Trusting Will (The Camerons of Tide's Way #3)

by Skye Taylor

  Bree had never held hands in a theater with Zoe or any of her other girlfriends. But in spite of that thought, she didn’t pull away. She liked the feel of his big warm hand enclosing hers, and except for this one liberty, he’d behaved just as a friend should so far. Mostly.

  Just for tonight, she would enjoy this feeling of being pampered and cared for. It had been a long time since anyone had made her feel that way. Maybe friends could hold hands.

  TWO DAYS LATER it was Bree’s night to have Ben and Meg’s boys over while they had a night out. Will had taken the boys on the promised bike hike, brought them back to Bree’s apartment, and stayed for dinner.

  “You really wore them out today,” Bree commented, returning to the kitchen after she saw to it the boys took baths and were tucked in for the night.

  She stopped short upon discovering that the kitchen had been tidied up completely in her absence. The table had been cleared and the dishes done. She peeked in the fridge and found the remains of the pizza Will had ordered wrapped in foil and stacked neatly next to a six-pack of beer that had not been there earlier. She shut the fridge and turned toward the living room.

  Will stood with his back to her, studying her collection of CDs. One of the six-pack sat on her coffee table on a coaster normally kept in a drawer in the kitchen, and the Scrabble board had been set up next to it.

  “Did we agree to a game of Scrabble?”

  Will turned. In addition to cleaning up her kitchen, he’d obviously made time to run up to his own apartment and take a shower. Instead of dirty cargo pants and sweat-stained T-shirt, he now wore jeans and a neatly pressed chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Everything the man wore made him look good. Too good. She had always been drawn to a man in a tailored shirt, especially with the sleeves rolled up to reveal strongly muscled forearms coated with a masculine forest of pale curling hair.

  “You said you liked to play Scrabble,” Will reminded her. “At the restaurant.”

  They had talked about so many things over supper. She’d forgotten about his boast that he could beat her.

  “So, I’m challenging you. Loser has to pay a forfeit.” He grinned at her with a mischievous glimmer in his bright blue eyes. “Winner gets to pick the forfeit.”

  Bree might be afraid of a lot of things, but losing a game of Scrabble was not one of them. “You’re on.”

  “Any preferences on music?” Will held up a CD. “Or can I assume you like them all since you bought them?”

  “Something . . .” Anything that wasn’t soft and dreamy. Will made her feel too soft and dreamy without adding music to the mix. She crossed the room to read the label on the CD in his hand. “The Dreamer” by Khay Jhay. Just what she didn’t need. The lethal combination of Will and “The Dreamer” would take down her defenses faster than a SWAT team.

  Doing her best to ignore the intense attraction of his fresh, clean scent and the crisply pressed shirt, she reached past him and took a musical sound track off the shelf. “After the day I had, that guy would put me to sleep. I need to be on top of my game if I want to pick the forfeit.”

  “Maybe he’d put me to sleep even quicker. Like the boys.”

  Will’s slow smile tugged at her insides. She had the most insane urge to reach out and touch that dimple that punctuated his right cheek. She slapped the musical into his hand and backed away.

  Rather than sit on the couch and take the chance that Will would join her, she chose the chair opposite and began digging in the Scrabble bag for her tiles.

  Will played a tough game. Not what she’d expected from a cop. Even a college educated one. But with less than a dozen tiles left to play, she was leading and beginning to wonder what she could possibly ask for as a penalty that Will wouldn’t turn into something provocative.

  Will placed his remaining five letters on the board, covering both the triple word and a triple letter squares. Gripy. “Sixty points. I think that makes it my game.”

  “That’s not a real word,” Bree scoffed. She began to remove his tiles.

  “Sure it is. Look it up.” Will put his hand on hers. The electric tingle shot from his fingertips to her heart in milliseconds. For a long moment neither of them spoke while their eyes seemed to be eloquent with so much that wasn’t being said. Bree slid her hand out from under Will’s.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Do what?” Bree’s breathing made speaking almost impossible. She reached for the dictionary and tried to ignore the way her body betrayed her intentions.

  Will took the dictionary and set it aside. “Are you afraid of me?”

  Bree shook her head. She was more afraid of herself.

  “Then why do you pull back into your shell like a turtle every time I touch you?”

  “We’re friends. I treasure that. I’d like to stay friends.” And his touch made her feel things that were a long way beyond just friendly.

  Will hesitated, obviously debating his response. “Friends can be lovers too.”

  “No. They can’t. Someone always gets—” She stood up and moved away from the table.

  Will got to his feet as well but didn’t try to close the physical gap she’d created between them. “Someone always gets what?” His voice was calm. His blue eyes probed, but they were gentle too.

  “Hurt,” Bree whispered. “Someone always gets hurt.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t you know that yet?”

  “But something could happen that you have no control over. If I let myself care too much, I could get hurt even if you didn’t mean it.” Bree fought the rising tide of confusion, alarm, and desire.

  “Is that what all this has been about? You’re afraid to fall in love again because of what happened to your husband?”

  Bree clenched her hands to keep from reaching out to him.

