Never a Bride

by JoAnn Ross

  “And when we’ve both made each other crazy out of our minds, I want to bury myself deep inside your warm and welcoming body and I want us both to fly higher and longer than we’ve ever flown before and finally, when we come back to earth I want to do the same thing all over again. And again. And again.

  “Until we’re both too satisfied and too exhausted to move.”

  The sensual images his words painted weakened her knees. She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his shoulder. “This is impossible.”

  “No.” He cupped her chin with the gentle touch she’d first been surprised to discover, and lifted her wary gaze to his. “Unexpected, perhaps. But not impossible.”

  They stood there, a breath apart, surrounded by the misty silver cloud of fog, alone on the rock-strewn expanse of beach save for the gulls and some sandpipers. They could have been the last two people on earth. The last woman. The last man.

  In her eyes he saw a reflection of his own desperate needs, his own raw yearnings. And one last rebellious spark that flickered out even as he watched. Although she’d given it her best shot, Sloan knew that Cait could no longer deny what was happening between them. Not when faced with such elemental power.

  The dark, sensual messages swirling between them were almost too much to bear. Her imagination fired by his sensual description of what he wanted to do to her, what he wanted them to do together, Cait’s lips parted, her already slumberous eyes softened.

  Forgetting his promise, choosing instead to respond to Cait’s unspoken request, Sloan surrendered to temptation and kissed her.

  The slow ache inside Sloan instantly turned painful. Desire suddenly had claws—sharp, fatal talons that were ripping at his heart, his gut. And lower.

  It was happening to him all over again. Sloan had never been with a woman who could cause his hunger to spin so quickly and so dangerously out of control.

  Never had he craved so deeply. Or so painfully. Cait Carrigan was the kind of woman who could make a man crawl on his knees over broken glass and relish the journey.

  When her ripe, succulent lips parted on a soft moan, encouraging him to deepen the kiss, Sloan’s mouth turned ravenous. He took everything she was offering, then demanded more. Their breathing was hot and ragged. Her taste, as rich and sweet and hot as it was, was not enough. As the building heat exploded inside him, Sloan covered her face with hot rough kisses. He wanted to thrust up that sweater she was wearing beneath her jacket and bury his mouth against the softness of her breasts.

  When he found himself desperately needing to bury the aching, throbbing part of his anatomy into an equally soft and silky place, he knew that he was on the rocky edge of losing it completely.

  Cait was on the brink of begging him to take her back to the inn to end this torment when the alarm on her watch suddenly sounded.

  Realization came slowly. Reluctantly.

  Sloan dragged his gaze from her ravaged lips back to her eyes. “Saved by the bell.” His resigned tone was tinged with irony.

  “What if I didn’t want to be saved?” she asked with a flash of her characteristic spirit.

  Her question told him what her eyes had already revealed. That if he’d asked her to return to the inn to make love with him, Cait would not have said no.

  There had been a time when a few hours spent tangling the sheets with a woman like Cait would have satisfied him. When a brief, no-strings affair where both participants knew the score was more the norm than the exception. But that was before promiscuity could end up getting you killed.

  Before AIDS.

  And even more importantly, before Cait. Somehow, without him even being aware of it happening, Cait Carrigan had changed Sloan. She’d made him want more from a relationship than mutually enjoyable sex. She’d made him want more from a woman than an ego boost. And she’d made him want more from himself than a smooth line and a slow hand.

  A brief affair with Cait, as pleasurable as he had no doubt it would be, would not even begin to be enough. What he wanted, Sloan realized, as the awareness hit him like a sharp axe between the eyes, was a lifetime.

  “I’ve heard,” he suggested with a wry twist of his firm lips, “that patience is perceived to be a virtue.”

  She’d been told the same thing innumerable times. “Do you believe that?” she asked with an arched brow.

  He laughed, a deep, husky laugh that possessed the power to thrill. “Hell, no.”

