Hook, Line and Shotgun Bride

by Cassie Miles

“But the grandpa let me sit on the saddle with him. And I got to hold the reins. Grandpa’s name is Calvin, like Calvin Coolidge.” Benjy made the immediate reference, but instead of his usual listing of all presidents before and after Coolidge, he said, “I love horses. Mustangs are wild horses.”

  “How many does Calvin have?”

  He yawned. “A whole bunch.”

  She shifted from baking to preparing dinner—chicken cacciatore and a creamy, bacon-flavored potato salad that would work for lunch on the following day. Benjy kept up with her, even though he was obviously tired. Tonight, he’d fall into bed early. She and Shane would have some privacy.

  Her gaze drifted toward the hide-a-bed sofa in the living room where Shane had been sleeping, and she imagined the two of them lying there naked and tangled up in the quilts and sheets that were neatly folded on the floor.

  Apparently, Shane had nothing on her when it came to fantasies. She could hardly wait for this daydream to become reality.

  Holding her desires in check, she concentrated on everyday tasks, finishing the preparations for dinner. When Shane returned to the cabin, Benjy told him all about his adventures at the horse ranch. By the time they finished their meal, it was obvious that her son was tired. By eight-thirty, he was in bed. She sat beside him, holding his little hand.

  He yawned. “Mommy, are you going to get married?”

  She smoothed her hair off his forehead. “I might get married someday. But not to Neil. We don’t get along anymore.”

  That might be the understatement of the century. She still had strong feelings for Neil Revere. All of them negative.

  “You don’t love him,” Benjy said. “Mommies and daddies gotta be in love.”

  “That’s right.” She wasn’t sure how much to explain. “I bet you have other questions.”

  “Some.” He wrinkled his nose as he snuggled under the homemade patchwork quilt. The artful pattern of blue and green swatches bespoke the excellent craftsmanship of Shane’s mother. He’d told Angela that he’d given the quilt to the owner of the cabin in exchange for computer services.

  “You can ask me anything, pumpkin.”

  “Does Neil love me?”

  Her automatic response would be to tell her son that everybody loved him, but she wouldn’t lie. She couldn’t truthfully say anything about Neil’s feelings. Though he seemed to love Benjy, his overriding goal was to possess this genius child as evidence of his own cleverness.

  “I don’t know Neil’s feelings,” she said honestly. “The reason I called off the wedding was about my feelings. I don’t love him.”

  “Do you love Shane?”

  “You bet.”

  “Are you going to marry Shane?”

  A simple question with a complicated answer. She was ready to take up where they left off this afternoon. More kissing was most certainly in order. But marriage was a whole other thing.

  “There are all kinds of love.” She picked up his stuffed green dinosaur. “I love this T-Rex because he makes you giggle. And I love ice cream with hot fudge. And I love Yvonne. But I’m not going to marry any of them.”

  “You can’t marry ice cream.”

  She leaned down to kiss his forehead. “Most of all, I love you.”

  He flung his little arms around her neck and planted a wet, sloppy kiss on her cheek.

  Leaving him to sleep, she closed the door. As she entered the living room, Shane motioned to her. Together, they went outside onto the front porch.

  The light from a full moon shone on the surrounding pine trees, chokecherry bushes and rocks. She went to the railing, and Shane stood beside her.

  “I was on the computer,” he said, “and I couldn’t help overhearing what you said to Benjy. Nice job. You didn’t lie, but you didn’t say too much. You’re a good mom.”

  “You heard Benjy ask if I’d marry you.”

  “I’ve wondered the same thing myself. I get along better with you than any other woman I’ve ever known. You’re not half-bad to look at. And you’re a great cook.”

  “If we were living in the 1950s, that’s all you’d need for a wife.”

  “What’s different about the 2010s?”

  “Check any dating Web site and you’ll find a million questions that indicate compatibility, goals, accomplishments and so on.” She gave him a playful jab in the ribs. “Not to mention sex.”

  “Are you propositioning me?”

