by Devney Perry
Besides the kitchen, it was my favorite room in the house.
Jess emerged from the bathroom and came to the bed. All of the calm I had found moments ago evaporated.
He climbed in, lying on his back, and immediately pulled me into his side with one arm wrapped around my shoulders, the other propped behind his head.
At first, I wasn’t sure what to do. Every muscle in my body was tense. Jess felt it too because he shook me lightly. “Relax, Georgia. Sleep.”
“I can’t relax, Jess. You’re in my bed.”
“I’m aware.”
“Well, at least let me slide over to my side,” I said.
“No. Just relax. You’re sleeping here.”
“Seriously, Jess. I’ve never slept next to anyone other than Rowen before. I won’t be able to like this.”
“Really?” he asked.
“Really what?”
“Never slept next to a man before?”
“Uh . . . no.”
Damn.
I had just opened the door for us to talk about my past relationships, something I was not ready to do. Obviously I wasn’t a virgin, having a four-year-old kid across the hall, but I didn’t think we were at that point yet where we shared the intimate details of our pasts.
And I really didn’t feel like talking about mine. The words “Nate Fletcher” tasted sour and made me sick.
“Good,” he muttered.
Well, that was surprising. I figured the sheriff would jump all over the chance to interrogate me. I was so relieved that he didn’t, I inhaled a deep breath and settled into his side.
It took me a few minutes, but the tension finally left my body. And when it did, I was shocked to find that sleeping on Jess was comfortable. Really comfortable.
I’d read about it in romance novels and seen it in movies but it had always seemed fake. I doubted that any woman could be comfortable squished into a man’s hard body. Sleeping like that wasn’t real, it was just a romantic notion.
I was glad to be proved wrong. This was nice.
Enjoying his warmth, I curled into Jess’s side and relaxed my head in the crook of his neck. One of my arms was underneath me while the other rested on his torso.
Jess’s scent filled my nose. I had gotten hints of it before, but now that I was lying on him, I could really breathe it in. It was amazing. Clean and fresh.
“What kind of soap do you use?” I asked.
“Not sure. Cheapest one they have at the store. Green apple, I think.”
“Hmm . . . I like it.”
Tomorrow I was adding green apple soap to my grocery list.
We lay there in the quiet darkness for a few minutes and I replayed the events from the day, managing to keep my body relaxed when I thought about being bitten.
“How did you know I was in the ER?” I asked.
I hadn’t called him on my way into town, and even though we’d spent a lot of time together these last two weeks, I didn’t think the general populace knew we were a new couple.
“Bryant was sitting in his cruiser outside town. Saw you come racing by. Decided to follow you instead of pull you over. When you hit the ER, he called me.”
“Oh,” I said.
If our relationship progressed to the point where we were together for major gift-giving holidays and birthdays, I needed to shop online or out of town. Jess had spies everywhere.
“Thanks for coming to the hospital and for being there for Rowen,” I said. “She was freaked. It was nice of you to take her so she didn’t have to sit in the ER with me. And thanks for being there for me too.”
“Not a hardship taking care of my girls,” he said into my hair.
That was the second time tonight he’d called us “my girls” and I liked it even more this time than I had the first. It was possessive, but sweet and caring. Like we were his treasures.
“I like it when you call us your girls,” I whispered, smiling against his chest.
“You are.”
My smile got bigger and I wrapped my arm firmly around his torso.
I wasn’t sure how, but Jess had turned a bad afternoon into a wonderful night. Not once since he had arrived at the hospital had I tried to put some distance between us. I’d just let things happen naturally, and it had felt great letting him care for us without worrying about what it meant or doubting his intentions. All of the worry and doubt I’d been keeping up these last few weeks was tiring.
Today, I just hadn’t had the energy to sustain it.
Jess hadn’t seemed burdened at all by today’s drama. Not for a minute. Maybe he really did like us and wanted to be with me, just because of, well . . . me. No ulterior motives.
Here he was in my bed and not once had he made a move for sex. And nothing about today’s events suggested he was trying to get the farmhouse from me. Hell, if he wanted it, all he had to do was put a rattlesnake on the front porch and I’d never walk through the door again.
I was starting to second-guess myself. Maybe it was time to start trusting Jess and just let this relationship between us take its course.
But I wasn’t there yet. I needed more time.
Shutting off my mind, I snuggled deeper into Jess’s broad chest, soaking up the strength from his body. I breathed easy. Clean and fresh.
“And thank you for getting us mongoose babies.”
Jess
“Mongoose babies?” I asked.
When she didn’t respond, I tipped my eyes down and saw that she was out. I’d known she’d fall asleep next to me if she just got the hell out of her head.
But I still had thoughts running through my own, so I lay there, unsleeping, with Georgia curled into my side.
Not a bad place to be.
Bryant had called me earlier and said Georgia was dashing into the ER with blood dripping down her arm. My chest had constricted so badly in that moment I’d thought I was having a heart attack. The drive to the hospital was tense. Never in my life had I been so worried. And that was saying something, considering my home life growing up.
Georgia and her daughter, living in Ben’s farmhouse, were taking over my life.
