“Jenna,” she said quickly, shoving her hair back from her face again. She seemed irritated by the fall of thick, luxurious curls and it was all Ridge could do to keep from spearing his fingers through the mass and finding out for himself if her hair was as soft as it looked.
“She was in trouble,” Sophie said quietly. “I had to get to her.”
“How’d you know?” Ridge asked in a whisper.
“What?” She blinked up at him.
“I said, how’d you know she was in trouble?” He took a step closer to her. “You were running for her long before she screamed. How’d you know?”
Sophie stared at him and let her mind race as she fought desperately to come up with something that would appease him and convince him. Something short of the truth, of course.
“I, uh...” She shifted her gaze to the amber liquid swirling in her glass. Why couldn’t she think?
“There’s something going on here, Sophie, and I want to know what it is.”
But she couldn’t tell him, could she? Everything depended on her keeping her identity—and Jenna’s—a secret. If he found out who she was and why she’d left Albany, wouldn’t he be duty-bound to turn her in? To arrest her or something?
Her gaze shifted again, sweeping over the interior of the tiny, whitewashed jail cell. One small, narrow cot and slices of daylight piercing through the iron bars and little else. This could be her life. All it would take was Charles Vinson catching up with her, and she would be in prison and Jenna would be in a completely different sort of prison. At the mercy of a man who wanted her only for what she could do for him.
No. How could she possibly risk all of that by trusting a man who represented the very law she was trying to hide from?
Decision made, she nodded, and without thinking, lifted the glass and downed the liquor in one long drink. Liquid fire snaked down her throat, stealing her breath and watering her eyes, but she didn’t cough this time. The heat suffused her instantly, easing away the last of the chills hiding in the dark corners of her heart.
Now she knew why people called hard liquor “liquid courage.” At the moment, she felt strong enough to stand against an army of sheriffs. She only hoped the feeling lasted.
Handing him her empty glass, she tossed her head to one side, swinging the long, loose fall of her hair behind her shoulders. “I don’t know what you mean, Sheriff,” she said, taking one small step toward the open door and safety. “As far as I know, nothing is ‘going on.’”
“You’re a poor liar, Sophie,” he said
“I beg your pardon?”
“You damn well should,” he told her, “but I doubt you really are.”
Her head swam and she slapped one hand against the cold, stone wall for balance. Once she was steady again, she looked at him and tried to brave it out. “I really don’t feel like talking at the moment.”
“Too bad,” he said, catching her upper arm in a tight fist.
She looked down at his hand, then lifted her gaze to glare at him. “Would you mind unhanding me?”
“Don’t pull that ‘grand lady talking to the peasant’ routine on me, Red,” he said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said and noticed that her tongue felt too thick.
“Oh, you know, all right.”
“You’re hurting me,” she said, though he really wasn’t. But as she’d hoped, he released her instantly and she moved to walk past him. Which would have worked fine if she could have convinced her feet to move. How very odd.
“You’re drunk.”
“Im-possissible.” She frowned to herself. That hadn’t sounded correct. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth hoping to thin it down a little.
“Damn it, Sophie,” he muttered, pushing her back down onto the cot. “Did you have anything to eat today?”
“Oh my, yes,” she said, waving one hand and then staring at her fingertips as though she’d never seen them before. “I had some lovely coast and toffee this morning.”
“Toast and coffee?” he muttered.
“Yes, with your lovely deputy Mr. Tall and that sweet Mercy woman who likes him so much.” She leaned toward him and asked, “Why is my tongue so big?”
“What?” Mercy James liked Tall? He shook his head. That wasn’t important now.
“Hmm?” She blinked up at him, giving him a smile that in other circumstances he might have been happy to see.
“Your tongue is big because that whiskey hit your empty stomach then ran up and slammed into your brain.”
She scowled at him and lifted her fists like some second-rate boxer. “Who hit me?”
“Nobody,” he said, disgusted with himself. He couldn’t get answers from a woman who was too drunk to know her own name. Good God.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she said, letting her hands drop to her lap. “If someone hit me, then I would have to hit them back, and,” she added, leaning toward him, “I feel very odd right now.”
“Is that right?” he asked, and though he was frustrated, he felt a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. She looked so damned serious. So damned... appealing.
A long lock of red hair hung down in front of her right eye and she plucked at it with her fingertips but couldn’t quite seem to catch it. He moved it for her.
“Thank you.” Then she stood up, wobbled a bit and laughed uncertainly. “I feel strange. Sort of airy.” She scowled. “Not a word, is it? A rhyme? Oh, airy, fairy, scary...”
“You’re scary all right,” Ridge muttered as he watched her turn in a slow circle, her arms outstretched and her head tilted back so she could watch the ceiling spin past.
She staggered, then stopped and frowned at him while she clapped one hand to her forehead. “Are you scared of me too?” she asked, then without waiting for him to answer, went on. “See, I don’t know why. I’m not scary. I’m Sophie.”
“Too,” she’d said. And he told himself that if he picked and chose throughout her blathering, maybe he could get a few answers after all. “Who’s scared of you, Sophie?”
