Sheryl was still lecturing when she rounded the corner of her building. The sight of two squad cars pulled up close to the arch leading to her courtyard stopped her in midscold. Curious and now a little worried, she hurried through the curving entrance. Worry turned to gulping alarm when she saw a uniformed officer standing just outside her open apartment door.
Oh, God! Something must have gone wrong last night! Maybe Harry was hurt!
Her heart squeezed tight. So did her arms, eliciting an indignant squawk from Button.
“Sorry!”
Easing the pressure on the little dog, she ran across the courtyard. “What’s going on? What’s happened?”
“Miss Hancock?”
“Yes. Is Harry all right?”
“Harry?”
“Harry MacMillan. Marshal MacMillan.”
“Oh, yeah. He’s inside. He’s the one who called us when he found your front door open.”
Sheryl fought down an instant rush of guilt. She’d forgotten all about the security systems in her worry over Button.
“Are you all right, Miss Hancock?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Then where the hell have you been?”
The snarl spun Sheryl around. Harry filled her doorway, his body taut with tension and his eyes furious. Another uniformed police officer hovered at his shoulder.
She took one look at his face and decided this wasn’t the time to tell him about the wild chase Button had led her through the apartment complex. In the mood he was obviously in, he’d probably skin the dog whole.
“I, uh, went out to get the newspaper.”
His blistering look raked her from her sweat-streaked face to her bare toes, then moved to the rolled newspaper lying a few yards away...right where Sheryl had dropped it.
“You want to run that by me one more time?”
She didn’t care for his tone. Nor did she appreciate being dressed down like a recruit in front of the two police officers.
“Not particularly.”
Although she wouldn’t have thought it possible, his jaw tightened another notch. Turning to the police officer, he held out a hand.
“Looks like I called you out on a false alarm. Sorry.”
“No problem, Marshal.”
“Thanks for responding so quickly.”
“Anytime.”
With a nod to Sheryl and Button, the two policemen departed the scene. Harry turned to face her, his temper still obviously simmering. In no mood for a public fracas, Sheryl brushed past him and headed for the cool sanctuary of her apartment.
Harry trailed after her, scowling. “Why are you limping?”
“I stepped on a stone.”
For some reason, that seemed to incense him even further. He followed her inside, lecturing her with a lot less restraint than she’d lectured Button just a few moments ago.
“That could have been glass you stepped on.”
“Well, it wasn’t.”
“Running around barefoot is about as smart as leaving your front door wide-open! Speaking of which...”
The oak door slammed behind her, rattling the colorful Piña prints on the entryway wall.
“You want to tell me what good a security system is if you don’t even bother to close the damned door?”
Enough was enough. Sheryl had run a good mile or more after the blasted mutt. She was hot and sweaty. Her hair hung in limp tendrils around her face. Her heel still hurt like hell. And she’d spent most of the night worrying about a U.S. marshal who, judging from his foul temper, obviously hadn’t apprehended the fugitive he wanted.
Bending, she released the dog. Button promptly scampered off, leaving her to face the irate Harry on her own. She turned to find him standing close. Too close. She could see the stubble darkening his cheeks and chin...and the anger still simmering in his whiskey-gold eyes.
Drawing in a deep breath, she decided to go right to the source of that anger. “I take it Paul Gunderson wasn’t aboard the plane you intercepted.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” he rasped. “Me, too. And it didn’t exactly help matters when I arrived to find your apartment wide-open and you gone.”
“Okay, that was careless.”
“Careless? How about idiotic? Irresponsible?
“How about we don’t get carried away here?” she snapped back.
Her spurt of defiance seemed to fuel his anger. He stepped even closer. Sheryl refused to back away, not that she could have if she’d wanted to. Her shoulder blades almost pressed against the wall as it was.
“Do you have any idea what I went through when I found the door open and you missing?”
The savagery in his voice jolted through her like an electrical shock. In another man, the suppressed violence might have frightened her. In Harry, it thrilled the tiny, adventurous corner of her soul she’d never known she possessed until he’d burst into her life.
How could she have fooled herself into believing she wanted safe and secure and comfortable? The truth hit her with devastating certainty.
She wanted the fierce emotion she saw blazing in this man’s eyes.
She wanted the fire and excitement and the passion that only he had stirred in her.
She wanted Harry...however she could have him.
“No,” she whispered. “I don’t know what you went through. Tell me.”
He buried his hands in her hair and pulled her head back. “I’ll show you.”
This kiss didn’t even come close to resembling the ones they’d shared last night. Those were wild and tender and passionate. This one was raw. Elemental. Primitive. So powerful that Sheryl’s head went back and her entire body arched into his.
Nor did Harry display any of the teasing finesse he’d used on her before. His mouth claimed hers. Rough and urgent, his hands found her hips and lined her into him. Sweat-slick and breathless and instantly aroused, Sheryl felt him harden against her.
He dragged his head up. Nostrils flaring, he stared down at her. Raw male need stretched the skin over his cheekbones tight and turned the golden lights in his eyes to small, blazing fires.
