Beau had been all smiles when he'd arrived at the house and relieved him of his bodyguard duties. When he'd taken Bonkers outside so he could do his business, Beau had walked around the yard with him, regaling him with all the minute details from the evening. He'd bent his ear with endless babble about Marissa this and Marissa that. His deputy was making a love struck fool of himself, Cruz decided, and it was starting to make him angry. He suppressed the urge to be nasty to Beau, reminding himself that he was a friend and an all-around decent guy. Truth be told, he wasn't really annoyed with his deputy. The source of his irritation was a five foot four scrap of nothing with a mouth that wouldn't quit. For some reason Beau thought butter wouldn't melt in her mouth and she was sheer perfection. He didn't know why Beau raving about his star witness bothered him so much, but it had gotten under his skin like crazy. Sure, so far she'd been low maintenance and pleasant, but it didn't excuse her past actions. It didn't get her off the hook.
At the moment he was hungry and tired. He was starving. A few scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese would take the edge off his hunger pains no doubt. As he walked into the kitchen the soft glow of the fridge let him know he wasn't alone. Marissa was standing in front of the fridge rummaging inside of it.
“What are you doing up?” he growled.
Marissa jumped at the sound of his voice, her eyes widening in surprise at the sight of him. She raised her hand to her chest and let out a ragged breath. “You scared me.”
She was facing him now. “I was thirsty,” she explained as she held up her glass of milk. “I didn't know you were home.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said in a strangled voice.
“Excuse me?” she said.
He took a step towards her. “I'm serious, Marissa. It’s late.”
“I just wanted some milk. Chill out.” She turned her back on him and placed the milk carton back in the fridge.
Marissa turned around and reached for her glass of milk then took several gulps with gusto. Cruz watched as she swallowed several times, finally letting out a satisfied sigh as she emptied the glass. She wiped her hand across her mouth, missing a spot of milk that lingered above her lip.
He continued to stare at her without speaking, his dark eyes mesmerized by how beautiful she looked in her pajamas and how innocent she seemed as she drank her cup of milk. Maybe he had misjudged her. At the moment she seemed like the girl next door.
He watched as she walked past him, pausing to graze her fingers across his intricate Native American tattoo imprinted on his bicep. “Interesting tattoo, Cruz.”
“Don't....touch me,” he said through gritted teeth.
Her mouth opened in surprise and she took a step backward. Hurt flashed in her eyes as she asked, “Why do you hate me so much?”
“I don't hate you,” he said in a clipped tone.
“Since when?” she asked with trembling lips.
He took one step forward so that his. He gazed into her eyes, noticing for the first time that they had golden brown flecks, so very different from his own obsidian colored eyes. He reached out and wiped away her milk mustache, gently tracing the shape of her lips before his fingers fell away. “If you don't leave now-.”
“What will happen?” she asked in a whisper.
Suddenly, they were staring intensely into one another's eyes. Awareness flickered between them.
Matt let out a groan, then lowered his head and placed his lips over hers. A sweet smell assailed his senses. Marissa smelled like flowers. Honeysuckle. Her lips tasted as sweet as nectar. Marissa was kissing him back with the same intensity. He felt her hands splayed across his chest, as if she was leaning against him to keep her balance. He pulled her closer, wanting the kiss to go on and on for an eternity.
Woosh. It was as if he suddenly came to his senses. He had no business doing this!
As the kiss ended, they both pulled away from each other. He wondered if Marissa felt as dazed as he did. What had he done? By kissing Marissa, he had violated his code of professional ethics. And he’d made things incredibly awkward between them.
They'd crossed some invisible line in the sand and they both knew it. Where did they go from here? They were still strangers to one another.
“You should probably get some rest,” he said lamely, desperate to fill up the silence.
“Goodnight,” she said softly as she padded away in bare feet, her movements quick and graceful.
