by Janie Crouch
He was so bossy. Which both irked her to no end and turned her on a little. She gave him a little salute. “Roger that, Sheriff.”
His lips tightened—in irritation or in an attempt to ward off a smile?—so she kept walking. “You do know you don’t have to call me Sheriff, right? It’s a temporary title and the real sheriff of Oak Creek, Curtis Nelson, is taking back over soon.”
“What will you do?”
“Go back and resume my work for Linear Tactical. Teaching self-defense classes, weapons training. We do some other type of work too. Basically we take what we learned about survival in the Special Forces and make it applicable for civilians.”
He’d been a soldier. “Of course.”
“Of course, what?”
“You’re military. Or former military. I should’ve known it instantly by your awareness at the bar last week.”
He scoffed. “I obviously wasn’t too aware. You left Reddington City with the entire cash contents of my wallet.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” She grimaced.
“Was that guy Caleb in on it too?”
“No, he was just a bad choice.” She shook her head. “Taking your wallet wasn’t planned, I promise. You lent me your jacket, and it was right there in the pocket.”
“Doing something like that could be dangerous with the wrong person, you know. Get you in trouble.”
“Or arrested.”
He cut a glance her way. “Or that.”
“This is me.” She pointed to the plain door attached to the side of the small realtor’s office.
“You get to be right next to New Brothers Pizza. I’m surprised they didn’t jack up the rent because of that.”
“I’ll admit, it does smell delicious.”
“You haven’t tried it yet?” The sheer disbelief in his voice made her smile.
She couldn’t exactly explain to him why she hadn’t tried any of the mouthwatering smells that had tempted her senses since she’d arrived. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, her meals consisted of what she could get for free at the Eagle’s Nest or whatever was in a can and on sale at the grocery store. It wouldn’t always be this bad—she hoped—but that was how it was for right now. And splurging on a pizza definitely wasn’t an option.
She shrugged. “Too much working. But New Brothers is at the top of my list of things to try.”
He didn’t believe her. He stepped in closer, crowding her just the slightest bit. Not so much that she couldn’t get around him if she wanted to, but enough that he was making a point.
He wanted her attention.
“Tell me what’s going on, Lexi. Why are you here?” The words were soft, low.
She turned away from him. There was no answer she could give that would satisfy him since it wouldn’t be the truth. She put the key in her door’s lock, turning it and pushing it open.
At least with him here she didn’t have that moment of panic where she was afraid she’d been found again and some masked freak was waiting for her. Opening doors in the dark had definitely become a trigger.
But like her or not, trust her or not, Gavin would step in front of her to protect her from danger if she needed it.
Of course, no one was going to protect her from him, and he might prove to be the most dangerous of all. He wasn’t hunting her, stalking her. But he had already been closer—physically and mentally—than anyone else had been for the past two years. She leaned her head against the cool wood of the door.
“I’m just here for a job.”
“Look at me, Lexi.”
She wanted to say no. But more than that, she wanted to say yes. She slowly spun around.
He didn’t demand answers. Those brown eyes, though as intense as ever, were gentle. He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. When was the last time someone had touched her with any sort of gentleness?
He eased forward until she was caught between him and the doorframe. She didn’t move as his lips closed the distance between them. Brushed hers in a feather-soft touch. Once. Again. A third time.
Then it was like something switched on in both of them. Their mouths melded together. Passionate. Hungry. And it felt so good. Gripping his waist she pulled him to her, sighing into his mouth as his tongue dueled with hers.
She wanted to stay here kissing him forever, but she also desperately wanted to drag him upstairs and take this much further.
“The heat between us at the bar was real.” He murmured the words against her mouth. “I thought you were playing me, but you weren’t.”
“Yes,” she moaned, as his lips took possession of her mouth. “Real. So real.”
He kissed her again, hunger ratcheting up between them. He reached behind her and opened the door she’d just unlocked, allowing them to stumble inside.
His lips immediately found hers again. “I want to come upstairs with you. Is that what you want, Lexi?”
She nodded, clutching him closer. She didn’t care if it was socially acceptable or not. All she cared about was that right now, she felt something. Something that wasn’t fear. Something that wasn’t loneliness. Something that wasn’t frozen.
She was greedy for it, starving for it. Starving for him. It was almost embarrassing how much she wanted him, how safe and wild he’d made her feel in the past few minutes just with his lips against hers.
He would think she was crazy if she tried to explain it, but yes, yes, she wanted him.
“Yes. Come upstairs with me.”
Her eyes fell closed as he kissed her again, his tongue playing havoc with her mouth, teasing, torturing. She was drowning in sensation, and she loved it. For the first time ever in her adult life, she didn’t have to worry if a man was interested in her for her fame or money. She didn’t have either.
Gavin wanted her.
“Tell me one thing first.” His lips pulled away from hers.
“What?” She kept her eyes closed and tried to pull his head back down to hers. When it didn’t return, she opened her eyes.
His brown eyes stared down at her, but they weren’t filled with the same passion and gentleness they had been a few minutes before, when they’d been kissing outside.
