Asking For Trouble (14 page)

"Go help Chase and get him down inside the
boat, hurry!" Beau screamed back at Carlos, then with a quick
twist, he cranked the boat and revved it, then remembered the
anchor. The seconds he lost waiting to hear it clank against the
side of the hull, irritated him. Once he heard that it was fully
up, he gunned the boat and headed for the cove opening.

When they hit open water, he opened the
throttle up, scanning as they went for the men on the jet skis. He
figured they were probably docked or parked somewhere near Chase's
lake house, otherwise they wouldn't have known they were out on the
boat, and where they went, so he headed in that direction. When he
saw the lake house, he scanned the bank in both directions and
spotted them nearing the shoreline at a big grassy lot in between
two houses.

Beau opened the throttle all the way, and
the boat lurched then shot in that direction. Feeling by his side,
while he kept his eyes trained on the jet skis, he pulled his
weapon from the holster. When they neared the men, Beau took aim
over the windshield at the guy who didn't have Jazzie with him. He
saw when the guy recognized the boat, the man's eyebrows lifted,
then he swung his automatic weapon from his back to the front, then
turned and sprayed bullets toward the boat.

They were out of range of the weapons, so
the bullets pinged into the water in front of the boat. Beau didn't
let off of the throttle, he ducked down and headed straight for the
second jet ski, barreling down on it. Now they were in range and he
heard bullets pinging off the hull of the boat, right before he
heard the grinding crunch of the boat going over the watercraft.
The boat motor made a nasty grinding sound, but he ignored it and
turned it back toward the other jet ski, then leveled his weapon at
the guy's head.

"Drop your weapon and let her go!" he yelled
in warning.

Jazzie screamed and the guy holding her hit
her on her head with his pistol. Fear shot through Beau, as she
slumped in the man's arms. Fortunately, that gave him a clear shot
and he pulled the trigger. The man somersaulted off the back of the
jet ski and Jazzie slid into the water. She was probably
unconscious, so if he didn't get to her quickly, he knew she would
drown.

Beau shut off the engine and laid his gun on
the seat, then jumped to the bow of the boat and dove into the
water. Carlos was shouting behind him, but he couldn't make out
what he was saying, nor did he care. All he cared about was
rescuing Jazzie from drowning. A bullet skimmed the water pretty
damned close to him, but it came from behind, not from the
direction of the jet ski. Carlos was shooting at
him
? With
self-preservation in mind, Beau took a deep breath then dove
beneath the water, swimming as hard as he could toward the jet
ski.

The hull of the jet ski raked his shoulder
and Beau raised his head from the water and saw what Carlos had
been firing at. The guy he'd shot, was standing in the shallows
with his gun pointed directly at Beau's forehead. Beau didn't see
Jazzie anywhere and panicked, then dove under the water again. If
he got shot, so be it, he couldn't waste time staring down that
moron, he had to find her before she drowned.

Diving toward the bottom, he searched around
with his hands, trying to find something solid. When something soft
whispered against the back of Beau's hand, he waved in the water,
until he found the source, then closed his hand around Jazzie's
braid. Wrapping it securely around his wrist, Beau pushed toward
the surface.

A bullet pinged to his left when he broke
the surface of the water, but he didn't stop, he flipped Jazzie
onto her back and saw that she wasn't breathing. He felt her throat
and found a thready pulse, and he was relieved, but knew she was in
trouble. Grabbing her firmly, he kicked hard for the dock in the
opposite direction of the jet ski.

Beau swam to the outside, with the dock
between them and the man with the gun, so he couldn't get a good
shot on them, then dragged her through the water plants near the
shore, then onto the grass. Turning her over, he pressed hard on
her back a couple of times, then flipped her over and started
giving her breaths, then repeated the process.

When he heard shots again, Beau glanced up
to see Carlos firing at the bad guy from the bow of the boat. His
aim had evidently improved, because Beau saw the man grab his neck
then pitch face first into the water. Carlos tossed the gun to the
floor of the boat then dove into the water.

Beau went back to giving Jazzie breaths, and
when she finally heaved a breath, so did he in relief. He turned
her on her side and she coughed up the lake water in her lungs.
When she'd finished, he sent up a prayer of thanks, then pulled her
onto his lap and hugged her to him. In an emotion choked voice, he
whispered, "Lay still, baby, we'll call an ambulance..."

She whimpered and laid her head against his
chest then he felt the tears running down her face onto his skin.
"Shh...don't cry, sweetheart...you're gonna be okay," he consoled
her, then kissed her forehead.

Carlos trudged through the shallows like a
tired water buffalo, then sat down beside them and rested his hands
on his knees, breathing hard. "Damned swimming is for the fishes,"
he grumbled. "Are you okay, sis?" he asked her, then raised a hand
to stroke her hair, but questioned Beau with his dark eyes.

"I think so..." she croaked weakly, then
started to tremble in Beau's arms, soon her whole body shook
violently, and he heard her teeth chattering.

"We need a blanket, she's in shock," Beau
told him, then looked around and said, "Go up to that house and
knock, see if you can get one. Get them to call the Rangers and a
couple of ambulances too."

Carlos looked up at the dark house and said,
"It doesn't look like anyone is home..."

"The lake house is just down the street, you
could go there and use the phone. How's Chase doing?" he asked.

"Honestly, I don't know...he woke up, and I
gave him a towel to press to his wound, then I was too worried
about you and Jazzie, to check back," Carlos told him then huffed
out a breath.

"Yeah, you really need to learn how to
shoot...you almost put a bullet in me when I was swimming over
here," Beau told him with a dry laugh.

Carlos shook his head, his eyes held fear,
something Beau would never have figured the big muscular lug to
feel. "I've never needed to know how to use a gun before, so I had
no idea what I was doing. I'm just damned lucky I didn't shoot
myself too!" Carlos said gruffly, then shoved up to his feet, then
walked up the hill toward the house.

