by Wendy Warren
No. That was way too tame a comparison. She didn’t feel like a bottle of apple cider; she felt like a woman who knew exactly what she wanted. And what she wanted was Sheriff Derek Neel—out of uniform, thank you very much.
A millisecond after that thought, his hand settled on her waist, and lust erupted inside her, like a long-lost friend she hadn’t expected to see again. Turn around. Let him know what you’re feeling. That’s how this is done.
She looked behind her, and the moment they made eye contact the inferno spread, heating the space between them. Suddenly Willa was ravenous, but not for dinner. The feeling was frightening and exhilarating and wonderful.
“Knish?” A Pickle Jar employee stood behind the counter, a smile on her pretty, young face, and a fat square pocket of golden dough balanced on the spatula she held out. “Happy Birthday, Willa,” she said brightly. “I’m so glad I could come tonight. Do you want meat or potato?” She nodded to the knish.
Derek’s hand fell away, leaving a void that acted like a rush of cold wind to cool Willa down. She answered the question then struggled to make small talk. When she glanced at Derek again, he was listening to Ray, the barber, complain about the new construction in town wrecking the “legitimate authenticity of original structures.”
Derek looked over at Willa, his expression impassive. He gave her one slow wink. It was all she needed to begin counting the minutes until her birthday party was over and the main event of the evening began.
Chapter Eight
The full moon peered down from behind a misty cloud cover as Derek helped Willa out of his squad car. Foggy breath mingled and hovered between them under the old-fashioned iron street lamp as the evening’s first fat flakes of snow began to float to the ground.
When Willa tilted her face up, Derek caught the childlike wonder in her smile. “I never get tired of the snow,” she said. “We haven’t had enough.”
“That’s unusual around here.” Ordinarily he thought an inch or two of snow was plenty, but seeing her expression and the flakes of snow that clung to her hair could make him revise his opinion. “Some years, we’d be up to our ankles in it by now.”
Together, they stood on her sidewalk, watching the snow begin to dance and swirl around them in the circle of lamplight. The happy, relaxed sound of Willa’s sigh burrowed into Derek’s heart.
“Really, I don’t mind going out and getting my car,” she offered. “We should probably do it, before the streets get super slick.”
And end this moment? “Nope. It’s late, and you don’t have snow tires. Besides Dan Bowman really wants to throw in a lube job. He’ll have your car here first thing in the morning. It’s his birthday present.”
“You’ve gotta love a small town.” A poignant smile made her face shine. “I can’t thank you enough for throwing me such a wonderful birthday party.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad you had a good time. Gilberto was so happy that we actually managed to surprise you, he told me he’s going to throw parties for a living.” They’d dropped the boy off at his cousin’s house before heading to Willa’s, and he’d jabbered the entire way.
Willa giggled, the first time he’d heard that particular sound from her. “I know.” She nodded. “He was so excited and so full of sugar, I wonder if he’ll sleep a wink tonight.”
Derek touched a snowflake that landed on the tip of her nose. It was all he could do to keep from threading his fingers through her gorgeous red waves. “How about you?” His murmur produced another puff of cloudy breath. “Are you tired?”
Her eyes were wide, her smile knowing and somewhat shy when she assured him, “No. Not a bit.”
He took her elbow, and they headed up her porch steps.
Willa’s home was one of the post-WWII cottages that were typical in this area, with a steeply pitched roof and a wide porch that spanned the front and two sides of her house. Matching wooden keg planters with large winter cabbages and a few hardy pansies in purple flanked her front door. The taupe-color siding appeared to have been recently painted, as did the black shutters framing the windows. Off to one side a two-seater swing hung from the porch’s ceiling, and beside it, at first glance Derek thought he spied a bronze floor lamp. Closer inspection revealed that it was the kind of outdoor propane heater used to warm restaurant patios.
He gestured in its direction. “You use this thing much?”
“All the time.”
“This time of year?”
“Especially this time of year.”
“You’re kidding.” He took several steps to better look it over.
“No. I love to see the stars on a clear night. Makes me feel closer to...” she shrugged and looked wistfully into the misty heavens. “Nature, I guess.”
Derek watched her face angle toward the cloud-filtered moonlight. What did she see that drew such pensive thoughts?
Giving her head a shake, Willa stepped over to plug in a strand of star-shaped twinkle lights that rimmed the porch ceiling. “This is how I combat a cloudy day,” she explained, switching on the propane heater. Suddenly, an orange light cast a pool of warmth, transforming her porch into a cozy room. “Hang on a minute,” she said, a mischievous note in her voice as she unlocked her front door.
Since he wasn’t invited inside, Derek used his time unobserved to glance around the porch. Noting homey touches that spoke of the hours she spent here, he walked over to examine a forgotten book that sat on a small table next to the swing. He picked up the slim hardcover, running his thumb across the title. Coming Back from Grief. A bookmark stuck out one third of the way into the pages.
