Except for that first initial burst, she had been too busy enjoying every second of that kiss to be nervous. She had wanted only to close her eyes and enjoy all those delicious sensations.
She didn’t quite understand how panic could flare through her now, when he wasn’t even touching her.
Marshall swore again and raked a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. That...shouldn’t have happened.”
He was sorry. She was still soft and warm and gooey inside and he was sorry he had kissed her. Her throat suddenly felt ridiculously tight and she leaned farther back in her seat.
Oh, how she hated Rob Warren for ruining something else beautiful and right in her life.
“It’s no big deal. You kissed me. I enjoyed it. End of story.”
For a moment, he looked uncertain, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to reply to her casual response.
“I...should have been more considerate, under the circumstances. I don’t know, maybe I should have given you a little warning or something. I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s the second-nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she said with complete honesty. “A woman likes knowing a man loses his head a little around her.”
Too bad he had found it again so soon.
She didn’t want to have some awkward conversation where he apologized again or asked if she needed to go into counseling or something, simply because of an unexpected but not at all unwelcome kiss.
“I should be going,” she said briskly, determined to change the subject. “Sadie is probably more than ready to go out again and the kids will be home soon.”
Trying to act casual and unaffected, she opened the door and climbed out. The December breeze off the river quickly cooled cheeks she feared were bright red. When she handed him his crutches from the backseat, he frowned, looking as if he wanted to say more, but she didn’t give him the chance.
“If you’ll wait here, I can carry the box of files and your laptop and then come back to spot you on your way in.”
As she might have expected, he didn’t seem to favor that idea much. By the time she unlocked the door with her key, he had maneuvered his way out of the vehicle and was halfway up the sidewalk.
Stubborn man.
She set the box and computer inside, then returned to the porch to watch him move with his inherent grace. She didn’t need to worry about him. He seemed to be much more comfortable on the crutches every day.
“I forgot the rest of your sandwich and your special cookies from Ali.”
Without waiting for him to answer, she returned to her vehicle, found the bag, then carried it into the house.
She found him in the kitchen filling a cup of water. The afternoon sunlight streamed in through the original stained glass transom on the kitchen window, creating a kaleidoscope on the polished wood floor with splotches of swirling, intense color.
He looked solemn again, no trace of a smile. His obvious regret at kissing her stung, but she decided she wouldn’t let it bother her.
“Here you go,” she said, holding up the bag. “You’ve got half a sandwich left, which might be tasty for dinner.”
“Thanks,” he said.
She opened the refrigerator and found room for it. “Do you need anything else?” she asked, pointing to the refrigerator’s well-stocked shelves. “I’ll probably be running to the grocery store tonight or tomorrow. They’re saying a big storm is coming early next week and I need to be sure I’ve got all I need for Christmas dinner.”
Though she could still read turmoil in his expression over their kiss, he apparently decided to let it go, much to her relief.
“If I think of anything, I’ll let you know.”
“I’m keeping my fingers crossed the storm doesn’t come early and interfere with the Lights on the Lake festival this weekend. My kids have been looking forward to it since we moved here.”
He nodded. “That’s always a fun holiday tradition for people in both Haven Point and Shelter Springs—unless you’re in law enforcement. Then you spend the whole time directing traffic and handling crowd control.”
“This year you can just sit on the sidelines and let your deputies and the Haven Point Police Department handle it.”
“Oh yeah. Won’t that be fun?” he said, his tone dry. “In case you didn’t know this about me, I’m not particularly good at sitting on the sidelines.”
She doubted anyone in town would be surprised by that. “You could always ask Mayor Kilpatrick to cancel this year.”
“Ha-ha.”
She mustered a smile in response. “I’m sure the celebration will survive without you. This year, you could possibly just try to enjoy it.”
“Maybe.”
He didn’t look at all convinced, but she decided to let it drop. If he wanted to stay home and brood, that was his own business.
“I had better go. Do you need anything else before I take off?”
For a brief instant, something hot and intense flared in his eyes, stirring an immediate answering response in her. For one wild moment she let herself imagine how things could be between them. That kiss had given her only a sampling, but it had been addictive enough. Given the chance, she had no doubt Marshall would bring that serious intensity of his into the bedroom, coupled with scrupulous attention to detail and that underlying sweetness.
She really tried not to moan aloud.
“I think I’m good,” he said.
Oh, she had no doubt about that—but realized he was only answering her inquiry about doing anything else for him.
“Have a good afternoon and evening, then.” She was quite proud of her casual, unaffected tone. “I’ll see you later.”
She turned to leave, but his outstretched hand stopped her.
“Andie, I have to tell you again that I’m sorry about what just happened.”
She caught her breath, wishing she had hurried out the door just a little faster to avoid this awkwardness.
“Fine. You said that. Can we just drop it now?”
“You need to know, I don’t usually kiss women out of the blue like that. I should have been more...sensitive, under the circumstances.”
