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“Thanks for calling Mad Mike's. What can we do to make you happy?” Hailey's chipper voice carried over the phone's static connection.
“Hey, Hailey.”
“Oh no, Beth. What’s going on with that cute car of yours this time?”
“I lost at a game of chicken with a deer on Highway 28 and ended up in a ditch.”
“Oh my goodness! Are you okay? Do you need an ambulance?”
“Thanks, but I'm okay.” Shading her eyes against the early afternoon sun, she scanned the road for a landmark. “I'm near mile marker twelve. Can you send out the tow truck?”
“Sure thing, sweetie. Mike'll be right there.”
After thirty minutes of alternating between swearing this time she'd get a new car and playing cellphone scrabble, the tow truck finally rumbled to a stop in front of her. Relief loosened the tightness in her shoulders and she stood, brushing dirt from the seat of her jeans.
The crunch of another set of tires on the gravel caught her attention and she glanced up to see a familiar dark blue pickup stop behind the tow truck. Her heart sped up and she smoothed her hair before she could stop herself.
Concern tightened Hank's square jaw when he stepped down from his truck and Beth's insides melted into warm goo. Damn that man.
Five days into a two-week vacation, he'd given up his Dry Creek County Sheriff uniform for jeans, a T-shirt and a scraggly beard that he somehow made appealing. Her fingers itched to feel the prickle of the three-day beard, to run through his thick brown hair that she knew from years of lustful observation curled if he let it grow to his collar. He was the stuff of dreams. Naughty, sweaty, tasty dreams.
The object of her desire strolled across the cracked asphalt to her side. The smell of fresh coffee wafted up from the paper cup in his large hands and mixed with the woodsy scent of his cologne.
“Are you okay?” Worry weighed heavy in his deep voice and he brushed a stray hair away from her face, his eyes searching for injuries.
Every objection to touching him evaporated and all her thoughts focused on how much she wanted to wrap her arms around his waist and soak up his strength.
“I do believe I can arrest you for looking at someone like that. You've got to be breaking some decency laws.”
Taking a deep breath, she recovered her bearings. Mostly. “You're out of your jurisdiction, sheriff.”
Hank fisted his free hand and fought to calm his jumpy nerves. Yep, he was out of his jurisdiction, out of his league, out of luck and out of his mind for wanting Beth. Badly.
His gaze combed over her, from her silky brown hair to the tips of her red cowboy boots. Her glasses were a little cockeyed, but she didn’t have a scratch on her and for the first time since he’d heard about the accident, something inside him loosened.
A cough interrupted his inspection. Hank and Beth turned toward the short, squat man in a red Mad Mike's Mechanical T-shirt kicking dirt with the tip of his steel-toed boot. Damn, he'd forgotten all about Mike and the reason they were both there. “You got her all hooked up?”
“Yep. Jus' need ya to move over a bit so I can get her pulled up from the ditch.”
Before he could say a word, Beth strode to the other side of the road, her head high, purposefully not looking his way.
He shuffled over a few feet and watched as Mike pushed a button, setting off a cacophony of clanking chains. The chains pulled tight with a loud clang and that ridiculously small car Beth drove slid backwards up the ditch. It took Mike a few minutes to pull the car up, secure it to the trailer and begin the process of ensuring everything was safe for the drive back to his shop in Dry Creek.
Hank used the time to get a handle on the lust that had been riding roughshod over his body since he saw with his own eyes that Beth was okay. But he couldn't look away from Beth's curves framed by her V-neck black sweater and worn jeans. She stretched, extending one arm toward the clear blue sky and pushing her small tits forward. His cock transformed into steel and he unconsciously took a step forward.
Shit. He wanted her more than he'd ever wanted anyone, including Amanda when they first started dating.
It took him years to see through her manipulative ways and extricate himself from her razor-sharp talons. Not a good loser, Amanda swore he'd never find anyone as good as her, especially since he was just a washed-up ballplayer with a bum knee and a criminal justice degree. The thing was, she'd had him so twisted up during the final days of their marriage that he'd believed her. Some days he still did.
Maybe that's why Beth burned so hot yet acted so cold toward him, because she thought he wasn’t worth her time.
“All righty then. You're all set.” Mike slapped the Mini Cooper's bumper.
“Great.” Beth lugged her gym bag up from the highway shoulder then crossed the road. “Can you drop me off at my house?”
Mike's gaze slid over to Hank as he wiped away the nonexistent sweat from his forehead with a greasy rag. “Um, well...”
“I'll give you a ride.” Hank started toward his truck, chewing the inside of his cheek, nervous about how she'd react to the story he and Mike concocted. “Suzie threw up in Mike's cab and it smells like a sewer in there.”
