Stranger in Cold Creek

by Paula Graves

  For two little words, it was a mighty big question. One that he didn’t have to answer because there was a knock at the door, and the knocker didn’t wait for an invitation to come in. The door opened.

  Riley.

  Well, at least Anna and he weren’t in a butt-grabbing lip-lock as they’d been in the barn when Lucky had found them.

  “I need to talk to you,” Riley said, looking at Heath. Then his gaze swung to his sister. “And no, this isn’t about you. It’s business.”

  Damn it. That didn’t sound good.

  Anna must have thought so, too, because she gave Heath a sympathetic look as Riley and he headed out. They didn’t go far, just into the foyer.

  “I just found out that you’re still trying to get out of your instructor assignment, that you put in a request to go on another deployment,” Riley threw out there.

  Heath cursed. He wasn’t exactly keeping it from Riley. Okay, he was, but he didn’t want to justify what he was trying to do.

  “You’ve already had two back-to-back deployments as an officer,” Riley reminded him. “Before that, you had back-to-back-to-backs as a pararescuer.”

  “You’re going on another one,” Heath reminded him just as fast.

  “I’ve had breaks in between. In the past ten years, the only time you’ve been stateside is for leave and training.” He put his hand on Heath’s shoulder. “You don’t have anything to prove.”

  “No disrespect, sir, but I have everything to prove. To myself anyway.”

  Riley huffed. “You can prove it by being the best Air Force instructor you can be.”

  “That sounds like a recruitment pitch.”

  “It is.” Riley took his hand from Heath’s shoulder, and his index finger landed against Heath’s chest. “And here’s some more advice—sometimes life gives you crap, and you just have to make crappy lemonade out of it.”

  Heath frowned, thinking he might never again want another glass of lemonade. Or another lecture from Riley. Of course, there wouldn’t be any more Riley lectures if Heath got stuck with that instructor job he didn’t want. Then Riley would no longer be his boss.

  Frowning, too, possibly over that bad lemonade analogy, Riley walked away. Heath would have, as well. He would have headed back to the pasture to do something, anything, to burn off some of this restless energy inside him.

  Yeah, he needed an adrenaline fix bad.

  He figured in that moment that his thought must have tempted fate, because his phone dinged with a text message. There was that old saying about when the gods wanted to punish you, they gave you what you wanted. Well, it wasn’t from the gods.

  It was from Anna.

  And the text flashed like neon on his phone screen. A sort of warning from the gods out to punish him.

  Meet me in the hayloft in one hour.

  Chapter Four

  ANNA FIGURED SHE wasn’t just going to be able to sneak out of the house without anyone seeing her.

  And she was right.

  As she was cutting through the sunroom, Della spotted her. Anna smiled, tried to look as if she weren’t up to something, but that was sort of hard to do considering she had a six-pack of beer in a plastic grocery bag. A six-pack Anna had just scrounged from the fridge.

  Della glanced at the bag and its distinctive shape. Then gave Anna no more than a mere glance.

  “What are you up to?” Della asked.

  Anna shrugged. “I’m considering playing with some fire. Running with scissors. Taking candy from some guy I don’t know.”

  Falling hard for an old flame she shouldn’t fall hard for was something Anna could add to that list of no-no’s.

  “So, you’re going to the barn again with Heath,” Della said. It wasn’t a question.

  “No. Yes,” she admitted when Della gave her that liar-liar-pants-on-fire look. Anna huffed. “Don’t give me a hard time about this. I’m tired of everyone babying me.”

  “They do that because you’re the baby.”

  “Was the baby,” Anna corrected. “I’m a grown woman now, but none of them can seem to accept it.”

  “They love you,” Della pointed out.

  “And I love them, but I want the key to my own chastity belt.”

  Della smiled that sly little smile of hers which meant she could be up to something. But she only kissed Anna on the cheek. “Honey, you’ve had that key for a long time now. Might be time to see if it works the way you want it to work.”

  Anna opened her mouth to respond, but she had nothing to say. Not a word. Instead, she returned the cheek kiss, tucked the beer under her arm so the bottles wouldn’t jiggle and clang, and headed out the back.

  No brothers in sight. No ranch hands, either.

  But she also didn’t see Heath.

  Since it was—Anna checked the time on her phone—three minutes to rendezvous, she’d hoped she would see him waiting for her. He better not have blown her off. Except Heath wouldn’t do that. Well, he might have done it with a text, call or chat, but he wouldn’t do an unannounced blowing-off.

  And he hadn’t.

  The moment she stepped in the barn, she saw him. Not in the hayloft, but standing by the steps that led up to the loft.

  “You came,” she said.

  “Of course I came. I’m a guy and I’m not stupid. All right, maybe I am stupid, but the guy part’s still true, and I’ve got the junk to prove it.”

  She smiled, chuckled. All nerves, and she hated the nerves because they didn’t go well with this blistering attraction. “Yes, I got a glimpse of your junk. You’re definitely a guy.”

  He smiled, too. “Beer?” he asked, tipping his head to the bag.