He had obviously been stewing about this since they left the car. She didn’t want to talk about it, but short of rudely walking away, she didn’t know how to avoid it.
“I hate to point out the obvious, but you have a broken leg. If I hadn’t wanted you to kiss me, I could have walked out at any point and you wouldn’t have been able to do much to stop me.”
“I’m bigger than you are. I could have overpowered you.”
“But you didn’t. Nor would you.”
“How would you know that?” he asked, with obvious skepticism.
“I just do. Gut instinct. I wanted you to kiss me, Marshall. I’m glad you did. I enjoyed every moment of it.”
“Did you?” He looked a little taken aback but not entirely displeased.
She didn’t want to have this conversation with him, but now that they had started, she decided to be completely honest.
“I will not let one terrible night out of my life dictate how I live the rest of it. I will not let something that happened to me against my will take control over my sensuality and my desire.”
As she spoke the words, she felt a tiny spark inside her, a little echo of the confidence and self-assurance that seemed to have been hibernating somewhere deep down.
“I wanted you to kiss me. I’m glad you did,” she repeated. “If circumstances were different between us, I might even want to do more than kiss you. When your injuries heal, anyway. You’re a very attractive man, and what’s more, I like you. I didn’t expect to a few days ago, but you’ve kind of grown on me.”
He gave a surprised-sounding laugh. “That’s blunt enough.”
/>
“I just want to be clear you did nothing wrong in kissing me. I kissed you right back, remember?” She paused. “If anything, I’m grateful to you.”
“Grateful. That’s a first.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” she murmured, suddenly certain he likely knew his way around the rest of a woman’s body as well as he had demonstrated around her mouth.
That heat flared in his eyes again and she wondered how she had ever thought him cold and hard.
Her face flared with answering heat and she cleared her throat. “It’s not in my plan anytime soon, but eventually I probably will start dating again—which means the whole kissing thing would be looming over me the entire time. Now it’s out of the way, thanks to you, so I won’t be so nervous the next time I kiss a man.”
For some reason, he didn’t look at all thrilled about the idea of that. Before he could answer, though, the doorbell rang and a woman’s voice called out.
“Marshall? Darling? Are you there? Do you know there’s a strange car in your driveway?”
Andie’s gaze slid to his. She recognized that voice—and judging by his expression, he did, as well.
“Speaking of dating again, it sounds like your mother is home from her honeymoon.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“MARSHALL?” CHARLENE CALLED AGAIN.
“Did you lock the door behind you?” he asked Andie, a hopeful note to his voice.
She shook her head and he sighed. “In the kitchen, Mom.”
“Oh, your tree looks beautiful! So charming!” his mother called from the entryway. “I bet it’s stunning with the lights on. Did Wynona come back to decorate it for you?”
Before he had a chance to answer, Charlene Bailey née Bailey—who had just married her late husband’s brother—came into the kitchen.
She was round and tanned, blue eyes like his, glowing with happiness. She stopped short when she spotted them together, surprise flaring in her eyes.
Andie knew all about mother’s intuition. It had come in handy more times than she could count with her own children. Could Marshall’s mother sense that the two of them had been locked in an embrace a few short moments earlier?
“Here you are,” she exclaimed. “And with Andrea, too. Hello, my dear. This is a lovely surprise!”
Charlene had been nothing but kind to her the last few months. Despite Andie’s worries, the Bailey matriarch didn’t seem to blame Andie for her part in the incident that had culminated with Wynona being shot by Rob Warren while trying to protect Andie and her children.
Whenever she was around her friend’s mother, Andie was always aware just under the surface that she and Charlene shared a bond, the grim sisterhood of those who had lost loved ones in the line of duty.
She hated they had that bond in common, that the sweet Charlene had suffered not only the loss of her husband but also one of her sons.
That didn’t mean the woman was necessarily quick to forgive those children still walking the earth for their perceived mistakes. After that first moment of shock and greeting, Charlene marched over to Marshall and smacked his arm.
“Ow. What was that for?”
“Trust me, son, you’re getting off easy. That’s not half of what I’d like to do to you—and to your brother and sisters, too. Why didn’t anyone tell me you’d been hurt? Look at you! Oh, Marshall. What have you done?”
Andie couldn’t help being charmed when the ears of the big, brusque sheriff started to turn red.
“Nothing,” he mumbled. “It’s just a broken leg, Mom. I’m doing better.”
She imagined he was grateful the bruises and scrapes on his face had mostly faded. At least his mother had been spared the worst of those.
“Imagine my shock and horror when we came back into town this afternoon and found the rumor mill burning up with gossip about my son.”
Andie winced. Honeymoon or not, Wyn should have told her mother. She couldn’t imagine hearing that kind of information about one of her children by accident.
“Who knows? If I hadn’t stopped for groceries right after we pulled into town, I still might not know. Just my luck, the first person I bumped into in the produce section while I was buying bananas was Linda Fremont.”