“Oh,” she said with a wave of her hand, “everybody.” She tried to snap her fingers and when they wouldn’t cooperate, she shrugged good-naturedly and gave it up. “You will too be. Be too. Just like everybody else.”
“Except your husband?”
“Who?” She blinked at him again, then drew her head back to focus on him. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “you theem... seem like a nice man.”
“Thanks,” he said wryly, accepting now that he wouldn’t be finding out a damn thing from her today.
“And,” she added, lifting her index finger as if about to make a point to a judge in court. “You’re a good kisser.”
His body leaped to attention. Damned if a look from her didn’t get him up and runnin’ like the starting shot at a race.
Her eyes went wide. “Oops. Shouldn’t thay sat―say that.” She hiccupped and covered her mouth. “Pardon me.”
Drunk as a skunk on two piddly little glasses of liquor. And she probably didn’t have one idea what she was doing to him.
“Why not?”
“See?” she asked. “Nice.”
He didn’t feel nice at the moment. He felt all wound up with nowhere to go. His insides were coiled like a spring and even the blood in his veins seemed to be on a high boil. No sir, “nice” had nothin’ to do with what he was feeling right now.
And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
Keeping that thought in mind, he tried to force his brain away from wishing for things he couldn’t have and asked instead, “Sophie, can you tell me who you think is scared of you?”
“Oh no,” she said and leaned in, putting her finger to her lips as if hushing a child. “I can’t tell you, thilly.” She frowned and carefully corrected herself. “Silly.”
“Who can you tell, Sophie darlin’?” he asked, his voice a low murmur of sound as he stared into her wounded green eyes. There was more going on here than a wanted poster. There was old hurt in her eyes. Old pain, and he needed to know what it was. Needed to ease it if he could.
And that thought brought him up short. Damn, he was getting in deep, here. Deeper than he’d ever thought possible. This woman should very well be locked up in his jail right now, and instead, she was digging her way further into a heart he’d thought long dead. He told himself to not be foolish. Reminded himself that he was the law here. With a responsibility both to the town he’d sworn to protect and to the badge he wore with pride.
Then her eyes welled up and he was lost.
“Nobody,” she whispered and covered her mouth with one hand. Straightening up, she turned her back on him and stared up at the barred window as if her life depended on it. “Can’t tell,” she said, more to herself than to him. “Never tell.”
Ridge moved to stand behind her, and giving in to the urge to touch her, to comfort her, he wrapped his arms around her middle and pulled her against him, her back to his front. She rested her head on his chest and kept her gaze locked on the slanting bars of light dazzling the otherwise darkened cell.
Every breath she drew, every beat of her heart, seemed to echo inside him. Her body felt warm and supple against his, and if she hadn’t been a little tipply, he might have given in to one or two other urges. The urges that had been riding him day and night almost from the moment they met.
“What’s scarin’ you, Sophie?” he asked, and his breath ruffled her hair. “What’re you runnin’ from?”
She tipped her head back to look at him and smiled. “Should run from you,” she said.
“But you’re not.”
She shook her head slightly. “Not yet.”
His arms tightened around her middle as he instinctively sought to keep her close. “Never,” he said. But she’d turned back to stare at the sunlight slanting through the bars again and he heard her murmur, “Never’s a long time.”
CHAPTER Fourteen
His arms around her waist felt so good. So strong. Sophie closed her eyes and took just a moment to enjoy the sensation of being held. Her brain pleasantly warm and fuzzy, she sighed and nestled back against Ridge’s hard muscled chest. She didn’t want to think about the future. Didn’t want to remember that she couldn’t be involved with a sheriff. That she was running from a man who would stop at nothing to catch her. That the man holding her right now was the very man who could end her freedom.
“Sophie, darlin’,” he whispered and she smiled, relishing the timbre of his voice so deep and intimate, so close to her ear. Her insides melted. That was the only explanation for the watery consistency of her knees and her swirling stomach. “How’d you know Jenna was in trouble? How’d you know to come a-runnin’?”
Her eyes opened and she frowned to herself as she tried to concentrate on his question and not the sound of his voice. But it was too hard. The whiskey, she thought, and wondered why she’d never taken a drink before this. It was lovely, really. This mind-numbing sensation and the added bonus of feeling laughter bubbling inside her.
“Sophie...”
She smiled. “You have a vice noice.” A chuckle erupted from her throat as she very carefully corrected, “Nice voice.”
He sighed. “Damn it, Sophie.”
“Ram it, Didge,” she said and turned abruptly in his arms. She felt the room teeter precariously for one brief, exciting moment before righting itself. “Oh my.”
“You’re drunk.”
“You’re handsome.”
He frowned at her and shook his head. “Come on, I’ll take you back to the boardinghouse.”
“Nope,” she said, reaching up to grab two handfuls of his shirtfront and holding on. Then, tilting her head back, she looked up at him and was almost undone by the quiet concern in his eyes, not to mention the flash of heat simmering at the center of those icy-blue pools. Giving in to the sudden, urgent need rising up within her, she murmured, “Kiss me,” and pursed her lips.
