by Jodi Thomas
“I know he is.” Brigman turned off the paved road onto Cody’s place.
“You got a regular crime spree going on, Sheriff.” Cody made a habit of not keeping up with anything happening around him. He wasn’t even sure who owned the land on either side of his. One place had been up for sale the last time he heard, and the other farm was in the middle of a court fight over which one of the dead owner’s stepchildren should inherit.
By the time Dan bumped his way over the unkept road past the gate, Cody thought of suggesting going back to the hospital. Something else must be broken. Harry should have skipped the vacation in Hawaii and spent the money on shocks for his truck.
Dan didn’t seem to notice; he just kept talking. “At least knowing Thatcher is safe will be a load off my mind. The sheriff in the next county over can worry about the fire. I’ve given him as many names and descriptions of people that I could remember. Don’t see much else I can do to help.”
Cody looked up and saw Tess standing on his front porch. She was tall and had that healthy, all-American look going on. Funny how she appeared to belong there. She wore a blue park ranger shirt and trousers that fit like a man’s, but he didn’t care. Poor girl probably didn’t have a butt, but she made up for it with well-rounded breasts.
If she knew he was even thinking about her body parts, she’d probably karate chop him into tomorrow. Park rangers might not wear weapons on their hip, but Cody had no doubt she could take care of herself. After all, weren’t they trained to fight off bears?
She smiled as she helped him out of the truck, but whispered that they needed to talk.
He kissed her cheek. “About what, honey?”
While the sheriff was checking on Thatcher, she whispered back, “About our marriage.” Her smile was so sweet he knew it was poison. “I don’t believe in divorce, Ranger Winslow, so I guess I’ll have to make myself a widow.”
He tried to smile, but he wasn’t sure she was kidding.
She helped him into a chair and pulled up a stool for his leg. “I thought the banker simply trusted me, but thanks to the sheriff, I’ve figured out he thought we were married. Wonder how he got that idea?”
Cody might as well confess. “I may have told one of the nurses we were. I thought it would be funny if they thought we were a couple.”
She smiled that sweet smile that frightened him more than the sound of a shotgun being racked on a dark night. It seemed to hint that she’d murder him as soon as they were alone.
Cody fought down a laugh. He hadn’t had so much fun in years. He’d better stay on full alert. Hell, he’d better get well fast because he had a feeling she’d come at him full out when she got the chance.
Within an hour the sheriff had Cody settled in, with his Colt next to his pillow and a rifle just under the bed. Tess had tried to fuss over him, but Cody kept pushing her away. He didn’t need any help, and he didn’t want to get used to accepting any or he might miss her when she was gone.
Plus, he didn’t trust this sweet act she was putting on. He had no doubt she was still mad at him.
But mad or not, she’d be gone when this assignment was over. When he was healthy, most women barely seemed to put up with him. Now, hurt and probably half-crazy, Tess would disappear soon enough.
He’d teased her about them having a date, but there wasn’t much chance of that. Not when she saw who he really was. Broken, angry and too hard to care about anything.
Top that off with the fact that she knew he lied about their relationship, and his chances of getting that kiss on the porch he’d told her he wanted weren’t good.
The kid he was supposed to be watching wasn’t too happy either.
“This is not necessary, Sheriff,” Thatcher complained as he sat up from his makeshift bed on the couch. “Just leave me with a rifle, and I’ll shoot the guy’s other ear off if he dares show up here. I don’t need two strangers watching over me.”
“It’s just a precaution, Thatcher.” Dan put one hand on Thatcher’s chest and pushed him gently back on his pillows. “You’re lucky you’ve got a Texas Ranger looking out for you, because they don’t miss a thing.”
Thatcher frowned. “He must not be too observant. He’s been here an hour, limping all over the house and hasn’t even noticed his kitchen changed colors.”
Cody looked over at the kitchen. He’d thought the sun reflecting off all the snow outside just made the place look bright. But the walls weren’t white, they were yellow.
It took some effort, but he swiveled enough to see Tess reorganizing his supply cabinet. “You taking over my life, Tess?” He had a faint memory of asking that question once before.
“Yep,” she answered simply. “But at least I’m honest about it.”
“I like the mess.” He tried growling at her.
“You’ll have the same mess, it’ll just be in alphabetical order,” she growled back at him.
Cody heard the kid behind him whisper to the sheriff, “You know, I think I’ll hang around. This might be interesting. He’s a wounded bear. She’s bound to poke him with a stick at some point if her organizing bothers him half as much as it does me, and it’s not even my stuff. I might learn something here, Sheriff. Plus, I got a bull snake in the box by the door. Hell, I don’t need a TV. I have a feeling this reality show is about to start.”
Cody closed down his anger. He had no intention of being the sideshow for the kid. Besides, he had an assignment. It came first.
He glanced over at Tess. She was smiling at him again. He’d like to wipe that smile off her face, and it suddenly occurred to Cody that kissing her senseless might just be the way to do it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
LAUREN STARED OUT the back window of the lake house. The sun was burning away morning fog, but she could still see thin, low clouds shifting just above the water as if waiting for the lake to freeze so winter’s breath could settle.