  “I thought you might be thirsty. It was either this, milk or a questionable green smoothie.”

  “You made the right choice. I’ve already had my quota of milk and questionable green smoothies for a while.”

  He reached out, took her by the fingertips. That was it. The only part of her he touched. It was like being hit by a really big dose of pure, undiluted lust.

  “You may have made the right choice with the beer,” he added a heartbeat later. “But asking me to meet you here might fall into the stupid category.”

  “Might?” she repeated. Well, it was better than an out-and-out “this ain’t gonna happen.”

  “Is this going to happen?” Anna came out and asked.

  With only that teeny grip on her fingertips, he inched her closer. So close that when she breathed, she drew in his scent. Mixed with the hay and the crisp November air, it gave her another dose of lust.

  “It shouldn’t happen,” Heath said. “I’ve tried to talk myself out of it.”

  “And?” She was still breathing, through her mouth now. Still taking in that scent. Still feeling him play with her fingers. “I hope you’re really lousy at talking yourself out of things.”

  He closed his eyes a moment. Groaned. And, as if he were fighting—and losing—a fierce battle, he brought her another inch closer. She figured if the lust doses kept coming that she was going to launch herself into his arms.

  “I’m leaving soon,” he reminded her. “And I’m trying to do the right thing here.”

  She wanted to point out that unless he was leaving within the hour, then this could indeed happen, but that would just make her sound needy. Which she was. So very, very needy.

  He let go of her fingertips, and she figured this was it. Heath would send her on her way. But he took the beer from her, and as if he had all the time in the world, he set the bag next to a hay bale.

  “So, what now?” she asked.

  Heath didn’t answer her. Not with words. He reached out, and just when she thought she was going to get more fingertip foreplay, he took hold of her, snapped her to him and k
issed the living daylights out of her.

  Anna forgot all about the stupid argument that he was leaving soon. She forgot how to breathe. But other feelings took over, too. Probably because Heath didn’t just kiss.

  He touched.

  He slipped his hand between them and ran his fingers over her right breast. Nice, but he double-whammied it with a neck kiss, and Anna felt herself moving. At first she thought it was just her body melting, but nope, she and Heath were walking.

  “What are we doing?” she asked.

  “Complicating the hell out of things.”

  “Good. I like complications.” At the moment she would have agreed to a lobotomy.

  Heath kept kissing her, kept moving. Not up the steps of the hayloft but rather toward the tack room. Maybe because it had a door. Maybe because it didn’t require the coordination of step climbing with an erection. Maybe because it was just closer.

  It was the erection thing, she decided, and since she could feel it against her stomach, Anna added some touching of her own. She worked her hand over his zipper and would have gotten that zipper down if Heath hadn’t stopped her.

  She heard herself make a whiny sound of protest, but then he put her against the back of the door that he’d just shut, and he lifted her. Until his hard junk was against her soft junk. Everything lined up just right to create a mind-blowing sensation.

  “Let’s play a game,” he said. And yeah, he drawled.

  Anna nodded. She would have agreed to a second lobotomy.

  “On a scale of one to ten, rate the kisses, and then I’ll know which parts to concentrate on.”

  She wasn’t sure she could count to ten, much less rate kisses, but Heath jumped right into the game. He kissed her mouth.

  “A ten,” she said after he left her gasping for air and reaching for his zipper again.

  He put his hand over hers to stop her, but Anna just used the pressure of his hand to add pressure to his erection.

  “We’ll play that particular game later,” he promised.

  Heath moved on to the next kiss. He placed one in the little area just below her ear, and he must have remembered that was a hot spot for her because it didn’t seem like a lucky guess.

  “Fifty,” she blurted out. If Heath hadn’t held her in place with his body, she would have dropped like a rock. There were no muscles in her legs, and her feet had perhaps disappeared.

  “I’ll definitely put that on my playlist,” he said and added a flick of his tongue in that very hot spot that needed no such licking to further arouse it.

  She went after his zipper for a third time, and the only reason she failed, again, was because he pushed up her sweater, pushed down her bra and did that tongue-flicking thing over her nipples.

  “A seventy,” she managed to say.

  “Scale of one to ten,” he corrected.

  “Ten plus sixty.”

  He chuckled, which made for some very interesting sensations since he still had his mouth on her nipple.

  “And this one?” he asked. He went lower, kissed her stomach.

  “Ten,” she admitted, and she was about to pull him back to her to breast and neck.

  Then he went down a few more inches.

  Heath clearly had some experience in zipper lowering. Fast zipper lowering. He slid down, unzipping her and dragging her jeans just low enough so that he could plant the next kiss on her panties.

  Anna threw back her head, hitting it against the door and perhaps giving herself a concussion. She didn’t care if she did. That’s because the only thing that mattered now was the pleasure. Such a puny word for the incredible things Heath was doing with his mouth.

  “Your rating?” he asked, and mercy, he added some breath with that question.

  “Six million,” she managed to say.

  He laughed.

  “One more kiss,” he said. “Then it’ll be your turn.”

  Oh, she wanted a turn all right. Wanted it badly. Until he shimmied down her panties, put her knee on his shoulder and kissed her again. A special kiss.

