Body Rocks [The Andersons 3] (Siren Publishing Classic) (3 page)

“Cut the crap. Where are you?”

The tone was demanding, but Carrick wouldn’t bet that Scott Rafferty, his close friend, protégé, and now the North American Director of the Federation, had a fair idea of his current location. “Yellowstone.”

“Yellowstone? What the hell are you doing in—” Rafferty’s sigh was deep, his curse curt. “Look, Sam, I know Daniel Ferris is your half brother, but do you know how loco your idea of a family reunion sounds? How loco you sound?”

Carrick slid a photograph from his back pocket. Ramona Anderson stared back at him with startling emerald-green eyes. He ran his thumb over the Polaroid. She looked really pissed off. There was something else in her expression, too. Shock, maybe. Like she’d just seen a dead man come back to life. The irony wasn’t lost on him.

Never trust a ghost to do your dirty work.
He snorted. The dead man he’d asked to attend Silver Creek’s centenary celebrations almost two months back and take the picture had snapped the wrong woman. Not that it mattered. There was no mistaking the identity of Ramona’s mother. Detective Jess “Foxy” Fox had been his partner and girlfriend, and the last time he had encountered her fiery-green gems was on the day of his faked death thirty years ago. He’d never forgotten her, but apparently she’d erased him from memory, because a few months after his “funeral” she became Mrs. Jess Anderson.

Carrick sighed and shook himself back to the present. “Just be grateful I’m not in Silver Creek.” He disconnected the call and put the cell back into his pocket.

Just be grateful I’m not in Silver Creek.
Carrick replayed the words in his head and twisted his lips into a wry smile. It wasn’t that he’d wanted to lie to Rafferty, but lie he had. Silver Creek was his exact location. He knew Daniel’s intended destination the moment he’d left Yellowstone. And had he driven in the opposite direction? Like fuck he had!

But if he’d thought following Daniel to Silver Creek had been a bad idea, then the tour of the town he’d just taken had given him cause for concern. Maybe Rafferty was right. Maybe his quest to reintroduce himself to his family and his ex-girlfriend after a thirty-year absence had made him loco.

Carrick stared at the town, wondering how Jess survived in such a hick place where everybody no doubt knew everyone else’s business. The town wasn’t without its entertainment, though. He’d witnessed Jess’s youngest son, Matt, arrest the model Stacey Davenport after she’d tried to claw him to shreds. Sheesh, what the hell was Stacey Davenport doing here? It wasn’t as though Silver Creek was the hub of fashion and designer labels. Main Street was no catwalk.

Then there were those two old codgers arguing with each other outside the B and B on Main Street about whose hotel was the best. Harrison and Thacker, he’d heard their names called, along with a few others that had actually made him laugh. It was his laughter that had drawn Harrison and Thacker’s attention to him, which had then led to some odd looks.

And it was because of those odd looks that Carrick decided it best to hightail it out of Dodge. Over the course of the years, he’d kept up to date with what was happening with his family. He knew his father, Ray Ferris, was a frequent visitor to Silver Creek. He would bet that every person in the town knew his father. Daniel, too, for that matter. If it weren’t for the age difference, he, his father, and Daniel could be identical triplets. Hence those odd looks he’d received.

Carrick drew in a lungful of muggy, yet clean, pine-scented air and got into his truck. He could almost smell Jess, touch her presence, and feel the burn from her fiery, emerald-green eyes. Yes, he wanted to see Jess—wanted it so bad he was willing to give up sex—but family would always come first. He needed to meet with his half brother. And he couldn’t do that with the rumor that would no doubt spread faster than a speeding bullet around the town that Daniel Ferris had a doppelganger.

Carrick knew exactly where he had to go to wait for Daniel. Turning the ignition, he shoved the stick into gear, spun the wheel, and spewed gravel.

True to his word, Daniel returned to the Anderson home in the evening for dinner. His cold shower, the longest he’d ever had in his life, had done its job well. Until he saw Samantha, that is.

