Harlequin Romantic Suspense May 2018 Box Set

by Regan Black

  It had to be the store that Rico had mentioned before she’d left the house yesterday morning. “I’m Laura,” she said.

  Jennie didn’t say anything, pausing as if she might be waiting for a last name. She was going to have to wait forever.

  “Pleasure,” Jennie said finally, looking from Laura to Rico. “I thought you were traveling by yourself,” she said, resting her eyes on Rico.

  “I was,” he said. “But ran into Laura and Hannah and we decided to ride out the storm together,” he said.

  “Good thing, I guess,” Jennie said, her tone speculative.

  Paddie clapped his gloved hands together. “Heck of a snow. Fourteen inches and more on the way later this afternoon.”

  Hannah squirmed out of Laura’s arms and immediately approached the other child. Without exchanging a word, the two little girls got busy making snow angels.

  “Ari is probably tired of being cooped up with two old people,” Paddie said. “I try to keep her busy but she’s got my number and can always weasel out one more television program. We brought her with us this morning to get her some fresh air.”

  “You can leave her here for a while,” Rico said.

  He spoke quickly, maybe too quickly. Was he looking to ensure that the two of them would not have any private time together?

  “She and Hannah can play together. We’ll get the sled out and they can put this hill to some use. Then we can feed them some lunch and you can pick her up midafternoon before the snow comes,” he added, looking at Laura.

  She nodded. “Yes. Hannah would love the company.”

  Paddie and Jennie shared a glance. “I think that will work,” Jennie said. She walked over to Ari, bent down, said a few words that Laura couldn’t hear and gave the child a hug. Then waved at Laura and Rico, before she and Paddie got back on their snowmobiles.

  Once the engine noise faded, Laura turned to Rico. “Nice neighbors,” she said.

  “Jennie Jones gave me my first job when I was twelve. Sweeping out her store and stocking shelves. Then she sent me to Paddie, who taught me how to invest twenty dollars and get a five percent return. When I got a little older, he taught me how to take a calculated risk and get a ten or fifteen percent return.”

  “So they must have their own retirement fund. But yet she’s still working.”

  “She loves her store. And her customers love her.”

  “She’s probably going to pester you for details about me,” Laura said.

  “That’s a given,” Rico said easily. “If she’d have come two minutes earlier and seen us kissing, we’d probably never have gotten her back on her snowmobile.”

  “About that…” she said. “I’m not looking for…”

  “It was a kiss, Laura. Not a marriage proposal,” he said, sounding irritated.

  She hadn’t meant to make him mad. Just didn’t want him getting the wrong idea. He didn’t realize it but she was doing him a favor. Getting mixed up with her was in no one’s best interest. “Got that,” she said brightly. “So where’s that sled?”

  He paused before answering. “In the basement. I’ll get it.”

  “Okay. How about you stay at the top of the hill and get them started and I’ll stay down here,” she said. A little space between her and Rico right now might be for the best—before either of them said something that they regretted.

  “Fine,” he said.

  He started walking up the hill.

  “How’s your ankle?” she called after him.

  “Never better,” he said, not turning around.

  * * *

  Actually, his ankle did feel pretty good. It was probably the testosterone cursing through his veins, warming his blood. He’d been this close to hustling pretty Laura into the cabin and into his bed.

  But a barking dog, a shrieking child and Jennie’s ill-timed arrival had other ideas. Even so, it had taken him a minute to pull it all together.

  The look in Laura’s eyes—the absolute fear—had shaken him. The protective response that had roared through him had been immediate and he hadn’t questioned it. It was only now, as he traipsed up the hill, that he began to wonder just where the hell all this was going.

  Wanted to blame the kiss on impulse—that he’d been swept away by the sheer splendor of a snowy day in the Rocky Mountains—or maybe just physics. After all, the adrenaline rush from rolling down the hill had to be expelled somehow.

  But the truth of the matter was that he was almost never impulsive. He made quick decisions but not impulsive ones. He’d kissed her because he’d wanted to.

  And he was pretty sure she’d liked it.

  Now what the hell was he going to do about it?

  Ignore it. At least for the foreseeable future. He had two little girls who were expecting him to rummage up a sled.

  He knew the outside door to the basement would be completely snow covered. So he went inside, pulled back the living room rug and opened the trapdoor in the floor. A ladder, on a release mechanism, folded out. He heard it click into place. Then went down the steps and found the four-foot piece of plastic hanging on the wall. He remembered buying it when Nathan and Aleja had stayed one weekend years before. It would be plenty big for Hannah and Ari to double up and slide down the hill.

  When he carried it outside, the little girls came running with Lucky on their heels. He got them situated, with Hannah in the front and Ari behind her, and then sent the sled down the hill. It went fast enough to delight them but not so fast that they were going to fall off. Lucky raced alongside them.

  Laura was clapping and laughing and he stood at the top of the hill and watched her. She was a match to the beautiful day—so crisp and clear and fresh.

  The girls were at the bottom and their conversation carried up the hill. Can we do it again? Please?

