Beard burn, his ass. Yeah, he might have scratched her with his evening stubble, but he also remembered the little bite of her he had taken in the same place.
“Rogue dear, you need to come to Louisville for lunch,” Lucinda was saying as Rogue led them to their table. “We could have a girls’ day out. Go shopping.”
Wild violet eyes turned on Zeke as Lucinda turned her back on Rogue. Zeke wanted to smile, hell, he wanted to laugh. She looked horrified at the prospect.
“We could gossip,” Lucinda stated smugly as she glanced at Zeke. “Girl talk.”
“I’ll have to check my calendar, Lucinda,” she answered, though Zeke swore she looked a little pale at the invitation. “Janey keeps me pretty busy.”
“Well, I could have a talk with Janey.” Lucinda stared up at her victim complacently.
“You could even bring her with you. I never got a chance to get to know that girl. Her brother though, now he was a wild one. Somerset lost a fine bachelor when he married that agent of his.”
“Yes, I definitely agree,” Rogue agreed hurriedly. “I’ll send Janey out to you as soon as possible. You can discuss it with her. Though Alex does keep her fairly busy.”
Hell. Wrong statement, Zeke thought as he took his seat and saw the satisfaction on Lucinda’s face.
“Yes, a good man will keep you very busy,” Lucinda agreed. “Tell me, Rogue, who was the brute that left that charming little mark beneath your jaw?” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I hadn’t heard you were dating, dear.”
“I’m not.” Rogue cleared her throat. “It was an accident with my curling iron.” She twirled a curl nervously as she lied with zero guilt and a charming smile. “Nature isn’t always perfect. If you’ll excuse me now, Tabitha needs help.”
Rogue escaped, leaving Zeke to stare across the table at his aunt while Shane fought to hold back his laugher.
“I’m going to assume you have a reason for torturing Rogue,” he stated.
Lucinda’s eyes widened. “I wasn’t torturing Rogue, dear. I was merely chatting.” She looked to Shane. “Was I torturing the child?”
Shane shifted in his seat, glared at his father, and cleared his throat. “Maybe some,” he finally admitted, before Zeke received another of the boy’s accusing stares. “Maybe you should torture the guy that left the mark.”
Lucinda sighed. “If only I could learn for certain who did such a thing,” she said calmly.
“Why, I called everyone I knew since first learning of it this morning. Didn’t you hear me on the cell phone, dear?”
“I did.” Shane ran his hand over his shortened dark brown hair. “Hours’ worth, Aunt Lucinda.”
“Exactly.” Lucinda sighed. “And the only man that she’s even been known to speak with for longer than a few minutes was your father.” She turned innocent eyes on Zeke.
“You talked to her last night about her cousins’ deaths, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” Zeke answered cautiously. Damn Lucinda, she was like a shark on the scent of blood.
“Did she mention who she was dating?” Supreme innocence filled his aunt’s face. The look was frightening.
“Nope, and I didn’t ask her.”
He’d simply more or less ordered her not to consider dating anyone. He couldn’t conceive the thought of Rogue in another man’s bed. In the years she had been in Somerset, there had always been talk, especially after those pictures surfaced, but nothing serious.
“Not that I’m sure it matters.” Lucinda shrugged.
“Meaning?” Zeke was nearly pushing the words past his lips now. What the hell was Lucinda up to? Hell, she was dangerous. He should introduce her to that Homeland Security special agent, Timothy Cranston; Aunt Lucinda could teach him a thing or two about interrogation.
“Wrong question,” Shane muttered as Lucinda smiled again. That smile was known to make grown men whimper.
“Well, after those horrible pictures.” She sighed. “Well, a man has to be careful, doesn’t he?”
Zeke drew in a long, careful breath as Tabitha moved toward them. The waitress carried menus, and behind her one of the young waiters was bearing ice water.
“Aunt Lucinda,” he said softly. “We don’t want to continue this conversation.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Of course not, dear. Is she a very good friend of yours as well now?”
Friend. No, he had never called Rogue a friend. A fantasy. A temptation. The one thing he couldn’t have and wanted more than his next breath. They were more than friends.
They weren’t lovers. He couldn’t allow himself to step that close to her.
“Enough.” He stared back at her as Tabitha moved closer.
Lucinda sighed. Shane made that odd choking sound again as Zeke sliced his gaze to him. His son had his head down, his lips tight, but if Zeke wasn’t mistaken, that tight line threatened to turn to a smile. When Shane knew what the hell Lucinda was up to, and Zeke didn’t, it was time to worry.
But a part of him was fairly certain he knew exactly what Lucinda was up to. No one had seen a mark on Rogue’s neck before his visit last night, now, this morning, it was there, and obviously it had been seen by one of Lucinda’s gossip buddies.
He was going to have to be more careful with Rogue’s silken skin, he thought. It was tender, so damned sweet, and obviously he wasn’t nearly as careful with her as he had been with lovers in the past. Because Zeke knew better than to leave a mark. He knew better than to leave any proof that he had spent the night with a woman, that any woman held his attention. Especially considering the fact that Lucinda butted her nose into so much as the hint that Zeke could be involved with anyone.
