The Sheriff's Secret Wife

by Christyne Butler

Neither did he. "Yeah, and you're here with your friends."

  The pain in her eyes told him he'd hit his mark. "Get lost, Steele."

  She turned away and went back to scribbling. He saw it was a notebook she was focusing on. "What are you writing?"

  Her head stayed bent over the book. "None of your business."

  He grinned. "Fair enough."

  A long moment of silence passed before she said, "Aren't you leaving?"

  "Not until you tell me."

  Her pencil stilled. She raised her head and stared out at the setting sun and the darkening shadows on the blue water. A breeze lifted her hair and floated it across her face. Unlike most girls he knew, she didn't care about her looks.

  Maybe because her family never had any money. Not that Destiny was loaded with richies, but it had its pecking order and the Dillon family was at the bottom. Her clothes were secondhand, not that any of the guys cared. Not with those big brown eyes and that flame-red hair that reached her backside.

  She finally tucked a long, curly strand behind one ear. "I'm writing about the lake."

  He blinked. "You mean a poem or something?"

  She turned to him. "Maybe. Right now it's just my thoughts, feelings, words that pop into my head…" She shrugged and offered him a small smile before turning back to her notebook.

  His lower half reacted instinctively to the curve of her lips. Whoa, that never happened before. Racy, with two older brothers and a father who kept his dad's department on its toes, Racy was just a pain-in-the-ass kid two years behind him in school. Someone fun to tease and trade barbs with, so why was he now—

  He stopped the thought before it could form and shoved his hands into his pockets. Silent minutes passed. She was successfully ignoring him. With the sun almost gone from the sky, he knew he should head home, but he wanted to stay. The water and the woods always had a calming effect on him.

  He leaned his head back against the rough surface of the tree and stared out over the water. The sky, the lake and the trees all blended together. He had no idea how long he stood there, not really seeing anything, just listening to the sounds of the woods, the increasing winds and Racy's pencil scratching over the paper.

  A rumbling caused him to focus on the cloud-filled sky. "Did you hear that?"

  Racy didn't reply. Gage was surprised at how dark it had gotten. Another roar came from the dark clouds. "Come on, we'd better get out of here."

  "Go, I'm fine," Racy muttered.

  "A storm is coming in fast." The first splat of fat raindrops hit him in the face. "Let's go."

  She continued writing. "I can get home by myself."

  "How did you get out here?"

  "I walked."

  "What? It's ten miles from town."

  "It's no big deal." She looked up as a boom of thunder crashed over their heads. She jumped, slammed her notebook closed, and hurried off the rock. "Okay, maybe I'll head back."

  "My truck's on the other side of the clearing." He grabbed her hand. They needed to get out from under these trees. They kept the rain, falling steady now, off them, but if there was thunder, lightning was sure to follow.

  "I'm not going anywhere with you." She tugged free.

  Gage grabbed her arm. "Come on, let's go!"

  She dug in her heels as they reached the clearing. The wind and the rain lashed at them without the protection of the forest. "What's the matter? This is great! I feel so alive!"

  "Getting zapped in the ass by lightning isn't my idea of fun. And this isn't a warm spring rain. It's freezing." He wrapped his arm around her. "Come on!"

  The skies opened up and they ran the rest of the way to the truck. By the time they'd crawled into the cab of his restored 1940s pickup they were soaking wet. Panting from the run, their warm breath caused the windows to instantly fog over. He'd grabbed his gray sweat jacket and put it around her shoulders.

  "Th-thanks." She pushed away the dark, wet strands clinging to her face and neck. The journal resting on her bare knees. "Oh, my writing. It'll be ruined."

  "Put it back here." He grabbed the notebook and slid it behind the seat. It landed, causing a few wobbly pings to echo inside the truck cab. Gage cringed and hoped Racy hadn't heard.

  "What was that?"

  No such luck. "Ah, nothing." He jammed his key into the ignition and started the engine. "It takes a minute for the heater to warm up."

  "What are you hiding, Steele?"

  He read suspicion in those beautiful eyes. "I told you. Nothing."

  Her eyes narrowed.

  "It's…it's my guitar."

  Shock replaced suspicion. "You play the guitar?"

  His face heated under her gaze. He grabbed at his wet T-shirt and yanked it over his head, blocking her view. "Is that so hard to believe?"

  "N-no, I guess not."

  He looked at her again. Despite her body turned toward him, their knees practically touching, she seemed intent on staring out the windshield.

  Except her eyes kept darting back to look at him, too.

  His T-shirt fell to the floor in a sopping puddle. "Sorry, but I was freezing."

  "Oh, no, that's okay." Racy's tongue did a quick swipe over her lips. She started to remove his sweat jacket. "You can have this back if you're cold—"

  "No, you keep it." He pulled the soft material back over her shoulders, his fingers catching on her wet skin where the buttons on her shirt had worked free.