  His head swooped down and he gave her another long, hot kiss that only left her wanting more. When they finally came up for air, he was smiling.

  “But,” he decided reluctantly, “I suppose there might be something to be said for anticipation.” Although, other than an aching groin and teeth worn to the gums by gritting them hour after hour on end, Sloan wasn’t exactly sure what.

  “This is going to complicate things.” At a time when her life was already too complicated as it was.

  “Probably.” He ran the back of his hand up the delicate curve of her cheek, pleased by the soft bloom of color caused by the light caress.

  “I don’t have time for distractions.”

  He managed, just barely, to dismiss his annoyance at having been referred to as a distraction. “How about this?” he suggested, pushing her hood back and catching her earlobe between his teeth. “Does this distract you?”

  “Dammit, Sloan—”

  “And this.” His tongue trailed down the side of her neck. “Is this a distraction?”

  They were standing so close together their knees touched. Although she was struggling to concentrate, Cait could feel the warmth emanating from his body, seeping into hers. “You know it is.”

  Her legs were trembling. She was trembling. Sinking even as she struggled to find solid ground. Because she was no longer certain she could stand on her own, Cait curled her hands around his shoulders.

  “This isn’t what I came here for.”

  He lifted his head and gave her a long, unfathomable look.

  “No,” Sloan said slowly, reminding himself that he’d never trusted things that came too easily. “It isn’t. And so, to prove my good intentions, though I’m sorely tempted to drag you back to my lonely, unmade bed, I suppose I’d better let you leave for your meeting.”

  Cait was undeniably pleased at the way he was demonstrating respect for her work. His stroking fingers were creating little sparks on her skin, on her cheeks, her chin, her temple. “What will you do?”

  “Do?” he asked distractedly.

  Her creamy skin fascinated him. Although it looked like fragile, translucent porcelain, it was every bit as soft as silk. Sloan was literally aching to explore the sensual phenomenon further.

  When those wonderfully wicked fingers trailed with tantalizing slowness around the curve of her jawline, Cait sighed and tilted her head back to allow them access to her throat.

  “While I’m at the police station.” The fog surrounding them had filtered into her mind, wrapping her thoughts in misty clouds. It was difficult to think. It was nearly impossible to talk. Cait felt his thumb pause at the base of her throat and worried he could feel the increased beat of her blood.

  Sloan could. The hot, hungry pulse echoed the out-of-control rhythm of his own. “I figured I’d spend the morning beneath a cold shower. Afterward, with luck, I may actually manage to get some writing done. And then, if you’re still not back, I’ll go swimming.”

  “Swimming?” She’d admittedly been exhausted last night, but she was sure she would have remembered the owner mentioning an indoor pool. She glanced past his shoulder at the churning white surf that would undoubtedly be as cold as a glacier this time of year. “Surely not—”

  “In the sea,” he agreed with a quick grin. “I figured, if that won’t do the job, nothing will.”

  * * *

  CHARITY PRESCOTT Valderian’s office turned out to be every bit as warm and friendly as the woman herself. Instead of the usual police mug shots adorning the walls, she’d hung several
paintings of the island.

  A framed photo of a man clad in a police uniform hung behind her desk; although his hair was a darker auburn than the current police chief’s, from his intelligent blue eyes and warm smile, Cait guessed she was looking at Charity’s father.

  Other photos lined the walls as well, but here again Charity proved her individuality. Cait had been told she’d received a medal from the Venice Police Chief as well as commendations from the mayors of Santa Monica, Venice, and L.A. for having apprehended the Surfer Rapist, but they were nowhere to be seen. Obviously, she’d chosen to forego the usual police chief’s vanity wall.

  Rather, the wall was a family gallery. Cait viewed a dated wedding photo of a lovely young woman and the man she’d guessed was Charity’s father hanging beside another photo taken of the same woman several years later, mar-rying another man whose dark skin, rugged features, western-cut suit and dress black Stetson practically shouted out rancher.

