by Diane Saxon
Through the entire game though, his attention could not be drawn from the long-legged, brown-eyed woman beside him.
She moved, stood up, wiggled her backside, sat down, and wriggled in her seat. She shouted, hooted, whooped, catcalled, threw her fists in the air, and laughed. And all the time he sat motionless, absorbing her vitality, enjoying her, feeling her next to him, never still, never quiet. She touched him constantly: her hand slapped his knee, her shoulder knocked against him, her thigh rubbed against his, and when she whipped off her ball cap her head leaned in close, her hair smelled of untouched mountains and hidden streams. By the time the game ended, his riotous senses were overloaded with Bill.
He sat stock-still and waited while everyone else in the seating stood up and pushed toward the exit with that inexplicable human desire to be first out. He breathed deep and even, controlling his heart rate, and then turned to look at her.
Her head turned slowly, her gaze met his, and the world stopped midrevolution. Her face was close, eyes partially obscured by her shades. His breathing was slow and controlled as he deliberately peered straight past the tinted lenses into her eyes. He saw the panic as she blinked rapidly and lost the connection.
“It was great, wasn’t it?” Louder than she needed to be, she dipped her head in a dead giveaway of her self-consciousness.
“I enjoyed it.” His voice was low and suggestive, and he watched the confusion flick across her face.
She made a move to get up, and he stopped her with a hand on her knee, slowly peeled the cap off her head, the shades off her face, watching her closely all the time. Perhaps she’d agree to let him come to her house without her brothers.
“Bill, we need to talk…”
“Yeah, right…ummm.”
Her police radio crackled to life.
“Bill, get yourself down here right now. We have a small riot about to take place.”
She leaped out of her seat like she’d been bitten on the ass.
“I need to go.”
He stood, gently placed her shades back on her face, her cap on her head.
“Duty calls.”
His mouth quirked slightly. He knew that duty always came first. It did with him, and he saw no reason for it to be different for her.
“Seems like we’re destined to be interrupted. Seems like one of your brothers or cousins are always there. But one of these days Bill, we won’t be interrupted, and there won’t be anyone there but us.” He made it sound more like a threat as he flicked the tip of her nose with his finger, and then started to make his way across the aisle. Before he walked down the steps he turned again to speak to her, but she was gone. The only way out—down the side of the bleachers.
* * * *
She was on duty, and he’d just made advances. He’d flicked her on the end of her nose with everyone milling around. Jesus, what was he thinking? It had been intimate the way he had put her glasses back on her face and leaned in close. She thought he’d been going to kiss her. She’d wanted him to kiss her. To feel his lips on hers. Anyone could have seen. In fact, she thought Jack possibly had. When Michael had moved back, she saw Jack, radio in hand, looking up the bleachers right at them. She was on duty—Michael shouldn’t have been so familiar.
It was sweet though. Like a little comma, a pause in the overwhelming rush of heat that shimmered off them both. Like hell was it sweet. Where had that thought come from? She glanced around her uncomfortably and wondered if anyone had noticed them together.
She touched her lips with the tip of her fingers and wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by him. A real kiss. Not a sloppy, hurried juvenile slurp like some of the boys had tried when she was younger. Tried and lost their front teeth for their efforts. She sniggered. She couldn’t imagine busting Michael’s straight, white teeth. She was older now, and she had more control. Apart from that she had no desire to stop him from kissing her. A strange fluttering sensation warmed her chest. Perhaps she’d let him, soon.
As she rounded the corner into the parking lot, she heaved a sigh when she saw who was involved in the little scuffle today.
“Susie, would you like to tell me why you have Eleanor by the hair?”
“Her Luke just pushed my Devlin over in the dirt!”
“Well, sure. I saw that, about twenty minutes ago, right in the middle of the game, when he was running for second base. Now, let go of the hair and stand back like a reasonable human being.” The temptation to roll her eyes was strong, but professionalism dictated she remain stoic.
