Make Mine a Bad Boy (5 page)

Being the town troublemaker, Colt had gotten his fair share of Bibles too. Though Lord only knew what he’d done with them.

At the end of the hallway, Hope pushed through another unlocked door and into the room that housed the jail. But how anyone could call it that was beyond her. Except for the bars, the cell looked like a country bed and breakfast. Up against one wall was a brass bed with fluffy down pillows, a wedding-ring quilt, and crisp, flowered sheets that matched the curtains on the window. The white porcelain toilet was sparkling clean and had an air freshener on the back and a fuzzy blue cover for the lid. The sink had a Dixie cup dispenser and small mirror hanging above it, a mirror Colt was using as he cleaned the blood from his lip.

The door clicked shut behind her, and he turned. And for a split second, Hope had the urge to run for her life. No wonder the folks of Bramble thought he’d been in prison. The man looked like he belonged behind bars—an unscrupulous outlaw who spent his days robbing trains and his nights stealing the hearts of loose women. Wind-tousled black hair fell almost to his shoulders, and the stubble on his square jaw looked even thicker than it had a few hours earlier. Those steely gray eyes stared back at her, the whites bloodshot from booze or lack of sleep, or possibly both.

Suddenly, she didn’t feel cold anymore.

“Deliverin’ Bibles, sweetheart?” The dark slashes of his eyebrows lifted. The sarcasm in his deep, smooth voice snapped her out of her outlaw fantasy and back to loser reality.

“As if reading the Bible would do your black soul any good.” She pushed away from the door. “I’m here to get you out.”

“A jailbreak? Funny, but I thought you were the reason I was here in the first place. Mean Colt Lomax beat up sweet little Hope Scroggs.”

“Don’t blame me, Lomax. I wasn’t the one who got Sam after you. Not that you didn’t deserve it, after hitting me.” She felt only a second of remorse over the lie. She was well aware of what had hit her, but she just wasn’t about to let Colt get off so easily. Not when he had hurt her plenty in her lifetime.

“A jailbreak, huh?” He took a few steps closer to the bars, and it was a challenge for her to keep from taking a step back. “So what’s your plan? Dynamite? A bulldozer? A file pulled from those silken locks?”

“I was thinking more of a key.” She held up the heavy key ring.

One corner of his mouth flirted with a smile. “A key. What an ingenious plan.”

Ignoring his sarcasm, she walked over to the lock and started trying keys. It was a daunting task, considering there had to be enough keys there for every unlocked door in Bramble, so many that she had trouble remembering which ones she’d tried. Especially with Colt standing there watching.

“You’re not kidding, are you?”

She glanced up into a pair of curious gray eyes. “I realize you skipped school more than you attended, but does it look like I’m kidding?”

Those eyes narrowed. “So what’s in it for you?”

“What else? I get you out of my hair.”

So quickly that she couldn’t avoid it, he reached through the bars and snagged a lock of her hair that had fallen over her shoulder from the low ponytail.

“I guess a man could get lost in this.” He rubbed it between his fingers.

The sight made her stomach do a crazy flip before she
jerked her hair back, leaving a few strands entwined in his rough biker fingers. “Stop screwing around.”

“But I like screwing around.” Those dark brows lifted. “Remember?”

Her face flushed hot. “Do you always have to be such a smartass?”

“Weren’t those our roles in high school?” He pointed a finger at her. “Homecoming queen.” He touched his chest. “Smartass.”

“Loser, is more like it.” She went back to the keys, but damned if she hadn’t lost her place again.

Luckily, Colt had always been easily bored. After only a few minutes, he walked over to the bed, where he stretched out on Granny Lou’s quilt and propped his hands behind his head. It was hard to take her eyes off all the miles of muscle that rippled the black cotton shirt and soft jeans.

“So are you cold?”

At his words, the keys slipped through her fingers and clanked to the floor as her gaze flashed back to his face.

“What?”

His head turned toward her, and those gray eyes slithered down to her chest. “Cold.”

She glanced down to the beaded nipples that poked through the soft white cotton of her cami. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared back at him.

“You are a sick pervert, Colt Lomax.”

He shrugged. “I only take what’s offered.”

Not wanting him to think she offered anything, she tugged the ponytail holder out and slipped it over her wrist before adjusting her hair over her chest.

“The hair should’ve been a dead giveaway,” he stated.

She glanced over at him.

He had rolled to his side, his head propped up on his hand. “The mistake I made with your sister—I should’ve known you would never cut your hair.”

Thankful to be off the subject of her boobs, Hope shrugged as she picked up the key ring and tried another key. “I thought about it once. I even went to a salon in L.A. with the intention of whacking it all off.”

“What happened?”

“I chickened out.”

There was a long pause before he spoke.

“I’m glad.”

Her gaze shot over to him. She might’ve taken it as a compliment if she hadn’t known better. “This coming from a man who used to refer to my hair as a matted possum pelt.”

He flashed her a full-fledged smile. Since it wasn’t something he did often, the blinding radiance took her by surprise. “And you think a skinned possum would look better?”

With her insides boiling, she went on the offensive. “As if I care what a lowlife motorcycle bum thinks. Why don’t you get a job, Lomax, and quit being a blight on society?”

“Because I believe the fewer the responsibilities, the freer the man.”

“And you are about the freest man I know,” she said as she continued to try the keys. “Of course, you wouldn’t be so free if you didn’t have Lyle Dalton’s money to spend.”

“Is that where you think I get my money?”

She glanced up. “Isn’t it?”

Seconds ticked by as he stared at her. Finally he relaxed back against the pillows and rested his hands over
his chest. “You found me out, honey. Luckily, old Lyle doesn’t seem to care.”