  Tongue flicks included.

  After a couple of those flicks, Anna went into forget mode again. The thought of taking her turn went right out of her head. Everything vanished. Except for the feeling that she was about to shatter. And fall. And shatter some more.

  Heath made sure he gave her the more she needed for shattering. One last well-placed kiss. An equally well-placed tongue flick. And all she could do was fist her hand in his hair and let him shatter her.

  She had to take a moment to gather her breath. Another moment to keep gathering it. But even with the ripples of the climax tingling through her, she wanted to get started on her turn. And she was going to torture the hell out of Heath and his junk.

  “Damn,” Heath growled.

  It took her a moment to realize that he was reacting to something he heard.

  A knock at the tack room door.

  “Heath?” Riley called out.

  Hell.

  “Uh, Heath, I need to talk to you,” Riley added. “It’s important.”

  Unless the world was about to end and Heath could stop it, then it wasn’t that important, but Anna conceded that was the lust talking.

  “How important?” Heath asked.

  “Very.”

  Heath and she both cursed.

  “Anna’s in here with me,” Heath volunteered.

  It took Riley several snail-crawling seconds to respond to that. “Yes, I figured that out. Didn’t think you’d go into the tack room alone and close the door. But this isn’t about Anna. It’s about your assignment.”

  Heath groaned, stood back up, helping her fix her jeans and panties. “You can wait in here if you want,” he offered.

  “Not a chance,” Anna argued. “Riley knows what we’ve been doing. Or rather what we started doing, and the assignment thing could be a ruse to draw us out so he can ambush you with a shovel.”

  He brushed a kiss on her mouth. “You’ve got a very active imagination.” Though she knew there might be a grain of truth in her theory.

  Heath went out ahead of her, and Riley was indeed right there. He was sitting on a hay bale, drinking one of the beers. She braced herself for him to say something snarky like had she been trying to get Heath drunk or why did she have this thing for barn sex?

  He didn’t.

  Riley did give her a look that only a big brother could have managed, but it had some, well, sympathy mixed in with the brotherly snark. A strange combination.

  “I just came from the base,” Riley said to Heath. “They want to see you about your deployment request.”

  “Deployment request?” Anna repeated. “I thought Heath was going to Florida.”

  Riley remained quiet, clearly waiting for Heath to explain.

  “I asked to be diverted from the instructor job to another deployment,” Heath said.

  Riley’s arrival had been a killjoy in the sexual-pleasure department, but hearing about Heath’s request was a different kind of killjoy. Although obviously not for Heath since this was something he wanted.

  Very much.

  After all, he’d told her that the instructor job made him feel washed up, and maybe now he wouldn’t have to feel that way because he could go back to one of those classified sandy locations. Where people shot at him and where he could be hurt or killed.

  Mercy.

  That felt as if she’d been slammed with a truckload of bricks. And there was no reason for it, because this was Heath’s job. No logical reason anyway. But Anna wasn’t feeling very logical at the moment.

  “They want to see you out at the base right away,” Riley added.

  Heath nodded, looked at her as if he needed to say something, but Anna let him off the hook. S
he smiled, brushed a kiss on his cheek.

  “Go,” she insisted, trying to keep that smile in place. “We can talk when you get back.”

  Heath hesitated, gave another nod and then walked toward the house. Anna managed to keep her smile in place until he was out of sight. Riley opened a bottle of beer and handed it to her.

  “Will he get to come back here to the ranch if the deployment is approved?” Anna asked, though she was afraid to hear the answer. “Or will they send him out right away?”

  “Hard to say.”

  Or maybe not. The next thing Anna saw was Heath leaving the house, carrying his gear. He put it in his rental car and drove off. Obviously, he was prepared to go.

  Anna took a long swig of that beer and wished it was something a whole lot stronger.

  “Best to forget him,” Riley said as they watched Heath drive away. “Heath isn’t the settling-down type.”

  If only that weren’t true.

  “It’s just a fling,” Riley added. “That’s what it was nine and a half years ago, and that’s what it is now.”

  If only that were true.

  Chapter Five

  THE MCCORD BROTHERS were waiting for Heath when he got back from the base, and they didn’t even try to make it look like a friendly, casual meeting. They were in the living room just off the foyer, and the moment Heath stepped inside, they stood.

  No shovels. Not physical ones anyway.

  “Where’s Anna?” Heath asked. “You didn’t lock her in her room, did you?”

  The joke didn’t go over so well, but Heath didn’t care. He was tired, frustrated and wanted to talk to Anna, not the kid-sister police.

  “Anna’s Christmas shopping in San Antonio,” Logan answered. “She’ll be back any minute now.”

  Good. Well, sort of good. Heath definitely wanted to see her even if she probably hadn’t liked his news. Hell, he hadn’t liked it much, either.

  “My request for deployment was denied,” Heath explained. “The Air Force wants me to report to the base in Florida day after tomorrow so I’ll have to cut my visit here short.”

  He expected them to jump for joy. Or at least smile. They didn’t.