Out Of Control (42 page)

So why, after
all these years, did his traitorous dick still get hard whenever he remembered
her naked body? Why did his hands twitch, remembering the feel of her young
breasts in them? His nose still remembered the scent of roses and honeysuckle
in her hair. His mouth, the taste of her tempting juices. One would think by
this time he’d have himself under control.

Except Jamie
Randall was like a festering sore inside him, one he needed to lance and get
rid of, once and for all.

All these
years, he’d been able to deal with the way she’d just flat out left him because
she’d been far away in a different life. But to see her every day now, to know
the contempt she’d held him in, would be an impossible situation.

No way was
she coming back to Amen, Texas and twitching her ass in front of his face. She
left town once. He planned to make sure she did it again. Jamie Randall would
have to leave whether she wanted to or not. Only this time it would be on his
terms and not until he’d satisfied a twelve-year-old itch.

Easier said
than done, cowboy.

He cranked
the engine a little too hard, and pulled away from the curb, heading out on the
dusty highway. She should be home by now. There was no time like the present to
get on with business, but it wasn’t business he was looking forward to.

All the way
to the scrubby patch of land her father had left her, Zane talked to himself.
Face her. Get it over with. Move on.

The caliche
driveway leading to the old Randall house was potholed and bumpy, a sign of
long neglect. The house itself was a reflection of the man who’d lived there,
alone. Decaying, rotting away, making a pretense at something but not quite
pulling it off.

He pulled the
department’s big Expedition in behind Jamie’s smaller SUV and cut the ignition.
As tiny as Amen was, he hadn’t been in this house since Jamie left town. He
didn’t even want to go there now, but the whole mess from the past was like dry
toast stuck in his throat.

Suck it up,
man. Speak your piece and get it over with.

Taking his
time, he climbed out of the car and walked up the cracked cement path. The
inside door stood open and, through the screen door, he could see her moving
around in the kitchen. Gritting his teeth, he raised his hand and knocked on
the wood door frame.

“Go away.”
The words had a harsh bite to them. “No curiosity seekers allowed today.”

Zane cleared
his throat. “Jamie, it’s Zane Cameron.”

She froze in
place, then turned in his direction. For a moment, he wasn’t sure she’d even
come to the door. Finally, she padded over the wood floor on bare feet, slowly,
not rushing. He guessed she wasn’t any more anxious for this meeting than he
was.

“Well, well,”
she drawled. “Nice of you to drop by, Sheriff. Did you come to arrest me?”

“I came to
talk to you. How about letting me in?”

She shook her
head, the tight, angry look still on her face. “I don’t think so. I’m in no
mood to play Twenty Questions today.”

“Damn it,
Jamie. Open this door.” He pulled, but the door was latched on the inside.

“Go away. I
can’t think of anything we have to say to each other.”

“Oh, I have
plenty to say. Open the damn door, or I’ll break it down.”

Nice going,
asshole. Smooth.

She stared at
him through the screen. Then he heard the snick of the latch being released and
she stepped back to allow him to enter.

“Okay.” She
posed arrogantly in front of him, hands planted on her hips, mouth in a thin
line. “Say what you came to say and get the fuck out of here.”

It was
obvious she’d been working. A few wisps of her hair had straggled loose from
her ponytail, clinging to her cheeks like threads of fine silk. A smudge of
dirt decorated her straight nose, and a thin scratch marred the smooth, tanned
skin of her slim forearm. As unglamorous as a woman could look, yet somehow,
she was more tempting than if she’d been wearing a slinky dress and high heels.

Zane had to resist
the urge to stare at her breasts, outlined by the soft T-shirt material. Mature
Jamie Randall’s breasts were making his mouth water and his palms itch. But
they also made his dick want to stand at attention again so he shut down his
mind. All he needed was an erection right now. Then again, maybe that was
exactly what he needed. “Nice language you’ve learned since you’ve been gone.”

“That’s not
all I’ve learned.” Her
blue
eyes, the color deepening to navy, flashed.
The
thick lashes framing them only enhanced the intensity of her fury. She was like
a time bomb set to go off. “Anyway, pardon my lack of social graces, but I’m
not in a very good mood right now. I don’t have the patience to take crap from
anyone, so what is it you want?”

“I came to
find out why you’re here in this, let’s see, what did you call it?” He frowned.
“Oh, yeah. ‘Godforsaken town you’d never spit on again.’” His pent-up anger,
stored away all these years, wanted to rise up and overtake him.

“Well, we can’t
all make the choices we’d like to.” Jamie’s gaze swept over his face, studying
him. “So. I’ll ask you again. Why are you really here? You trying to run me out
of town, Sheriff?” She spat out the last word as if it had a bad taste to it.

“Seems to me
the last time you and I had a conversation, I distinctly remember you saying
you wouldn’t come back to Amen unless hell froze over.” His eyes never wavered
from hers. “Must be mighty cold down there right about now.”

And that’s
how cold it would be before she threw her lot in with him, she’d told him.
Twelve years ago he was just the half-breed son of a man always in trouble. She’d
been willing to fuck him all right—fuck the half-breed with the legendary
dick—but then it was adios.

He waited for
her to comment, but she stood there, silent, vibrating with anger. Her nipples
pushed stiffly against the thin fabric of her T-shirt, and a pulse beat heavily
at her throat. Sex and anger. Two sides of the same coin. He had to suppress an
urge to rip off her clothes and run his hands over that now-adult body. Time
hadn’t diminished one bit of the lust he felt for her. Damn it.

At last she
shook her head and took a step back. “If you came for all the sordid details of
my fall from grace, you wasted your time. Read the newspapers. They had plenty
to say. So is that it? Are we done?”