“Sweet—” His voice broke off and he sighed again before saying, “Darlin’, as temptin’ a package as you make right now—and believe me when I say it’s damn temptin’—there’s rules to these things.”
“Piffle,” she said and laughed at the funny sound the word made. “Don’t wan’ rules. Wanna kiss.”
And before he could argue her out of it, she went up on her toes, tilted her head to one side, and planted her lips against his. For several seconds, he held strong against her, but finally, he surrendered to his own needs and parted her lips with his tongue.
Sophie groaned-and leaned in to him, giving herself over to the magic she felt in his arms. His hold on her tightened until she could hardly draw a breath. And she didn’t mind in the slightest. His hands shifted, moving up and down her back with a ferocious desperation that fed the fires swamping her.
Again and again, his tongue invaded her warmth, caressing, demanding, urging her on, to give more, take more. Mindless moments flew past and all she knew, all she wanted to know, was Ridge’s touch. Heat flashed through her, boiling in her veins, throbbing deep and low within her. Her knees wobbled, her head swam, and Sophie’s world spun out of control.
She tore her mouth from his and dragged in a long, uneven breath while tightening her hold on his shirt. Swaying slightly, she narrowed her gaze, looked up at him and licked her lips. Sighing, she asked, “How many eyes do you have?”
A brief, hard snort of laughter shot from his throat, then Ridge rested his forehead against hers. “Come on, Sophie. I’ll take ya home.”
“Home,” she repeated, and in the recesses of her mind, she heard a tune playing and a moment later, she was singing it. “’Be it e-ver so hum-ble, there’s no-oo place like home.’”
Ridge sighed and said, “Yeah.”
●
Sophie awoke to a headache between her eyes and finally understood the penance paid for drinking. But it didn’t seem fair that she should be the one to pay since it hadn’t been her idea to drink at all.
Sitting up in bed, she thought back to the day before and tried to remember everything that had happened. But most of it—after finding Jenna safe—was a blur. She did know she’d been alone with Ridge for quite some time and he’d given her some whiskey for her shock, but that was pretty much all she could really put her finger on.
What had she said? she wondered. What had she told him? What had she done? Panic quickened inside her briefly, then just as quickly subsided. She must not have told him much or she wouldn’t have been waking up in her own bed. She would have greeted the morning from the narrow confines of that cot. Only this time, she thought, that iron door would have been closed, locking her in.
Oh, the very notion gave her cold chills. Dropping her head into her hands, she lifted it again immediately and stared at the clean white bandages wrapped around her palms. Good heavens, she didn’t even remember having her hands cared for.
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts, for which she was grateful. “Come in.”
Hattie opened the door and peeked her head in. “Good, you’re up.”
“I’m awake,” Sophie corrected quietly. “Up is something else again.”
Shaking her head, the woman stepped into the room, set the tray she carried on the foot of the bed, then marched directly to the window. There she threw the curtains back with a quick swipe of her hands and opened the window to let the late morning breeze in.
Sophie grimaced slightly at the brightness as it played against the backs of her eyes. But even in her sorry state, she appreciated the soft coolness of the draft sliding into the room.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Oh, about noon, I suppose,” Hattie told her and came back to pick up the tray.
&n
bsp; “Noon!” Embarrassed to be so late abed, Sophie instantly tried to swing her legs off the mattress. And regretted the quick movement a heartbeat later. Her head throbbed as though it were a bass drum played by a ham-fisted, untalented circus strongman.
“Now, now,” the other woman told her firmly, “you just stay put. You try to stand up too fast and your head just might roll right off your shoulders.”
She had a point, Sophie thought with a silent groan as little men with big hammers attacked what was left of her brain.
Plumping the stack of pillows behind her, Hattie then eased Sophie back against them, and situated the tray across her lap. “I brought you some good, strong coffee and some dry toast. Always best to go easy on your stomach after a night of drinkin’.”
A night of drinking? The woman made it sound as though Sophie had staggered from tavern to tavern along the waterfront, looking for a good time. However, since she couldn’t remember a thing she’d done...
“You’re lookin’ some better today, girl. Your mouth ain’t all puffy and red anymore.” Hattie winked. “You best tell Ridge to shave before you two get to kissin’.”
“Kissing?” Sophie searched her fairly spotty memory and thought she did remember a long, intimate kiss. Oh, good Lord. What else had she done that she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—remember?
“Oh, sweet heavens,” Sophie muttered and cupped her face in her palms again. “What you must think of me,” she moaned, gingerly shaking her head.
“What I think, missy,” Hattie said, pouring a cup full of coffee from a flowered, ceramic pot, “is that you had you quite a scare yesterday and then the whiskey Ridge gave you—strictly for medicinal purposes, mind you—went straight to your head.” She handed her the coffee, then stood back and smiled benevolently.
“True,” Sophie murmured, taking the cup between her palms and wincing slightly as the heat of the drink branded her scraped flesh.
“Now don’t you worry ‘bout your hands,” Hattie told her quickly. “They’re just a mite scratched up, is all.”
“Thank you for taking care of me,” she said. “I do appreciate it.”
Just West of Heaven Page 17