Sheryl wasn’t stupid. She knew that this barely controlled savagery sprang as much from his frustration over his failure to nab Paul Gunderson last night as from the worry and anger she’d inadvertently sparked in him this morning. She didn’t care. Wherever it sprang from, it consumed her.
Wanting him every bit as fiercely as he wanted her, she slid an arm around his neck and dragged his head back down. She knew the instant his mouth covered hers that a kiss wasn’t enough. She fumbled for his belt buckle. He stiffened, then attacked the wooden buttons on her denim sundress. The little fasteners went flying. They landed on the tiles with a series of sharp pops. The dress hit the floor somewhere between the entryway and the bedroom. His jeans and shirt followed.
On fire with a need that slicked her inside and out, Sheryl pushed Harry to the bed and straddled him. He was ready for her. More than ready. But when he reached for her hips to lift her onto his rigid shaft, she wiggled backward.
“Oh, no! Not this time. This time, I want to give you what you gave me last night.”
“Sheryl...”
“I’m going to wind you up tight,” she promised. “And leave you breathless and dizzy and wanting more.”
Much more. So much more.
Her fingers combed the hair on his belly. Moved lower. At her touch, his stomach hollowed. Hot, velvety steel filled her hand. Sheryl’s throat went dry. She ran her tongue over her lips.
His shaft leaped in her hand. With a wicked smile that surprised her almost as much as it did Harry, she bent and proceeded to leave him breathless and groaning and wanting more.
Much more.
She was still smiling when she and Harry both dropped into an exhausted stupor.
A bounce of the bedsprings woke her with a jerk some time later. Harry shot straight up, his face a study in sleep-h
azed confusion.
“Oh, God!” she moaned. “What now?”
“Did you just—”
He broke off, his entire body stiffening. An expression of profound disgust replaced his confusion. Yanking back the rumpled black-and-white Zuni blanket, he glared at the animal wedged comfortably between their knees.
Button lifted his head and snarled, obviously as displeased at having his rest disturbed as Harry was. The two males wore such identical expressions of dislike that Sheryl fell back on the bed, giggling helplessly.
“You should see your face,” she gasped.
Harry didn’t share her amusement. “Yeah, well, you should try waking up to a set of claws raking down your thigh.”
“I have,” she told him, still giggling. “Believe me, I have.”
For a moment, he looked as though he intended to take Button on for undisputed possession of the bed. Bit by bit, the light of battle went out of his eyes. Rasping a hand across his chin, he let out a long breath.
“I’ve got to go.”
Sheryl’s giggles died, but she managed to keep her smile going. “I know.”
“Even though we didn’t get Gunderson, we’ve still got some matters to clear up from last night. Ev will be waiting for me.”
She nodded.
“Mind if I use your shower?”
“Be my guest,” she said with deliberate nonchalance. “I’ve even got a razor in there. It’s contoured for a woman’s legs, but I think it’ll scrape off everything but your mustache.”
While the water pelted against the shower door, Sheryl slipped out of bed and retrieved her sundress. She wouldn’t regret his leaving, she repeated over and over, as if it were a mantra. She wouldn’t try to holed him.
She couldn’t, even if she wanted to.
She could only keep her smile fixed firmly in place when he walked out of the shower, his chest bare above his jeans and his dark hair glistening.
He gathered his clothes. By the time he buckled on his holster, a frown creased his brow. He crossed to where she sat on the edge of the bed.
“I’ll call you.”
“Ha! That’s what they all say.”
Her feeble attempt at humor fell flat. If anything, the line in his forehead grooved even deeper.
“I’ll call you. That’s all I can promise.”
Sheryl sympathized with the wrenching conflict she saw in his eyes. He wanted to leave. Needed to leave. Yet something he couldn’t quite articulate tugged at him. That something gave her the courage to rise slowly and lift her palms to his cheeks.
Like Harry, she’d gone through a bit of wrenching herself in the past few days. Without wanting to, without trying to, she’d slipped out of her nice, easy routine and discovered that she wanted more of life than comfort and security.
Harry had shown her what life could... should...be. He’d given her a taste of excitement, of adventure. Of something that she was beginning to recognize as love. She wasn’t sure when she’d fallen for this rough-edged marshal, but she had. She suspected it had happened last night, when she’d opened the door and found him standing there with his pineapple-and-Canadian-bacon pizza. She’d known it this morning, when he pinned her against the wall and everything inside her had leaped at his touch.
She was willing to take a chance that what she felt could withstand the test of time. The trial of separation and the tears of loneliness. She wanted to believe that what she could share with Harry was special, different... unlike what her parents had shared.
He hadn’t reached that point yet. She saw the hesitation in his eyes. Heard it in his voice. Maybe he’d never reach it. Maybe he’d walk out the door, get caught up in his investigation and forget her.
And maybe he wouldn’t.
Sheryl would risk it.
“I didn’t ask for any promises, Marshal,” she said softly. “I don’t need them.”
Her smile gentling, she rose on tiptoe and brushed his mouth with a kiss.
“Call me when you can.”
