Sinful

by Joan Johnston

  “My coat?” she said.

  As she reached for it, Buck pulled it away. “How about a kiss first?”

  Eve had opened her mouth to retort when a brusque male voice said, “Give the lady her coat.”

  Eve hadn’t heard anyone coming up behind her, which surprised her. She photographed wild animals in their natural habitat and prided herself on her awareness of her surroundings. In the wilderness, missing the slightest sound could result in being bitten by a rattler or attacked by a bear or mountain lion. She glanced over her shoulder and felt her heart skip a beat when she recognized her unlikely savior.

  Connor Flynn.

  Connor was third in line of the Flynn brothers, but he’d been at the top of the teenage troublemaking list. He was thirty now but, if anything, his reputation was worse. He’d done three tours as a Delta sergeant in Afghanistan before leaving the military with several medals to prove his heroism in battle.

  He’d paid a high price for his long absences from home serving his country. A year ago his wife, Molly, who’d been Eve’s best friend, had died in a car accident while Connor was overseas. After the funeral, he’d agreed to let Molly’s parents take his kids into their home while he served the nine months left on his final tour of duty.

  Now they were threatening to keep them.

  Connor had ended up in a court battle to get his two-year-old son and four-year-old daughter back. So far he hadn’t been able to wrench them away from his late wife’s parents. They’d argued to a judge that Connor was a battle-weary soldier, a victim of post-traumatic stress, and therefore a threat to his children. According to all the psychological tests he’d been forced to endure to prove them wrong, he was fine. But seeing him now, Eve wondered for the very first time if Molly’s parents might not be completely off the mark.

  Connor looked dangerous, his sapphire-blue eyes hooded, his cheeks and chin covered with at least a two-day-old beard, and a hank of his rough-cut, crowwing-black hair resting on his scarred forehead. His lips had thinned to an ominous line.

  If she’d been Buck, she would have handed over the coat in a heartbeat. But Buck wasn’t known for his smarts.

  “Butt out!” Buck said. “This is between me and Eve.”

  Without warning, Connor’s hand shot out and gripped Buck’s throat. Buck dropped the coat to protect his neck, but Connor didn’t let go. His inexorable grasp was slowly choking the big man to death. Even using both hands, Buck couldn’t get free.

  Eve looked around the bar, expecting someone, anyone, to intervene. No one did. She wouldn’t have interfered except she knew that Connor might be turning the lock and throwing away the key where custody of his kids was concerned. She didn’t step in for Connor’s sake. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have thrown a glass of water to douse a Flynn on fire. But she cared very much about the future well-being of her dead friend’s children, who needed their father alive and well and out of jail.

  Despite Connor’s long absences, Molly had been convinced that he would take good care of their children if anything ever happened to her. Eve owed it to her best friend to make sure Connor didn’t ruin his chance of becoming the wonderful father Molly had always believed he could be.

  As carefully as if she were approaching a feral wolf, Eve laid her fingertips on Connor’s bare forearm, the one that led to the hand grasping Buck’s throat. She turned so she was looking into his narrowed eyes. “Connor,” she said in a quiet voice. “This won’t help. Let go.”

  She watched his upper lip curl as though he was snarling while his gaze remained focused on the helpless man in his grasp.

  “Think of the kids!” she said more urgently. “For their sake, let go. Please.”

  He turned to look at her when she said “kids” and then seemed to hear the rest of her sentence. He looked at his hand and seemed surprised to discover that he was still choking Buck. Suddenly, he let go and took a step back.

  Buck gasped a breath of air, and with the next breath croaked, “Molly’s parents are right. You should be in a cage!” Now that Buck was free, his two football buddies, each brandishing a pool cue, moved up to flank him.

  Connor stood as though in a daze, rubbing his forehead where the scar from a war wound loomed white against his tanned skin. Eve realized that if Connor didn’t leave in a hurry, there was likely to be a free-for-all. She grabbed her fleece from the floor and her camera from the bar, gripped Connor’s hand, and pulled him out the door after her.

