one had both, plus he had the look of a Hamilton. She’d bet his eyes were that funny color gray of a wolf. “Anything else you want to educate me about motorcycles? I need to get these supplies home.”
“You wouldn’t want to help me pull my bike out?” he asked in a calmer tone.
“Nope. I don’t go on Hamilton land. There’s a curse. Anyone named Davis who steps foot on that land dies a violent death.” She didn’t add by a Hamilton bullet. Never give ideas to the insane.
“We all die sometime, lady.”
She stepped into her truck. “I’ll have to test the curse later. Good luck with your bike.” Thunder rolled over the land as if pushing her away. “I’m in a hurry.”
“Wait. I’m sorry. Let me try again. I’m Blade Hamilton and I’ve just lost a sixty-thousand-dollar bike in the mud. Forgive me for not caring about an old curse or your groceries.”
“You’re forgiven, Hamilton, but I’m not stepping on your land. The good news is that bike isn’t going anywhere. It will still be right there in the mud tomorrow, but if I get these supplies wet, we’ll lose a week’s income.”
Lightning flashed as if on cue. The blink of light showed off the skeleton trees dancing in the wind near the water. Dakota fought the urge to gun the engine. For as long as she could remember she’d always feared this land. It felt like Halloween night without a light.
The man didn’t seem to notice the weather or the creepiness of the place. Who knew—maybe Hamiltons were used to scary nights.
“Fine,” he said. “Any chance you’d rent me your truck? I just need it for ten minutes and I’ll pay you fifty.”
“Nope,” she said. “But I’ll loan it to you if you’ll help me get these supplies under cover before it rains.”
“Deal,” he said, and walked toward the passenger side of her old Ford.
“In the back, Hamilton,” she ordered. “I don’t want mud all over my seats.” She fought the urge to add or you near enough to strangle me. Her grandmother told her once that there was an old cemetery, way back on Davis land, where all the deaths were recorded on headstones. Died in childbirth. Death from cholera. Died in accident. Death by Hamilton.
Besides, she didn’t have time to clean all the property listings off her passenger seat. Her mobile office was always a mess. Four mornings a week, the farm truck was her business vehicle.
He swung up into the bed of the truck with the ease of a man who’d done it many times and she started backing up before he was seated. The sooner she was home safe, the better. She’d loan him the pickup and tell him to just leave the keys in it. He could cross the pasture and walk back to his place easily enough.
The road was bumpy between her land and his, but she flew toward home, not much caring if the man bounced out or not. Her people had always hated Hamiltons. They told stories about how mean they were and even though she’d been told they were all dead, she felt it her ancestral duty to hate this new one.
So, why was she loaning him her truck?
Dakota shook her head. It was the neighborly thing to do. Having a grandmother with Apache blood and an Irish grandfather had messed her up for life.
A guy she’d dated a few years back broke up with her because he said she had Apache skills with a knife and an Irish temper. She almost hit him for insulting both sides of her family, but then she would have proved his point. She’d told him this was the twenty-first century and she was a skilled chef like her sister, which wasn’t true, but it sounded good. He left before she cooked him anything and proved herself a liar, as well. She heard him mumbling something about being afraid to sleep beside her for fear he’d be carved and thin sliced if he snored. He’d called her hotheaded just before he gunned the engine and shot out of her life.
Dakota gripped the steering wheel, realizing the old boyfriend had been right. She did have a temper, but with a Hamilton riding in the back of her truck, now didn’t seem the time for self-analysis.
She could be nice. She’d loan Hamilton the truck, and when he brought it back she’d tell him to never step foot on Davis land again. Simple enough.
When she slid to a stop a few feet from the kitchen door of her place, she glanced back. He was still there and raindrops were spatting against her windshield.
She jumped out and ran to haul the boxes of supplies to the cover of the porch.
To his credit, he did his share to help. More than his share, actually, because he carried a double load with each trip.
The guy was strong and obviously well built. And a biker. Black leather jacket. Leather pants hugging his legs. Boots to his knees. His cowboy ancestors were probably rolling over in their graves.
In a few minutes they had the boxes on the covered porch and the rain started pouring down in sheets.
“We made it.” She laughed. “Thanks. No supplies got wet.”
“I’m glad I could help. I’m already soaked so the rain won’t bother me.”
She decided he didn’t sound like he meant it about how glad he was to help. Maybe it was the tone in his voice—it didn’t sound right without a Texas twang. She frowned at him, wondering what northern state he’d come from.
He looked down at her with his gray wolf eyes and added, “If you got wet, you might shrink and then you’d be about elf size.”
Dakota studied him a moment. No obvious signs of insanity. “You don’t have many friends, do you, Hamilton?” She tossed him her key. “Park the truck at the turnoff on my land. You won’t have as far to walk. Leave the keys in the glove box.”
“Aren’t you afraid someone will steal it?”
“Nope. Nobody but you.”
He nodded and disappeared into the downpour.
Dakota straightened to her five-foot-two height and frowned. “Sounds just like what a Hamilton would say,” she mumbled, thinking it was obvious the Hamiltons had been the ones to start the feud.
Elf size. No one had ever called her that.
LAUREN BRIGMAN STOOD in the shadows of hundred-year-old cottonwoods planted to slow the wind off the open plains. The lights of town were nothing more than a glow of tea candles in the distance.
The night’s breath rattled the dried leaves in the trees as it had a dozen years ago. She felt a hint of old fear creep over her as a memory circled in her mind.
Strange how you live thousands of days, thousands of nights but only a few live in your mind, in your heart, as clear as the moment they happened.
She stared at the home her high school friends had called the Gypsy House. An old woman who’d died there decades ago was almost a skeleton before anyone had come to check on her. After her passing, the house was left to rot and became the setting for ghost stories told
