Best Laid Plans

by Abbie Zanders

  They gathered around one of the standing banquet tables currently littered with plans and blueprints. Matt’s expression continued to darken as Cage brought everyone up to speed on the surveillance camera footage.

  “We are now officially on Threatcon Charlie,” Matt said gravely.

  Heff mentally translated the threat-level code, usually declared when an incident occurred or intelligence suggested one was imminent.

  “This has gone beyond simple, petty vandalism,” Matt continued, looking at Doc, who was sitting beside him with his leg propped up on chair. “Effective immediately, we will be implementing additional security measures. If someone breaches the perimeter, I want to know about it before it happens.”

  “Any theories on who’s behind it?” Mad Dog asked.

  Church’s jaw clenched. “A few,” he said darkly but didn’t elaborate. “In the meantime, watch your six. Double- and triple-check every piece of equipment before you use it, no exceptions.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Sandy

  Sandy’s heart beat a little faster when she pulled up to the house and saw the black SUV with tinted windows in the parking area. It wasn’t Heff—or Hugh—talking to Brian in front of the stables though. It was Matt.

  She cursed herself for acting like a teenager with a crush. Ever since Tori had told her that Heff helped out at the ranch, she couldn’t help looking for him whenever she dropped Kevin off or picked him up. She was pathetic.

  They turned and waved in greeting. “Hey, Sandy.”

  “Hey, Brian, Matt. How are things going over at the Sanctuary?”

  Was it her imagination, or did a shadow pass over Matt’s features?

  “As well as can be expected,” Matt answered.

  “That good, huh?”

  He smiled slightly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Thanks for pushing through the paperwork.”

  She’d forgotten all about it. “My pleasure, but really, it was the lady at the county office who got the permits through. Did they give you a date for a town hall meeting yet?”

  Matt shook his head.

  “I’ll check on the status when I go in tomorrow, see what I can find out. So, are the boys inside?”

  “No. Tori had to run into town, and Hugh offered to take them on their nature walk.”

  Just like that, her heart started pounding fiercely again.

  Her reaction must have shown on her face because Brian was quick to add, “But don’t worry; they’re in good hands.”

  Yeah, she remembered Heff’s hands and just how good they were.

  “Oh. Okay. Do you think they’ll be a while yet?”

  “No, they should be back any minute.”

  “Great! I’ll just sit in the gazebo and wait, if that’s all right.”

  “Of course.”

  Sandy smiled and made a beeline for the gazebo, located on the side of the house. From there, she could sit on the suspended bench swing and have a perfect view of the stables and, more importantly, the entrance to the hiking trail beside them.

  Before long, Heff emerged from the woods with Danny and Kevin. Both boys were grinning with telltale purple stains around their mouths and fingers.

  “Hey, welcome back,” Brian said. “Did you guys have a good time?”

  “The best!” Danny gushed, his voice carrying clearly across the way. “Hugh—I mean, Mr. Hugh—I mean, Mr. Bradley—found a whole mess of black raspberry bushes. And we found bear scat.”

  “Yes,” Heff said, grinning, “today, we definitively answered the age-old question: do bears shit—uh, poop—in the woods?”

  Danny howled with laughter, and beside him, Kevin was laughing too. Really laughing. His shoulders were shaking, and his smile reached from ear to ear. Something in Sandy’s chest clenched.

  “Glad you guys got that straightened out,” Brian said, laughing. “Kevin, your sister’s waiting for you over in the gazebo, but you boys might want to wash off with the hose first.”

  Danny and Kevin went right for the outdoor spigot on the side of the barn, but Heff swung his eyes her way. Even from a distance, she could feel the power in his gaze. The moment lasted only a few seconds, but it felt longer and timeless at the same time.

  “Thanks for taking the boys on a walk,” Brian told Heff.

  “Anytime.” He turned his eyes away from her and toward Brian and Matt. “Ready to go?”

  “Yeah. You’d better not have bear shit on your shoes though, or you’ll be spending the rest of the day cleaning it out of my vehicle.”

  “It’s all good,” Heff assured him.

  Matt waved to her. Heff shot another look her way and then walked with Matt toward the black SUV. Sandy remained in the gazebo until the vehicle was out of sight. Only then did her heartbeat return to normal.

  “So, you had a good time today, huh?” Sandy asked Kevin as they drove down the mountain toward home.

  Kevin nodded. “Hugh is my friend.”

  Sandy gasped, shocked to hear him speak in a complete sentence. “Wow, that’s ... that’s awesome.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Heff

  Heff kept thinking about Sandy, picturing her on that swing, watching him. Even across the short distance that had separated them, he could feel it.

  She hadn’t made any move to do anything though. Just watched and listened from the assumed safety of the gazebo, observing with interest.

  Rather than let it dissuade him, he found her avoidance encouraging. It suggested that he wasn’t the only one aware of the unusually strong, charged connection between them and that she was being particularly cautious. Now that he had a better understanding of her situation, it made perfect sense.

  These days though, he was less concerned with common sense and more fascinated by her and this strange hold she seemed to have on his thoughts.