These were the cold, focused eyes of the lawman. The soldier.
“I won’t be a sucker a second time, Lexi. Not even for someone as beautiful as you. You want me to go upstairs with you? Tell me, why are you here?”
Every part of her that had thawed under the gentle touches and brushes of his lips froze solid again. She dropped her hands to her side and withdrew so no part of her was touching him.
She’d been wrong. He didn’t want her, he wanted answers.
Interrogation hadn’t worked, so he’d switched to a different tactic.
She pulled every bit of strength she could muster around herself and tilted her chin up. “I think I already answered that question, Sheriff. Mac had a job, I needed one, and this seemed like a nice enough town with decent people.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Although, obviously that last part wasn’t fully correct.”
He flinched slightly. “Lexi—”
“Thank you for walking me home, Sheriff, and making sure I stayed out of trouble. But now it’s time for you to leave.”
6
Gavin had fucked up.
He’d known it the moment Lexi’s door had slammed in his face, and he still knew it now a month later.
Things had gone completely off track that night. He’d wanted answers. Wanted to figure out her MO. Wanted to delve into all the reasons why her green eyes could go from feisty to haunted like they were on a switch.
He’d been prepared to use multiple methods of interrogation to get to the bottom of Lexi Johnson. Kissing hadn’t been one of them.
Burning nearly to ash when their lips touched definitely hadn’t been part of any plan.
Sitting here in a booth at the Eagle’s Nest, at the thought of the heat between them, he still had to shift to make himself more comfortable. He’d never been
that turned on in his entire life—especially not just from a kiss.
Yes. Come upstairs with me.
Those words falling from her sexy lips had haunted his dreams for the past month. The breathless way she’d said them. The little sigh that had accompanied her words.
The same little sigh she’d let out when he’d held her at that bar in Reddington City. That’s what had snapped him out of his lust-induced haze to remember that Lexi wasn’t trustworthy.
Knowing that, regaining his focus, and remembering why he was there with her had taken every bit of strength he had. For the first time in his life, he’d been tempted to forget about right and wrong, lies and truth, and just go with what he was feeling.
But he couldn’t. That wasn’t who he was. Redwood—his code name from the Special Forces, still used occasionally by the guys—didn’t operate in the gray. Didn’t ignore that there was a threat because said threat had a pretty face and gave kisses that blew his damned mind.
Lexi was lying, and he needed to know why. Needed to get to the truth about why she was here in Oak Creek.
But he could’ve handled it better. Not interrogated her in the middle of foreplay.
Gavin wasn’t known for being friendly. He could fully admit he was gruff even on his good days. What he was known for was his solidness and consistency.
But there was something about that woman that shattered his focus.
They hadn’t spoken since she’d slammed that door in his face. Every time he’d tried—because he admittedly owed her an apology—she’d turned and walked in the other direction.
She seemed to get along well enough with everyone else. Business at the Eagle’s Nest had been steady and good. Mac looked more relaxed than he had in years. They’d even started serving lunch. Gavin knew because he’d been here every single day.
And every single day, he’d expected to find Lexi gone. Expected to hear some sheepish tale from Mac about how she’d grabbed the register’s cash and split. All his gut instincts told him she was about to run and never be heard from again. And he trusted his gut—it had saved his ass way too many times for him not to.
But evidently, his gut was wrong when it came to Lexi Johnson because she hadn’t run. She was here every day when he showed up for lunch and here most evenings when he couldn’t seem to keep himself away.
“You’re staring at her again,” Zac said from across the booth as he took a sip of his beer.
“Fuck off. I’m not staring.” He was so staring.
“I’m assuming Lexi never gave you your two hundred dollars back?”
“She offered. But said she’d have to do it in installments, so I told her not to worry about it.”
Zac nodded, neither of them stating the obvious: that if someone couldn’t afford to pay back two hundred bucks in one shot, then they were in definite financial distress.
“Does she look familiar to you?” Zac said, turned his mug around on its coaster. “Sometimes when I look at her from a certain angle, I feel like I know her from somewhere.”
“Maybe.” Everything about Lexi had Gavin all backward, so he wasn’t sure he could trust any feeling when it came to her. “I ran her name through our network at the sheriff’s office. Nothing came up. No arrests, no convictions.”
“That’s good, right? Nothing is good.”
Gavin shrugged. “Just means she doesn’t have a record. At least not one under that name.”
“You think she has a fake name?”
Gavin scrubbed a hand over his face. “Hell, I don’t know. Something about this woman doesn’t add up. I don’t know what it is or why I feel that way, but I do.”
“Gavin, you’ve spent the better part of this year working in law enforcement. On our team in the army, you always did the questioning and interrogating. You were like a damned bloodhound, able to get to the truth of things.”
“And?”
“And it’s in your nature to be suspicious. That’s how you come at things.”
“But at least I used to give people the benefit of the doubt. Now I’m not sure I do that anymore.”
Zac shrugged. “Considering Lexi stole your wallet in the first thirty minutes of knowing her, I think it’s understandable that you don’t trust her.”
