“I really did not mind. I was honored that you would ask. Please do not hesitate to ask me again.”
“If I do, I’ll try not to keep you up until the early hours of the morning.”
She shrugged and slung her bag over her shoulder. “I slept more soundly here than I probably would have at home. Please do not worry.”
He smiled a little at that, but she could tell his eyes were still hollowed. What had happened?
“Do you have everything? Can I carry something?”
She wanted to roll her eyes when she realized he really did intend to walk her upstairs. “I have told you before, it is only two flights of stairs. I think I will be fine by myself. Get some rest.”
“I need to move a little bit after tonight.”
She nodded, understanding that sentiment. After that terrible time, she had needed to take long walks with Lauren, finding peace and comfort and a sort of meditation in the rhythm and the movement.
“Do you...want to talk about what happened tonight?” she finally asked.
“You don’t want to hear. It was ugly.”
She couldn’t help it. She rested a hand on his arm. “I am sorry, whatever it was,” she said quietly. “I can tell you are upset. If you were not, if you did not care and did not let the ugly touch you, then you would not be the good man you are.”
He gazed down at her hand, his features tortured. After a moment, he made a sound of distress, then he folded her into his arms and held on tight.
“Why are people so horrible to each other?” he said, his voice sounding raw and strained.
She had no answer. What could she say? It was the question that had haunted her for fifteen years. One she was quite certain she would never be able to answer.
She only held him tightly, as she had seen Lauren do for Daniel, and tried to give him a little of her strength. She wanted to whisper that she would not let him go, no matter what, but, of course, she could not say that. How foolish to think that she, Rosa Vallejo Galvez, could protect anyone from the storm.
“Sometimes they are horrible,” she agreed finally. “I do not know why. I wish I did. But more often people are good. They try to help where they can. I try to focus on the helpers instead.”
They stood in the front room of his apartment, holding each other as emotions seemed to pour out of him. He didn’t make a sound, but every once in a while, she could feel his shoulders shake as if it was taking everything inside him to keep from breaking down.
“Most of the time, I’m fine,” he finally said, his voice still strained. “I like to think I can handle just about anything. But this one was hard. So hard.”
“Tell me,” she murmured.
“It was a murder-suicide. A domestic. A father who had lost a custody fight because of drug use and mental illness. Instead of accepting the court ruling or trying to fix his problems so he could have visitation, he decided that if he couldn’t have his son, the mother wouldn’t, either. He shot the boy and then shot himself. The kid was only five. A kindergartener. Younger than Logan.”
At the despair in his voice, her heart cracked apart. She could only imagine how excruciating it must have been for Wyatt, who did everything possible to make his son’s world better, to witness this kind of a crime scene.
Aching for him, she could do nothing but tighten her arms around him. “I’m so very, very sorry,” she murmured.
He clung to her for a long time, there in the apartment, and she felt invisible threads between them tighten. Finally, he eased away, looking embarrassed.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lose it like that. I’m...not sure why I did.”
She suspected he had no one to share this kind of pain with since his wife died, which made her heart ache all over again.
“You hold too much inside,” she said softly. “It cannot be easy, what you deal with every day.”
“Yeah. Sometimes.” He studied her, his expression intense. “This helped. More than I can ever tell you.”
“I am glad. So glad. If you have another bad night, you know where to find me. Everyone needs someone to hold them when the world seems dark and hard.”
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome, Wyatt.”
Something flashed in his gaze, something hungry and fierce. “I love the way you say my name.”
All of the breath seemed to leave her in a whoosh. She swallowed as an answering heat prickled across her skin. “I do not say it in any way that is special.”
“It is. It’s unlike the way anyone else says it. Don’t get me wrong. You speak beautiful, fluent English. I wish I could speak Spanish as well as you speak English. But sometimes your native language comes through on certain words.”
The heat seemed to spread across her chest and down her arms. “I am sorry.”
“No. Don’t ever apologize. I like it.”
He looked embarrassed that he had said anything, even as the first hint of a smile lifted the edges of his mouth.
He liked the way she said his name. She couldn’t hear anything different in her pronunciation, but she wasn’t going to argue.
“Wyatt,” she repeated with a smile. “If it makes some of the sadness leave from your eyes a little, I will say it again. Wyatt. Wyatt. Wyatt.”
His smile widened, becoming almost full-fledged for a brief moment, and Rosa could feel those invisible threads go taut.
After a moment, his smile faded. “What am I going to do about you?” he murmured.
She swallowed again. A smart woman would leave this apartment right now, would turn and hurry up the stairs to the safety of her own place. “There is nothing to do. We are friends. Friends help each other. They lean on each other when they need help.”
He gazed down at her, his expression one of both hunger and need. “Do friends think about kissing each other all the damn time?”
Chapter Ten
Wyatt knew he shouldn’t have said the words.
