Safe in Your Arms

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Considering the heat rising inside her, Abby wanted to unwind the scarf from around her neck and ditch it, too, but she resisted the urge. Dillon would think he could do the same, and he was plagued with winter colds. “You need a coat,” she told Sloan. She also didn’t want Dillon thinking he could emulate the tall man from next door, either. “At least some gloves.”

  “I didn’t get to come out without my coat,” Dillon said. With his stocking cap, his puffy down coat, his scarf and his mittens, his skinny little body was nearly round.

  “And we’ve got to do as Nurse Marcum says,” Sloan drawled. He pulled a pair of black gloves from his back pocket. “Think these’ll do?”

  She knew she was blushing. “Not unless they’re on your hands.”

  His amusement turned to an outright smile, confirming what she already knew. Spectacular. Definitely spectacular.

  And she felt entirely caught in the spell of his brown eyes.

  “Hold this.” He handed her the thermal mug and pulled on his gloves, his gaze finally sliding away to focus on Dillon.

  “Your sister needs to see what the men can do,” Sloan was saying to Dillon, who beamed in response. He crouched next to the boulder-sized snowball. Dillon did the same, and they began rolling the ball, not stopping until it was even more enormous.

  Abby dragged her gaze from the view of Sloan’s backside before he straightened. “Good thing you finally stopped,” she offered. “Or there wouldn’t be enough snow left on the ground to make the other two parts of Mr. Frosty, here.” She held out the mug, but Sloan waved it off.

  “Dillon, you start on the head,” he suggested. “Your sister and I will work on the middle.”

  “He’s gotta have a fat belly,” Dillon warned.

  “I think we can manage,” Sloan assured him. His gaze met Abby’s. “Or did you just want to sit on the porch looking pretty while the men slave away?”

  “I was working hard enough on the base before you appeared.” She set the mug on one of the porch steps.

  Did he really think she was pretty?

  Embarrassed by her own thoughts, she scooped up a handful of snow, packing it down tightly to start the midsection. Sloan added to it until it was so large she needed both hands to hold it. Then they rolled it around on the ground until it was almost as big as the base and they had to wrestle it into place. Once they had it where they wanted it, Sloan lifted Dillon so he could put the head he’d formed on top.

  When they were done, Abby stood back and laughed. Dillon’s snowman head was woefully small in proportion to the rest of the monster.

  “I’m gonna get the carrot!” Dillon raced into the house.

  Sloan moved next to Abby, and she went still when he unwound the scarf from her neck. “What are you doing?”

  “Not trying to undress you in the middle of your front yard,” he murmured dryly.

  Her cheeks went hot. “I didn’t—”

  “Not that undressing you doesn’t hold plenty of appeal.”

  Her lips snapped shut. She feared her face was as red as her coat.

  He smiled slightly. “But a snowman needs a scarf, doesn’t he?” He finally turned away and wrapped the scarf around the snowman’s neck. The candy-cane-striped knit fluttered cheerfully against the enormously oversize midsection.

  Dillon’s boots clomped on the porch as he returned. He clutched a long carrot in his fist and reached up to jab it squarely in the center of the snowman’s face. “What’re we gonna use for eyes?”

  “When I was a kid, we always used buttons. But we don’t have any spares anymore.” Abby thought about the old jelly jar her grandmother had once used to store spare buttons.

  Even though she looked away quickly, Sloan still caught the sudden shimmer in Abby’s eyes.

  Fortunately, Dillon hadn’t noticed because he was too enamored of his snowy creation. Sloan gestured at his house. “I have a bag of cookies on my kitchen counter,” he told the boy. “Run over and grab a few. They’ll work for eyes.”

  But the boy didn’t race off the way Sloan figured he would. He sidled next to Abby. “Should I?” he heard him ask under his breath.

  She brushed her fingers over the cap on his head. “Do you want me to go with you?”

  The boy ducked his chin into his coat and gave Sloan a look from the corner of his eye. “He’s really a deputy?”

