Safe in Your Arms

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Rex!” Dillon pounced on him, feeding him the biscuit at the same time. “Where’d you go, buddy? Huh?”

  Abby looked from the woodpile to Rex and back again. “It’s a mystery to me.” Then she scooped up the wriggling dog herself. “I’ll shut him in the house, and we can get going.”

  Sloan rubbed the dog’s head. He had the face of a beagle, the body of a terrier and the short legs of a dachshund. Altogether it was quite a combination. “You could just bring him, you know.”

  “Tie him up outside Pizolli’s?” Her brows pulled together. “I suppose so, but it’s just as easy to leave him here. He’s potty trained already—”

  “Not at the restaurant. At Tara’s.”

  Her lips parted and some of the rosiness seemed to drain out of her cheeks. “We’re...going to your sister’s house?”

  “That’s where they’re getting together this week for Sunday dinner. Thought she told you.”

  Abby looked even more alarmed. “She invited us for pizza. Pizolli’s. I assumed she meant at the restaurant.”

  Not with that crowd, he thought. They’d overrun the place. “Is there a problem?”

  Her eyes were wide. “No,” she said quickly. “I... We...just don’t want to intrude.” She moistened her lips, leaving them shiny and unintentionally inviting.

  “Tara invited you,” he reminded her. “Pretty sure she knew where she was inviting you to.”

  Her cheeks flushed again. “That’s true, of course. But we can’t show up with a dog in tow.” Rex sighed heavily as if he felt disparaged. “It’s bad enough I didn’t offer to bring something.” Panic had started to creep into her eyes again. “I don’t have anything in the house to take. I should have dressed up nicer.”

  He couldn’t help it. He grinned and slid his hand around her neck, tugging her close to kiss her forehead. “She’s going to consider your presence gift enough. And believe me, sweetheart. There’s not a damn thing wrong with the way you’re dressed.” She had on jeans that fit her perfect butt like a glove.

  He let her go only to remember Dillon, who’d watched the brief exchange with his mouth open. “You are her boyfriend! You called her sweetheart.”

  Abby looked pained. “Dillon, that doesn’t mean anything.”

  The little boy ignored her, his eyes narrowing in on Sloan’s face. “Grandpa used to call Grandma sweetheart,” he challenged. “And even though she doesn’t ’member us, she still has a picture of him in her room.”

  “That’s different.” Abby handed him the dog. “Take Rex inside and make sure his water dish is full. You can give him another dog bone but be sure you close the front door before he gets out again. And bring my coat, please.”

  For a moment, Sloan wondered if the kid would argue. But he didn’t. He just gave Sloan another close look then carried Rex back to the house.

  Abby, on the other hand, looked anywhere other than at him. Her embarrassment was plain. “Sometimes he gets an idea that he just can’t let go of.” She laughed awkwardly. “A few months ago, he was convinced that there was a, uh...well, an alien...living in the attic. You know. Not-from-this-world sort of alien. Nothing I told him changed his mind.”

  He managed to keep a straight face. “Can’t fault the kid for a lack of imagination. What finally worked?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “Nothing. When the new owners moved into my grandparents’ home, I had to keep Dillon away from them so he wouldn’t let them know they weren’t—” her voice dropped a register “—alone.”

  “So you’re saying I’m not going to be able to convince him I’m not your boyfriend.”

  Her cheeks turned even redder. “No! I’m just saying that— Oh, criminy.” She all but stamped her foot in the snow. “I’ll talk to him. That’s what I’m saying. So don’t worry about it.”

  The more uncomfortable she got, the more he relaxed. He was pretty sure that didn’t say much about his character. “Do I look like I’m worried?”

  Her gaze flew to him and skedaddled away just as quickly. Her soft lips compressed. She shook her head even as she lifted her shoulders.

  A less decisive gesture didn’t exist, and it made him want to scoop her close and kiss her crazy.

  If you’re going to be accused of being Abby’s boyfriend anyway, why not take advantage of it?

  He kicked the devil inside him to the corner.

  “Didn’t know all it took to be someone’s boyfriend was to call her sweetheart,” he commented dryly, trying to steer things back on course. “Might have tried it a time or two when I was a kid.”

  Her cheeks were still red, but she gave a reluctant smile. “I’m sure you needed no help in that area.”

  “You’d be surprised.” He closed his hands over her shoulders and steered her toward the driveway. “Pretty sure I’ve never qualified as anyone’s boyfriend.” There’d never been enough time when he’d been young. And then he’d gotten in with the ATF, and the stakes had turned too high. He’d loved Maria, and they’d been lovers. But not even during that relationship had anyone ever thought of him as her boyfriend. It would have been too normal.

  Abby dug in her boots, and she gave him an incredulous look. “You’re saying you’ve never been...you know, with—”

  He realized where her mind had gone and nearly laughed. “I don’t mean I haven’t slept with a woman before.”

  “I know,” she said defensively.

  He brushed his finger down her nose. “Don’t lie to a cop, sweetheart. We can always tell.”

  She exhaled noisily and marched to the driveway. “Why don’t we take my car,” she suggested. “I don’t really want to ride behind the grille, where the doors don’t open from the inside.”