  Jeez, talk about being zapped.

  He let go, but didn't move back behind the steering wheel. He leaned forward and reached past her shoulder, bringing their bodies even closer together. "I'll just get my letterman jacket. It's hanging on your side of the truck."

  His fingers closed on the wool and leather material of the jacket as his gaze landed on the swell of her breasts. It took a hard blink for him to look away. She'd turned toward him, her mouth inches from his. He stared at her full pink lips for a long moment before forcing himself to look into her eyes.

  "God, I want to kiss you." The words fell from his mouth.

  She took another swipe at her lips, turning them shiny wet. It felt like a hundred-pound weight landed on his chest.

  "Why?" she breathed.

  "Because you're so pretty."

  He read disbelief in her eyes. Damn, she must have heard that before. He tightened his grip, one hand on the jacket and one on the dashboard, to keep from pulling her into his arms. He moved in another inch.

  "Can I?"

  He counted to three. Three times her warm breath touched his skin. Then she nodded and he covered her mouth with his. The trembling of her lips caused him to go slow, slower than he'd ever remembered kissing a girl.

  At eighteen, Gage'd had his share of girls, losing his virginity two years earlier. He'd ended things with his girlfriend a few nights ago, not wanting any entanglement before they headed off to separate colleges in the fall.

  None of which explained what he was doing sharing a closed-mouth kiss with Racy Dillon, who was apparently more innocent than everyone thought.

  He started to pull back until the warmth of her fingertips landed on his shoulder. She pressed closer, her hand making its way into the hair at the back of his neck. Her mouth opened and her tongue touched his lips.

  All rational thought disappeared.

  He pulled her up against him, the cold wetness of her shirt a shock against his heated skin. His mouth opened and his tongue met hers. When her fingers tightened in his hair, he moved back behind the steering wheel, bringing Racy with him. He fitted her onto his lap with his jacket draped over the both of them.

  "Oh, Gage, please kiss me again."

  For someone who was so innocent a moment ago, she sure picked up on the act of kissing fast. With one arm caught between her shoulder and the steering wheel, his free hand dropped to the curve of her hip and her bare legs. A deep groan filled his chest when she pressed against him. If she kept moving like that, he was going to embarrass both of them real soon. But he couldn't stop k
issing her, touching her.

  He brought his hand up to the buttons on her shirt. They came undone beneath his nimble fingers. He pushed one wet corner of material off her shoulder, taking her bra strap with it, trailing his lips down her neck and along her skin. Raising his head, he looked at her and found her brown eyes watching him, her lips swollen from his kisses. His fingers slowly moved over the soft fullness of her breast, down to where the plain white material still covered her—

  Gage jerked himself from the memory before he got to what had happened next—the sharp raps against the driver's-side window. The leering grin of one of his father's deputies. Racy cowering behind him as he talked. Her icy demand to be taken home.

  Damn, he hadn't thought of that afternoon since—okay, since a few weeks ago when he'd stood on his newly stained deck looking out on the same lake.

  But it was ancient history, along with the time they'd spent together in Vegas. No matter how many memories returned, rough snatches from years ago or clearly defined moments from five months gone, it was in the past.

  Except, of course, he was still married to the woman.

  He leaned against the door frame, thumbs tucked into the waistband of his pants. Cold seeped into his skin, but a burning desire for the one woman he couldn't have raged inside him.

  Time, distance and maturity had made it easier to turn his craving into a sometimes friendly, sometimes antagonistic game of one-upmanship she seemed to enjoy as much as he did.

  Hell, the crazy idea to ask her out on a real date had popped into his head more than once over the years, especially after the fog of his father's death had lifted. Just to see if there was something between them.

  Except life always seemed to get in the way. Whether it was busting her brothers for drug trafficking or her second marriage and subsequent divorce a year and a half later, life hadn't given them a break.

  And those events had seemed to sap the fire from her.

  Oh, she'd flirted and teased, but it wasn't the same. It was only last summer that she finally seemed more like herself. Then she'd melted into his arms in a dim corner of the hotel bar in Vegas, responding with a passion he'd never experienced with any other woman. And he'd been a goner. Again.

  "Gage?"

  Her warm, sexy voice eased past his broken defenses. His fingers curled into fists, pulling the soft material of his pants even tighter across his erection. No turning around now. "What do you want, Racy?"

  Silence filled the air. Gage's fertile brain came up with a variety of answers and all of them ended with the two of them horizontal.

  "Nothing," she finally said.

  "Then go back to sleep."

  She moved farther into the room and her reflection caught in the glass. Wrapped from her shoulders to her feet in one of his mother's handmade quilts, she sat on the short end of the sectional that faced the fireplace. "I'm not tired. Ya know, I never thanked you for what you did tonight…for Jack."