  “Is that why you were seeing Bob when we first met? Because you didn’t really care about him enough to be hurt by anything he did? Or was it because you thought he would be safe to be with?”

  Bree didn’t reply. How could she? What could she say that wouldn’t offend Will or confirm the disgraceful way she’d treated Bob?

  Will did take a step in her direction then. She squared her shoulders and stood her ground.

  “And I’m a trooper, so that makes me off limits.”

  He loomed over her now. All six feet plus of him. His blue eyes were no longer gentle as they bored into hers. He raked his fingers through his blond hair and left it standing on end. Somehow that softened him. Tears abruptly swamped Bree’s eyes. She blinked furiously, trying to make them go away.

  He cupped her cheek in his palm and ran his thumb across her lips. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you to live every day as if there were no tomorrow?”

  Having no tomorrow is what I’m afraid of. “Like dance as if no one is watching?” She tried for a lightness she didn’t feel. She’d seen that on Facebook the other day. Then she remembered it had been followed by Love as if you’ve never been hurt.

  “Has it ever occurred to you, it might be me that gets hurt? I—care about you. About both of you. It would hurt a lot if something happened to you or to Sam.”

  Bree leaned toward him, stricken by his admission.

  “I’m more afraid of what my life will be like if it has to go back to where it was before I met you than you could even guess. We could be so good together, Bree.”

  He swept her into his arms, pulled her so firmly against him, she couldn’t have gotten free if she’d tried. But at the moment, she wasn’t trying. This time when he kissed her, there was nothing fleeting about it. Nothing that could be misinterpreted as just friends.

  It was not brutal as Bob’s kiss had been when he had been angry and upset with her. Will’s kiss claimed her just as clearly, but with so much tenderness that it burr
owed deep into Bree’s heart. He didn’t try to force her lips apart, but she felt the yearning desire in him and opened of her own free will.

  The kiss became a hot, fiery spiral after that. She clutched at his shoulders for support while his hands pressed her closer. Bree gave up thinking then and let herself be overwhelmed by the sensations of Will’s mouth on hers and his body coming to life, touching hers in ways she hadn’t experienced in years.

  It was Will who pulled back first. His eyes were closed and his jaw taut, his breathing as labored as hers. He dropped his arms and stepped away.

  Passion still lurked in his eyes. “Think about it, Bree. Think about how good we could be for each other. If only you can stop being afraid.”

  He stepped around her and walked to the door. He let himself out and closed it soundlessly behind him.

  Bree just folded up until she knelt on the floor. Her heart continued to pound, and her ears rang as if someone had pealed a very large bell right next to her head.

  “I care about you, too,” she whispered, but Will was no longer there to hear.

  Chapter 14

  WILL PLANNED TO claim a kiss if he’d won the Scrabble game, but he hadn’t meant it to be anything like what he’d ended up laying on her. He was trying to be patient and earn Bree’s trust first. To be the friend she wanted him to be, at least for now. The game of Scrabble had been fun. They’d been arguing over his final word, but it had been in jest. When he’d covered her hand with his, something happened between them. Something that felt good. Something that felt like a step forward, an acknowledgement of shared feelings, maybe.

  She’d pulled away from him, spoiling the moment, and the resulting conversation had him nearly declaring himself. But the moment she’d swayed toward him, he’d lost it. Things had gotten a little crazier than he’d intended.

  If her dazed expression reflected what she’d felt inside, she had been as stunned as he’d been. But God only knew if her reasons were the same as his. He’d been overwhelmed with desire like nothing he’d ever experienced, and it had taken all the willpower he possessed to step away from her. Perhaps she’d felt the same flaming passion. On the other hand, maybe it had been fear overwhelming her and not desire. But he had to give her a chance to think before things got totally out of hand, otherwise it would not be fair to her.

  Right from the beginning, he sensed her reluctance to get involved with him, but he’d chalked that up to Bob and whatever claim he had on her. But Bob was apparently out of the picture, and she still held Will at arm’s length, as if trying to protect herself from him.

  Logically he understood her reticence. He’d been to too many funerals, seen too many widows devastated by their loss. Both military and police.

  But Bree was still a young woman. She had a whole life ahead of her, and he wanted to be a part of it.

  That last revelation had ambushed him without warning. At the start, Bree was just a very attractive woman who appeared in his life at a time when he’d been looking for something new. Or someone new. That she had a son Will had already grown fond of just made her that much more appealing.

  He’d never dated a woman who already had a child, and if anyone had asked him, he’d have said having a kid would be a downside. It would mean passing up things unencumbered couples could do, like taking impromptu weekend trips together or making love in the middle of the living room floor. But motherhood just added to Bree’s allure. Besides being so pretty, she took his breath away each time he saw her, and she was smart, sassy, and enthusiastic about the things that interested her. But there was something different about Bree when he saw her with her son. Softness and unconditional acceptance maybe. Maybe he just didn’t have the words to explain it even in his own head. But it was there, and it was very attractive.

