Safe in Your Arms

by RaeAnne Thayne

  Sloan had left Weaver and he hadn’t looked back.

  She ignored the open window and went into her own house. She changed out of her scrubs and pulled on denim shorts and a red tank top. She glanced out her bedroom window up at his bedroom window. Saw nothing but the closed blinds, the same way they’d been for months.

  She whistled for Rex, and the dog trotted outside with her, obediently plopping his butt on the sidewalk as she walked down to stand in front of Sloan’s house again and study that open window. She’d feel silly calling the sheriff because of it.

  For all she knew, a Realtor had come by to look things over. It was a warm summer day. Why not open the window and let in some fresh air to a house that had been left, neglected and alone, for months?

  “Come on, Rex.” She headed back toward her house, but he suddenly bolted down the side yard, furiously barking the way he always did whenever he thought there was a chance of catching that groundhog. She followed. So far, she’d resisted Mr. Gilcrest’s suggestion of shooting the rodent, but every time she went back to her garden and found he’d managed to get over or under the chicken wire she kept putting up, the more tempting the idea became.

  Rex was going nearly crazy, barking with the ferocity of a canine who believed he was twice the size that he actually was, and she quickly realized it wasn’t the groundhog that had him so agitated.

  It was the fact that the door of Sloan’s shed was ajar.

  She grimaced and went a few steps closer. “I’ve already called the sheriff,” she lied loudly. “And I’ve got my granddaddy’s shotgun,” she added for good measure. “I’m a mighty good shot, so you’d better think twice about what you’re doing in there.”

  The old wood door creaked, and she hastily grabbed for Rex’s collar and missed when he lunged for the opening.

  “See you’re still having trouble catching the dog,” Sloan said as he scooped Rex out of midair. He pushed the shed door open the rest of the way with his shoulder, avoiding the dog’s slathering tongue.

  Abby could only stare.

  His hair was shorter, the flecks of gray more apparent. They were echoed in the short moustache and goatee he wore. His T-shirt had a line drawing of a skull on the front, and his jeans hung on his hips. He was tan. Leaner. And he hadn’t had any fat to spare before. The scar on his right biceps and the tattoo on his left seemed to fit right in.

  He looked dangerous. He looked hard.

  Except for his eyes.

  She slowly straightened and wished she were wearing something a little more presentable than the cutoffs that she’d had since high school.

  He angled his head and considered her. “If you’re packing a shotgun, I’m not sure where you’re hiding it, sweetheart. Those shorts are pretty short.”

  She crossed her arms. “What are you doing here?”

  He set Rex down, much to the dog’s disappointment. “I came to get something I wanted.”

  Pain rolled through her, so much sharper than it should have been after all this time. She could see behind him to his big black motorcycle. It took up nearly the entire space inside the shed. “I wondered when you’d make arrangements for the Harley.” He hadn’t taken it when he’d left. And nobody had come for it since.

  He didn’t even glance at the bike. “Your hair’s longer.”

  She self-consciously touched her hair. Annoyed with herself, she dropped her hands. Pushed them in the back pockets of her shorts. “Yours isn’t. Looking a lot grayer, too.”

  His lip tilted. “Missed that smart-i-tude. How’s Dillon?”

  “Good.” She left it at that. If he wanted to know more, he was going to have to be specific. It had been five months since he’d said a word to her. She wasn’t going to make the mistake of thinking he was there for any reason that had anything to do with her.

  “Your grandmother?”

  Her jaw tightened. “Her condition hasn’t deteriorated.”

  “And you?” His eyes seemed to bore into hers. “Found anyone who has the next fifty years available?”

  She turned on her heel and walked away.

  “Abby, wait.” He caught up to her and closed his hands around her arms, turning her to face him.

  She couldn’t look at him. It hurt too much. “I can’t do this.” She stepped back and his hands fell away. “Just take what you came for and go. Dillon’s going to be here soon, and I don’t want him seeing you. He’s finally stopped asking when you’ll be home.”

  He looked pained. “I know I hurt you. Both of you.”

  She wasn’t going to deny what was so patently obvious.

  “Are you...seeing anyone?”

  “A resident from the hospital,” she said without a shred of regret for exaggerating her one date.

  “A doctor.” Sloan’s lips twisted. “Guess that stands to reason.”

  She smiled coolly. “He has a thing for girls in a nurse’s cap. You? Anyone new you’re tatting yourself up for?”

  “Is it serious?”

  “Terminally.”

  His jaw slanted. “Guess that’s nothing more than I deserve. Probably giving him your grandmother’s chocolate cookies.”

  “I bake a batch every week.” He had no need to know they went to Mr. Gilcrest. She waved her hand at him. “You don’t look like you’re spending a lot of time wearing a suit and sitting behind a desk. What’s the ATF have you doing? I guess the goatee is a little bit of a disguise, but—”

  “I’m not with the ATF. Haven’t been for four months.”

  She absorbed that. He hadn’t raced back to Weaver, that was for sure. If she’d needed some sort of proof about the way he felt, that would seem to be it. She turned again to go.

