Love in Smoke

by Holly Hall

  Sensing my nervousness, Dane slows, watching my eyes as he runs his lips and his tongue over my hipbone, trading kisses and sucks up my rib cage to the cups of my bra. He runs a hand up my side to where the strap runs around my back, asking with his eyes if it’s okay. I release a steady breath, shifting to give him access to the clasp. With deft fingers, he snaps it open, freeing my arms from the straps and pulling it away. I’m almost appalled when he shakes his head, but then he groans. “God, you’re killing me.”

  I cover my face with my hands so I don’t overanalyze what his expression means as he takes in my half-naked body, but he tugs them gently away. “What are you hiding from?”

  “It’s been awhile since I’ve been naked in front of someone. One wrong look could ruin me.”

  He glances pointedly toward the tenting of his jeans. “You’ve got it all wrong. It’s you who could ruin me.”

  I reach down to see just how strongly he believes that, and he drops his forehead to mine as I slide my hand between cotton and skin and take hold of him. And now I am certain I want nothing more than to have his lips on mine again, filling me with the carefree abandon I felt the night I crawled across the table and into his lap. For just a few minutes, he made me feel like someone with less worries, less issues. And that was only with a kiss. I can’t imagine what I’d forget if we went any further—if I filled my body with him, not only my head.

  When Dane leans up on his knees and his hands go to my own waistband, I nod, shifting my hips so he can peel the jeans from my legs. The only thing that remains between us now is a scrap of cotton. He returns to me, and when his hand slides beneath the material and finds the place where every ounce of need and tension is concentrated, his mouth quickens on mine, his tongue caressing in time with the hand between my legs.

  His motions are slow at first, working around my underwear and treating me gently. I appreciate the thoughtfulness, but I don’t want gentle. I want our bodies to meet with the intensity our words have carried over the past few weeks. I want the tension to snap like a rubber band with our release. I push his jeans and briefs just over the curve of his backside, freeing him and using my grip on the denim to guide him where I want him. Dane pauses just long enough to retrieve a foil packet from his wallet—a nearly impossible feat, considering the bunched state of his pants—then rolls on the condom and raises his eyebrows at me.

  I bite my lip in anticipation and nod. He finally sinks into me, pausing at the point where he’s sheathed completely and can go no further, causing me to moan into his shoulder. Then he begins to rock against me.

  After so much time spent at arm’s length, we’re both hurried and not, relishing the feel of each other, then rushing because we can’t possibly get our fill. There’s so much to be said about the things I’m feeling that words couldn’t possibly encompass them. So I’m silent, for the most part, while Dane’s fingers sink into my hip, anchoring me against him, his mouth attaches to mine, and we move together as though we are two parts of one being.

  FOURTEEN

  I take a few minutes to just breathe when we’re finished. I’m glad Dane hasn’t insisted on pulling away and getting dressed yet. After something so monumental, I just want to let the dust settle for a minute. I can’t decide if I feel more whole—as the people in the romances often say after sharing such an intimate moment—or a little broken that a major volume of my life has just been closed. Not only closed, but shelved. Archived. Locked up. The era of Jenson is over, and though I don’t miss him, per se, I think there’s always some mourning involved with the ending of something.

  Dane stirs beside me. I’m still mostly wrapped around him as our chests rise and fall together, sweat drying in the cooling night air. The wind kicks up, whistling through the cracks in the walls, and I shiver. “We should probably get dressed,” he says, his lips making a scorching path across my jaw.

  “I know. I just like the feel of you.”

  He smiles against my skin. “I like the feel of you. But we’ve overstayed our welcome. I didn’t mean for us to be here so long.”

  I know he’s cautious about Trey. I don’t know why I’m not. Maybe it’s the rush of nature’s chemicals still pumping through my veins, or the playback of everything we just did. A flush colors my skin, but I force myself to disentangle from him and find my clothes. I fasten everything the best I can in the dark, smoothing my mussed hair.

  “I wish this didn’t have to be a secret,” I say in a huff, regarding the treehouse around us. It’s not the most romantic of settings, that’s true, but I don’t regret the things we did here or the things I learned.