  Beneath that small-town girl exterior, she was fearless and passionate. Now, by watching and listening and observing, he had also learned that she was kind, selfless, and fiercely loyal to those select few she included in her personal circle.

  He wasn’t included in that circle. He was a one-time hook-up. Not family. Not a friend. They didn’t really know each other, and she’d made it clear that she preferred it that way.

  He couldn’t blame her. He was a semi-transient, former SEAL with issues, and she was a local girl with deep roots, a tangle of local ties, and some serious responsibilities. He should probably respect the distance she’d put between them.

  The problem was, those well-defined lines he’d drawn for himself were blurring, and he wasn’t so sure he wanted that kind of distance anymore. Rather than be turned off by the complexities and complications getting to know her would most certainly involve, he was intrigued. His resolve weakened a little more every time he discovered another piece of the puzzle that was Sandy Summers.

  Thankfully, Church was too caught up in his own thoughts to notice Heff’s preoccupation on the short drive back to the Sanctuary. Or so he thought, right up until Church parked the SUV and said, “Be careful, Heff.”

  Heff pretended he didn’t know what Church was talking about. “Are we talking in general here, or did you have something specific in mind?”

  Unfortunately, his former team leader knew him too well to be fooled. Church exhaled heavily. “Goddamn it. It’s too late, isn’t it?”

  “Too late for what exactly?”

  “You slept with Sandy.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Technically, there was no sleeping involved, but Heff wasn’t inclined to point that out. “Now, why would you say that?”

  He should have known Church would have an enumerated list, one he checked off on his fingers as he went.

  “One, I saw the way her eyes lit up when Brian said you’d taken the boys out on a hike. Two, while you were talking with us, your real attention was focused on her. Three, you’ve been avoiding Franco’s. And four, because I know you. You just couldn’t resist despite everything I said.”<
br />
  Heff said nothing, neither confirming nor denying Church’s statement.

  “Look, you’re both adults, and what you do is your business. But as your business partner, as your friend, I’m telling you, if you start pulling shit like you did today, she’s going to get the wrong idea.”

  “What idea would that be?”

  “That you’re interested in more than a hook-up.”

  “What if I am?”

  Church shook his head. “That would require something more than just sex, Heff. You know that, right? And you’d better be pretty fucking sure before you go too far down that road, feel me?”

  “You didn’t have a problem with Smoke and Sam.”

  “Smoke didn’t go around fucking every hot woman he saw.”

  The words stung, but they weren’t unwarranted. Church was basing his opinion on the years they’d spent together in the Navy. Heff had made it his personal mission to fill whatever downtime they had with drinking and ... other pursuits.

  But that had been before. Before he realized that no amount of booze or meaningless sex would fill the void he had in his chest. Before he lined up the assortment of pills on his bathroom sink, ready to chase them all down with one last bottle of JD. Before, in a case of timing so perfect that it could only be divine intervention, Church called and told him about his idea for the Sanctuary.

  Of course, Church didn’t know that. Just like he didn’t know that Sandy was the first woman Heff had had sex with in over a year. No one did. They all believed he was still the same man-whoring SOB he’d always been, and he hadn’t bothered to correct them.

  “Message received. Are we done?”

  “Yeah, we’re done.”

  Heff got out of the vehicle and walked toward his trailer. Then, he kept on going until he reached the water. Whether it was a really big pond or a really small lake, he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. He had the place to himself, and that was the important thing. He had some thinking to do and some decisions to make.

  Church’s words were meant to warn him off Sandy, but they were having the opposite effect. The more Heff thought about it, the deeper he wanted to dig in his heels. Was it a case of his innate rebellious nature, wanting to do the exact opposite of what he was supposed to do? Or was it the idea of walking away from Sandy that he was rebelling against?

  He didn’t know. He didn’t know much of anything anymore, except that he was tired of pretending. That, and the fact that when he was thinking about Sandy, that void in his chest didn’t seem quite as cavernous.

  But Church did have a valid point. If Heff was going to head down that road and see what was around the bend, he had to tread slowly because he wouldn’t be walking that road alone.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sandy

  Sandy pushed the heavy file cabinet drawer closed and frowned. She’d promised Matt she’d follow up on the status of the public town meeting, but the paperwork wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

  That in itself wasn’t surprising. Mrs. Delvecchio had the organizational skills of a rabid squirrel and an attention span to match—unless it involved local gossip. The woman was practically eidetic when it came to local scuttlebutt, able to quote hearsay from ten years back or more.

  But ask her where she’d filed an approved request form or the checks that had come in with permit applications, and her response was a blank stare and a murmured, “Well, it must be around here somewhere.”

  Four hours. That was how long Sandy had been sifting through the cabinets, pulling folders and refiling them in their proper place when she should have been drafting the quarterly township newsletter. It was the one task she genuinely enjoyed, and the only time she was able to employ any of her graphic design skills on a teeny-tiny scale.

  Unfortunately, the upcoming fall edition layout would have to wait. The morning was over, and it was time to pick up Kevin.

