Chapter 22

Tori helped Delon into her car and shut the door behind him. He was a wreck, his hair sticking up, his shirt yanked out on one side and flopping over his belt. He slumped into the seat and immediately closed his eyes.

She climbed behind the wheel and started the car. “How long since your last drink?”

“An hour, give or take.”

“How much did you have?”

“Three beers, two shots of tequila.”

He remembered, and could still count. That ruled out a serious concussion. “I assume you have ibuprofen at home?”

“Yeah.”

The shop looked cleaner and classier than she remembered. The eaves and windows were trimmed with red, and a huge logo had been painted on the expanse of blank front wall—the silhouette of a bareback rider in red and black, with Sanchez Trucking, Inc. circled around it. Neatly pruned shrubs lined the sidewalk on either side of the door marked Office. Sheesh. Even a shop had better landscaping than her place.

“How do you get up to your apartment?” she asked.

“The stairs are around the side.”

She stepped out of the car and was engulfed in Delon’s signature cologne—grease and diesel exhaust. Even though she’d loved Willy, truly and deeply, one tiny corner of her heart had always twitched at that scent. She’d hated how it still affected her, but there it was, so all she could do was make damn sure her path didn’t cross Delon’s when he was competing at Cheyenne, and avoid truck stops whenever possible.

And if her brain kept hopscotching between the new Delon and Willy and the old Delon, she’d be the one falling off of barstools before long.

She hunched her shoulders against the chilly breeze and walked around to the side of the building. The staircase was metal, narrow and steep. No way would she let Delon go up those alone. She went back to find him maneuvering his leg out of the car. He hissed in pain when his toe caught on the doorframe. She stepped closer and offered a hand. His fingers were warm and strong as always, but the clasp of his palm against hers felt different.

The calluses were gone. Those hard ridges on the fingers and palm of his riding hand that had been such a raspy, delicious contrast to her most sensitive spots. The nape of her neck. The inside of her thigh. Her nipples. She remembered how he’d smiled when he realized what it did to her—a dangerous smile full of wicked promises.

She let go so abruptly he lost his balance and had to grab the open car door to keep from toppling backward.

“Oops,” she said. “Slipped.”

And fell face first into another hormonal bog. Damn. She really had to get ahold of herself, before she went totally bonkers and tried to get ahold of Delon instead. That would be bad. Because he was her patient—and he was her past. They were both, to paraphrase his words, fucked up. Two broken halves couldn’t make a functional whole. Could they?

“I can make it from here,” he said.

She stepped back, but fell in beside him as he limped around the side of the shop. “Those stairs are treacherous.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice. I’ll be fine.”

“I doubt you were half tanked before. So rather than stand back and watch you roll ass over teakettle down a flight of stairs, I’ll just follow you on up.” His expression went mutinous, his bottom lip poking out, and she laughed outright. “Wow. I bet that’s exactly what Beni looks like when he doesn’t get his way.”

His scowl dissolved into a weary sigh. “It’s been a long day.”

“Tell me about it.” Beginning with her father’s divorce bomb, but she wasn’t thinking about that now.

Delon grasped the stair rail and stepped up with his good leg, then brought his sore leg level. Tori let him get two steps above her, then put her hand on the railing behind his, her upper body canted forward so she had leverage if he started to sway. Her position put his butt directly in her line of sight. Dear Lord, that was one nice butt. She yanked her gaze away, to a trio of trucks parked in a row alongside the shop, the chrome and polished paint of the tractors gleaming under the security lights.

A familiar fascination tugged at her sleeve. Big rigs had a sexy mystique, like modern day stagecoaches, the drivers perched high and proud, all that horsepower at their command. She’d had fantasies about Delon dragging her into one of those sleepers. Carrying her off to crisscross the country, just the two of them on an endless road trip, town after town of strangers who didn’t know or care who her father was. She gazed at the nearest black one, as streamlined as a stealth fighter. Climb on in, it whispered. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.

Her head rammed into Delon’s elbow as he stopped on the landing. When she stumbled, he grabbed the back of her coat and hauled her upright as easily as if she was Beni’s size.

“Good thing you came along to keep me safe,” he deadpanned, then raised his eyebrows. “Were you staring at my trucks?”

At first she thought he said butt, and her face went hot, before she realized he’d caught her checking out the semis. “They’re pretty.”

“Pretty.” He spat the word out in disgust. “Next thing, you’ll call them cute.”

She drew herself up, offended. “Cute is not in my vocabulary.”

“But you do have a thing for trucks.”

“I don’t—”

“It’s okay. Lots of girls do.” His smile was sly, his eyes gleaming with something wild and dangerous.