It didn’t take a private investigator to understand that Willa was trying to heal. But from what? Replacing her reading material, he ambled to the opposite end of the porch and looked out across the street, his mood taking a sharp downturn. Would she ever feel safe enough to confide in him? He suspected some of the answers to the Willa puzzle were inside the house. Is that why she hadn’t invited him in? Briefly, he thought about following her inside, but before he could act, Willa reappeared carrying two beach towels and a large Pendleton blanket.
The unspoken invitation to stay softened his sudden grumpiness. “Beach towels?” he asked. “In the middle of winter?”
“Feel,” she invited, holding the pile out to him.
“They’re warm.”
“I keep them hanging on a quilt stand in front of the radiator.”
After she’d arranged the towels on the plump outdoor swing cushions, she sat and gestured for him to join her under the toasty wool blanket.
The swing creaked as they settled on it.
Tucking the warm blanket all around their shoulders, Derek deliberately pressed his thigh against hers. She didn’t move away. In fact, she leaned against his arm as she arranged the blanket over their laps.
Derek arched a brow at her. “So this is what it means to be snug as a bug in a rug.”
“Yup. Magical, isn’t it?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Illuminated by the heat lamp and twinkle lights, Willa’s skin glowed, as smooth and creamy as peach ice cream, and her eyes sparkled with enjoyment, for once undisturbed by shadows from the past. “You’re magical.”
To his own ears, Derek’s voice sounded as thick and warm as the wool that wrapped them both in one cocoon.
Beneath the cover, he reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers. Her smile deepened. All along his left side, their bodies touched. The snow was swirling out of the sky with increasing gusto, coating her lawn and the grove of trees across the street. The weatherman’s report that Derek had seen earlier said they’d get five or six inches tonight. He was glad she wouldn’t be out driving in it. The first day of real snowfall each year equaled fender benders and worse. Before morning, he would no doubt get a call or two requiring him to lend a h
and directing traffic around someone in a ditch.
For the time being, he didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to think about going anywhere. This was perfect.
Around them, the world fell silent except for the dulcet hum of the heater, and off in the distance a train whistle sounded its haunting song. The train’s rumble gently vibrated the floorboards.
Slowly, Derek reached out from under the blanket to pull a snow-dampened strand of hair away from her cheek and lower lip. He’d been dreaming about her every damned night for a year. He inhaled as his desire for her surged.
Easy now. Take it slow.
The muscles in his jaw worked with the effort it took to relax.
A sigh, so light that only her misty breath told him he hadn’t imagined it, made him lean closer. His resolve crumbled like the walls of Jericho. She was completely intoxicating. Giving into the heady rush of adrenaline that rocketed through his gut, he released the fingers he held beneath the blanket, cupped her jaw in his hands and pulled her mouth firmly beneath his.
He’d promised himself that tonight would be his very last attempt to woo her. Yeah, he’d said it before, but this time... If she rebuffed him now, he would force himself to move on in spite of the fact that he was pretty convinced this woman was his destiny.
Immediately Derek sensed this kiss was different—hotter and more urgent than the others had been. Relief flooded every cell as she kissed him back with the same passion he felt, and soon, like a door opening on a flaming backdraft, they were consumed. Cold noses, warm lips and tongues, their lungs laboring—it felt to him as if they had stopped being two distinct individuals and instead were one heart pounding with want. With need.
One kiss became two, then three. Derek took Willa into his embrace, her lower back resting against his lap, her shoulders cradled in his arms. Their kisses gave way to guttural whispers shared in the hushed snowfall.
“I haven’t made things easy on you, have I?” She stared up at him.
“Hell, no.”
Willa traced his lips with gentle fingers, which nearly drove him mad. “I’m sorry.”
He kissed the tip of her nose, her jaw and an apparently sensitive spot beneath her ear. “You’re forgiven.”
She looped her arms around his neck. “Thank you for hanging in there with me. You know, for being so patient and persistent.”
“You’re worth the wait.”
“You, too.”
Derek allowed himself to bask in this victory. Pulling her more firmly against his chest, he murmured against her hair. “I could sit here like this forever.”
Willa leaned back, pressing her lips together. “I’m not so sure about forever.”
“Too cold, huh?”
“It’s just that I’m more about being in the moment.”
Uh oh. Derek took a deep breath and held it. Was she erecting barriers again?
As if he were trying to capture a bird poised to fly, he locked his fingers behind her back. “Are you making small talk or trying to tell me something?”
Her sigh was heavy, underscored by a barely audible moan. She plucked at a bright red thread of wool hanging loose on their blanket. “The whole ‘forever’ thing... I just don’t believe in that.”
“Do you trust me enough to tell me why?”
“It’s me I don’t trust, not you.” She was still cradled in his lap. Warm and soft and utterly right in his arms, a position definitely to her advantage when she ran her fingers across the stubble on his cheek and asked, “Do you really want to stop what we’re doing to have a philosophical conversation? Does ‘why’ matter tonight?”
It mattered. But he knew the conversation wouldn’t change anything in this moment.
