Never a Bride

by JoAnn Ross

  Charity laughed at that, a rich, bubbling sound that wiped away the gloom created by their earlier conversation. “It’s one of the reasons I married him.”

  Cait watched the sheriff’s eyes turn to a dazzling sapphire. “But not the only reason,” she guessed.

  “No.” A warm, intimate heat rose in Charity’s eyes, creating another little stir of envy deep inside Cait. “Starbuck is definitely one of a kind....

  “Oh, and of course your friend is invited, too,” she tacked on, proving to Cait that the small-town gossip line was working just fine.

  9

  ALTHOUGH HAVING DINNER with the town police chief’s family, including her brother and sister-in-law, was not the way Sloan would have preferred to spend the evening, he found he enjoyed himself immensely.

  Charity reminded him a great deal of Cait, with one obvious difference. Where Cait struggled to guard her emotions, Charity was an open book. Her love for her family—in particularly her husband and little boy—was more than obvious.

  When he inadvertently glimpsed the couple exchanging a long, clandestine kiss in the kitchen, jealousy punched Sloan in the gut.

  After dinner, the women put the two children—Prescott Dylan Valderian and Julianna’s ten-month old daughter, Rachel Celeste Prescott, named after her two grandmothers—to bed. The men loaded the dishwasher, then went into the living room. “It’s difficult, isn’t it?” Starbuck surprised Sloan by asking suddenly. “Watching her strap on a sidearm every morning.”

  Sloan opened his mouth to explain that he’d yet to have the pleasure of waking up with Cait, then decided if he had his way, after tonight that would no longer be the case.

  “I worry about her,” he said instead. “And the idea of her taking on this case...”

  His voice drifted off. Silence pooled around them. Sloan cursed and frowned into the crackling fire. Though the days carried the promise of spring, nights were still chilly on the island.

  “Cait seems pretty capable,” Dylan suggested helpfully.

  “Cait’s a damn good cop,” Sloan agreed gruffly. Accustomed to researching his scripts in detail, he hadn’t hesitated to ask a friend in the department to pull her jacket. All her superiors, including the commander of the Vice Squad detail had written glowingly of her intelligence and dedication. “But she’s not Superwoman.”

  Starbuck gave the screenwriter a probing look as he sipped his brandy. Sloan Wyndham looked as if he’d been poleaxed. Starbuck knew the feeling. Intimately.

  “When I first met Charity, I did not believe women should be peace officers,” he revealed, smiling as he thought back to those early days.

  “Later, even though I came to realize that her need to help people is a very strong part of why I fell in love with her in the first place, and although I am the first to acknowledge that my wife is very good at what she does, I must admit that there are still times when I am appalled at her willingness to put herself in harm’s way.

  “I also cannot deny that I’m very relieved she is no longer working in the city.” Especially now that she was carrying his child, Starbuck mused.

  “That makes two of us,” Dylan allowed. He’d worried about his twin sister the entire time she’d been in California. “But, you may as well get used to it, Sloan,” he advised. “Because I have the distinct impression that the lady has no intention of turning in her badge anytime soon.”

  “And believe me,” Starbuck added encouragingly, “there are far worse things than being in love with a dedicated, warmhearted woman determined to preserve and protect her little corner of the world.”

  Love? Sloan wanted Cait with a desperation that bordered on obsession. She’d taken over his mind, his body, and yes, dammit, a part of his heart that had always remained off limits. But love?

  While he was not yet prepared to admit, even to himself, that he was falling in love with Cait Carrigan, Sloan wouldn’t bet against it, either.

  Upstairs, as she watched Julianna lovingly tuck little Rachel Celeste between the sheets, Cait felt something soft and alien stir deep inside her.

  Since it was getting late and a storm was threatening, it had been decided that Julianna and Dylan’s daughter would spend the night here, rather than have to go out in the icy rain.

  So now, as the little girl, who looked so much like her mother, with her pale blond hair and calm gray eyes, dutifully pressed her wet rosebud lips against Cait’s cheek in a good-night kiss, Cait recognized the twinge as a quickening of her biological clock. That’s all it was, she assured herself.

