by Lori Foster
"That she's a twit? Absolutely."
"No, I didn't mean that." She swatted at him and stifled a laugh. "I mean, do you think they're a couple?"
"Worried?"
Damon knew better. She wouldn't be in Buckhorn long enough to get worried about Casey and whom he might or might not be involved with. Probably his girlfriends were too many to count, anyway. Until he'd turned sixteen, Casey had been raised in an all-male household. Sawyer and his three brothers had been the most eligible, respected and adored bachelors in Buckhorn. One by one they'd married off, starting with Casey's father. But Casey had inherited a lot of their appeal and long before Emma had left town, the females had been chasing him. "Only curious. I haven't seen him in so long."
Damon's look plainly said yeah, right. "I think he wants to be into her, if you need true accuracy. Whether or not he likes her – who knows?" Then he added with more seriousness, "You know to most men, liking and wanting have nothing in common."
That was Damon's staunchest requirement. He had to genuinely like and respect a woman to decide to sleep with her. Intelligence sat high on his list, as did motivation and kindness. The second a woman got gossipy or catty, he walked away. Unlike many of the men she'd known through the years, Damon wasn't ruled by his libido. Emma respected him for that, even while she knew he'd be a tough man to please.
Again Emma chuckled, but her humor was cut short as Casey called, "You ready to go?"
Damon ignored him as he cupped Emma's face, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "Will you be okay?"
"Yes, of course."
"Too fast, doll. That was nothing more than an automatic answer."
"But true nonetheless."
He waggled her head. "Just be on guard, okay? I don't want to see you hurt."
"I'm not made of glass," she chided.
"No, it's sugar I think." He lifted her hand to his mouth, nipped her knuckles and said, "Yep, sugar."
Emma was well used to that teasing response – he'd been saying it to her since she was seventeen years old, when they'd first met. She'd been backward, afraid, alone. And he'd treated her like a well-loved kid sister.
Laughing, she turned toward the other car, and caught the censure on Casey's face. He didn't say a word, but then he didn't have to. She knew exactly what he thought. And none of it was nice.
Worse, none of it was accurate.
CHAPTER THREE
EMMA STOOD in front of her car, watching Damon and Kristin drive away. With their departure, the previously calm evening air suddenly felt charged. She was aware of things she hadn't noticed before, like the warm, subtle scent of Casey's cologne, the nearly tactile touch of his watchfulness. The pulsing rhythm of her own heartbeat resounded everywhere, in her chest, her ears, low in her belly.
B.B. shifted beside her, restless and uncertain with this turn of events and her renewed tension.
Though he didn't make a sound, she knew Casey was now closer behind her. As if he'd touched her, she shivered in reaction, and continued to stare after the car.
"So how've you been, Em?" His voice was low and intimate, a rough whisper of sound somewhere above her right ear.
The twin taillights of the other car faded away, swallowed up by distance and fog, the inky blackness of the night. Left with nothing to stare at, Emma drew a deep breath, took two steps away and turned to him with a bland smile. "Good. And yourself?"
"Good." He visually caressed her face, slowly, thoroughly, as if he'd never seen her before. As if maybe he'd...missed her.
Emma moved to the side of the car, taking herself out of the harsh beams of the headlights. The dog followed and she leaned down to give him a reassuring pat. When she straightened, Casey was even closer than before and he made no attempt to move away. She felt vaguely hunted.
"You look so different, Em."
She wasn't about to back away a second time. Faking a calm that eluded her, she shrugged. "Eight years different."
"It's not your age," he murmured, once again looking her over in that scrutinizing way of his. "Your hair is different."
Emma started to reply, but the words hung in her throat as Casey reached out and caught a shoulder-length tress, rubbing it between fingers and thumb.
Both breathless and a little indignant, she tossed her head so that her hair fell behind her shoulders. That didn't deter Casey. He simply drew it forward again, making her frown. He was bolder than she remembered.... No, that wasn't true. He'd always been bold – with the girls he'd wanted.
