to go home, pack the rest of my stuff, and I’ll meet you back at the boat later. Why don’t you and Natches there go take the edge off your tempers somewhere? I’m not in the mood to deal with it. ”
He swung his leg over the seat of the motorcycle as he rose, clad in faded jeans and a white, short-sleeved, buttoned shirt, he looked like the ultimate bad boy. A ravisher, a modern-day warrior.
The sight of his black hair blowing in the breeze and his light green eyes glittering in his dark face had a rush of damp warmth spilling from her vagina.
As though she hadn’t been wet enough to begin with.
“Dawg. ” She sighed. “Don’t start trying to intimidate me, okay? We both know damned good and well no one but you and whoever left that notice knew I was there last night. You’re trying to control me, and a good blackmailer sticks to the main object; he doesn’t blackmail for the air a person breathes.
Okay?”
His eyes narrowed. “You have it all worked out, don’t you, fancy-face?”
“Stop calling me that. ” She hated the nickname he had given her as a teenager. It had caused her no end of teasing for years. “Now, you can follow me to the house and help me finish packing, or you can go back where you came from. Your choice. ”
She lifted herself into the driver’s seat, closed the door, and shoved the key into the ignition. She gave it a quick turn, and nothing happened. The starter clicked hollowly, but the motor didn’t turn over.
Frowning, she released it, then moved to turn it again.
Before she could complete the motion, the door jerked open, and she barely had time to gasp before Dawg was pulling her free of the vehicle, his expression fierce as he all but lifted her off her feet and rushed away from the vehicle.
“What the hell are you doing?” She tugged at the arm latched around her waist and stared back at her Rodeo. It was sitting there, door open, deserted, as Dawg pushed her to the motorcycle and turned back to the vehicle.
“Dawg. I’m tired. I’m dusty. And I need the rest of my clothes. If you don’t have a really, really good reason—”
A loud, wrenching pop jerked her gaze back to the Rodeo. A Rodeo whose little red hood was tossed into the air like a Frisbee. The front of the vehicle suddenly shot up in flames.
Lots of flames. So fast and so hot that within a second the interior was a red, furious blaze as she stood in shock, trying to comprehend exactly what had happened.
The hood landed on the other side of the parking lot, the crash of metal to asphalt barely registering as she watched Dawg and Natches tearing toward the vehicle, the fire extinguishers they carried in the saddle packs of their motorcycles gripped in their hands.
Diners came running from the back door. The cook lugged out a larger extinguisher, and someone yelled that the fire department was on their way. And all Crista could do was stare at the driver’s seat, engulfed in flames, and feel the ice moving through her body.
It appeared that Dawg had been right after all.
ELEVEN
“I hope the three of you have some damned good explanations, because I’m not really happy with you right now. ”
Sheriff Ezekiel Mayes, Zeke to his friends, didn’t bother glancing at Crista or Kelly Salyers, who had arrived at the diner with her fiancé within half an hour of the initial explosion. He trained his light brown eyes on the three cousins instead, a hard frown pulling at his forehead.
“Don’t look at me, Zeke. ” Rowdy shook his head, his short black hair gleaming beneath the bright overhead lights. “I just came by to make sure they were still alive. ” He nodded toward his cousins, a friendly smile on his lips, though his gaze was cool and warning.
The three cousins sat at the large, round table in the back of the dining room. Kelly was placed between Rowdy and Natches, and Crista between Dawg and Natches. The scene couldn’t have been more incriminating, considering the Mackay cousins’ reputations.
“Zeke, you keep forgetting they’ve grown up. ” Kelly leaned forward, propping her chin on her hand as she braced her elbow on the table and grinned back at the sheriff with a winning smile.
“And you used to be such a sweet, honest little thing. ” The sheriff clucked in disapproval. “Lying for these boys only gets everyone in trouble, Kelly. Remember?”
Kelly grimaced. “They caught him. ”
She was obviously talking about the stalker who had nearly killed her and the three cousins last summer.
“I could have caught him faster if these three yahoos had told me what the hell they were doing,”
he grunted, eying the yahoos in question. “Am I going to get any better answers this time?” His gaze finally moved to Crista. “Alex asked me to watch after you before he left, Crista. Are you going to help me out?”
She tried to smile, but her face felt frozen. “Zeke, if I knew anything, I promise I’d tell you. I don’t know myself what happened. ”