There was something haunting about the scene, like unclaimed souls gathering, huddling, mourning the passing of night even though they no longer needed the darkness or one another’s warmth.
Deep down she realized that she’d packed her loneliness and brought it home with her from Dallas. She was finished believing in dreams. Nothing in her life was working out as planned. Somehow she’d started driving her car of goals and hopes without a steering wheel. She’d lost herself in life’s confusion and didn’t know how to get back on a path forward.
Lucas didn’t want her around. He’d dropped her off first last night. Tim was so angry he might toss their friendship out with the trash left from their affair.
In a nutshell, her love life was rushing through the rapids, and every now and then she bashed her head on a passing rock. Polly, her college roommate, found a guy around every corner. Lauren had known two who mattered to her, and somehow they both managed to end up angry with her. She was the plague where relationships were concerned.
Maybe she should be like her father. Live alone and go to bed without even doing the dishes. He seemed perfectly happy. After running them off last night, he must have taken the singer home, returned to the lake, then gone right to bed. He’d even locked his door so she couldn’t wake him up and talk him into helping clean up.
When he’d left early this morning, she’d heard him whistling as he went out the door.
Pop didn’t seem to mind being alone. Maybe she’d follow his lead. Only she didn’t have a career to fill her days. She felt like she had about as much substance as paper clouds floating on icy water.
She drifted over to the long windows that faced the lake and watched the water, always shifting, moving.
For a few moments, she thought the figure standing at the bottom of the deck steps was just a shadow, but then she saw the Stetson in his hand. Someone was out there. Standing still. Waiting.
She knew his build. She’d seen him both dressed in western clothes and in a pricey suit. This shadow of a man by whom she’d measured every other guy she’d dated.
Whether she was mad at Lucas Reyes or not didn’t matter. He couldn’t just stand out there.
Last night, after the three of them had talked and argued over coffee, Lucas had brought her home, then turned toward Tim’s place. Lauren hadn’t talked to either of them later, but she guessed they’d spent a few more hours arguing or, if Tim had a vote, drinking.
The two men had been friends once, in high school and in college for a while, but they were polar opposites. Tim drifted, daydreamed. Lucas was, and would probably always be, a man on a mission.
Pulling on her pop’s thick sweater, she stepped out onto the deck and walked slowly toward Lucas.
He didn’t move.
She could hear her own footsteps and knew he must know she was there, but Lucas didn’t look up. Damp, cold air hung over them like a curtain about to fall.
“If you’ve come to kiss me again, forget it. That was just a spur-of-the-moment thing when you were saddling up the other night. If you’d wanted to kiss me, you should have done it last night when you came to dinner.”
He showed no sign of being aware of her coming closer.
“Why did you come over last night anyway, Lucas? Not to see me. Not to talk to me.” She moved closer, letting her bottled up anger out for once. “Why are you here now?”
“Why’d you invite Tim last night?” he shot back as he raised his face to her. Eyes dark as coal stared at her.
Lauren crossed her arms, determined not to let him intimidate her. Typical lawyer, answering a question with a question.
She saw herself as more of a mouse than a fighter, but Lucas had finally made her furious. Their entire relationship, or maybe lack of one, was ups and downs, and she wanted off the roller coaster.
In the edges of her logical mind, she knew he was the reason she couldn’t move on with her life. When she’d been fifteen, she’d worshipped him, and he’d stepped away again and again. Well, no more. This time she wouldn’t let him in.
“What does it matter why I invited Tim?” What was the point in arguing with him? It didn’t matter if they fought or kissed, he’d disappear when it was over, and she’d be mixed up even more than she was right now.
A clean cut and he’d be out of her life.
Let him say whatever he came to say and be gone.
He took one step up to the deck and was suddenly eye level with her. The anger in his eyes shocked her. His jaw was clenched so hard it could have been made of granite.
“I wanted to ask you one thing.” He took another step, and she watched his hands ball into fists. “Why’d you sleep with Tim? Answer me!”
Lauren stood her ground. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t.” He lowered his voice, but rage still salted his words. “Not anymore.”
“Good.” Lauren was surprised that she could still feel her heart crack. She’d thought it was already broken. “Get off my property. What I do, who I sleep with is none of your business. This cross-examination stops now.”
As she whirled toward the house, he grabbed her arm and closed the distance between them. His fingers dug into her, even through the sweater. She clenched her teeth, refusing to cry out.
Just before she drew back to fight, she felt his heart pounding against her own. Like it had that night almost ten years ago when he’d saved her life. She might have died in a fall if he hadn’t been there watching over her. She’d been fifteen, and he’d been almost eighteen. It had started then, this attraction, this obsession.
Anger left her. This was Lucas. The boy who made her believe in love. The man who came to her in her dreams. The one who shattered her world every time he walked away.
