Her eyes widened at the order. Why her? Why couldn’t Katrina do it?
On the other hand, she didn’t want her flirty sister anywhere near Cade and his soaking-wet pectoral muscles.
“There’s a clean load in the dryer. You can probably find one of your brothers’ shirts in the extras cupboard too.”
“I’m not that wet,” he protested. “Really. It’s a warm evening. I’ll be dry before I get home.”
“Don’t be silly. You’ll catch your death. Go with Wyn. She’ll take care of you.”
She knew better than to go up against her mother, who had ruthlessly raised five children of her own and half the neighborhood too, while her husband was off protecting the people of Haven Point.
“No sense in arguing,” Marsh told him. “You can’t win.”
“Everyone else, take these kitchen chairs into the living room,” her mother instructed. “We’ll have cake in there.”
Wyn led a reluctant Cade down the hall to the laundry room. This had actually once been a small ground-floor bedroom but when the boys started moving out, her mother declared she needed more space than a cramped closet off the kitchen to do laundry. This had become a combination sewing room, laundry, craft room and something of a retreat for her mother.
It smelled of laundry soap, dryer sheets and wet male. She reached into the dryer and pulled out a still-warm towel. “Here you go.”
Cade took it from her. “This is stupid. I’m not that wet.”
“It’s my mom. What are you gonna do? She will expect you to come out at least wearing a dry shirt.”
With a sigh, he started toweling off his hair, which left it sticking up in dark, wavy tufts that begged for a woman to reach out and straighten it.
Her fingers twitched but she managed to keep them at her side, though she was suddenly aware of the intimacy of the room. The two of them were alone, truly alone, for the first time since the day he kissed her.
She swallowed her nervousness and headed for the white armoire in the corner. “This is where Mom keeps extra clothes we’ve all left here over the years for various reasons. She even keeps extras for Kat and me and Marsh, who all live within a six-mile radius. Crazy, I know. I think she has this secret fantasy of all of us being stranded here after Sunday dinner because of a blizzard or something.”
His mouth lifted in a faint smile. “She loves fussing over all of you.”
“Whether we want it or not.”
He smiled again, though she thought there was a bleak shadow in his eyes. “You should consider yourself very lucky.”
For most of his life, he hadn’t had a mother who fussed over him, she knew, and Cade’s bastard of a father had basically abdicated any responsibility for his sons.
Cade had been the one who took care of his two younger brothers. He walked them to school, fixed their lunches, helped with homework. Her heart hurt just thinking about it.
“I am lucky,” she murmured. “Thanks for the reminder.”
She turned and rifled through the clothing stacked neatly inside the cupboard until she found a T-shirt she thought would work.
“Here you go. I think this one was Elliot’s but it should—”
She turned around and forgot what she was going to say. He had taken off his wet polo and his chest was every bit as hard and muscled as she had imagined.
Not that she would admit to ever imagining it.
She managed to close her mouth—barely—and handed the shirt to him.
“Thanks.” He took the shirt and pulled it over his head.
She had always considered her brothers large men but apparently Cade was bigger. The shirt—soft and worn thin from frequent washing—hugged each muscle, each line.
He flexed his shoulders forward and back, as if trying to make more room. “You sure this wasn’t yours?”
“No,” she whispered. Her voice sounded tight, thready, which earned her a strange look from him. Pull it together, Wynnie. You’ve seen a half-naked man before.
Just not one who looked like Cade Emmett.
“It’s Elliot’s, I think,” she said, in a voice that sounded much more in control. “Do you want me to look for something else?”
“No. This works.”
“Why don’t you leave that one here for my mom to wash?” she suggested. “She can store it there in the extras cupboard.”
“In case I happen to be having Sunday dinner over here when Snowmageddon hits?”
“You never know. Anything’s possible.”
He gave that small smile again, the one that made her wonder if he felt as awkward in this situation as she did. “If there’s a blizzard in Haven Point, I’ll probably be out in the middle of it. I’m afraid I won’t have much time for sitting around your mom’s fireplace, roasting marshmallows and singing songs.”
“You’re just like my dad,” she said softly. “He could never stay here where it was warm and dry if somebody out there needed help.”
For some reason, instead of taking that as a compliment, his eyes grew shadowed. “I’m not at all like your dad,” he said gruffly. “He was a hero in this town, beloved and respected by everybody in Haven Point.”
“And you’re not?”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “I don’t need to be a hero. I just want to do my job half as well as he did.”
“You’re doing better than that. He would have been so proud of you, Cade.”
His mouth twisted and his eyes took on that haunted look again.
“What’s wrong? Why do you get so upset when people say things like that?”
“It doesn’t matter. We should get out there before people wonder what we’re doing in here.”
As soon as he said the words, he looked as if he wished he hadn’t. Suddenly, the air between them thickened. She knew what she wanted them to be doing in here, what she had wanted since she closed the door behind her.