  She looked him up and down. “I sure as hell am.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  For a long time, Shane had admired Angela from afar. He remembered the day Tom introduced them, remembered the way her nose crinkled when she laughed, remembered the daisy she’d stuck into her ponytail. A pretty girl. That went without saying. But Angela had more than a bright smile and a trim body. When he looked in her eyes, he saw an unexpected depth of character, and he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of storms she’d weathered in her young life.

  From the start, she’d had an effect on Tom. He quit drinking and signed up for AA. He turned into a responsible man and a good husband. Shane had never seen his cousin happier, and he’d wished Tom and Angela the best. He’d taught himself not to yearn for her.

  After Tom died, Angela had needed Shane as a friend; her heart had been too broken to think of him in any other way. And they had grieved together.

  At the point when he’d begun to hope there might be something more than friendship between them, she brought a new man into her life: Benjy.

  When she’d told him that she was getting married to Neil, he’d finally given up hope and accepted that Angela would never be his.

  Now she stood before him and demanded the intimacy that he’d always wanted. In the moonlight, her eyes shimmered. The summer breeze tossed the pine boughs, and the distance between them seemed to shrink as though they were being blown closer together.

  He stroked her cheek, pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and said, “I want you to be sure about this.”

  “I know what you mean.” Her voice was breathless, as though she’d just finished a ten-mile run. “Are we moving too fast?”

  “We’ve known each other for seven years,” he drawled. “Doesn’t seem like a rush to me.”

  “What if this goes wrong? Oh, Shane. You have to promise me that you’ll never stop being my friend. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without you.”

  When she clasped his arm, her touch set off a chemical chain reaction that felt like an adrenaline surge. It was all he could do to restrain himself.

  He took her hand and raised it to his lips. Her fingers trembled. He promised, “You’ll never get rid of me.”

  “What if I’m rebounding?”

  “What?”

  “A rebound,” she said. “When one relationship ends, there’s a tendency to jump into another before you’ve resolved all your feelings. It’s like a fling.”

  “Did you read about this in one of those online surveys?”

  “Rebounding is a valid issue.”

  He wished he could take all the self-help articles in the world and torch them in a huge bonfire. “Okay, let’s talk about your unresolved feelings for Neil.”

  She made a sour face. “I don’t like him, don’t respect him and he scares me a little bit.”

  “Sounds about right,” he said.

  “It does.” She nodded. “Nothing unresolved there.”

  “And when we kissed, did it feel like a fling?”

  She moved closer. “It felt right. I want to be with you, Shane. Maybe I always have.”

  That was all the affirmation he needed. He gathered her into his arms and kissed her. He took his time, lingering on her mouth. His hand slid inside her sweater and climbed her slender torso. She was slim but solid with the well-toned muscles of an athlete. At the same time, her curves were one hundred percent feminine. Her hips flared from her waist. When he cupped the fullness of her breast, she made a soft moaning sound that faded into a purr.

 
Savoring every moment, he opened his eyes and gazed into her lovely face. “Do you know that your eyes look different depending on your mood?”

  “People have mentioned that before.”

  “I’ve always wondered what color your eyes were when you made love.”

  “And?”

  “Darkest green. Like jade.” He took her hand. “Come with me.”

  She glanced back at the cabin. “I can’t leave Benjy.”

  “We’re not going far. And the security alarm is set.”

  He hadn’t wanted the first time they made love to be on a hide-a-bed with her son in the next room. This night would be special. Even if he couldn’t treat her to satin sheets and a king-size bed, he’d give her starlight and the fresh scent of pine.

  Ten yards up the hill behind the cabin, he’d assembled a nest of sleeping bags inside a circle of trees with a granite stone for a headboard.

  She jumped into the center of the sleeping bags. “You were pretty sure I’d say yes.”

  “From the way you kissed me this afternoon, I had reason to hope.” He stretched out beside her. “But I never take your decisions for granted.”

  “I’m not capricious.”

