He kissed the edge of her neck, the scrape of his whiskers sending shivers through her. He brushed his hand over her thigh as his mouth found her lips. Tansy wrapped her hand around his neck and pulled him closer, wielding her tongue against his. The intensity with which she wanted him increased, which she
really hadn’t thought was possible.
Liam stroked and touched her thighs, her lower belly, her hips. With one finger, he traced along the edge of her pubic mound. The maddening man touched everywhere but the one place she wanted him to touch the most. She pulled away from his mouth, panting. “Liam, you’ve got to—”
He shook his head and continued to circle her with his finger. “Patience.”
Pouting, she fired back, “We’ve seen how much patience you had.”
The infuriating man laughed at her. “Extenuating circumstances. Now, close your eyes.”
“Maybe I don’t want to.”
“Just do it. For once, can you just do as instructed and not argue the point?”
Fine. If that’s what it took for him to give her what she wanted.... She closed her eyes. He teased his tongue against the ridge of her collarbone, and the sensation arced through her, heaping fuel on the flame that was already burning inside her. Her eyes fluttered.
“Keep them closed,” he said.
It really was more intense that way.
He captured her nipple in his mouth, clothes and all, and she sucked in her breath as the sensation shot straight through her to the aching need between her thighs. She dug her fingers in the muscles of his shoulders and moaned. He teased at her nipple with his teeth and she gasped. Tansy was nearly writhing with want when he finally touched his fingertip to her slick folds.
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” His sound of satisfaction reverberated through his mouth as he suckled her. He plucked and stroked at her flesh and she spread her legs farther apart, opening herself to his ministrations, her orgasm building. He slid a finger inside her and then another while he found her clitoris with his thumb.
She bit her lip when he curved his fingers inside her and rubbed a sensitive spot she hadn’t even known existed. At the same time, he worked his thumb against her clitoris.
“I...oh...yes...please.” Her cry of satisfaction reverberated around the room as waves of pleasure echoed through her body.
* * *
THE FOLLOWING DAY, MALLORY sighed in frustration as she rolled to her back and settled under the sheet, naked. Soothing flute music drifted on the air and candles lit the room. Jenna’s spa was on par with any facility she’d find in the big city and certainly not what you’d anticipate in some backwoods town that didn’t even have a traffic light. And she’d been comped her massage when she’d been bumped to today due to an overbooking. It was fine by her.
Ellie Sisnukett, newlywed and talented massage therapist, poured more warm oil into her hands. Ellie had a gifted touch. She’d told Mallory that she used to be a schoolteacher before she began working massage in
Jenna’s spa. If Ellie was half as good at teaching school as she was at massage, the little kiddies were missing out.
“You are so tense. Do you want to talk about it? Is it a man?”
“Isn’t it always about a man?” She was getting a big fat nowhere with initiating contact with Liam Reinhardt. Well, she’d met him but he was clearly not interested in small talk or chatting. It had been terribly disappointing that he hadn’t immediately picked up on the rightness of her and him. Mallory, however, was convinced enough for both of them. So, it was simply time for her to lay her cards on the table. She’d tried subtle but subtle wasn’t getting her anywhere. Liam was both personal and professional for her. “How did you meet your husband?”
“Nelson likes to say it was when he found me naked in Mirror Lake.” Ellie laughed. “It’s a thermal lake and I was there one night in the water naked when he showed up, but we’d known each other long before that. I actually dated his cousin Clint for a while. I’d always had a crush on Nelson but he’d never seemed to really notice me. But he noticed me then. We talked and really got to know each other and it just went from there.”
“But what if a man is interested in someone else?”
Mallory had banked on Liam feeling the attraction for her that she’d experienced when she’d seen him. But he seemed distracted by Jenna’s stepsister, Tansy, the short brunette who was staying out at Shadow Lake. Mallory knew Tansy didn’t like her. She found her pushy and abrasive. Mallory was well aware of the other woman’s reaction—it was her business to read people. And Mallory had been pushy. And then there was the little matter of Tansy not liking her because Tansy knew Mallory was interested in Liam. But that was too damn bad and not Mallory’s problem because the stars had fated her and Liam. Liam was meant to be hers.
Her problem, professionally speaking, was in getting Liam Reinhardt to grant her an interview, to talk about his military career and experience. The man had summarily turned down a couple of interview requests—not from Mallory, but from other sources. As a military historian, she desperately wanted this interview with a man who arguably deserved to go down in history as one of the greats of his era in military sharpshooting. It was a shame that he had been discharged, but his experiences needed to be recorded for posterity and she wanted to be the one to do so. And yes, she could’ve called but she wanted to bask in his presence, to see the look in his eyes when he recognized what they could be to and for each other.
“Well, sometimes what we think we want isn’t meant to be. You just have to let it play out.”
Perhaps in some circumstances but not with them. Mallory knew she and Liam were meant to be.
She finally relaxed and let Ellie work her magic.
Mallory would simply show up on his doorstep. He couldn’t ignore her—or their intertwined destinies—then.