He just hadn't ever wanted her.
"I don't bleach it anymore." Despite being annoyed, awareness trembled in her belly, sang through her veins. "This is my real color."
His long fingers tunneled in close to her scalp, warm and gentle, then lifted outward, letting the silky strands drift back into place. "I can't see it that well here in the shadows."
Her breath came too fast. "Light brown."
"I never really understood why you lightened it." He stroked her hair again, totally absorbed in what he did, unmindful or uncaring of her discomfort. "Or why you wore so much makeup."
She refused to apologize for or explain about her past. That was one of the things Damon had taught her – to forget about what she couldn't change and only look forward. "I thought it looked good at the time, but then, I was only seventeen and not overly astute."
Casey stood silent for only a minute. "Why don't we sit in the car? The air is pretty damp tonight."
Being that she was already far too aware of him, she didn't consider that a good idea. But the dog had heard him and, not wanting to be left out, quickly went through the open driver's door and performed an agile leap into the back seat.
Emma gave a mental shrug and scooted inside, leaving Casey to go to the passenger side. The consummate gentleman, he closed her door first before walking around the hood of the car. When he slid into his seat, she had only a moment to appreciate the sharp angles and planes of his face fully lit by the interior light. He closed his door too, and the light clicked off with a sort of symbolic finality that made her senses come alive.
Casey twisted sideways in his seat and spoke in a low vibrating murmur. "Better turn off the headlights, Em, or you'll have a dead battery to go with the busted water pump."
Though Emma knew he was right, she hated to be in utter darkness with him. Her awareness of him as a man defied reason.
He hadn't touched her, but God, she felt as if he had. All over.
"There's a flashlight in the glove box."
Casey opened the small door, moved a few papers aside and pulled out the black-handled utility light. He didn't hand it to her, didn't turn it on, but instead held it in his lap. She turned off the headlights and inky blackness settled in around them. Emma wondered if he could hear the wild pounding of her heart.
Her reactions irritated her as much as they distressed her. No other man had ever affected her this way. She'd had plenty of relationships since she'd grown up, and she'd assumed her tepid reactions had been mostly due to maturing, to wising up, to learning what was best for her. She'd accepted that sex was pleasurable but not vital. It eased an ache, provided comfort, added to the closeness, and nothing more.
Yet, sitting in a dark car next to Casey Hudson, she felt the biting greed of lust in a way that hadn't touched her since...since the last time she'd been this near him.
"So what have you been doing with yourself?" he asked, and Emma started in surprise.
"What?"
"It's been a long time." His voice held the same easy cadence she remembered from long ago, but there was an edge to it now. An edge to him. "You disappeared without a trace, so I'm just wondering what you've been up to."
Emma didn't want to get into this now. He wouldn't understand and she wasn't up to explaining. In truth, it wasn't any of his business what she did or had done while she'd been away from Buckhorn. But telling him so would have been too ballsy, even for her, and would have made her sound defensive.
Keeping her answer vague, she shrugged. "Working, like most people I guess."
She braced herself for the questions that would follow, and wondered at the hesitation she felt in explaining her job to him. Damn it, she loved her job and was proud of herself for doing it so well.
But Casey took her off guard by skipping her occupation and going straight to a more difficult topic.
"You and Damon involved?"
Anger flashed through Emma, pushing some of the sexual awareness aside. Regardless of their pasts, she didn't deserve an inquisition.
"Are you and Kristin?" Her voice sounded sharper than she'd intended, but Casey just laughed.
"No." His white teeth gleamed in the darkness. "As I said, she's a co-worker, a friend. No more than that."
Emma shook her head. Men could be so dense. "So you say. My guess is that she wants to be considerably more."
Casey touched her cheek, a casual gesture that felt hotly intimate and made her breath catch. "Yeah, well, I can be stubborn when I want to be."
She almost replied I remember, but caught herself in time. His honesty provoked her own. "Damon and I are friends."