  “But you’re not predictable, either. That’s one of the things I like about you.”

  She reached down and started efficiently unbuttoning his shirt. “Don’t make it sound like I’m some exotic creature. You know I’m practical and hardworking.”

  “Stop.” He stayed her fingers. “You, Angela, are a force of nature. Exotic doesn’t begin to describe you. You’re more rare than an orchid. More precious than diamonds.”

  She gave a snort and sat back on her heels. In a few quick moves, she peeled off her sweater and pulled her T-shirt up and over her head, revealing her no-nonsense zip-front sports bra. “I’m a cook.”

  “Chef,” he corrected her. “You’re an artist.”

  From the businesslike way she was tearing off her clothes, he could tell that she hadn’t been properly seduced. The time had come for him to take charge and show her how truly special she was. He rolled over her and pinned her shoulders on the sleeping bag. “Let me undress you.”

  She gave him a curious look. “But it’s always so clumsy when—”

  He silenced her with a kiss. Slowly, he lavished attention on the sensitive parts of her body. Her earlobes. The hollow at the base of her throat. The soft skin on the inside of her elbow. And her breasts. Through the fabric of her bra, he teased her nipples into tight buds. When he finally unzipped the front of her bra, she gave a feral yelp that made him glad they weren’t in the living room of the cabin.

  Her impatience turned to arousal as she responded to the slow, deliberate rhythm of his lovemaking. Her hands explored his body. She was aggressive, as though she’d been programmed to follow certain steps. Though his need for her was rising to an intense level, he paused. He didn’t want to be another lover. He would be her only lover.

  Straddling her hips, he caught both her hands in his grasp. “Lie still, Angela.”

  She wriggled beneath him. “Why?”

  Her long hair fanned out. “I want to see you. To appreciate how beautiful you are.”

  Her eyes, her jade eyes, gazed up at him, and she smiled. “Do I live up to your fantasy?”

  “You’re better than I dreamed.”

  He lay beside her on his back, looking up through the trees at the shimmering pinpricks of distant stars. When she linked her hand with him, a bond formed between them. They were the only people on the planet.

  “I like what you said,” she whispered, “about seeing me. I want to be seen.”

  “After all these years, it seems like we ought to know everything about each other. But there’s always more.”

  “Another mood.” She sighed. “A secret we haven’t yet shared.”

  “This night is only the start.”

  And they took their time. Each touch was a new discovery as though neither of them had ever made love before. Their passion developed by degrees until the urgency overwhelmed him, and he lost himself in her.

  UNDER THE DOWN COMFORTER he’d brought from the cabin, Angela snuggled against his naked chest. Her body trembled with delicious aftershocks from their lovemaking. She felt as if she’d eaten a seven-course gourmet dinner prepared by a master chef, worthy of the coveted three-star Michelin rating.

  She’d always assumed that Shane was a good lover, but tonight surpassed anything she could fantasize about.

  When he reached behind the granite rock beside them and pulled out a picnic basket, she wasn’t surprised. The man had finesse. He unpacked a bottle of burgundy and two glasses.

  “You thought of everything,” she said.

  “I want the best for you.”

  When he uncorked the wine, she noticed that he’d gotten wineglasses. She held one up. “We didn’t have these glasses in the cabin before.”

  “I picked them up in town.”

  The goose-down comforter covered him from the waist down, but his chest was bare. He had just the right amount of springy black hair. As far as she could tell, he didn’t have an ounce of flab. He was all muscle, all man.

  Though the night breeze cooled her back and shoulders, she didn’t feel the need for a sweater. The heat of their passion still kept her warm. “What else have you picked up?”

  “Is there something I need to get?”

  “I’m asking if you’ve done any more investigating.”

  “Are you sure you want to talk about this?”

  “It’s not the usual pillow talk.” She gestured to the surrounding forest. “But this isn’t a usual pillow. The sooner we figure out what’s going on with Prentice and Neil, the sooner we can get back to our normal lives.”