  Abby nodded. She smiled at Sloan, but it didn’t hold a fraction of the brilliance that he knew it could. That it should.

  “Look at the truck in his driveway,” she told her brother. “It says Sheriff on the side and everything.”

  Dillon looked. After a moment, his chin came out of his coat. “I can go myself,” he announced. Evidently, deputy and sheriff were the encouragement he needed.

  “Bring a couple extra cookies,” Sloan suggested. “I think we need to eat a few after all this hard work.”

  Dillon nodded and headed across the yard with the care of someone crossing a minefield.

  “He’s pretty serious for a little kid.”

  “You would be too if you’d had a mother like ours.” Abby didn’t look at him but fussed with the scarf around the snowman’s neck. “I was lucky. She dumped me off on her parents when I was a baby. She chose to hold on to Dillon until he was four.”

  “And then she booked.”

  Abby nodded. “Don’t know where. Don’t care why.” Her face was open. Honest.

  “But you care about buttons.”

  “Dillon’s too serious, and you’re too observant.”

  “County pays me to be observant.”

  Her lips curved sadly. “This is the first New Year’s that I haven’t spent with my grandmother. Every year before she got sick, she’d make black-eyed peas for good luck and roast a turkey with all the fixings.” She looked past him toward the door that Dillon had disappeared through. “She used to save her buttons in a jelly jar. When I was little, I’d string them into necklaces and bracelets.” She shrugged. “Probably sounds silly.”

  “Sounds like good memories.”

  Her expression softened. And he had a strong urge just to fall into the soft, gray warmth of her eyes. “They are good memories. Thanks for reminding me of that.”

  He took a step toward her, not even sure what he was after, but Dillon returned with all of the speed that had been missing when he went into the house. He was holding up a handful of chocolate sandwich cookies. “We gotta put the eyes in! Otherwise, Deputy Frosty can’t see anything.”

  Abby caught the corner of her lip between her teeth, and her eyes smiled into Sloan’s. “He’s been promoted to deputy already? What are we going to do for a badge?”

  “I’ll draw him one.” Stretching, Dillon worked the cookies into the snow above the carrot nose. They were a little uneven but seemed to suit the small-headed, big-bellied guy.

  “What about his mouth?” Abby asked.

  “He don’t need a mouth.”

  “Sure he does,” Sloan argued. “What if a pretty snowgirl came by and wanted to kiss him?” He enjoyed watching the pink color bloom in Abby’s cheeks.

  Dillon, however, wrinkled his nose. “Kissing’s gross.”

  Sloan hid a smile. “Depends on the snowgirl, kid.”

  “Now I see why you’re not still hanging around the office on your day off.”

  Sloan looked over his shoulder to see Pam Rasmussen sitting in her SUV, the window rolled down. She was grinning like the cat who’d gotten the cream. “Looks like y’all are having fun.”

  He didn’t want to imagine the speculation going on inside the dispatcher’s busy mind as he started to provide the briefest of introductions.

  But they turned out to be unnecessary when Abby crossed the lawn and shook Pam’s hand through the opened window. “I think we actuall
y know each other through an old friend of mine from high school,” she told her. “Delia Templeton?”

  Pam clapped her hands together. “Of course!” Her gaze went past Abby to Sloan. “Delia’s my cousin,” she told him. “Well, my husband Rob’s cousin, anyway. And now here you are, playing in the snow with one of our very own deputy sheriffs. What a small, small world.”

  Sloan could practically see the wheels turning inside Pam’s head. “What’re you doing here, Pam?” She and Rob lived on the other side of town.

  “Doing a favor for my mom. She’s been keeping an eye on her uncle’s house while he’s been gone.” She gestured toward the house on the other side of Abby’s where old Gilcrest lived. “He’s coming back tomorrow, and she wanted the heat turned up for him. Told her I’d take care of it when my shift ended. Never expected to find a little romance brewing right next door.” She smiled slyly as her SUV began slowly rolling forward. “Better get that heat going.”

  Sloan managed not to groan. “Don’t pay her any attention,” he told Abby as Pam drove a little farther and stopped in front of her uncle’s house. “She’s always like that.”

