The lights flared back on, and within less than a minute the small jet was airborne once again.
“Let’s load ’em up,” John called to the owner of the Dairy Farm whose private strip was often used for covert landings.
Raymond Hickley was one of those former friends John Walker Sr. rarely spoke of. Men who had helped him when he was younger, and were still there for him now that his children were in the county.
At fifty-five, still fit, and as redneck as they came, Raymond was proud to say he’d served his country without ever stepping off his farm.
John pulled open the back of the Denali and stored the luggage. He loaded the leather briefcase last, setting it to the side to ensure the x-rays it contained didn’t become bent.
“Dawg called while you were talking to your friend,” Raymond told him quietly after they loaded the luggage and the door was firmly closed. “He and his cousins and uncle will be at the houseboat this afternoon. He said don’t make them come looking for you. You should have known Dawg would glimpse that Lear landing and know whose it was. He’s smart like that.” The other man grinned at the warning he was relaying.
John grimaced. Just what he needed, a plague of Mackays descending on them.
At least they were waiting until afternoon. Enough time for him to get Sierra settled in and hopefully to catch a few hours’ sleep.
Opening the driver’s side door, he stepped into the vehicle, started it, then turned and stared at the too quiet young woman beside him.
“Well, lollipop.” He grinned at the nickname that suddenly snapped into his mind. The perverted reasoning behind it had his dick becoming instantly hard. “Looks like your running days are over, doesn’t it?”
He glanced at her, relaxing now, a sense of sudden balance invading that. That last measure of restlessness was easing now. He had Sierra back. Come what may, for the moment, she was his.
Her lips thinned. “It’s nice to see you again, too, John.”
She stared straight ahead, like the perfect little mannequin despite the edge of nerves in her voice. She better be nervous, because he was damned upset that she had run as she had. If she had stayed, if she had faced him, she would have been here with him rather than in an apartment without protection when a ra**st came looking for her.
She likely wouldn’t admit it. Yet.
“I bet it is.” He grinned.
This might end up being fun. Hell, yes, he was going to make damned certain it was going to be fun. She had a whole lot of time to make up to him, he decided. A whole lot of pleasure to fit into a very short amount of time if he knew his father. And if there was one person he knew well, it was John Sr.
Maneuvering the Denali to the now empty airstrip, he hit the gas and raced down the clearing to the farm road at the end of the strip.
“Don’t worry, you’re going to have lots of fun,” he promised her. “I intend to make certain of it.”
He could have sworn resignation pulled at her expression before it cleared once again.
She was quiet again. Too damned quiet. This wasn’t the Sierra he knew. She wasn’t quiet. She was either laughing or she was raging. There was rarely an in-between. Happy or angry, that was his Sierra. But this Sierra was a stranger. A woman who wasn’t even bothering to pretend to be the little troublemaker he had known all her life.
That was okay, though. Give him just another hour or so, and he was confident that the Sierra he knew would once again appear. He was going to make sure of it. If knew how to do anything, then he knew how to piss his Sierra off.
John’s father had told her that John was now living on a houseboat, but Sierra hadn’t exactly known what to expect when they pulled into the small Mackay Marina.
The houseboats there ranged in sizes, colors, and names, spreading out to the larger, almost home-sized crafts at the end of the docks.
“I can walk,” she informed him as he opened the passenger side and reached in for her. “There’s nothing wrong with my legs or my ability to move.”
It hurt though. Walking for more than short distances could leave her breathless with the pain that shot through her bruised ribs.
“Nothing but the bruises that went bone deep, you mean?” he grunted as he lifted her in his arms anyway. “Don’t argue with me, lollipop. The walk to the Nauti Dreams is a long one and you’re not used to the shifting of the floating docks yet.”
He picked her up out of the seat, turned, bumped his shoulder into the door to close it, then hit the remote lock.
He did it all so seamlessly, with such male grace and effortless ease that Sierra nearly sighed in envy. No man should be able to move so smoothly. She was already at such a disadvantage with him, he didn’t have to make things worse.
“The bruises are getting better,” she muttered defensively, even though she knew they were still extreme.
“I’m sure they are.” The comment didn’t do much to stem the rising nervousness building inside her.
There were times over the years that she had sworn she knew John better than she should, and she knew he was angry right now. She could see it in the hard set of his jaw when she glanced up at his face, the glitter in his violet-blue eyes.
Those eyes should give him a feminine appearance, but they did more to maximize his masculinity instead.
God, he’d changed so much. He wasn’t just darker, his hair lighter. His muscles were harder, his chest broader. She was beginning to wonder if he was even the same man she had known in Boston.
“Here we are.” He stepped confidently from the floating walkway to the deck of a two-story houseboat whose side was emblazoned with the words NAUTI WET DREAMS. The play on words would have had her eyes rolling if she weren’t so damned tired.
The sliding glass door swung open easily and John stepped inside to the dim, cool recess of the craft. Moving several steps to a large sectional couch, he set her down easily before staring down at her for long moments.
“Stay put,” he told her, his voice rougher than she remembered. “I’ll bring your luggage in then we’ll see about getting you some breakfast.”
“I don’t need breakfast.” She needed to sleep. Between preparing to leave, the stress, and the early morning flight, she was exhausted.
“You’ll eat it anyway,” he informed her, arrogance fairly oozing from his pores. “I’ll be right back.”
He would be right back, which meant she had very little time to shore up her defenses, and to hopefully find a way to keep her heart from being broken. Again.