Silence. Josie couldn’t even hear the clink of dishes in the background.
“Daph?” she said. “Did I lose you?”
“You love jerks,” Daphne pointed out.
She sighed. “I know.”
“He’s working tonight?”
“Noah is always working.” She stood and headed for the pile of shoes by the closet. She’d dumped her suitcase out, but she hadn’t put her shoes away. This wasn’t permanent. She’d come home to get back on her feet. She wasn’t giving her shoes a forever home in her childhood closet.
“He’s coming by to pick me up soon. We’re heading to the brewery to pick up another keg,” Josie added, plucking her cowgirl boots off the top of the pile. She might as well wear them here. They seemed out of place in downtown Portland. Not that she had a reason to go back. She’d shed her friends, her job, her scholarship, her apartment—every piece of her life in that city had drowned in her depression and mounting dept.
“He might do something nice today and then you won’t fall for him,” Daphne said, teasing.
“Maybe.” But he’d already taken in two women running from pasts that refused to let go. That was sweet of him and she still bought his asshole act. “I suppose there is always the chance we find an old lady who needs help across the street or a kitten who needs to be rescued from a tree,” she added.
Daphne laughed, but Josie didn’t join in. Because even if Noah saved every lost kitten from here to Portland, she’d still hope for another kiss, another touch, another taste beside his truck.
Maybe I can push my fears aside again and take the risk. . .
“I’ll stop by tomorrow morning,” Josie said. “I promise.”
“Visiting a strip club instead of church on a Sunday?” Daphne said with feigned horror. “What will people say?”
“That I’m still a lost cause. That I haven’t changed.” She sat on her bed and pulled on her boots that would walk straight back to Noah’s barn if she let them. “And they might be right,” she added. “Because I want him to be a jerk.”
NOAH PARKED HIS truck in front of the chief of police’s old farmhouse and pressed the horn. He hoped Josie’s dad had already left for the station. Chief Fairmore would start asking questions if he found Noah grinning like a damn fool while waiting for his daughter. And what the hell would he say to Josie’s father?
I want your daughter in a way that promises to leave her boots beside my bed—or next to the bull in the barn.
Chief Fairmore might tell him to steer clear of his daughter, or threaten to tell his dad, Big Buck himself, that his son was messing around with an employee. And yeah, Noah probably should have served himself a heaping plateful of regret alongside his eggs this morning. He shouldn’t have kissed Josie. But he sure as shit hoped they found their way back to that moment. If she gave him a chance, he’d steal a kiss and then some.
The front door opened and Josie stepped out. She’d skipped the black dress today. And for a split second he missed the tight fit of her red sundress. But then she stepped off the porch and headed for his truck. Between her tight, short jean skirt, boots, and top, his attention splintered, drawn to the legs he wanted to feel wrapped around his hips. And those boots . . .
But his gaze zoned in on her top. She wore the old Big Buck’s T-shirt he’d given her that first night. Only she’d tied the loose fabric into a knot at her back, pulling the words “Big Buck’s” tight across her chest.
He wanted to replace the worn letters with one word—“Noah’s.”
He was one helluva jerk. But ever since he’d come home, he’d wanted to lose himself for a little while, forgetting about all the shit that had happened while he served his country.
A blow and a beer—that’s what I want.
He’d had a beer, but he’d steered clear of meaningless oral sex with a willing woman. Because he’d wanted Josie since he walked out of that barn five years ago. Smart, sexy, brilliant Josie.
“Morning,” she said as she opened the passenger side door to his truck. “You look good for three hours of sleep.”
“I’ve gotten by on a lot less,” he said.
“I know.” She climbed in and fastened her seat belt. “How is Caroline?”
Still living in a nightmare. But he didn’t feel right talking about how he’d heard his houseguest crying through the thin walls in his childhood home.
“All right.” He turned onto the two-lane country road leading toward the highway. “She found out about your dad being chief of police.”