"Uh-huh."
She didn't care if he believed her or not. She didn't. She turned away to stare out the window, letting Casey know without words that he could think what he wanted.
"If you were homely," Casey teased, "then I could maybe believe it. But Em?" He waited just long enough to make her antsy. "You're far from homely."
She tried to ignore him. The field to her left sounded with a thousand insects: the buzz of mosquitoes, the singing of crickets. Like stars in the sky, fireflies twinkled on and off.
She hadn't forgotten that Buckhorn was beautiful in the summer, but somehow the clarity of it had been blunted. The colors, the smells, the texture of the air and the lush grass and the velvet sky...
Casey stroked one finger over her cheek, down to her throat, then her shoulder. "Hell, if anything, you're more attractive than ever, and you were plenty attractive at seventeen."
Her heart punched painfully against her rib cage. How had the conversation gotten out of hand so quickly? Her laugh sounded more believable this time. "I'm guessing you must have lowered your standards."
Casey stared at her, not comprehending.
Emma rolled her eyes. "I've been in the car all day, Case. I'm dressed in what can only be called my comfortable clothes – and that's if I'm being generous. No makeup, my hair's windblown..."
"You look sexy as hell to me."
The way he growled that pronouncement robbed Emma of clear thought. She searched her brain for something to say, some way to derail him. "How long will it take Damon to get back, do you think?"
Casey didn't take the hint. He didn't stop touching her either. He smoothed her hair behind her ear and curled his fingers around her head. "Men only pretend to be friends with women to get one thing."
Goaded, Emma shifted around to face him. His hand dropped, but his gaze, glittering in the darkness, remained steady.
Even the gearshift between them didn't hinder Casey's movements. He got so close that Emma inhaled the warmth of his masculine smell on every breath.
"Is that right?" Her voice shook, her hands trembled. "Then I guess we're enemies, because there's never been a single thing you wanted from me."
Beneath the fall of her hair, Casey's hand curved around her neck in a gentle restraint that felt far too unbreakable. Trying to be inconspicuous, she pressed into the car door. It didn't help.
With near-tactile intensity, his gaze stroked her face, then rested on her mouth.
"True." There was a heavy, thrumming beat of silence, and Casey whispered, "Until now."
KNOWING HE PUSHED HER, knowing it was unfair, Casey tried to pull back. But damn it, he wanted her. Seeing her again...it hit him like a ton of bricks, throwing him off balance, making him defensive and fractious and keenly alert. Emma had influenced his life when he hadn't thought that possible. Forgetting her hadn't been easy.
In fact, he'd never managed it.
Just the opposite.
At twenty-seven, his solid position within his step-grandfather's company should have been enhanced with a wife on his aim and a couple of kids underfoot, just as he'd always intended. Instead, no woman had ever quite measured up.
The bitch of it was, he had no idea what they needed to measure up to. He didn't even know what he was looking for.
Until moments ago, when he saw Emma standing there.
As always, her eyes had been huge and soft, and all his senses had quickened with recognition. He hadn't experienced that rush of pure, white-hot intensity since... No, he wouldn't do that, wouldn't give her credit she didn't deserve. She'd run out on him and he wasn't quite ready to forgive her for that. But he was more than ready to take what he'd often regretted missing so many years ago.
Her small hands lifted to press against his chest, burning him, heightening the ache. "Casey..."
The way she said his name was familiar. Did she want him to stop or, like him, was she anxious to feel the flash fire of their unique chemistry? Her appearance, her attitude, were different. But her natural sensuality hadn't waned at all. Instead, it had aged and ripened and gotten better, richer. No woman had ever affected him like Emma did, and now, with no effort at all, she'd gotten him hot.
She wasn't a lonely, insecure child anymore.
She wasn't afraid, wasn't mistreated.
He had no reason to hold back, no reason to still feel protective. Damn it.