  Her spirits lifted a little, just thinking about it. She’d started looking forward to their afternoons together. After making and sharing a light lunch, they’d do errands or some housework and then spend the rest of the time drawing or watching something on Animal Planet.

  Bonus: she might run into Heff again too. It was silly really, but just seeing him was a bright spot in her day. And if she’d chosen to wear a sundress and sandals today instead of her usual business-casual jeans and top, so what?

  Her steps quickened as she crossed the tiny lot and then slowed when she saw the subject of her current obsession leaning up against a truck parked in the space next to her Civic. Arms crossed across his chest, one ankle casually hooked over the other, he looked sinfully sexy and completely at ease. She, on the other hand, felt as if someone had flipped a switch that sent an electric current through her erogenous zones—which apparently included her entire body where he was concerned.

  For just a moment, her mind conjured a fantasy where he was waiting for her after work every day. That he was there for her, not to follow up on Sanctuary business. She shoved it away.

  “Hi,” she said, hating that it came out sounding breathless.

  “Hi.” He smiled, and she felt it all the way down to her toes.

  “I tried finding the papers, but they’re proving particularly elusive.”

  He slightly tilted his head and looked at her with those intense eyes. What was it Tori had called them? Smoldering. Yes, that described them perfectly.

  “No worries though,” she continued. “I made copies of the original request, so if worse comes to worse, I’ll personally walk them over to each member of the supervisory board and stand there until they sign off on it.”

  His brows rose in question. Dare she hope that he, too, was having difficulty staying on track? And how had the temperature risen ten degrees in the last two minutes?

  “The town hall meeting request,” she clarified. “Matt said he hasn’t heard anything, so I told him I’d follow up.”

  “Okay.”

  Wasn’t that why he’d come? And why wasn’t he saying anything?

  His eyes lowered, taking in her dress and low-heeled shoes. When they came back up again, the look in his eyes was even hotter.

  She adjusted her purse and shifted her weight. She should get in her car, wish him a good day, and be on her way, yet her feet didn’t seem inclined to move.

  “Listen, thanks for being so nice to Kevin.”

  That got a nod. “He’s a good kid. Good taste in tunes too.”

  Despite the fluttering in her belly, she laughed. “I guess I have you to thank for the fact that he refuses to listen to anything except the oldies station now?”

  “Guilty as charged.” His lips curved, raising one side of his mouth higher than the other. Something in her core fluttered. “Got something against seventies music?”

  She tilted her head, her eyes taking in his long hair and catching the flash of that diamond stud. “No, but you strike me as more of an eighties hair-band, headbanger type.”

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  A light breeze brought with the scent of clean male soap, reminding her of how his skin had tasted when hot and covered with a thin sheen of perspiration. Perspiration that she had helped him work up. She shifted her weight again, acutely aware of how close he was.

  “So, if you’re not here about the papers, what did you want?”

  He uncrossed his arms and ankles and stood, shoving his hands into his pockets. If she didn’t know better, she might almost think he was nervous.

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about you,” he said quietly. “About us.”

  That makes two of us, she thought. Aloud, she asked, “Why?”

  “Because I think ... there’s something there.”

  Oh, there was something there all right. Explosive, fantastic, off-the-charts, orgasm-inducing chemistry. Unfortunately, none of that mattered.

  “I told you, I can’t.”

  One side of his mouth tilted upward again. Damn it.

  “Can’t wh
at exactly?”

  She glanced left and right, assuring herself they were alone but dropped her voice anyway. “Do what we did. Again.”

  That cocky, smug confidence was back. Normally, she didn’t have much of a tolerance for arrogance, but it worked for him. And he’d already proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was every bit as good as he thought he was—and then some.

  “We definitely can, but I agree, it’s not a good idea.”

  That surprised her. “You do? It’s not?”

  “No.”

  His confirmation was irritatingly disappointing. She made a show of looking at her wrist, only to remember that she’d stopped wearing a watch years earlier. “Then, what do you want? I need to pick up my brother.”

  “I want a chance to get to know you.” He grinned, revealing a hint of playfulness that was even more devastating to her willpower than his sexy half-smirk. “Outside of a motel room—in case that wasn’t clear.”

  “You’re asking me on a date?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, if you want to label it that way.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t date.”

  “Never? Why not?”

  “Because I don’t have time. Because I had plans. Because I have Kevin to think about now.”

  He considered that for a moment. “You have to eat, don’t you? And for the record, Kevin thinks I’m awesome.”

  Sandy fought the urge to roll her eyes, which also helped her hold back the smile that wanted to break free. He really was too adorable. And so sexy. And so skilled with his fingers and tongue and ... wait, what was her point?

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” he continued. “The big Pennsylvania Farm Show is this weekend. Why don’t the three of us drive out there and check it out?”

  “The three of us?”

  “Yeah. You, me, and Kevin. Lots of horses and other animals. Artisans and craftsmen from all over the state. Live bands. Deep-fried goodness aplenty. What do you say?”