  “I know.” Her head bobbed quickly. “Delia has shared loads of stories about her family. Everyone is into everyone’s business.” She looked over at Dillon, who’d lost interest in what the adults were doing and was sitting on the porch steps holding two chocolate cookies in front of his face as though they were his eyes. She grinned at the sight and looked back at Sloan. “Do you have plans for dinner today? I’m not fixing anything fancy—nothing like a turkey or black-eyed peas, but—”

  “I do have plans,” he cut her off abruptly then felt like a heel. He was aware of the way Pam was watching them as she walked up to the old man’s house. “I promised my sister. Family dinner.”

  “Abby, I wanna make a badge for the snowman.”

  Her gray gaze cut away from his face to look at her brother. “Sure thing, honey.” She glanced at Sloan again as she started toward the house. “Thanks for your help with the snowman. Hope you have a good time with your sister.”

  Given a choice, he’d have been happy to stay right where he was, with or without Pam’s unwanted attention. There wasn’t a romance brewing for the simple reason that he didn’t do romance. No point.

  But the heat? That was definitely already on.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Here.” A longneck bottle appeared over Sloan’s shoulder, and he looked back to see his brother-in-law standing there.

  He wanted nothing from Axel, but he could see Tara watching them from across the living room of the Double-C’s main house, where they’d all congregated after the New Year’s Day feast. He accepted the bottle and clinked the bottom of it once against Axel’s and turned his attention back to the football game playing on the wall-mounted television.

  His hope that the other man would move along was blown when Axel sat down on the couch, too.

  “Tara’s worried you’re going to book when your stint with Max is up.”

  He already knew that. But he was damned if he knew what to do about it when he couldn’t even figure out what he wanted to do. He thought a little longingly of Abby’s dinner. He wouldn’t be having this conversation if he’d canceled on his sister and stayed with Abby and Dillon. But if he’d canceled, he’d just have another thing to regret where Tara was concerned. “Whether I stay or not doesn’t have anything to do with Tara.”

  Axel grimaced. “Right, ’cause it has to do with me.”

  Sloan picked at the bottle label with his thumb. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Neither do I. But I love my wife. And she loves you.”

  “I’ve told her she needs to stop worrying about me.”

  Axel laughed shortly. “Yeah. That’s going to happen. She’s finally got you back. She doesn’t want to lose you again.”

  “Whatever I decide, she’s not going to lose me.” He kept his focus on the television, even though the first half of the football game had just ended. “Undercover work for me is in the past.” He hadn’t merely worked undercover. He’d been deep undercover. So deep, and for so long, that the line between reality and fiction had gotten way too blurred.

  Some days—most days—it still felt that way.

  The record books would show a successful conclusion to the operation. A deadly gang had been dismantled. Murdering thieves had been imprisoned.

  But in the end, Sloan’s ATF career had been toast and the woman he’d loved—whom Axel Clay had been brought in to protect—had been dead.

  He knew he couldn’t lay the blame for Maria’s death at Axel’s door even if he wanted to. Sloan was the one who’d set that into motion when he’d told her the truth about what he was really doing. He hadn’t wanted to lose her. But he’d lost her anyway when she’d tried going back to her old life once he’d taken his years of evidence to his bosses. If she hadn’t known the truth about Sloan, they’d have left her alone. She wouldn’t have been a possible witness in their eyes; she’d have just been the cocktail waitress they’d never had reason to distrust.

  All she’d wanted to do was keep her life intact, but she’d paid a fatal price for it. Then it all seemed to be repeating itself when Sloan’s sister suddenly found herself in the same sort of danger. It was Axel who’d succeeded in keeping Tara safe. Sloan was grateful for that, but he still knew it was his fault that she’d needed protecting in the first place.

  He gave his brother-in-law a steady look. “Whether I stay or go doesn’t have anything to do with you, either,” he said evenly. “Or Maria,” he made himself add. For his sister’s sake. “Tara’s good at putting down roots. I’m not.”