  She headed away from the bar in case the three drunks decided to follow them outside into the frosty March evening. She hadn’t realized where she was going until she reached her Dodge Ram pickup, which was parked under the colorful neon cowboy on a bucking bronc that lit up the bar. She let go of Connor’s hand in order to hang her camera by its strap around her neck, then pulled on her fleece. She shook her head in disgust at his behavior in the bar as he frowned back at her.

  “What were you thinking?” she said. “Were you trying to get arrested? Don’t you want to be a father to Brooke and Sawyer?”

  “I was thinking that son of a bitch was being a pain in the ass, all because of something I started in high school.”

  Eve stared at him in shock. Connor was responsible for all those cruel taunts about her name?

  He shoved a hand through his hair, but a hank of it fell back onto his forehead. “Thanks for getting me out of there.”

  “I wish I hadn’t bothered, now that I know you started that ‘Eve’ business. Do you have any idea how much aggravation you caused me in high school?”

  He shot her a mutinous, unapologetic look. “No more than you caused me by telling Molly I’d take her to that Sadie Hawkins dance her freshman year. No thanks to you it turned out all right.”

  Eve felt a stab of shame. Molly had been crazy about Connor Flynn in high school. So had Eve. But she might as well have aspired to date the man in the moon. Not just because Connor was a senior and she was a freshman, but because Connor was a Flynn. A broken arm. A broken leg. Ruined dreams. Too many years of hurt and harm stood between them.

  Molly had desperately wanted to ask Connor to the Sadie Hawkins dance, but she’d been too shy to do it. Eve had told her friend that she would ask for her but then chickened out. Besides, she didn’t want her best friend dating the boy she had a crush on herself. She’d lied and told Molly that she’d asked Connor and he’d said yes, figuring that Connor would blow Molly off when she came running up to him, excited that he’d accepted her invitation, and Molly would be humiliated and never speak to him again.

  Admittedly, it was not her finest moment.

  Instead, Connor had met Eve’s gaze as she stood by her locker across the hall while Molly smiled up at him, delighted that he’d accepted her invitation to the dance. His eyes had narrowed at Eve, as though he knew she was the one responsible for this further bit of Grayhawk-Flynn monkey business. Then he’d smiled down at Molly as though he was glad to be going to the dance with Eve’s best friend.

  To Eve’s dismay, Molly and Connor were going steady by the time Connor graduated at the end of the year. He’d told Molly not to wait for him when he enlisted in the military, and Eve had felt a flare of hope that they might break up. But Molly called or texted or emailed or wrote Connor every day while he was away learning all the skills he’d need to fight a war.

  When Connor was home on leave, he and Molly picked up where they’d left off. He took classes in warfare for two years, and not once was there a break in Molly’s devotion, or in Connor’s, for that matter. With a sinking heart, Eve had realized that once Molly graduated from high school, they were probably going to get married.

  Eve had no one to blame but herself. She should have spoken up. She should have said something to Molly about her feelings for Connor, no matter how unrealistic they were. After that freshman Sadie Hawkins dance, it was too late.

  Eve stared at the man for whom she’d felt a hopeless love most of her adult life.

  Both Connor’s jaw and his
fists were clenched. He was trouble looking for a place to happen. But despite all the damage he and his family had caused her and her family in the past, she couldn’t leave him here. She didn’t want her efforts in the bar undone. She made a face. “Get in. I’ll drive you to your truck. Where is it?”

  “I left it at the Snow King Resort. Aiden dropped me off in town before he headed back to the ranch. I planned to spend the night with—”

  He cut himself off, and Eve realized he’d planned to pick up some girl in one of the many Jackson Hole bars and spend the night with her. He was good-looking enough and rich enough to attract locals, but it was more likely one of the ski bunnies would have carted him back to her hotel room.

  “I have to be in town for court early tomorrow morning,” he explained, “so I figured there was no sense making the drive back out to the Lucky 7 tonight.”