I was a man who had diligently avoided tying himself to anything but his job for the last decade. But I just couldn’t push them away. Instead, I kept trying to pull them closer.
And every time she tried to put up a wall or distance herself, I just kept pulling. She was scared, but she’d get over it. And the less room she had to run, the better.
Christ, we hadn’t even had sex yet. Something I was going to remedy soon.
Part of me wanted to say fuck it and take her right here, tonight. But for our first time, I wanted her full, undivided attention. I wanted to get her so worked up she screamed my name. And with Rowen across the hall, loud sex was not an option.
I needed to stop thinking about fucking Georgia. My hard-on was just inches away from her leg. So I switched my mind to the barn.
A rattlesnake bite.
What. The. Fuck.
In all my years at the farmhouse, I’d never seen a snake out here.
But sure enough, when Silas and I had gone into the barn, there it was. Right where she said it had been. It had likely been trying to build a nest behind that bale but hadn’t had the chance to lay its eggs yet. And it never would. I’d been more than happy to cut that fucker’s head off.
On Monday, I was talking to Ryan at Jamison Valley Construction about tearing down that barn. I’d pay extra to have it done within a week and then I was going to have him build a heated garage in its place. Georgia could keep her car inside during the winter and I’d make sure it was big enough for my rigs too.
Because in the not-so-distant future, I was going to be living at the farmhouse with my girls.
“Mommy?”
I jolted awake and shot out of bed. I had slept unmoving on Jess’s side and he, too, was jumping up to pull on some jeans. As I raced to the door, I glanced at the clock.
Five a.m.
I
flipped the lock, threw open the door and knelt in front of Rowen.
“What’s up, baby girl? Are you okay?” Certainly there must be something wrong if she was up this early.
“The sun is coming up, Mommy. That means I can get out of bed.”
When she was three, I’d instituted a rule that she couldn’t get out of bed until the sun was up. She had developed a bad habit of getting up in the middle of the night and coming into my room to sleep with me. Well, she slept. I got kicked in the face, stomach and ribs.
I twisted my neck to the windows. The sun was definitely not up.
“Uh, sweetie, the sun isn’t up yet. It’s still dark out. You need to get back into bed,” I said.
She ignored me completely because when I turned to look at the windows, her eyes caught a glimpse of Jess.
“Did Jess have a sleepover?”
It was way too early to have this conversation.
“Yeah, Roe, I had a sleepover. You okay with that?” he asked, picking her up.
“Yep,” she said, giving him a once-over.
Her eyebrows came together in the middle. “Are those your jammies? Why do you sleep in jeans? Mommy won’t let me sleep in anything except my jammies. She says if I sleep in my dresses, they will get wrecked.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Roe, sweetie, how about we save the questions until after Mommy and Jess get some coffee. Okay?”
“But, Mommy—”
“No ‘buts,’ Rowen. Let me get a sweater and we’ll go down and start on breakfast, okay? And then you can ask all the questions you want.”
“Ohhh-kaaay,” she pouted.
“We’re all up early and it’s a Sunday. Only a few weeks left to enjoy the summer. How about we head to Wade Lake and go fishing?” Jess asked.
I grumbled, “Fishing?” at the same time Roe shrieked, “Fishing!”
Both of them looked at me with big smiles on their faces.
I guess we were going fishing.
I met Jess outside when he returned to the farmhouse with his boat. Behind an older blue truck was a shiny silver aluminum boat with rods and oars sticking out the sides.
The boat wasn’t a surprise since obviously we had to have one to go fishing. The truck was a bit of a shock but only because I’d had no idea he drove anything other than the bronze behemoth. But I was totally taken aback by the big black dog he’d brought too.
“Oakley,” Jess called. The dog took a flying leap out of the truck and walked to Jess’s side.
“You have a dog?” I asked.
He didn’t get a chance to answer. Roe walked through the door, carrying her little pink backpack, and froze at the sight of Oakley. She immediately darted behind my legs, clutching them for dear life.
“Mommy, is that a nice doggie or a mean doggie?”
There were a lot of dog owners in Spokane and I’d seen my fair share of bites in the ER, so I had taught Roe early on that some dogs were nice and others were not. She needed to ask me before approaching a strange one.
“This is Oakley,” Jess told her. “He’s nice. You want to come say hello?”
She nodded hesitantly and slowly walked to him.
Jess came up the steps and snapped his fingers for Oakley to follow.
“Come here, little bit,” Jess said, kneeling down by the dog and reaching out his hand.
When he called Roe “little bit,” it warmed my heart. No one except for me, not even Ben, had called her by a pet name. I loved that she had that kind of special affection from Jess.
“See? Nice,” he said, helping her pet the dog’s head.
She gave him a little smile but was still apprehensive.
“Let’s get going, okay? You and Oakley can get to know each other a little while later,” I said.
An hour later, we were driving on a bumpy gravel road that wound up the side of the mountains through the thick, green forest. The trees cleared and we pulled into a wide, gravel parking lot on the shore of Wade Lake.