“I didn’t tell her, but I’ll make it clear that my father won’t find out about her from me,” she said. “And I don’t think Josh clued her in either. But he did offer to make her a pie.”
“What?”
“He likes her,” Josie said.
Oh shit.
“If he lays a hand on her,” Noah growled, his grip tightening on the steering wheel. “If he touches her—”
“Calm down. You don’t need to rush in and save her. Not from Josh Summers,” she said. “I have a feeling Caroline can decide for herself. And one day she might want to say yes to sharing a pie.”
“I hope you’re right,” he murmured. They drove in silence, speeding past one farm after another. Mountains rose in the distance, but they were still firmly in the valley. Cows, goats, and horses dotted the landscape.
“But you’re sweet to stand by,” she added. “Ready to protect her.”
“Yeah? You think your brother is a big old teddy bear for jumping to your defense?” he challenged. Sweet. Jesus. He couldn’t wear that label, not anymore.
“My brother’s not so bad. Especially when he’s stationed on the other side of the world. But this isn’t about Dominic.”
“No?”
“Go ahead,” she said, her green eyes sparkling with daring. “Tell me what a jerk you are.”
“A damn big one,” he muttered.
“I want details.” Her low, sultry voice flipped a switch, turning him on.
“Josie, I would strip off a lot more than your panties if we ever found ourselves in a hay wagon. But I’d prefer someplace we wouldn’t be discovered.” His voice was a low growl and his fingers tapped on the wheel, itching to turn the truck around and take her . . . where?
They couldn’t go back to his place. His dad was there. And Caroline. And he wasn’t about to seduce the police chief’s daughter in her father’s house. But Big Buck’s?
“Like right here on the side of the road?” she asked. “We haven’t passed another car in while. And I don’t think the farm animals would breathe a word to anyone. Not that they can see inside the truck.”
He glanced over at her, noting the rapid rise and fall of her chest beneath the letters across her breasts. Her T-shirt would go first, out the window. Then, he’d push her skirt up to her waist and draw her panties down her legs.
“Josie, there isn’t enough room in the cab of my truck for the things I want to do to you,” he murmured, surprising himself by saying the words out loud. He was so caught up in the mental picture of Josie’s legs spread and her breasts bared under the sunny Oregon sky. But she’d pressed, asking to see him for who he was now, not the man everyone else wanted him to be, and he didn’t want to hold back.
“I’m not asking for anything until I’ve proven that I have a lot more to offer than a kiss,” he added, shifting in his seat. His boxer briefs felt as if they were made of spandex. His dick begged for freedom, eager to greet her in the truck, on the side of the road—anywhere.
She made a tsk-tsk sound. “I thought you had abandoned chivalry. Pull over and we’ll draw straws to see who comes first.”
He let out a low laugh partly in response to her words, but mostly to keep himself from begging. Sure, sex—oral or otherwise—with a woman he shouldn’t touch made him an ass. But ther
e were some lines he refused to cross. He was going down first and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
And that wasn’t chivalry. He was being practical. If she wrapped her full lips around him, and if he came in her sweet mouth, hell, he’d probably pass out. The picture racing through his imagination left him damn near dizzy. If she offered the real thing, here, now, she’d have to drive him home.
“Of course, the customers might complain if we don’t make it to the brewery to pick up the beer,” she added. “But it might be worth the risk.”
“Hell yeah.” He looked over at her and found her lips parted, her tongue darting out to lick them. She was so damn sexy, so beautiful . . .
He forced his attention back on the road, scanning the shoulder for a safe place to pull over. Wire fencing stretched for miles. The only houses were set back far enough the people inside would need binoculars to know what they were doing on the side of the road. Up ahead the road changed to dirt for a few miles before they hit pavement again. Here was better, less dusty. And he wanted her now.
