Wanna Bet? Read online

  He pulled back and cleared his throat noisily. Shaking his head, he scowled at her. “If you’re trying to distract me, you’re doing a good job, but kissing will have to wait.”

  “No, I think we’ve done all the kissing we’re going to do,” she countered.

  Reviews of Chula Stone’s Books

  Wonderful love story, action, mystery lots of spanking. Knight in shining armor, friendship…

  ~ Laurel

  What a heart warming romance! The plot and characters are very well written with a lot of detail! My heart was invested in Travis right away, and Amber, although she had some issues of her own, was the perfect match for him. This is one I will read again for sure.

  ~ SH

  Once I started reading this story didn't want to stop reading until I had finished the story. I liked that the spankings were part of the story and made sense to the story. If you enjoy a domestic discipline period story that is also suspenseful you should read His Naughty Bride.

  ~ CJW

  Wanna Bet?

  Chula Stone

  Ever

  After

  Press

  Chapter One

  She saw him across the room in spite of the noise and confusion of the restaurant. Most sports bars like this were not so big and open. She wished this one weren’t, either.

  “I’ve got to leave,” she told her friends.

  “Jenny, what’s wrong?” Sarah asked.

  Try to recover. Get yourself together. This is 1990, not 1890. There’s nothing to be so embarrassed about. “I…uh, I may have left the burner on the stove on.” It could be true. I might have…I know I didn’t do any such thing, but if he sees me, I’ll die of embarrassment so I have to say something. I have to get out of here.

  Pushing past her friends as they waited for a table, she said to the hostess, “Just six now. I can’t stay.”

  She made it to the pavement outside before the big man caught up with her. She tried to keep going, but that was pretty impossible when 230 pounds of determined male were blocking the way.

  “Please don’t be alarmed, miss,” he began. “My name is Jeep and I’m…”

  “I know who you are. He sent you.”

  “Yeah,” he answered, visibly relaxing. He gestured with his hand, obviously expecting her to turn around.

  “I’m not going back. He sent you to me. I’m sending you back to him. I know you’re a bit big for a carrier pigeon, but…”

  “What?” Again with the gesture.

  “What’s with the signal pole? I’m not a train track crossing. Excuse me.”

  He smiled. She couldn’t tell whether he was chuckling at her lame humor or her patently futile attempt to thwart his intentions. But it was unexpected all the same. It totally changed his face. As big as he was, that grin seemed to melt him down to a manageable size.

  “Can’t do that, miss.” His formality was back. “Mr. Tobin requested me to bring you to him.”

  “Kicking and screaming? Even in that melee in there, I think it would be noticed.”

  His mood pendulum swung back to pleasant. Even in the darkness of the fall evening, she could see it clearly.

  “Not so sure about that. I could be a rowdy fan celebrating a touchdown.”

  He took a step toward the bar, but since she didn’t move, it brought them closer together. He looked down at her and the smile faded again. She could hear his intake of breath. It took all her will to stand her ground.

  He tried again. “Please, miss, don’t make this hard on me. It’s my job. I’ll get in trouble if you don’t come talk to him. You don’t need to be afraid. What’s he going to do? It’s a crowded bar.”

  “And this is a crowded street, but if I go back with you, I’ll be doing something I don’t want to do. That isn’t a good sign.” She hated the fact that he knew she was afraid, but at his size, she knew he was probably used to people being afraid of him. Not to mention his job. When you worked for Sentry Security, she figured, most of the people you met would be either afraid or stupid. She’d been the stupid when she’d first met Tobin. Now she was just the afraid.

  “I’ll be there the whole time.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel safer? As you just pointed out, this is your job we’re talking about here.”

  Now the affability was replaced by affront. How that strong of a jaw, that wide of a cheek, and that broad of a brow could manage to convey affront, she didn’t know. “Job or no job…”

  Because Jeep was so big, Jenny didn’t notice anyone else on the sidewalk with them until he was close enough to startle her. “Mr. Tobin!” Jenny cried. He was the last person she wanted to see out here on this street full of people who might gossip to her friends or parents. If she had known he was that determined to talk to her, she would have gone back into the bar with this giant and gotten it over with.

  “Hello, Jenny, my dear. And it’s ‘mister’ now? Surely you can remember I asked you to call me ‘Tob.’” He looked at Jeep and continued, “What’s the matter, Jeep? I’m not used to having to chase people down on the street. That’s what I pay you for. I thought maybe Chalk had—”

  “Chalk?” Jenny interrupted. That name snagged her stomach and pulled it to her throat. “You mean, the same Chalk I read about in that file?”

  Jeep rolled right over her question. “No, Mr. Tobin. Sorry you had to come out here. She just didn’t want to come.”

  It was Tobin’s turn to look offended. “Why ever not?” His faint, upper-crust English accent became more pronounced with surprise, Jenny remembered.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Tobin.”

  “I’m right here,” she began. Though I wish I were anywhere else, she thought. The dentist’s chair comes to mind as a more comfortable spot. “So I can answer your question. I don’t want to come because I don’t want to see you again. I’m embarrassed, as you must be able to tell.” She knew that her face must resemble a stop sign and there was a freight train running through her ears. Backing up, she stepped on Jeep’s toes and jumped off them into the street.