As Susie let go and stepped back, Bill took a small pad and pen out of her top pocket. Sighing heavily, she turned to the two five-year-old boys. “Now, boys, you understand this is a game, don’t you?” At their wide-eyed nods, she continued, “And that when one of you skids into the other and knocks him right down, this is all part of the game. Sometimes it hurts, but it’s a game, and if you don’t want to get hurt, you don’t play the game, right?” The boys nodded at her oft-used speech. “Well, then. Shake hands boys, and then go and stand by your mamas’ cars, and they’ll be right over.” She smiled sweetly at them as they turned and ran together toward their cars.
Turning to the two women, Bill whipped off her sunglasses and glared at them both. “Susie, Eleanor, this is the third time I have had to warn you two. Your boys are best friends, and they are going to fall out sometimes. That’s life. My brothers and I scrabbled around in the dirt half our lives.” She pinned them both with a long, hard look as they smirked at each other. “It is not about you two and who won the beauty pageant back in 2000.”
“2004.” Eleanor interjected.
“Whatever.”
She bent her head and wrote on her pad, ripped off one sheet, and handed it to Susie, wrote another and handed it to Eleanor. “You will report to the sheriff’s office this afternoon at three sharp. If you fail to do so, I will come to your houses, cuff you, and arrest you for causing a ruckus. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.” They chorused—their arms crossed over their perfect bosoms and their Botoxed lips pouted.
Bill glanced up as Michael passed by with his sisters and their children. His face was deadpan until the very moment he turned his head and gave her a sly wink. She heard the two women by her side draw in breath, and as she whirled her head to look at them, they each had their hands pressed to their chests and were fluttering their eyelashes.
“He winked at me.” Susie sighed.
“It was me, you fool,” snapped Eleanor.
Bill rolled her eyes again. She supposed it was too much for them to expect that the tall, blond god could have actually been winking at her. But he had been. She had the rapid heartbeat to prove it. She smiled and walked away from the two women.
Chapter 4
It had been a hell of a long morning. It seemed like the unrelenting heat had gotten to everybody, and there didn’t look like any relief was heading their way.
Jack had been yelling at a small crew of teenage boys who had thought it was a great idea to stick a potato up the exhaust of the neighbor’s pickup truck. Bill allowed herself a small smile as she heard his voice raise. If she remembered right, he’d done it himself when he was younger, not even a teenager. The problem was, the next-door neighbor was eighty-four and almost had a heart attack as the exhaust had backfired with the ferocity of a shotgun.
The teenagers had been less concerned about Jack’s bellowing and pounding on the table and more worried about the punishment their mothers were going to dole out.
Ethan, Bill’s brother and deputy sheriff had booked in two drunks who had started at eight o’clock that morning on their Aunt Jemima’s apple brandy, which they’d found when they went around to sort out her ramshackle house after her recent demise. All would have been quiet except they had found a considerable amount of Aunt Jemima’s money not mentioned in her will and had gotten into a fight about who had the rights to it. Ethan had hauled them in to sober them up and give them a break from bruising
each other’s faces.
Bill had coaxed old Jacob in since he’d been taken with the idea of showing off his privates to his next door neighbor Susie Lou, who at the age of ninety had seen much bigger and better tackle in her day. In her disappointment she had decided to call the local sheriff’s office and report him.
Old Jacob had unfortunately continued to lose his trousers in front of anyone who looked his way, probably due to the intense heat. Until his grandson could come and rescue him, he accompanied Bill while she completed paperwork in a quiet corner of the station. Not too quiet as it turned out, since she had to keep hauling his pants up from around his ankles every few minutes.
As she yanked them up for the fifth time in thirty minutes, she glanced up to where Michael stood, laughing at her.
“Don’t.” She was running low on smiles herself. “It’s been a long one, and I’ve still got half the day ahead of me.”
As she fastened old Jacob’s belt, she sighed with relief as his grandson walked through the door. Signaling Michael into a seat, she dealt with the handover and then came back to slump down into her own chair. She twitched an eyebrow at him.
“Did you want something?”
