Distinguished Service & Every Move You Make (Uniformly Hot!) (27 page)

Then there was Mariah.

Dear, witty, smart, sexy Mariah with her big brown eyes and her passion for life and everything in it. She’d lived all her life in the same house. Had admitted that their plane trip had been her first time outside Texas. Relied on her father as much as Hughie relied on her, even though both of them were far too stubborn to admit it.

The Houston skyline loomed ahead of him, seeming unfocused in the early morning smog. He could never ask her to leave. Would never even consider asking her to give up everything she was familiar with, everything she knew, to go to Midland with him, then on to Indiana. She belonged in Texas. And he belonged in Indiana.

The only certainty he could see was that he would leave. As soon as they found out whether Jock’s Treasure was a myth or reality, he would pack up and head back to Midland and Jennifer Madison’s agency. Or maybe not. Perhaps he’d head straight back to Indiana. Because if he’d learned anything in the past few days, it was that he didn’t have what it took to be a private investigator. But he did know enough to spot someone who did have what it takes. And that had been his objective all along. With his cousins Lily and Dylan’s help, he could get his plans off the ground quicker than he’d anticipated. Instead of taking him a year to open up several satellite offices in secondary cities, he might be able to do it in six months.

He sought solace in the knowledge but found none.

* * *

R
AW
…
SORE
. That’s how Mariah felt the following morning. Barely daring to move, she tucked her nose into her pillow, breathing in Zach’s unique scene, then she gingerly slid her hand between her thighs, finding her labia swollen and blood filled. She winced but couldn’t resist dragging her fingertip along the jagged crevice, finding herself wet and still hungry for the one thing only Zach could give her, despite how sensitive she was.

Whoa.

She swallowed deeply. Just when she thought things couldn’t possibly get any better, Zach proved her wrong. But it wasn’t that Zach had done anything differently. It was that he had coaxed her to look at herself differently. And in doing so had unleashed an insatiable sexual monster that wanted him even now.

She carefully rolled over. So long as she kept her legs slightly spread, she was fine. She pushed her hair from her eyes, finding the band she’d held it back with the night before still holding a couple of strands of hair on the top of her head. She tugged it off and tossed it to the nightstand. Blinking, she saw something green resting against the white-painted wood. She squinted then reached to pick up the notepaper.

“Gone to pick a few things up. Back soon.”

It was signed simply “Z.”

Mariah smiled and held the note to her chest. Her own personal Zorro. But rather than slaying arch enemies, he was conquering her inhibitions one by one, until she was at the complete mercy of him and her own spiraling needs.

She glanced across the room to where Zach had positioned her closet door so that everything that happened on the bed was reflected in the full-length mirror secured there. She gasped. Here she’d thought her hair was her only concern. Sure, she’d expected the puffy eyes, but not the black rings from the eyeliner, or the lipstick smeared against one cheek, making her look like a circus clown on steroids.

If anything was capable of chasing her out of bed, that was. She ventured closer, completely oblivious to her nakedness in a way she’d never been before, and stared at her face in the mirror. Yikes! She supposed she should be glad that Zach had shut off the lights at some point. She caught herself smiling. Of course, her appearance might have been the reason for his sudden need for darkness.

Okay, she needed to shop for stuff that stayed put. Waterproof eyeliner and mascara and lipstick.

She reached for her old, ratty terry robe in the closet, only to find it gone, replaced with the short sexy pink number. Zach, the devil. The silk whispered up her arms and brushed against her sensitive nipples as she tied the belt at her waist. She shivered. Okay, so maybe there was something to be said for pink. Almost immediately she felt pretty and feminine and supersexy.

Gathering fresh panties, she hesitantly opened the door and looked both ways down the hall, just in case her father was lurking around somewhere. The door to his bedroom was open, and just inside she could see the bed was made. She frowned and stepped absently out of her room. That was odd. Her father never made his bed. Before she realized that was where her feet were carrying her, she was standing in the doorway of her father’s bedroom. After a long moment, she sighed. Oh, well. Maybe he figured she’d have enough on her plate today. She squinted, noticing the neat corners, the smooth surface of the comforter. Only, even when Hughie did occasionally make his own bed, he never made it that neatly.

Strange. It almost looked as if he hadn’t slept there the night before. She glanced down the empty hall behind her. Could he have suspected what was going to happen between her and Zach and bunked with the ranch hands for the night?