He was staring at her mouth, she realized with a thrill of shock. Was he remembering, too, the heat and the wonder of that kiss? He gazed at her while thick currents seethed between them.
There was no secret mystery woman. Wyn didn’t know how she was so sure, but somehow she knew Cade would never be looking at her with that raw hunger if he were involved with someone else.
He wanted her as much as she did him.
She swallowed hard. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the other night,” she whispered.
The words were barely out of her mouth before he was there, inches away. How had he moved so quickly? She had only half a second to wonder before his mouth descended on hers and all that heat and wonder roared back.
He kissed her wildly, fiercely, as if he had been storing up the need for days, just as she had, and had to get it all out while he had the chance. Cold metal pressed against her legs, her back, as he captured her between his body and her mother’s washing machine, but she didn’t care. She barely noticed, lost to everything but him.
Rain pounded against the window and the air stirred with the scent of clean laundry. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She could only feel—and right now she felt amazing. Vibrant, feminine, alive.
He was aroused. She could feel him pressing against her and he lifted her, raising her high enough so her softness cradled his hardness at exactly the right spot while his tongue teased and explored.
She rocked against him and he groaned.
Oh. Oh my. Yes. Like that. Oh. A little more.
She gasped his name, then instantly regretted it. He froze as if she’d bashed his head against the dryer.
Breathing raggedly, he stared at her. She watched reality crash over him like that thundershower and saw the instant his wild needs shifted to shock and dismay.
He caught his breath and then lowered her fee
t to the floor again and stepped away, raking a hand through his hair.
“I can’t do this, Wyn. I can’t.”
The warm glow, that sweet sense of rightness, seemed to float away like so much dryer lint.
“Why not?” she whispered.
He glared at her, then at the door. “How about we start with the fact that your entire family is twenty feet away?”
Her family.
Charlene, Aunt Jenny, Katrina, Marshall.
Her eyes flew all the way open. “Oh. Right.”
She quickly stepped back, straightening her skirt out again with a snap.
“Yeah. Right.”
She didn’t want to hear him tell her all the reasons he shouldn’t have kissed her. She knew. He was her boss, they worked together, blah blah blah.
“Wyn, I—”
Suddenly she couldn’t bear to hear him minimize or apologize for something that had been earthshaking for her. “Be quiet. Do not say a word about how sorry you are.”
“Why not?”
If he were truly sorry, he wouldn’t have kissed her again, would he? Especially not with such enthusiasm and ferocity.
Before she could say anything, the door burst open and she was deeply grateful that she was no longer pressed against the dryer with her legs clamped around him.
He stepped away farther, shielding the bulge in his jeans behind her mother’s sewing chair.
“What’s taking you guys so long? Mom sent me in to see if you need help finding a shirt.”
Kat walked in, a curious look on her face that seemed to trickle away as she looked at the pair of them. Her sister wasn’t stupid, unfortunately. Her gaze shifted back and forth between them and seemed to narrow with each pass.
Wyn could tell instantly when her sister’s speculation reached the entirely accurate conclusion about what had been taking them so long. Katrina’s mouth sagged open slightly and her eyes widened with shock.
Oh crap.
“We’re, um, just about ready to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Marsh,” Kat said. “Are you guys coming?”
Almost, Wyn wanted to say.
“Yeah,” Cade said instead, rather grimly. “We’re done.”
He headed out of the room ahead of the two of them. Apparently he didn’t need much time to get things back in order, while Wyn still felt as if a hurricane had just roared through her.
Hoping her legs would hold her, Wynona went to follow but Katrina grabbed her arm.
“Was that...? Were you...?” Her sister couldn’t seem to come up with adequate words.
Katrina would not let up if she suspected for a minute that Wyn might have a thing for Cade. She couldn’t let it happen. She had to convince her sister she was imagining things. She drew in a breath and forced a smile.
“Sorry to keep everyone waiting,” she said, her tone brisk and no-nonsense. “We were talking about a case and lost track of time. It was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Let’s go sing to Marsh.”
She pushed past her sister and left the laundry room, quite certain she hadn’t convinced either one of them.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A FEW MINUTES after that stunning kiss, Cade sat on Charlene Bailey’s flowered living room sofa eating chocolate cake that was probably delicious, though it had all the flavor and consistency of spackle to him just then.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Had he really just been wrapped around Wynona in her mother’s laundry room? One taste of her luscious mouth, one brush of her curves against him, and the heat burned away every ounce of good sense he had left, leaving him hot and hungry, consumed with need for her.
All he could think about was exploring that tight curvy body, tasting every inch of her, coming inside her.
Another minute or two and her little sister might have stumbled onto an entirely different scene.
He closed his eyes briefly, aghast all over again at the close call and his own lack of self-restraint. When he opened them, he found Katrina watching him with narrowed eyes, her mouth tight.
