by Maggie Price
“Well.” Deni leaned a hip against the island. “It’d be worth getting scared if Josh was who showed up to protect me.”
Before Regan could switch off her thoughts, her mind clicked to the kiss she and Josh had shared. And the blast furnace of desire it had ignited in her.
“I could have done without the entire experience,” she said.
“Etta’ll have a fit if the doc won’t let her go to the derby fish fry,” Howie said. “Excepting Christmas and Thanksgiving, that’s the only night Truelove’s closes.”
“I’d forgotten about the fish fry.” From the chatter Regan had heard from the locals, everyone in Sundown attended the event at the marina where the winner of the annual fishing derby was announced.
“If Etta’s fever stays down, Doc Zink should let her go,” Regan said, her mind working on a solution. “I just have to keep her off her feet. Is there a place nearby that rents wheelchairs?”
“The chair my ma used is up in my attic,” Howie said. His expression clouded. “Guess it won’t be my attic after my ex gets through with me.”
Deni patted his shoulder. “I’ll call Cinda and ask to borrow the wheelchair for Etta.”
“That’d be good. Woman’s gone overboard with religion. Every time I see her, she accuses me of being a heathen.” He shook his head. “You expect to live out your life with someone, then look what happens.”
Regan closed her eyes. She’d done nothing more than join a group of colleagues for coffee after delivering a gunshot victim to the E.R. What would her life be like now if Detective Payne Creath hadn’t been in that group?
“Hey, Regan, looks like you’re in for it.”
Deni’s comment scattered Regan’s thoughts. She glanced across the kitchen. Deni now stood near the swinging door, peering through the cutout in the wall.
“What am I in for?” Regan asked.
“Burns Yost just bellied up to bar,” Deni answered. “I heard him last night pestering you for an interview. He never gives up when he smells a story. Bet he’s back for round two.”
“Great,” Regan said, and felt her headache crank into high gear. “Just what I need.”
After her shift ended, Regan drove back to Etta’s. Slipping noiselessly into the dimly lit bedroom, she was relieved to find her patient fast asleep and her temperature hovering near normal.
Despite the late hour and the fatigue that weighed on her, Regan felt too unsettled to go to bed. Wanting fresh air and solitude, she changed into shorts and a tank top. After pouring a generous glass of merlot, she stepped out the back door to the wooden deck that nestled against the lake’s bank.
The night air was a still, warm caress against her flesh. Moonlight poured down, mingling with the soft glow of the lights affixed to the back of the house. Settling on a padded lounge chair, Regan stretched out her legs and sipped wine while taking in the stars that twinkled against the dark sky.
She had thought she’d be spending this night somewhere other than Sundown. Regan didn’t lament her decision to stay and take care of the woman who’d given her so much. She could, however, regret that by staying she’d had to deal with another barrage of Burns Yost’s determined insistence that she give him an interview. The owner of the Sundown Sentinel had finally given up and left, but Regan had the feeling she hadn’t seen the last of the former investigative reporter.
Closing her eyes, she savored the warmth the wine had begun infusing into her system. With her muscles loosening like molten wax, she concentrated on the sounds around her. Cicadas sawing a scratchy tune. The croaking of far-off bullfrogs. The bumping of the sleek, high-powered speedboat moored against the dock next door.
McCall’s boat.
Her forehead furrowed. She was going to have to be careful around Josh. Limit her contact with him.
Pressing her fingertips against her eyelids, she struggled to block the remembered feel of his mouth against hers, the strength of his hands when they’d curved possessively at her waist. Suddenly—distressingly—close to tears, she swallowed around the lump in her throat. Why, of the men she had met since she’d begun her new life, did only Josh McCall have the potential to reach her? And why was she allowing herself to even acknowledge that fact when getting involved with him would have so many far-reaching consequences? The least being his somehow finding out her true identity, slapping her in handcuffs and arresting her for murder. The worst—Josh could become a target for Payne Creath’s vengeance.