He spotted a road sign up ahead listing the number of miles to the highway and the neighboring towns. He eased off the gas, his gaze fixed on the shoulder and his body taut with anticipation.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Josie’s arm crossing the console separating the passenger side from the driver’s seat. Her fingers brushed his thigh as if urging him on. Like he needed encouragement. He needed to focus and park the damn car before he reached for her. He needed—
“Shit!” He slammed on the brakes and swerved off the road. His desire shut off as if someone had flipped a switch and his training kicked in, driving him to throw the truck into park.
“Noah?”
He heard the alarm in her voice. In his peripheral vision, he saw the hand she’d quickly withdrawn from his leg clutching the seat belt stretched across her chest.
“Stay here,” he ordered. “If I give the signal, drive away.”
“Wait. Noah, please.”
Not a chance. He opened his door. The need to act fact, to eliminate the threat, pulsed through him. He couldn’t let anything happen to her. And God only knew what was in the cardboard box at the base of the street sign.
He ran forward and dropped to his knees. His hands hovered over the open box, the realization sinking in that he was in Oregon, not Afghanistan. He couldn’t defuse a bomb out here. He wasn’t prepared to dismantle a roadside IED.
He blinked and peered into the box for the first time. He felt light-headed and it had nothing to do with Josie’s mouth on his dick. The cardboard shifted and a soft mewing sound pulled him firmly back to reality.
“Fucking kittens.” He reached inside and picked one up. “Ah, hell.”
Dizzy from the rush of relief, he clutched the kitten to his chest and closed his eyes. It wasn’t an IED, just some jerk who’d seen a bunch of farms and decided to abandon a litter of kittens on the side of the road for some bleeding-heart farmer to take home to their barn.
He heard the truck door slam, followed by the distinct click of Josie’s boots on pavement. But he didn’t open his eyes. She’d been ready and willing to get naked on the side of the road until he’d freaked out.
Because of a box of kittens.
Hero. Jerk. The labels didn’t apply. He was a fool. The bundle of fur in his hands sank its sharp teeth into his thumb, and he welcomed the prick of pain, anything to drive away the lingering traces of fear and his own embarrassment.
He opened his eyes and looked up at Josie. She stood to his right with an open field that looked nothing like a war zone to her back.
“You know, this might ruin your I’m-an-ass image,” she said, placing her hands on her hips. She offered the shifting meowing box a cursory glance before looking back at him.
“I thought it was . . .” His throat went dry. “I wasn’t trying to . . . Jesus, I thought . . .”
I thought the box would explode and steal you away from me. I needed to save you because . . . Because I want you and I’m so damn selfish. . .
“I wasn’t trying to be a hero,” he added, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Says the man clutching an abandoned kitten,” she said.
He set the biting, clawing animal back into the box and met her gaze. He expected to see pity in her green eyes. The poor war hero who mistook a box of kittens for a bomb. But it wasn’t there. She looked as if she was waiting for him to get a grip and return to the truck.
If only he could find the strength to get off the ground.
“I could give you a blow job in front of the truck and hope someone drives by and sees us,” she said. “That would help cement your bad boy image.”
He laughed and this time he searched her face for a sign that she understood. Right now, knees planted in the dirt beside a box of fur balls, he hoped like hell she’d connected the dots. He didn’t want to wear the hero label because the things he’d seen, the things he’d done, were flat-out horrible. There was pride in serving his country, and also disgust. Because the people on either side—American, Afghan—weren’t divided into bad and good.
And he didn’t want pity either. God, he hoped she knew that. Sympathy and sex didn’t belong in the same thought. He wanted to hold on to the hope that she couldn’t help her attraction to him. Because that would pretty much mirror how he felt. He just wanted to lose himself for a little while—in her.
“So what do you say?” she pushed. “Want a BJ right here, right now?”
“Josie, don’t fucking say that if you don’t mean it.”
Chapter Ten
“WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE in front of my kittens.” Josie stared down at the blond warrior kneeling in the grass on the side of the road. He blinked and his brow furrowed. The look in his blue eyes screamed have you lost your mind?