  “I know. But I’m not going to risk your safety by being stupid.” When Dane’s head emerges through the neck of his shirt and he catches sight of my expression, he reaches over and cups my cheek. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, okay?”

  I nod, the reality of the situation returning. It was easy to forget about it when we were tangled together, thinking about nothing but pleasing each other.

  Dane doesn’t switch on the lantern until he’s at the base of the ladder, and even then, he covers it with his jacket to shield some of the light. I use what little there is left to guide me down the ladder, and once I’m halfway down the slats, his hands are at my waist and he’s lowering me the rest of the way down. We walk hand in hand, the quiet of the woods suddenly feeling stifling. A sudden crackling in the underbrush makes me jump, but Dane squeezes my hand.

  “Lots of deer out here. Nothing to worry about.”

  I swallow hard, silently willing myself to calm down.

  “Having second thoughts?” he asks.

  “No, I just . . . I can’t help but wonder if I’m worth all this. You have so much at stake. Much more than I do. I can’t believe you’d even consider risking everything.”

  He stops in place, and his hand looks ghostly in the dappled moonlight as he fits it in the depression on the side of my neck. When he skims his thumb over my jaw, it causes a chain of goosebumps to rise in sequence down my arm. “I can’t believe I would consider dragging you into this. Half of me wants to tell you to go back to Nashville; leave all of this and promise you’ll forget about my family and everything I told you.”

  “And the other half?” I ask, my heart snagging on those words.

  “The other half says fuck it all.”

  His hand is around the back of my neck in a split second, pulling my mouth to his. The lantern drops to the ground, forgotten, and the intensity from the treehouse is still very present as one of his hands holds me firmly to him while the other runs through my hair. I slip my hands beneath his shirt, my fingers spreading over the warmth of a body hewn from hard work.

  As my control weakens, I don’t attempt to summon it back. I just hook my fingers in his belt and pull him closer. His lips land on the sweet spot just below my ear and I have to suppress a moan. I don’t want to risk being overheard, and I’m over-conscious about the sounds I make in response to his mouth.

  This time it’s me who speaks up first because, as the time grows later, the chances of us being found out increase.

  “We should go.”

  He pries his lips from mine, our breaths sounding far too loud in the night. “Yeah,” he says, kissing me again.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “I know. I can tell.”

  “How is that?”

  “Your heart. It was almost pounding out of your chest.” He pauses, placing his hand just above my left breast. “You like this.” He skims over the spot on my neck again with his fingers, making me lift my shoulder reflexively. Grinning at the response, he bends to place his lips there, and my breath hitches when I feel the barest graze of teeth. I shudder.

  “I can’t think straight when you do that.”

  “I can’t wait to make you not think straight . . . again, and again, and again.”

  My mind reels the whole ride home. There’s so much to process, but I can’t get past the sad fact that Dan
e has been haunted by so much, his every step shadowed by the past, and I would’ve never known it if I hadn’t given him a chance to explain. I chalked him up to nothing more than another charmer preying on women—specifically the unsuspecting new girl—to satisfy short-lived appetites.

  And while I’ve been caged by my own close-mindedness, Dane’s been unable to ask anyone for help or advice due to the sensitive nature of the situation he’s entangled in. I can’t fathom how much he’s been craving the company of another. Not just physically—he is capable of receiving plenty of that—but emotionally. I don’t doubt his strength. I witnessed his armor the first time I laid timid eyes on him at Henderson’s; charm and kindness and wit—pretty, distracting things that hide a multitude of demons. But, like any force of nature, even the strongest of us weaken under constant pressure. You cannot escape it without first being molded, adapted. Fortunately for Dane, he will come out on the other side honed and strong, a product of that weight. I’m confident of it.

  My heart is filled with vengeance for him, the goal to stay out of the petty business of this town now a distant memory. I may have succeeded in repelling friends and keeping my distance from the Bobs, and still I’ve managed to dive headlong into something with much more dire consequences.