That sudden realization had Regan going still on the inside. The New Orleans homicide cop had killed Steven and Bobby because he perceived them as standing in his way. For the past year, she’d been so filled with grief and fear that the last thing she would have done was turn to any man for protection, much less for comfort. Then Josh walked into Truelove’s, and she’d felt the earth move. And, despite her best intentions, every encounter since then had brought them closer together. If Creath found out, if he even sensed that, he would deal with Josh as he had Steven and Bobby.
“You’re quite a picture, Regan Ford, sitting there in the moonlight.”
Gasping, she lunged forward on the lounge chair. Wine sloshed onto her thigh.
“Dammit!” Josh’s sudden appearance while her thoughts had been focused on Creath’s black-hearted revenge had panic beating wings in her stomach. He’s not here, she reminded herself. He had no way of knowing Josh even existed.
“Careful,” Josh cautioned softly, handing her a white hand towel. “You don’t want to waste good wine.”
Wiping the towel against her wet thigh, she shot him a look, and the retort on the tip of her tongue slid away. He was standing in a wash of dim light, big and wet and naked except for a pair of low-slung black swim trunks.
Oh, my. “You’re dripping,” she managed, and returned the towel. It wasn’t fear or panic that had her pulse thudding now.
“That usually happens after I go for a dip in the lake,” he said as he began toweling off.
Despite his leanness, there was a sense of power and endurance in the breadth of his chest and shoulders, the streamlined waist. In the silver moonlight his body looked like polished rock.
He watched her watching him. “You interested in a swim, Regan?”
She sank back into the cushions and tightened her fingers on the stem of her glass. “I don’t have a swimsuit.”
His mouth curved. “I’ll take mine off so you won’t feel overdressed.”
“Not interested.” She closed her eyes in defense. Why did those broad shoulders and hard muscles—the entire package—have to look so good, so tempting? She set her jaw against a rush of arousal, rendering it a distant throb she could control. “Don’t let me keep you from going back in the water.”
“Things are more inviting here on the dock. How’s Etta?”
“Her fever’s down and she’s sleeping like a baby.”
“Good.”
Regan heard wood creak as he moved closer. His clean, musky male scent had her breath going shallow.
“This boat dock holds a lot of memories for me,” he said.
She kept her eyes closed. “I’m guessing women were involved.”
“No, at least not in the way you’re thinking. One of those memories has to do with my sister Carrie. I pierced her ears right about on the spot where you’re sitting.”
Regan opened one eye, gazed up at him. “Is that a fact?”
“It is.” He looped the towel around his neck, then sat down beside her, his thigh resting against her left hip. “Carrie was about four years old, which would have made me ten,” he added, apparently oblivious that the contact had started Regan’s nerves jumping like cold water on a hot griddle.
She pointed to the padded lounge chair a few inches from hers. “We’d both have more room if you’d sit there.”
“Carrie kept whining to mom about getting her ears pierced,” he continued without missing a beat. “Mom vetoed that, saying Carrie was too young.” He shrugged. “We all put up with Carrie�
��s pouting for about a week, then I decided to do something about it. So I pilfered a couple of clothes pins, sat Carrie down out here and stuck the pins on her earlobes until they went numb and then used a needle to pierce her ears.”
Regan had both eyes open now. “Did you at least sterilize the needle?”
“No, and my dad pointed that out before he blistered my butt with his belt.” Grinning, Josh snagged the glass from her hand, his fingers gliding over hers. “Good merlot,” he commented after taking a sip.
Regan studied his strong, chiseled profile as he took another drink from the glass. She knew she should excuse herself. Go inside and get away from the man who presently had her system jangling and could make her throat click shut with just one slow, lazy grin.
Just for a while, she promised herself. Would it really be so awful if she stayed for a little longer? Listened to stories about people who had normal lives, as she’d once had.
Reclaiming her wineglass, she took a slow drink while she met his gaze over the rim. “You said this dock has memories. Plural. What’s another?”
“It’s the first place I got arrested.”
