She couldn’t feel the cold from the outside anymore. This time it was slowly seeping from the inside. “Then why did you?”
But he didn’t answer. “First time I saw you, I thought Dillon was your son,” he said instead.
She let out a short laugh even though she felt more like crying. And that wasn’t something she was going to do because it would just be one more thing he’d feel responsible for causing. “That would be a challenge since I—” She realized what she was about to admit and broke off. “Nope. Not my son.”
“But you’re the only mom he’s got, whether you carry the title or not.”
She exhaled. “The only one who really believed I could do it was my grandfather.”
“I believe you can do it.”
Which just sealed the deal on tears stinging her eyes, no matter how much she wanted to keep them at bay.
I could love this man. The realization filled her head. If only he’d let me.
His hands slid to her shoulders, steadying her, even as he took a step back. A step away.
“It’s late. You should go inside. Go to bed.”
Where she’d lie, alone, and wish for him. A man she knew so little about. “What about you?”
“I’ll keep running.”
“Until you can sleep?”
His lips twisted. “Sure.”
Something about the way he hesitated caught at her. “Do you have nightmares, Sloan?” He just looked at her and cocked his head slightly. “Dillon does. That morning that you were there wasn’t the first, but at least they’re coming less often. When he wakes from them he runs to me.”
“He’s a smart kid.” He jerked his chin toward the house. “Go inside, Abby.”
That was the smartest course. It was cold. It was late.
Sloan didn’t want things to go further with her, and she ought to be grateful that he had the self-control that she didn’t.
Everyone she’d ever loved had left her, too. Her mother hadn’t wanted her. Her grandfather had died. Her grandmother had forgotten. Dillon, too, one day would grow up and go out to live his own life, and that was how it should be.
“Don’t run too far,” she said softly. And then, before she lost what little sense she had and begged him to come with her no matter what the consequences, she circled around Frosty and his friend and went inside.
She closed the door quietly and leaned back against it, closing her eyes.
There was no sound of Sloan following her up the steps. He wasn’t standing on the other side of the door, prepared to knock softly and tell her that he’d changed his mind.
There was nothing but silence.
She moved away from the door and turned off the lights, one by one. When the house was dark, she went to the front window.
Sloan stood in the middle of the street. Tall. Broad shouldered. But still little more than a shadow in the moonlight.
She’d never really wondered before what loneliness looked like. But now she knew it looked like him.
And even though she knew he couldn’t see her through the window, it was as if he did, because he turned then and disappeared into the night.
She wiped her wet cheeks and went to bed.
* * *
The sun was streaming across his bed when Sloan waked the next day. He rolled onto his back, throwing his arm over his eyes. Since he hadn’t gone to sleep until well after the sun had come up in the first place, the presence of sunlight didn’t say a helluva lot about what time it was.
The television was still on, reruns of headline news droning in the background. He could hear the sound of high-pitched laughter coming from outside, though, so he shoved aside the blankets and walked naked through his second floor until he could look out the window overlooking the front of the house. He didn’t worry about being seen. The window was too high.
But it was just right for looking out.
Dillon was running around both his yard and Sloan’s with the mangiest-looking dog he’d ever seen, and he wondered where it had come from. The fact that Abby was there, too, her shining brown hair bouncing around the shoulders of her bright red coat, told him there was no cause for worry.
And seeing the smiles on both of the Marcums’ faces made it all worth watching.
So he did, until his phone started ringing and he had to go and answer it.
He was off duty for the next two days, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get called in if the necessity arose. He grabbed the extension in his bedroom. “McCray.”
“Clay,” his sister responded with a laugh. “Nice way to answer the phone, Bean.”
He raked his hand down his bristly cheeks and tucked the phone against his shoulder while he pulled on his jeans. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing!” She sighed noisily. “You’re too quick to think the worst. I’m just calling to let you know that Sunday dinner is here at our place tomorrow. We’re having pizza from Pizolli’s. Please consider coming.”
Sunday dinner to the Clays—which now included his sister—meant a weekly family dinner where they all got together as though it was a damn holiday or something. In the months that he’d been in Weaver, he’d succeeded in missing most of them.
“I know you’re not on duty,” she went on. “Because I had Sarah ask Max.”
He grimaced. “Your being cousins-in-law with my boss’s wife has a real downside.”
“Bring your friend Abby and her brother along,” she went on as if he’d never spoken.
“We’re just neighbors.” The lie was blatant. He didn’t much care.
Neither did his sister, evidently, because she ignored him. “Mallory’s on duty at the hospital, but Ryan came into the shop this morning to buy Chloe a new dress, and he said they’d all be there. I know that Chloe and Dillon are in the same class at school. She’ll have someone to play with if you bring Abby and her little brother.”
God help him. There were just too many freaking members of this family that his sister had married into. Ryan was yet another one of Axel’s cousins. “And if you can’t succeed with me, you’ll make me feel guilty because of Ryan’s little girl.”
“Whatever works,” she said blithely. “We’re just having pizza. I’ll expect you around three.”