  He looked over his shoulder and watched her snuggle into the cushions of the sofa and prop her legs on the coffee table. The deep blue material of the quilt gave way, revealing bare skin from her toes to midthigh. He concentrated on her profile, trying to ignore the fact she wasn't wearing the bottom half of the pajamas he'd left for her.

  Was she wearing the top?

  "And for what you didn't do to my brothers," she added with a sigh.

  He turned back to the night sky and released a deep breath, fogging the window. "Why are you lying for them?"

  He watched in the window's reflection as she dropped her head back against the couch. "Force of habit? And since this conversation is strictly off the record, they did break in, but I'm not pressing charges and I don't have to give a reason why."

  Nothing like talking about ex-cons to put a damper on his arousal. Gage crossed his arms over his chest, but still didn't turn around. "Their paperwork says they've been out for three weeks."

  She swung around. "I had no idea. I swear it."

  "So why are they back in Destiny?"

  "This is their home."

  "Yeah, they did quite a number on your home."

  Racy stared at the fire. "So I noticed."

  He heard the despair in the clipped response and couldn't stop from looking at her again. "What're you going to do?"

  "Clean it up. Like always."

  "And let them stay?"

  She tightened the blanket around her and crossed her legs at the ankles. "Like Billy Joe said, where else would they go? I know what you think of my brothers. Yes, what they did to Jack was stupid, but I don't think they purposely meant to hurt him."

  "How can you defend them?"

  "Because they're my family." Her voice caught and she paused. "The only family I've got left. Look at you. You spent today cleaning up after the twins and trying to get Gina fired."

  "What Garrett and Giselle did was stupid and dangerous, but you can't possibly compare drag racing to being part of a statewide drug trafficking ring."

  "Of course not. But my brothers have served their time and while I had hoped prison had pounded some sense into those thick skulls of theirs, I didn't for one minute mistake them for upstanding and perfect citizens. Like you."

  He turned fully to face her now, having regained control over his body. "I'm not perfect. Just honest."

  "And this is me being honest. I don't know what I'm going to do about Billy Joe and Justin. I do know I don't have to decide at o-dark-thirty in the morning." She paused for a long moment. "Can we change the subject, please?"

  She was right. Now wasn't the time to talk about her brothers. Hell, at the moment they were legally his brothers-in-law. Yee-haw on that.

  He should send her back to bed, but instead he asked, "Been in college long?"

  She turned, pushing long waves of red hair, still damp from the shower, from her face.

  Damn high school memories.

  "How did you—ah, my books. Yeah, I've been taking classes for years. More off than on, but when my last husband walked out with the little amount left in my bank—"

  "I am your last husband, Mrs. Steele." Okay, he should've let that go, too. What was with him tonight?

  "Why do you keep calling me that?"

  She studied him and his skin burned every place her gaze touched. So much for control. He found himself thankful his position left him somewhat in the shadows. "Because it gets a rise out of you?"

  "Well, knock it off." The tip of her tongue snaked out to swipe across her lips. "Anyway, when Tommy took off, I decided it was time to plan for my future. I graduate in a few weeks."

  Gage forced himself to concentrate on the flare of pride in his gut at her achievement, not the wet shine of her mouth. "Good for you. What's your major?"

  "Business administration."

  "Plan to move on to bigger and better things than The Blue Creek?"

  The fire in the fireplace was no match for the blaze in her eyes. "What does that mean?"

  Whoa, what'd he say? "I figured you wouldn't stick around—"

  "And why's that?" She jerked upright and her feet dropped to the floor. "Is working in a bar only for stupid people?"

  Chapter Six

  "T hat's not what I meant."

  Racy knew that, but Gage's questions about her brothers rubbed her the wrong way. So did lying between his sheets, the towel she'd used after her shower and the too big pajamas he'd left on the sink.

  Why? Because they all smelled exactly the same.

  Exactly like Gage.

  One deep whiff and her head filled with memories of shared showers and shared sheets back in Vegas. And the shared vows that made them man and wife.

  Damn, they really needed to talk about this still-married mess, but first things first.

  "What's wrong, Gage? Can't understand why a college-educated woman would want to work in a bar? Oh, wait—how would that explain your sister being my newest employee?"

  "We're not talking about my sister." He moved forward to grip the b
ack of the leather sectional sofa that separated them. "But I can't deny I don't want her working there."

  "I don't really think you have a say in the matter."

  He tensed, then sighed. "I just don't get it."

  "What's there to get? She wants to meet people and wear sexy makeup."

  Gage snorted. "Yeah, I saw your handiwork tonight."

  "The view from the balcony is amazing, isn't it?"