“Arrested?”
“That’s right.”
Taking another sip, she settled back into the cushion. “I’m all ears, Sergeant McCall.” Much better to talk about his criminal history than hers.
“I must have been fifteen that summer. My sisters had gone to a sleepover and my parents were at a dance at Truelove’s Tavern. They left my oldest brother, Bran, in charge. Which was a mistake because he’d just gotten engaged and his fiancée was staying here, too. So, Bran and Patience were otherwise occupied instead of keeping an eye on Nate and me, and Etta’s son, Mike.”
“Three teenage boys with no restrictions on a summer night,” Regan said. “Sounds like a recipe for trouble.”
“We weren’t looking for trouble, just a little fun,” Josh said, raking a hand through his damp hair. “After it got dark, Mike and I decided to do some slalom skiing. Nate said he’d drive, so we piled into our boat and headed out. Somebody called Chief Decker. He busted Mike and me, and hauled us in.”
Regan frowned. “For skiing at night?”
“Actually it was our style that someone took exception to. We called it full body barefootin’ slalom.”
Regan sent him a wary look. “I never heard of that.”
“Not surprising.” He slid the glass from her fingers, sipped, then handed it back. “Mike and I invented the technique.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why did Decker bust you for your style of skiing?”
“Because it’s also known as ‘buck naked, full body barefootin’ slalom.’”
Regan didn’t mean to smile, it just happened. “You skied naked?”
“As jaybirds. Decker was waiting on the dock when we got back. He loaded Mike and me, still wearing our birthday suits, into the back of the patrol car and drove us to the station. The only person there was Ula Reynolds, the dispatcher. She had five boys of her own, all hell-raisers, so her seeing Mike and me bare-assed didn’t faze her, but it sure did us. Decker paraded us into a cell, then called our parents. They had to leave the dance, go home and get us some clothes and come pick us up. I was grounded for about a year.”
Laughing, breathless, Regan shook her head. “What about Nate? Didn’t your brother get hauled in, too?”
“No, he kept his trunks on while he drove the boat. Mr. Law and Order just sat on the dock, giving us a shit-eating grin while Decker hauled us off.”
“Mr. Law and Order?”
“Nate’s a cop, too. So are Bran and my three sisters. All on the Oklahoma City PD.”
“So, there are six cops in the McCall family?” Regan asked, remembering he’d said the entire clan planned to descend on Sundown over the Fourth of July holiday.
“More. My dad and granddad are both retired from the OCPD. And Morgan, Carrie and Grace are all married to cops.”
The thought of living next door to so many people who had the power to lock her in a cell brought all of Regan’s nerves swimming to the surface—and reminded her just how dangerous the man was who presently had his thigh snugged against her hip. “Sounds like you have your own miniprecinct.”
“We could probably handle a minor riot all on our own.”
She pulled her legs up to her chest, breaking the contact. “You said this dock was the first place you were arrested. Was there a second?”
His dark gaze dropped to her legs, then lifted. “There was.”
“Arrestees don’t usually wind up becoming law enforcement officers.”
“I almost didn’t, but that wasn’t due so much to the trouble I constantly got myself into. It was more because my brothers and sisters were always going around saying how they wanted to be a cop when they grew up. Nobody ever said fireman or doctor or lawyer. It was always just cop. Then they’d give me this we-expect-you-to-pin-on-a-badge look. I got the feeling I had no say in the matter.”
“So you rebelled?”
“Big-time. Back then, I was hellbent on making my own mark. Cops’ and preachers’ kids are a lot alike when it comes to thinking there’s a certain enticement to living life on the edge. So I took up with some disreputable types and for a couple of years surfed just above the law. I knew my pals stole cars and were into other criminal activities. I even saw them committing various petty crimes. Miraculously, I never got involved.”
“Do you think that was due to an inborn sense of right and wrong?”