  “I do,” Dillon said, racing up to her and handing her the red coat. “I wanna ride in the back.”

  “Problem solved.” Sloan reached past her to open the back door of the SUV, and Dillon climbed up inside.

  Abby just looked stymied as she pulled on her coat. “I hope this isn’t some indicator of the future,” she muttered.

  Sloan grinned and opened the passenger door for her. “I think you’re safe. That boy’s sense of right and wrong goes bone deep.”

  “Not deep enough to keep him from fighting with Calvin Pierce again. Threatening to, anyway.” She didn’t look at Sloan as she climbed inside, taking with her that fresh scent her hair always carried.

  He rounded the vehicle and got behind the wheel. Old Gilcrest was sitting on his porch next door and actually had a benevolent-looking smile on his face. He held a fat orange cat in his arms and returned Abby’s wave.

  Sloan shook off his bemusement and backed out of the driveway.

  After fastening her seat belt and making sure that Dillon had done the same, Abby sat facing forward, her arms crossed over her chest. “Where does your sister live?”

  “Little ways out of town.” It was an understatement. “First time I went out there, the road wasn’t even paved. They’ve done some improvements since then.” Nevertheless, the cabin, as they called the spacious house, was still off the beaten track.

  “Do you catch a lot of bad guys back here?” Dillon sounded excited at the prospect.

  He turned at the corner. “I’ve transported a few.”

  “Like on Star Trek?” Dillon giggled. “Beam me up, Scotty.”

  “Old television reruns,” Abby offered, looking resigned.

  “Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock were reruns when I was a kid. Didn’t matter where we were living, I could always count on those old episodes.” He smiled a little, thinking about it. “Tara and I would fight over channel control. She was more the Brady Bunch type.”

  Abby stirred. “He discovered Star Trek last year. Our grandmother was watching it one time when we visited, and he was hooked. Did you live in a lo
t of different places?”

  “Thirty-some, I guess.” He glanced at her and saw her shock.

  “That explains the kindergarten classes,” she said faintly. “The only place I’ve ever lived was in my grandparents’ house in Braden. Well, other than here, obviously.”

  “Tara would have envied you. She hated all the moving around. Never having friends for more than a few months at a time. Never feeling settled.”

  Abby had relaxed her arms and turned slightly toward him. “But not you?”

  He slowed automatically as they drove past the Pierce place. The sheet of plywood was still fixed over the broken picture window, but everything looked quiet; there was no indication at all that a troubled family was living inside. “I was always restless.” He picked up his speed.

  “And now?”

  He could have given her a pat answer. Taken the easy way out. But he glanced at her, and the earnestness in her pretty eyes made it impossible. “It’s something I’m trying to work out.”

  She pursed her soft lips in thought. “Is that why you haven’t agreed to stay on permanently with the sheriff’s department even though Max Scalise has asked?” She lifted her hands a little when he shot her a look. “Can’t live in this town for more than a week without hearing someone mention it. It’s not exactly a secret, is it?”

  “A good reason not to live in this town,” he muttered.

  Her lashes swept down, and he turned his attention back to the road as Weaver became a reflection in his rearview mirror.

  Dillon’s voice popped up again. “I lived in Cheyenne.”

  Abby looked over her shoulder, obviously surprised at the admission. She caught Sloan’s questioning look. “That’s where he lived with his mother,” she said under her breath.

  Not our mother, but his. As if the woman hadn’t had anything to do with Abby’s existence at all. “And he usually doesn’t talk much about living there,” he concluded, just as quietly. “Reading your face is as easy as reading a book,” he added.

  “That’s a comforting thought.”

  “And then I lived in Braden,” Dillon continued blithely. “And now we live in Weaver.”

  “Where we’ll be staying for a long time,” Abby said firmly. “So if you’re thinking you want to be like Sloan and live in another twenty-seven towns, you can just forget it. I like being settled in one place.” She glanced at Sloan. “What did your parents do, anyway, that kept the wheels always rolling?”

  “My dad was in the CIA.”

  Again, she looked shocked. “That sounds like something out of a movie.”

  “It wasn’t anywhere near that interesting.” He didn’t want to get into their nightmarish childhood. He caught Dillon’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “What’s your favorite Star Trek episode?”

  Beside him, Abby groaned a little.

  “‘The Trouble with Tribbles,’” Dillon said immediately. “We had a Tribble in our old house, you know. It lived in the attic.”

  Abby covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders shook slightly.

  It took Sloan only a second to realize she was laughing, and soon he was, too.

  It had been so long since he’d laughed—really laughed—that he laughed some more.

  It seemed as though no time at all had passed when he turned off the highway onto a graded road full of curves and pulled up in front of his sister’s place.

  Abby stared at the half-dozen vehicles already parked in front of the big log house and felt alarm nudge its way into the pleasure she’d gained from hearing Sloan’s deep laugh. “Looks like there are a lot of people here.”

  Humor still lurked in his dark eyes. “Astute detective work.”

  Rather than wait for Sloan to open her door for her—which seemed much too datelike—she pushed it open herself, leaving him to open Dillon’s door instead. Then he led the way through the congestion of vehicles toward a wide porch.