Her face burned with embarrassment. What kind of hussy chased her father out to the bunkhouse so she could sleep with her lover?

Not up to answering the question, she headed for the bathroom, only too happy to leave her thoughts behind in exchange for a hot shower. When she finally emerged, she found her muscles were more limber, relaxed, and walking was much easier. She combed her hair and made sure there were no traces of makeup left on her face, though she was certain nothing could have survived the scrubbing she’d given herself.

She heard a sound out in the hall. Her father? No, she didn’t think so. Whether he’d stayed in the bunkhouse or not, he rarely if ever came back in the middle of the morning.

Zach.

She smiled, checked herself a final time in the mirror, then opened the door. But the person standing on the other side of the door wasn’t Zach. Nor was it anyone she had expected or wanted to see.

“You!”

13

M
ARIAH
STRUGGLED
against the duct tape wound around her wrists and ankles and tried to shout in frustration, the tape across her mouth muffling it to the point of nonexistence.

She collapsed against the kitchen island and sighed. There were few things more humiliating than being tied up in your own house without a soul around to find you.

She knocked the back of her head against the tile of the island and groaned. The last person she’d expected to see when she’d pulled open the bathroom door was Claude Ray. But there he had stood, looking grimy, as if he hadn’t had a bath for days, his face full of malice and ill intention. She’d known in that one moment that she would pay for every time she’d caught up with him and dragged his no-good carcass back to jail.

And, oh, had she been right. Before she could collect her wits, he’d wrapped a rope around her midsection, pinning her arms to her sides, then wound it around her upper legs so that she was virtually a Barbie doll, with no moving parts.

“Like the robe, Mar,” he said, his gaze raking her barely clothed body, his leer indicating he liked more than the robe.

Thankfully he hadn’t acted on the interest. She didn’t know what she would have done if he had. Instead he’d hauled her to the kitchen where he’d found the duct tape in the utility drawer and secured her hands behind her back and her ankles straight out in front of her. And that’s where she’d been forced to sit, watching him ransack the ranch with the thoroughness of an experienced thief, her only weapon her mouth. She’d alternately cursed him, then tried to engage him in conversation only to resort to cursing him again. Well, at least until he’d shouted in agitation and taped her mouth shut, too.

Mariah closed her eyes and swallowed deeply. God, she didn’t think she’d been so humiliated in her entire life. She, Mariah Jane Clayborn, had been hog-tied.

Claude had left a half hour earlier, but the unforgiving tile under her bottom made it feel like longer. She shifted awkwardly, trying to see if she could gain a foothold and move herself to one of the kitchen chairs. No go. She slumped against the island again, only perking up when she heard the familiar sound of her truck engine in the driveway.

Zach!

She heard the front door open and close, then there he stood, in all his tall, strikingly handsome glory, in the kitchen doorway.

* * *

Z
ACH
’
S
HEART
POUNDED
in his chest as he released the last of the tape binding Mariah’s hands and feet together. He rose to help her to her feet only find her already standing next to him.

“God, I can’t believe I let that happen,” she said, looking angry enough to spit nails.

Zach rubbed the back of his neck, trying to shake the uneasiness that had settled over him when he’d come into the house to find Mariah tied up and alone. “Are you sure it was Claude Ray?”

Her brows shot up so high they were almost lost in her hairline. “You’re joking, right? Of course I’m sure it was Claude Ray. I saw the idiot with my own two eyes.” She hurried to the table where the box that had held the wedding dress gaped empty. “Damn.” She stomped her bare foot against the tile. “Damn, damn, damn. I should have known he would take it. ‘Are these real pearls?’ he asked. Like I could answer him with my mouth taped shut.”

“Claude took the dress?”

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?”

“Do you think he knows what it is?”

“What? That it was Ellie’s dress? That it has a map sewn into the bodice that might lead to a virtual treasure? No.” She twisted her lips. “At least I don’t think so.”

She ran her hands through her hair again and again, looking at her wits’ end and utterly kissable. His gaze skimmed her neat figure under the silk of the robe, and a desire to put his hand inside the flap and cup a small breast was almost irresistible. Almost.

