Lana's Lawman

by Karen Leabo

  It felt the same, yet different. She would have known, even in a blind taste test, that the man she was kissing was Sloan Bennett. But the slight rasp of his beard against her skin was different, reminding her that he was indeed a full-grown man, not the boy she remembered. His shoulders and neck were more firmly muscled than she recalled, probably from those years he’d mentioned spent working construction. And he was a couple of inches taller.

  She stood on her toes, her arms around his neck, to achieve a more comfortable angle. He tightened his hold on her, sliding one hand down and under her sweater to cup her bottom. He was bold, as he’d always been, but there was a new confidence to the way he held her.

  She liked it. A lot. Her only genuine fear was of her own lack of control.

  He deepened the kiss for a brief time, teasing her tongue with his, burying his fingers in her hair. Then abruptly he pulled back, gasping for air.

  “Damn, Lana. For a minute there I was eighteen again, all hormones and no sense.”

  She nodded, unable to form words. She was breathing heavily too.

  “I didn’t mean to do that, not that, anyway. It wasn’t supposed to be so …”

  She nodded again. Despite his lack of specificity, she understood exactly what he meant. He’d only been flirting, teasing. But once he’d touched her, a strong force had taken over, like being swept up into the middle of a storm cloud. And she’d felt better than she had in years. If he apologized for it or said it was a mistake, she would burst out crying.

  “I was just checking, to be sure I wasn’t imagining the physical thing between us. Obviously I wasn’t.”

  She nodded her agreement.

  “Then why don’t you want me around? If I’m just not good enough for you—”

  “Oh, stop it! You know it’s not that.”

  “Then what?”

  “You just said it. Hormones and no sense. I thought things had changed a lot since I was a teenager, but maybe not.”

  He studied her a moment, finally offering no comment, no insight. She didn’t know if he believed her, agreed with her, or thought she was crazy.

  “The charcoal’s out back, you say?”

  “Y-yes. On the patio, in a storage bin.” She pointed out the kitchen door and through the living room, to a sliding glass door. “By the hibachi. You’ll see it. The starter fluid is in there too. And matches, you’ll need those.” She was babbling.

  “Okay. One expert charcoal cooking fire coming up.”

  Just like that, the moment was ended, so abruptly that Lana almost wondered if she’d daydreamed it—except for the lingering goose bumps on her arms and the slightly swollen feel of her lips. If she closed her eyes, she could still taste him.

  Get a grip, she scolded herself. It was a kiss, not a religious experience. He’d probably forgotten all about it by now. Furious with herself for letting it happen in the first place, she set about making the salad, tearing lettuce and chopping carrots with more force than was necessary. Her one goal when she’d gotten divorced was to take control of her life. She’d made so much progress over the last year, and she wasn’t about to let fate or whimsy or serendipity take over.

  Thinking about fate made her think of Theodora, which in turn made her think about the tin policeman’s badge in her jewelry box, and a shiver ran up her spine. It would be so easy to let herself believe that the Gypsy fortune-teller had known all along that she and Sloan were meant to be together. Then she could just fall into his arms and pretend that they would live happily ever after.

  But she’d learned all about “happily-ever-afters” the hard way. They didn’t just fall into your lap. Maybe they were possible; she certainly believed her friends Callie and Sam were happy—and would continue to be—and living proof. But then there was Millicent Whitney Jones, pregnant with her fourth child and widowed at the age of twenty-eight.

  Certainly Lana’s own marriage tended to make her pessimistic about the lasting qualities of love.

  So, for now, she couldn’t believe in fate, despite Theodora’s lofty predictions. She had to keep her priorities straight—first Rob’s welfare, then her own independence and stability, both financial and emotional. Only when those priorities were secure could she afford to think about allying herself with a man.

  She topped the salad with some cherry tomatoes, covered it with plastic, and put it in the fridge. After setting the table—in the dining room this time—she steeled herself and set out for the patio to see how the fire was coming along. When she opened the sliding glass door she was surprised at how cool the wind had turned.