  Understanding that this unbidden rush of warm emotion toward a child she’d just met was born from some primal instinct designed to perpetuate the species made it easier to accept.

  Cait reminded herself that she did not have to succumb to strange maternal urges. She was, after all, a modern career woman. And the world certainly had more than enough people without her being expected to contribute to the population.

  “Poor Sloan,” Charity murmured as she shut the door to the bedroom. “He’s having trouble with all this, isn’t he?”

  Although, as if by mutual unspoken agreement, no one at the table had mentioned the Surfer Rapist, the reason for Cait’s trip to Maine had remained with them all during dinner—the elephant in the dining room no one dared to men-tion.

  “He’s not exactly wild about the idea,” Cait agreed.

  “That’s not so surprising, really, is it?” Julianna said in her usual calm, logical voice. “Wouldn’t you feel conflicted if you found yourself falling in love with a man who risked his life every time he went off to work?”

  “If it was what he wanted to do...” Julianna’s words belatedly sank in. “Sloan isn’t in love with me.”

  “Of course he is,” both women said in unison.

  “You’re probably too close to see it,” Charity advised.

  “He may not even know it yet,” Julianna tacked on helpfully.

  “But it’s obvious that the guy’s fallen hard, Cait. And it’s just as obvious that he’s worried to death about losing you.”

  “The same way Starbuck worries whenever he allows himself to think about the risks Charity takes,” Julianna said.

  “He seemed to handle yesterday’s bar brawl story admirably enough,” Cait argued.

  “Starbuck’s come a long way,” Charity agreed, mindful of a time when her husband, in a misguided attempt to rescue her, had drawn her ire by interfering in just such a situation. “But there are still too many times when he’s over-protective, even though he understands that I’m an intelligent, independent woman.”

  “My brother is very proud of Charity,” Julianna said. “As he should be.”

  “But give him his druthers and he’d probably keep me safe in bed until the baby’s born.” Charity grinned and pressed her hand against her stomach.

  Cait’s gaze followed the unconsciously protective movement. Another jolt of envy, harder than the earlier one, but just as unbidden, and every bit as unwelcome, rocked her.

  “The thing is,” Charity, cheerfully oblivious to Cait’s shattering response, continued with a smile, “I understand that Starbuck’s sometimes frustrating behavior is his way of telling me that he loves me.”

  “Like Sloan loves you,” Julianna finished up.

  No. Cait still couldn’t believe it. Lust, hunger, desire. Even need. There were so many words for what Sloan was feeling toward her. For what she was feeling toward him.

  But it wasn’t love. It couldn’t be.

  The lobby of The Gaslight Inn proved to be even more of a treasure trove of Victorian memorabilia than Cait had been aware of last night. The lushly furnished three-story white clapboard house was overflowing with innumerable curios and ornaments. Papier-mâché trays, porcelain-faced dolls, mother-of-pearl boxes, and miniature floral arrangements displayed beneath glass domes were only a few of the items seemingly covering every flat surface.

  “This really is exquisite,” Cait breathed.

  Sl
oan decided, for discretion’s sake, not to mention that the lacy clutter had him feeling vaguely claustrophobic. “She’s got a lot of stuff,” he agreed.

  His tone revealed his lack of appreciation. “Let me guess. You hate antiques.”

  “I don’t hate them.”

  He shrugged, thinking back on those days of living with whatever broken stuff his parents could scrounge up at the Salvation Army Thrift Stores. He’d always vowed that when he grew up and became rich and famous, he wasn’t going to have to put up with anyone’s cast-off things ever again. “I just don’t understand why people think it’s such a big deal to own some old termite-infested, secondhand table when factories are turning out new ones by the hundreds.”

  “That’s just the point.” Cait paused to admire the intricate carving on the back of a horsehair-covered sofa. “It’s easy to find cookie-cutter furniture. Pieces like this are one of a kind.”

