by Kilby Blades
Shea was the easiest to pinpoint: she was out here all alone. Except no one should be alone and she needed people. Delilah needed a friend who was more her speed, because moving back to Sapling had been an adjustment for her, too. And Evie was never happier than when she fell into the role of surrogate mother to lost children.
And Dev...Dev didn’t know exactly what he needed from Shea—only that, whatever it was, he needed more. He didn’t care anymore that she was unavailable. Something much, much deeper than her beauty and intrigue held his attention. There was more to her—so much more—than the eccentric city girl who was writing a screenplay and knew her food. Dev ached, somehow, to know her other parts.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t impose,” came Shea's polite response, though Dev didn’t think he imagined her voice was a few degrees sadder. Suddenly, it was everything to him, just to get her to smile.
“Then maybe we’ll all invite ourselves over to that big mansion of yours and impose ourselves on you. You can make us all a salad in a big wooden bowl because...”—he did air quotes with his fingers—”…salad and cereal are the only things you know how to cook, and I’ll let you beat me at monopoly again.”
By the time he finished, she had swung her gaze from the passing scenery to his face and was giving him an incredulous look.
“Let you win?” she questioned with a voice to match. “Boy, please. You’d better ask for a refund for that business degree...”
At that, Dev chuckled, and her indignant expression melted into a smile.
“You know, it’s not Monopoly every time,” he explained as he maneuvered a few key turns. “Delilah loves Scrabble. We have about seven different versions of Trivial Pursuit. Evie likes Pictionary ‘cause she says watching me act out scenes is like watching a yeti have seizures. We play that one at least once a month.”
Shea finally laughed—a genuine one that lit up her face and doubled Dev's resolve to make this woman happy somehow.
“Now, that I’d pay to see...”
“No entry fee necessary,” he coaxed. “Just accept the invitation.”
Shea shook her head slightly, appearing to weigh a few things against her better judgment.
“Alright,” she finally conceded. “Next week I’ll come.”
Not wanting to upset his delicate victory, Dev smiled in approving response and quieted for the rest of the ride. The deputies came up Elk Mountain as part of their patrol. Being up there brought back memories of driving up the same road with his mother, what now felt like a million years ago.
Back when he was little—when he’d wanted for things he hadn’t yet known were unimportant, he’d wished to grow up, grow wealthy, and to own one of the big, glass houses. After his grandpa told him John Hamren was his biological father, all of that had changed. Not that he knew too many people who lived on Elk Mountain, but Dev had stayed away ever since. He didn’t think he would voluntarily go to one of those houses for anybody other than Shea.
The house itself was an extraordinary beauty—all lit up from inside with buttery light—all stonework and weathered wood holding up panes and panes of floor-to-ceiling glass. He hated that he loved the design. It was an architectural wonder. But he didn’t like Shea living all the way up here in a secluded, glass house all alone. He was only half a law man—not the jaded cop-type who had seen too many weird crimes. But it wasn’t a stretch to think Shea could be a target.
When he reached to open the passenger door to escort Shea out of the car, she seemed surprised to find him standing at her door. After missing just one beat, she took his assisting hand with familiar poise.
“I’d like to walk you in if you don’t mind. Make sure everything’s secure.”
The only sass she gave that time was a little shake of her head and a roll of her eyes. Walking ahead of him and fishing the keys out of the pocket of her coat, she tossed her answer over her shoulder.
“Whatever you say, Sheriff.”
Dev paid less attention to the interior of the house than he paid to identifying all points of vulnerability. To his relief, nothing seemed amiss. As he walked around, he surreptitiously tried the many window-doors to make sure they were locked.
Good.
Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised him that she had instincts for self-preservation. She had, after all, come from New York—a place where you locked your doors and never let down your guard. It made him feel a little better about her living up there.
And then it happened—the moment he hadn’t been anticipating but should’ve. For the first time, they were together alone at the end of the night. For the first time, they weren’t exchanging a waved goodbye or some other such casual parting. For the first time, he owed her a proper good night.
This is where things could get awkward. Because Shea wasn’t a stranger. She wasn’t a grocery store customer or an employee. She was a friend who had visited his mother’s house and eaten his mother’s pie. But there was no point denying it: a friend was a lot less than he wanted her to be.
Still, this hadn’t been a date. And anything more than a peck on the cheek or a friendly hug would freak her out. So he ignored every instinct to sweep her into a delicious kiss, even though both of them knew there was something crackling hot between them, even though both of them knew that said kiss was inevitable.
He wasn’t willing to mess it up. But he didn’t want to give her the wrong impression either. That’s why he touched her arm and stepped right into her space, placed a soft kiss on her cheek at the same moment as he squeezed said arm, and stared down into those warm, brown eyes before bidding her good night.
22
The Boat
Shea
Dev Kingston has some nerve, Shea said to herself rather unreasonably. She’d been mentally cursing the man all morning. He alone was responsible for her lack of concentration. On second thought, maybe some of the blame ought to be put on Delilah, whose perpetual need to rise early in the morning had led to an early departure, her ten-o’clock bedtime perpetrating events that left Shea and Dev alone in his car.