Jazzie slid her hand up his chest and hugged
him, cuddling her face into his neck. "Thank you for saving me,"
she mumbled against his skin, then put a kiss there.

Beau swallowed thickly, then hesitated a
moment trying to push words past the lump of emotion in his throat.
"Thank you for not dying on me."

"I'm sorry for doing all those things to
hurt you," she said and he heard the tremble in her voice. "I was
mad, and it was childish."

Anger surged through him and Beau pushed her
back from him to look into her eyes, "You were doing all that crap
on purpose?" he hissed in disbelief.

She nodded and tears filled her eyes, then
she repeated, "I'm sorry, Beau..."

"All of it? Even kissing Rhodes?" he growled
and his stomach pitched as the memory of seeing that burned behind
his eyes.

She nodded, then admitted, "The strip
Monopoly, the sunscreen massage, the bottomless bikini...all of
it...I'm so sorry," she said again and her lip trembled.

"So you don't want to be with him?" Beau
asked warily, then added, "You don't love him?"

"Hell no, he's a friend to me...that's all
he'll ever be," she told him sincerely, then leaned forward and
kissed his chest, before she said, "I told him that too, after you
took off to swim the lake."

"What about me, sugar...is that all I am to
you too?" Beau asked her then his body tensed as he waited for her
answer.

She sucked in a breath that ended with a
little sob, then told him, "That's all you want to be, Beau...and I
guess I'll take you any way I can have you."

Beau let out the breath he'd been holding,
and pulled her to him. "No, Jazzie...that's not all I want to be to
you...you're mine," he said fiercely, but then added with a growl,
"But I owe you a spanking for the hell you've put me through this
last week." Beau ran his hand over the smooth globe of her bottom
and gave it a squeeze, and a little tremor passed through her.

He yanked her braid to tilt her chin tilted
up toward him and he claimed her lips in a kiss that turned all the
longing and frustration he'd felt for the last week into drugging
passion that seduced him as surely as it did her.

CHAPTER SIX

When Carlos came back with the blanket and
Beau's cell phone, they didn't need it anymore, because Jazzie was
feeling much better. The tremors had stopped and she was sitting
higher on the bank watching as Beau swam back to the boat to help
Chase. Carlos sat down beside her and handed her the blanket
anyway, and she took it and put it around her shoulders, then he
handed her the cell phone and she tucked it inside her bikini
top.

"Thanks, Los..." she said with a wobbly
smile.

"You feeling better?" he asked her with
concern.

"Yeah...thank God for Beau, or I wouldn't
be..." she told him seriously, and looked back at Beau who was
stroking through the water to the boat.

"He's a good guy, huh?" her brother stated
rather than asked.

"Yes, he is a great guy...strong and
dependable," she agreed.

"And you love him?" Carlos asked her
nonchalantly, but she could hear the edge in his tone.

"I don't know yet, but I do have feelings
for him," she admitted hesitantly.

"I know you do...that's why I didn't kick
your ass when you were torturing him by flaunting yourself like a
two dollar---"

She put her hand over his mouth and gave him
the stink eye. "Don't you call me that...he upset me and I was
paying him back. You know that's not me," she reprimanded.

Carlos chuckled and his lips tickled her
palm, so she let her hand drop and smiled at him, then he said
incredulously, "Strip Monopoly? Really Jazzie...that's pretty
fucking creative, I have to admit."

"I told him and apologized to him..." she
said with a soft smile.

"And he accepted it, I take it from the love
struck look in your eyes?"

"Yeah, he did," she told Carlos quietly. And
he said he owed her a spanking, and that was something that she
might have to explore, because for some odd reason the thought
excited her.

There was a helluva lot she wanted to
explore with Beau Bowman, and the sooner she got to it, the
better...they'd wasted enough time playing games.

Even if she didn't have a future with him,
there wasn't a reason in the world she could think of not to let
him show her the ropes sexually, so when she did find someone to
spend a lifetime with, she wouldn't be green and groping like she
had been with him on the beach.

No, she was going to let Beau be her tutor
into the world of sensual pleasure, and she was going to try like
hell to keep her heart out of it, so she didn't wind up crushed
when they went their separate ways. He wanted a strictly sexual
relationship with her, and she was going to try to give that to
him.

It was going to be difficult for sure, but
she was an adult and she would try to be casual about something
she'd always regarded as sacred. As soon as she reclaimed her life,
she was going to do that. For now, she had to focus on finding her
brother and keeping herself alive, and Beau was the man to help her
do that. Twice now, he'd saved her life, and she wanted him to
continue to keep her safe. She didn't trust him with her heart, but
she did trust him to do that.

"I called the Rangers and they were on the
way, the Feds too, and the locals. We'll probably have a regular
police roundup out here soon," Carlos told her with a laugh.

"Good, Chase needs to go to the hospital...I
hope he's going to be okay. He didn't look good when that man took
me off the boat," she said with a waver in her voice.

"I think he's going to be okay," Carlos
reassured her, and just then she heard the sound of a helicopter
overhead, and looked up. She saw the word POLICE emblazoned on the
side of the helicopter with the state seal for the Texas Rangers.
The aircraft hovered over the boat for a minute, then she saw Beau
wave at them, and then they peeled off then went to land on the
street.

Several vehicles with jet skis on trailers
behind them pulled up. The officers launched them into the water a
couple of houses down. A couple of the officers headed for Chase's
boat, and two others pulled up to the man floating in the water by
the jet ski several yards away. Jazzie didn't know where the man's
cohort had wound up after Beau ran over his watercraft with the
boat. The mangled jet ski was floating out past the boat in the
water, but the man was nowhere to be seen.