His mother hadn’t raised the prospect of selling to the Dearborns again, and he had no idea if she’d spoken to his father about it.
It’s not just going to go away because you want it to.
He turned away from the view and headed for the bathroom, stripping his sweaty work clothes and stepping beneath the shower. He took the time to shave carefully, splashing on aftershave before pulling on his good jeans and a linen shirt he’d bought in Rome.
He admitted to himself that he was nervous as he drove to Tara’s place. He wasn’t sure why. He wanted to see her very badly. Wanted to hold her again. Touch her. Look into her eyes. He was also aware of the clock ticking. All modesty aside, he knew he had a good shot at the Chicago job. Which meant his time with Tara would be limited.
The moment he acknowledged the thought, he started coming up with out clauses for himself. There was no reason, for example, why he couldn’t fly home a couple of times a month to see her and help his folks out. She might be willing to fly out to Chicago, too. She’d talked about wanting to travel more as they floated around Fairy Lake. Maybe they could manage a long distance thing for a while.
And then what? a voice asked in the back of his head.
Long distance was only worth enduring if there was the prospect of an end in sight. And it was pretty well established that Tara was not about to uproot herself from Marietta.
She opened the door when she heard his car in the driveway, watching as he exited the truck. Her hair was up, and she’d put on a little makeup, making her eyes smoky and sexy and her mouth pink.
She looked good enough to eat.
“Hi,” she said. “How was your—”
He stole the rest of her words with a kiss, his arms wrapping around her, hands gravitating to her perky little ass. She gave a murmur of approval as he backed her toward the doorway.
He had her top off by the time they’d reached the couch, and seconds later her bra was off, too. Filling his hands with creamy smooth flesh, he tongued her nipples and relished the way she trembled in response. She started fumbling at his belt buckle, pushing her hands into his jeans. He broke from her briefly to push them all the way down, helping her do the same, then he set her on the arm of the couch and slid inside her. She wrapped her legs around him, kissing him avidly as he began to move.
“You feel so good,” he whispered in her ear. “I want to do this forever.”
“Yes.”
He reached between them to find the place she needed him the most, stroking her inside and out until she tightened around him, her knees gripping his hips. Only then did he let himself go, pleasure swamping him.
She pressed a kiss to his chest afterward, and he wondered if she could hear his still-pounding heart.
“I guess it’s lucky my sister went home earlier, huh?” she said.
She tilted her head to look up at him, her face full of laughter, and his chest got tight the way it had that morning when he’d looked into her eyes.
If he got the job, he was going to be walking away from this woman.
Good luck with that one.
Chapter Ten
The next three weeks were the most bittersweet of Tara’s life. She spent the remaining week of her leave helping out with her mother, reorganizing the townhouse and spending time with Reid. He took her paddle-boarding again, this time to Ennis Lake, and they made love on the shore beneath the warm sun. By mutual consent they didn’t talk about his job interview much, apart from general details. Reid didn’t seem eager to hash it over, and she wasn’t sure she could maintain the pretense that she would be happy for him if he got it.
The night before she was due back on the job, they had a discussion about the potential weirdness of their work situation. They both agreed that there was nothing they could do but wing it and trust each other, as they always had.
Tara turned up the following morning feeling crazy nervous and very exposed, albeit in a very different way from the day after she’d found out about Simon. Her colleagues were pleased to see her, however, and there was nothing in Reid’s greeting or demeanor to let on that she was anything more to him than his patrol partner.
She did her best to hold up her end of the deal, even though it was hard when she was so vitally aware of everything about him. The sheen of his hair, the warmth in his eyes, the texture of his skin. His smell, the way he walked, the timbre of his voice.
After twenty minutes in the patrol car, however, ingrained habit and instinct kicked in. They were on the job, and anything else between them fell back a step as they went about their duties. It helped that she’d always respected him—looked up to him, really—as a cop, and that they were kept busy with the usual rash of complaints. Break-ins, domestic disputes, MVAs. It was different, working together now they were lovers, but it wasn’t difficult or impossible. Best of all, she was confident that none of their colleagues or superiors had a clue what was going on between them, which was just the way she liked it. She’d had enough of being the source of department scuttlebutt. She was more than happy to cede the floor to someone else’s life dramas.
She helped out on the orchard whenever there was work to be done, enjoying spending time with Reid without having to monitor her behavior. His parents were so welcoming, she caught herself on the verge of explaining the finite nature of her relationship with Reid half a dozen times, but each time she reminded herself that they knew about the Chicago job. They knew Reid would be leaving soon.
Reid surprised her by offering to help out at her mom’s place, too, taking it upon himself to mow her lawns and do a few odd jobs around the place that neither she nor Scarlett had felt up to. Mitch was good to pitch in, too, and the Buck women found themselves in the novel position of having two healthy, strong men at their bidding. Watching Reid and Mitch joke around with each other and her mom was but one of many moments that made Tara acutely aware of the hole Reid was going to leave in her life when he finally packed up and went.