Seated directly opposite her at the kitchen table, trying his hardest to tell Ross Senior about the survey he’d been conducting in Yellowstone, Daniel just couldn’t tear his eyes away from her. Her long chestnut tresses were piled loosely on top of her head, a few wispy tendrils framing her slightly flushed face. Her white lace top was scoop necked and showed a decent offering of an equally flushed neck and shoulders.

He chose to ignore the ring of purplish-black bruises around her neck. Bruises made by a man’s hands. Raven’s hands. He’d always known Raven was an obnoxious prick, yet Daniel never thought the man would resort to sexually assaulting a woman. Anger coiled tight within his gut. When he saw Raven, a guaranteed certainty in a town as small as Silver Creek, he’d take great pleasure in wrapping his own hands around the bastard’s neck and choking the life from him.

“Daniel, are you okay? You look tense.”

At Samantha’s concerned tone, Daniel loosened his anger and gave himself a sharp kick in the ankle to stop himself wondering if the reason for her flushed state was because of a steamy and sudsy shower. Nor did he think a game of footsie was advisable. He might well touch up the wrong person. He turned his attention to that person. Matt was seated next to Samantha and looked as if he was about to indulge in a spot of knife throwing.

Knife throwing at him.

If it had been anybody else, Daniel would have risen to the challenge and returned the knives with interest. But Matt was his friend—a good friend—and a friend who was just looking out for his sister. If the roles had been reversed and it had been his own sister, Jessica, who’d been attacked, he would also be giving every man the “You hurt her and I’ll return that hurt tenfold” dagger-eyed warning. He gave Matt an easy grin and complimented Jess on the food. “Mrs. Anderson, nobody makes vegetarian chili as tasty as yours.”

“Ass-kisser,” Ramona said.

“Yeah, a real smacker,” Matt added.

“If you want seconds, then just ask,” Samantha joined in.

Daniel looked at Samantha and immediately wished he hadn’t. She was running her tongue around her lips. Whether she was doing it unconsciously or not, he didn’t know. What he did know, though, was how he very much wanted to trace the same path with his own tongue. He gave himself another kick and picked up his beer. “What’s for dessert?” he asked her.

“One of your mother’s English recipes. Sponge pudding with raisins. I believe it’s called ‘spotted dick.’ Do you want cream with it?”

He nearly spat out his mouthful of beer. The way Samantha’s soft voice curled around the words
dick
and
cream
made his cock stand at attention. “Spotted dick with cream? Great, my favorite.”

“I know.”

Her green eyes were luminous, and Daniel couldn’t help but lean forward and put his elbow on the table, resting his chin in his hand. “What else do you know?” he asked in a low and husky voice.

“About you? Everything.”

“Well, isn’t that a coincidence? I know everything about you, too.” He was openly flirting with Samantha here, in front of her parents, her twin sister, and her brother, but the devil within him thought, what the hell.

“Dan my man, you’re drooling like a sappy pup. Woof woof.”

Daniel snapped back in his chair at the warning tone behind Matt’s humor. If he didn’t get a grip on himself soon, he’d end up with more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese. Not to mention a heavily bruised ankle. “I not only drool when it comes to spotted dick and cream,” he said jovially, “I sit up and beg for more, too.” He ducked to avoid the three pieces of French bread that sailed in his direction.

After that, Daniel managed to keep a grip on himself. He even managed to control his hard-on. Though, at times, that proved rather difficult, particularly when playing Twister. Being bent around Samantha not only tested the crotch of his jeans but his willpower and his ligaments, too. Finally, after being thoroughly twisted out of shape, he collapsed in a heap and called for time-out.

“These youngsters have no stamina,” Ross said, untangling himself from his wife.

“No, we’re just not as double-jointed as you oldies,” Matt cheekily told his father.

“And there was me thinking my youngest was a cop, not a comedian. Who’s for another drink? Daniel?”

“Yeah. Beer, please.”

“Actually, Dad, I was going to ask Daniel if he’d like to go for a walk with me.”

Daniel stared at Samantha. She smiled at him and smoothed her hands down the front of her slacks. A hot, pulsing beat of desire corkscrewed through him as his eyes followed the action. What he wouldn’t give to run his hands down those trim-looking thighs. To have them wrapped around his waist while his cock fucked her to blissful distraction.