  There were two rocking chairs sitting on the porch, and judging by the blanket draped over the arm of one of them, they were actually being used even though it was the dead of winter. “My grandparents used to sit on their front porch in a glider. They were always holding hands.”

  “And Grandpa called her sweetheart,” Dillon added, stomping up the stairs behind them.

  She gave him a look. “Please don’t start that again.”

  “It’s the truth,” he challenged.

  “Yes, but—”

  “You’re here!” Tara had opened the front door and was smiling hugely over the head of the toddler she was carrying. “I was beginning to think big brave Deputy McCray had chickened out on me again.” She waved them into the foyer, where she set the boy on his feet, only to redirect him when he tried to bolt out the front door. “Daddy will take you outside later, Aidan.”

  She was more successful at catching her son than Abby had been at catching Rex. The toddler went running back inside yelling for his daddy.

  “It’s my fault we ran late,” Abby admitted.

  “Our dog got out,” Dillon added. He seemed to have forgotten his shyness with Sloan’s sister as easily as he had with Sloan. “You look like Snow White.”

  Tara laughed, delighted. “And you look like Prince Charming,” she returned, holding out her hand for him. “Let me show you our castle.” She didn’t glance back at them as she drew Dillon deeper into the house. “Show some manners, Bean, and take Abby’s coat,” she said.

  Abby waited until Tara was out of earshot. “Bean?” She turned and tried not to shiver when his hands brushed her shoulders as he helped her out of her coat.

  “Old nickname. Hers is worse.”

  Free of the coat, she turned to face him. He stood much closer than she’d expected, and she felt short of breath. “What is it?”

  “Goober.”

  The glint in his eyes was so appealing it was all she could do to smother her laughter. “That is worse. But why Bean?”

  “Nothing exciting. Mom used to harp on me to eat my beans.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her in the same direction his sister had gone. Before she could make too much of it, he’d released her hand again as they entered a soaring great room dominated by enormous windows with a spectacular view of distant mountains. Vying for equal billing was a stone-fronted fireplace, where a welcoming fire crackled.

  And in the middle of all of that were a dozen people sprawled around, plates of pizza on their laps. Abby felt herself flushing to the roots of her hair when their attention turned to her.

  “Fortunately, we’re a small group today,” Tara said from across the room, where the pizza boxes were spread over a wide table. “So there’s still some food left.” She handed Dillon a plate, directing him to choose whatever he liked.

  This was a small group? Abby hated to see what they’d consider a large one.

  “Don’t just stand there like a bump, Bean,” Tara chided. “Introduce your girlfriend, already.”

  “We’re just neighbors,” Abby said, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her. “Friends.”

  Tara had a mischievous smile on her face, but she said nothing. She didn’t have to.

  “That isn’t what I hear,” a very slender blonde said from the corner of a chair where she was curled. “I’m Lucy, by the way. It’s all over town how you two were getting all cozy on the front porch the other night.” Her eyes danced merrily.

  “And he calls her sweetheart,” Dillon chimed in.

  “Well, then,” Tara concluded. “That seals the deal for me.” She held up a plate in invitation. “Pizza?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “So...” A few hours later, Tara stood next to Sloan at the kitchen sink, watching the rest of the family chase around outside in the snow with a football. “I like her.”

  No point pre
tending he didn’t know whom she meant. Despite the trial by fire his sister and her family greeted them with, Abby managed to rise above it simply by wading right into the group, extending her hand to one person after another as she introduced herself. She didn’t offer a single explanation about kisses or sweethearts or anything. Just was her usual friendly self as if the notion of being his girlfriend wasn’t worth the breath of denying or confirming.

  Now she was running around with the others, a grin as wide as Dillon’s on her face.

  “Abby’s a likable person,” he said, taking the wet plate his sister handed him and swiping the towel over it. “She’s a good neighbor. Not like that guy who lived next to us when we shared that brownstone back in Chicago. The guy who was always stealing the paper. What was his name?”

  “Mr. Quinlan, and stop trying to change the subject.”

  He stacked the plate with the others he’d already dried. “Don’t make more of this than there is.”

  She pulled the stopper on the drain and leaned her hip against the sink. “Don’t make less of this than there is,” she countered softly. “I see the way you look at her.”

  He tossed down the towel, struggling for patience. “You know better than anyone why I’m not going down that path. I’m not cut out for it.”

  “Because you think you’re too much like Dad was, or because of what happened with Maria?”

  Trust his twin not to mince words.

  “Just drop it.” He turned to leave.

  But she grabbed his arm. “I put my life on hold for five years for you,” she reminded him tartly. “I gave up the only home I’d ever had until then and moved from Chicago to Weaver—started over again—just to satisfy your overprotective nature while you wormed your way into the Deuces.”

  “I get it. I owe you. I’m here, aren’t I? I’m trying. I warned you I wouldn’t be any good at it.”

  She gave a huge sigh. “Sloan, you don’t owe me. I love you. I want to see you happy. And you know that my coming to Weaver turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me, because this is where I found Axel. Why can’t you just be hopeful? Go with your emotions for once?”