She sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that. She’s one of God’s creatures. When will you be home?”
“Tuesday. Not sure if I’ll head out that afternoon or the next morning.” Raylan heard the bathroom door click open and glanced up. Amber stood in the doorway, towel wrapped around her body, her skin glowing.
The air whooshed out of his lungs in a rush. God, she was beautiful. He wanted to spend every single day with her. And even though he couldn’t tell her yet—she’d probably slam the door in his face again—he was already so deep in love it hurt.
“Riley and I are fine. Don’t rush. You know how much I love to have him with me.”
Amber approached, her steps hesitant. Raylan held out his hand and drew her to his lap.
“Thanks, mom. Remember, any trouble you call me—and Rusty—got it?”
“Whatever you think.” Her typical answer when she didn’t agree but didn’t want to disagree either.
Raylan set up straight. “Mom, I mean it.”
“Okay. I promise.” She blew out a long breath.
“Tell Riley, I love him.” Raylan disconnected the call and set the phone on the mattress.
Amber touched his face, the light flicker of her skin a welcome balm. “Everything okay?”
Everything but the vise his ex-wife had placed around his head and continued to squeeze from hundreds of miles away. Raylan rubbed his temples. “Everything’s fine.”
Amber pushed his hands away, her touch firm but pleasant. She rubbed small circles on his temples, and the pain started to melt under her fingertips. “I know when you’re lying to me, Raylan.”
“You’re right. Everything is not okay. But it will be, as long as you don’t stop.”
He kept his eyes closed, and the silence stretched out, her ministrations settling his headache better than any aspirin ever could.
“Do you want to talk to me about it?”
“I do, but not here. Let’s do it over lunch.”
*
“This is insane.” Raylan shoved food in his mouth, swallowed, and took a big gulp of sweet iced tea. The pleasure almost as intense as his orgasm this morning.
Mouth full, Amber nodded with the enthusiasm of a third-grader getting a star on her spelling test. “Told you.”
Raylan took another bite of the homemade biscuit, the mouthwatering butter and fresh aroma easing the rest of the tension from his body.
The next time he got a call about his ex-wife, he was heading straight to Rhetta’s and ordering a plateful of her buttermilk biscuits. “When I die just bury me in a casket full of these.”
“You think my biscuits are good, wait ‘til you get a bite of this.” Rhetta appeared beside the table, a couple of plates in hand. Her midnight hair was pulled back in a severe bun. She wore a grease-stained apron over a long cotton dress.
Raylan took a bite of the maple syrup smothered pancake, and his toes curled in his boots. “Miss Rhetta, this is the best food I’ve ever had. Even better than my mama’s.”
The sweet old lady’s eyes crinkled around the corners. “Don’t you be telling your mom none of that. We’ll just keep this our little secret.” She tapped him on the shoulder and went back into her kitchen. The small country restaurant boasted maybe fifteen tables with red checkered tablecloths and a giant poster that read “Road Kill Café.” The menu items listed: ran over a raccoon, pothole possum, dead on deer meat…
“You think she really uses road kill?”
Amber glanced over her shoulder and back at him, her white teeth sparkling. “I always said, don’t ask don’t tell.”
Raylan glanced down his plate. The bacon looked normal enough. He took another bite of pancake and groaned. “Right now, I wouldn’t care if she skinned it herself.”
Amber wrinkled her nose, the movement drawing his attention to the very light smattering of freckles across the bridge. Her mahogany brown hair hung long and loose. Raylan made a mental note to hurry up the lunch and the visit to the sheriff so he could get her back in his bed.
“Gross. I don’t think Miss Rhetta would appreciate you comparing her food to road kill.”
Raylan’s mouth twisted, “I think she would, seeing as how she’s probably the one who hung that sign.”
Amber dismissed his comment with a small flick of her hand and leaned forward. “I’ve waited on our food. Tell me what’s going on.”
The sweet and savory homemade pancakes formed a hard knot in his gut. How did he explain his ex-wife and his son? Could he really ask her to step into a situation as fucked up his?