As soon as they were out, he wanted a do-over. Not because they weren’t true. God knows, they were. He thought about Rosa Galvez constantly. Since the last time they had kissed, thoughts of her seemed to pop into his head all the time. She was like a bright, beautiful flower bringing happiness to everyone around her.
He was no exception. Thinking about her made him smile. Since he was thinking about her all the time, he was also smiling more than he had done in years. He knew it was becoming a problem when even other police officers had remarked on it.
Not that he really had anything to smile about. He and Rosa could not be together. Yeah, they had shared a brief, intense embrace. But that was the end of it.
If he could only get his brain to get with the program, he would be fine. But every single time he thought about her, he thought about kissing her. And every time he thought about kissing her, he tried to remind himself of all the reasons why it was not a good idea for him to kiss her again.
None of that stopped him from yearning. He wanted Rosa Galvez in his arms, in his bed, in his life.
In some ways, Wyatt felt as if he had been living in a state of suspended animation for the past three years, as if he had been frozen, like some glitch on one of Logan’s video games, while the world went on around him.
It wasn’t a good place, but it wasn’t really terrible, either. He could still enjoy time with his son, with his sister and her family, with his friends.
He handled his day-to-day responsibilities, cared for Logan, managed to do a good job of clearing his caseload. But whenever he thought about what the future might hold for him, all he could see was a vast, empty void.
Nothing had been able to yank him out of that emptiness. Even when his house caught fire, he hadn’t really been devastated, only annoyed at the inconvenience.
His own reaction had begun to trouble him. People had told him that a house fi
re was one of the most traumatic things that could happen to a person, but Wyatt had merely shrugged and moved into problem-solving mode. Where they would live, what he might change about the house as he was having crews work on the renovations.
Even something as dramatic as being displaced hadn’t really bothered him.
He could see now that his reaction had been a self-protective mechanism. After Tori’s shocking death and the vast grief that had consumed him, he had slipped into some kind of place where he did not let anything touch him deeply.
Now he felt as if kissing Rosa had somehow kicked him in the gut, jolting him off his axis—that safe, bland existence—and into a world where everything seemed more intense.
A few months ago, he would have felt sad about the crime scene he had dealt with earlier, but it wouldn’t have left him feeling shattered.
He was beginning to feel things more deeply and wasn’t at all sure he liked it. A big part of him wanted to go back to the safety of his inertia.
If kissing her once could jerk him into this weird place, maybe kissing her a second time would help set things back the way they were before.
Even as he thought it, he knew kissing her again was a stupid idea. That did not stop him from reaching for her, pulling her into his arms again and lowering his mouth to hers.
She made a small, surprised sound, but didn’t pull away. If she had, he would have stopped instantly. Instead, her arms went around his neck again and she pressed against him. She kissed him back, her mouth soft, sweet, delicious.
As she parted her lips and touched him tentatively with her tongue, he went a little crazy, all the raw emotions of the evening consolidating into one, his wild need for Rosa Galvez.
He deepened the kiss, his mouth firm and demanding on hers. He had to be closer to her. To touch her, to feel her against him.
She said his name again with that sweet little accented pronunciation, this time in a voice that was throaty and aroused.
He wanted to absorb it inside him.
He wanted to lose himself inside her.
His body ached with it, suddenly, the need he had shoved down for so long. He wanted to make love to Rosa Galvez right here in his living room. To capture her gasps and sighs with his mouth, to see her shatter apart in his arms.
Her breasts were pressed against him and he wanted more. He wanted to see her, to taste her. He reached beneath the hem of her shirt, to the warm, sweet-smelling skin beneath.
She shivered. The movement rippled over his fingers and brought him to his senses.
What the hell was wrong with him?
This woman had just spent hours sleeping in his easy chair to help him with his son and he repaid her by groping her in his front room?
He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, but he did his best as he dropped his arms from around her.
She was breathing hard, too, her hair loose from the messy bun she had been wearing. She gazed at him out of eyes that looked huge and impossibly dark.
She had been so sweet to him, so comforting and warm when he needed it most. He had been at the lowest point he could remember in a long time and she had held him and lifted him out of it. In return, he had let his hunger for her overwhelm all his common sense.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice ragged. “I don’t know what happened there.”
“Do not apologize.” Her voice wobbled a little bit.
“Are you...okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Her gaze narrowed, as if he had offended her somehow. “You only kissed me. I am not like some glass figure in my store falling off the shelf. I cannot be broken by a kiss, Wyatt.”
There was his name again. It seemed to slide under his skin, burrowing somewhere in his chest.
What was he going to do about her?
Nothing, he told himself again. He just had to suck it up and forget about the way her kisses made him feel alive for the first time in years.
“I’ll walk you upstairs.”
She didn’t argue, much to his relief. She only turned away, gathered her things and called to Fiona, then she and her dog hurried up the stairs.