  Reaching out to grab her, Jeep’s arm pulled her back onto the safety of the sidewalk and then curled around her protectively. “Job or no job, I wouldn’t let anyone hurt a by-stander such as yourself.”

  “Hurt?” Tobin continued, “No one is going to hurt anyone, Jenny. And you have nothing to be embarrassed about. You didn’t want to sleep with me. End of story.”

  “It was our first date!”

  Tobin’s blank look told her he was used to doing exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, and with whoever he wanted, but her world didn’t include such shenanigans.

  She tried again. “I just don’t—”

  “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Water under the bridge, my dear. Come back to my table with me and I’ll explain why I wanted to see you. I only want to warn you—”

  “No! I’m not going back in there. I’m going home!” Matching action to word, she freed herself from Jeep’s relaxed grip and stalked quickly down the street.

  “Where are you parked, then? I’ll walk you to your car and tell you about Chalk. It won’t take long,” Tobin called after her. She could only hope that he had finally given up on pursuing her. Now if only this Jeep person would do the same.

  “Out here on the street, Mr. Tobin? This isn’t the best neighborhood,” Jeep advised.

  Tobin replied, “The lady won’t come in and she has to be told.”

  “I can tell her. You can go back inside and enjoy the game.”

  When she heard that last comment, Jenny sneaked a glance over her shoulder in time to catch Tobin pointing to Jeep and then to herself. She glimpsed Jeep’s acknowledging touch of his temple in a kind of discreet salute before she turned again and doubled her pace, wonder
ing why men had to be so dramatic, with their little signals. Couldn’t they just keep talking? Then I would know where they are. I’m not sure that big guy is going to—oh!

  “Look, miss, sorry to startle you, but there’s no need to walk so fast. Especially in those heels.”

  “How did you catch up so fast?”

  “I’ve got long legs. Thought you might have noticed that. And I wear shoes made for walking. You’re easy to catch in those skimpy pumps. You’ll need to be more careful.”

  “Never mind my shoes! Do you have to notice every little thing? Oh, forget it! I just want this to be over. Tell me whatever it was Tobin said you needed to warn me about and go away.”

  She picked up on the scowl on his face before he answered. “Mr. Tobin is being extra cautious right now because a bad guy he put away nine years ago is out on probation. His name is Frank Chalk and he’s a real…well, he’s nobody I’d want you meeting.”

  The way he put that gave her pause. Why did he care whom she met? “Why should I meet him? He doesn’t know me.”

  “He knows Mr. Tobin and is having him watched. This morning at the office, we got a plain brown envelope hand-delivered. In it, there were several pictures of Mr. Tobin in different places with different people, all taken when we didn’t know he was being photographed. You were in one of the pictures.”

  All the color of the moments before cascaded out of Jenny’s face. Her energy and nerve went with it, flowing out of her and landing in a puddle on the sidewalk that she nearly nosedived into. Jeep’s arm went out again to steady her.

  “But how…? I hardly know him. We only went out that one time and I shouldn’t have even done that. I mean, really! Dating the boss? How does that look?”

  “You were a temp at the reception desk just one day, right?”

  “Yes. It was summer vacation and I was waiting for school to start so I could begin my time filling in for a teacher on maternity leave. I only ever worked the one day at Sentry.”

  “Well, you weren’t really an employee after that one day, so I don’t see what’s so wrong with you going out with Mr. Tobin.”

  And you also probably don’t know why I understand exactly how dangerous this whole situation just became. I wish I had never read that folder on Chalk and the other one on VanDyke. It was none of my business. If I had just been lazy and kept to the duties they had assigned me, I would never have caught that error. I would have never come to the attention of the boss. He would have never asked me out. I would have never entered their world.

  “What was wrong with it was that I was out of my league. I’m a substitute teacher, for crying out loud! I don’t have anything in common with that kind of…you know…wealth, power, whatever.” She waved a vague hand at the bar to indicate Tobin.

  “If he only dated other women with his kind of wealth and power, he’d be one lonely man, miss. But listen, my Suburban is back this way. Let me drive you home. It’s too far to be walking like this.”

  She turned to look up at him with suspicion. “How do you know how far it is to my apartment? I never mentioned where I live. And how do you know I don’t have my car parked at the bar?”

  “You dated Mr. Tobin.”

  “And you checked me out. You know I hardly ever drive there.” Comprehension did not bring comfort.

  “As you say, it is a different world.”

  “And I want no part of it. That was my church group I was with. I like to bowl, for crying out loud. Why am I still dealing with the likes of him? It was just one day’s work and one date. And what’s he doing in a sports bar, anyway? Shouldn’t he be at some kind of yacht club or something?”

  “Mr. Tobin goes where he wants to go. It might surprise you where he spends his time.”

  She tried to turn left and ran right into him. He steadied her with his hands on her shoulders and she couldn’t understand why it no longer made her nervous to be near him. “We need to go this way.”