“I thought you might want lunch.”
Catching Jack’s eye as he escorted the teenagers out the door, Bill stood swiping her hands down her uniform trousers.
“Sure. We were just about to go. Ready, Jack?”
*
Michael opened his mouth to protest, but Bill was already halfway across the room, her long legs strode toward the exit. He’d thought to get her on her own, just once, but it looked like he’d been thwarted again. It was starting to annoy him, just a little. Enough to have a curl of irritation circle his stomach.
By the time he’d followed her down the street and into the diner, she’d already slumped into the corner of the small booth, with Jack sitting comfortably shoulder to shoulder beside her when he walked in. Michael slid in to the tight space on the other side and placed himself in the corner opposite. He deliberately allowed his legs to touch hers, felt her shift away, tuck hers under the bench, but his knees still pressed snug against hers. He watched as she sat bolt upright in an attempt to slide her long legs further up the bench to avoid contact with him. His irritation slid away.
For his own amusement, he leaned back, slouched a little further, stretched his legs full length, and allowed his knees to touch hers again.
“Hey, boys.” Short, blonde, and buxom, the waitress stood, hip shot forward and a mile-wide smile. Dark wine lipstick slicked flawlessly across her plump lips and clung in patches to her perfect white teeth. “What can I get you, Sheriff?” Her short, chubby fingers smoothed up Jack’s muscular shoulder and farther to scratch his neck with her long crimson talons. He leaned away, crushing Bill into the corner of the booth with his wide shoulders. She wriggled to readjust herself, bumped knees with Michael, and blew out a disgusted breath.
“I thought you only worked nights, Cherry.”
Cherry’s wide, blue, assessing eyes settled on Bill for a moment before her little hand removed itself from Jack so she could wave it dismissively in the air, showing her perfect manicure to its best advantage.
“They asked me to cover this morning so Jenny can go and get her”—she leaned forward conspiratorially, her ample bosom almost touching the table—“women’s checkup done.” She giggled like a schoolgirl, high pitched and foolish, as she waved her hand in front of her face, as though to fan her blushes.
With a hunted look, Jack gave the waitress a sickly smile, and Michael couldn’t resist a grin at the sheriff’s obvious discomfort.
“I’ll have a burger with a side of fries, but don’t tell my wife, she thinks I’m clogging my arteries.”
He could see that regretted it as she leaned forward, smoothed her hand up and down Jack’s muscular arm, and confidentially whispered, “I wouldn’t dream of telling your wife anything, Sheriff. Anything at all.”
“Jesus, Cherry, step back for Christ sake, you’re making my head buzz with all that scent you’re wearing.” Grumbling, Bill readjusted herself, knocked knees with Michael again, and tutted loudly like it was his fault.
Narrowing his eyes, he sat back to watch their exchange with interest. It seemed bad-girl Bill was a prude.
Cherry smiled inanely and pinned her with what may have been mistaken as a motherly look and a saccharine smile.
“Oh, Bill. You always get cranky when you’re hungry. What can I get you, honey?”
“Same,” Bill grizzled.
Cherry’s gaze slid across to Michael’s side of the table, and he saw her eyes widen with definite interest as she gave him a quick assessment and a positive look of admiration. Ducking her head coyly, she slithered her curvaceous body into the booth beside him. Her hand rested high on his thigh, and her sly, little fingers gave him a healthy squeeze as her nails dipped niftily into the flesh of his groin.
His eyes shot open wide as he bolted upright in his seat and met Bill’s amused brown stare. Her eyebrows lifted, she gave him a small evil smile, leaned forward, placed her elbows on the table, and rested her chin on her hands to watch.
“Well, hello handsome.” Cherry’s voice dipped an octave, her tongue swiped across her slicked lips as she leaned in closer, her breasts pressed against his shoulder almost spilling out of the top of her white T-shirt. “You must be Jack’s brother-in-law. All the girls are talking about you.” Bill’s smile widened knowingly as she watched Cherry’s fingers creep higher, and Michael inch further up his seat. Jack fidgeted.