Beyond them, the world was now covered in a downy comforter of sparkling white. A clean slate. Derek knew the presence of the grief books and someone in her not-too-distant past held the answers she was reluctant to give. Did she have a new beginning left in her heart, in spite of her words to the contrary? Her kisses promised so much more than she would admit.
“Anyway,” she said, “This...what we have here...we should let it be what it is.”
“What do you think it is?”
“It’s wonderful. And temporary.”
“An affair.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That sounds tawdry.”
Actually, his blood heated at the image, but as he kissed her again, he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe she meant it.
As if she could read his mind, she admonished breathlessly, “I’m serious. This won’t ever lead anywhere permanent.”
“Okay.” He nodded solemnly. “Of course, it’s your loss. You said yourself I’d make a great dad someday.”
“You will. You do.” She spoke carefully. “But not with me as the mom.”
She was watching him, waiting for him to show that he understood. Which he sure as hell did not, because everything—every little thing—he knew about her said love, family, forever. But for now he decided to give her what she was looking for, because there was so much more to discover. “All right, Willa. We’ll play by your rules. For the time being,” he murmured, hauling her closer for several more kisses, meant to distract. When she was breathless, he asked, “So this affair. Care to elaborate?”
Looking beautifully mussed and a bit dazed, she shook her head. “No. Just the standard, exciting, clandestine, secret, middle-of-the-night rendezvous will do.”
“Secret, huh? Will I have to climb out of your window, or will you allow me to use the front door? Or, are you planning to keep this affair of ours confined to the front porch?”
Her mood lifted once more, and her giggle rocked the swing. “Definitely not the front porch. Remember, my neighbor Belleruth is an insomniac. If she saw us, the entire block would hear about it before breakfast.”
“Small town. Big talk.” He massaged her back. “Can’t have that.” Though he couldn’t have cared less.
“No,” she whispered against his mouth. “We can’t have that. Myra at Hair Today would start some under-the-hair-dryer gossip that would spread to the Tribune by the end of the week.”
“Okay then. A tawdry affair it is.” He kissed her until he was pretty sure she’d have trouble stringing together the words to make a sentence.
Then, just as she was completely limp in his arms, Derek marshaled every ounce of strength in his nearly two-hundred-pound body and lifted them both to their feet. “Good night, Willa.”
The slack-jawed expression she wore on her face was priceless. Clearly, she expected their affair to begin that night. But Derek wasn’t in this thing for short-term success. He was in it to win it.
“Since every tawdry affair should begin with a real date,” he told her, “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at six. Hooligans. Dinner, dancing. Dress accordingly.”
And with that he strode, whistling into the dark, to his car.
* * *
He left? Stunned, Willa stood, staring at the tracks Derek’s tires left in the pristine snow. A minute ago, she’d thought they were really headed somewhere. Specifically, her bedroom. And then?
He’d up and left. Just like that, leaving her heart hotly pounding blood through her veins with no avenue of release. Mind whirling, she gathered the blanket and towels and stepped inside her house, closing the front door behind her.
Surely, she’d made herself clear. She didn’t need to be wined and dined. They could dispense with the whole getting-to-know-the-real-you process.
She did not want strings. Ties. Knots in her stomach.
Ties could bring love, and love eventually brought sorrow. And Willa had sorrowed enough for one lifetime. Slowly, she folded her blanket and towels over the quilt stand and crossed to the mantel of her fireplace.
“Hey,” she wh
ispered to a framed photograph, tracing the face she found there with her fingertip. “What would you have me do?”
As Willa pondered the lively, sparkling eyes that looked at her with such adoration, she began to sense the answer.
“But am I ready?” she whispered. “I know it’s been two years, but I’m just so—” her sigh clouded the glass “—so very tired.”
She scrubbed the fog with the tip of her finger so that the eternally smiling eyes came back into focus, ever encouraging.
“I don’t think I can,” she admitted. “Missing you has used me up.”
The expression in the photograph would never change. As long as she peered at the picture, she could slip, if only for a twinkling, into that glorious time when love had been mostly pain-free. Her memories lent her the encouragement to live again. But to love?
Picking up the frame, she cradled it in her arms and headed to bed.
* * *
As Derek rounded the corner to city hall, he spotted a lone figure shuffling along the sidewalk. The snow had started to come down something fierce, and though his wipers were set to high speed, he was having trouble seeing. This person was either a very small adult, or a child. Deciding to err on the side of caution, he slowly pulled up next to the pedestrian and rolled his window down.
“Everything all right?” he called.
The small person stopped and squinted into his headlights.
“Gilberto? Is that you? What the devil are you doing out here?” Derek glanced at his dashboard. “It’s nearly eleven o’clock at night.”
Shoulders hunched against the weather, Gilberto came around to the driver’s side and poked his head inside the window. “I was looking for you.”
“Well, you found me.” Hitting the unlock button, Derek nodded toward the rear passenger door. “Hop in.” Rather than climbing in the back, Gilberto wasted no time diving into shotgun position and pulling the door closed. “You eighty pounds?” Derek asked skeptically.