  “You’re good at it when there’s something that matters enough to you.” Axel’s tone was just as deliberate. “You spent a lot of years riding with Johnny Diablo and the Deuces.” He scooped up his two-year-old son, Aidan, who was chasing full tilt after one of his older cousins. “Seems to me the question is what does matter that much to you?”

  Sloan caught his nephew’s wildly swinging foot before it connected with his face and tickled the bottom of it, making Aidan squeal. The little whirlwind managed to climb from his dad’s lap to Sloan’s back, where he clung like a monkey. “Ride! Ride!”

  Glad for an excuse, Sloan rose from the couch. “Duty calls.” He turned on his heel to give Axel’s son his requested ride.

  They went as far as the basement, which was as crowded as the upstairs living room. The main house was big, but so was the extensive Clay family. They had every age covered from babies to octogenarians.

  “Gampa, Gampa, Gampa,” Aidan yelled when he spotted Squire sitting amid a trio of young teenagers.

  The old man handed his video-game controller to the only girl in the trio. “Infernal game,” he groused. But considering the way his face was creased with a grin, there wasn’t a lot of bite to it.

  Tristan Clay, who was the youngest and wealthiest of Squire’s sons—and as far as Sloan was concerned, the wiliest—roused himself from his napping sprawl nearby. “That infernal game’s putting a new wing on the hospital,” he pointed out without heat.

  Squire harrumphed. “Folks have always been willin’ to throw good money away.”

  Tristan just smiled faintly, letting the jab pass.

  It wasn’t often that Sloan saw Tristan looking so relaxed. He ran his insanely successful video-gaming company, Cee-Vid, but he was also the number two man behind Hollins-Winword, an international firm that dealt in private security and covert intelligence. And it was in that role that Sloan had first dealt with the man and his nephew, Axel. Before he’d gone undercover with the Deuces, he’d asked Hollins-Winword to watch over Tara. She still hadn’t quite forgiven him for not informing her of that particular fact, but since she was as happy as a clam now with Axel, she didn’t beat him up with
it too often.

  “Give me my great-grandson,” Squire told Sloan, and he was happy enough to push aside the memories as he detached the kid’s fingers from his hair to set him on the floor. The kid immediately bulleted toward the gray-haired man, who scooped him up and blew a raspberry against his neck. Aidan’s laughter filled the spacious room and immediately, young cousins began appearing, clamoring for similar treatment from the old man.

  “I thought he was bad with his grandchildren,” Tristan commented, leaving his spot that was no longer peaceful at all to follow Sloan back up the stairs. “He’s twice as bad with his great-grandkids. The man was hell on us when we were growing up, but given the chance, he’ll spoil the daylights out of them.”

  Sloan wondered if Abby’s grandfather had been similarly inclined, or if her grandparents had been stricter because they’d taken on a parental role.

  They made it to the top of the stairs and turned into the kitchen. The enormous table there was covered with a dozen desserts in varying stages of demolition, sidetracking both of them. Tristan studied his choices while Sloan helped himself to a hefty wedge of the chocolate cake he knew his sister had brought. It was the same cake his mother used to make for their birthdays when they were kids.

  The cake was incredible. The memories that came with it weren’t.

  “Max sending you to that conference coming up in Cheyenne?”

  Max had tried working on him to attend, but he couldn’t see the point. Not when he wasn’t even sure he was going to be around in a few months. “Dawson and Ruiz are going.”

  His sister entered the kitchen. “There you are.” She was carrying Hank on her hip.

  “Wasn’t exactly hiding,” he pointed out and watched the way his nephew eyed the cake on his fork. He knew better than to give the boy any, though. He’d made that mistake once already and quickly learned that Tara didn’t want him having anything sugary until he was older.

  Not that Hank the Tank was looking particularly deprived. The kid wasn’t a year old yet, but he was already showing signs that he’d inherited the Clay genes when it came to size. He sure hadn’t gotten his height from his petite mama. Tara was nearly a foot shorter than Sloan, and he and her husband were pretty much eye to eye.