“Her truck burned down on the side of highway Seventy One.”
There’s a long silence. “Where are you taking her?”
“First the sheriff’s office to file the report, then disappearing. Use your contacts and get a message to Caleb to call me as soon as he can.”
River jolts beside me. I don’t look at her. Instead I scan the mirrors, but I don’t have to look at her to feel her stare. Or anything else about her.
Christ, my body is hyper aware of hers.
“Report in when you can,” Gray says.
“Copy that. I’m going to need some backup. I can tell that already.”
“On it. Just tell me when and where.”
I thank the owner of Lone Star Security and hang up right as we pull into the single-story brick building that looks like every other small town sheriff’s office in Texas.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
I shift in my seat, hanging my wrist over the steering wheel. “I’m Symon Drake. They call me Diesel. I’m your new best friend, your shield, your captor, and anything else I need to be for the next four months.”
“Well, then. I hope you like Valentine’s Day because you’re going to my Rodeo.”
CHAPTER 3
The man’s dead serious when he says, “You mean the event you’re not attending?”
Talk about one-two punches. My entire body jolts. It takes me a second to recover, then I’m in full battle mode.
“You can't just insert yourself into my life and tell me what I’m doing!”
He doesn’t even blink, just looks at me like…
I don’t even know what that look is.
“I just did,” he says, his baritone vibrating between us, filling the cab of his truck with even more of him when that seems freaking impossible.
I’ve never felt like I’m drowning inside a truck. But with Diesel, there’s not enough room to escape his overpowering forcefield.
“Don’t bother coming into the station,” I snarl, reaching for the door handle, but he clicks the freaking child lock.
“Let’s get this straight,” he says, leaning in, too close.
I’m facing the window, looking away from him, but his heat is all over the left side of my neck. “You don’t open doors. I do.”
“Christ, what century do you come from?” I half-growl.
“The one where your security drives every action.”
His heat disappears, his door opens and I watch out of the corner of my eye as he swaggers around to my door. Only it’s not really a swagger, but I don’t have the vocabulary for a man like him.
It’s a confident, alert walk of a man that knows he’s big and in charge.
Freaking-A.
What am I going to do? My only hope is that the Sheriff will see. Or maybe I can slip him a note.
Diesel, once satisfied with his assessment of the parking area, opens my door. He offers a hand which I ignore which elicits a dark chuckle from him.
