Zach couldn’t get any air into his lungs.
“Yes. It’s set to close in about two weeks. Leia Shae will be across the street from you.” Beau grinned, watching everyone’s faces.
Zach swallowed hard to clear the food from his throat and took a drink of his water, hoping to wash away the sudden dawning realization that his day-to-day world was about to morph into something completely new.
Aunt Fiona was well-known, but low-key and she hadn’t been a celebrity when she’d first moved here. Leia Shae would have an impact on the town, on his job, on his life that was incalculable. Why in the hell?
“Why is she coming here?” He couldn’t help the growl that emitted from his throat.
“Dad! ” He looked at Carlee. She was grinning from cheek-to-cheek, face flushed. “I can’t believe it. Leia here!” She giggled.
Beau shrugged. “Said she was looking for someplace quiet where she could escape.”
“Of all the houses, in all the neighborhoods, in all the counties, she walks into mine,” Zach muttered under his breath.
“I have you to thank for the sale.” Beau picked up his fork.
“Me?” Dread cratered in his stomach. Because it was one thing to have a fantasy romance with a woman who had no idea you were lusting after her, another to kiss her on a one-time visit and completely another to have real flesh and blood across the street. As he’d often been told, he had trust issues. Letting this woman into his personal life rattled around inside and slammed against the steel bars that protected his world.
“Yeah. You took her through town. Had her to your house. She saw the Jensen house and fell in love with it.”
She had been taken with it. There was no doubting that. He just hadn’t expected her to buy the dang thing!
“Well isn’t this an interesting bit of news.” Wyatt leaned back in his chair, looking from Beau to Zach. “I might just have to visit you a little more often. She’s gorgeous.”
“I called dibs first,” Beau argued.
Jealousy flashed hot and angry, spiking him right in the temple. “No one calls dibs on her.” He forced quiet command into his tone.
“Ah, Zach’s already claimed her, then?” Ryder grinned.
“He has not,” Carlee corrected, glaring at him. “Have you?”
He took a deep breath, and ignored the hostility, hearing the uncertainty in Carlee’s voice instead. “I have not and will not claim anyone. What I mean to tell you lame brains is that there isn’t going to be a parade to her front door. Not in my neighborhood. She’s coming here for peace and quiet. I live in that same neighborhood for the peace and quiet. A little respect for her privacy and everyone else’s, if you please.”
Aunt Fiona had been sitting back listening, but she finally leaned forward. “The press will have to be dealt with, much the same way as you did before.”
“I’m sure she’s already thought of that.” Heartburn blasted through his stomach negating all the medication he was taking and the enjoyment of his food.
“I can help with the press, if you want.” Ryder toyed with his fork and gave Zach a speculative stare.
He thought of the people who complained about his actions, about the county commissioners, the town council and the mayor and swore silently. “You know there’s going to be people who are not going to like this.”
Beau shrugged again. “Can’t stop people from buying property. It’s a free country.”
Dinner continued then, but Zach’s appetite was gone and Carlee’s seemed to have disappeared, too. It wasn’t long before he made their excuses and they left for home. Zach was preoccupied and didn’t notice the silence.
Carlee squirmed in her seat, the movement breaking the quiet. “Can we stop and get pizza? I didn’t like dinner.”
“Sure.” Zach slowed to make a quick turn to accomplish the task, but his mind was fractured like a broken plate on the floor.
Part of him was in cop mode, watching and cataloging what was right and what was wrong around him. Another focused on Carlee and on his driving.
But the last part of him dwelled on Leia, on her smell, on her warmth, on her smile.
Why would she move to Parson Corners? It was his town, his hometown, his family’s town and he loved it. He’d graduated from college in Denver, joined the Denver police department, but when Denise had handed Carlee off to him, he’d packed up and moved back home—because he was smart enough to know he needed help with Carlee and Carlee would need family. He was fortunate there was a position open at the sheriff’s department and then worked hard to get elected sheriff.
But the town was an hour drive to Denver along narrow, winding roads. It was isolated in the winter, even as it filled with tourists year round for skiing and backpacking, and had none of the amenities of the big city—no McDonald’s, no fancy restaurants, and only one reporter at the Parson Corners Gazette. That quick, her reasoning made sense to him. She made noises about being unhappy with her life when she’d visited. Apparently, this was her first step to changing that.
“She seemed so real when she visited, so nice.” Carlee stared through the windshield into the gathering darkness. “Will she be the same way when she lives across the street?”
The hope in her voice hurt Zach’s heart. He plainly heard “will she have time to be friends with me” in Carlee’s voice. “I think so,” he said, even though he wasn’t really sure.
Carlee sighed and lapsed into silence.
First thing he’d have to corner Ms. Leia Daniels about her exact intentions, because there was no way in hell he was going to let Carlee get hurt.
It was also time to drop the stupid fantasies and get practical. He had no time for women, no time for one as worldly as Leia—one who seemed to fit more into the Denise mold.
There was no way he was opening himself up for the kind of life wrecking, media-crunching tabloid mess that would come with whatever Leia had in mind.
For a moment, he lingered over the lust, then ruthlessly shut it off.
