Discovering Harmony (Wishing Well, Texas #3)

by Melanie Shawn

  I crawled back over the pile that I’d scaled with much more ease back when I was filled with righteous indignation. Now that my emotionally fueled momentum had drained, it was a much more daunting task.

  “Shit,” I cursed under my breath. If I wasn’t careful my ‘plan’ was going to become much more reality-based than I’d intended.

  Romeo barked from where I’d stranded him on the other side of Wood Mountain. After making it safely over the treacherous terrain, I arranged the scene and pulled out my phone. I was tempted to write: HELP! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. But I figured he would see right through that. Instead I settled on: Help

  One word. No punctuation. Short. Sweet. And to the point. Since Hud was a man of few words, I figured he might appreciate the fact that I hadn’t added more for dramatic flair.

  Setting the phone down, I rested my head against the dirt floor and did the only thing I could do. I waited. Since I had no idea where he was, I had no idea how long of a wait I was in for so I tried to get comfortable. That was easier said than done. I was sure that this little stunt was going to end with multiple splinters, but that was a small price to pay for…

  “Harmony!” Hud’s voice filled the large barn.

  Damn. He got here fast. Which means he must’ve been close. How did I miss him?

  “Harmony!”

  When he shouted my name this time, I heard the strain in it.

  Good.

  “I’m here.” I called out sounding every bit the damsel in distress I was trying to portray.

  A grin tugged on my lips as I pictured big ol’ Hud trying to navigate his way over the large pile as he came to rescue me. That smirk fell the instant I saw him do what could only be described as a Spiderman-esque parkour move. He basically jumped off the side of the barn and landed beside me. Shirtless.

  Sure, the shirtless detail wasn’t a particularly pertinent detail, but it had a lot to do with the reason I was struck momentarily speechless. The next thing I knew, the woodpile I’d carefully assembled to lie beneath was gone, and I was up on my feet. Hud’s hands were touching me. Everywhere. Brushing over my arms, my legs, my back, my stomach. When they brushed my hair to the side and his fingers ran up my neck before he grazed his hands through my hair I was pretty sure I was in danger of having an orgasm on the spot.

  All I could hear was a loud buzzing sound that I assumed was arousal. I noticed that Hud’s mouth was moving, but for the life of me I couldn’t hear what he was saying. His shirtless body was inches from mine. His hands were touching me. His clean, masculine, soap scent surrounded me, and I found myself lost in his nearness.

  I’d only smoked weed once in college, and quickly discovered it wasn’t for me. Not only was I paranoid, I also felt disconnected. Like I was flying but I wasn’t the pilot. Since I was somewhat of a control freak, it hadn’t been something that I’d wanted to do again.

  That same feeling of flying, of being out of control, washed over me now. This time, I didn’t mind it so much.

  “Harmony, talk to me!” Hud’s voice rose as he inspected my eyes and started pulling out his phone.

  It was only when both of his hands weren’t in contact with me that I was able to find my voice. “I’m fine. I’m okay.”

  His golden eyes locked with mine, searching them for signs that I was really okay. The intensity in his gaze stole my breath right out of my lungs. The energy between us was palpable. His jaw tensed and his fingers flexed around my arms. The roughened pads of his fingers against my skin sent a shock of bliss straight to my core. Every cell in my body came to life.

  I knew that part of the reason it felt like a current of electricity rushing between us was the attraction we felt, but I sensed from the fear in his eyes that it was more. That he actually thought I was hurt.

  My hand lifted as if it was being controlled by a puppeteer and I touched the hard planes of his sculpted chest. His skin was hot to the touch and I spread my fingers out. My palms tingled at the contact and I stilled.

  “I’m good. Really. I’m okay,” my voice was barely louder than a whisper.

  Hud’s hands lifted to cup my face and his forehead rested against mine. In that moment the entire world ceased to exist. Everything disappeared.

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak.