“Could have been. Sometimes circumstances kept me from tripping up. A sibling’s birthday party or an encounter with a girl or something along those lines would keep me from meeting up with my supposed friends. My dad always made sure to let me know whenever one of them got picked up. And he’d point out that if I’d been with them I’d have been nabbed, too. Looking back, I figure I missed becoming a felon by a matter of minutes.”
“What got you arrested that second time?”
“All the hell I raised got me into a lot of brushes with cops, but they’d routinely call Dad instead of hauling me to juvie hall. Then one night a party I was at got raided and I got picked up for public drinking. The patrol cop knew me and called my Dad. The problem was, he’d reached his limit and refused to intervene. So I wound up in juvie hall lockup with a pissed-off cokehead who had a knife hidden in his shoe.” Josh raised his hand, rubbed a fingertip along the scar that snaked up the right side of his neck. “I mouthed off to the dude and he nearly severed my carotid artery. If a counselor hadn’t been nearby, I’d have bled to death.”
Regan resisted the urge to reach out and slick her fingers across the scar. “Did that brush with death convert you?”
“It was more like changing sides than a conversion.” Keeping his gaze on hers, he cupped his palm against her right calf. “Living life on the edge will always have a certain appeal for me,” he added. “You’ve got soft skin, Regan.”
The warmth of his palm against her flesh had her breath shallowing. “So…the former bad boy is a cop. One who admits he has no respect for rules. How does that work, McCall?”
“I didn’t say I don’t respect rules. What I said was rules complicate things, so I work around most of them.” Keeping his gaze on hers, he slid his hand up to nest behind her knee. “Not all rules, though. I have a short list of unbreakable ones.”
Heat crept up her neck into her face. “For instance?”
“Getting involved with another man’s woman. That’s something I won’t do.” He leaned closer, his bare chest brushing her knee. “So, I have to ask you, Regan, are you married?”
She tore her gaze from his and focused on the still lake, its surface shimmering with a dozen silver shades of moonlight. “My status didn’t seem to matter to you last night when you kissed me.”
“I’ve been doing some thinking since then.”
“About?”
“You.” He hooked a finger under her chin, tugged her head back, forcing her to meet his gaze. �
�I don’t know why, but I can’t seem to lock you out of my head.”
She pulled her chin from his touch. His thumb was skimming up and down her calf, spreading heat through her entire body. “You need to work harder at locking me out, McCall.” And she him.
“Why?”
“I’m not free.”
“Does that mean you’re married?”
She hesitated. By necessity, she had lied to everyone she’d encountered over the past year. Doing so was second nature to her now. Yet, something inside her wanted to tell Josh the truth, or at least a version of it. “Marriage isn’t the only thing that puts a person off-limits.”
“So, you’re not married?”
“No. Look, just—”
“Relax,” he said, his fingers tightening on her leg when she began to pull away. “Do you know tonight’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh?”
“Lately, I haven’t found a lot that amuses me.”
“That’s a shame because you’ve got this rippling, smoky laugh that flows across the skin.” He slid the glass from her hand, set it on the dock, then edged closer on the padded cushion. “It’s not a sound a man forgets.”
“Don’t.” She lifted a hand, splayed her fingers across his chest. His warm, bare, hard-as-a-rock chest. Beneath her palm, she felt his heartbeat. How could his be so even and steady while hers had launched into orbit? “I can’t do this.”
“You said you weren’t married.”
“I don’t want to do this.”
“I might believe that if I couldn’t see the way your pulse is pounding in your throat.” His hand eased up to her thigh. “Or feel it jumping.”
The air around them went very still, very suddenly. The night sounds echoed off the water and surrounded them as if she and Josh were on some small island, all alone. Regan’s gaze dropped to his mouth, and her breathing went uneven. Heaven help her, she wanted to feel his lips against hers again even more than she wanted to drag in her next ragged breath.
Lust crept over her skin, as searing and heady as the wine she’d consumed. She wanted her hands on him, all over him. Wanted him, knowing how temporary it would be, how fleeting. How agonizing that there could be nothing for them in the future. She forced herself to ease back.