Wyatt caught up with them on the second landing. The dog seemed to give him a baleful look, but he thought maybe that was just a trick of the low lighting out here in the stairway.
At her apartment, Rosa unlocked the door and opened it. “Good night.”
Before he could thank her again for helping him out with Logan, she slipped inside and closed the door firmly behind her.
Wyatt stood for a moment, staring at the beautiful woodwork on the door, a match to his own two floors below.
That was as clear a dismissal as he could imagine. She had literally shut the door in his face.
He couldn’t blame her. It was now nearly three and he knew she had to open the store early the next day, just as he had another shift.
He turned and headed down the stairs. He gripped the railing and told himself the shakiness in his legs was only exhaustion.
Something told him it was more than that. That kiss had just about knocked his legs right out from under him.
He was falling for her.
The reality of it seemed to hit him out of nowhere and he nearly stumbled down the last few steps as if the fabled ghost of Brambleberry House had given him a hard shove.
No. He couldn’t be falling for Rosa. Or for anyone else, for that matter.
He didn’t want to fall in love again. He had been through that with Tori. Once was enough, thanks all the same. These feelings growing inside him were only attraction, not love. Big difference.
Yes, he liked her. She was sweet, compassionate, kind. And, okay, he thought about her all the time. That wasn’t love. Infatuation, maybe.
He wouldn’t let it be love.
* * *
The next day, Rosa was deadheading flowers in one of the gardens when Jen drove up in her rickety car, now running but not exactly smoothly. It shimmied a little as it idled, then she turned off the engine.
Rosa waved and Jen and Addie walked over.
“Hello, there,” Rosa said. “How did the interviews go?”
“Good. Great, actually. The school offered me a job on the spot.”
“Oh, that’s terrific! We should celebrate. Have you eaten?”
“Yes. Sorry. Addie wanted a Happy Meal today.”
“No problem. Maybe we can celebrate later. I have a bottle I’ve been saving for something special.”
“It’s a deal, as long as it goes with your famous chocolate-chip cookies.”
Rosa had to smile. She had taken a plate down before she headed to the store and left them outside Jen’s front door.
“Can we help you with the gardening?”
“Yes. Of course. That would be great. Thank you.”
Addie frowned. “Why are you pulling all the flowers, Rosa? That’s naughty. My mommy says I can’t pick the flowers or they die.”
She smiled, charmed by the girl even as she felt a little ache in her heart. “I am not picking all the flowers. Only the ones that have finished blooming and have started to die. This way the flower plant has more energy to make new blossoms. You can help, if you want to. You just pop off the flower if it’s brown or the petals have come off and put it in the bucket there.”
“I can do that!”
Addie began the task, humming a little as she worked, which made Rosa smile.
“I have a confession,” Jen said after a few moments. “After my interview, I probably could have come in and worked this afternoon. Instead, I picked up Addie from day care early and we played hooky for most of the afternoon.”
“Good for you,” Rosa said, feeling a twinge of envy. “Did you do something fun?”
“Yes. It was wonderful. We made a huge sandcastle and then played in the water a bit, then took
a hike around the state park near Arch Cape.”
“Oh, I love that area. It is so beautiful and green, like walking through a movie, with all the ferns and moss.”
“Yes. Addie thought it looked like a fairy land.”
Oh, Addie was cute. She had such an innocent sweetness about her. Rosa hoped she could keep it forever.
“So,” Jen said after a moment. “You and Detective Gorgeous. Is that a thing now?”
Rosa, yanking out a nasty weed that had dug its roots in deep, almost lost her balance.
She could feel her face grow hot. “Why would you say such a thing?”
“I might have heard two people going up the stairs together in the early hours of the morning.”
Rosa could only be grateful they had kissed in his apartment and not in the stairway for her friend to overhear.
“So are you two...dating or something?”
She had a sudden fervent wish that she could say yes. The idea of doing something as ordinary and sweet as dating Wyatt seemed wonderful but completely out of reach.
“No. We are not dating. Only friends.” Who kiss each other as if we can’t get enough, she wanted to add, but, of course, she couldn’t say that to Jen.
“He needed someone to watch his son last night while he went out on an emergency police call. His sister is out of town and he did not have anyone else to ask. It was an easy thing for me to help him.”
Jen made a face. “Too bad. I was thinking how cute you two would be together. And it’s obvious his son likes you.”
Rosa could feel herself flush. She was coming to adore both Townsend males, entirely too much. “I am not interested in dating anyone right now.” No matter how gorgeous.
Jen nodded and carefully plucked away at a rose that had bloomed past its prime. “I totally understand that and feel the same way. I’m not sure I’ll ever date again.”
Her emphatic tone made Rosa sad. Jen had so much love inside her to give. It was a shame that one bad experience had soured her so much on men.
“Your husband, he was a good man, yes?” Jen and her husband had met after college and Rosa had only met him at their wedding, and the few times they had socialized afterward, before she moved to Oregon.
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