  All I could do was feel. I was suspended in a dream-like haze where Hud and I were the only two people on the earth, and I never wanted to wake up and return to reality.

  Chapter 12

  Hudson

  “Sometimes you don’t know the value of a penny until you come up two cents short at the register.”

  ~ Loretta Reed

  Adrenaline and fear were still shooting through my veins faster than the speed of light, or at least that’s what it felt like. For years I’d heard the guys on the force talk about feeling like this. Even before I wore a badge, I’d heard my dad and his friends talk about this kind of rush. But, I’d never experienced it.

  Detached. That’s what I was on the job. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about the people I was helping or that I didn’t value my own life, but I learned my first week on the job that when shit hit the fan, when things went sideways, instead of my heart rate accelerating, I went into the zone. My pulse slowed. All of my senses heightened. My mind had an acute sense of clarity and I was totally and completely calm. It wasn’t something I did intentionally; it came as natural as breathing.

  During my first week on the job I was part of the first countywide drug bust. We’d set up a sting operation and had been given some bad intel which resulted in us busting a house that was filled with fifteen men, all of them armed with semi-automatics. And the stakes only got higher when I discovered two small children hiding under a table. When I saw them, all of the gunfire, shouting, and chaos around me faded away and I knew what I had to do. I flipped the table over and pushed it against the corner, instructing the kids—who ended up being the inspiration for Reed Ranch—to remain behind it as a shield. I then guarded the far corner of the kitchen and managed to apprehend and restrain six of the fifteen perps.

  During the entire thing, I stayed calm. My hand never shook. My adrenaline never spiked. And six years later, it was still that way. No matter what the situation, what I saw, or even how dire the outcome looked, I was steady as a rock.

  Until today.

  My hand trembled as I brushed my thumb over the soft skin of Harmony’s cheek. I could feel the heat of her breath fan over my face. I could hear the soft sound of her sweet voice. I could see with my eyes that she was alive and well, but none of that was doing anything to slow my heart pounding like a jackhammer beneath my ribs.

  When I’d heard the text ding on my phone I was sure it was Harmony informing me that she was quitting. Leaving. I’d been expecting that announcement for the past three days. I’d been doing everything in my power to facilitate and expedite that exact outcome since Monday morning.

  Originally I had intended on working on the bunk beds with Harmony and then leave her to sand and stain them. All that changed the second I’d seen her step out of her car in cutoff jean shorts, brown work boots, and a tank top that left little to the imagination. I knew I was in trouble, but when she bent into her car, coming back up with a tool belt, it became painfully clear to me that I couldn’t work in the same area with her without knocking her over with the massive boner I was sporting thanks to her new look. She was a real-life, living, breathing Tool Time girl. She was an exact replica of the hot-as-sin co-stars in Tim Allen’s Home Improvement that I had grown up fantasizing about.

  In a flash of clarity as strong and powerful as the lightning that had lit up the sky, I knew this wasn’t going to work. There was no way I’d be able to keep my mind on what I needed to do, stay on track, and most of all, refrain from crossing a line that I had no business crossing. So, I’d been an asshole instead. On purpose. My goal was to get her to throw in the towel.

  First it had just been expecting her to
assemble, sand and stain the bunkbeds. Which, to my surprise she’d done and done well. For a girl that said she had no carpentry experience, she’d put the pieces together like a giant puzzle.

  When the bunk beds hadn’t done the trick, I’d remembered that my mom—who never complained about anything—to this day maintained that removing the wallpaper back when my parents were renovating our home had been the most miserable experience of her life. So I’d figured that was a good project for Harmony. I remembered it had taken my mom weeks to finish our living and dining room. So I was shocked when Harmony knocked out such a large area in one day.

  And yesterday I’d stepped things up even further. Installation of an irrigation system. I was convinced there was no way in hell would she be able to pull that off. I was dead wrong. She didn’t know, but I’d watched her from the roof of the bunkhouse that I was repairing. She’d cursed (mainly at me), thrown things, screamed in frustration, but she’d done it. Not perfectly, but she’d done it.

