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In this case, though, it’s absolutely necessary.
It also gives me hope that it’ll be over and done before anyone else in Dallas discovers I’m harboring a fugitive tiger inside my barn.
About half an hour from our destination, we turn onto a low maintenance road, and I start looking for a place to pull over and park.
Without thinking, I switch off the radio while she’s still humming along.
“Sorry,” she says. “One of my bad habits.”
“What?”
“Singing to the radio. Always terribly and I don’t really care—music takes my mind off things.”
I chuckle. She hadn’t sounded that off-key, even if people might’ve wondered how many drinks she’d had if it happened in my bar.
Frankly, her singing voice blended in too well with the background music.
“That’s not the reason I turned it off.” Shrugging, I say, “Call it age or habit, but I turn it down whenever I’m looking for something. Like it’ll help me see better.”
She lets out a soft giggle.
“I’ve been known to do that, too. It’s one of those weird quirks I think a lot of people have.” She glances out the window, staring at the brush-lined ditches and wooded areas along the sides of the road, before turning to me again. “So, are we there yet?”
“Not the question I thought I’d get without my girls along for the ride,” I snort. “According to my phone, yes. I’m looking for a discreet place to park. Then we can use the four-wheeler.”
“You sure? This road doesn’t look very well-traveled.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I agree. “But the satellite image on the computer showed another road north of here that ends at the coordinates.”
“That’s why we’re taking this one?”
“Yes. We’ll look like a couple of run-of-the-mill ATV riders, just out for an adventure.” I nod for emphasis, hoping like hell this plan works.
She points to a grassy area a short distance ahead.
“How about there? That looks like a place to park. Right by that Bureau of Land Management sign.”
“It’ll work.”
I park and she helps me unload the four-wheeler in no time. With its compartments filled, alongside the saddlebags attached to the front rack, we head out.
Willow sticks close behind me. I think I’d need a hammer to the head not to notice.
I can feel every inch of where her body touches my back, hips, and the backs of my thighs.
It takes focus I haven’t summoned up since my Army days to ignore the hot sensations every flick of her body against mine causes. To ignore how bad it hurts to suppress my raging hard-on.
“What did you do in the military?” she asks.
“Area reconnaissance in Iraq, mostly,” I answer. “Checking to make sure the coast was clear in caves and buildings. Then it was active combat. They couldn’t ignore the fact that I’m one hell of a shot and dropped me in a sniper unit.”
I say no more.
That was a long time ago, and like other jagged parts of my life, shit happened overseas that I really don’t want to remember. Some of those stories are still classified, too.
“Wow, that’s impressive! How long were you in?”
“Four years of active duty, two of non. I joined while I was still in high school for the post-secondary aid, and was sent overseas as soon as I was eligible. Didn’t reup after my parents died. Then I got married, the twins were born, and...” My voice fades away.
“Your wife got ill,” Willow urges softly.
“Yeah.” Thankful for the terrain ahead, I say, “Hold on, there’s a stream we have to cross. The water doesn’t look deep, but it’s gonna be rocky.”
I hold my breath just before we cross.
Nothing to do with the rocks in the stream.
I’m trying not to react to the way her body rubs against my back as her arms hug my waist. Her tits are so flush against my skin I can feel them, even the taut peaks of her nipples through her shirt and bra from the pressure.
Shit.
I haven’t been physically responsive to a woman in ages, and sure as hell don’t need it now.
“What was her illness? If it isn’t too personal, I mean...” Her breath is warm on the back of my neck.
“A rare, aggressive neurological disease. Something closely related to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD, I think. It took her down quickly.” Too fast, I think to myself, biting my lip. “Within a few years, she was gone.”
“I’m so sorry, Grady. That must’ve been awful.”
“It wasn’t easy,” I snarl, pinching my lips together, wondering what’s gotten into me.
I don’t share Brittany’s illness with strangers.
The girls don’t even know the name of what killed her.
They’ve never asked, and I’ve never offered.
Am I really letting my mutinous dick loosen my tongue this much?
Am I really fucking having a heart-to-heart talk with a tiger thief?
“Life has a way of throwing hidden punches that just don’t seem fair...” she whispers again, her voice rubbed raw.