Did she suspect something was up between him and her sister? He didn’t want to think so but he had to wonder. He didn’t like that speculation in her eyes.
Would Kat mention her suspicions to anyone in her family?
What would Marshall say if he knew even a sliver of the thoughts Cade was having about his sister?
What would her father—the man he had loved dearly and respected more than anyone—have thought?
John had always treated him with kindness and respect—far more than he deserved, coming from his screwed-up family. From where he sat in the living room, he had a clear view down the hall to that portrait on the wall, with that stern, unsmiling expression that belied the warmth in those kind eyes.
He remembered that expression the first time their paths had crossed, when John had caught him shoplifting a pound of hamburger at the grocery store. Cade had been eleven and his mother had died a few months earlier and all he’d wanted was a little hamburger to go with the spaghetti he was making for his brothers.
John had taken pity on him and given him a warning—and had ended up buying about eight bags of groceries for Cade’s family, groceries that Walter Emmett had refused to let his grieving boys eat. They didn’t need to take charity from a pig, he’d told them after John dropped him off in the patrol car.
It was shortly after that when Marshall Bailey started taking an interest in him at school—not that Marsh had ever been mean to him, but though they were the same age, they’d hung with different friends. Suddenly Marsh was inviting him to have lunch at his table, to play ball at recess, to hang out at his place after school. He could bring his brothers too, if he wanted to, Marsh would casually add.
On some instinctive level, he had known the seeds for that friendship had probably been planted by John Bailey but as it turned out, he and Marsh liked the same things, laughed at the same jokes, enjoyed the same sports.
Despite the kindness of the Bailey family and the steadiness of his friendship with Marshall, Cade had been pulled in other directions too. Sometimes walking into the Baileys’ warm, comfortable house filled with music and laughter and delicious smells became impossibly jarring and only highlighted the stark contrast with the unrelenting ugliness of his own home life in Sulfur Hollow.
Eventually, he’d started surrendering to that despair and began to slip away from his friendship with Marsh and hang out with other friends—guys who wanted him to drink with them and smoke weed and cut classes. It was an easier path. When he was high or loaded, he didn’t have to face the ugliness, the futility of dreaming. His grades had slipped, he dropped off the baseball team, he started making reckless choices. It was as if he led two lives, the Cade he had been at the Bailey house and the bad-seed Emmett boy he was the rest of the time.
That autumn he was fourteen, he’d been caught stealing beer from the Gas N Go one afternoon. The owner hadn’t pressed charges—but knowing of his haphazard friendship with Marsh, he did call John Bailey.
John had picked him up in his patrol vehicle. Cade had thought he was going to take him home and maybe have a harsh word or two for Walter, but instead of taking the turn toward Sulfur Hollow, he had driven him to a quiet spot along the lake.
With those stunning blue waters across from them, John had finally faced him and Cade would never forget the raw disappointment in the man’s eyes—and the conversation that would change the entire course of his life.
“The way I see it, you’re at a crossroads, son.” John Bailey looked hard, uncompromising, in his starched blue uniform shirt and his close-cropped brown hair peppered with gray. “Some people want to think you’re nothing but trouble, like your father and your uncles and your cousins. You’re big for your age and tough and we both know you’ve got your fath
er’s quick temper. It probably wouldn’t surprise many people if you took that same road and ended up in and out of prison. You’ve started down that path already.”
John had held his gaze and Cade had been unable to look away, though the two beers he’d already had that afternoon had roiled around his gut.
“You can go ahead and sink to meet their expectations of you. Or you can lift yourself, to meet mine. You can try harder, study more, make different choices. I know what’s in your heart and it’s not the things you’ve been doing.”
“You don’t know anything,” he’d snarled, sick with shame and fear and self-disgust.
“You’re not the first to think so,” John had said, the first hint of a smile he’d shown since he’d picked him up. “But in this case, I know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen the way you take care of your brothers, how you help them with their schoolwork and make sure they have clean clothes to wear and healthy food to eat. You even watch out for your father, though he doesn’t deserve it. I know you want something better for yourself, but I can promise you this. You won’t find it anywhere along that particular path you’ve started down.”
John had been right. That moment had been a crossroads. He had taken the man’s words to heart and decided, even at fourteen, that he needed to make different choices for himself. He’d knuckled down in school, picked up baseball again, dropped his partying friends. In the summers and after school, he’d taken a job mowing lawns and doing janitorial work at the police station.
Through it all, he’d observed the way John handled his responsibilities as police chief. He’d watched him show caring and compassion in some circumstances and be tough as titanium in others.
He missed him.
A vast wave of sorrow washed over him for John Bailey and the steady presence he had been in his life. Yes, he clearly saw the irony, that he grieved for Wyn’s father far more acutely than he had ever grieved for his own. That sorrow was made more acute because of the grim knowledge that John would be here enjoying his son’s thirty-fourth birthday if not for Cade’s own weakness.
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