After several minutes, she stirred, disentangling their limbs and shoving him away so she could flop bonelessly onto her back. For a second her callous treatment bothered him—casual sex had never concerned him before, but this was Hope—until she pulled his arm back over her hip and curled into him.
She buried her nose against his collarbone, and her soft words whispered against his skin. “Thank God I never knew you were that good. I might not have found the resolve to watch you go.”
* * *
HOPE STRETCHED SLOWLY, a smile on her face before her eyes had even opened. Several places on her body protested, but she ignored them. Not even sore muscles could take away the contentment that effervesced through her.
The smell of frying bacon drifted up the stairs from the kitchen. She couldn’t remember having bacon to cook.
Even though the tantalizing scent meant he couldn’t be there beside her, Hope found herself reaching out and running her hand across the cool sheet where Gage should have been. The spot didn’t have any residual body heat. How long had he been up?
And why did it bother her that he hadn’t slept as soundly as she had?
A sharp sound reverberating from her front door prevented her from looking too closely at her reaction. Nothing good could come from it, anyway.
Grabbing a robe off the back of her bathroom door, Hope padded down the stairs on bare feet. Her hand was inches away from the knob when Gage appeared beside the banister, a spatula hanging loosely in his hand.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Hope froze. He looked amazing. His chest was bare and the jeans he’d thrown on rode low on his hips. Where the hell had they come from? He hadn’t bothered to zip or snap them, which made Hope seriously consider how easy it would be to get him back out of them.
Another knock pounded on the door behind her.
Frowning, she spun away to glare at the thing. She took a single step toward it. Shaking his head, Gage said, “Suit yourself,” and then turned back to the kitchen.
Bypassing the door, Hope headed for the window that ran beside it so that she could see who was assaulting her door this early in the morning. And was shocked at the sight that greeted her.
There was no sign of the bike Gage had parked at the curb yesterday when they’d driven home in the rain. Instead, a handful of news trucks occupied the space, their satellite antennas stretching high against the bright blue sky.
There must have been fifteen or twenty people milling around on her front lawn. Women in suits and full makeup. Men in ties and fancy dress shoes. Almost all of them had paper coffee cups from the diner clutched in their hands.
“What the hell,” she exclaimed. Several people closest to the house turned to look at her—apparently she needed to get thicker windows, not that soundproofing had been a real issue before today. Several of them leaped into action, grabbing up cameras and snapping off several pictures before she had a chance to duck back behind the door.
“I told you,” Gage hollered from the safety of her kitchen.
Careful not to walk in front of the windows, Hope headed into the back of the house.
“What is going on?” she demanded, stopping just inside the room and crossing her arms over her chest.
Gage, standing at her stove, the handle of her skillet in one hand and the spatula in the other, tossed a frown at her over his shoulder. “I’m making omelets. Do you want bacon or veggie?”
“I don’t want either!”
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Hope.” Tigger wound in a figure eight between his open feet.
“I want to know what those people are doing on my front lawn.”
“I’d think that was obvious. Especially for someone who works at a newspaper. They’re waiting for a story.”
Frustration jangled through her. “But why do they expect to find one here?” she asked slowly, hoping eventually she’d hit on the right question to ask him so that she’d get some answers.
He shrugged. “You’d know that better than I would.”
“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” she asked, a dangerous edge creeping into her voice.
“Well, I didn’t stop long enough to ask them, Hope. I didn’t think that would be smart. My guess is that someone tipped them off that I was over here.” He eyed her with speculation.
“You think I called them?” Incredulity made her voice squeak. She cleared it away, irritated with herself. “Why in God’s name would I do that?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
She wouldn’t, for a number of reasons, but the most important one being the people currently camped out on her front lawn were the competition. Just thinking the word made a sharp pain lance through her belly. No, she would not feel guilty about this! She hadn’t done anything wrong. She had not called them.
Gage’s jaw muscles rippled. Apparently he decided her silence was as good as admission.
“You’re the only person who knew I was here.”
“Not true,” Hope answered slowly. “Willow knew exactly what was going to happen when we left that bowling alley.”
“So you think your friend sold you out?”
“No!” Hope yelled, throwing her hands up with annoyance. “But all it would have taken was an innocent comment to explain why we’d left and everyone within hearing distance probably jumped to the same conclusion. Besides, your bike was parked outside my house all night. You know how efficient the Sweetheart grapevine is. Everyone in town probably knew you were staying the night before we’d even made it upstairs to the bed.”
Gage hummed in the back of his throat. “True.”
“God, I really hate this town.”
He threw her a skeptical glance.
“Sometimes. Most of the time.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No, it isn’t, Hope. I know you, probably better than just about anyone.”
“You knew me. Past tense.”
He shrugged. “You’re stubborn. Once you’ve made up your mind nothing can change it. If you wanted out of here you’d already be gone.”
“My dad was sick.”
“And now he isn’t.”
“I’ve taken over so much at the paper.”