Kristen would never disappear, and he wanted Amber in his and Riley’s life for a long, long time. Raylan met her green gaze over the table, her open trusting expression his undoing. He had to trust her with the whole truth. She deserved nothing less.
Raylan coughed, trying to clear the huge knot of dread that lodged in his throat. “I think I should start at the beginning.”
Amber nodded and Raylan neatly folded his napkin into a triangle on the table, not wanting to see her eagerness replaced with disgust. “A year before I came up here, I worked for the summer at the mill. I partied a lot. Hooked up with a lot of girls.” Raylan grimaced. Shit. That was the best way for him to get her on his side—tell her he’d screwed half the women in Orleans parish.
Amber’s pale hand slid across the table and covered his own. “Raylan, I knew about your reputation that summer before we started dating.”
Raylan’s fingers froze on the napkin. She’d known he was a rake and still wanted him? “Then why the hell would you go out with me?”
Her eyes crinkled around the corners, and she withdrew her hand. “Because I fell in love with you. Or at least what I thought it was love. More like a huge crush.”
Guilt hit him, and he unfolded the napkin, his hands unsteady. He’d known how inexperienced she’d been back then, and he hadn’t cared. He’d seen her and went after her, regardless of their disparity in experience. “You were innocent. You should’ve stayed away from me.”
Amber’s rich laughter filled the restaurant. “A little late for that, don’t you think? Finish your story.”
“That fall, before I met you, I dated this girl named Kristen for about a month. Then I found her smoking crystal meth one night and broke it off.” Raylan had partied, drank and screwed, but he’d drawn the line at drugs.
“When I got the summer job here, I’d already forgotten about Kristin. It’d been months since I’d seen or heard from her. And then I saw you at that party on the sandbar.” His gaze locked onto her, the instant memory of that night overtaking his mind. The first time he’d seen Amber, he’d sensed a gentle vibrancy and been drawn in by her exotic green eyes and lush mouth. She’d been with some girlfriends, all of them dancing near the water, their bikini-clad bodies enough to give a grown man a heart attack. But he hadn’t seen anyone except Amber Atkins. “And I knew right then and there I was a goner.”
*
Heart drumming in her chest, Amber fought to stay in her seat. Raylan’s intense look pinned her to the seat and stole her breath. No one had ever looked at her with such passion. Such possession.
“My goal changed from partying the summer away to pursuing the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.” This time, Raylan took her hand, his penetrating touch shocking her body into overdrive. She grabbed her tea and took a gulp.
Rhetta wouldn’t appreciate Amber turning her restaurant into a bedroom.
“I sought you out, and when you finally agreed to date me, I was in heaven.”
Amber frowned. They’d dated nearly all summer doing nothing more than kisses and heavy petting. “How come you waited so long to…you know.”
His crooked smile and slight head tilt radiated sensuality. “Because you weren’t just some girl. I’d never waited before, but you were different. Like my father said, the good things are worth waiting for.” Raylan squeeze her hand. “And he was right.”
Amber’s entire body felt full and fuzzy, like she would just
float off into the sky on the high that was Raylan. She’d been so nervous and awestruck by his charm. He could have had any girl in the town, but he’d wanted her. Still did.
“It was all I could do to keep my hands off of you. And after two months I couldn’t take it anymore.” Raylan’s nostrils flared.
Amber stomach tightened at the memory. Raylan stroked the back of her hand, awakening her body with his touch.
“I was ready to move up here the very next day. Already practiced the speech I’d give mom to break the news to her. And then I got the phone call.” He grimaced and withdrew his hand. A yawning hole of emptiness took its place.
“From Kristen?”
“I’d gotten her pregnant and didn’t even know. And I had a son.” Raylan’s hand shook when he picked up his glass of tea.
His gaze focused on the folded napkin, which he started to tear into little pieces. “She’d gotten evicted from her apartment and didn’t have anywhere else to go. No money. No job. No food. I couldn’t ignore my son. I wanted to make it up to you. I wanted to make it work for me and you. I was so shaken I couldn’t think beyond getting to my son.”