He scrambled to his feet, cursing inwardly as his lusty thoughts near enough broke his zipper. He was going to have to sort this out or have a rather embarrassing mishap. “Sounds good. I need to walk these kinks out. I’ll just go to the bathroom first.”

Daniel practically flew up the stairs. Once the bathroom door was closed, he was shaking so much he absentmindedly turned on the shower. It was only when he heard the water gushing through the creaky pipes that it registered what he was doing, and he jerked to attention. He couldn’t take a fucking shower! Well, he could, but how would he explain it? Somehow he didn’t think, “To cure my hard cock, it was either take a cold shower, or fuck Sammy until she was panting and crying out my name,” would go down too well, particularly with Matt. He could almost hear the knives being sharpened.

“Get a grip,” Daniel told himself as he lifted the toilet seat. He couldn’t stop the smile when he did indeed get a grip, swiftly whacking himself off to a blinding and tongue-biting climax. Thankfully, his cum made direct hits down the john. The wiping of his cock with some tissue and one press of a button and all evidence was flushed away.

He was as cool as a cucumber when he returned downstairs. Unfortunately, when he held the front door open for Samantha and she brushed up against him, he became as hard as one, too. Shoving his hand in his jeans pocket, he carefully repositioned his hard-on so he wouldn’t be singing soprano and fell in step alongside Samantha as she ambled down the track toward the town.

“So where do you want to walk to?” he asked.

“Rustlers.”

“It’s your call, Sammy, but in all honesty, do you really want to go there?”

Despite its rough image, Rustlers, the bar in town, had quite a reputation as a love nest. Many nights of hot sex always followed from smooching on the postage-stamp-size dance floor. Or that was what he’d been told. He never could tell if John Stanford, one of his many Facebook friends, friend to the Andersons, and the owner of Rustlers, was yanking his chain or not. The thought of dancing with Samantha, not to mention nights of hot sex with her, caused Daniel to walk wide-legged to accommodate a hard-on that was getting out of control.

“Yes. You said you were going to buy me a birthday drink. Remember?”

Oh, yeah, he remembered all right.

“And I thought we could shoot some pool.”

His wide leg stance stretched to the splits. To stand opposite and watch Samantha leaning forward over a pool table was something Daniel daren’t think about. The crotch of his jeans had already been tested to its limit. “I think I’ll wimp out on that one. I know you’re a pretty sharp shooter.”

“Not that sharp, or I would have seen what Mark was going to do a lot sooner.”

The tremor he heard in Samantha’s voice made walking more comfortable. It also made him want to introduce his fist to Raven’s mouth. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay. I’ve been told that I’m a good listener, so if you change your mind, I’ll be here for you.” He smiled and gently bumped her shoulder with his. “C’mon, I’ll race you.”

“Eat my dust.”

Daniel gaped as Samantha took off running faster than an Olympic sprinter. By the time he caught up with her, he was out of puff. Then, when she was within spitting distance of Rustlers, she stopped, and he nearly collided into the back of her. “Sorry. Hey, what’s wrong?” he asked when he spotted a shadow of terror dart across her face. She inclined her head toward the bar’s entrance. It didn’t take a nanosecond to make an identification of the man just entering. “That’s Raven, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Daniel was definitely going to introduce his fist to Raven’s mouth. Right now. Striding up the wooden steps, his hand on one of the lengths of buffalo horn that constituted the door handles, he went to enter the bar, but Samantha, who’d followed him, took hold of his free arm and pulled him back down the steps.

“Daniel, let it go. Matt and Ross have already gotten into trouble for attacking him. I know you want to hurt him, but I don’t want you getting into trouble, too.”

Oh, he wanted to do more than hurt the man, he wanted to kill the fucking bastard. He was so angry, but he blew out a breath and Samantha kept hold of his arm until the tension in his body loosened.

“Let’s take a walk to the park. They had to chop down that tree that you always liked to climb. You know the one backing onto the church? But I’m sure we can find another one for you to monkey about on.”