  “Not interested in what I have been doing?”

  She stopped. Looked at him again. “Working on your tan by the looks of it.”

  His lips twisted. “I’ve been in the sun,” he allowed. “Digging ditches, among other things.”

  “Why? Get yourself on a chain gang in preparation for something else undercover?”

  “Getting my head clear,” he said quietly. “Finally.”

  Her eyes suddenly prickled. “I’m glad for you,” she managed to say.

  “I’m sorry it took me so long.”

  Her chest ached. And standing there pretending was simply more than she could take. “You don’t have to be sorry where I’m concerned.”

  “Right. Big-girl panties and all that.”

  She cleared her throat. “You should at least take a few minutes to see your sister.”

  “I will. I wanted to see you first.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re the reason I came home.”

  Home? She closed her eyes. “Sloan.”

  “I love you, Abby. I didn’t want to. And I thought if I left, maybe it would go away. But every time I closed my eyes, you were there. Inside my head. Inside my heart.”

  She sank her teeth into her tongue, but not even that stopped a tear from escaping.

  “But I also knew I was still carrying the same crap inside me that’s been there for years, and if there was going to be any chance at all for us, I had to go back and deal with it.”

  She finally looked at him. “The Deuces?”

  “Even before that, I was screwed up. Tara and I—we didn’t exactly have a normal upbringing. I told you we moved a lot. About my father’s job, but—”

  “She told me what it was like,” Abby interrupted huskily. “I know how you two would hide with your mother in closets and bedrooms whenever your father thought you were in some kind of danger. Was he really in the CIA? Or was he just suffering from paranoid delusions?”

  “He was really with the CIA. And he was really paranoid. The way we grew up?” His eyes darkened. “It was
a nightmare. And I’m a lot like him.”

  She twisted her fingers together. “Paranoid?”

  He didn’t smile. “Sometimes it seemed that way. But I have a clean bill of mental health.”

  “So what have you been doing, then?”

  “Whatever I needed to do to keep some food in my stomach and a pillow under my head. Construction. Manual labor. Whatever was easy to pick up.”

  “And easy to leave?”

  “I visited Maria’s grave. My parents’ grave.” His gaze was hooded. “Johnny’s. He wasn’t a good man. But there were days when he was my friend. And I needed to face that.”

  She couldn’t keep up with the tears rolling down her face, and she gave up trying. “You could have told me all this. You didn’t have to leave. You didn’t have to stay away and never even call!”

  “Yeah. I did. Because I needed to realize that I did have a dream. That I’m not so different from my sister after all.” He reached out and brushed his thumb over her cheek. “That I wanted this. Home. A life. A front porch.” He looked down at Rex, who’d given up on getting his attention and had simply decided to lie across his scuffed biker boot. “A dog.”

  “He’s not up for adoption,” she said thickly.

  He ignored that. “More importantly, I needed to realize that the only one I could have that with—the only one I wanted, needed, to have that with—was you.”

  She inhaled shakily.

  “Love has never come easily for me, Abby. Or with any sort of—” he frowned, searching for the word “—grace,” he finally said. “And then one day, there you were. Smiling at me over milk in a crystal glass, and nothing had ever seemed easier. Or more complicated.” He touched her hair. His hands were shaking. “You made me laugh again. You gave me peace. And you deserve a lot more than I can ever be.”

  “Sloan—”

  “I want forever.” His voice was raw. “And I want it with you. Max has a job for me. A permanent one. So this other guy—”

  She caught his face between her hands. “There is no other guy. How could there be? There’s only you. There will only ever be you.”

  His eyes searched hers. “You’ll marry me?”

  She let out a choked laugh. “Are you asking?”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a diamond ring that looked delicate and unreal in his long fingers.

  “Dillon told me once all I had to do was say please,” he said huskily. “Yeah. I’m asking. Abby, will you please marry me?”

  She looked from the ring into his eyes. And she saw forever.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The diamond winked in the sunlight, and she realized his hands weren’t steady. She slowly slipped the ring from his grasp and slid it onto her finger.

  It fit perfectly.

  “I’m sure.”

  His lips slowly curved. His eyes lightened. His hands slid behind her, and he slowly pulled her close, lifting her right off her feet until she could feel his heart beating against hers. She pressed her lips to his and twined her arms around him, finally believing that she’d never have to let go. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” she whispered.

  The whoop they heard gave them only a moment’s warning before Dillon launched himself at Sloan’s legs. “You came back!”

  Sloan took a steadying step, managing to set Abby on her feet, though he couldn’t bring himself to let her loose. Not completely. Not yet. He hugged Dillon with his other arm, but his eyes never left Abby’s beautiful gray ones. “I came home.”

  Her fingers trembled as she stroked his face. She smiled back at him through her tears.

  “So are you gonna be Abby’s boyfriend now?”

  “Buddy, I’m going to be a lot more than that,” he promised.

  Dillon thought about that for a moment. “Guess Grandma’s cookies really work.”

  Sloan threw back his head and laughed. He scooped up Dillon in one arm and pulled Abby against him with his other. “Cookies, huh? So it was really all a plot?”