  It would be easier to get out now, cut ties while things are still fresh and new. The me who first came here, damaged and broken, would’ve been able to as a simple matter of self-preservation. But, in a little over a month, I’ve made a departure from that person. That mindset I used to keep people out while I licked my wounds only hampered my growth into the independent woman I’m striving to become. So I’m past the point of no return, and the stubbornness in me wants to see this through.

  Dane needs someone. In that, I can help him. I said that with Jenson too, but the odds were stacked against me from the start. He didn’t want to help himself. Like pushing a cart uphill, it’s nearly impossible to accomplish if your partner is only adding weight to the other side instead of helping. Dane has been working to free himself from the load of his situation for years. I can’t walk away from that.

  As we pull into my driveway, something tugs at the back of my overactive mind. This evidence he referred to. I don’t have any legal experience, but I assume it’s not such a straightforward thing to solve an old case with newly-uncovered evidence. There’s the matter of withholding to take into account, and maybe credibility. It’s Dane’s shaky reputation that worries me, and I don’t know how deep Trey’s connections run. Fortunately, I know someone who I think would be willing to advise me on this legal matter, and as Dane kisses me goodbye and waits until I’m safely inside, I formulate a plan.

  Mike Branson isn’t difficult to find. I’m sure if I had driven around long enough, I would’ve come across his squad car prowling the streets sooner or later. I didn’t want to waste the gas, so I’m here at the station, waiting for one of his underlings to contact him for me.

  I shift from foot to foot. The smell of stale coffee and an unwrapped sandwich on the desk in front of me makes my stomach turn. Pickles and mustard.

  “Did you give him my name?”

  The stern-faced secretary, or whatever she is, gives me another pinched look. I fight the urge to warn her that her face is going to get stuck like that. It’s something my mother would say. “The sheriff is very busy, as I’m sure you probably expected, Ms. . . .”

  Just as I thought, in one ear and out the other. “Sutter.” I remind her, annunciating both syllables louder than I should.

  “Raven?” a voice calls from down the wood-paneled hall, just seconds later. Mike Branson’s newly buzzed head is craning out from a doorway. His office, I presume, just ten paces away from me. And here this lady was keeping me in the waiting area for the hell of it.

  “Thank you for all of your help, Ms. . . .” I say as kindly as possible, though I utilize her same dismissive words.

  “It’s Mrs. Mrs. Pelham.”

  I’m already walking away.

  Mike looks surprised to see me, but he covers it up while offering me a handshake that would lead observers to believe we’re more familiar than we are. “I know I told you we’re here to help, but I can’t say I ever thought to see you here, Raven.” He ushers me inside his office, then clears the litter from his desk. Empty, brown-stained coffee cups, takeaway bags, papers and files—they all go into a pile in the corner.

  “I didn’t, either. I just had a quick legal question, and I wasn’t sure whom to ask.” I don’t mention that I don’t have anyone else to ask, period. Don’t want to give him the impression that he’s needed.

  “Well, I’d be glad to help.” He smiles again, his version of warmth, but his eyes take the long way down my jean-clad legs. I instantly regret my choice of form-fitting skinnies.

  I sink into a pleather chair and try not to flinch when he perches on the corner of his desk closest to me, angling his head in my direction. And now it strikes me how incredibly unprepared I feel to be asking the sheriff a question of such a sensitive nature.

  “I was . . . watching a crime show the other night, something about cold cases, and a piece of information was uncovered. I just wondered how likely it was for someone to be convicted based on that information alone.”

  Mike’s eyes narrow, and his tongue darts out to lick the corner of his mouth before he answers. “I’d say it depends on the crime, the significance of that information and if it’s just circumstantial. Of course, witness accounts and hard evidence are more likely to get a conviction.”

  “So what if it was hard evidence? I mean, it was. It was a weapon registered to someone who wasn’t involved in the crime. But there were no witness testimonies to support the prosecution’s claims, or any other evidence pointing toward that particular man . . . person . . . as the guilty party.”