“What are we going to do?” She puffed out a long breath, her brown eyes wide. “The map is on that dress. And I…and I…” She gestured with her hand. “I have no idea where he might fence a wedding dress. Horses, yes. Horses are pretty difficult to hide. But a wedding dress?”

“Do you think he’s getting married?”

She let out a short laugh. “No. Just about every other man in my life might be getting married, but not Claude. Besides, who would have him?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A woman as desperate to get married as he is?”

She laughed, then fell silent, her eyes planted on Zach’s face as if trying to figure out the reason for his saying that.

He allowed his gaze to drift down to the front of her robe, to the deep vee, then lower still to where the hem rested against her magnificent thighs. “Mariah?”

He looked up to see her lick her lips in the telltale way that said her mind was rolling down the same track as his. “Yes?”

“I think it would be a good idea if you got dressed just now.”

“Why?”

He forced his attention to remain her face. “Because we have a treasure to find.”

* * *

“L
ET
ME
GET
THIS
STRAIGHT
,” Mariah said from the driver’s seat of her old truck. “While I was playing dress-up in my bedroom, you and Dad were tracing the map on the dress?”

Zach smoothed out a piece of notepaper on his lap. “Call us stupid, but we didn’t think it would be such a good idea to run around holding that old wedding dress trying to find X.”

“Delicate.”

He squinted against the morning sun slanting through the driver’s window. “What?”

She squeezed the steering wheel more tightly as they bumped and rutted over the old country road. “The dress is delicate. Antique. It’s not just…old.”

She watched the corners of his delectable mouth turn up in a smile. “Ah.”

She made a face and pretended to concentrate on the road.

“Hughie’s going to meet us out there with the prospector.” He refolded the map and checked his watch. “They’re probably getting underway now, so we should pretty much reach there at the same time.”

“Prospector,” Mariah said under her breath. “Clooney is an old coot at best, a walking cadaver at worst, who hasn’t said a coherent word in over twenty years.” She couldn’t believe her father was bringing the bony old man who was a hundred if he was a year. “He’s known for coming in after everyone else has done all the work, pointing a gnarled finger and running away with the credit for finding something that would have been found anyway.”

“That’s not the way your father tells it.”

“Yeah, well, my father’s an old fool.”

Zach’s quiet chuckle skated over her nerve endings, making all sorts of naughty memories glide through her mind.

She tucked her hair behind her ear, then berated herself for the nervous gesture. Okay, so maybe Claude Ray, and her father bringing in Old Man Clooney, weren’t really bothering her. Sure, both incidents combined would be enough to buck anyone off the saddle. But as the miles disappeared under Mariah’s truck tires, so too did the distance between now and the moment Zach disappeared from her life.

She shifted uncomfortably on the bench seat. No, going in, she hadn’t been looking for anything serious. She would have to be insane if that had been her purpose for making her proposal. What she’d been looking for was someone to give her the answer to the question that had been haunting her for the past four years, namely why the men she’d dated had dumped her in favor of marrying someone else. She’d wanted to know what it was about her that they not only ran away from, but ran to someone else to escape. She’d thought it was the sexiness issue. Or her lack of sexuality. Only instead of getting an answer, Zach had posed even more questions she was ill equipped to address.

And in a short time he, too, would leave her alone to deal with them.

She grimaced. No, it wasn’t fair to compare Zach to her previous three exes. Not in the least. They’d both gotten involved for the sake of their individual agendas. To discuss marriage, or anything lasting, would have been ridiculous. She was a Texan, he was a Yank. No, no. It went well beyond that shallow factor, although the tags did play a role. Their lives were completely different. Their goals, ambitions. While she enjoyed running after Claude Ray on horseback, Zach’s P.I. skills would probably be focused on something on a grander scale. Cases dealing with big money that he could wear a business suit to solve. Or rather direct other more qualified investigators to look into.

She didn’t get it. The night before last he’d told her he owned a tool and die company in Indiana. But how did that tie into private investigating? Why would a man who probably had more money than God want to become a private dick?

It didn’t make any sense. And given the limit on their time together, she was afraid it might never make sense.

“There,” Zach said, pointing out the windshield. “Is that Bisbane’s Bluff?”

Mariah squinted against the sunlight reflecting off the hood of the truck. A half a mile up the road to the left loomed a rocky outcropping in the middle of Texas prairie land. “I think so. It’s been a long time since I’ve been out this way.”