But she’d known that, going in. She was prepared for it.
At least, she thought she was.
Then she woke on a Sunday morning almost three weeks exactly after Reid had taken her to Fairy Lake, and slipped from the bed to make use of the facilities. On her way back, she diverted to the kitchen to turn the coffee maker on. She was about to pad back to bed, her head full of all the delicious ways she could wake her lover, when her gaze fell on the thick envelope sitting on the kitchen counter. The Klieg Security Group logo filled the top left corner, and she found herself taking a step closer.
Don’t, a voice in her head said, but she was already lifting it. It was empty, its contents sitting beneath it on the counter. She stared at the bold words across the top of the page. Confidential Employment Contract.
So.
Her gaze went to the postage mark on the envelope. It was dated earlier in the week, which meant Reid had been sitting on this news for at least a couple of days.
You knew this was coming.
She did. She’d prepared herself for it a dozen times. But nothing she’d imagined came even close to the way she felt right now—as though the bottom had fallen out of her world.
Which was stupid. So stupid.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, blinking rapidly to dispel the tears that were burning at the back of her eyes.
She was going to lose him.
The pain of the realization was visceral, like a blow to the solar plexus.
Which, again, was so dumb. This wasn’t an ambush. She’d bought into their fling knowing it would end, and soon. Now it was time to pay the piper.
She set the envelope back on top of the contract and turned to the sink, running herself a glass of water. Her hand shook as she lifted it to her mouth.
I didn’t think he’d go.
She closed her eyes as she admitted the truth to herself. Even though she knew Reid, even though he’d regaled her with tales of his travels, his eyes bright as he described a bazaar in Turkey or a weekend mar
ket in Paris, she’d sold herself a secret fantasy where Reid decided that he’d had enough of seeing the world, that being with her was more important than any of that. And she’d bought it, hook, line, and sinker, because she was wildly, crazily, passionately in love with him and didn’t want to let him go.
You fool.
She set the half-full glass on the drainer, unable to swallow past the lump of emotion in her throat.
For a moment she was so overwhelmed by the loss she was about to endure that the urge to sink to the floor and curl into a ball was almost irresistible.
Her mother had been like that after her father left, she remembered. She’d sobbed until her eyes were so red and puffy they were almost raw, she’d refused food, she’d spent hours in bed, not talking to anyone. Standing in Reid’s kitchen, for the first time in her life Tara truly understood her mother’s helplessness in the face of her grief.
It would be very easy to let the pain take over, as her mother had, to succumb to it and let it swamp her. Right now, it felt like a tsunami crashing down on her, unavoidable, sweeping everything in its path.
But Tara was not her mother. She’d worked diligently all her life to be different. She’d trained herself to be disciplined, to be capable. To be resilient. She was resilient.
She would be okay when Reid left. It would hurt. It would hurt like hell. But she would be okay. There would be no sleeping for days on end for her. She wouldn’t abandon herself to pain. She couldn’t.
Her knuckles were aching, and when she looked down she realized she was gripping the edge of the sink so tightly her fingers were white. She forced herself to let go. Suddenly the need to be outside, away from Reid, was so strong that she didn’t dare disobey it.
She’d brought her running gear with her last night in anticipation of a cross-country outing with Reid today. She would put it on and slip out and run until this feeling in her chest—this tight, suffocating, painful heaviness—was gone. And when she came back, she would wait until he told her his good news and she would be happy for him.
She would.
She walked quietly into the bedroom to collect the bag with her running gear. Reid was sprawled across the mattress, the sheet tangled around his hips. She stood looking at him for a long moment, aware of the urge to climb into bed beside him and cling to him. Maybe if she asked, he would stay. Maybe if she begged him.
She retreated to the kitchen before she could allow the thought to take root. She pulled on underwear, fastening her sports bra with cold, fumbling hands. Then she pulled on her running leggings and a tank top, and finally her shoes and socks. She tied her hair back into a ponytail, then took a moment to leave a quick note on the pad of paper near the phone.
Felt the urge to run. See you soon, sleepyhead. T.
She left the note propped against the coffee can and made her way to the door.
“Where are you going?”
She glanced over her shoulder to find Reid standing there in all his naked glory, one arm raised to scratch his head. It said a lot that even now, when she was on the verge of falling apart, she still felt the burn of attraction as she looked at his beautiful body.
She forced a smile. “I’m just ducking out for a quick run,” she said. “Just felt the urge.”
“Give me five and I’ll come with you.”
“That’s okay. You go back to bed. We can still go out together later.”
She loved their runs together, and she wasn’t about to give one up when it might very well be their last.
“Don’t be silly. I’ll be two minutes, tops.” He closed the distance between them, wrapping her in his arms and his smell and his warmth.
She kissed him, swallowing the burn of tears. She couldn’t object without crying. Without losing it. And she didn’t want to lose it.
Not with him, anyway.
“Okay.”