She suddenly realized they were face to face on the landing, their bodies touching, if you didn’t count the five layers of clothes between them. His hand was still on her shoulder and his fingers tightened fractionally, as if he would pull her even closer. Her heart sprouted legs and launched into a frantic gallop. Oh God. What if he kissed her? She wasn’t ready for that. Was she? If he leaned in and put his mouth on hers, would she shove him away, or devour him?

He stepped back as far as the small space allowed. “I smell like a brewery.”

Uh-huh. Now that she remembered to inhale, she had to admit his breath was a little, um, strong. “Got your keys?”

“My brother stole them, remember?”

Ah, yes. Gil Sanchez. She could absolutely see why he’d been irresistible to young, rebellious Krista Barron. The man wore trouble like the spiked collar on a junkyard dog. “And he lives where?”

Delon pointed to a powder blue manufactured home set far back in a corner of the huge truck yard, with an actual white picket fence, a swing set, and a basketball hoop above the garage, as if someone had deliberately set out to meet every clichéd definition of middle class respectability.

“Who is he trying to fool?”

“Krista’s family and their pack of lawyers.”

Oh. Well. Bite my tongue. “So the fence is ironic.”

“That would be the polite word for it.”

The windows of the house were dark, no car parked outside. “He must have slithered off to some satanic ritual.”

Delon snorted. “You think my brother is in cahoots with the devil?”

“Are you sure he’s not?”

Delon laughed, just a single ha, but it brought a hint of the old sparkle into his eyes. “There have been rumors, but it’s mostly the church ladies and they don’t approve of anyone.”

“Where there’s smoke…” She looked around the landing. No place to hide a spare key. “How are we getting in?”

He reached over and opened the door. “This is Earnest.”

And his father had no reason to insist on state-of-the-art security. Obviously, Delon could handle it from here, but she was curious, so she followed him in. It was exactly what you’d expect of a bachelor pad over a garage: a second-, possibly third-hand couch, a shiny new entertainment center with a huge flat screen television, and an oversized beanbag chair. The kitchen was a cramped nook to the right of the front door, with appliances straight from a seventies flashback. Through two other open doors she glimpsed a bathroom slightly larger than her closet and a bedroom that couldn’t hold more than the one double bed. There wasn’t a toy or a spare sock cluttering up the place.

“Where do you put your kid?” she asked.

Delon glanced around. “Most of his stuff is at Violet’s. He spends more time there since I’m—well, I was—on the road so much.”

The explanation made perfect sense, but it was so backward—the All-American Boy living in a man-cave while his brother, the Lord of Darkness, ruled his own little island of suburbia. But then, until Joe, this had apparently been only a pit stop for Delon. His real home base had been at the Jacobs Ranch. And now…?

Delon shifted on his feet, running a hand over his rumpled hair. “I need a shower.”

Which was her cue to make a graceful exit. Too bad she didn’t possess much grace, and the idea of driving through the pitch black night to spend the rest of the evening in her empty house held so very little appeal. “I should stay, just in case. Bathrooms are the number one place for falls.”

“I can manage a shower on my own.”

“I wasn’t offering to join you.” The instant the words left her mouth, heat flashed over her skin. Oh, the things they’d done in her shower… She glanced around, desperate to distract both of them. “I can make you a sandwich or something while you get cleaned up.”

He stared at her for a long moment, his expression a complicated mix of X-rated memories and what the hell? Then he shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

“Okay. And you…” She tried for her stern therapist voice. “Don’t knock yourself out.”

He grinned. A real one that reached all the way to his eyes, chasing the shadows away for an instant. “Yes, ma’am.”

While he limped into the bedroom and rifled through drawers, she tossed her jacket on the couch and wandered over to the window in the far wall. It looked down into the shop, a bird’s eye view of what appeared to be a mad jumble of equipment and pieces of trucks dimly lit by safety lights over the doors. As her eyes adjusted, she began to see order in the chaos. Tools lined up on benches or hung on pegboards. Floors swept clean. Neatness appeared to be a Sanchez family creed.

Delon reappeared with a ball of clothes tucked under his arm.

“Nice view,” she said.

Delon’s expression went cool again, as if she’d offended him. “I like it.”

“That wasn’t sarcasm,” she clarified. “It must be awesome to stand here and watch everything that’s happening in the shop when it’s busy.”

“Yeah.” He squinted, as if he couldn’t figure out what she was up to. Good luck with that, since she didn’t have a clue either. He gestured toward the bathroom. “I’ll be in there.”

“Leave the door unlocked.” When his squint deepened, she added, “In case you do keel over. I’d hate to have to kick it down.”

Amusement crept into his eyes again. “Could you?”

“Damn straight.” She flexed one arm. “I’m a lot tougher than I used to be.”

“I noticed,” he said, with a look that went right through her three layers of clothes. Then he limped into the bathroom and closed the door. The lock didn’t click behind him.