  “I don’t have much to go on.” He poured the wine and handed her a glass. “I dropped off the swab for Benjy’s DNA profile. And, here’s a bonus, I can have Neil tested as well. They took DNA when he was booked.”

  “Is that standard procedure?”

  “It’s within the parameters of the law. We ought to have results in a couple of days.”

  She held up her glass, aware that she was completely naked and not feeling in the least self-conscious. When he touched his glass with hers, she said, “To the first night.”

  “But not the last,” he concluded her thought.

  The wine aroused her taste buds and slid down her throat. All her senses seemed to be heightened. And her mind felt sharp. “What else are you working on?”

  “You told me that Prentice has a cabin in this area, and I want to locate it.”

  “Why?” She grinned over the rim of her glass. “Are you hoping to find skeletons in his closet?”

  “I won’t know what I’m looking for until I see it. There’s a lot that can be learned from the way a person lives.” He licked a drop of wine from his lips. “When I was at the courthouse, I checked some property records. Prentice’s house in Aspen is a multimillion-dollar chalet. Plus, he owns a smaller Aspen house that he rents out. And another in Glenwood Springs that’s also occupied by renters.”

  It wasn’t unusual for longtime mountain residents to own several properties. Deals became available, and people bought at a good price. In the West, land was always considered a good investment. “But Prentice doesn’t have a cabin in this area?”

  “Not in his name.”

  “What else are you investigating?”

  “Carlson. I want to find out how much dirty work he’s done for Neil.”

  “What have you turned up so far?” she asked.

  “Not much. His academic records are marginal. Right now, he’s only taking a part-time course load. He sure as hell doesn’t seem like somebody Neil would handpick as his protégé. How much do you know about him?”

  She’d never paid much attention to Carlson. He was ubiquitous, part of the background. “He’s a snowboarder. Prentice said that he knew Carlson in Aspen.”

  “A couple of years ago,” Shane said
, “Carlson had a drunk and disorderly charge in Aspen. Since then, all he’s had are a couple of traffic citations.”

  The pine boughs rustled in the wind, and she gave a little shiver. “It’s chilly.”

  “Come over here and lean on me. I’ll keep you warm.”

  She rested against his chest and pulled the comforter up to cover herself. With Shane holding her, she felt as if she was wrapped inside a cozy cocoon.

  “The third issue I’m looking into,” he said, “is Neil’s mother.”

  “What does his mother have to do with anything?”

  “Have you ever heard of the ‘curious incident of the dog in the night’?”

  She sipped her wine. “Doesn’t ring any bells.”

  “Not a Sherlock Holmes fan, huh? Well, Holmes solved a case based on the fact that while the crime was taking place the dogs did not bark. No barking meant the dogs knew the intruder.”

  She twisted her head to look up at him. Moonlight shone on the strong, masculine planes of his face. In his features, she saw a younger version of Shane—a boy who savored Sherlock Holmes adventures. “I didn’t know you liked detective stories.”

  “It was one of the reasons I became a deputy. I liked the idea of putting together the clues and coming up with a solution that led to an arrest.”

  “Are you sure you want to leave that job and work for PRESS?”

  “Oh, yeah. Real-life law enforcement seldom involves a mystery. It’s pretty much cut-and-dried. You see the bad guy and lock him up.”

  “So this chance to investigate must be interesting for you.”

  “I’m pretty sure that once we have all the pieces, the puzzle won’t be that complicated,” he said. “Anyway, Neil’s mother is like the dog not barking. Nobody in his family says much about her, and that makes me think she might be important. What can you tell me about Janice Revere?”

  “She and Roger are divorced. Obviously. And I guess it was a really bloody separation. Neil is estranged from her. Prentice told me that she has serious mental problems and has been hospitalized as a schizophrenic.”

  “That’s not what I heard from Dr. Em. She recalled something about Neil’s mother working as a psychiatrist at a hospital back east. Anyway, I looked her up online and came up with several women named Janice Revere. None were the right age.”