The truth shouldn’t have bothered her. But it did. Just another reason she needed to get him out of town as quickly as possible. Thankfully, the next key worked.

Twisting the lock open, she pulled back the barred door. “Come on. We don’t have much time.” She pulled the key out of the lock and moved over to the outer door. “Regardless of the wedding, the churchgoers get up bright and early on Sunday. But since you have never attended church, you probably don’t know that.”

“I go to church.”

Hope turned to find him standing close behind her, his hand braced against the door that she’d just cracked open. It was one thing to have a row of bars separating her from all the testosterone-pumped maleness, and another to have it inches from her nose. Startled, she dropped the keys, and they slid out into the hallway.

“I call it the Church of Our Lady of the Highway.” Colt released the heavy door, and it clicked closed as he tipped up her chin. “You should’ve put ice on it. It would’ve helped with the swelling.”

“I did,” she breathed, her voice betraying her quivery insides.

“By the looks of it, not long enough.” He shook his head and gently brushed his thumb over the bump. “You never did have a lick of patience.”

It took a second for Hope to find her voice. “Which is exactly why I want you out of this town as quickly as possible.”

Colt leaned down, and his cheek brushed against hers in a slide of prickly heat. “Now why is that, I wonder?” His
breath fell soft and warm against her ear, and everything inside her seemed to still in anticipation of what he’d do next.

Except he didn’t do anything. He didn’t have to. Just his mere presence was enough to make her head fill with thoughts that had no business being there. Naughty thoughts that involved the rugged outlaw in front of her and the soft mattress behind him.

She took a deep, steadying breath. But it was a mistake. While most guys in town doused themselves in whatever country-singer-endorsed cologne was popular at the time, Colt had always smelled like soap and detergent beneath a layer of grease and gasoline, a powerfully strong mixture that never failed to make Hope light-headed.

Although now the grease and gasoline weren’t as strong as another scent—a raw masculinity lacking in his youth. It was this scent that drew her like a moth to a porch light on a hot summer night. But, refusing to get her wings singed, she slipped beneath his arm and stepped around him. In an attempt to slow her heart rate, she moved over to the sink and washed her hands.

“Still avoiding my touch, Hog?” he asked from behind her.

“At all costs.” She tried to keep her voice even, but it still came out shaky and a little breathless. “And don’t call me that. Only my friends call me that.”

“And just where in the hell do you think they got it?”

Confused, Hope turned back to him, her hands dripping water on the rag rug in the center of the floor. If it was possible, he looked even more dangerous than he had only moments before.

“You’re lying,” she stated with a firmness that she didn’t quite feel. “Slate made it up.”

Colt studied her for only a few seconds before he tipped his head. “Of course, Slate. Who else would come up with such a sweet moniker for his girlfriend?” He rested a shoulder on the frame of the barred door. “So what does he call Faith? Frog… or maybe just Wife.”

The arrow struck with a reverberating thunk.

“I’d shut up if I was you,” she growled.

His eyes widened with innocence. “What? Did I hit a sore spot? Is Hope Scroggs a little pissed at her twin sister for stealing her boyfriend?”

Forgetting about drying her hands, she headed for the door. Unfortunately, his big body blocked it.

“Get out of my way,” she ordered.

Colt shook his head. “Not until you fess up.”

“There is nothing to fess up to.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, bringing her attention to the tattoos that covered his arm from shirt sleeve to wrist. “How about being so pissed off your head is about ready to explode? You’re practically shaking from all the suppressed anger. So go ahead. Let it out. Scream and rant and rave about how your life has been ruined because Slate Calhoun, the hero of Bramble, found someone he liked better.”

“Shut up!”

“Or maybe he didn’t find anyone he liked better. Maybe he just got tired of waiting around for you?”

“The only thing I’m going to let out is how much I hate you! You have always been a burr on my butt, Colt Lomax, and you still are!”

Hope ducked under his arm and would’ve made it past him if he hadn’t grabbed a hank of her hair.

“Let me go!” she yelled, but he had always been a poor listener. He wrapped the strands around his fist and
reeled her in. Hope refused to give in that easily, and she stretched out and grabbed onto one of the bars. Unfortunately, the bar she grabbed onto was connected to the door, and as she was tugged backwards, the door slammed closed behind them with a loud clang.

Her hair was released.

“Did you…?”

Colt’s words hung there until Hope let out a high-pitched squeal.

“No!” She raced over to the bars and jerked on them, but they didn’t budge an inch. Not one inch. She searched around for the keys before she remembered that they were lying on the floor on the other side of the door.

She whirled around to let him have it, but stopped at the sight of him pulling his shirt up. It was hard to talk when confronted with a washboard stomach that she could play with a spoon.

“What are you doing?” she squeaked.

“Going to bed.” The shirt inched higher before she snapped out of her sexual haze and jerked it back down.

“Have you lost your mind? We have to find a way out of here!” She looked around the tiny cell for anything that would help her escape. But she could find no use for a Dixie dispenser, a pile of
Field and Stream
magazines, or a crocheted doll toilet paper cover. And what infuriated her even more was that he didn’t seem at all concerned about the situation, probably because he’d spent so much time behind these bars that it was like home to him.

“We?” He bounced down on the bed and propped his hands beneath his head, fortunately with his shirt still on. “Since I’m not the one who locked us in here, I don’t see how that’s my job.”

“No! You were just the idiot who caused me to slam the door in the first place!”

He shrugged. “All right, I’ll give you that one. So you want me to get us out of here?”

“Forget it!” She paced the cell, her slippers flopping. “Lord knows, I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“If you say so, honey.” He tugged the quilt up. “But could you turn out the light before you come to bed?”