She hovered by the door as he pulled on running shorts and a tank top, sitting on the couch to tug on socks and his shoes. He ducked into the bathroom to stick his head under the tap and gulp down a glass of water, then he was back with her, his eyes alert now as he studied her.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, and she knew that he could sense her tension and upset.
He’d always been tuned into her. Always.
“Yep. Just feel like blowing the cobwebs away.”
She led the way down the steps, going through the motions of doing some warmup stretches even though she really just wanted to run.
And then they were heading up the driveway, the gravel hard underfoot, and the terrible pressing-down feeling seemed to recede as she picked up the pace.
Very deliberately she cleared her mind, concentrating on her stride and her breathing, feeling the stretch in her hips with each step, visualizing her mid-foot hitting the ground and pushing off again.
Her muscles became liquid and warm as she slipped into the groove. The wind rushing past her felt good, the burn in her legs and lungs felt good, the perfect distraction from the hollowness inside her. She increased the pace, barely looking at Reid as she pushed harder and harder.
Then, somehow, she was sprinting, arms and legs pumping, her whole body on fire as she ran as fast, as hard as she could. Her feet slapped the ground, her eyes streamed, every muscle and sinew screamed for relief.
Still she kept running, relishing the burn, embracing the pain because it was so much easier than dealing with the hurt inside herself.
I love him, I love him, I love him. Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me.
And suddenly she couldn’t breathe, and she couldn’t see, and she had to stop as tears flooded her eyes and her throat. She staggered to a halt, gasping for air, her chest heaving with sobs, tears pouring down her face.
“Tara.” Reid was panting, too, his face twisted with concern as he reached for her.
She shook her head, unable to accept his comfort when she wanted—needed—it so badly. His hands fell to his sides as he frowned, his gaze never leaving her face.
“What’s going on?”
She turned her back on him, walking a few paces away, trying to get a grip. But the words she wanted to say were rising up inside her, and she couldn’t stop them, even though pride and history and experience told her they were pointless.
“Would it make a difference if I asked you to stay?” she said, her back still to him.
“Tara.”
His arms came around her from behind, his big body enveloping hers. His arms were like steel bands, and she felt the rasp of his morning beard against her cheek as he pressed his face alongside hers.
“You don’t need to ask. I’m not going anywhere, doofus.”
She frowned, not understanding. “I saw the contract, Reid.”
She struggled free from his grip, turning to face him. Needing to see him.
“I called them on Thursday and told them I didn’t want it.”
Reid’s dark eyes were steady on her as he waited for her response.
“But you don’t want to live in Marietta. You can’t imagine your life playing out here.”
“That was before us. Before I understood that what I’ve been looking for all my life is right here. Tara, I love you. I’ve been crazy about you since the moment I met you. Wherever you are is where I want to be. It’s that simple.”
She shook her head. It wasn’t that simple. Her father had been like Reid, a born gypsy. Restless. Always wanting more. He’d handled being domesticated for thirteen years before his nature had gotten the better of him.
“I’m not going to make the same mistake my mother made,” she said. “You want to be out there. You love exploring new places. What is there for you in Marietta, besides me?”
“My parents. The orchard. Mountains. Lakes. A life with you by my side. The children we will have together. Believe me, that trumps Rome or Egypt or Mumbai every time, Tara.”
She shook her head again. She wanted to believe him. He was offering her everything, her
heart’s desire. But she couldn’t believe him. She couldn’t.
He reached out and caught her hand, pulling her close, his other hand reaching up to tilt her chin so he could look into her eyes.
“Let me tell you the way I see this working. My parents move into town, and we take over the house. Anything you want to change, you change, with my blessing. I’ve got some savings, and we sink a bit of money into modernizing some of the machinery to make things easier. We both take our detective’s exam, and when the time comes when we want to have kids, we work it out between us. Maybe I take some time out, then you take some time out. Whatever. And at least once a year, we turn our backs on all of this, and we go somewhere just for us. Somewhere new, somewhere we can discover together.”
“Stop it,” she said, desperately trying to hang onto her hard-earned sense of self-preservation.
“You don’t like any of that? Fine. The only part that’s not negotiable for me is you. I’ve gotten a lot of things ass-backwards in my life, Tara, but this is right. I love you, and I will always love you. You are my future. Only you.”
He was holding her face in both his hands now, his thumbs brushing her tears away.
“I want to believe you so much,” she whispered.
“Then believe, baby. I promise that if you fall, I will catch you. And I know you’ll do the same for me.”
Tara felt dizzy, as though some fundamental anchor within herself had just snapped free. If she did this and it didn’t work out—if they tried and failed—the pain she’d just stared in the eye would be nothing.
If Reid left her, it would destroy her. She would become her mother.
Reid leaned forward and kissed her lips, and she tasted the salt of his sweat and her tears, and she felt the gentleness in his hands, and when he pulled back she saw the fierce love in his eyes.
“I love you,” she said.
“I know, sweetheart. I love you like crazy. I love you so much I’m going to pretend I don’t mind about that damned motorbike, and I cannot wait to start my life with you.”
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