As if it were a done deal, she hung up.
He listened to the dial tone for a moment. Then he stared at the receiver before replacing it on the cradle and shaking his head.
Marriage and motherhood had made Tara downright sassy.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, willing away the pain that was there courtesy of too little sleep, and went into the bathroom.
The mirror showed what it always did. The same gray in his dark hair that his dad had also had at Sloan’s age. The same lines radiating from his bloodshot eyes that he’d earned riding with Johnny Diablo and the Deuces. The same tattoo he’d gotten the first year he’d rode with them. The scar from the gunshot courtesy of Maria’s crazy-assed brother two years ago was still on his biceps, a long, narrow trench of white, puckered tissue.
He looked the way he always did.
Like hell.
He heard the laughter from outside again, sounding closer, so he headed to the bedroom again and peered through the blinds to see a streak of red dart through the snow between his house and Abby’s.
He went back into the bathroom and flipped on the shower. The rush of water at least drowned out the sounds from outside. It didn’t do a thing, though, to drown out the memory of kissing her. And it didn’t do a thing to stop his imagination from conjuring more, not even when he turned the water stone cold and it felt as if he were being pelted with bits of ice.
Sexual frustration was easy enough to cure. All he’d have to do was find a woman who wanted nothing but sex. Easy enough to accomplish.
He’d done it before.
But she wouldn’t be Abby.
Feeling about as cheerful as a junkyard dog, he pulled on warm clothes, grabbed his helmet out of the hall closet and stomped out the back door of his house.
God had some mercy on him, because the only sign of Abby behind his house were her footprints in the snow.
He rolled his bike out of the garage—which really was nothing more than a glorified shed—and swung his leg over the seat, kicking the engine to life. Despite the fact that he rode the thing only a few times a month these days, the engine roared and he felt an almost guilty pleasure from the sound.
He rode over the snow-covered alley behind the houses to the end of the short block and turned out onto the street.
And then he just rode.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Abby watched the black monster of a bike disappear around the corner while she tried to clip the leash onto Rex’s collar.
Sloan’s wheels, she realized.
The scary-looking bike suited a man who went running in the middle of the night in the dead of winter.
“Was that Sloan? I didn’t know he had a motorcycle.” She hadn’t thought it possible, but Dillon sounded even more reverent about their neighbor.
“I didn’t know, either.” She turned her attention to the leash. The overexcited dog wasn’t having any part of it; he wriggled out of her grip and bounded over to Dillon again, jumping against him with such enthusiasm that he lost his balance and landed on his butt in the snow.
Her brother’s laughter filled the air as he rolled around on the ground with the dog. It had been an impetuous decision to bring the dog home from Shop-World, where a rescue organization had set up camp for the day. She simply hadn’t been able to resist. Dillon had been so taken with the two-year-old mutt, whose wiry coat had too many colors to count or define. He’d fallen in love with Rex on the spot. And maybe it was only because she needed something else to love, but Abby had, too.
So despite the fact that she was trying to impress on Dillon the importance of not fighting at school, back into the big store they’d gone, where they’d purchased dog food and a leash and a dog bed that Abby hoped she’d be able to get Rex to use instead of Dillon’s bed.
She caught up to the dog and finally managed to click on the leash. He immediately managed to tangle it around her legs, nearly taking her to the ground as effectively as he had Dillon. She succeeded in unwinding herself and handed the end of the leash to Dillon. The swelling on his face had gone down, only to be replaced by a bluish bruise in the corner of his eye. “Let’s see how he does walking to the park.”
They got to the park fine, though Abby wasn’t sure if Dillon was walking Rex or if it were the other way around. Then she held the leash while Dillon played on the swings for a while. They creaked loudly in the cold, but they worked, nevertheless.
She sat on the bench nearby, enjoying the welcome warmth of the sun. All in all, it should have been a perfect day, and it would have been if she didn’t have such an ache inside her.
“Pretty hard to get a decent suntan when we’re covered up to our ears with coats and scarves, isn’t it?”
Abby smiled with delight as she recognized the woman who plopped on the bench beside her. “Hayley! What are you doing here?”
“Trying to get in a little exercise,” Hayley Templeton said ruefully. “A friend of mine is supposed to meet me here.” She stretched out her legs and wiggled her running shoes. “I heard through the grapevine that you’d moved here from Braden. How’s everything going?”
That particular grapevine, Abby knew, would be in the form of her talkative high-school mate Delia, who was Hayley’s cousin. “It’s new,” she said, glancing at Dillon. He’d taken to jumping out of the swing when it was at its height, and Rex barked every time. “We’re settling in. I haven’t talked to Delia in a while. I didn’t know you were here in Weaver.”
As quickly as she’d sat, Hayley rose and propped her foot on the bench, stretching. “A little over a year ago I took over a practice here from a psychologist who was retiring. I do mostly family counseling right now.” She switched legs. “I was sorry to hear about your grandfather. He was a good teacher. I wouldn’t have made it through any of my math classes in high school if it hadn’t been for him. And now, even as a nurse, you’re working at a school, too.”