  She shivered and her teeth chattered from the sudden gust of cold air.

  “Yeah, no kidding,” Sloan said, rubbing his hands together. “It’s a little warmer here by the fire.”

  She wasn’t stepping one inch closer. “I wanted to see if there was time for me to marinate the steaks. I should have thought of it earlier.”

  “The fire is about fifteen minutes to perfect grilling temperature,” Sloan pronounced. “But I usually just throw the meat on there naked.”

  Had he used that word on purpose? she wondered. “Fine with me,” Lana said with a nod, biting back a quick retort only with supreme effort. “The marinade makes a big mess anyway.” She looked up at the darkening sky. “I didn’t realize a blue norther’ was coming through, but that’s sure what it feels like. The temperature must have dropped ten degrees since I got home.”

  “More like twenty. Nice night for a fire in the fireplace.”

  “We’ll have to settle for an electric furnace, I’m afraid. The chimney doesn’t draw.”

  “That’s a shame. Have you had it checked?”

  “No, I never bothered. All I know is I tried to light a fire and the house filled up with smoke. I gave up pretty quick.”

  “Well, let’s go have a look.” Ignoring her protests that it wasn’t something she wanted to worry about right then, Sloan charged into the living room and before she knew it he had his head in her fireplace. “Got a flashlight?”

  “I’ll get one,” she said, wishing she could rewind the past couple of minutes and reinvent them. Why did men always have to bulldoze their way through her life? She was not a weak woman, yet both times she’d become intimate with a man, he’d quickly dominated every aspect of her existence—physical, emotional, and in Bart’s case, financial.

  Was it that she became obsessed? She did tend to throw herself into things whole hog, whether it was a flower arrangement or a relationship. With Bart it had started innocently enough, with daydreams and fantasies and a gentle preoccupation. But pretty soon her every waking thought had been connected to Bart Gaston. She’d wanted so badly to please him, and pretty soon she’d been unable to make a move without seeking his approval.

  She would not ever get into that state again. She might or might not be starting something with Sloan. Whichever, she had to guard her autonomy.

  Still, she brought Sloan the flashlight.

  “Let’s see,” he said. “Your flue is open, so that’s not—ah, there’s the problem. There’s a wad of insulation stuck up inside your chimney. You’re lucky you didn’t do worse than fill the house up with smoke. I’ll get it out for you.”

  “No,” she said a little more sharply than she meant to.

  Sloan pulled his head out from the fireplace. “What?”

  “Leave the insulation where it is, please.”

  “Why?” he asked, bewildered.

  “Because it must’ve been put there to save energy, so I’d rather leave it. I do whatever I can to save on my utility bills. Anyway, I don’t have any firewood, so while your idea of a fire is nice, it’s not going to happen tonight.”

  She didn’t want the romantic atmosphere a crackling fire might suggest anyway. Her head was already filled with ideas pouring in from everywhere. X-rated ideas.

  Sloan rubbed his hands together, still contemplating her explanation. “I’m not sure that’s really it,” he said slowly. “I think m
aybe you just don’t like people doing you favors.”

  She stared for several moments in silent shock. Her immediate instinct was to argue. What was he talking about? Just because she didn’t want him messing with her fireplace didn’t mean she was … or maybe it did.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I get very uncomfortable when anyone starts giving me things or help or advice, especially when I haven’t asked for it. When someone does you a favor, they usually expect something in return.”

  Sloan shook his head. “Such a cynical attitude.”

  “Realistic.”

  “Does this have to do with your ex?”

  “Partly, I guess.” But how could she ever explain what her relationship to Bart had been like? Every favor, every slight, every piece of advice he gave, and every failure on her part were kept on a score card in Bart’s head. If she asked for something, she was made to feel guilty. If he gave her something, she’d better show gratitude. If something needed repair, she’d probably done something to break it. If the repair cost too much, she hadn’t shopped around enough.

