Collision Course (10 page)

“Evenin’,
Casey.” He gave her his thousand-watt grin.

“Hey,
Ben.” She made herself smile. “Or should I call you Sheriff when I’m on duty?”

“Ben
will do. As you can see, we’re pretty casual. Thanks for coming in tonight. Don
Willis asked off to take his wife somewhere, and I didn’t see any reason to say
no. Most of the time it’s pretty quiet around here.” He grinned again. “The
most dangerous thing might be dying of boredom.”

“You
warned me,” she reminded him and patted her purse. “Got a book here in case I
need it. Any special place you want me to sit?”

“Right
there’s fine.” He pointed to the desk to his right. “Don sits there on the day
shift. Just keep the computer on, like we do with all of them.” He waved at the
bullpen. “Never know when something might come in. They’re all hooked up to a
central system here, so if one gets a notice, they all do.”

“Pretty
sophisticated,” she observed. “I had the impression Connelly lagged behind the
times where electronics were concerned.”

“Not the
sheriff’s department. All the good folks who elected me want to make sure I can
keep the riff raff out.”

“Riff
raff?” She laughed. “I haven’t heard the expression since the last time I came
home.” She shifted her gaze to the one other occupied station. “Aren’t you
going to introduce me?”

“You
bet.” He raised his voice. “Hey! Milan! Get your nose out of your crossword
puzzle for a minute.”

The
deputy swiveled in his chair. “Sheriff, I’m not—”

“I know,
I know.” Ben winked at Casey. “He’s studying online for his degree in criminal
justice. I let him work on it here when we aren’t busy. Which is most of the
time.”

Casey
looked up as the man came over to stand beside her.

“Hi.”
She stuck out her hand. “Casey McIntyre.”

“Jared
Milan. Nice to meet you.”

He had a
firm handshake, and she liked his direct gaze. Casey guessed his age at
somewhere around thirty.

“Me,
too. We’ll keep each other company tonight.” He looked at Ben. “Sheriff, I can
help her with anything she needs. Show her the ropes on the dispatch center.”

“Thanks
for the offer, but I have other duties for Deputy McIntyre.” Ben dropped his
feet to the floor and sat up in his chair. “Meanwhile, you better get back to
your coursework. Especially if you want that bump in pay, tiny as it is.”

“Yes,
sir.” He nodded at Casey. “Nice meeting you.”

She
studied the rest of the area. “No dispatcher?”

He shook
his head. “There’s so little happening at night, the deputies take turns
filling in. Jared’s on desk duty since I’ve got the other two night deputies
out on patrol.”

“So why
are you here?”

He stood
up. “Thought I’d give you a little tour of the county. Show you some of the hot
spots to keep an eye on. It’s quiet enough tonight I don’t think we’ll be
missed here.”

Casey
wanted to have some time to see what she could find—if anything— in the law
enforcement databases on Mr. T.J. Buck. But refusing to ride with Ben might
make him ask questions she didn’t want to answer. Still, she hoped being alone
in a car for a length of time with Ben didn’t turn out to be a problem. She’d
done her best to let him know she had no interest in anything personal and she
needed to satisfy herself he’d gotten the message. Knew what her boundaries
were. When they reached his department SUV, she paused before opening the door.

“Ben?”

He
looked at her across the roof of the vehicle. “Problem?”

“I hope
not.” She cleared her throat. “I don’t want to beat a dead horse or offend you,
but I’m not interested in anything besides being a deputy.”

For a
long moment, he said nothing. Even though the parking lot was well-lit, his
Stetson shaded his face so she had no idea of his thoughts. At last, he nodded
his head.

“Point
made. But I’m still hoping we can be good friends. Everyone needs someone to
talk to once in a while.”

“Thanks.”
She swallowed a sigh of relief. “Let’s get going then.”

Focusing
on whatever Ben had to say or show her took every bit of mental discipline.
Everything clashed with images of a dark-haired stranger with an aura of
desperation surrounding him already filling her thoughts. Maybe after Ben did
his show and tell, she could steal some time to dig around. A sense of urgency
she couldn’t explain tickled at her senses.