Leia stood in front of the stone fireplace in the living room of her new house, wishing for some logs to start a fire, and filled with euphoria beyond anything in her experience save her first album and first Grammy. The afternoon sun streamed through the back windows and across the white walls.
Keys clutched in her hands, she made her way from room to room to room, her footsteps echoing on hardwood floors in the empty house. This was it. This was where she belonged, what she wanted for herself. She sank on to the carpeted floor in the master bedroom and absorbed the privacy of it all. It soothed, rubbing off the irritated edges of a mood began before she got on a plane in L.A. this morning.
The doorbell rang and she jerked to her feet. That would be Mark Banning. He was supposed to go over the security of the house and make sure all was up-to-date for her to be here without all the bodyguards and people. He was the only one she’d told what she was doing. Although, she didn’t expect she’d be able to keep it secret for long. All the flights booked on her credit card from L.A. to Denver were going to get obvious eventually.
It wasn’t Banning at the door, though. Leia looked through the beveled glass. She recognized the uniform. Zach Murphy. Her stomach fluttered and her pulse was off like a racehorse on a fresh racetrack.
She straightened her teal sweater, rubbed her palms down her dark jeans and slowed her breathing until she was calm enough to open the door and not jump the man in her excitement.
She pulled open the door, but her greeting died in her throat. He didn’t look excited to see her. In fact, he looked downright steamed.
Her enthusiasm fizzled.
“Zach.” She pulled the door open all the way. “Come in.” He looked damn fine and her body jumped to hyper alert.
Beige uniform, slacks creased and pressed, his green jacket made the points on the star of his badge stand out in shiny contrast, and he smelled delicious—crisp fall air mixed with musky aftershave. Leia took a shallow breath, willing away the tingli
ng in her breasts.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He hadn’t responded to her entrance invitation, instead stood in the open doorway with his cowboy hat gripped in his hand.
“Can you come in or are we screaming at each other on the porch for the whole neighborhood to hear?” She didn’t bother to contain the crossness in her tone. He was not going to rain on her parade.
He opened his mouth as if to refuse, then stepped through into the entry way. She pushed the door shut behind him. “I’d offer you coffee and a seat, but as you can see I just signed the papers and got the key.”
When the silence stretched for another long moment, Leia chafed under the accusing stare and bit her lip. “I need someone to do a few repairs. Can you recommend someone?”
“Stan the Man.” He didn’t look at her when he answered, but did a visual check of the house. A tic in his cheek suggested he was working hard to get himself under control.
“Stan. The Man? Are you kidding me?” She smiled, hoping to relax him.
His mouth shaped a humorless caricature of a smile. “You don’t seriously think I could make that up, do you?”
She shrugged, struggling to maintain her mood. “You have a number?”
“Sure.” Zach whipped out his cell phone and scrolled through the listings.
“Wait.” She rushed through into the kitchen and took her bag off the island, digging for her cell phone.
Zach followed her into the kitchen. His presence filled the room, overwhelming her with the need to turn, walk into his arms and kiss those strong lips.
Leia stifled the need after another good look at the storm clouds in his eyes, and opened her contact list in her cell phone.
He looked away from his cell phone and crossed to the windows, took a deep breath and then another one. “Why did you come here, Leia?”
His voice was so soft she had to strain to hear him, sure she heard censure and irritation, but was she imagining a mirror of her own need?
She took a deep breath. “You started it.”
He glared at her and his sigh came out an exasperated puff. “I get that a lot. Why don’t you spell it out?”
“This.” She pointed to the room. “This is how I was raised. I was happy then. I’m not happy now. I’m trying to start over, start fresh, fix things that are wrong for me. Can you understand that?”
“I can. But why here? There are lots of towns in California that would be closer to L.A. and just as qualified.” He stared at her for a long minute. She could see debate on his face before he finally spoke again. “This is my town. One I do my best to protect twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was concerned about the media and what kind of havoc they will wreak on this town when the word gets out.”
She nodded. “I thought of that. I haven’t told anyone except my security chief. I’m going low key in LA, trying like heck to stay out of the papers. Hopefully, they’ll move on to someone else with more shock value when I go bland.”
“You expect that to work?” His skepticism, with kernels of truth, hurt.
She shrugged off the feeling, the conflicting emotions he made charge through her like an electrical shock. There wasn’t much she could do about the press and she needed this, wanted it. “For a while, anyway.”
Zach’s teeth snapped together and she cringed against the grinding noise. Finally, he spoke. “There’s going to be a few people around here that won’t be happy to have you out and about.”
“Are you one of them?” She held her breath, wishing she didn’t care so much about his answer.
She died a hundred times before he finally replied. “You’re free to do what you want.”
That was no answer, but her quota of guts was exhausted.
He looked down at his cell and rattled off Stan the Man’s phone number. Leia scrambled to catch up, forcing him to repeat the number a second time.
Their conversation died into the realm of awkward, as bad as a lousy first date. The tic was back.
Leia forced herself to stand still instead of bouncing on her toes, which she usually did to relieve tension right before a big concert. “Look, I …”
Zach leaned toward her, laser energy focused from him. “I need to talk to you about Carlee.”
