His fingers slid deeper, punctuating his words as she fought to hold back a strangled cry of pleasure.
“Ruining another good woman, Grayson?”
Angry, almost childish, the accusation had Rick freezing in her arms, his fingers sliding slowly from her wet heat as he pushed her skirt back down her legs.
Hannah looked past him, barely recognizing the furious face of Rick’s brother-in-law, Jay Martinez.
“We should go,” she whispered to Rick, recognizing the fury that began to sizzle between the two men.
“We are.” Rick’s tone was hard, cold. The sensual man of seconds before was replaced by the dangerous, well-trained warrior she knew he was.
He closed the door to the truck, moved around the front, all the while followed by Jay.
“You killed Sienna,” he yelled at Rick’s ramrod-straight back. “You murdered her, and we both know it.”
“Go home, Jay.” Rick jerked his truck door open and slid inside.
“He’ll kill you too, Hannah,” Jay rapped out at her, his dark eyes glaring. “You can’t say you weren’t warned. Unlike Sienna. She never saw the bullet coming.”
Rick slammed the door closed, gunned the motor, and pulled out of the parking place with more restraint than she would have expected.
“Hannah, he’ll kill you,” Jay’s voice echoed behind her.
Turning to Rick, she stared at him and saw the harsh, savage lines etched into his expression now. The lover was gone. He was hard, remote now. Withdrawn.
“He blames you?” she asked, thinking of Sienna’s death at the hands of the militia that had kidnapped her and one of her friends two years before.
“He blames me.” Rick’s hands clenched on the steering wheel.
“Jay and Sienna were close,” she said softly. She had gone to school with Jay, she knew he’d adored his older sister, despite the fact that she had been adopted before he was born.
“Yes.”
They were back to monosyllables again.
Hannah restrained her sigh and watched as they drove through town, moving ever closer to her home. She hadn’t wanted the night to end this way. She had hoped it would end on a much more pleasant note. A much more pleasurable note.
It looked like, once again, Hannah
Brookes was doomed to spend the night alone.
CHAPTER 4
SIENNA HAD BEEN killed by members of a homeland terrorist group that preyed on Mexican illegal immigrants as well as those who had immigrated legally and were born in the States.
They were a white supremacist militia that had on several occasions kidnapped their victims, hunted them, then killed them with such torturous means that Hannah had actually had nightmares after reading about the events in the newspapers two years ago.
Many of those militia members had been known and trusted members of the community. A sheriff’s deputy, the mayor, a bank president, the owner of a local ranch. She had taught the children of several of those men in school, and she had watched how their families’ lives were destroyed once the news hit.
Sienna Grayson and Sabella Malone had been kidnapped by the group when the terrorists found out that Sabella’s lover had discovered evidence against them in one of the trucks that had been in the garage, and had turned it over to authorities.
In retaliation, the militia had kidnapped her and the sheriff’s wife. Sienna hadn’t survived. When federal agents had moved in on the group Sienna had been killed.
It had been tragic. The community had turned out in force to mourn with Rick. Though many of them had dis-liked Sienna personally, it seemed everyone had cared for their sheriff.
He was a good man, Hannah thought as they drove through town. He was a good sheriff. In all the years he had held the post there had never been a whiff of scandal attached to his office.
He kept his life, both private and public, squeaky clean. If Rick Grayson had skeletons, and she was certain he did, then they were buried so deep in the proverbial closet that she doubted anyone would find them.