  Laura showed them how to drag the sled behind them and up they came. “How was it, girls?” he asked. He bent down and patted Lucky, who was so excited that he was turning circles in the snow.

  “Fun,” Ari said.

  “Super fun,” Hannah said, her fanny already on the sled. She was ready to go.

  And so it went. Twelve more times. Kids and dog down. Kids and dog up.

  Finally, he heard Laura say, “I think that’s enough. I’m getting tired just watching you walk up that hill. How about we go inside and get some hot chocolate and a cookie?”

  The three of them walked up, a little girl on each side of Laura with Lucky racing ahead. He joined them and they walked into the cabin. As soon as they cleared the entrance, he said, “I’ll take care of getting them out of their snowsuits if you want to start the hot chocolate.”

  “Do you want some?” she asked.

  “Sure,” he said.

  She raised an eyebrow. “You know it comes out of a packet and I’m going to add water to it. There’s probably sugar and preservatives and who knows what else?”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “Suddenly, I feel like living dangerously.” He deliberately stared at her mouth.

  “Really?”

  She sounded breathless. Was it from walking up the hill? Or the idea of what his living dangerously might mean for her?

  “Yeah,” he said. “What do you think about that?”

  She stared at him. Her cheeks were red and her hair was flying around her face, full of static electricity from her cap. “Living dangerously. I’ve spent a lifetime doing just the opposite, being very careful to do just the right thing.”

  “And now?”

  “And now, I think I might be done with that.”

  What was she saying? There could be no room for misinterpretation here. He leaned close, whispered in her ear so the little girls could not hear. “I want you in my bed, Laura.”

  “I’m not in a place where I can make any commitments, Rico.”

 
“I’m not asking for any. Or expecting any,” he added. Hoping, yeah, but he didn’t need to say that.

  “Then I say yes.”

  He wanted to freakin’ pound on his chest, to take her right then and there in the kitchen. But little hands pulling at his coat had other ideas.

  “Can you help me get my boots off?” Ari asked.

  “Me, too,” piped in Hannah.

  “Later,” he mouthed, and turned his attention to the little girls.

  CHAPTER 9

  Laura put hot chocolate mix into four cups and watched the flame under the teakettle. Rico wanted her in his bed.

  She and her boyfriend had broken up six months before she’d moved to Nashville three months ago. That meant it had been almost nine months since she’d had any sort of physical relationship with a man.

  Hadn’t had any interest.

  But now, it was as if a switch had been thrown. She felt energy pulsing through her. Need. Want. Hope that it would be as good as she thought it might be.

  She wanted to go stick her head in the snow. She wanted to get naked and dance on the tables. That was the pendulum of emotions coursing through her body.

  And she was making hot chocolate, as if that was the only thing on her mind. She carried three mugs into the living room where Rico was setting up a board game on the coffee table—the girls were lying on the floor petting Lucky, who was on his back, showing the world his stomach.

  It looked so normal. Or at least what her suburban-sensitized mind thought of as normal. The kind of environment that she and Joe had grown up in. A mom and dad. Kids hanging out with them. Damn, they’d even had a dog that looked a little like Lucky.

  What would Joe think of what she was doing now? He’d been so angry with her. Would he now pull her tight and say thank you? Thank you for looking out for my daughter. Thank you for persisting, for not giving up when Ariel made it tough on you. Thank you for seeing through Ariel’s thin excuses for not letting her see Hannah.

  Thank you for being here.

  A stark contrast to his last words to her: I don’t want you here.

  Words said in anger and grief. She could forgive them. It was harder to forgive that he’d kept Hannah’s existence from her, that it had simply been chance that Laura had stumbled upon her.

  A fluke that she’d been there to save her.

  She would not jeopardize that opportunity today. Rico would have to know, have to understand, that this was simply a hookup. For his safety, for her own. Especially for Hannah’s.

  She set the three mugs on the big coffee table. Then she went back to the kitchen and put the store-bought cookies on a plate. She carried that in, as well.

  “Here you go, girls,” she said.

  They scrambled toward the treat.

  “Careful,” Laura said. “It’s hot.”

  She brought her own cup in and sat on the couch. When Rico reached for his cup and snagged a cookie, she smiled. “If it helps you maintain your reputation, I’ll look the other way.”

  “Not worried about my reputation,” he said slowly. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and create one.”

  “Create what?” Hannah asked, getting half the conversation.

  “A reputation,” Rico said.

  “What’s that?” Hannah asked, her mouth full of cookie.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Laura reminded gently. “A reputation is something you’re known for.”

  Hannah considered her. “You have a reputation.”

  Laura was almost afraid to ask. “For being?”

  “For being the best storyteller ever.”

  Laura felt her insides warm and knew it had nothing to do with the hot chocolate. Had she immediately loved Hannah? She thought so. But even if she hadn’t, the little girl was so darn sweet that she’d have quickly fallen in love.

  “Good to know, Hannah. I’ll have to have Laura tell me a story,” Rico said. “Something appropriate for the moment.”