Pain, sharp and electric cut through her chest and spread down her arms. Amber curled her fingers into a tight fist on the table. Six years of hurt and anger and wondering…always wondering. “Why couldn’t you have at least called me?”
“I did. I called you so many times. After a few weeks… As soon as I saw Riley, I fell in love. When you wouldn’t take my calls I thought it might be better for Riley if I tried to make it work with Kristen.”
That sharp stab of pain dug in deep and twisted, shoving her back into the seat. “I blocked your number.”
The once neat napkin lay in shreds in a pile before him. And in his eyes, her own agony was reflected back.
Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn’t try to blink them back. “I hated you.”
Raylan slid out of his seat and scooted next to her on her bench seat. “Not as much as I hated myself. Every night—every single night—I dreamed of you.”
“And your wife?” Her voice came out all harsh and raw, riding the wave of a sob.
“We got married in the courtroom a couple of months later. Partly because I wanted to give Riley a chance at a real family. Partly because she wouldn’t have complete control over him with me around to watch. Partly because I knew you’d never forgive me. I could only make it work a few months before we separated.”
Raylan stayed next to her, she felt his body heat seeping into her own, but he grew distant. Anger mixed with the hurt. She wanted to punch him. But how could she be mad at him? How could he have done that to her? “I’m sure she loves her son very much.”
The image of a little Raylan with dark curls and dark eyes playing in the backyard sprung to mind, and she quickly looked away. Riley should have been hers…
“I think she did, at first.” Raylan took a drink, grimaced, and banged the cup down.
A hard ball of dread tightened her gut. “At first?”
Instinct warned her to back away, break it off now. This was too much baggage. But then she wrapped her hand around his, the feeling of their palms fused together so good.
“Riley was seven months old when I found her passed out on the floor, a needle sticking out of her arm.”
Shock took over, and she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even nod her head. The thought of a mother neglecting her baby like that…Raylan’s baby. “What happened?”
“Riley was on a blanket on the floor next to her. Crying. His diaper full. She’d probably shot up and passed out right after I left for work that morning.”
Fury burned through her veins. Her hands shook, and she clenched them into fists under the table. “She did that to her baby?”
Raylan nodded, his thumb rubbing back-and-forth across her knuckles, more roughly this time, and the constant motion irritated her skin, but she didn’t stop him. There was too much pain backing those movements.
“The second time she did it was right after her first dance in rehab. At least, it gave me full custody of Riley.”
Her eye’s slid shut. The torture Raylan had to have suffered. And what Riley must have gone through.
“If it hadn’t been for my mom helping out, don’t know what I would’ve done. I had to work to provide income to keep full custody. But I just couldn’t leave him in daycare all day.”
His words, so ragged, ripped her heart to shreds just like that napkin on the table. “And where is Kristen now?”
“Finishing up another round at rehab. Due to get out tonight.” Raylan glanced away. “As unfit as she is, the state of Louisiana still gives a lot of weight to the fact that she’s his mother. I’ve had to fight long and hard to keep her away from him.”
He lifted his head, and she wished for all the world she could ease that pain around his eyes.
“She’ll never have him again. Not as long as I’m alive.” Raylan seemed to snap out of whatever dark place he’d entered. His gaze flicked to hers, the uncertainty tearing at her insides. “I tried to forget you. To move on, but when I saw you in the bar I knew I couldn’t walk away again. Pretty fucked up, huh?”
Fucked up? Nothing he’d done was fucked up. He’d been just as young as her with an unknown son and a druggie ex-girlfriend. How had he managed to stay sane?
She pulled her hand from his, intending to push a stray strand of hair back from his eyes.
“I understand if you don’t want anything to do with me.”