“What about her?” Leia searched her mind for anything to give her a frame of reference against his irritation.
“She worships you. I don’t want her sucked into your world.”
“Zach, I wouldn’t intentionally…”
“No, you don’t intentionally do anything do you? Just like you didn’t pass out in my jurisdiction and end up in jail, or spend money irresponsibly, or party, party, party.” Zach gave her a raking stare that burned to her core values and stung like alcohol on a scratch.
Quickly on the heels of that, fury at the injustice of his words slapped at her. “Wow, you read the tabloids. Occur to you that most of that isn’t true?”
“Part of it is, right?”
Her face grew hot and she stumbled over an answer. “Now, wait a minute…”
“For what, Leia?”
She was so tired of being judged by the tabloids, by what people thought. That wasn’t who she was.
Leia took a deep breath, studying every nuance of Zach’s face. Then, she deliberately stepped into his space, just a hand’s breadth away from his chest, and glared up at him. “Who are you worried about, Zach? Carlee or yourself?”
His breath caught on a snarl. She had one moment to wonder why she stepped into his web, one moment to see the shift in his eyes from reproachful fury to naked longing, one moment to move away.
His lips slammed into hers, punishing in intensity. Her heart jolted, her pulse pounded in her ears. Being no one’s wallflower, she immediately gave back as good as she got. She slid closer and arched her arms around his neck, pulling him against her, toying with the hair at the nap of his neck. He groaned. His lips gentled, sliding across hers, the warmth caused tingles from head to toe.
At that moment, it ceased to be about anger or defending herself to the furious sheriff. She met his tongue, tasting of sweetened coffee, and let the moment take over, committing the rightness of it to heart. She could have stood there for eons with his mouth learning hers, cherishing hers, but Zach abruptly pulled away and deliberately set her a couple of feet away from him.
Anger returned to his eyes.
He spun and walked down the hall to the entryway, his boots pounding loudly on the floor. The front door slammed, the closing punctuation.
She touched her lips, felt a slight swelling and her entire body revolted at the abrupt cessation of the kiss. Another rush of heat flooded her face.
“Well, damn it all to hell,” she muttered to the empty house.
A month later, Leia opened her garage to get her car out. She heard an engine start and glanced across the street. Zach’s patrol vehicle backed down the driveway and he pulled away before she could make eye contact or wave, a typical event for the last few weeks.
The man was driving her totally nuts. She’d seen him here and there and all over town, but not once been able to talk to him. Their two kisses were stuck on replay, arousing and wrecking her focus at the oddest moments. He really ought to pay for that, but when he wouldn’t get within five feet of her, it was hard to calculate payback.
She backed the black Honda out of the garage and hit the button to close the door. She’d purposely picked a non-descript car for her life here in Parson Corners. She wasn’t trying to attract attention to herself, and she was being damn careful about attracting the wrong attention. It wasn’t just important for her, but for Carlee as well.
The girl was starting to be a fixture at her house, a fact she wasn’t sure father knew about and she hadn’t asked. She was being careful about not giving Carlee false expectations and being as honest about her life and schedule as she could.
She drove to Curly Q and parked. It was a morning ritual she’d developed
whenever she was in town. Tiny adored her singing. She adored his baking. So much so, in fact, that her personal trainer was nagging her to come in and work off a few pounds. She felt fabulous, though, and kept stalling him.
Inside there were two other people in line, but Tiny saw her from the back and grinned. “You’ve been gone, my girl.” His hands were elbow deep in dough.
“Shh. Don’t let Nita hear you,” she called to him.
Nita rang up an order on the cash register. “Too late. She heard that. Welcome back, Leia.”
The woman in front of her turned around. She was in her late-fifties, slightly shorter than Leia, wearing jeans, boots, and a bright red ski jacket. Her red hair was streaked through with gray and swung against her face in a cute bob.
She looked familiar and wore a genuine smile and the delicate laugh lines suggested a life lived to the fullest. God, she hoped she grew into a distinguished face like this woman’s.
“Leia Shae?” The woman turned fully around. The familiarity increased.
“Yes?” Sometimes she was hesitant to admit who she was, never knowing what she was getting into, but she’d gone out of her way to bust that insecurity here with these people. She had to if she wanted to belong and she desperately wanted to belong.
The woman extended her hand for a shake. “Fiona Devlin.”
The name clicked.
Zach’s aunt.
The woman’s smile was legendary from her cookbook pictures and television guest spots. “I see my reputation precedes me.”
Leia shook her hand, suddenly tense. “Perhaps mine has, also.”
The woman looked her over from head to toe, no censure there just interest. “Carlee talks a lot about you.”
“Carlee is a wonderful, witty, friendly young woman,” Leia gushed.
“I happen to agree, although she could lose the black clothes. Much to her father’s consternation, she’s been quite vocal, perhaps your biggest friend here.” She stepped forward in line and gave Nita her order. After the woman moved off, Fiona resumed her questioning. “Perhaps you can tell me why Zach is so mad at you.”
Pumpkins, Cowboys & Guitars Page 53