by Maisey Yates
Jack laughed. “Okay, I get that. So does that mean I can...?”
“No,” Eli growled. “You can’t. Mainly because I don’t want to catch sight of your bare ass through any open windows. That is guaranteed to get you shot.”
“You’re not allowed to shoot my friend, Eli,” Connor said. “I only have two of them. I can’t afford to lose any.”
Eli looked at Sadie and watched as she cocked her head to the side, blond hair spilling over her shoulder, the fluorescent lights from the Mirror Pond Ale sign behind the bar casting a yellow-and-blue glow over the pale strands.
Ace was behind the bar, big and bearded and wearing flannel, which women seemed to be giddy over these days. And Sadie was obviously no exception, with the way she was giggling and smiling and...dammit, touching the guy’s forearm with her delicate hands. Hands that were, incidentally, not covered with soil from planting an azalea.
Annoyance coursed through him. She’d just kissed him last week, and now she was in here flirting with Ace.
And so what?
So, it pissed him off. Which made him even angrier. Because he shouldn’t care. He wasn’t jealous. He was never jealous because jealousy implied that he cared, and he never cared.
Not that he didn’t like the women he had relationships with, but he didn’t quite care what they did when he wasn’t around.
This Sadie thing was messing with his head. Not only was wanting her simply a bad idea, he was sitting here pondering ways to remove Ace’s arm.
“Excuse me,” he said, getting up and pushing his chair back, leaving his beer on the table. He could feel Connor and Jack staring after him, and he knew that they were probably ready to discuss conspiracy theories about whether or not he’d been brainwashed or body-snatched.
And he didn’t really care. Because right now he had Sadie in his sights and he was going to walk over to her and do...something. He would figure it out when he got there.
Hopefully.
His feet hit the wooden floor harder than necessary with each step and he knew that people were looking at him, because he was Eli Garrett, current candidate for county sheriff, walking across a bar like he had sex and murder on his mind.
Both of which were strictly true.
“What brings you into town, Sadie?” he asked, leaning against the bar next to her.
She jumped and turned, blue eyes wide. “What brings you here to talk to me voluntarily, Eli?” she asked, her expression schooled into something casual now, covering up the moment of shock.
Ace looked at them both and turned away from Sadie, pulling a drink from the tap and walking down to the other end of the bar.
“Curiosity,” Eli said.
“It’s not that weird that I’m at the bar,” she said.
“But you’re alone.”
“Who would I be with? Anyway, I was just stopping by because I wanted to feel out the best local brews and find out if Ace had any contact info for me. For the Fourth of July thing.”
“Right,” he said. “You’re on a first-name basis with Ace?”
“I remember him vaguely from school. Also, I called in earlier.”
“Okay,” he said, sounding a lot more uptight than he would like.
“Why do you care?” she asked, tilting her head to the side like he’d watched her do earlier.
“Honestly? I don’t know,” he said. Honestly? Why had he been honest? Honesty in this situation was a terrible idea. Because it was ceding the upper hand. It was admitting he was out of his depth and that was not acceptable.
Her expression changed. Not wide-eyed shock or practiced casualness. She lowered her lashes, her lips more relaxed, her gaze falling to his mouth. Each shift almost imperceptible, and quick. And yet, he saw it. Was so painfully aware of it, as if he could hear each change like the cocking of a gun. It was clear, it was intentional. And the only thing he wasn’t sure of yet was if she was shooting to kill.
“Is it because you want to kiss me again?” she asked.
She was shooting to kill. This shot had hit square in his gut, radiating down to his groin. He’d only had a half a beer, so he couldn’t even blame that.
“It’s more because I don’t want him to kiss you,” he said, leaning in, his palm flat on the bar. “I don’t want to kiss you. I wish I hadn’t kissed you the first time and trust me, Sadie Miller, I sure as hell don’t want to do it again.” He angled his head and moved in closer, conscious that they were being watched by almost everyone in the bar. Aware that he had to be close enough to make his point, but far enough away that no one would be planning their wedding by tomorrow. “But I’m starting to wonder if I will. If it’s inevitable.”
She drew back, her breasts pitching sharply with the harsh breath she drew in. “I’m not sure how something like that could be inevitable. I mean, either you want to kiss someone or you don’t. If you do, you do. If you don’t, you don’t.”
“I thought it was that simple. Until you. You’ve completely screwed up my kissing theory.” Damn, maybe he was drunk.
“That’s more than thirty years of kissing theory messed up by one woman,” she said, her voice sounding lower, thicker all of a sudden. “That’s...a lot of power.”
“It is,” he said, his own voice following the same path hers had.
“Are you drunk?” she asked.
“I wish.”
“Wow. You really, really know how to turn a girl on.” Sarcasm tinged her tone, but the huskiness in her voice told him that he actually was turning her on, and he had no idea how to feel about that. “Telling me you don’t want to kiss me and you wish you could excuse your being over here with your being drunk.”
“That’s because I’m not trying to turn you on,” he said. And that at least was true.
“I wish I could say it was working.”
“Me not turning you on?”
“Yes,” she said, looking down at the bar.