“Not by half.”
He moved closer to her. “You’re damn straight I want to know why you’re here
and when you’re leaving. I can’t believe this is some big homecoming for you.”

Yes, when
will you get out of my life again and leave me to my accustomed misery?

“Well.” Her
voice was bitter. “You don’t mince any words, do you?”

More silence.
He forced himself to outwait her.

“Why the hell
do you think I’m here? I guess I’m lucky my drunk of a father got himself
killed and left me this worthless piece of property. Which is a damn good thing
since, at the moment, it seems I have no place else to go.” She stuck out her
chin in defiance. “Why? Are you planning to run me off?”

Yes, if I
could. But first I’m going to fuck your brains out the way I’ve wanted to do
all these years since you ran from me. This time you’ll take more than a little
taste of the half-breed Zane Cameron with you.

He shifted
his weight. “Just trying to keep up with what’s going on in my little corner of
the world. I heard you were living in some fancy condo in Florida.”

“Why,
Sheriff,” she drawled. “I didn’t know you kept up with my activities.”

Gritting his
teeth, he barely held onto his temper. “We have a newspaper here in Amen, in
case you forgot. And surprise, surprise. I have a computer and know how to use
it.”

“Oh. Well,
then.” She unclenched her fists and shoved her hands in her jeans pockets. “I’m
sure you read all about my big scandal and just salivated over my fall from
grace.” Her voice had a spiteful quality to it.

“We don’t get
that much to talk about here in Amen,” he retorted, determined to give it right
back to her. “Local girl makes bad is a hot topic of conversation.”

She stared at
him again, then turned to walk toward the kitchen. “Coffee should be ready now.
If you’re going to grill me, you might as well have a cup.”

He hated the
fact that the movement of her hips still mesmerized him and his fingers curled
with the remembrance of touch. Common sense told him to refuse the coffee and
get the hell out of there. Forget about anything but staying away from her. But
then, he’d had plenty of times when he and common sense didn’t even shake
hands.

He distracted
himself while waiting by glancing at his surroundings. The inside of the house
didn’t look any better than the outside. Scarred wood floor. Walls covered in
grimy paint without a picture or anything to relieve the depressing sight.
Furniture worn down to the bare bones. Dust everywhere.

He spotted
the cleaning supplies on the chipped Formica counter. She’d need a lot more
than soap and disinfectant to make this place habitable. And no matter how much
she scrubbed, she’d never get the stink of whiskey or the dark presence of her
miserable father out of it.

“So,” her
voice broke into his train of thought. “Tell me.” She was busy taking chipped
mugs out of a cupboard and filling them. “How did someone like you end up
sheriff of Diablo County? I thought for sure you’d be on the inside of the jail
looking out.”

Zane’s gut
clenched and bile rose in the back of his throat. “You mean, how did the good
citizens manage to elect a half-breed to keep the peace? Maybe they figured I
could run around with my tomahawk and scalp anyone who pissed me off.”

“Damn it,
Zane.” She whirled, her eyes burning into him like wildfire. “That’s not what I
meant at all.”

“Oh, no?” he
challenged. “You made it very plain when you left here that I had nothing to
offer you. Me and my kind, you said. No mistaking your words. You couldn’t get
away from me and Amen fast enough.”

“Is that what
you thought? Well, you’re wrong. The only one ever sensitive about your
Comanche blood was you. That had nothing to do with my reasons for walking away
from you.”

“Yeah, right.
Your alcohol-rotted father couldn’t have made it any plainer. And you were right
there with him when he made his little speech.”

“One loser
was the same as another to me. No matter what he said, I wasn’t talking about
just you but all the losers in this stinkhole. Your heritage had nothing to do
with it, and you damn well should have known it.” She poured the hot liquid
into the mugs.

“Should I?”
He accepted the mug she handed him. Their fingers brushed, and he had to work
to control the shock at the electricity the brief contact generated. Oh, god,
this was worse than he thought.

“Anyway, that
wasn’t the reason I asked the question. I just want to know how someone wilder
than the wind ends up as a lawman.”

His face
hardened. “We all change, Jamie. You certainly did.”

Her laugh was
like ice falling on glass, not tinkling but chilling. “So this call is really
all about my recent notoriety, right? Well, here’s the long and short of it. I’ve
joined a very elite group of reporters who got scammed and drummed out of the
corps. Lawsuits and legal fees broke me, and the condo was the first thing to
go. I’m back here because I have no other choice.” Her mouth twisted in a
caricature of a smile. “Does that give you the satisfaction you were looking
for, lawman?”

“Listen,
Jamie—”

“I’ll bet you’ve
read every story about my firing, all about how I’ve been blackballed in the
industry, and enjoyed the hell out of it. Right?” She took a healthy swallow of
coffee, grimacing as she realized how hot it still was. “But that’s okay, Zane.
You can join a very big crowd.” She watched him over the rim of her mug. “Listen,
I’ve got stuff to do so say what you came to say and get out.”

He leaned
against the wall, trying to get a fix on her. He couldn’t help the way his eyes
swept over her body. He wondered if anyone could look as disheveled as she did
and still exude raw sex. She was still lithe and toned, and the memory of those
graceful legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper into her, made him
want to pull out his dick and take her on the hard floor right there.

He wondered,
too, what she’d say if she knew how he really liked his sex. The things he
really wanted from her. The kind of demands he wanted to make on her.

His jaw
worked as he dug for his hard-won iron control, the control that seemed to be
slipping with Jamie in front of him. He exhaled slowly.

“What
happened to you, Jamie?”
Yeah, what happened to those pie-in-the-sky dreams
that made you look at me and this place like dirt?
“God knows I hated your
ass for the way you ran out of here, but you said you had a plan for your life,
being a top investigative reporter. And it sure looked like you were well on
your way to completing it. How could you pull a stunt like you did?”