“Which you could walk away from tomorrow. There are other employees, right?”
“Yes, but none of them are family. That’s my heritage.”
“Which you don’t want.” A single eyebrow quirked up in a condescending arch. “Lip service, that’s all it is. If you ask me, you don’t really want to leave Sweetheart.”
Hope’s eyes widened. A nasty knot of sludgy emotions filled her belly. Suddenly, she wasn’t very hungry.
She opened her mouth to snarl at him about the article she was going to write—her ticket out of here—but realized she couldn’t rub it in his face without tipping her hand.
The article she hadn’t even made an attempt to work on since they’d been paired together. He was right. What had happened to her resolve? Apparently it had been trumped by her wayward libido.
Maybe now that her lust had been slaked perhaps she could focus.
Gage shifted at her stove, flashing a glimpse of the open V at his hips. The chain reaction through her body was immediate and depressingly obvious. Her knees trembled.
Giving him her back, Hope called him every derogatory name she could think of beneath her breath. And the idiot had the audacity to grin knowingly at her. He was playing dirty.
The mischievously sexy grin made her heart flip-flop.
Which only made her angrier—with herself. He’d been home how many days? And not only had she let him into her bed, but she’d also let him worm his way back into her life. Her attraction to him was clouding her judgment and distracting her from the plan.
Another knock reverberated through her front hall. It was the catalyst that sent her sailing over the edge of civility.
The vu
ltures on her front stoop had gone too far. They’d cast a pall over the night that she and Gage had just shared and they were trying to horn in on her story.
Hope headed for the fireplace at the far end of her living room. Above the rough-hewn beam that served as her mantel, the shotgun her great-grandpa had used to defend his land almost one hundred years ago hung in the place of honor.
It was an heirloom, and while it had once been a fine piece of weaponry, it hadn’t been shot in at least forty years. But the people on her front lawn didn’t know that. Worse, they were so obviously city types that they probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a museum-quality rifle and one that could shoot buckshot into their backsides.
At least that’s what she was hoping for.
Scraping the hair back from her forehead, she thought about throwing some clothes on, but decided if she did she might lose her momentum.
Hope stalked to the front door, snatched the knob and yanked it open. As one, the twenty-odd people on her front lawn turned to stare at her.
“Oh, hell,” Gage said from behind her.
She shot a glare at him over her shoulder, hoping the heat in her eyes was all the warning he needed to stay put. The last thing she wanted was for him to walk out behind her half-naked and blunt the impact of her gun.
She grasped the rifle in both hands just as her daddy had taught her. She might not have ever needed to shoot a gun, but every good Southern girl worth her salt at least knew how. The woods that bordered the town were full of dangerous animals—cougars, bears, coyotes, bobcats.
“This is private property. You have exactly ninety seconds to clear out before I start shooting.”
“Come on, Ms. Rawlings, you’re one of us,” a voice yelled from the back of the group.
She smiled, baring her teeth in an unfriendly snarl that probably resembled one of the animals her skills were supposed to defend against. “No, I’m not. I’m a journalist, not a vulture happy to pick through the scraps of someone’s misfortune. Now, just to be fair, I should probably point out that the sheriff is my godfather and if I tell him I was afraid the mob on my front lawn was about to turn rabid he’s likely to believe me.”
To prove her point, Hope raised the rifle to her shoulder, closed one eye and sighted down the barrel, picking out a man in the back of the pack to aim at. If the rifle had actually been loaded she never would have done that, but since she didn’t even own bullets for the damn thing...
The bluff worked and everyone scattered. She was actually impressed at how quickly they could move. Unfortunately, several of them paused long enough to snap a photograph. She’d probably regret this when she appeared in a newspaper or online somewhere. She could already see the headline—Crazed Local Journalist Threatens First Amendment with a Rifle.
When she was certain they were all leaving Hope walked back inside, closed the door and then sagged heavily against it.
“Hell.”
Gage stood there, two plates in his hands, and stared at her across the space.
“You’re remarkable, you know that?”
10
“REMIND ME AGAIN, why are we doing this?” Gage asked, stalking up the walk to his sister’s store hot on Hope’s heels. He had no desire to eat dinner with his sister and the guy she’d been paired with.
Not when he could have had Hope flat on her back in bed. After the incident on her front lawn, they’d come to an uneasy truce. Neither of them mentioned anything likely to require her to pull that gun out again and he got to kiss and touch her as much as he wanted.
“Because Lexi asked us to meet Brandon.”
“Why? She’s known the guy for less than three days.”
Hope paused, her fingers wrapped around the door handle. She swept him with a warning look that was probably supposed to shrink his balls to an appropriately cowed size, but really only made him want to kiss her senseless.
She was so cute when she was trying to be fierce. And if he hadn’t been tortured by some of the best in the business the glance might have actually worked.
“What difference does that make? You’ve only been home for a handful of days and look at how quickly you made it to home plate.”