“Are we flirting?”
She looked back at him, her pulse beating hard at the base of her throat, hard enough that he could see it. “I don’t think so.”
“You’re probably right. I don’t think I know how to flirt.”
“You’re just trying to keep me from getting flirted with.”
“Sounds about right.”
Ace came back over to their end of the bar and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “He’s not bothering you, is he, Sadie?”
Oh, for God’s sake.
Sadie looked at Ace, her lips quirked into a funny smile. “You know he’s a deputy sheriff, right?”
“I know who he is,” Ace said.
Oh, great, the jackass was in the mood to be tough, and Eli wasn’t in the mood to compete for Sadie because he didn’t even want Sadie. Or at least, he didn’t want to want her.
But there was no way he was going to be able to let it slide. He knew that there was no way because he’d crossed the room to stake a claim on a woman he shouldn’t want just because she’d put her hand on another man’s arm.
He already knew he was too far gone for common sense. He already knew his head wasn’t in charge of this one.
“Then you know that I’m more likely to protect her than drag her off and throw her into my trunk,” Eli said.
“What is it they say about cops and the domestic abuse rate?” Ace asked.
“Cute. Did you take an online class?” Eli asked.
Sadie giggled and they both looked at her. “I’m sorry,” she said, her smile barely suppressed. “Please go on. I’m enjoying the novelty of two men warring for my affections.”
“Outside,” Eli said.
“I’m sorry, are you ordering me around? Do you honestly think I’m going to obey like a lapdog? I, sir, am a cat person, and I’ll probably just bite your hand.”
“Out. Side,” he repeated.
She arched a brow but slid away from the bar and started to walk toward the exit. He turned to Ace and shot him a look before he dared glance at Jack and Connor, who
were staring at him openly. Connor looking a little annoyed. Jack looking annoyingly impressed.
Bastard.
He turned away from them and followed her out the front door, rounding on her as soon as it swung shut behind them. It was dark outside, the waves crashing against the shore nearby the only sound, the moon glinting on the water like silver fish swimming over the surface. Every pitch of the surf casting white light over Sadie’s face.
She was so beautiful it hurt. A real ache that started in his head and pulsed through his teeth, all the way down through his gut and to his cock. Just from a little light across the bridge of her nose. The bridge of her nose. He needed his head examined.
But not by Sadie. Because the little therapist was the person causing all of his mental and physical unrest.
“What is going on?” she asked.
“I’m...not sure,” he answered, pacing the sidewalk in front of her. “I’m really not sure. I came out to drink and maybe eat some fish-and-chips and definitely not to talk to you, or see you, or think about kissing you.”
“Hey, I came down here to talk microbrews, not to deal with you and your chest-beating, rawr rawr, he-man routine!”
“Then why are you dealing with it?” he asked.
“Why are you talking to me?”
“Hell if I know,” he said.
“Then consider that my answer. Hell if I know!”
He moved toward her and she backed up, the wood-shingled wall of the bar stopping her. Eli took a breath and pressed his palm flat to the wall, just by her head, his eyes locked with hers, heat arching between them. He couldn’t have looked away if he wanted to. And he didn’t want to. He wanted to keep looking at her. He wanted to kiss her.
And then some.
He wanted her more than he could remember ever wanting any woman. More even than his first, on a spring night after prom.
Right now he was beyond himself. Beyond control. And Eli Garrett was never beyond control.
Somewhere, in the depths of his thoroughly bent brain, it registered that that was a problem. That he shouldn’t have ever let it get this far. That he needed to get a grip on things and stop it before it went further.
Dammit. He didn’t want to.
He gritted his teeth against the rising tide of arousal. So intense it just hurt.
He took a breath through his nose and closed his eyes, lowering his head. If he just didn’t look at her for a second...he could get a handle on things. On himself.
He breathed in again, slowly, and let it out through his mouth. Then he opened his eyes and looked back up at her. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said, his voice almost unrecognizable.
“What?”
“We’re going to go back in the bar. And you’re going to go back and talk to Ace about local beer. And if he asks you on a date? I think you should go on it.”
“What?”
“Yep. I’m going to go back to my table and drink at least two more beers, eat something fried and play darts. And I’m not going to look at you. I’m not going to talk to you. I’m not going to kiss you. We’re going to start this night over, like I never walked over to you and opened my mouth.”
“Eli...”
“And when we interact on the ranch it’s going to be because we have tenant-landlord type business to deal with that Connor’s pawning off onto me.”
She bit her lip and nodded, a crease appearing between her eyebrows. “I’m even more confused now,” she said.
“This ends one of two ways,” he said, his throat getting tighter. “Either we keep this up,” he said, thinking the this in the statement was fairly obvious, “and it goes too far. Or we stop it now. But I have a feeling if we keep it all accidental, then...”
“Right. And what would...be so bad about that?” she asked.