  The particular sofa she was stroking looked uncomfortable as hell. Sloan tried to imagine making love on it and decided it wasn’t all that surprising that the Victorians had been sexually frustrated.

  “Probably because most people had the sense to throw the things away when assembly lines started turning out practical, comfortable designs.”

  Understanding that not everyone shared her appreciation for the past, Cait merely shrugged. “Different strokes,” she murmured. She glanced down at the window, where the rain was streaking down the glass. “I was going to suggest a walk on the beach, but—”

  “I was going to suggest a nightcap.”

  “That sounds nice.”

  When she started to sit down on the sofa, Sloan decided it was time to move things along. “In my room.”

  “Oh.”

  She paused, looked first down at the hard horsehair cushion, then up at Sloan, who didn’t even attempt to hide his longing for her. Even knowing that what she was about to do was a mistake, realizing that she was on the brink of complicating things terribly, Cait held out her hand.

  “That sounds even better.”

  Neither spoke as they climbed the stairs. There was no need. For once, they were in total agreement.

  Sloan paused outside his door, drew her into his arms and kissed her. A slow, intimate, knee-weakening kiss that promised many more to come.

  Cait waited as he unlocked the door. She smiled, a soft, secret womanly smile as he drew her inside. Someone, undoubtedly the innkeeper, had laid a fire in the huge stone fireplace. When Cait viewed the high bed draped in gauze curtains that took up most of the room, her eyes widened.

  “It’s magnificent,” she breathed.

  “It’s also too damn big for one person,” he muttered as he lit the fire. He’d nearly gone crazy last night, thinking of Cait on the other side of the wall, imagining all the things he wanted to do with her in this ridiculously ornate bed.

  He framed her exquisite face between his palms and looked down into her soft, emerald eyes. “This is going to change things.”

  The way he was looking at her, as if he could see all the way to her soul, made her feel both reckless and safe at the same time. She could feel her blood begin to pump in places aching for his touch. She was trembling. It both excited and unnerved her.

  “Yes.”

  He brushed his lips against hers. “Once isn’t going to be enough.”

  Cait parted her lips on a soft intake of breath. “I certainly hope not,” she murmured against his mouth.

  “Do you have any idea,” he asked, his voice a husky rasp of sound, “how long I’ve been waiting to be with you like this?”

  She looked up at him, a faint regret clouding her wide green eyes. “All of a week?”

  Sloan experienced a masculine burst of relief that she was obviously unaccustomed to permitting such intimacy this soon in a relationship.

  “Longer.” He lowered his mouth to hers again. Her lips were sweet and soft and oh, so incredibly giving. “Years.” The kiss grew deeper, staying tender even as it grew more and more intimate. “Forever.”

  Cait reminded herself that Sloan was a writer, that such weakening words came easily to him. Yet for some reason she would think about later, when her blood had cooled and the mists had blown away from her mind, she chose to believe him.

  On some distant level, she realized that tomorrow there would be consequences. But thank God, tomorrow was a very long time away.

  For a man who professed to want her desperately, Sloan seemed in no hurry to progress to the next step. Instead, he continued to kiss her slowly, deeply, dreamily.

  Anticipation was making her nerves hum. “Sloan...” When those clever lips skimmed up the side of her face to linger at her temple, she caught his face between her palms and brought his mouth back to hers. “Please.” Her knees were shaking, her heart was pounding, and she didn’t know how much longer she could stand this tender torment. It seemed he intended to kiss her endlessly. “Make love to me.”

  He wondered if she knew exactly how accurate that soft plea was. Wondered if she realized that love had far more to do with what was about to happen between them than sex.

  He slipped his hands beneath her sweater and felt her tremble, which sent a sense of power streaking through him. Cait Carrigan, he knew all too well, was not a woman to tremble for any man. But she was trembling for him.

  “With,” he corrected huskily as he eased the sweater over her shoulders, her head. To his surprise, rather than the brazen silk and satin he’d expected, she was wearing a tight-fitting, ribbed cotton top cut off at her midriff.

  What was even more surprising was that he’d never known exactly how sexy plain white underwear could be.