  She lifted her shoulder, blushing almost as bright a red as her shirt. “They didn’t work so well for me. It only took my grandmother a month to catch Grandpa. It took me one hundred and forty-six days.”

  “It’s been that many days since I saw your face.” He leaned over and kissed her slowly. “But it only took you one day to catch me,” he said huskily. “All it took was that smile of yours.” The smile he vowed to keep on her pretty face for the rest of his life.

  Dillon squirmed and Sloan set him down. Rex immediately jumped against Dillon, and they were off, running around the yard. Sloan wasn’t sure who was chasing whom.

  Abby slid her arms around his waist and looked up at him. Her eyes were shining. “Welcome home, Sloan.” She reached up and pressed her mouth to his.

  This was the dream, he knew.

  His Abby, who had a heart wide enough to include even a man like him.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from FLIRTING WITH DESTINY by Chrystine Butler

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Hey, cowboy.” The blonde barmaid leaned across the three-foot expanse of aged wood. “I know just what you need to make your day complete.”

  Devlin Murphy glanced up from his mouthwatering burger and thick-cut fries, the house specialty here in the Blue Creek Saloon. He wasn’t really a cowboy, despite the black Stetson perched on his head. She must be new and it’d been a while since he’d been in here.

  Eight long months to be exact.

  His brothers had tried to coax him to his old stomping grounds a few times since he’d gotten his feet back under him—literally. Devlin just hadn’t been ready.

  But spring had come early in Destiny, Wyoming, and on this warm, late April afternoon, Dev decided it was past time to rejoin the world of the living.

  He bumped up the brim of his hat and offered what he hoped was more of his old prowler grin than his recent pain-filled grimace. Not an easy feat thanks to the familiar white-hot fire crawling down both shoulders toward his elbows.

  “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

  “Just one minute.” She offered a quick wink and then turned away.

  That simple gesture did nothing for him. Not anymore.

  This time last year he would’ve been all over that suggestive sign, making sure he left with her phone number, if not the lady herself.

  Now? Not interested.

  And wasn’t that just another kick in the ass to go along with the butt whipping he’d taken since the helicopter crash that had left him and his eldest brother, Adam, stranded for three days in the Grand Tetons National Forest.

  A helicopter he’d been piloting.

  Thankfully Adam had come out with just a few bruises and scratches. Dev had been the one who’d spent five months in the hospital dealing with a broken leg and two broken arms. His recovery had been slow and painful, and while he could finally take care of himself again, he’d hit a brick wall with his physical therapy. When he bothered to go, the weekly sessions were painful, without any lasting results to show for his efforts.

  Of course, sitting at a bar with a straight-on view of the rows of bottles waiting to be mixed and poured for the saloon’s patrons probably wasn’t the smartest thing to be doing right now. Not with three of his former best friends staring back at him.

  Jim Beam, Jack Daniels and Johnny Walker.

  Yes, he and the boys went way back. Back to before he could even drive. But the four of them hadn’t pulled an all-nighter in six years.

  That didn’t mean the desire had left him.

  No, that stayed with him every day.

  Just then the barmaid returned and placed a frosty mug of fre
shly poured beer in front of him.

  Every pain-filled muscle in Devlin’s body froze.

  “Here you go.” She offered a toothy grin. “You look like a man who’s earned a tall, cold one.”

  Dev kept his gaze glued to the glass, the golden color calling to him like buried treasure to a weary pirate. White frothy foam lapped against the rim while beads of condensation chased one another down the length of the mug until they soaked the paper napkin below.

  He swallowed, his forearms pressing hard into the rolled edge of the bar as his fingers curled into tight fists. A deep inhale through his nose caused the yeasty, bitter flavor he still remembered to come alive again inside his mouth.

  Damn, coming here had been a bad idea.

  “Uh.” He paused and blinked hard, breaking the hypnotic hold the beer had over him. After clearing his throat, Dev looked up at the barmaid and tried to summon the courage to set her straight. “I don’t—”

  “Lisa, why don’t you take care of the crew at the end of the bar?” A strong feminine voice cut him off. “I’ll take over here.”

  The blonde turned and looked at her boss, Racy Steele, the fiery redhead whose personality matched her name even though she was happily married to the town’s sheriff and was the mother of twins.

  “But I’m talking to— I mean, I’m helping...”

  Dev sat silently as the two women stared each other down. He knew who would win, and sure enough, when Racy tilted her head slightly, the barmaid shrugged and turned away.

  With the ease of experience, Racy made the beer disappear, replacing it with a tall glass of ice water. “Sorry about that. She’s new.”

  Dev nodded, releasing a deep breath.

  “It’s good to see you up and on your feet again,” Racy continued, offering an easy smile. “You’ve been away from the Blue Creek for too long.”

  “Been away from everything too long.”

  “Of course, when you are here you usually don’t sit at the bar.”

  Another defense mechanism.

  When he’d decided to give up the booze, he refused to give up the friendships or the fun. Somehow sitting in one of the booths or the tables scattered around the large dance floor made the ongoing battle easier to fight.