“That’s different,” Gage growled. The thought of anyone—especially a stranger—doing to Lexi what he’d done to Hope last night...didn’t sit well. At all. “We’ve known each other for years.”
A shadow passed across her eyes, dulling the glitter in the green-gold depths. “Have we?” she asked, pulling open the door and rushing inside.
He grasped her arm and pulled her around to look at him. But she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”
“Gage. Hope.” Lexi popped up from the back of the store, interrupting. Gage sent her a warning glance, but either she didn’t see it or ignored it. Neither option made him happy.
His sister rushed around the counter and hugged Hope. She whispered something into her ear that had Hope dissolving into laughter.
Turning to him, Lexi gave him the same hug, but instead of whispering in his ear she pulled back, glared at him and said, “You had better behave.”
Hope smothered a snort. “I think that’s a lost cause, Lexi. When has Gage ever done what he’s told?”
“Never.” His sister sighed.
Gage split his focus between the two of them, waited for a beat and then headed for the door. “I don’t have to take this shit.”
Lexi grabbed one arm. Hope grasped the other. They both tugged at him. He relentlessly drove toward the door, anyway, dragging them behind him.
“She’s sorry. Say you’re sorry, Lexi,” Hope prompted, her voice full of checked humor.
“I’m sorry,” his sister said, contrition filling the words. But her eyelids dropped to conceal the telltale glitter behind them.
“Sure you are.”
The bell above the door jangled. All three of them glanced up at the man standing just inside the doorway.
Lexi dropped his arm as if she’d been burned and ran a hand over her hair.
The man’s gaze, way more calculating than Gage liked, took in the entire scene. “I could come back later.”
“Don’t you dare.” Lexi shot forward, grabbed his hand and pulled him farther into the front of her store. “Gage was just being an idiot, as usual.”
His sister brought the other man over and made the introductions. “Brandon, this is my brother, Gage, and his date, Hope. This is Brandon. He’s a nurse in Hilton Head.”
“Nice to meet you,” Gage grunted, narrowing his eyes as he studied the other man. He didn’t look like any nurse Gage had ever met.
Brandon answered him stare for stare, refusing to flinch. If they’d been anywhere else Gage might have given him points for taking him on, but there was something about him...
Hope, apparently sensing the impending danger even if Lexi didn’t, stepped up beside him. She placed a cool hand on his arm. “Lexi, is there anything Gage and I can help with in the kitchen?”
“Absolutely not. Y’all have a seat.” Lexi waved her hands at a table on the far side of the room that she’d set for four. Several rosebuds—probably from Petals—sat in a small vase next to drippy candles she’d placed in an old wine bottle.
The three of them moved to sit, but Lexi stopped her date. “Brandon, could you help me?”
Gage froze halfway to his seat and immediately began to reverse directions. Hope stopped him and softly murmured, “Let him go.”
He glared at Brandon’s back as the two of them disappeared behind the red-and-white-checkered curtain. When the object of his ire was gone, he switched the glare to Hope.
Her mouth was pulled straight into a serious line, but her eyes shimmered with amusement.
“I don’t like him.”
She nodded solemnly, the agreeable gesture at odds with the sarcastic tone of her voice. “Really,” she drawled. “Would you like anyone your sister was dating?”
“Of cou
rse. She’s dated before and I didn’t have any problem with the guys. It’s him...” His voice trailed off as Hope shook her head.
“She was what, twelve, when you left?”
Gage nodded, trying to see the minefield she was laying for him with the question. Instinct told him it was there, he just hadn’t found it yet.
“Not exactly dating then, was she?”
He shook his head, finally seeing where Hope was going with this and not liking it one bit.
“Give me some credit. I know she’s an adult. A perfectly intelligent woman capable of taking care of herself. But...”
Hope leaned across the table. She set both of her hands on either side of his face and brought them close. She stared into his eyes for several seconds before saying, “It’s sweet. How much you care about her and want to protect her. I wish I had an older brother who cared about me that way.” Then she pressed her mouth to his.
The kiss was soft, soothing, although that ever-present lick of need still managed to whip through him.
She pulled back, but instead of letting her, Gage wrapped his hands around her arms and held her there. “I distinctly remember you saying something about thinking of me as a brother.”
Her lips pulled down at the corners. Gage leaned forward and touched his mouth to them. “I lied,” she mumbled against him.
“No, really?”
A cough sounded from across the room. He glanced over her shoulder to find his sister standing there, both hands full of serving platters. Behind her, Brandon watched. The back of Gage’s neck tightened and tingled a warning.
The last time he’d ignored the sensation he and several of his friends had ended up in a shitload of trouble. He had no intention of ignoring it again.
* * *
THE DINNER WAS NICE. Lexi was a fantastic cook and her talents went much further than candy and chocolate. Watching Gage and Brandon dance around each other might have been amusing if she hadn’t been on constant alert for a sign that it was getting out of control.
Gage had been...on edge all night. At first she’d thought it was just the in-your-face reality of his sister dating. But it was more than that.
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