After she'd gone he realized he'd missed his moment. A moment where he could've said something to her about the kiss. An apology perhaps? He was supposed to be guarding her, not getting romantic with her. Once again, she probably thought he was an insensitive fool. As he looked around the room he knew one thing for certain. He didn't think he would ever be able to look at his kitchen in quite the same way again.
Chapter Seven
Marissa woke up the next morning to the smell of frying bacon and scrambled eggs. For a moment she was too absorbed by the heavenly smell emanating towards the guest room to focus on the events of last night. All she knew was that her stomach was growling. Random images came flooding back to her – Matt's tribal tattoo, her drinking milk in the kitchen. That earth shattering kiss.
Dear Lord. How am I going to face him this morning?
Things had happened so quickly. One minute she'd been raiding his fridge and the next she was locking lips with him in the best kiss of her life. The shocking part was that it was with Matt. Cruz? No, Matt. She couldn't call him by his last name anymore. She couldn’t just refer to him as sheriff either. They'd kissed.Her cheeks started to flush as memories of last night came flooding back. The kiss had made her feel things she'd never experienced before.
When had he become Matt? She wondered. Probably when he’d kissed her. No, it was way too late to go back to calling him Cruz. It would feel too strange tumbling from her lips. From now on he was Matt. Matt Cruz. The name suited him. Rugged. Unyielding. Unique. Fierce.
She let out a groan. She couldn't avoid seeing him any longer. It was time to do the morning after walk down to the kitchen. When she'd left him last night it was an uncomfortable moment with neither one of them knowing what to say or do. He'd been dumbfounded. It had been written all over his face – the discomfort, the indecision, the awkwardness.
Once she made her way downstairs, she took a moment to watch him without him knowing as he puttered around the kitchen. Again, he was dressed casually in a pair of jeans that tightly clung to his muscled thighs. He wore a snug black T shirt and a pair of black, silver tipped cowboy boots. Heat burned her cheeks as memories of last night washed over her.
This morning he met her eyes without flinching. “Hungry?” he asked with a wry smile.
Marissa smiled back at him and rubbed her stomach. “My stomach is growling like a grizzly.”
“Good. I'm making omelettes. I've got several cheeses- American, Cheddar and Jack. Onions, peppers, ham, mustard, the works.”
“Cheddar cheese and ham, please.” She was practically drooling at the prospect of eating a freshly cooked omelette. She couldn't think of the last time she'd had one for breakfast. Due to her hectic schedule as a realtor, it was rare for her to have a sit-down breakfast. More times than not she ended up grabbing a piece of fruit, a granola bar and a cup of coffee. Hardly a breakfast of champions, she thought derisively.
When he handed her a plateful of steaming hot omelette, she thought she'd died and gone to heaven. “Where'd you learn to cook like this?” she asked between heaping forkfuls of omelette. “You can really throw down in the kitchen.”
“I used to cook for my Mom.”
“You said she passed away?”
“Yes. She's no longer with us,” he said in an abrupt voice.
Marissa could tell he was holding his emotions in check. A slight tremor in his jaw betrayed him. He placed the carton of orange juice firmly on the counter with a bang. He began clenching and unclenching his fists as he struggled to gain control over himself. He was a
warrior, she realized. He was a man who was used to being strong and untouchable. To the world he presented the image of the indestructible lawman, but she could plainly see he had chinks in his armor.
“I'm sorry for your loss,” she said softly into the silence. He looked at her and nodded, his eyes hooded and haunted. She wanted to press more, to ask him how and why his mother had passed away. But she couldn't – she wouldn't add to his pain.
“About last night.” Matt looked at her intensely, his raisin colored eyes dark and inscrutable. “I shouldn't have let that happen. The kiss. I'm duty bound to protect you, Marissa. I had no business crossing the line between business and -.”
“It was just a kiss,” she lied. Who was she kidding? As far as kisses went it had been spectacular.
She watched as he swallowed nervously.