  “Not down this little alley. The main road is better lit.”

  “It’s shorter this way.”

  “Then let me drive you. You don’t need to be walking alone at night around here.”

  “I always go that way.”

  “You don’t anymore.”

  If he had sprouted purple fur, she could not have looked at him with more incredulity. “Chalk?” That brought her back down to earth with a thump. “Chalk.”

  “Already forgot about him, huh? I know by the way you turned white a minute ago that you know how serious this situation is. You can’t be forgetting like that. Not ‘till we put him away again.” He seemed to consider something and then added, “Actually, you can’t be taking dark alley shortcuts even after we put him away again.”

  She dismissed that comment with a roll of her eyes and a little whiney sound. Walking on, but taking his well-lit main road, she plowed on. “So you’re going to try to put him back in prison?”

  “Sure. We have to. He’s got too big a grudge against Mr. Tobin to be left on the loose like this. Mr. Tobin doesn’t like having to keep a guard with him all the time.”

  “I was wondering about that. I mean, he didn’t have a bodyguard when we…”

  They walked on in silence for another moment before he answered, “When you went out? No, we had our eye on Chalk but he hadn’t made any real threat then, so Mr. Tobin was just using normal precautions. But why are you so embarrassed about your date with Mr. Tobin?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “With me, you mean?”

  “With anybody!”

  “You’re blushing again. Not many women blush anymore. I think it’s cute.”

  Her hands went to her face, as if she could cover her blazing cheeks. “I think it’s ridiculous, but there it is. It’s not something I can control. It’s just another proof that I don’t need to have anything more to do with your world. Here, we have to turn off the main road sooner or later. This is the biggest cross street.”

  They turned left and he answered her after another moment. “Mr. Tobin’s world isn’t my world. I just work for him.”

  “Yes, but…take my word for it. Your world isn’t my world, either.” She didn’t know why she was having this conversation with a total stranger.”

  “It could be. Can I call you sometime?”

  “No, I learned my lesson.” Here she paused, totally at a loss. “I don’t know you from Adam.”

  “Sure you do. We met at work.”

  “I worked there one day!”

  “So? It was still work. And we have a mutual friend.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Tobin.”

  “Oh, please!”

  “Anyway, we have something to discuss. I need to bring you up to speed on the Chalk case. And I need to take a closer look at your security arrangements.”

  She gave him another of the purple fur looks. “What?”

  “To make sure you’re safe. Just until we catch Chalk.”

  “Look, I don’t want to be ‘up to speed’ on the Chalk case and I don’t want your help with my ‘security arrangements.’ I haven’t got any security arrangements for you to take a look at, close or distant. Now, please just leave me alone.”

  “I’m sorry to intrude, then, miss.” His injured tone had her regretting her impulsive words. “But it is my job, as I said before. If anything happened to you, it wouldn’t reflect well on Mr. Tobin.” Something told her he had more on his mind than professional concern, but she couldn’t figure out what.

  She stopped and turned to him at the steps to her apartment. “This is my building. You can’t come up.”

  His answer was muffled as he turned his head this way and that, obviously watching the street for a tail, she imagined. It sounded something like, “Wanna bet?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said I’ll need to come into your apartment to make sure it’s safe before you go in.”

  You said no such thing, she thought, but let it go with another r
oll of her eyes.

  “Do you always roll your eyes like that?”

  Startled, she asked, “Like what?”

  “I notice things. Don’t be so surprised.”

  Suddenly, and she had no idea how it happened, he had her keys in his hand and was slipping inside the door, signaling for her to wait. He looked around the small entry hall, then stepped back for her to enter.

  When she hesitated, he took her hand and gently pulled her in. “Hey!” she protested.

  “What?”

  “I’m not a three-year-old.”

  “Then stop acting like one. Get in off the street and let me get you settled inside so I can get back to work.”

  “I thought this was work for you.”

  “It is.” The look he gave her dared her to ask him anything else. She wasn’t feeling anywhere near daring enough for that. “And when I do a job, I do it right. So I need to get this done and get back to Mr. Tobin.”

  “Do you keep saying that name just to see me blush?”

  “You’re doing it again.”

  “What?”

  “Making this personal. Making me feel like a human being. Make up your mind. You can’t have it both ways.”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “Most people treat me like a piece of furniture. I’m there for a reason, not for fun, so I understand that. I’m just the guard. I’m a tool, not a real person. But you…you treat me like a person one minute, then push me away the next.”

  She slumped. “That’s what I mean when I say I’m not in your world. That’s just the way I am. I treat everyone like a person. They are a person. I mean, they are people. I mean…oh, can’t I just be nice without you thinking anything else is going to happen here? And what are you doing in my bedroom? See, this is just the sort of thing—”

  “I’m not in your bedroom. I’m checking out your apartment.”

  It’s all one room, she thought. What’s to check? “But you’re near the bed area and that’s the closest thing I have to a bedroom, so I’ll thank you to get out of it. It’s not…”

  “It’s not what?”

  “It’s not proper for you to be there. Or here at all!”