Zach nodded and opened a professional road map where he’d traced Jock’s map on top of it. “Okay, judging by the map, we need to make a left up here.”

“Where?” she asked, not seeing any crossroads.

“There!” Zach pointed to a narrow unpaved opening in the road.

Mariah put on the brakes and backed up to make the turn. The truck kicked up dust. Trying to decide between slowing down or rolling up the windows, Mariah rolled up her window and indicated Zach do the same. The quicker this was over with, the faster she could get to solving the mysteries of her life.

“Another left coming up here,” Zach said. “There.”

Another dirt road that was more like ruts than a genuine road. Mariah tapped the dashboard. “Hang in there, Nelly.”

She turned to find Zach watching her with a closemouthed grin. “What?” she asked sharply.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

She blew a long breath through her lips, hating that she sounded snappy. She never sounded snappy. She was good ol’ Mariah Clayborn who could handle anything. Had a difficult case to solve? Contact Mariah. Needed to sow some oats before marrying someone else? Contact Mariah. Needed the satisfaction of stomping all over someone’s heart? Mariah was the girl for the job.

She was surprised by the way her heart responded to her thoughts. It seemed to double in size and press against her rib cage uncomfortably. She absently rubbed the area.

It seemed strange somehow that she was admitting that her exes’ desertions had been more than mere irritations. They had hurt. Badly. And the admission made the pain all the more acute. The back of her eyes stung and she caught herself making a wringing motion with her hands against the steering wheel.

She was not going to cry. She was not. Mariah Clayborn didn’t cry.

Her throat thickened. Yes, well, while that may have been true of the old Mariah—the chin-up, shoulders-squared Mariah who knew that everything would be okay so long as she acted like it was—the new Mariah—the one who had fallen in love with Zach Letterman—realized that all she had been doing was putting off the inevitable. That what bothered her didn’t really go away, it merely camped out in a quiet corner waiting to overwhelm her when she least expected it.

She laughed without humor and turned her head to hide the tears she suddenly had to blink away. And now was the single most unexpected, not to mention inopportune, moment. They were on a treasure hunt, for Pete’s sake, not going out for some carefree Sunday picnic.

“Mariah?”

She took a deep breath and squinted through the window. “What?”

“Is everything all right?”

She didn’t dare look at Zach for fear that all the emotions bubbling just below the surface would come pouring out. “Fine.” She lifted her chin. “Some dust just got into my eye, that’s all.”

“Both of them?”

“Yes, both of them.” She stared at him. “You have a problem with that?”

She cringed at the strident tone of her voice, but noted that Zach didn’t react one way or another to her short burst of anger. Rather he was looking at her with concern, with banked desire, and with another emotion marking his handsome face that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

A car horn sounded.

Mariah looked around them until she spotted where her father was parked off to the side a short ways back.

Great. She’d completely missed the spot because she’d been too busy trying to read something into Zach’s expression that wasn’t there.

She stepped on the brakes then jammed the truck into Reverse, silently counting backward from ten as she did. The action not only helped calm her nerves, it reminded her of the limits set on her and Zach’s relationship. Limits that would not be altered by her professing her true love.

* * *

Z
ACH
GLANCED
at where Mariah rolled her eyes, kicked at the dusty ground, then walked away mumbling something under her breath.

“Where you reckon this is?” Hughie asked Zach.

Zach looked over the older man’s shoulder. “I’d say you’re target on. But given what I know about maps, I wouldn’t put any money on it.”

Hughie chuckled then stepped over to Old Man Clooney, who appeared to be checking wind direction with a wet finger. What wind direction had to do with treasure was anyone’s guess. But despite Mariah’s skepticism, and his own lack of knowledge in the area, the man who looked like little more than weathered skin stretched over a skeleton fascinated Zach. If Clooney should tell him that he was going to make the Red Sea appear, then part it, Zach would probably half expect it to happen. He shook his head. Looked like age didn’t have anything to do with being a fool.

Cupping a hand over his eyes, he scanned the desolate area. Not a house or a building or another person in sight. The sound of the summer wind whipping over the plains was almost eerie.

Hughie had told him all this land belonged to the state now. What with Bisbane disappearing and no blood relatives left to claim his land, the state had stepped in to claim it. That meant anything found on the land would also belong to the state.