Tomorrow,
she might try a little conversation with him. She bit down on her lip to keep
from laughing. That would be a trick—two people with raised hackles trying to
be friendly.

*****

Trey
juggled the pizza and his laptop as he let himself into his room, the strap of
his duffle slung over one shoulder. He dumped the bag on the bed, put the other
items on the table and double locked the doors, pulling the drapes tight over
the one window. He’d noticed when he drove in the motel didn’t seem to be even
half full, unless most of the people were out raising hell in Connelly.

Yeah,
right.

He
turned on the television because he knew it was the first thing most people did
when they hit their rooms. He needed to be appear as ordinary as possible. He
set the volume low, opened up his laptop and munched on a slice of pizza while
he waited for the machine to boot up. The information he’d uncovered so far
about Bennett Global and what he’d taken to calling the “undercover accounts”
boggled his mind. And he knew he’d barely scratched the surface. Assumptions
only worked if you were gathering information for yourself. He needed concrete
proof before contacting someone who could do something about it.

He’d
been able to work his way to a certain point in the Funda account, after a lot
of dodging through cybertraps. But when the last three documents remained
impenetrable, he moved on. The next account he pulled up was labeled Cimarron.
At first glance, it appeared to have been set up to handle the finances of a
ranch in Argentina. But if that were true, no one would have bothered to bury
it under so many layers of security. On the surface, the transactions seemed
legitimate enough, but as he dug deeper, Trey found the same irregularities
he’d discovered with Funda—nonexistent businesses and even nonexistent banks.
Maybe the ranch itself didn’t even exist.

At
midnight, eyes blurry and cold pizza sitting like lead in his stomach, he shut
down the computer and crawled into bed. He’d made far less progress than he’d
hoped. His gut told him the clock was ticking and any moment something would
trigger his location for Bennett and his men. Then what?

He
thought of the Glock sitting on his nightstand, where he kept it every night.
He hadn’t had any range time in a while so he didn’t doubt his proficiency
rating had dropped. Impelled by a sudden urgency, he snapped on the bedside
lamp, pulled the phone book from the nightstand drawer and flipped through its
slim yellow pages section. In Texas, there had to be a gun range near every town.

Okay.
Alvarado County Firearms Range. And damn! They even had a tiny ad, announcing
they opened at six in the morning. Certain there wouldn’t be many people there
at such an ungodly hour, he set the alarm on his watch for five a.m., turned
the light off again and closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep.

*****

Her
watch showed one in the morning when Casey let herself into the house and
climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Despite the fact her body dragged with
weariness after the long day, tension vibrated through her. She needed to relax
and sleep. Morning came much too soon, sometimes, and she wanted to hit the gun
range before she went to work.

But when
she lay in her bed in her t-shirt and sleep boxers, the dream she fell into was
far from restful.

As
soon as he closed and locked the door to his motel room, T.J. had her up
against the wall, his lips hot and hard on hers. She gripped his shoulders,
feeling the sleek muscles bunch beneath the taut fabric of his t-shirt. His
fingers threaded through her hair, hands gripping her head to hold it in place
while he ate from her mouth. His tongue prodded her to open her lips and let it
slide inside. She welcomed it with ready acceptance, letting her own dance with
it in the first act of the mating ritual.

He tasted
of coffee and mint and male, a delicious combination making her breasts ache
and the pulse in her cunt throb with insistent need. Her thong was already
soaked, the scent of her musk drifting around them.

T.J.
yanked her t-shirt from the waistband of her shorts and broke the kiss long
enough to pull the garment over her head and toss it to the side. He stared at
the thin confection of silk and lace that made up her bra.

“Holy
shit!” he breathed. “I’d never have believed such a ‘go to hell’ image hid the
sexiest lingerie I’ve seen in a long time.”

It
gave her more than a small measure of satisfaction and for one instant she
allowed herself to think, “Take that, Paul Marsden.” But then T.J. fastened his
lips on one nipple, silk fabric and all, and pulled it hard into his mouth. She
moaned as he suckled on it, grazed it with his teeth then suckled again. When
he had the one pebbled bud hard and aching, he turned to the other.