Without thought, Casey let his fingers stroke the nape of her neck. Just as it always had, her softness drew him, the remembered texture of her skin, her hair and her scent... God, he loved her scent. Heady and warm, it mingled with the damp fog and the gentle evening breeze.
He felt alive. He felt challenged.
"Emma?"
Her thick lashes lifted.
"Are you married?"
She shook her head, causing the silky weight of her hair to glide over his arm.
"Engaged?"
"No." She pulled her head back a little and Casey kissed her throat, nuzzling her fragrant skin, breathing her in. A sound of near desperation slipped past her open lips. "Are you...?"
"Hell no. There's no one." He didn't want to talk about that though. "You feel good, Em. You smell even better."
"Casey."
If she kept saying his name like that, he'd lose it. "You know, since you and Damon aren't involved..." If she had no commitments to anyone, then why not? It didn't matter that he rushed things. They were both grown now, both adults, so Emma could damn well make a rational decision now, rather than one based on fear and insecurity.
"Damon and I are friends." A measure of steel laced her declaration.
Had she misunderstood his suggestion?
Casey drew back so he could see her face. Her heavy lashes half covered her eyes as she watched him unwarily. She remained guarded, but she didn't push him away. He tried a different tack. "You're staying at the Cross Roads tonight."
"Yes."
Adulthood had provided new dimension to her features. Her cheekbones were more noticeable her mouth wider, fuller, her jaw firm. She was lovely – and he had to have her. "You'll be sleeping alone?" Which would make it easy for him to join her.
Her gaze flickered away, and his stomach knotted even before she spoke. "That's none of your business, Casey."
Frustration unfurled in his guts, making his tone raw with sarcasm. "Sounds like a no to me."
Chin lifted, she faced him squarely and confirmed his suspicions. "No. I won't sleep alone."
Very slowly, doing his best to rein in his seldom-seen temper, Casey released her and moved back to his own seat. The sexual turbulence remained, gnawing at him, testing him, but now other, darker emotions gripped him too. He didn't want to study them too closely. "I see."
He could feel her turmoil. And he could taste her interest, damn her. It was there, shimmering between them. Yet, she'd be w
ith Damon, her friend.
Once long ago, Casey had been her friend. Probably her best friend, if not the only one. He'd told her then that he didn't share. That much hadn't changed. He wanted her, but on his terms.
And that's how he'd have her.
Emma slowly straightened in her seat and stared straight ahead. "I seriously doubt that you see anything."
The dog stuck his head over the seat and whined. Emma shifted enough to pat him, then buried her face in his scruff. "It's okay, B.B."
Casey sat in brooding silence for several moments, watching as she comforted the big dog. Slashes of moonlight silhouetted her body and the slow movements of her stroking hands through thick fur. She ignored him as if he didn't exist, not once looking at him. It didn't matter.
Despite any protest Devaughn might make, Casey knew he'd eventually have her.
By her own admission, she wasn't married, wasn't engaged, so no one, Damon included, had any real claim on her. That left Casey free to do as he pleased. And it would please him a hell of a lot to take care of unfinished business so he could get her out of his system and get on with his life. It felt as if he'd been on hold for eight years. Now, finally, he'd discover what he'd missed so many years ago. Finally, he'd appease the ache.
Because he knew he'd lost ground by letting her see his anger, Casey changed his tack. "I got the money you sent."
Startled, she released the dog. "I'm sorry I took it in the first place. It was wrong."
"You know I'd have given it to you if you'd asked." She nodded without recognizing the outright lie. Hell, if Emma had asked him for money, he'd have known her plans and rather than leave her alone that night, he'd have kept close to her. He'd have stayed with her and everything would have turned out different.
He wouldn't have lost her for so long.
Remembering that night still made Casey tense. So many times over the years, he'd replayed it in his head, thinking of things he should have done, should have said. He'd given up on ever seeing her again.
Now she'd returned, and he'd done nothing but paw her. He wanted to tell her that he'd missed her, that she'd left a void in his life. But, damn it, she'd walked out on him without a backward glance. It still pissed him off.