She paused in midair. Was he crazy? She continued on her journey, twining a finger around the silky strand, and then she took his face between her palms. He’d been so focused this whole time on her, that she hadn’t thought he might have his own demons. “You are a good and honorable man, and I care about you. I’ve thought about you since that summer, and now that you’ve finally told me the whole truth, it makes me want to be with you even more.”
His nostrils flared, and he latched on her wrist. “You have to be sure Amber. I need you to be sure. Because I love you so much it hurts to breathe, and I want you in mine and Riley’s lives.”
“I want that too.”
Raylan crushed his mouth to hers, the soul bending kiss full of all his hurt and despair and hope for the future.
“Am I interrupting something?”
Amber ripped her mouth from Raylan’s.
Sheriff Lawson stood beside their table, arms crossed. His tan uniform as clean cut as his buzz cut blond hair. The laser focus in his steel grey eyes as deadly as his reputation.
The new sheriff had the same hard edge about him as Raylan and Evie’s husband, Hunter. Like a tiger casually laying in wait, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.
Raylan grinned and yanked Amber close to his side, the move obviously possessive. A move that Bo seemed not to notice as he slid into the red pleather bench seat across the table.
Rhetta appeared out of nowhere, a glass of fresh tea in hand. “Here you go, sugar. On the house.”
“Mrs. Rhetta, you sure do know how to take care of a man.”
“You take care of this town. You deserve a little pampering.” Rhetta winked and sauntered back into the kitchen.
Amber stared after her, mouth open. “Did she just flirt with you?”
The indomitable Rhetta Jones, a termagant in the kitchen, as exacting of her customers as she was of her staff, had winked at the sheriff.
Sheriff Lawson took a long sip and said, “Yes, she did.”
Raylan scowled, and his arm tightened around her shoulders. “What’s up?”
The tension between the two was palpable. Amber glanced nervously between the men, feeling like she was stuck in the middle of two giant predators about to attack.
“Why don’t you tell me? Heard you called Greer’s office and got a few of his men working on Tommy.”
The guarded look returned to Raylan’s eyes, and Amber wanted to reach across the table and pinch Bo. His heart-wrenching history still resona
ted. But then Bo’s words sunk in, and she said, “You’ve got your brother on this?”
Raylan shrugged and settled back against the bench seat. “Have you found him?”
Bo didn’t blink. Just stared Raylan down, daring him to… Amber had no idea what. What was the problem? The more people looking for Tommy, the better. Right?
“Not yet. I’ve got my whole team on it,” Bo said.
“So the bastard is roaming the streets, looking to hurt her?” Raylan tipped his head in her direction.
What the hell? Why did she feel like she needed to scoot back in her seat, out of the line of fire? Raylan wanted to protect her; Bo wanted to find her ex. They were both working on the same side.
“You think doing your own investigation will help?” Bo leaned forward, his huge forearms crowding the surface of the table.
“I think my guys have as much of a shot at finding him as yours. And my thought seems right, otherwise you’d have him behind bars.” Raylan met Bo head on, pushing his forearms directly across from Bo’s, fists clenched.
Tiny veins popped along Raylan’s temple. His expression seemed almost empty, devoid of emotion, except for the look of deadly intent in his eyes.
“Maybe your guys tipped him off to our movements. Otherwise, he might be in jail right now. Maybe that’s the reason he’s still out there.”
“Or your baby deputies are too green.”
The tension was thicker than mud. Amber’s gaze ping-ponged between the two men. She really needed to say something to break this up.
Bo growled, literally, and Amber’s mouth opened before her brain kicked into gear. “You talk to Cheri lately?”
Jesus. Really? Dumb, Amber. Just plain dumb. If she’d thought the tension between Bo and Raylan palpable, Bo’s tension at just the mention of Cheri’s name skyrocketed.
Bo turned his head, the movement so threateningly slow, she cringed. His flat mouth and drawn eyebrows told her loud and clear exactly what he thought of her butting into his business.
“You wanna check that look before I do it for you?” Raylan pulled her so tight against his side she couldn’t move an inch.
Amber tried to tense, ready to break up an impending argument.
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