Page 18 of Dahlia Made A List

When he nodded me toward the passenger side, I gasped. “You’re gonna teach me to drive in this car? Wasn’t this car in a movie back in the day?”

“Smokey and the Bandit.”

My eyes fastened onto the giant gold thunderbird emblazoned in shimmering glory on the hood, on the smokey glass over the front seats. “Can we take those glass parts out? Of the roof?”

He froze, bent halfway into the driver’s seat, and I saw his lips twitch. The sight made that little flip happen again in my tummy. What kind of havoc would a full smile from Wyatt Weston set off?

Wordlessly, he leaned into the car, and I whipped the passenger side open to see what he was fiddling with. In another minute he’d unfastened a couple of latches and pulled the glass away. He set the insert against a counter running the length of the garage at the back before repeating the process on my side of the car.

I grinned, big and wide and happy. “This is going to be an amazing day.”

He didn’t speak as we climbed into the classic car, but instead cranked the beast up. I covered my ears against the roar of the engine echoing in the tight confines of the garage. He pressed the gas and we shot out, passing his truck and flashing through the toll booths and back onto the road. He accelerated and my body pushed against the seat, and I grabbed onto the door panel. I let out a little scream, and Wyatt shot me a quick look. I caught the little half grin tugging up the corner of his mouth.

The flutter in my chest had nothing to do with the car or our speed and everything to do with the man beside me. His hands, tanned and as big as the rest of him, wrapped around the steering wheel, and lined with thick veins and sinews that sang of strength and power. His ease in controlling the vehicle had me clenching my thighs and digging my fingers deeper into the bucket seat.

We’d traveled just a couple blocks when he turned into the tiny airport that served the Three Corners region. He turned again and we were on one of the long empty roads running the length of the airstrip. Wind whipped through my hair, brought tears to my eyes, but I couldn’t help but laugh as Wyatt accelerated again, faster and faster and faster. I stretched my hands up through the split top, fingers splayed wide and pushing against the rush of air, laughter falling from my lips.

Chapter Six

Wyatt

TheoldThreeCornersAirfield filled just over five hundred acres north of the drive-in. My Uncle J.T. used the local facility to fly between his place in Richland and the Pendleton family house. Every couple years, he’d threaten to build his own private strip until Hatter caved and accommodated whatever special request Uncle J.T. demanded when he got a wild hair.

Otherwise, the tiny airstrip catered to a handful of hobbyists, a hot air balloon company and the few folks who flew in every now and then to explore the Blue Ridge. And Bear Lester who piloted the bright yellow biplane currently parked in front of the last building in the row of hangars. I pointed us in his direction.

I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing with this woman sitting in the Firebird beside me, streaking down the T.C. Airstrip like any ol’ Thursday. Like I had nothing better to do with my time.

I liked simple. I liked my uncomplicated life. Not sex lists, knots and women with every shade of sherbet-colored hair.

Not women that made me feel like I’d swallowed a burning ember. An ember that burned low, but persistent, threatening to spread and scorch me from the inside out.

Simple. Uncomplicated. Private.

Her voice shattered the quiet. “When’s the last time you had sex?”

My fingers tightened around the steering wheel until my knuckles glowed white. The woman had zero filter.

“Let me rephrase that question, please. Are you seeing someone? What are they going to think about you spending all this time with me? Wait,” she said, turning to face me in the bucket seat. “How long is this learning to drive going to take? I signed up online for the roller derby tryouts in two weeks and they’re all the way over in Richland. And I have to find a car to buy, too.”

I pulled the Firebird up between Jimmy’s hangar and the next one down. I shoved out of the car before she could pepper me with more questions, and walked around to meet her at the passenger side. She pushed out, her chest brushing against my side as she straightened up. I tilted my head, stretching my neck against the shaft of desire her touch shot through me. Another woman, I’d see a move like that coming a mile away. The intentional touches, the practiced smile, the invitation in the eyes.

I had no idea how to read Dahlia Whitcombe, though. And that simple truth pissed me the hell off. “Let’s go.”

She trailed along beside me, her gaze darting one way and then the other. Like a kid in a toy shop with too many options. I sucked in a few deep breaths as we moved toward the old biplane to clear my head. Bear stepped away from the wing of his aircraft, wiping his hands on a dirty blue rag as he took in our approach. His mastiff, Orry, two-hundred and twenty pounds of lazy muscle, and the biggest fuckin’ dog I’d ever seen, supervised from the cut of shade under a wing.

Bear helped out around the airstrip. Did some mechanical work, manned the radio when Hatter needed a hand. We shook, my grip turning harder than necessary when his curious gaze dropped to the woman at my side.

“Wyatt,” he said, his eyes darting between me and Dahlia. “Workin’ on The Royal?”

“Not this morning.” I motioned to Dahlia. “This one needs to learn to drive. I’m thinkin’ of using the back loop, if no one’s out that way.”

He grinned down at her. “Better late’n never, eh?”

And the contrary woman who’d just finished asking me about my sex life grinned back at the asshole, pretty pink a flag on her cheeks, eyes flashing bright in the spring morning. I gritted back a growl.

“Right?” She stepped a pace away from me, pointing with pink-tipped nails toward Bear’s biplane. “Is that your airplane? I’ve never seen one with two wings before. And where do you sit?”

He laughed at her barrage of questions, motioning her closer. “Come on over. I’ll introduce you to Orry and show you my baby.”

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