  Eve gave him a once-over from head to foot. He stood more than six feet tall and looked rock solid, his broad shoulders braced like a soldier ready for battle. Unfortunately, his impressive fighting skills were hardly likely to impress a judge deciding his children’s fate. He needed to look like good father material. “Is that what you’re planning to wear?”

  He glanced down at the white oxford-cloth shirt, sleeves rolled up to expose sinewy forearms, comfortablable jeans, western belt, and cowboy boots he had on. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

  “It’s not a suit, for starters.”

  “My navy sport coat is on the back of my chair at one of the bar tables. There’s a regimental tie in the pocket.”

  Eve stared at the door to the bar, wondering if there would be a scene if they returned for his sport coat. Of course there would be a scene. He was a Flynn, wasn’t he? She sighed. “I’ll take you home, and you can get another one.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll call one of my brothers to come get me.”

  “And wait in a bar, I suppose,” she said, pulling her fleece more tightly around her to ward off the chill. Getting into more trouble. “Let me take you home. You don’t want the police finding you on the street in this condition.”

  “This condition? Meaning what?”

  “You’re drunk. And if Buck makes an issue of what just happened, disorderly. You don’t want to give Molly’s parents any more ammunition than they already have to shoot you down.”

  “Perfect metaphor,” he retorted. “Because that’s exactly what it feels like they’re doing. Killing me with supposed kindness. I gave them my kids because I thought they’d be the best caretakers while I was gone. Now I have to fight to get my own kids back! And I’m not drunk.”

  She shot him a skeptical look.

  “It was lime and Coke. No rum.”

  “Then why would you do something so stupid as to assault Buck?”

  He palmed his eyes and made a guttural sound of frustration. “It’s this custody hearing. I want it over. I want my kids back.”

  Eve heard the anguish in his voice and felt her heart wrench. But it was the kids she felt bad for, not their father. While he’d grieved the loss of his wife, Connor had shut himself off from Brooke and Sawyer. When he’d returned from overseas after an absence of nine months—an eternity to children only three and one when he’d left—Brooke and Sawyer had barely recognized him.

  Eve knew how hard it was for vets to reinsert themselves into their former lives. Over the past couple of months since he’d returned home, Connor had more than once exhibited questionable behavior, like the attack tonight, which might have ended badly if she hadn’t been there. She could understand why Molly’s parents were concerned.

  But she could also see Connor’s side of the issue. He hadn’t been able to take his kids with him while he was serving his country. Now that he was home, and had proved to the doctors that he was of sound mind and body, he had the right to raise his children.

  During the months-long custody battle, Connor had only been allowed supervised time with his kids, who weren’t quite sure where he fit into their lives. Their grandparents were the only stable thing in their world right now.

  Except for me.

  Eve had spent a lot of time with Molly and the kids while Connor was deployed. Being essentially a single parent of two kids had been a crushing responsibility for her friend, and Eve had more than once taken Brooke and Sawyer for a walk in the forest or on a picnic to give Molly a break. After Molly’s death, she’d done the same for the children’s grandparents. She understood why Mr. and Mrs. Robertson were so worried about Connor wanting to raise two young children, who were just getting to know him again, all by himself.

  It might have been different if there was a woman in the Flynn household, where Connor had been staying since he’d returned to Jackson Hole. But it was all men, from Angus on down. After the stand Molly’s parents had taken, if Connor got his kids back, he was unlikely to ask the Robertsons for help.

  Molly would have hated the tug-of-war over her children, but she’d left no will stating her wishes, and her parents had argued to the judge that not only was Connor an unfit parent, but that their daughter had wanted them to care for her children if anything ever happened to her. Eve knew better.

  Which was why, despite the hard feelings between their two families, Eve planned to testify on Connor’s behalf in court tomorrow. When her sisters had demanded to know why she was helping a Flynn after all the nasty things they’d done, she’d made it plain that she was only speaking in court to ensure that her best friend’s final wishes were carried out.