  The cheap material squeaks as I shift in the chair, growing uneasy under his scrutiny. I can see the gears of thought turning in his head. I’m trying to play it cool, but my underarms are prickling with sweat. If I don’t get my answer soon, I’ll have to escape before it becomes noticeable.

  Mike leans forward a fraction, screwing his face up as he thinks. “Well, working any case is tricky. There’s a certain finesse you have to use, if you get what I’m saying.” His tone has changed, the emphasis on his words leading me to believe he’s trying to be impressive. As long as he’s not suspicious, I guess I should be glad. “You have to know when to put certain pieces into play. What buttons to push to get a certain result.”

  “With the law, that result should be finding those who are truly guilty, shouldn’t it?”

  “Of course, Raven. What else are we here for?” A slow, oily smile spreads across his face. “Like I was saying before, there are hundreds of moving parts to take into account. In the situation you’re describing, they’d investigate if the weapon in question is a close enough match to the murder weapon. I’m assuming that weapon is a gun? In that case, ballistics would check if the bullet was fired by that specific gun. They’d have to verify the suspect’s alibi and attempt to find out why that weapon was somewhere it shouldn’t be.” He spreads his palms. “There’s an answer to everything. Some are more difficult to pry out, but we do pretty well here in Heronwood.” When he winks, I try not to make my cringe obvious.

  “That’s very impressive, Sheriff. I’m sure your officers do an excellent job, a lot more than meets the eye.” I go to rise from the chair, and he places a heavy hand on my shoulder.

  “I appreciate that. And I appreciate you coming to me with this concern of yours. Some of the folks around here are resistant to voice any issues they might be having, being that we’re part of such a small community. You know you can trust us with any and all concerns, don’t you?”

  I use my purse as an excuse to shrug out from under his palm, bending to grab the strap. “Of course. No issues here, thankfully.” It’s not the complete truth, but it’s close enough that I don’t have any trouble lying. “And thank you for
answering my question. You know how everyone these days thinks they’re an expert just because they watch a few hours of those shows a night. I just wanted to verify my theories.”

  “I’m glad,” he says, giving me another wink. I wonder if that ever works like he intends for it to. My guess is no.

  “Well, thank you again. I should get going. Lots to do.”

  “All right, Ms. Sutter. You let us know if there’s anything we can do for you. I’ll tell Suzie you’re permitted to come directly to my office next time.”

  “I appreciate it,” I say, just as I’m thinking there’s no way in hell I’ll be returning here.

  As I step into the sunlight and the sheriff’s explanation echoes in my mind, I taste acid in my throat. If Dane’s concern is any indication, I conclude that Trey is not someone I’d like to test. I imagine it will be near impossible to track down and verify an alibi for Dane, and witness statements against him wouldn’t be difficult to fabricate.

  It feels like a dead-end, but I don’t even consider giving up. I will not watch idly as something else I care about goes up in smoke.

  FIFTEEN

  In a way I can’t explain, Dane’s and my relationship-that’s-not-a-relationship has somehow blazed through the crush stage and landed right in the middle of strong feelings. I’ve never met a man like him, nor have I ever thought I’d get involved with someone from such a complicated background. And if you asked me if the fact that our safety being at risk makes this any more passionate, I would say my position on that matter wavers. I’m terrified at times and enthralled at others, and sometimes the latter worries me. Is it my old throw-caution-to-the-wind self that’s allowing me to take such a risk, or is it just the natural growth endured by all humans following life-altering incidents? I haven’t yet decided.

  I’m plagued by thoughts of him throughout all hours of the day, even during the most menial of tasks. At work while cleaning teeth; at home while doing laundry; in the middle of tidying up my living room or throwing out more unnecessary junk from my already diminished stash of belongings; while taking a shower . . . The hot beat of the water only reminds me of the way his hands felt on my skin—I practically pant at the memories—and I can’t comprehend how much more intense this would feel if we didn’t have to be guarded. In the lonely hours of the night, Dane replaces every other face who’s ever starred in my cognitive fantasies, and the suspense of seeing him again makes my skin come alive, tingling with anticipation.