He met the invitation in Cherry’s wide blue eyes and returned it with a cool stare. He took a hold of her hand and placed it firmly on the table in front of her.
“I’ll have the same. Thank you.”
“Oh!” She sighed, fluttering her long black lashes at him, placing her recently moved hand on her heaving chest. “Your accent just makes me melt.”
“Cherry, I sure do appreciate you rubbing your legs up mine like that, but I think you’re going to give me blisters if you don’t stop now, honey.” Cherry pouted balefully at Bill, opened her mouth to reply, when Bill huffed and checked her watch. “Do you think you could place our order? We’re on a tight schedule.”
Cherry scooted out of the booth, tossed her head, and straightened her skirt with a smooth wriggle.
“Oh, Cherry,” Bill called “you might just want to…” Pulling back her lips, she imitated brushing her teeth with her index finger, winked at Cherry as though it was their little secret, and turned back to the table as Cherry sent an offended look over her shoulder and flounced off to the kitchen.
Michael let out a long sigh as he rubbed the back of his neck and eyed the amused pair sitting opposite him
“Well, she’s certainly a force to be reckoned with.”
Chuckling, Bill relaxed and allowed her legs to butt up against Michael’s as though she had forgotten her reluctance to let them touch. Warmth shot up to his groin far quicker than it had with Cherry’s touch.
“Yeah, she sure is. I heard she can jerk a man’s—”
“Bill.” Jack’s sharp caution had her wicked smile spread wide.
“—chain. Jack, I don’t know where your mind was going, but I was telling you she can jerk a man’s chain, sure as look at him.”
“Jeez, Bill. You were rude. You don’t normally speak to her like that.”
“You’re a married man now, Jack. She should respect that wedding ring.”
“She didn’t respect Joe Carter’s when they were rolling around in the back of his truck last week. The only reason she isn’t still tussling with him is because his wife found one of her breast boosters on the backseat and banned him from ever seeing the light of day again.” Jack paused and looked across at Michael as Bill’s throaty laughter flowed around them. “Besides, I don’t think it was me she was interested in this time.” Michael shifted uncomfortably in his seat as Jack gave him a crooked grin. Bill gurgled.
; “I think she might have been looking to jerk your…chain, Michael.”
He knew who he’d rather have jerking his chain, and she was seated opposite him, laughing evilly. Opening his mouth, he quickly closed it again as Cherry approached holding three mugs and a pot of coffee. Smiling slyly, she poured his first, and then Jack’s. Leaning across the table to best show her low-cut tee, she spilled Bill’s coffee and wandered off without an apology.
“Now you’ve upset her,” Jack groused. “She’ll probably spit in your food. I hope she doesn’t give me the wrong one.”
Dumping enough sugar in her coffee to make Michael wince, Bill leaned forward to watch Cherry glide across the room toward their booth as she expertly balanced three plates.
As she slid them across the table to each of them, Bill pushed hers toward Michael.
“Mine’s got more than yours. You want to swap?”
His studied her wicked eyes for a moment, damned if he was going to eat spit meant for her.
“You eat more than me anyway.” He slid the plate back toward her and almost laughed as Bill widened her eyes at him. Cherry looked closer. “A little more salad on that one, perhaps.” She flicked her fingers toward Bill’s plate, and then shrugged. “Swap if you like. They’re all the same.” Bill dragged her plate toward herself and smiled broadly.
“I’ll keep this one.”
“You know…” Cherry leaned across and placed her hand on Michael’s arm.
He felt her strong fingers squeeze his muscles as though testing them out.
“…if you want to be shown around anytime, just call, okay?” She took a small piece of paper from her cleavage and slid it onto the table in front of him. Jack’s eyebrows shot up nearly to his hairline, and Bill leaned back with a loud snort.
“I think one of your nails has fallen off into Jack’s salad.”
With a horrified gasp, Cherry leaped back and checked her fingers for missing digits as Bill bit her cheek to stop from laughing.