  “With?” she echoed. Heat that had nothing to do with the crackling fire across the room, but everything to do with the flare of passion in his eyes, seemed to scorch her flesh, liquefying her bones.

  “I don’t want to make love to you, Cait,” he clarified as he began to unbutton the brief, tight-fitting top. When his knuckles brushed against the crest of her breast, she drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “I want to make love with you.”

  Dear Lord, that was what she wanted, too. As he continued to undress her, Cait’s murmurs urged him to hurry. But although it took a herculean effort on his part, Sloan continued to take his time, undressing her piece by piece, as if unwrapping the most precious of gifts, treating each bit of newly exposed flesh to a pleasure that Cait had no words to describe.

  By the time he’d dispensed with his clothes and finally lowered her to the wide soft feather bed, she’d decided that not even sublime came close.

  “You are so soft.” His hands glided over flesh that gleamed like marble in the flickering firelight. “So sweet.” His lips grazed her heated flesh from her forehead to her toes, discovering hidden secrets until she was writhing on the hot sheets in mindless ecstasy.

  He combed his fingers through the fiery curls between her smooth long legs, then, as she arched upward toward his hand in a mute plea, he slipped his fingers between those slick, excruciatingly sensitive pink lips. His stroking, ca-ressing touch brought her deftly and quickly to a peak that left Cait stunned and gasping for breath.

  “So perfect.” And, he thought with a burst of male possessiveness mingled with love, she was his. All his. Although he’d never expected it, never believed himself capable of falling in love, Sloan felt the emotion flowing through him, as strong as a river, as wide and endless as the sea.

  In her open gaze he could see twin reflections of the orange and blue fire. And an emotion he could only hope was love.

  Her damp flesh gleamed like pearls in the firelight, her hair was a wild, sensuous witch’s tangle of red and copper and gold, her green eyes were wide and bold and daring and her lips—oh, God, those sweet, succulent lips—were full and parted.

  He braced himself over her. “There’ll be no going back,” he warned, his voice roughened by his overwhelming, greedy hunger. “After tonight, you’re my woman, Cait.”

  At any
other time, in any other place, Cait would have protested such a declaration of male possessiveness. But her own need was too great. Her own hunger too strong.

  “Yours.” She raked her hands through his hair and dragged his mouth to hers, praying the rest of his body would follow.

  It did.

  He surged into her, slick hot flesh to hot flesh, steel into silk, causing her body to arch in stunned, mindless pleasure. He pressed her deeper and deeper into the mattress, his face buried in her fragrant hair. Her hands ran heatedly, restlessly, up and down his back, her short nails scraping his skin. Neither noticed as he drove them both, thrust for thrust, toward the final crest. Cait’s legs tightened around his waist, her body, poised on a death-defying peak, stiffened. When he plunged again, deeper than she could have ever imagined possible, she cried out his name as she went tumbling headlong over the edge.

  Sloan felt the convulsions ricocheting from deep within her amazingly responsive body, milking him to his own explosive release.

  * * *

  THEY WERE LYING in a tangle of arms and legs. The fire was burning down, but Sloan lacked both energy and inclination to get up and restoke the flames.

  “Tell me again,” he said as he arranged her love-tousled hair over her breasts. The brush of his fingertips caused a slight tremor that assured him that her desire, while temporarily sated, still lingered warmly beneath the surface.

  “Tell you what?”

  Her eyes were closed. The long cross-country trip, her sleepless night, the horrors that Charity had revealed about the Surfer Rapist, not to mention Sloan’s tumultuous lovemaking, had all conspired to exhaust her. Physically and mentally drained, she was floating on the edge of sleep.

  “That you’re mine.”

  His husky implication caused her eyes to fly open and sent shock waves reverberating through her. It took nearly a full minute before she could speak.

  “Sloan...” She couldn’t hide her distress. It shimmered in her ragged voice, swirled in her eyes. “We were making love.”

  Surely he didn’t intend to hold her to something said in the throes of passion. Besides, it was all his fault for making her unable to think straight in the first place.