Andie winced again. Linda was the last person in town she would choose to tell her bad news. She loved the woman’s daughter Samantha, but Linda was fatalistic in the extreme.
“As you can imagine, she had an earful for me. According to Linda, you were all but at death’s door, in a coma on life support. I thought I was going to pass out, I’ll tell you that much. If your uncle hadn’t been there, I might have. Lucky for us, McKenzie Kilpatrick came along just then and heard every word Linda said. The mayor set me straight, but still. You were hit by a car and have a broken leg! And you didn’t say a word to me! I’d like to horsewhip the lot of you.”
“You were on your honeymoon, Mom. And I was fine, really. Wyn was on the fence about telling you, but I told her not to bother you.”
Charlene’s glower looked remarkably like her son’s. “Why on earth would you do that? I’m your mother. I have the right to know when one of my babies is hurt.”
Her “baby”—a tall, hard, dangerous lawman who was well over six feet tall—grimaced. “What you had the right to was an uninterrupted honeymoon. You and Uncle Mike both deserved it. I was fine and there was nothing you could do about the situation anyway.”
She looked as if she wanted to strenuously disagree, but after taking a moment to collect herself, she gave her son a steady look. “I cannot understand why you, Elliot and the girls had to keep me in the dark and I certainly don’t agree with it. I’ll have a thing or two to say to them, you can be sure, but what’s done is done, I suppose. The important thing is, I’m here now, ready to take care of you.”
She took off her coat and hung it on a kitchen chair, looking for all the world as if she wanted to move right in. Andie fought a laugh at the panicked look on Marshall’s face.
Apparently the tough, dangerous sheriff of Lake Haven County was intimidated by his round, sweet mother. She found it rather adorable.
“You don’t have to fuss over me, Mom. I promise. The accident was nearly a week ago and the leg hardly even hurts anymore.”
Andie was quite sure that was a bold-faced lie. She’d seen the winces he tried to hide, those white lines around his mouth when he was trying to soldier through the pain. He had been up and moving all day. Though he would rather be tortured than admit it, she could see he needed nothing so much as to sit down.
She didn’t feel it was her place to point that out, however. If he wanted to fib to his mother, it wasn’t her business.
“I’m getting around now without too much trouble and I even went back into the office today.”
“How? You can’t drive, surely.”
He inclined his head in Andie’s direction. “Andrea kindly agreed to drive me and then hung around in Shelter Springs for a few hours so she could bring me back here.”
Charlene’s eyes widened at that particular piece of information and she sent Andie an appraising look she found nothing less than ominous.
“Why, that’s very neighborly of you, my dear.”
Neighborly. That was one word for it. Her mind flashed back to the heated embrace they’d shared mere minutes earlier and she had to fight a shiver.
“It was nothing. I was more than happy to help.”
“She’s been a lifesaver, actually,” Marshall shocked her by saying. “With Katrina gone and Wyn busy with school, Wynona persuaded Andrea to help me out. She’s done a wonderful job. I couldn’t ask for more.”
He aimed a smile in Andie’s direction, brimming with so much affection she might have fallen over without the kitchen counter at her back.
“I don’t know what I
would have done without her,” he said, with a warmth in his voice she had never heard there.
After a pause pregnant with shocked speculation, Charlene looked at Andie with an expression of pure delight.
“Oh, I’m so happy to hear that. Thank you so much for watching out for my boy.”
What was happening here? She did her best to gather her tangled thoughts.
“Um, you’re welcome.”
“As you can see,” Marsh went on, “I’m in very capable hands. Really, I’m fine. Andie has been amazing. There is absolutely no reason you can’t climb back in your car and trot back to your new husband. Now that you’re back, the two of you can get to work creating a life together. Have you finally decided where you’re going to live?”
Though an obvious ploy to change the subject, Charlene followed the temporary detour. “We haven’t made a final decision. We do know we’re selling both houses and buying something together. It will be a new start for both of us. Who knows? Maybe we’ll build. Mike has that property on the other side of Redemption Bay that would be a lovely spot for a new house.”
“That is a nice place.”
“We’ve decided we’ll live in my house for now, since it has more space for all of us to get together. Which reminds me, I’m planning Christmas Eve. This is the first year in forever you haven’t been working, so you’ve got no excuses.”
She turned to Andie. “You know, my dear, we would be absolutely delighted to have you and your children join us. I don’t have any grandchildren yet, but I usually invite friends over who do, so your children would have others to play with.”
His mother was under the very mistaken impression there was more between them than one ill-fated kiss, but that didn’t make the invitation any less appealing. Wyn was Andie’s dearest friend in Haven Point. It would be lovely to spend Christmas Eve dinner with her and her family.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “I’ll think about it.”
“I do hope you come, but if you have already made plans, we completely understand.”
“We haven’t. This is our first holiday in Haven Point and the children and I are building our own traditions together.”
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