“It's my duty to protect you, not to kiss you,” he said bluntly. “I've never compromised myself with a witness before and it's not something that can ever happen again.” Compromised?
He made it sound like a disease he'd been infected with instead of a romantic kiss.
He shrugged. “I was out having a few beers last night.”
“You weren't drunk, Matt,” she said in a sharp voice.
“Not drunk. Buzzed. Either way my judgment was impaired.”
“If you want to regret kissing me last night, regret it. But don't stand here and make excuses. It's cowardly,” she said in a bristly tone as she grabbed her empty plate from the table. “Just admit you enjoyed kissing a woman whom you hate.”
He reached out and grabbed her arm as she walked past, quickly releasing her as he remembered the last time he'd too tightly grabbed hold of her. It had been over a year ago when she'd helped Caleb and him with information regarding criminal actions that had been plaguing the ranching community. At the time he'd still been heated at her over the malicious gossip she'd helped spread across town about him and Aurelia. He'd reached out and grabbed her by her arm, holding on until Caleb had brought him to his senses. The recollection shamed him.
“I never hated you.”
Her mouth felt dry. She was practically shaking with outrage. “Are you kidding me? That night at Tumbleweeds you called me nasty and malicious. You said I was obnoxious and pathetic! It sounded a lot like hate.”
“I disliked you,” he admitted grudgingly. “With good reason I might add. I had no right to go off on you like that. It makes me crazy to think I was so out of control. I was mad and frustrated because of that rumor going around and I took it out on you.”
“I did not start that rumor!” she said heatedly. “Yeah, sure, I passed it on a few times. I mean, who wouldn't? The handsome sheriff romancing a woman in her eighties. It was hot gossip.”
“She was never my woman,” he said through clenched teeth. “Are you serious? She's old enough to be my grandma.”
“So what was she...your bingo partner?”
“She raised me, Marissa. When I was thirteen years old my mother was killed in a drunk driving accident. The drunk driver was my father. He'd been in and out of our lives since the day I was born. He came back to the Reservation just in time to reel my mother back in before going on a drunken binge and taking her life.” He shuddered and closed his eyes, taking a moment to collect himself before he continued. “I wanted justice. For my mother. For me. Nobody wanted to make him pay. Because it happened on the reservation he wasn't subject to the judicial system. They call it tribal sovereignty. He just got a pass. So I left. I set out on my own because I knew if I stayed there I would kill him with my bare hands. Aurelia...Mrs. Jenkins...she was married at one point to my grandfather. When she found out I was living on the streets she offered me a place to stay here in town. She fed me, clothed me and cared for me till the day I turned eighteen.”
“I've looked after her ever since. Once a week we get together for dinner and we catch up with each other's lives. We never imagined in a million years that people would think -.”
“That you were dating her?”
He let out a ragged sigh. “Yes, that I was dating her.”
She turned away from him as a deep feeling of shame rolled through her. Her stomach roiled with nausea as the full implication of what she'd just heard hit her like a ton of bricks. She'd help spread a false rumor about a goodhearted woman who'd taken a homeless young boy into her home. It was disgusting! She was shaking so badly all over, yet she fought the urge to sit down. She wanted to run away, to bury her feelings deep down inside of her so she wouldn't feel so shattered. She felt him reaching for her, and she fought him, unwilling to let him see her utter devastation. A haze of tears blinded her, and she couldn't see a thing, for which she was grateful since she didn't want to see the dark expression in his eyes.
“Please, don't cry,” he said as he wiped away her tears with his thumb. “You're much too beautiful to cry.” His hands were warm and inviting despite the fact they were callused and rough around the edges; She wanted to bury her face in them so badly, to seek a comfort she didn't feel she deserved.
She lowered her head so Matt couldn't catch a glimpse of her breaking down. “I'm so ashamed.”
“I've gotten over it. I forgive you.”
“Y-you shouldn't...I'm a blabbermouth. I didn’t start the rumor, but I passed it along.”