“Say what you came to say, Lucas, but turn loose of my arm first.” Like lightning striking an already dead tree, she realized the obsession was hers. The attraction his.
He opened his grip so fast she wondered if he’d even been aware that he was holding her.
“You can’t hurt me anymore, Lucas.” She stumbled backward a step. “I’ve given up on all relationships, including Tim’s friends with benefits bargain.”
He stared at her. In the glow of the foggy light, she saw the anger go out of his dark eyes. The polished lawyer won out over the angry man.
He took a step back and leaned against the railing. “Do you love him, Lauren?”
“Who?”
“O’Grady.” Frustration threatened his front. “Or are there so many other lovers you can’t remember their names?”
“No, but what is between us has nothing to do with Tim.”
“He told me you’ve been lovers since college days. I’d say that he’s definitely standing between us, if there is or ever was an us.”
Any way she explained Tim would make her sound cold. Technically, they had slept together just before she graduated. Her pop was in the hospital fighting for his life, and she’d turned to her best friend for comfort. “We’re not lovers. It’s not like that. It’ll never be like that. He’s my best friend. I’ll never be with him the way he wants it to be, but I don’t want to hurt him.”
Lucas slumped as if suddenly exhausted. “You were with him that night at the Two Step when you saw me. After kissing me like you did, you went home with him, didn’t you?”
She didn’t answer. Tim had been drunk; she’d had to take him home. She’d stayed at his place that night because she was worried about him. “I don’t have to answer your questions, Lucas.”
He moved farther away, accepting defeat. “I searched for you for half the night after we met in the bar. I even woke your dad up. He told me you’d gone to Lubbock with Tim. Only I went by Tim’s house. His car was there, and I knew you were, too.”
He was just stating facts, finishing up an argument he’d already lost. “I drove all the way back to Houston when I realized that a kiss that blew my mind was just foreplay for someone else. I thought no one could kiss me like you did and walk away. I thought you’d call and tell me I was wrong, you weren’t with Tim.”
“Pop never told me you came by. I didn’t know.” All her excuses sounded weak. How could she tell Lucas that she’d never once kissed Tim like she’d kissed him that night? That part of her unopened heart still waited for him.
“What we had in high school was real, Lauren. I thought it was. I thought we’d find our way back to each other one day, when the time was right. At first you were too young, then I got in a hurry to graduate, then we were in different worlds for a while.”
She had to defend herself. “You pushed me away. You left when my dad was in the hospital. Tim offered comfort when I hurt and you were nowhere around.”
“I had to make it into law school. I didn’t want to be like my dad, working for the man who owns the land, living in a house that comes with the job and will never be in his name.”
He shook his head. “You needed to finish school and then your dad was hurt, and I knew you had to be home. And now there’s Tim. He loves you, you know. He told me you two were together and were just having a lovers’ quarrel. He said if I even thought of asking you out that I was too late. He’s bought a ring. I saw it last night.”
She shook her head. “No. I can’t take it.”
“Why not?”
She couldn’t answer. How could she tell Lucas that she couldn’t wear another’s ring? If she said a part of her still loved Lucas and had since she was fifteen, she’d sound like a romantic idiot. Besides, she obviously made Tim miserable, so why would he want to marry her and make it a permanent condition? He was stuck in this black hole with them, no one winning, everyone losing.
She stood three feet away, but they might as well have been an ocean apart. She asked the
same question she’d asked before. “What are you doing here, Lucas?”
He shot an answer without hesitation. “I want it finished between us. I want it over so I can get on with my life.”
“Me, too.”
They both waited as if one had to come up with a way that they could part with the least amount of fallout. She thought of suggesting they shake hands and say goodbye, but she doubted that would solve anything.
Finally, he said, “You really don’t love O’Grady?”
This she knew the answer to. “No. I’ve broken it off with him again and again, but he thinks it’s temporary. I don’t want to hurt him. I’m lonely, he’s my best friend, but I can’t marry him for those reasons.”
“You have to let him go.”
“No.” The thought of losing her best friend hurt deep inside.
“Then we’ve nothing else to say.” Lucas turned and seemed to vanish into the last of the morning fog. Lauren stood in the silence and wondered if he’d been there at all.
She walked back into the house.
For the first time in months, Lauren opened her laptop and began to write a story about ghosts haunting a house on a cliff near an ocean. None of the spirits could move on to heaven or hell because they all refused to turn loose of one another.
As the hours passed, the story grew dark with flashbacks of murders and betrayals. An Englishwoman bought the old house on the cliff and began to unravel the lies and crimes of each spirit. One by one the ghosts disappeared, and the dark house began to fill with light.
At four o’clock when she read the first two chapters of her book, she smiled. The story was so dark it scared her, but it was good.
She felt she was truly writing as she saved it under the file name Imprisoned Lives.
For the first time in years, she had a direction. She was growing, changing. She’d move on with her life.
Something was happening, deep inside her. She grew, not by inches but by miles, and she felt it. The shifting from a girl to a woman.
And Lauren knew she’d never go back to before.