  Laura knew the innuendo went over the two children’s heads but it stoked the heat already burning in her belly.

  “What do you girls want to do now? We have about two hours before Ari gets picked up.”

  “Watch a movie,” Hannah shouted.

  “Watch a movie,” Ari repeated at a slightly lower volume.

  Laura reached behind her for the computer.

  “No. On the big screen,” Hannah said. “In the bedroom. All of us.”

  Now Rico was smiling. “I love it when a plan comes together.”

  Laura ignored him. It would be difficult for all of them to watch something on the computer. It only made sense to make use of the screen. “I suppose we could. Go pick out a DVD.” Hannah had found them in the drawer that first night.

  When the two little girls were out of the room, she shook her head at Rico. “Your friend Jennie is counting on you to be a good influence. Like she was on you.”

  He shrugged. “You’d be surprised what I saw her and Paddie doing in the back room.”

  “Oh,” Laura managed, envisioning all kinds of something.

  Rico laughed. “I’m teasing. It was strictly a G-rated store. As will be the next two hours. But when the second feature comes on and Hannah is napping, all bets are off.”

  Her mind reverted right back to where it had been.

  The girls came running back into the room and handed the DVD to Laura. She held up the case for Rico.

  “One of my favorites,” he said easily. “Love it when the whole world turns to ice. Makes for an exciting thaw.”

  Good grief, he could even manage to make a kids’ movie sexy.

  Somehow, over the next two hours, with her on one side of the king bed and Rico on the other, with the two little girls between them, she managed not to implode. But every time he shifted his weight, or played with the ends of her hair with his fingertips, or said something that went over their heads but settled deep in her center, she felt as if this might be the longest and oddest foreplay she’d ever experienced.

  By the time Jennie and Paddie came and they handed off Ari and then ten minutes later settled Hannah in for a nap in the second bedroom, she was tightly strung.

  Rico stood when she came into the room. Held out his hand, pulled her close.

  “She needs to be asleep,” she whispered.

  “We can start with our clothes on,” Rico said as he backed her up against the living room wall. He put one hand behind her neck and gently tilted her face up. Then he kissed her.

  Confident. Skilled. Making good on the promises of the last hour.

  And heat. Delicious heat. Consuming her.

  From a kiss.

  But not just a kiss. He was crowding her, his whole body touching her. Leg against leg. Arm under her shirt, curling around her waist. Hand on her back.

  He arched his hips forward.

  So ready. Yes. Now. Do it now.

  She wanted to beg. But since he had her mouth otherwise occupied, she lifted a leg, hitched it over his hip, opening herself to him. Then remembered his injury. She twisted her mouth away. “Your ankle,” she murmured, and tried to move her leg.

  His response was short, pithy, and left no doubt that he wasn’t thinking about his ankle right now. And to further prove his point, he moved his hands, cupped her bottom, kept her anchored. Kissed her again.

  Finally, he lifted his mouth. “How long?” he muttered, his voice hoarse. “How long does it take her to fall asleep?”

  “We should be good.” Truth be told, the little girl had been close to asleep by the time Laura had tiptoed out of the room.

  A long breath went out of his body. He said nothing. Moved enough that she could get her leg down, then took her hand and led her down the hall and back to his big bed.

  “More movies?” she teased.

  He lo
cked the door behind them. Turned. “How long will she sleep?”

  “An hour and a half,” she whispered.

  He nodded sharply. “That might be enough time.”

  * * *

  Rico thought time might have stopped. Or maybe it was just his heart. But when Laura welcomed him into her body, so wet, so ready, it was almost more than he could handle.

  He cautioned himself to slow down, make it last, make it good, and he fought the pulsing need within him. She was exquisite. So finely made. Soft skin. Pretty breasts that were just perfect for his hand, his mouth.

  She smelled so good that he wanted to draw her scent deep into his lungs and never let it go. Wanted to keep her naked and in his bed forever.

  Wanted her to be his.

  That knowledge hit him hard and fast and he reared up, needing to see her face, needing to know if there was any chance that she felt the same.

  Her eyes were open, her lips were parted. “Rico,” she whispered.

  He felt the answering surge in his body. “Tell me what you want,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  “Everything. I want it all.”

  He wanted to tell her, wanted her to know how he felt. But knew that words whispered in passion were easily discounted.

  He changed his angle ever so slightly, adjusted his stroke. “Like this?” he asked.

  “Oh, God, yes,” she said, opening her legs wider, letting him sink deeper.

  She came minutes later, her body clenching and unclenching, taking him with her. And he knew that everything that happened after this moment would be different. Because he would be different. Changed by this woman who’d wandered into his life.

  Taken a place in his heart.

  * * *

  Laura woke up warm and content. They were both under the covers and Rico’s naked body was wrapped around her. He was like a small furnace.

  She turned her head. He was awake. “Did you sleep?” she asked, looking at the bedside clock. They’d been in his bedroom for almost ninety minutes.