  That was when I knew that I had to give her a task that there was no way she could physically perform. It was the only way that the torture of being so close to her, seeing her smile, hearing her sweet voice, wanting her, needing her, craving her was ever going to end.

  But instead of her waving the white flag and surrendering, she’d ended up beneath a pile of plywood and four by fours, and it was all my fault. I should have known better. Harmony was stubborn. She didn’t give up. She didn’t back down. That was one of the things that I loved about her.

  Love. There was that word again.

  When I thought about what could have happened, how badly hurt she could’ve been, my chest constricted and I couldn’t breathe. Nothing had ever scared me like the thought that she was really hurt. When I’d found her lying beneath the wood, nothing else mattered except her being okay. I would have sold my soul to the devil to make that happen.

  Luckily, it didn’t seem that a deal with Satan was going to be necessary. Harmony didn’t appear to have any external injuries, her pulse was strong, she didn’t show any signs of a concussion, and there wasn’t any abdominal sensitivity that would suggest internal bleeding.

  Closing my eyes, I let myself absorb the sensation of my forehead resting on hers, the warmth of her breath, the pulse at her neck jumping beneath my fingertips as I cupped her face, and her hand pressing firmly against my chest. I knew that she had to feel my heartbeat beneath her palm, she had to know how affected I was, and I didn’t care. She was breathing, she wasn’t hurt, she was fine… no thanks to me.

  “I’m sorry.” The lump in my throat was so large I wasn’t even sure my words were audible.

  “Hud?” She leaned away from me, questions swirling in her intoxicating green eyes, searching mine for answers.

  “I’m sorry.” I repeated, louder. “I’m so sorry.”

  “What? No. You didn’t…you don’t…” She backed up, flinching as if my words had slapped her. She made it two steps before her retreat ended and her back hit the barn wall. She shook her head slowly as her hands reached up and clasped over her chest. “There’s nothing…I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have…”

  “No!” I closed the space between us in one step and lifted my arms, resting them on the wood planks behind her, caging her in. “This isn’t your fault. I’ve been such an asshole. I’m sorry.”

  Harmony’s gaze still swam with confusion and I wanted to tell her, explain what I’d done. That I’d been trying to get her to quit. To leave. To be anywhere but here, but I knew that if I did that, I’d have to tell her why.

  I’d have to tell her that whenever she was near me, all I thought about was touching her, kissing her, stripping her naked and driving myself into her until she didn’t know where I stopped and she began.

  I’d have to tell her that I had one regret and one regret only in my life, and that was the way I’d handled things when I’d come home to find her naked in my house five years ago.

  I’d have to tell her the only reason that I hadn’t ever acted on the crazy, hot, combustible chemistry between us was because I knew that would be playing with fire and one or both of us would end up being burned.

  I’d have to tell her that if things were different, if I was different, if she was different, I’d have made her mine that night she’d snuck into my house. That I would have been her first and her last. That I would have been the only man to make her scream with passion and make her lose herself in pleasure.

  There was so much I wanted to say, needed to say, but I couldn’t say.

  “No. You don’t understand…it wasn’t your fault…I wanted…I just wanted…I wasn’t hurt…” Harmony’s tongue slipped between her lips and a deep groan vibrated through me at the erotic sight as she reached up and rested her hand once again on my chest.

  Logically, I knew that her gesture had been an innocent one most likely stemmed from the nerves that were radiating through her, but right now, my body was not responding to logic. Right now it was all I could do to hold myself back from covering her lips with mine and kissing her until she knew, without me having to tell her, exactly how crazy she drove me. Exactly how badly I wanted her. Exactly how much I needed her.

  Her fingertips flexed, causing her nails to dig into my skin, and the sensation shot straight to my dick. My already painful erection jumped, begging for attention beneath my zipper, and I hissed with five years’ worth of suppressed passion and desire.