She believed the only way he was going to be happy would be if he remarried. Despite her own unmarried state, Lucinda wasn’t happy unless everyone around her was enjoying connubial bliss.
As his father had once said, after Lucinda’s husband’s death, she had become damned strange. Fun. But strange as hell.
Silence filled the table as the waiter set water before them and Tabitha handed them their menus with her cheery little spiel on the chef’s specials. She took their drink orders, then moved away with a promise to return shortly for their dinner orders.“She’s a pretty little girl, Shane,” Lucinda piped up. “You could do worse.”
“No, I couldn’t,” Shane muttered. “She’s older than I am.”
“So?”
“I have a girlfriend,” Shane argued.
“So?” Lucinda pressed again.
Shane looked to Zeke with that inborn desperate plea of a son to his father to save him from drowning. Zeke stared back at him silently. The little brat had left him floundering on his own beneath Lucinda’s less-than-gentle regard. Zeke would be damned if he’d save his kid now. Let him see how it felt.
“His girlfriend is barely seventeen, Zeke. Tell Shane that’s too young.”
“That’s too young, Shane.” Zeke wished Tabitha would get back with the whisky he’d ordered.
“Is not,” Shane stated with a long-suffering sigh. “It’s just two years. It could be worse.”
Zeke stared back at him.
Lucinda tilted her head quizzically. “How could it be worse, dear?”
Shane’s lips twitched. “It could be eleven years.”
FIVE
He should stay away.
Zeke parked his pickup at the back of the bar, wondering why he bothered. There was no way to hide the vehicle, and everyone that knew him knew what he drove off-hours.
He shouldn’t be here.
Flexing his hands, he reminded himself that he was just here to check up on her, make sure everything was okay. Her Harley was still at the restaurant. She’d hired a cab to return home after closing rather than calling him.
Striding to the back door he hit the intercom button and waited. He could have gone through the front and right up her stairs, but damn if he wanted to listen to more of Lucinda’s questions tomorrow.
The locks on the door clicked, a second later the panel was pulled open and Rogue stood before him, still dressed in that short, checkered skirt and heels, and the thin camisole she had worn under the long-sleeved blouse earlier.
“What do you want, Zeke?” she asked, her voice low, wary.
She looked good enough to eat.
He was going to at least taste.
He didn’t answer her. Catching the edge of the door he pushed inside before wrapping the fingers of his other hand around her wrist. He closed the door, locked it, then looked back at the open office door and the light inside the room.
“Working?” He stared down at her as he felt the slow slide of his control eroding into the dust.
“Does it matter?” Her lips twisted mockingly. “Ready for another slap and tickle, are you?”
He ignored the accusation; instead, he moved toward the room, holding her wrist firmly and drawing her with him.
Stepping inside, he came to a hard stop, his eyes narrowing at the sight of the man lounging back on the couch that sat against the wall.
Cranston was short, portly, his brown hair thinning, his expression as innocent and as unthreatening as a child’s. It was a damned good thing Zeke knew just how devious and cunning the Homeland Security agent could be.
“Sheriff? You’re putting in some long hours, aren’t you?” Timothy Cranston rose from the couch, straightened his wrinkled jacket on his shoulders, and flashed Zeke a sly smile. “Rogue and I were just discussing the unseasonably cold weather.”
“No, we weren’t, we were talking about Zeke.” Rogue jerked her wrist from his grip and moved around him as Timothy chuckled at her revelation.
“Very well, we were talking about you.” He shrugged. “She has a very high opinion of you.”
“No, I don’t. I think he’s a prick,” she stated, a tight smile curling her lips as Timothy laughed again, his gaze thoughtful as it came back to Zeke.
“Good-bye, Agent Cranston,” Zeke stated, his voice harsh.
Putting up with Cranston’s bullshit wasn’t high on his list of priorities right now. He’d deal with him later; for now, he intended to deal with Rogue. The teasing little minx had flitted around the restaurant, like a flame- haired seductress while he had been there. Half the men in the restaurant had been panting over their meals, the other half were probably home jacking off to visions of lifting that little skirt over her ass and paddling it for driving them crazy. That was definitely what he would have been jacking off to. If he’d had the good sense to go home.
“Well, I can tell when I’m no longer needed.” Timothy adjusted the front of his suit jacket over his chest before picking up the overcoat he had laid on the couch beside him.
“Good night, my dear.” He nodded to Rogue before turning to Zeke. “Later, Sheriff.”
“Much later,” Zeke assured him.
Timothy smiled again, one of those amused, condescending curls of the lips that never failed to raise Zeke’s hackles.
He had issues with the agent, serious ones, that weren’t being resolved anytime soon.
He’d been working with Timothy Cranston for ten years now to break the Freedom League and its hold in the Kentucky mountains. What had he gained for his efforts? In the past two years, two operations had been conducted in Pulaski County that Zeke had been kept in the dark about.
He didn’t appreciate it. And now, six months later, he and Cranston were still at a stalemate over it.
“Soon,” Timothy corrected as he shrugged his overcoat on and moved around Zeke to the open door. “Very soon, Sheriff.”
The agent at least had the consideration to close the door behind him. Zeke went one better and locked it before turning back to Rogue.