* * *
LIAM WASN’T SURPRISED when Dirk slid into the seat opposite him at Gus’s the following day. He’d known his and Dirk’s business wasn’t done, although there shouldn’t be any more exchanges of blows. At least he hoped not. If there was a next time, Liam would hit back.
“How’s your face?” Dirk said.
“Your face looks a whole helluva lot better.” He’d lost the wild mountain-man face with a shave and a haircut.
Dirk laughed, looking more like the guy Liam knew. “Yeah. I didn’t want to scare any of the little kids in town so I dropped by Curl’s and he hooked me up. Your face okay?”
Liam ran his hand over his own chin. “Still intact.”
Ruby, the pretty redhead, dropped by for their orders. She was attractive but she wasn’t Wellington. They ordered and she left to get their drinks.
Dirk tilted his head to one side in inquiry. “So, what are you doing here?”
“I guess the same as you. Rolling.” If anyone would understand aimless wandering, it was Dirk.
He nodded with acknowledgment. “How long you going to stay?”
“Hell if I know. I’ve got no plan, except to get out of bed every morning and who knows, I may decide to change that up.” Liam wasn’t into gambling, strip clubs or booze—three money drains for some guys—so he’d just socked away his cash each month. Financially, lying around in bed for a while was an option if that’s what he wanted.
“Damn, skippy. That’s a different song and dance for you.”
“Life changes.” And Liam didn’t want to talk about his defunct career and lost sense of purpose. He was more than happy to talk about Dirk for a while. “How long are you staying?”
Ruby showed up with Liam’s water and Dirk’s beer. “The food’ll be out in a minute.”
Both men nodded and she left.
“I’m thinking I’ll hang here for a while,” Dirk said, picking up the conversational thread of how long he was hanging out in Good Riddance. “I’ve got some time off up on the pipeline and some dough tucked away. If you’re interested, I could probably get you on. The money’s pretty good.”
Ruby placed a burger platter in front of each of them. “Anything else?”
Both Liam and Dirk shook their heads no. Liam continued. “If you still feel something for her, and you obviously do, you should look her up.”
Dirk was suddenly fascinated with adding a small lake of catsup to his plate. Liam wasn’t sure whether he planned to drown his fries or eat them. “She made her choice.”
“Yeah, well, I obviously was the wrong choice.”
Dirk glared at him across the table, as if he might take another swing. “Did you do right by her?”
Damn, but his cousin was hung up on Liam’s ex-wife. That much was obvious. “If you were anyone else,” Liam said, “I’d tell you it wasn’t any of your damn business, but you seem to care about her so, yeah, I did as right by her as I knew how to do. I didn’t screw around on her if that’s what you mean. As far as I know, she didn’t screw around on me.”
“Natalie wouldn’t,” Dirk jumped in.
Damn. Dirk was definitely a head case over her. “No. She’s not that kind of woman. She said she couldn’t take me being gone all the time. It takes a different kind of woman to live those long stretches with her man gone. It just got to her, to us. She said I was married to the military first and her second.” Liam shrugged. “She was right. She said she wanted to come first with her man. You should give her a call.”
Dirk dredged a fry in catsup. “Did you ever think that you should give her a call now that you’re out?”
“Nah, that ship has sailed for both of us,” Liam said. “Damn, man, you care enough to knock me out in a room full of people and now you want to push me back into her life?” He shook his head. “That’s some screwed up thinking.”
The big man across the table scowled. “I just want her to be happy.”
“Then give it a shot yourself, idiot.”
Dirk turned a dull red. “I might look her up. We’ll see. So, what happened that you’re out?”
“I’m out of the military. It’s the past so it just doesn’t matter.”
“I call bullshit on that. If it didn’t matter then you’d talk about it. But, it’s cool.”
There wasn’t much to say to that because Dirk was correct—it did matter, but he damn sure didn’t plan to discuss it.
* * *
THE SOOTHING SOUND OF the waterfall in the reception area and flute music greeted Tansy as she walked into Jenna’s spa late in the afternoon. The small reception desk in front of the waterfall was empty.
Ellie, her glossy black hair in its signature single braid, came down the hall. “Hi, Tansy. Are you looking for Jenna?”
“If she’s not busy.”
“She popped upstairs to check on Logan and Emma.”
“Thanks.” Tansy headed for the door marked Private. Jenna wouldn’t care if Tansy dropped in for a few minutes.
She walked up and knocked on the door at the top of the stairs. “Come on in,” Jenna sang out.
Tansy walked in. Jenna’s home was beautiful. Huge windows let in light and offered awe-inspiring views of towering evergreens against a backdrop of distant snowcapped mountains and blue sky. Inside it was cozy and homey with a pink-and-yellow chintz sofa and love seat. A leather recliner added a masculine touch. A breakfast bar separated the den from the sunny kitchen.
Jenna sat curled up on the couch, Logan next to her. Jenna’s blouse was unbuttoned and Emma nursed noisily, her dark head in contrast to her mother’s pale breast. It was a sweet moment and a longing inside Tansy unfurled.
“Have a seat,” Jenna said.
“I’m just on my way out,” Logan said, rising.
“I don’t want to interrupt.”
“Seriously, you’re not interrupting anything. Emma’s still chowing down and Logan’s on his way out.”