“You may be a blabbermouth, Marissa, but I don't think you have a malicious bone in your body. Before I met you, I have to admit, I thought you were this horrible person who started a vicious rumor that hurt someone I love. Now I know that's not true.”
He grabbed her by her chin and looked deep into her eyes. “If I hadn't forgiven you, I would never have kissed you.”
“You mean when you compromised your professional integrity,” she said with a hiccup through her tears.
For the first time since she'd known him, Matt threw his head back and let out a belly laugh at something she'd said. “Yes, when I was compromised.”
“I think we were both compromised,” she said somberly.
He wiped away the last vestiges of her tear with his fingers. “Yes, we were. And as much as I enjoyed it, Marissa, I can't let it happen again. It would jeopardize everything I stand for in this town. From this point forward it's strictly business.”
A smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she heard the words strictly business coming from Matt's lips. “And by the way,” he said as a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, “I'm very flattered that you think I'm handsome.”
***
He was falling. Hard. He'd suspected it when he’d turned down Grace’s offer of coffee and pie. A small, niggling idea of it had sprouted last night after they’d shared a kiss in the kitchen. But now it was absolute, for certain, definite, written in stone. He was falling for Marissa Santana. He'd known it in his gut the moment he'd seen her crying. A piercing pain had shot through him with the intensity of a bullet, leaving him in actual physical pain. It had hurt him to see her cry. And although he didn't have a clue as to how to stop her tears, he'd known at that moment that he'd give just about anything to soothe her sorrow. He'd sell his soul to make her smile. He'd climb mountains just to see her laugh.
It was a foreign feeling for him to feel so powerless and out of sorts. It was strange to care about a woman's feelings. He was used to no-strings-attached relationships with women! He wasn't into feelings! He wasn't into rescuing damsels in distress and giving them a shoulder to cry on.
It freaked him out that he'd reacted so strongly to a woman's tears. Marissa's tears reminded him of growing up on the Rez and seeing his mother constantly crying about his father. He remembered waiting outside her bedroom door and hearing the heartbreaking sobs coming from under the door. He winced as he remembered all her black eyes and bruises, all the domestic abuse she'd suffered at the hands of a selfish maniac. It was the main reason he'd gone into law enforcement. He'd wanted to put the bad guys away where they couldn't cause any more damage. The thought of a man causing physical harm to a wo
man made him want to hurt somebody. He'd grown to hate his father as a result of his mother's suffering. Through the years he'd seen some vicious things go down between them, the least of which were a few tears being shed on her pillow.
He remembered vividly asking his mother about the bruises on her face. It was his ninth birthday and his father had been raging about his mother buying him a birthday cake instead of a six pack of beer. It was the first time he ever remembered his mother challenging his father on anything. Usually, his word was law. She'd told him that it was their son's birthday and he deserved a special cake on his big day. His father's rage had been explosive. Without warning, he'd reached out and grabbed his mother by her arm, twisting her so violently that she came out of her shoes and stumbled to the floor. She'd been dragged into the bedroom where Matt had heard sounds of shattered glass, loud crashes and desperate cries. Although he'd tried to open the door it was locked from the inside. The noises of his father slapping his mother around had been unbearable torture. After a final crashing sound his father emerged from the room, sparing him no more than a passing glance as he stormed out of the dwelling.
Afterwards he'd ran into the room where his mother lay curled up in a ball on the floor. He'd recoiled as soon as he saw her beautiful face. Her eye was already swollen shut and purplish, resembling a garish Easter egg. She tried to shield her face from view, but he'd already seen it. In fact, he'd never forget it as long as he lived.
“You need a doctor,” he'd said. “I can go find Kuruk.” Kuruk was an elder who was sought after to provide spiritual and physical healing on the reservation.
“No, cantkiya, I'll be fine,” she’d whispered.
“Why doesn't he love us?” he’d asked as painful truths rained down upon him.
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