  But Bart was only part of her past. Her first experience with love—with Sloan—had made her scared ever to commit her heart so deeply again. Then Bart had done a number on her with his mind games, adding to the fears she’d developed with Sloan, instilling in her a deep, clawing need for independence from any man. She knew she carried it to extremes. She also knew she couldn’t help herself.

  If Sloan could understand that … but how could he? She could tell him Bart stories from now till Sunday, and still she wouldn’t be able to communicate the horror she felt at the idea of losing control.

  “Some people do favors because they like to help, did you ever think of that?” Sloan said as he headed to the kitchen to wash the soot from his hands. “Or maybe because … they’re trying to … connect. Connect on some level besides the physical, that is.”

  He kept soaping his hands, refusing to look at her.

  She was touched by his admission and suddenly felt like a fool for making such a big deal over a little fireplace. “You and I connect in a lot of ways,” she said.

  “How? Do we really have anything in common?”

  “We could find things in common,” she insisted. “If we both wanted to.” To give herself something to do, she began spreading some of the soft Brie on a cracker.

  He came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. He nuzzled her neck. She inhaled deeply in response, frozen by his simple gesture. “Then why does it always come back to this?” he whispered. “Is this the only way I can get through to you?”

  Lana struggled for her next words. “When two people want to … well, whatever it is we’re wanting to do, they need to be on equal footing. I worry that I’ll come to depend on you, to need you too much—maybe more than you need me—and that’s what frightens me.”

  He rubbed her upper arms. “Not that I’m wanting to start an argument here, but what would be so wrong with us, you and me, depending on each other? Even needing each other. That’s what friends—and couples—generally do.”

  “What could you possibly need me for? Besides that,” she cautioned, because she knew exactly what his devilish mind had come up with. “That’s always a two-way proposition.”

  “All right, I can’t think of anything this second that I need, but something will come along. I’ll ask you for help first thing.”

  She was only slightly mollified. “And will you please ask me before you charge ahead, making decisions for me?”

  He smiled. “I’ll try to remember. That Serve and Protect stuff is pretty ingrained in me though. I tend to jump in first and ask questions later. But I’ll try.”

  That was all she could ask.

  It suddenly occurred to her that they’d just agreed to boundaries for a relationship of some kind. Like they were going to be seeing each other on a regular basis. That wasn’t something she’d really planned on. Could she backtrack if she wanted to? Did she want to?

  She relaxed a little as the rest of the meal progressed on a slightly more predictable path. Sloan grilled the steaks. He and Lana sipped wine, talked about some of their high school friends and where they’d ended up.

  As she was contemplating what she could scrounge up for dessert, she noticed how chilly she was, even wearing a sweater.

  “I guess it’s time to crank up the old furnace,” she said. So far the autumn had been so mild that she hadn’t even needed to turn on the heat, but now appeared to be the time. The thermostat was in the living room, and she excused herself to take care of it.

  But when she flipped the switch to Heat, nothing happened.

  Sloan split the last of the wine between his and Lana’s glasses. He could now freely admit he’d been out of his mind to go barging in there with his grocery bags. He’d only guessed Lana was lying about having a date. He hadn’t been sure, and he’d risked the ultimate degradation of having some burly boyfriend flatten him on her front porch.

  But his hunch had paid off. Dinner had turned out even better than he’d expected, and his expectations had been pretty high. The only fly in the ointment had been their argument over the fireplace, and even that had helped him to understand her a little better, peel one more layer off her protective coating.

  He couldn’t imagine what that ass Bart Gaston had done to make her so suspicious of friendly gestures. All he knew was that Gaston had better hope he’d never meet Sloan in a dark alley.

  He was taking another sip of wine when he heard a pounding on the wall between the living and dining rooms.

  “Lana?”

  “This … darn … thing!” The sentence was punctuated by more pounding.

  Sloan slid into the living room. “Problem?”