Her simple, nonexplicit words sent a slug of lust through him that was so intense he could hardly breathe around it. “Let me tell you something about me, Sadie. I’m a good man. I pride myself on that. But I’m not a very nice man. And I’m not the kind of man who does relationships. This is my town and I care about the people in it. When I want sex, I go outside the city limits for it because I know before I ever get in a woman’s bed how it will end. Quickly. I don’t want to bring that here. I don’t want to run into old lovers while I’m crossing the street or when I’m making routine stops. And I sure as hell don’t want to run into an old lover every time I cross my driveway.” The very thought offended his sense of order in every way.
“I see,” she said. “But...what makes you think I want any more than a little harmless sex?”
“Because sex is never harmless when it’s this complicated. It’s like setting fire in a barn instead of a fireplace.”
She blinked and nodded. “Great. Fine. Whatever. I don’t even see the point of banging a guy who wouldn’t know fun if it got on its knees and sucked his...” She looked down, so pointedly that he felt it. “Well, you get the idea. Ace seems like he might be more the type I’m after. So I’ll go in before you. I’ll talk to him. Maybe I’ll leave with him. We’ll see.”
You will not. His inner he-man, as she’d called it, growled.
“Sounds like a plan,” he said instead. Because this was crazy. And it had to be stopped.
She forced a smile, her eyes meeting his quickly, a brief flash of electricity shooting straight through him before she turned away.
He watched Sadie walk back into the bar and waited for the tightness in his stomach to recede, for the ache to go away.
He had a feeling he was going to be waiting for a long time.
CHAPTER NINE
DRIVING INTO COPPER RIDGE the next day, Sadie decided to take a left instead of a right at the last minute. She’d been headed toward the main street of Old Town to visit Rona’s Diner and see about pie, and something had pulled her the other way.
A ghost, maybe. The same one she’d been afraid she might find in a clearing. Or maybe just what normal people would call memories. She obviously wasn’t normal.
But here she was, driving on the road that led away from the ocean. Away from the picturesque portion of the little town. This was where the other half lived. The poor half. The half who worked in the logging industry and at the mill, or didn’t work at all.
The half she came from.
And on this road was her childhood home. Her throat tightened as she shifted her suddenly slick hands on the steering wheel.
She’d never imagined, ever, that she would come back here. In fact, she’d actively intended not to. What the hell was all this? Why was she here?
Who knew why she did anything these days? Coming back here, kissing Eli, almost kissing Eli again last night...
There was no point in thinking about that right now.
She took a deep breath and eased her car to the side of the road as she stopped in front of a blue house with shingle siding.
She took her hands off the wheel and looked out the window. The knot in her stomach eased. It looked different.
It was cleaner. The grass was cut. There was grass. When she’d been there, it had been nothing but a carpet of dandelions punctuated by groups of star thistle.
It was smaller, too. Brighter. She was sure it wasn’t actually smaller, but it seemed that way.
A white minivan drove by her car and turned into the driveway of her old house. She watched as it parked and a woman got out. Gently taking her toddler from the backseat, along with a brown grocery bag.
They opened the front door and a small dog ran out to greet them. Sadie hadn’t been allowed to have a pet.
Maybe this was what they meant when they said you couldn’t go home again. The home that loomed large in her mind, her home, didn’t exist. It hadn’t since the Miller family moved out.
She thought of her patient Maryann, and how much she’d loved her home. How losing it had devastated her, because her memories had sunk into the wood. The love her family shared.
It wasn’t like tha
t for Sadie. Not for her family. Nothing of them was still here.
And thank God.
There was no power in this place.
She put her car in Drive and turned back around, shaking her hair out of her face. She felt like maybe things should seem momentous, but instead she just felt deflated.
Whatever she’d thought she might find there, she hadn’t. Good or bad, really.
“You’re getting weird,” she said to herself as she turned onto Old Town’s main street and drove to the far end, pulling into the driveway at Rona’s Diner before killing the engine.
She didn’t have time to be sentimental about a pile of wood, bolts and insulation. She had a pie mission to see to.
Sadie took a deep breath and wrapped her sweater tightly around herself. It was June, but the Oregon Coast had no respect for summer. Even when the sun was shining, the wind had to undermine it with a chill that cut straight through the warmth, and her sweaters, apparently.
She clutched her paper coffee cup a little bit tighter and walked into the diner at the end of the main drag, out near the jetty. She’d been informed that they had the best pies in the county, and she wanted the best for the barbecue.
It was two in the afternoon and the diner wasn’t very crowded, the lunch crowd long since dissipated, the dinner crowd not yet arrived. There were some middle-aged men sitting in the corner with cake and pie on plates and coffee all around. Fishermen, Sadie guessed by the look of them.
That was one of the unique things about this place. It was a coastal town, with deep traditions tied to the sea. With fishermen, and crab shacks, seagulls and amazing fish-and-chips. But just inland were the cowboys and ranchers. Sheep, cows and beautiful stables with high-priced horses.
Copper Ridge was the melting pot of everything good in Oregon. Trees and waves, forests and beaches. In that regard, her hometown was a lot more special than she’d realized until she’d been away from it for a decade.
Old Town had changed, too. Where before things had worn a coat of neglect and salt from the sea, they were repainted, revamped and attractive to tourists now. Which was a very good thing for her.