Even before last night, Shea had struggled to remain impervious to Dev’s charm. Seeing him with Evie had done nothing to diminish his appeal. There were few things more attractive than a man who doted on his momma. Then, to be in his car, surrounded by a cocoon of his citrusy, spicy aroma had made Shea ache to do spicy things.
Don’t forget the arm squeeze, sex-starved Shea reminded reasonable Shea, as if any version of Shea could forget. It was the least-perfunctory cheek kiss she’d ever received. And it hadn’t felt like a cheek-kiss at all. His big hand had cuffed her upper arm firmly. His green eyes had narrowed, telegraphing something complex before warm lips delivered a too-brief kiss to her cheek. A wave of his delectable scent had filled her senses as soon as he’d pulled back and she might have leant forward just a bit. She might’ve taken it a step farther, trailing said nose up the column of his beautiful neck it if his voice hadn’t broken the spell, speaking a deep “good night.”
“How late did you stay at Evie’s?” a familiar voice wanted to know. Shea hadn’t even seen Delilah come in.
“Not too late…” Shea answered, hoping Delilah wouldn’t notice the dazed look on her face.
“Hey…” Shea changed the subject. “Do you know where I can get a dog?”
Delilah, on her way to the walk-in, called over her shoulder. “That question is super random…”
When Delilah reappeared, she carried a huge vat of what Shea now recognized easily to be chicken broth.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time.” Shea confessed. “My ex…”
Delilah didn’t let her finish. “...sounds like a douche. Let me guess: he wouldn’t even let you get a pet.”
It was true. Keenan had always claimed a canine allergy, but Shea had never seen him so much sneeze or scratch his eyes. She still wasn’t sure what that particular quirk had been about. Did he just not like dogs, or was he simply jealous of any competition
for her affection?
“I’m thinking maybe a rescue, but I googled it earlier and I couldn’t find any rescue organizations within a hundred miles.”
“I think a dog is a great idea,” came Dev’s voice.
“Holy hell, Dev. You sneaking in and hovering in the doorway is creepy as hell. Seriously—when you come in, announce yourself.”
“Good morning to you, too, little sister.”
Shea still hadn’t turned to face him yet. She was irrationally afraid that he would be able to read her thoughts. She always had naughty thoughts about Dev but the ones from last night had taken things to a new level. Would he be able to tell?
“Do you know anybody?” She asked, skipping over her greeting altogether in favor of getting down to business. Maybe everything would be okay if they kept the conversation to dogs. Strangely, it had been him coming in the night before that had gotten her thinking. When he came in with her, it had comforted her—tamped down all the anxiety she’d been trying to ignore about being alone in the house.
That whole jumble of emotions was another beast. There were ways she hadn’t ever felt secure and protected, even with Keenan. The one time Keenan had suspected there was an intruder in their apartment, he’d sequestered them in the panic room behind a hidden wall in their closet and called down to the doorman.
It turned out the “intruder” was their housekeeper, who came back hours later for something she forgot. Thirty minutes in the escape room and Keenan had been scared out of his wits. Even if he hadn’t, Shea seriously doubted that Keenan could kick anybody’s ass.
But Dev…if ever there were some random intruder to contend with, Dev would be able to take him. Dev could do all manner of sexy, manly things. Shea had never understood gun obsession and knowing that so many people around here owned them had made her uncomfortable at first. But now, it made Dev all the more sexy to her that he knew his way around a firearm.
“Jessica,” Dev answered, just as Shea was on the brink of getting carried away again with thoughts of how he’d been the night before.
“Jessica?” Shea repeated as he approached the counter where she sat.
“Brody’s wife,” Delilah chimed in. “They live all the way out by Evergreen. She rarely comes out. It’s a lot, taking care of all those dogs.”
“So she’s a breeder?” Shea asked hopefully.
“And a good one, too,” Dev confirmed.
Did Shea imagine that, when he pulled his chair out to sit, he placed it a little closer to hers?
“Don’t worry. I’ll put a call into Jess before lunch.” Dev gave her a little wink as he settled into his seat. “You just leave everything to me.”
Shea did go back to Evie’s house the following Sunday night. They did play Pictionary, and Dev did look like a convulsing yeti. The s’mores bars Evie baked might have been the best thing Shea had ever tasted. Evie did more gentle prying into Shea’s situation, and Shea took it all in stride. It didn’t escape her that Dev seemed to listen intently.
“Heard Buffalo Bill took a liking to you.” Evie slipped this in as she poured the decaf, standing long enough to circle the table to get everybody’s cup. She waited until settling back in her seat on creaky bones before raising an inquisitive eyebrow. “Whaddayathink? You gonna hit that?”
Delilah’s amused smirk matched Evie’s exactly and she asked a playful, “Well?” at the same moments as Dev’s alarmed eyes bugged out. His cheeks puffed in a way that suggested he’d come just short of spitting out his coffee. He shot a reproachful look toward Evie.
“Well, he’s never officially asked me out…” Shea hedged with a little smile of her own before picking up the pint-sized carton of cream.
“Don’t worry,” Delilah returned cheekily. “He will.”