  Eve sympathized with Connor’s suffering over the loss of both his wife and his children, but his conduct tonight had been worrisome. Was she making a mistake helping him to get custody of Brooke and Sawyer, even if it was what Molly had wanted? She knew he must be terrified that the court would take his children away tomorrow. Surely that explained, even if it didn’t excuse, his overwrought behavior.

  “I’d appreciate a ride up the hill to the Snow King Resort,” Connor said. “I’m staying in the suite my dad keeps available for out-of-town business associates.”

  “Sure,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  The cab of the truck was frigid, and Eve let the engine heat up before she put the vehicle in gear. Their breaths fogged the cabin, and Connor shivered with the cold.

  “The heater should have you warm in a minute,” she said.

  He rubbed his hands together. “Feels like Afghanistan in here.”

  “I thought it was mostly desert there.”

  “Deserts are plenty cold at night, but I spent most of my time in the mountains.”

  “Did they remind you of home?”

  “Nothing compares to the beauty of the Tetons. Besides, I wasn’t there to admire them. They were filled with places for hostiles to hide, which made them an unfriendly place to be.”

  It was the first conversation of more than a few words she’d had with Connor Flynn since he’d “accidentally” run into her on the fairgrounds at Old West Days at the end of her junior year of high school, knocking her ice cream cone out of her hand. The news had been all over town that he had orders to go to Afghanistan. He was still dating her best friend, who didn’t happen to be with him.

  Eve had figured the jarring collision was one more example of Flynn harassment, until Connor apologized and insisted on buying her another cone. He met her suspicious gaze with laughter in his eyes and said, “Molly would never forgive me if I didn’t.”

  She felt warm everywhere his eyes touched her. She trembled when he slid an arm around her waist to move her out of the way of a bunch of rowdy cowboys. And a shiver ran down her spine when he gently thumbed a bit of ice cream from the side of her mouth after she’d taken a bite of her new strawberry cone.

  His infectious grin. His surprising kindness. His incredible blue eyes. His muscular shoulders and lean hips. The knowledge that he was forbidden to her because he was a Flynn—and her best friend’s boyfriend. All of those things had conspired to make her fall even more deeply and
completely and irrevocably in love with him.

  Eve believed she’d seen something in Connor’s eyes—an equal yearning for what might have been?—but realized that was probably a combination of her imagination and wishful thinking. Still, she came away from the encounter feeling that something irreplaceable had been lost.

  Eve’s only solace was the knowledge that any relationship between them would have caused terrible trouble at home. Her father would have howled like twenty tomcats if he discovered she’d fallen in love with one of those damn-fool Flynn boys, and her sisters would have joined the chorus.

  Connor had gone to war, and that was the last she or Molly had seen of him for another year.

  The day he arrived in Jackson for Molly’s graduation Eve had realized that if she was ever going to say something about her feelings, it was now or never. In the end, she’d opted for never. It was impossible to ignore the glow on Molly’s face as she looked into Connor’s eyes when they met after their long separation. Or the tender look in Connor’s eyes as he gazed back at her best friend.

  There was simply no possible future in which Eve could be happy at her best friend’s expense. She bitterly regretted the choice she’d made in high school to keep her feelings secret from Connor—and Molly—and she’d never stopped wishing things were different. Unfortunately, and despite the fact that Connor had married her best friend, Eve had never fallen out of love with him. Not that anyone knew her deep, dark secret. As far as her best friend or her sisters or anyone else was concerned, she had the same aversion to those wild Flynn boys as the rest of her family. No one knew that she’d coveted her best friend’s husband.

  Even now she found Connor attractive. Her heart leapt when she imagined him holding her and kissing her. But there was no way she was going to act on those feelings. She’d seen the tears on Connor’s cheeks at Molly’s grave. She’d heard his muffled sobs. She knew how much he’d loved her friend. He was never going to love another woman like that. And she wouldn’t settle for less.