Abby smiled ruefully. “I am.”
“What about your grandmother? How’s she doing?”
“She’s at Braden Bridge full-time now.”
The psychologist straightened. Her eyes were kind. “Alzheimer’s is such a cruel disease. How are you doing?” She looked over at the little boy playing on the swings. “And your brother? It’s Dillon, right?”
Abby nodded. “We’re managing.” Aside from her being dangerously close to falling for her neighbor, and Dillon’s fight at school, everything was just dandy.
“Well.” Hayley pulled her foot down from the bench. “If you ever need to talk, just let me know.” She waved at the other jogger who’d just entered the park before leaning over to pet Rex on the head, much to his delight. “You’re a cutie.”
Abby laughed at that. The dog was homely in the extreme with a head that didn’t fit his body and a body that didn’t fit his short little legs. “We adopted him this morning from a rescue.”
The other jogger reached them. “Do you know Sam Dawson?” Hayley asked.
Abby shook the other woman’s hand, recognizing her from the school assembly. “You’re with the sheriff’s department.”
Sam smiled. “Guilty as charged.” She was jogging in place, and she gave Hayley a wry look. “You’re already thinking about wimping out for a cinnamon roll over at Ruby’s, aren’t you?”
“Maybe,” Hayley allowed. She grinned at Abby. “The disadvantage of having Sam as a running partner is that she never wimps out.”
“Would lose my job pretty quickly if I did,” Sam said dryly. “Nice meeting you, Abby,” she said as she started off along the path.
“Exercising is such a chore,” Hayley admitted. But she dutifully set off after the other woman.
Dillon jumped off his swing again and trotted over to kneel next to Rex. “Can we go to Ruby’s and have a cinnamon roll?”
She might have known that he’d overhear that. But since it was lunchtime and she didn’t have any real desire for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at home, she agreed. “You have to have some real lunch, though, too.”
“Can we take Rex?”
“We’ll tie him up outside the diner.” She pushed to her feet and handed Dillon the leash again. “Rex needs to mind you,” she said. “Not the other way around.”
Fine words. Rex dragged Dillon—and then Abby, too, when she took over the leash—all the way to the diner. She latched the leash around the light post that was outside the diner door, and they went inside. It was already crowded, the booths and tables filled, but there were several stools at the counter that were free, so they sat there.
Dillon got a kick out of that. He liked seeing everything that went on behind the counter. He took forever reading through all the specials that were written on a board before he decided on a grilled cheese sandwich.
As soon as the girl took their order, Dillon twirled on the padded red seat and faced the crowded diner behind them. He kicked one leg absently. “If Deputy McCray’s not your boyfriend, how come you was kissing him last night?”
It was as if every person in the restaurant went silent, just so they could hear Dillon’s high, boyish voice.
Abby’s face was on fire. She gave Dillon a stern look, even though it wasn’t his fault that he’d seen what she’d been doing the night before. “Turn around and eat your lunch.”
He looked over his shoulder at his place mat. “I don’t got any lunch.”
&nbs
p; “You don’t have any lunch,” she corrected. “Turn around and drink your milk, then.”
He sighed noisily and turned around. “Why are you mad?”
“I’m not mad.”
“Then why do you got a—have—a frowny face?”
Abby stifled a groan and mentally smoothed out her expression. “I’m not frowning. And what were you doing up in the middle of the night last night, anyway?” She’d looked in on him the way she always did, and he’d been sound asleep. “Did you have a bad dream?”
“Nah. I was thirsty.”
“Gotta love kids,” a voice said beside her. Abby looked over to the petite brunette who was standing at the counter paying her bill. “They say the darndest things, don’t they?” The woman stuck out her hand. “Tara Clay,” she introduced herself. “And you’re Abby.”
Abby managed a weak smile and shook her hand. “Yes. Abby Marcum. Nice to meet you.”
Tara had eyes as dark as chocolate, which crinkled slightly at the corners as her smile widened even more. “I’m Sloan’s sister,” she said meaningfully.
“Oh!” Abby’s stomach dropped. “I...suppose you heard my brother.”
Tara laughed softly. “Honey, everyone in here heard your brother. Don’t look so upset, though. We’ve all survived people in this town talking about us.” She looked past Abby to Dillon. “Your dog’s doing a good job greeting everyone who comes in here. What’s his name?”
Dillon stared shyly at Sloan’s sister. “Rex,” he whispered.
Abby sorely wished he’d have whispered earlier.
“Good name.” Tara tucked her change into her purse as the waitress settled Abby’s and Dillon’s lunches on the counter. “I told Sloan earlier that he should bring you two along for dinner tomorrow,” she said after the waitress had gone again.
“Oh, but—”
“We’re getting together for pizza. Nothing fancy. Pizolli’s. They’re new but good.”
“Pizolli’s is good, but—”
“That’s settled, then.” Tara smiled brightly. “I’d stay to chat longer, but I’ve got to get back to the shop.” And just like that, she hurried out the door.
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