For the next few hours, she jumped every time the phone rang...which didn’t make for a restful morning, considering that it rang constantly.
Elise called first. After a glowing recount of the baby’s first night, she mentioned that the doctor had cleared them both to go home tomorrow.
“So soon?”
“It’ll be forty-eight hours, Sher. That’s long enough for either of us.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“Thanks, but Brian said he would take us home. Do you suppose you could swing by my house to pick up some clean clothes, though? Mine got a little messed up when I fell.”
“Sure.” Wedging the phone between her ear and her shoulder, Sheryl reached for a pad and pen. “Tell me what you need.”
She scribbled down the short list and hung up, promising to see Elise and the baby later this morning. Just seconds after that, the phone rang again. Her heart jumping, she snatched up the receiver.
It took some doing, but she finally managed to convince the telemarketer at the other end that she did not want to switch her long distance carrier.
The third call came shortly after that. Her mother wanted to hear about Elise’s delivery.
Sheryl sank onto the sofa. This conversation would take a lot longer than the one she’d just had with the telemarketer, she knew. Scratching Button’s ears absently, she told her mother what had happened at the hospital... and afterward. The news that Sheryl had failed to perform her coaching duties surprised Joan Hancock. The news of her breakup with Brian left her stuttering.
“But...but...you two were almost engaged!”
“‘Almost’ is the operative word, Mom.”
“I don’t understand. What happened?”
Sighing, Sheryl crossed her ankles on the sturdy bleached-oak plank that served as her coffee table. She’d abandoned her now almost buttonless denim dress for a cool, gauzy turquoise top and matching flowered leggings. With Button snuggled against her thighs, she tried to explain to her mother the feelings she’d only recently discovered herself.
“We decided that we wanted more than what we had together.”
“You don’t even know what you had! You’d better think twice, Sheryl Ann Hancock, before you let a man like Brian slip through your fingers.”
Joan’s voice took on the brittle edge her daughter recognized all too well. Mentally, Sheryl braced herself.
“He’s so nice,” her mother argued. “So reliable. He’d never leave you to lie awake at night wondering where he was, or make you worry about whether he had a decent meal or remembered to take his blood pressure medicine.”
Recalling the near-sleepless night she’d just spent wondering and worrying about Harry, Sheryl could only agree.
“No, he wouldn’t.”
“Call him,” Joan urged. “Brian loves you. I know he does. Tell him you made a mistake. Tell him you want to patch things up. And I suggest you do it before that so-called friend of yours sinks her claws in him.”
Sheryl blinked at the acid comment. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, come on! I may get up to Albuquerque only a few times a month, but that’s more than enough for me to see that Elise knows very well what a prize Brian is, if you don’t. She’s been mooning after him ever since her divorce.”
Struck, Sheryl thought back over the past few months. Elise hadn’t exactly mooned over Brian, but she, like Joan, was forever singing his praises. Then there was that kiss at the hospital to consider, when Elise had dragged the man down by his tie. And the substitute father’s wide-eyed wonder in the baby.
A huge grin tracked across Sheryl’s face. Harry had all but wiped away the ache in her heart caused by her breakup with Brian. She and the marshal might or might not ever reach the “almost” point she’d reached with Brian. Right now, though, she couldn’t think of anything that would please her more than for her two best friends to find the same passion, the same wild need, that she’d discovered in Harry’s arms.
>
She sprang up, dislodging the sleeping dog in the process. He gave her a disgusted look and plopped down again.
“I’ve gotta go, Mom. I have to swing by Elise’s house to pick up some clothes for her. Then I’m heading for the hospital. She and I need to talk.”
“Yes,” her mother sniffed. “You do.”
Still grinning, Sheryl hung up and headed for the bedroom. She was halfway across the room when the phone rang again. She spun around, ignoring the protest of her bruised heel, and grabbed the phone.
It had to be Harry this time!
“Miss Hancock?”
She swallowed her swift disappointment. “Yes?”
“My name is Don Ortega. I’m an attorney representing a woman you know as Mrs. Inga Gunderson.”
“Oh! Yes, I think I heard your name mentioned.”
“I understand from Marshal Everett Sloan that you’re keeping my client’s dog.”
She eyed the animal sprawled in blissful abandon on her sofa.
“Well, I’m not sure who’s keeping whom, but he’s here. Why? Does Mrs. Gunderson want me to take him to someone else?”
She frowned, wondering why the thought of losing her uninvited houseguest didn’t fill her with instant elation. The mutt had chewed up her underwear, sprayed her dining-room chair and led her on a notso-merry chase through the apartment complex this morning. Even worse, his sharp claws had brought Harry jerking straight up this morning, as they had her more than once the past few nights. She ought to be dancing with joy at the prospect of dumping him on some other unsuspecting victim.
Instead, she breathed an inexplicable sigh of relief when the lawyer responded to her question with a negative.
“No, my client doesn’t have any close friends or acquaintances in Albuquerque. She’s just worried about her, er, Butty-boo. She asked me to check with you and find out if you’d given him his heartworm pill,” he finished on a dry note.
Return To Sender Page 15