“But it’s not just Lexi. I feel like I’ve lost my edge about everyone over the past month.” Gavin looked over at where two of his friends, Baby Bollinger and Riley Harrison, were talking at the bar. “You heard Baby has a new love interest.”
Zac nodded. “Quinn. I’ve met her. She’s been working here at lunch, right? And teaches at the local college campus?”
“Yep. Like Lexi, Quinn showed up out of the blue, and I got all suspicious.”
“Quinn didn’t actually show up out of the blue. She’s Riley’s sister.”
“I know. And she has every right to be here. But I was suspicious of her too. I talked Baby into leaving Quinn alone for a while, despite knowing how much he cared for her.”
Zac shrugged. “Nothing wrong with taking things slow.”
“But I did it because Quinn came to work here. I was convinced there was some sort of nefarious connection between her and Lexi. That they were in cahoots to scam the town or some such shit.”
Zac let out a chuckle. “What would we do without you to protect our honor from these big bad criminals, Gavin?”
Gavin sighed and took a sip of his own beer. “Probably live longer, happier lives.”
“Cut yourself some slack. You’re protecting the town. It’s what you do. Your means may be questionable, but your intentions are good.”
He glanced over at Lexi, who was carrying a tray of beers over to a table on the other side of the bar. Zac probably wouldn’t say the same if he’d seen what had happened between them a month ago.
The kiss had been an impulse, not a planned tactic to get info, but he could definitely see why she would take offense at the whole situation. He should’ve handled it better, backed off and kept the interrogation and the heat separate.
Except that heat seemed to pervade everything around them.
He was still itching to kiss her again, despite the fact that he couldn’t trust her. He wanted to get close to her to find out whatever secrets she was keeping.
But he also just wanted to get close to her.
He sat back with a sigh. The place was filling up. It was midweek, but the women were coming here for a girls’ night out, and the men were all casually hanging around to be their dance partners. Maybe focusing on them would help distract him from the fact that the next step in finding out about Lexi would be to run her prints.
That felt like a huge, suspicious-bastard overstep, even to him.
“Why don’t you just enjoy yourself tonight?” Zac said. “Don’t worry about Lexi. Don’t worry about anything. The girls will be here in a few minutes. Everyone is safe and unharmed. Let’s be thankful for that since it very nearly wasn’t the case.”
Gavin leaned back further in the booth. Zac was right. It had been a hell of a month for everyone. An accident that wasn’t an accident at all had nearly taken out Baby during an adventure race. Then the team had had an unexpected mission to Egypt to stop a terrorist and save one of their own.
“The girls deserve their night out,” Zac continued. “They may not want all us guys here, but given everything that’s happened, they’ll understand. Besides, I’m pretty sure Annie is going to be sharing our news. We decided to get married Valentine’s Day weekend off the coast of California on one of the Channel Islands. Cade is helping us out by providing a jet to get everyone there as a wedding present. So clear your calendar.”
Now that really was good news. Gavin grinned and held up his beer mug to clank it against Zac’s. “Right on, brother. That’s something to look forward to.”
They drank a sip of their brews before Zac looked up across the bar and a goofy smile fell over his face. “It’s very definitely something to look forward to.”
Gavin didn’t hav
e to look over to see who had walked in the door. Probably a number of people, but definitely Anne Griffin. She’d been putting that goofy look on Zac’s face for nearly two years now. And Zac had helped the shy, stuttering doctor come out of her shell.
“She’s wearing her red boots, the same ones she did on our first date.” Zac stood and slapped Gavin on the shoulder. “I’m one hell of a lucky man.”
Gavin watched as Zac walked over to kiss his fiancée hello. Anne shooed him away, undoubtedly because this was supposed to be the girls’ night out. But her laughter rang out as Zac yanked her against him and dipped her to kiss her passionately, to the delighted hoots of the women around them.
It was good to see Zac happy. Hell, this place had become a certified matchmakers’ headquarters over the past couple of years. It had been amusing to watch all his fierce brothers-in-arms fall so hard and fast for their women.
At one time, he’d believed Janeen was his forever person. That was part of what had been so hard about her betrayal. The loss of that dream. He wanted someone who would tell the truth, no matter how ugly, including when he was being an asshole and needed to be put in his place.
He wanted someone he could trust.
“You doing okay?” Kendrick sat down across from Gavin and pushed an obnoxious-looking green drink in a highball glass—complete with a cherry—in front of him.
“You buying me drinks, Blaze?”
Gavin genuinely liked the younger man, despite the fact the two of them couldn’t be more different in temperament and personality. Kendrick was talkative, outgoing, and fun. Gavin, on the other hand, well hell, he was pretty much stoic and cranky.
Kendrick gave him a big, toothy grin. “I’d gladly take credit, and will buy you drinks any time you want, but this one is from the bartender.”
“Mac?”
“No, I think Mac went home. This is from your favorite new waitress.” Kendrick couldn’t seem to stop smiling. “She asked me to give it to you.”
Gavin studied the green brew. “Do you think it’s poisoned?” He was only half kidding.