  Somewhere between that first crazy weekend when he’d moved into her building and now, he’d lost his heart to her. And to Sam. Everything he said last night and a lot more he hadn’t said was true. He’d been in lust with Linda. Bree had taken over his whole heart. She occupied his thoughts from the moment he awoke until he fell asleep again.

  He’d begun to worry that joining the Rapid Response Team the State Highway Patrol was forming would take him away from Tide’s Way and Bree. Even worse than physical distance, if she thought his current job was dangerous, she’d never accept a man with a job that required SWAT gear and assault rifles.

  For sale signs on houses in town had begun to draw his attention, too. The whole idea of giving up his freedom and settling down to the life of a husband and father seemed a lot more appealing now than it would have two months ago. For a man who’d considered skydiving on the weekend the perfect reward for working hard the rest of the days, he’d sure changed. It was a wonder he even recognized himself in the mirror anymore.

  Will took the stairs three at a time and strode down the hall toward Bree’s apartment, praying he hadn’t blown his chances with her completely. At her door, he hesitated, then knocked.

  When she opened the door, she smiled as if she was really happy to see him, and some of the tension in him eased.

  “I came to report in on the Jolee Plantation like I promised.”

  She opened the door wider and gestured for him to come in.

  “Hey, Will!” Sam jumped up from the table where he’d apparently been doing homework. “Look what I learned.” He hurried over to Will and quickly ran through the American Sign alphabet. “Pretty good, huh?”

  “That’s excellent, sport.” Will ruffled Sam’s dark hair. “Pretty soon you’ll be so fluent you could pass the whole test.”

  “Did you finish your homework?” Bree asked.

  “Almost.” Sam hurried back to the table and sat down.

  “Can I get you anything?” Bree headed toward the kitchen. “We just finished supper.”

  Will followed her. “I ate at Ben’s, but coffee would be nice.” He leaned his butt against the counter, watching while she poured a cup from a nearly full carafe and stuck it in the microwave. She bustled about with her back to him.

  “About last night—”

  Bree froze, but since she was facing the other way, he couldn’t see her expression. The microwave beeped, and Bree removed the mug of coffee and set it on the counter.

  “I owe you an apology.”

  She whirled around, her eyes wide, her expression troubled.

  “Just to be clear. I meant everything I said. But I’m sorry for taking advantage. I promise it won’t happen again. Not unless you start it.” Of course, I’ve got every intention of making sure you do start things. Sooner rather than later.

  Bree glanced down at her hands. She swallowed hard, then looked back up at him. “It was partly my fault. I should have stopped you, and I didn’t. But thanks for saying it anyway.”

  “There’s something you said that I’ve been thinking about.”

  “Something I said?” she parroted, looking confused.

  “You said you valued our friendship, and you didn’t want to mess it up. Maybe those weren’t the exact words you used but . . .” Will shoved his fingers through his hair. This apology thing was harder than he’d expected. “And you’re right. Friends are important. I hope I didn’t ruin it for us.”

  She shook her head. He felt inordinately relieved.

  “So? We’re good?” He stuck out his hand.

  She hesitated for a moment, then slipped her hand into his. “We’re good.” She squeezed his fingers and let go.

  Will reached past her, careful not to touch her, and retrieved his coffee.

  “You want to sit in the living room?”

  “Sure,” he said and followed her out of the kitchen. He dropped onto the couch and set his mug on the coffee table. “So here’s the deal. The SBI has gone over the Jolee place. They located the items you said you found and ch
ecked out all the rest of the buildings. They’ve recommended to the town that locks be installed on all the currently unsecured buildings for starters. The local sheriff’s office is going to make regular sweeps of the grounds. And I’m going to add it to my agenda as well. Hopefully, we won’t give anyone a chance to set up another meth lab up there. But—”

  “How did I know there was going to be a but?” Bree frowned.

  “Well, there really isn’t a but. I was hoping I could convince you not to go there alone. I’m willing to go with you any time you need to go up there. Or get that committee you said you were on to go all together. There are guys on it, aren’t there?”

  Her eyebrows rose toward her hairline. “That’s kind of chauvinistic, isn’t it?”

  She had him there. “You’re right. I apologize.” He shook his head. “Keep this up, I’ll get good at swallowing my own words.”

  Bree smiled, and Will’s heart lifted.

  “You really do have the nicest smile, but I guess you already know that.”

  Bree shrugged as if his compliment didn’t matter. It mattered to him, but he’d revealed too much last night. He wasn’t about to repeat that mistake. At least not until she got past this out-sized insecurity of hers.

  “So, will you ask me to go with you if you can’t get the committee to go?”

  “I’m done, Mom,” Sam announced as he joined Will on the couch. “Can I play on the computer like you promised?”

  “Please say excuse me before interrupting,” Bree admonished her son.

  Sam turned to Will. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were still talking.” Then back to his mother. “But can I, Mom?”

  “I wasn’t actually speaking when you got here,” Will told Sam. “So you’re forgiven.” Will looked at Bree to see if she was going to relent.

  Bree sighed. She closed her eyes for a minute, but Will couldn’t decide if she was debating her verdict or frustrated with him for taking the wind out of her sails. “Yes,” she said, opening her eyes again.