“Bye, punkin. Keep your mama straight until Daddy can get back.”
He dropped a kiss on Emma’s head and then Jenna’s forehead. As he headed out, he called, “See ya, Tansy.”
“Bye, Logan.”
The door had barely closed behind him when Jenna nodded, a big smile on her face. “You slept with him, didn’t you?”
“Oh, God, don’t tell me it’s all over Good Riddance already.”
“No. But it’s just a matter of time. You’ve got that look about you...relaxed, kind of a glow....”
“Oh, please.”
“What? Am I wrong?”
“Well, no....” Tansy laughed. “You’re right. I don’t know about glowing, but I do feel relaxed.”
“I work with skin. Trust me, you’re glowing.”
“Well, I’ve got a bit of a dilemma.”
“You need condoms.”
“How did you know?”
“You came here brokenhearted. He came here pissed off. Neither one of you was likely to have been anticipating sex, so it stands to reason you need condoms and you don’t want to go shopping over at the dry goods store for something like that.” Jenna laughed. “Your mouth is hanging open.”
“That’s just plain scary.”
“No. Just logical. I keep a big supply in the closet downstairs. So does Merilee. We like to keep the women in Good Riddance happy...and safe. However, we all know that condoms aren’t one-hundred percent fail-safe, as little Ms. Emma is here.” She giggled, much like she used to when she and Tansy were tweens and breaking in training bras and braces. “Thank goodness.”
She transferred Emma to her shoulder and started patting the baby’s back. “She is a cutie,” Tansy said.
Emma issued a resounding burp. “And a delicate little thing, too,” Jenna said with a proud-mama grin.
“Let me put her down for her nap and then we’ll hook you up so you aren’t having your own bundle of joy nine months from now.”
Tansy laughed but it stirred all kinds of emotions inside her, not the least of which was a longing for what Jenna, Logan and Emma had...and the realization that life was altogether too complicated.
But in the meantime, she and Liam would have a very good time.
* * *
LIAM SPOTTED HER THE MOMENT he rolled down the road. She was sitting on his porch step, obviously waiting. She’d parked a pickup—wonder who she’d borrowed that from—to the right of his cabin.
Mallory Kincaid, the sun glinting off of her blond hair, issued a small wave of greeting. He didn’t wave back.
His first thought was they were about to get to the bottom of something. Obviously his instinct hadn’t been off when he’d sensed her interest was beyond casual. His second thought was she was bold as he had neither encouraged her nor invited her. Close on the heels of all of that was the thought that he couldn’t seem to get people to leave him the hell alone.
He parked his bike and walked toward her. He stopped short of the porch.
She stood, smiling. “Good afternoon.”
“What do you want?” he said.
She looked slightly taken aback, but not intimidated. If anything, she appeared faintly amused. “That’s blunt.”
“I don’t see the point in being otherwise.” He wanted his swim, Tansy and dinner...and in that order. He didn’t want an uninvited, unwelcome visitor. “What do you want, Ms. Kincaid?”
“Mallory. Please call me Mallory.”
He ignored that. “I didn’t invite you here. You’ve got two minutes to tell me why you’re here and then I’m going in that door. You can waste your two minutes on bullshit or you can state your case.” He glanced at his watch. “Your two minutes start now.”
She shrugged and nodded, as if accepting his terms. “I’m a military historian. My family has a long history of service that dates back to the Revolutionary W
ar. My uncle served in Vietnam with Carlos Hathcock. My oldest brother was in Kosovo and Afghanistan. I want to document your contribution—”
“No.”
“But—”
“No.”
“It’s important. And you’re one of the greats.”
He was not going to feed her curiosity and the curiosity of others as a “has-been.” Four months ago, he would have talked. Now, she could get the hell out of his face.
“Your time is up.” He walked past her and she turned, watching him. He paused at his door. Her two minutes were spent, but he had some questions of his own. “How did you know where I was?”
She shrugged. “It’s not hard to find people.”
“I don’t like being stalked.”
She shifted, leaning casually against the porch rail and post. “I don’t consider it stalking. I consider it doing my job.”
“Well, hopefully you can get a nice little vacation out of your time here. Otherwise you’ve wasted your time and your money tailing me.”
She didn’t bat an eye. “I don’t give up easily.”
“You’re spinning your wheels and, as I said, I don’t like being stalked.”
“At least look at my work,” she countered. “I’ll do a great job of portraying your contribution without hyperbole or conjecture.”
“Leave me alone.” He enunciated clearly.
“An hour. I’m only asking for an hour.” She raised her chin. “I’m going to write about you regardless because you’re too important not to. You can either give me insight and the straight scoop or I’ll do the best I can on my own.”
That gave him pause. He didn’t like being strong-armed but there was something to be said for making sure facts were presented correctly. And dammit, he could see it in her eyes. She fully intended to write about him. If she got it wrong, he could sue but that wasn’t really his modus operandi and retractions didn’t mean shit. What initially was in print was what people remembered. While he didn’t particularly give a rat’s ass what people thought, at least the record would be straight.
“I’ll think about it.”
“I leave in three days.”
“I said I’d think about it.”
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