  I knew that I needed to get the hell out of here before I did something I couldn’t undo. Nothing good could come out of me acting on my feelings. The ultimate outcome would be painful at best and devastating at worst. Still, no matter how many reasons I listed in my head, I couldn’t bring myself to walk away. Not with her lips drawing me, like a safe haven, like a lighthouse in the storm of emotions raging through me.

  “Hud…” Her voice was small, tiny. But the fire behind her eyes mirrored the consuming flames of lust roaring just beneath the surface of my restraint. “Please…”

  Just one word. That’s all it took to demolish the walls that I’d spent years constructing to keep her at arm’s length. To isolate her to a safe zone. One word and they didn’t just crumble, they vaporized. Not even one brick remained.

  Slowly, I lowered my head. Alarms were going off louder than the siren on my squad car warning me to stop, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not anymore. I didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t in my power to stop. I needed to taste her. Now.

  I heard and felt her sharp intake of breath as our lips touched for the first time. I’d fantasized about this moment more times than I could count, and every time I did, our kiss was desperate. Demanding. Ravishing. Frantic. Every time this scenario had played out in my mind we’d devoured each other.

  But unlike what I’d envisioned, the reality was…more. More intimate. More connected. More everything.

  Her soft lips sealed to mine as her arms wrapped around my neck and she lifted up on her toes. Needing to touch her, my hands framed her chin, tilting her head. I brushed my lips across hers then pulled first the bottom and then the top between mine and repeated the motion, nipping them lightly before running my tongue along the seam.

  As tempting as it was to deepen the kiss, to try to sate what I feared was the insatiable hunger that I had for Harmony, I didn’t. Instead, I deliberately kept the pace measured. A part of me understood this moment would never happen again, that this was once in a lifetime. I had to savor it, to protect it like the precious gift it was. Somehow I knew that this kiss was like a slow burning wick of a firecracker that would explode once our tongues touched. I wouldn’t be able to hold back. So I held her in place, not letting her take control. I took my time memorizing every second, every feeling, every sensation, every sound.

  As if on cue, a loud buzz went off and I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket at the same time a loud pop song started playing from hers. I tried to ignore them both and from the death grip that Harmony had as she tightened her hold on me, she was doing the s
ame.

  This might be our first kiss, but my entire body was responding as if it knew her. It was in the way the curves of her body molded to mine, it felt familiar, not foreign. It was like she was made to be pressed against me. Like I was made to hold her. I continued my slow, caressing exploration of her beautiful mouth, determined not to let the fact that both of our phones had gone off at the same time interrupt us.

  It wasn’t until first mine and then her phone dinged with a voicemail notification and started buzzing and playing again that I knew this moment might be once in a lifetime, but it was over.

  Reluctantly, I broke our kiss and when I did her emerald eyes opened with a heavy-lidded stare.

  “Wow,” she breathed out, as she looked up at me with a glazed expression.

  A smile pulled at the corner of my lips as a sense of pride filled me, knowing that I was the one that put that look there. That she might feel just as overwhelmed by what had just happened as I did.

  Before I had a chance to respond, several text messages came through at once and we both grabbed our phones.

  “Destiny’s in labor,” we said at the same time.

  “I have to go. She’s already dilated to seven!” her voice was filled with panic.

  “I’ll drive.” Not waiting for her to respond I picked her up and carried her over the pile that I’d made intentionally high and precarious in hopes to scare her off.

  It hadn’t. But it sure as hell had scared the shit out of me.

  Romeo was barking as we made it to the other side of the wood heap and he fell in step beside us. I continued carrying her until we got to my truck, not ready or willing to let her go.

  Now that I knew she tasted sweet like honey and strawberries, I knew the gasping sound she made when my tongue touched her lips, the way her back arched when I sucked her lip between mine, the way her hips rocked when I bit her lightly—I wasn’t sure how in the hell I would ever be willing or ready to let her go.