Hidden Embers Read Online Free PDF Page B

would take them to get there?
    Or she could take care of the problem herself.
    As always, the second solution was the one she liked the best. Reaching for the ignition, she turned the keys. Her engine roared to life at the same time she hit her headlights. In an instant, the two idiots were bathed in yellow light, and she took a moment to note what they looked like—just in case. Then she revved her engine once in warning.
    When the jackasses didn’t take the hint, she rolled her eyes and crept forward. Bent rim, be damned , she thought. She’d rather pay for a new tire and rim than deal with these assholes for one more second.
    Cracking her window a second time, she snarled, “You have two choices. Get the hell out of my way, now , or get pancaked. And truth be told, I really don’t care which one of those options you choose.”
    The guys glanced at each other, but they were either stupider than they looked or they must have thought she was bluffing, because neither moved. Their loss. Shifting the car into reverse, Jasmine rolled back about ten feet and then hit the gas, aiming straight at the two men caught in her headlights.
    For one long moment they just stood there, staring at her with their mouths agape. And then they jumped out of the way. Chickens . But at least she had the satisfaction of knowing she’d clipped the one on the right with her bumper. If he wanted to go around hassling “helpless” women, he was going to have to get faster on the uptake—or suffer a hell of a lot of injuries.
    She didn’t stop the car even after the men jumped to safety. Instead she proceeded down the street toward the closest lit parking lot, her tire thumping out a warning the entire way.
    She sighed in relief as she realized the lot belonged to a bar, and judging from the number of cars parked there, it was still hopping. A glance in her rearview mirror told her the idiots weren’t following her; they must have decided to cut their losses. Good. She really didn’t want to deal with them any more that night anyway.
    After a quick call to the auto club informing them of her shift in location, Jasmine took a second to look around. The only people in the parking lot were the couple leaned up against the big red truck at the front of the lot, going at it for all they were worth.
    Still, she didn’t relinquish her hold on the pepper spray. A woman never knew when she needed the element of surprise—Jasmine had learned years ago, the hard way, never to go anywhere empty-handed. But after that last encounter, she’d decided that hanging out in the car until the tow truck arrived might not be the best idea—even in a relatively quiet little town like this.
    Grabbing her purse, she climbed out of the car and headed for the bar’s door at a fast clip. Her keys were in one hand, the sharp length of one jammed between her fingers as a makeshift weapon, and the pepper spray was in the other. She kept her head up, her eyes alert, and ignored the quick, staccato beat of her heart. The jerks who’d hassled her were long gone, she reminded herself, as she beat time across the parking lot. But that didn’t mean there weren’t more out there. She’d feel a lot better once she was inside.
    She hit the door a few seconds later, read the name scrawled across the top in neon lights. The Lone Star. It sounded like her kind of place.

    His beast went crazy the second she walked into the crowded bar. He wasn’t facing the door, didn’t even know who it was that had crossed the threshold—only that it was a woman and something about her had whipped his other half from its regular state of preternatural stillness into a near frenzy.
    As the beast struggled to burst through his skin, struggled to get to her, Quinn slammed on the restraints. Held them tight even as the thing fought against the unnatural captivity. Unlike a lot of the men in his clan, he and his dragon usually existed quite peaceably together, but judging from the way it was