Casey
hung onto him, arching up into his mouth. She felt the hard length of his cock
pressing through his jeans against her mound. She managed to slide one hand
between them and cupped him through the denim, squeezing lightly. He moaned
against her breast and tightened his lips on the stiffened tip he held in his
mouth.

Desperate
to feel his skin, she managed to tug his t-shirt from his jeans and slide her
hands up the sleek skin of his back.

T.J.
tore his mouth away from her breast, rid himself of his t-shirt and her of her
bra. While he palmed her breasts, she scraped her fingernails across his
nipples, drawing a long, sensuous groan from him. When she gave them a light
pinch he kneaded her flesh, hard.

“Jesus,”
he breathed. “I want to do so much to you but I can’t wait to be inside you.”

Somehow
they managed to get to the bed, naked, and tumble onto the covers. He slid two
fingers into the slickness of her cunt, testing her readiness before taking a
moment to sheath himself with a condom. Lifting her legs and bending them, he
positioned himself at her opening and with one thrust was all the way inside
her. Deep.

When
he paused, holding still, it gave her a moment to enjoy the feeling of
fullness, of her inner muscles stretched around him, accepting him. Every one
of her nerves woke up, crying out in need, and low inside her belly the coil of
desire began to unwind faster and faster.

“Please,”
she begged, urging him with her body to move. Now.

“Hang
on, sugar.”

He
moved his hips, setting up a rhythm. In and out. In and out. Slow then faster.
Now faster still. She matched him thrust for thrust, moving with him as he
drove into her harder and harder. The coil unwound with increasing speed until
it snapped and he drove her over the edge. She clenched around him as huge
spasms shook her and she came and came and came. She had no breath left, her
heart nearly beat itself out of her chest, yet still the orgasm had her in its
powerful grip.

As
the spasms slowed, T.J. drove into her once, twice, three times, and then let
his own powerful release break free, pushing her into yet another set of contractions.

She
remembered nothing after that except a feeling of being wrapped in wet black
velvet. Time passed, her breathing evened out and her heartbeat slowed. She
opened her eyes to look into his and…

Holy
shit!

Casey’s
eyes popped open and heat flooded her face as she realized she lay sprawled in
her bed, legs wide, her own fingers plunging in and out of her hot, wet pussy.

Oh. My.
God.

Her
breathing was choppy and her skin covered with a fine film of perspiration. She
lay there a moment, pulling herself together, willing her heartbeat to slow
down. What the hell had just happened? Jesus! How bad off did she have to be to
fall into an erotic dream about a stranger.

Ridiculous!
Absurd!

She
never had erotic dreams. At least, not anymore. And to awaken after having
brought herself to climax? Fucking ridiculous.

Don’t
say fucking. You’ll be in the soup again.

No. I
am an intelligent woman and I do not have dreams about sexy strangers.

Of
course, his cock had been long and hard and thick, his mouth hot and devouring,
his hands— she had to stop fantasizing. My god, how would she face him? She
wondered if the memories of the dream would show on her face?

When she
could make herself move, she glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Five
o’clock.

That
must have been some long dream!

Deciding
she’d had her share of sleep for the night, she dragged herself out of bed and
into the shower. If nothing else, she could get to the range before anyone else
and get in some more target practice.

*****

When the
alarm went off, Trey pried his eyes open and forced himself out of bed. A cold
shower woke up both his body and his brain. While he scraped his razor across
his overnight stubble with quick strokes, he brewed coffee in the little pot
provided in the room, swallowing the first cup as he yanked his clothes on. The
range would accomplish two things for him—polish his rusty skills and maybe get
rid of some of the energy sizzling through him thanks to Casey. A tempting
puzzle but one he didn’t have time to solve now. Not if he wanted to stay
alive.

He
checked the yellow pages ad again and saw it also included directions to the
range. Checking his ammunition supply, he stuck the Glock in its usual place in
his jeans and headed out, coffee in hand.