I sucked in a short breath as my eyes traveled over the scenery. We had just driven to heaven.
The lake stretched out in front of us. The water was flawless, like glass, and not a breath of wind in the air disturbed its peaceful surface. The forest sloped down steeply to meet the water’s edge, its pristine, mirrored surface reflecting the green trees and blue sky.
Magnificent.
“Pretty, huh,” Jess asked.
“You could say that.” I was in total awe of the beauty before me.
With the boat in the water, a life jacket on Roe and Oakley dancing from side to side, we set out into the lake.
The wind breezed through my hair as we sliced through the still waters, the only sounds the buzz of the engine and the whir of the air rushing past us.
Jess took us through the main part of the lake and then down a channel hidden behind a large hill. He slowed, then cut the engine so we were drifting and bobbing in the middle of the lake. Beautiful blue water beneath us gently slapped against the aluminum boat. Green forest walled us in at a distance. The mountain air was cool and refreshing but the sun shone brightly, keeping us warm.
I was loving fishing and we hadn’t even put a pole in the water.
Jess taught us to fish while he showed us around the lake. There were five different channels in Wade Lake. When Roe would get restless in one spot, he’d buzz us around to a new one.
Jess caught three fish. Roe caught two. I was content to watch and pet Oakley.
Rowen was so excited the first time her pole jerked that she jumped up and let go of the rod. If Jess hadn’t had secured it to the boat, it would have gone overboard. Then while she was reeling in her line, she started bouncing up and down so much Jess worried she’d lose the fish. He let her abandon the reeling and took over so she could grip the edge of the boat and peer over the edge, waiting to see her catch.
She didn’t even try reeling with the second fish. She just leaped up in her seat and thrust the pole at Jess so she could assume her perch and watch him bring up the fish, Oakley right at her side, both staring intently down at the water.
After about ten minutes in the boat, Roe had warmed up to Oakley and they had become fast friends. He was a sweet dog with a mild temperament and he obeyed orders better than any dog I’d ever seen before.
Jess told me that Oakley wasn’t actually his dog, but instead belonged to the station. He spent most of his time with Jess or a deputy during the day but his bed was at the station and he’d stay the nights there with whoever was on shift to take dispatch calls.
Along with fishing, we spent a lot of time looking for wildlife. Jess would usually spot the animals and birds and show us where to look. In total, we saw five deer, a turtle near one of the shores, a mama duck and her six ducklings and a flying bald eagle.
But no other people. Today, the lake was ours. Just Rowen, Jess and me surrounded by beauty only God could create.
Bliss.
As we were driving back to the farmhouse, Roe asleep in the back seat, I reached over and grabbed Jess’s hand.
“Thanks, honey,” I said, giving it a squeeze.
He laced his fingers with mine. “Great day.”
Yes. It absolutely was. “The best.”
Jess
“The best,” she’d said in that sweet, soft voice she used for me often. Right after calling me “honey,” something I liked a whole lot.
I’d never taken anyone to Wade Lake before.
Fishing gave me a chance to free my mind, to ignore the burdens from my job, my mother and whatever else was weighing me down. Just a couple hours on crystal-clear water to find some peace. Let it all go. I usually drove the boat to a quiet, deserted corner and stayed there all day, unmoving.
Today had certainly not been quiet. Roe had clamored the entire time, taking turns talking to me, her mother or the dog. Georgia would call attention to animals, birds or whatever else she thought Roe would want to see. And I’d spent most of the day driv
ing them around the entire lake. Christ, I used more gas today than I had in all of last year combined.
But just like Friday night dinners at the café, I’d never go fishing alone again. Because what I’d thought was peace was just an illusion. Today, with Georgia and Roe, I learned what peace truly felt like.
Gigi
“Hey, baby.”
I was at the kitchen island chopping vegetables for stir-fry. Roe didn’t like it so I was glad she was outside playing with the kittens and not in the kitchen complaining about my dinner choice.
It was Tuesday night, two days since our fishing trip and his first sleepover, and Jess was just getting off work, coming to the farmhouse for dinner.
“Hi,” I said, lifting my cheek so he could give it a quick kiss. “How was crime fighting today, Sheriff?”
He leaned back against the counter opposite me. His arms crossed over his chest and his legs were planted wide, making his jeans pull just right at his thighs. He had rolled up his sleeves, revealing his strong forearms. His stance was hot. But my favorite part of Jess coming over was the way he’d walk around in bare feet. Now that was sexy.
I needed to fan my now-flushed face but didn’t want Jess to see.
He hadn’t shaved this morning so he had stubble on his handsome face. I couldn’t wait to feel that stubble against my skin later tonight. We’d been having some pretty hot make-out sessions. Jess always stopped us before we could get too carried away, usually leaving for his own house shortly after we stopped kissing.
At first it was fun. Like when you started kissing as a teenager. But, after weeks, I was over it. Way over it.
Both of us desperately wanted relief from the sexual tension that kept building tighter and tighter. But he was adamant about waiting until Rowen wasn’t at the house.
“Had to close the case on Alex Benson today,” Jess said, pulling my thoughts away from sex.