  There were more photos: Charity and some handsome man whom Cait guessed to be her current husband, Charity and that same man caught in a series of intimate poses chronicling the growth of their son from infancy to toddler.

  There were photos of children—three look-alike little girls and a little boy, she guessed to be Charity with her sisters and brother. There was a wedding photo of that same brother and a lovely, serene-looking blonde and another of the couple proudly showing off a baby clad in a long, antique lace christening gown.

  Along with the family photos were framed crayon drawings obviously done by a child. Charity’s child, Cait suspected.

  “Not exactly a typical police rogue’s gallery,” Charity allowed when she saw Cait examining the wall. “But then again, there’s not much typical about Castle Mountain.” Her grin was quick and friendly. “Besides, to tell you the truth, I’ve never quite understood why cops would want to spend their days looking at felons.”

  “This is certainly more uplifting,” Cait agreed.

  Another grin, even brighter than the first. “We’re kind of big on family around here.”

  “I can see that.” Studying the pictures, Cait felt a twinge of envy at the open emotion revealed in the subjects’ faces. They looked so happy. So pleased with themselves. So pleased with one another. They all looked, she considered, so very much in love.

  Cait had grown up understanding that relationships were, at best, transitory. That people came together because of mutual attraction and when that attraction faded, they moved on to greener pastures.

  And although she didn’t exactly condemn such practices—how could she, without condemning her parents, whom she loved, despite their foibles?—Cait had also decided long ago that such serial relationships were not for her.

  Which, following that feeling to its logical conclusion, meant that she’d always viewed marriage with disdain.

  But now, as she took in Charity’s family wall and saw the glow of pride and love as the police chief showed off her husband and child, Cait experienced a faint flicker of doubt.

  One thing she had no doubt about was Charity Prescott Valderian’s dedication to law enforcement. Contrary to her earlier worries, the police chief was definitely not a burnout case. In fact, Cait couldn’t remember when she’d met anyone who so enjoyed her work.

  “Of course,” Charity allowed, refilling Cait’s coffee cup, “being a cop in Castle Mountain is a lot less stressful than being a cop in L.A.”

  She sat back down in the high-backed leather chair, took a sip of the strong coffee and grinned. “Fights over lobster traps, the occasional drunk and disorderly and domestic disputes are about as exciting as it gets around here.”

  That wasn’t exactly what the pilot of the charter plane had said last night. “I heard something about you breaking a spy ring?”

  To Cait’s surprise, a shutter came down over Charity’s intelligent blue eyes. She ran her hand through her short, sleek coppery hair and shrugged.

  “It wasn’t that big a deal. My brother Dylan, that’s him with his wife, Julianna,” she pointed to one of the more recent wedding photographs, “runs a think tank out in the woods. A rival scientist was trying to steal some secrets.”

  Another shrug. “It was more a case of industrial tampering than spying. You know how people exaggerate things in a small town,” Charity explained easily.

  Her tone was mild, her expression pleasant. Cait’s cop’s instincts, which were seldom wrong, told her there was more to the story than what she was hearing. Admittedly curious, she reminded herself that whatever had happened out at what her pilot, and apparently, the rest of the island referred to as The Brain Factory, was not what she’d come to Castle Mountain to learn.

  “Actually, I don’t know anything about small towns. Not firsthand, anyway,” Cait said. “I was born in L.A.” Deciding that it was time to get down to the reason for this trip, she leaned forward and said, “I’m planning to go undercover to catch him.”

  Charity nodded. “I thought that was your intention when you called and said you wanted to talk to me about him.” She ran a finger thoughtfully around her cup. “Although it seems I could have told you everything I know over the phone.”

  “Not everything.”

  Cait had all the vital statistics from his yellow sheet. She knew the rapist’s height, weight, MO. She knew his mother had abandoned him at birth, knew he’d been married three times, knew two of his former wives had testified that he’d abused them during their marriages.