“Plying you with drinks is just the first part of his mating ritual,” Evie cut in. “Next’ll be flowers and gifts. Actually talking to you won’t come ’til at least step three.”
“I thought step three was carrying your books while he walked you home from school and giving you his letter jacket,“ Dev muttered—a bit grumpily, Shea thought—not seeming to enjoy what was left of his s’mores bar as much as he had a minute before. “You know, kind of like they did back at the turn of the last century when he was a boy.”
“Watch it, Devo,” Evie warned, using a nickname she’d used a few times by then, and only when Dev was being a smart aleck. “Billy’s only two years younger than me.”
“Well he looks about fifteen years older,” Dev shot back, looking at Shea for the few seconds it took him to say it, then quickly darting his gaze back to Evie. “A lot of that has to do with you aging so well.”
Shea raised an impressed eyebrow at Dev’s punctuation of the compliment with a charming half-smile designed to diffuse it all. Well played, sir, her eyebrow praised. He gave a little shrug as he raised his coffee to his lips—a tiny gesture meant just for her.
“I’m sure Shea has the pick of far more eligible suitors back in New York,” Delilah proclaimed, looking not at Evie, but at Dev. Shea didn’t have time to deconstruct the strange look that passed between them, so quickly did Evie come in for the kill.
“Is there somebody waiting’ for you in New York?”
Shea considered her answer carefully. The friendlier she got with people, the more they were going to ask. It had only been a matter of time.
“Not anymore.” Shea tried to sound at least a little bit somber about no longer being with Keenan. “I was in a relationship. It didn’t end well.”
Evie prodded, “Don’t you get lonely, all the way up there in that big house on that mountain?”
Shea smirked. “Not lonely enough that Bill’s got a chance.”
Delilah threw Dev an undecipherable look, which made Shea even more certain that Delilah had picked up on their crazy chemistry. Not only that—when it came to said chemistry, Delilah had an opinion. Shea would’ve paid money to know what that opinion was. If she had to hazard a guess from the silent argument that was passing between them, Delilah didn’t approve.
Shea didn’t know why that hurt. She had no business pining after Dev or wishing for an alternate universe that didn’t exist. Though, she was beginning to think about what would happen once her divorce came through. It wasn’t like she would instantly, magically, disappear from Sapling. There would be logistics to manage and decisions to make. What would happen between she and Dev then?
“You seem like the marrying type,” Evie set forth.
Dev immediately protested.
“Come on. What does that even mean?”
Evie shot back calmly, “It means, not everybody’s afraid to admit they don’t like to be alone.” She gave a meaningful look to Dev.
“On that note…” Dev pushed back his chair and stood to his full height. “… I’m gonna leave the two of you to talk. And you may be interested to know Delilah’s been talking to Adam again.”
Evie swung an astonished gaze toward Delilah two seconds before Delilah cocked her head and pinned Dev with an indignant look that said, “Really?”
Dev turned to Shea and reached out his hand, as if to help her out of her chair.
“Wanna come with me to see the boat?”
“Sorry about that,” Dev said simply, a minute after they’d made their way to the gardens and descended down toward the docks.
“I’m new in town and people are curious,” Shea said just as simply. Low voices were warranted by the quiet of the night. “I’m kind of surprised she’s the first one to ask me directly.”
“Evie’s more than direct,” Dev replied, casting Shea a bit of a sidelong glance. “She likes to pry, and not because you’re new. She’s an equal opportunity meddler.”
“Is Delilah really seeing Adam again?”
Dev nodded.
“What got them back together?” Shea wanted to know.
Dev walked them past a motored Zodiac and stepped them down on the dock until they stopped in front of a rowboat.
“They never should’ve broken up.”
Dev put his hands in his pockets and gazed down at Shea in explanation. “If you’d met Pete, you’d understand Evie. The two of ‘em were so happy together, she thinks everyone has a soulmate. She knows what she had and she just wants that for us.”
Shea didn’t mention the feeling she was beginning to get about Dev—that maybe he thought there were such things as soul mates, too. Because, how could it be that a guy like him—so good-hearted, and sexy and rich—could still be single?
"So this guy…” Dev asked only after he’d held a gentlemanly hand out to help her step onto the boat, directed her to the seat opposite the one with the oars and boarded the vessel himself. Dev had taken the notion of “showing her the lake” literally. Shea had no notion for how far it stretched, where they were on it or where it might end. She could only guess from the name that Grand Lake was quite large.
“My ex-husband…” Shea felt sated and full from dinner and relaxed from drinks, and open from her growing sense of surrender around all of this coming out. “I married him way too young.”
"How young?"
"Nineteen...and not a mature nineteen either.”
"How old was he?" Dev’s voice held no judgment.
"Twenty-eight. But he was even less mature than me."
Dev stopped rowing for a second. He had navigated them away from the dock and was moving them toward the open part of the lake. "Do I even want to know what that means?"
"We were both naïve in our own way. He thought he'd wind up like his dad—be some muckety-muck—and that any girl he married would jump at the chance to be like his mom. And the truth is, at first, I did."
It was the first time Shea had owned up to it bluntly.
"What was his mom like?" Dev wanted to know.