“And seriously? You want to?” She nodded to the truck parked a good fifteen feet away from the box he’d expected to explode. “Here? Now?”
“No.” He shook his head as he planted one foot on the ground and rose up. “I’m damn near dying to kiss you again. And yeah, I’d like to feel your lips move a helluva lot lower. But not to prove a point to a random passerby.”
Thank God. She’d tossed out the offer like a Hail Mary pass at the end of the game. But the goal wasn’t to talk him out of his pants. Not here. She wanted to make him laugh and make it clear that she wasn’t counting on him for another rescue. If this had been a bomb, she knew he would have done everything he could to save her, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. The last thing he needed was her faith in him to carry around like a lead weight he didn’t want or need.
“We’re taking the kittens,” she said, bending down to pick up the box. With the squirming cardboard in her arms, she headed for his truck.
“You’re taking them,” he corrected, moving to her side and matching her pace.
“Not at my dad’s place. He’s allergic. But they could live in your barn.” She stopped by the passenger side door and waited while he opened it. “I’ll stop by and feed them.”
He took the box from her while she climbed into the truck. “But—”
“I’m not asking you to feed and play with them,” she said. The last thing he needed was another burden. “Just share your mostly empty barn with them for a while. Who doesn’t need a barn cat? Or five?”
“Fine.” He closed her door and walked around to the driver’s side. Once he’d buckled up and turned on the truck, he added, “But you’re responsible for the entire litter.”
“As long as you don’t mind if I stop by your place twice a day.” She scooped the smallest of the plain grey cats from the box. The animals meowed, but curled up on her lap once she started petting it. “And maybe if you’re nice, I’ll take care of you too.”
“Nice.” He shook his head, but his lips curled into a smile a
t the sensual suggestion. “Don’t count on it, Josie.”
“I’m not.” And she liked the surly, I’m-not-so-perfect Noah better. “I might just wait for you to do the ‘things you want to do to me’ that require more space than the cab of your truck.”
“Jesus, Josie,” he said as he merged onto the two-lane road. “Let’s go pick up the beer.”
NOAH NODDED TO the range safety officer and headed for the viewing area of the Willamette Valley Gun Club’s range. He’d unloaded five rounds into paper targets, but he still couldn’t escape the haunted feeling that had followed him around since he’d spotted the box on the side of the road.
“Noah!” a familiar female voice called.
He glanced over his shoulder and spotted Lena walking beside Georgia Moore. Out of everyone he knew in the Willamette Valley—apart from the World War II vets who camped at the bar in the late afternoons sipping one beer at the pace of a snail—these women would understand the mistake he’d made while driving to Portland. They’d served, though not together, and both returned home with PTSD. Georgia had tried to fight her demons by taking risks. And Lena had hidden away, afraid to let anyone close. Different ways of coping with the same root problem.
But he didn’t have PTSD. Sure, he’d had the odd nightmare here and there. But who didn’t? He’d seen a box and thought bomb. And he’d had to act because, shit, Josie had been in the truck. No, he didn’t have residual and reoccurring anxiety from the war. Just a pain-in-the-ass need to keep Josie safe.
“Didn’t expect to find you here on Saturday,” Georgia said. “I thought your weekends were all work and no play. Or did the kittens change that?”
“April’s opening for me today,” he said to the petite brunette standing beside Lena. “Wait, how did you hear about the kittens?”
“Katie said her brother Josh stopped by the bar to see your new dishwasher and met the kittens,” Georgia explained. “Josh told Chad, who mentioned it to Lena. And Lena told me on the way over here.”
Noah stared back the two women. Any other day, he’d welcome the chance to shoot with them. But right now he wished Dominic and Ryan would walk through the door, offer a “hey” and ask what he’d been firing on the range. He wanted to run from the small-town gossip train that now included half the valley. Hell, Georgia lived over an hour from his bar and she knew about the damn cats.
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