  “The heater won’t come on. I just had the stupid furnace overhauled last year.”

  He hesitated to ask, but he did. “Do you, um, want me to take a look? I know a little bit about furnaces.”

  She gave a fatalistic shrug. “Since I already dug out the flashlight, why not?” She led him to a utility closet off the laundry room, where the electric furnace and the fuse box resided.

  Sloan tried the fuse box first, but none of the breakers had been flipped. Next he took the furnace cover off and, with Lana holding the flashlight, methodically checked all the connections and looked for broken wires. The thing was practically an antique.

  “I know it looks awful,” Lana said, “but I really did have it inspected last year. It was working fine.”

  “Well,” he said after a fruitless search, “I don’t know what the problem is. My guess is it’s something simple, like a short. You’ll have to call someone who has the right diagnostic equipment. Do you know a good repair company?”

  Lana nodded, appearing almost relieved that he hadn’t been able to fix the problem. “I’ll call them first thing tomorrow. They probably charge extra for Saturdays,” she said glumly.

  “What will you do tonight?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’ll be cold tonight, maybe even freezing. I heard it on the radio earlier.”

  She shrugged. “I’ll bundle up with blankets. Sloan, don’t look at me like that. I won’t freeze to death. This is Texas. It’s not even November. No one has ever frozen to death in Texas before November.”

  “I could help keep you warm.” The words were out of his mouth before he could consider them. Given Lana’s skittishness, they were probably ill-advised, he realized too late. Who did he think he was, Don Juan and Romeo all rolled up into one?

  “I’ll bet you could too,” she said as she led the way out of the laundry room and back to the dinner table. Was that a note of teasing he heard in her voice?

  Relieved he hadn’t made her mad, he said, “Offer withdrawn. Very impertinent of me.”

  “That’s what my mother would have said. Shall we finish the wine?”

  “Never mind your mother. What do you say?”

  “I say let’s finish the wine.�
��

  She hadn’t said no, Sloan reflected as they sipped the Bordeaux. But he’d withdrawn the offer. Was it too late to reinstate it?

  Forget it, he told himself. He ought to consider himself lucky he was still welcome at her table. A man shouldn’t rush with someone like Lana. She was no longer a naive eighteen-year-old.

  She’d made it clear she wanted to be in control, and he would do his best to give her at least some say in how and when they progressed to intimacy.

  But he wasn’t willing to give her too long.

  He wasn’t sure when their making love had become inevitable. He only knew that it was. Sooner or later they had to finish what they’d started, see where it might lead. She was every bit as curious as he was.

  The wine had warmed his stomach, but outwardly he was on the verge of shivering. He ought to be glad he didn’t have to spend the night in this icebox. Yeah, right.

  “This was a wonderful dinner, Sloan,” Lana said. “I can’t remember the last time I lingered over a meal like this. I was thinking about dessert, but the only idea I can come up with is ice cream, and that doesn’t appeal right now.”

  “Hot chocolate? We could go out to a coffee bar and pretend we’re yuppies.”

  “No, I’d better not.” She stood and began clearing the table, her hands trembling slightly. “I still have this Halloween costume to sew, and some reading to do tonight while I have the house to myself.”

  Now, that was a no. Clear as day. “I’ll help with the dishes, then.”

  “You can help me load the dishwasher if you want. But don’t blame me if icicles start to grow from your earlobes. I gave you your chance to make a polite escape to somewhere warmer.”

  She smiled that golden-girl smile, and he suffered heart palpitations. That was one thing that hadn’t changed about Lana, her warm smile. It was one of the qualities that had first dazzled him about her because it seemed so real, not some fake-beauty-queen toothpaste commercial.

  He rinsed while she loaded the dishwasher. Sloan was more and more aware of the cold, and he wondered how Lana would manage. When he could stretch his visit no further, he thanked her for having him over and headed for the door. She followed, saying all the polite things a good hostess says.