  The third wife, who’d been living in a shelter for battered women at the time, had been too terrified to come forward willingly. The woman assistant district attorney had decided that to issue a subpoena for her to appear was not only cruel, but unnecessary. They had enough to convict Henry McCrea without her. They had enough to put him away for life.

  Unfortunately, he’d proven himself as slippery as he was evil and on a trip to court where he’d been expected to present a lawsuit against the prison cafeteria for denying him vegetarian meals, he’d escaped.

  “I have the court testimony, including the psychologist’s reports,” Cait said. “But you’re the one who really knows him. You’re the one who knows how to push the bastard’s buttons.”

  Charity steepled her fingers together and shifted her gaze to the photo of Prescott and Starbuck she’d taken during the brief ferry ride to the mainland just last weekend.

  What a difference a few years made, she mused. At the time she’d willingly—eagerly—put her life in danger, apprehending the man who’d been terrorizing the beach cities up and down the coast.

  She’d been frightened, she remembered. But pumped. Catching the bad guys had always given her a rush. But not nearly the rush she received when her child smiled at her. Or when her brilliant husband, home from his work at The Brain Factory, greeted her with a kiss that still possessed the power to curl her toes.

  “Did they tell you he’d threatened to kill me?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  Charity returned her gaze to Cait’s, viewed the determination in those intelligent green eyes and felt she could have been looking at herself at one time. “Did they also tell you that I believe he had every intention of doing exactly that?”

  Cait did not flinch from the warning explicit in Charity’s tone and eyes. “Yes.”

  She was going to risk it, Charity knew. She was going to put her life at risk. Which was, admittedly, the way it should be. In Cait’s situation.

  With the brutal honesty that had always served her well, Charity readily admitted she no longer possessed that do-or-die drive. It wasn’t that she was afraid to die; it was just that she’d be leaving too much behind to make the choice acceptable. Which was why she never, not for a single moment, missed her former life in the fast lane.

  She sighed, took a sip of her cooling coffee and made her decision. Although reliving those days was not her favorite way to pass the time, she’d do it. If it would help save any woman the terror she’d experienced.

  �
�It’s about control,” she said after a long pause. She stood up and took her jacket down from a wooden hook on the wall. “Do you mind if we walk while we talk? I usually patrol the cove about now.”

  Cait suspected Charity’s sudden need for exercise had less to do with patrolling the waterfront than it did with a desire to work off some of the nervous energy thinking about the rapist had caused to build up inside her.

  She stood up as well. “Let’s go.”

  They walked for nearly two hours, Charity talking nonstop, pausing only to answer the few questions Cait quietly interjected. She told her everything—about the way he’d obviously stalked her for days before making his move, about the stench of the whiskey on his breath when he dragged her beneath that pier, about the feel of his fist slamming into her face, shattering her cheekbone, and most terrifyingly, about the belief that she was about to die.

  “Does your husband know about all this?” Cait asked.

  “No.” Charity shook her head. “Oh, he knows I went undercover. And he knows that I caught the scumbag. But I don’t think he truly comprehends how it went down. Which is probably just as well.”

  Although Starbuck accepted her career choice intellectually, she knew there were still times—such as last Saturday night when she’d had to break up yet another brawl at The Stewed Clam—that he worried about her safety.

  “Doesn’t he like you being a cop?”

  Charity’s smile returned. “That’s a loaded question. If I say yes, I’m not exactly being honest. But if I say no, you’ll think Starbuck’s just another chauvinist who wants to keep females barefoot and pregnant.”

  Speaking of pregnant... Her smile warmed as she remembered how thrilled her husband had been when she informed him that he was going to be a father again.

  “I know,” she said, “why don’t you come to dinner tonight? Starbuck’s making lasagna and he always makes enough to feed the Italian army.”

  “Your husband cooks?”