Her gentle chuckle was as good as a soft brush of fingers. “Maybe. But you were awfully young when he was born. And don’t forget, when he becomes a father, you’ll be Granddad. You’ll need a pick-me-up to keep you from feeling old.”
“You’re making me feel better,” he groused, delighted by her fresh laugh.
While they finished dinner and sipped coffee, they steered clear of any topics that were too personal. Enough was enough for one night, he figured. He’d wanted to know what went wrong with her marriage. She’d needed to hear the basics about his son and marital status. Okay, they’d done that. Now the conversation came easily, just small stories about eccentric customers at the stationery store and oddball cases he’d investigated as a cop.
He told her about the old guy who shoplifted a candy bar at least once a week from the 7-Eleven, then took it back and apologized. When Jack talked to him, he confessed, “I don’t mean to, but I see the clerk watching me, and I start wondering if I could pull it off, and… Well,” he’d finished apologetically, “it’s not as though I would ever keep anything I took. Why, that would be stealing! It’s just the challenge, you see.”
She countered with stories about an old lady who had pretended she worked at the stationery store. When Beth turned her back, the woman had whisked behind the counter and start ringing up purchases. “Which would be okay,” Beth said, making a face, “except that she wanted to give discounts. ‘Oh, that’s fifty percent off today!’ I heard her carol. Fortunately, her daughter came in and collected her.”
Somewhere as the evening wound down, Jack realized he’d left the impression that his career hadn’t involved a hell of a lot more than a series of traffic stops, with the biggest case he’d ever cracked the serial theft of automobile hood ornaments in the Safeway parking lot. The SWAT team, drug busts, rape and murder didn’t figure in their conversation. He wasn’t even sure whether that was deliberate on his part, an effort to avoid reminding her that he was the cop she’d called in fear for her children.
Hey, he told himself. She was a big girl. She knew evil walked out there. Sooner or later, if they dated seriously, she would want to know what he’d seen and felt and done. It was something they had to talk about. He had blood on his hands, figuratively speaking. Either she could deal with that, or she couldn’t. He’d discovered long since that some women couldn’t.
He hoped Beth Sommers wasn’t one of them.
During the drive home he was very aware of her beside him, her knees primly held together, her elbows close to her side. She stole a few glances his way, too, and when their gazes intersected once or twice, she was the one to look away. She was getting nervous, he figured, thinking about the same thing playing through his mind: him kissing her.
He’d held her in his arms twice now, for comfort. Most cops, male and female, offered that kind of comfort in the line of duty from time to time. Jack couldn’t remember ever having sexual thoughts when a woman trembled in his arms from fear or relief or terrible grief. But with Beth resting against him, he’d felt not just rage at her jackass of an ex-husband and pity for her. He’d also been painfully conscious of the swell of her breasts pressing against his chest, the curve of her back under his hands, the scent and tickle of her hair, the delicacy of her neck. He’d have given hell to any of his men who admitted to lusting after the victim at a domestic abuse scene! But, by God, that was exactly what he’d been doing.
He had wanted Beth Sommers from the minute she flung open her front door. And tonight he was going to kiss her. She knew it, and he knew it. Which didn’t make conversation easy.
In her driveway, Jack put the 4×4 into park and set the emergency brake. He laid his arm along the back of her seat and turned toward her, feeling suddenly clumsy and about as subtle as a kid Will’s age. Getting this kiss right was too important. He wanted to be smooth, seductive, tender, not heavy-handed or pushy. It didn’t take a mind reader to know that she hadn’t kissed a man since her divorce, which explained why she gasped faintly at even this first overture.
“Hey. I won’t attack you,” he murmured.
“No.” The whites of her eyes showed. “I know,” she said hurriedly. “That’s not why…”
Humor sanded the rough edges from his voice. “Pants on fire.”
She let out a puff of air that took some of her starch with it. Her spine relaxed enough that her nape almost touched his arm. “All right! I’m a little nervous, okay?”
The amusement fled, leaving an ache like heartburn beneath his breastbone. “Me, too.”
“Really?” Beth whispered.
A fraction of an inch from her bare neck, his fingers curled into a fist. “Yeah. I don’t want to scare you.”
In the dim light from the dashboard, he saw her nibble on her lower lip. “I guess you can tell I haven’t dated in a long time.”
Jack had to clear his throat. “I can tell.”
She moved enough that her hair brushed his hand. The single curl had the feathery texture of down. He wondered whether handfuls of her dark hair would have the weightlessness of down, too, slipping through his fingers.
“Now I feel a little silly.” Her breasts rose and fell; she trembled when his fingers flexed and touched the bump of her vertebrae. Even her voice became tremulous. “I’m sorry. Maybe I should…should just say…good-night.” The last came out on a sigh as his hand wrapped her nape.
“I would really like to kiss you,” he said huskily.
Her eyes were huge and shadowed, her mouth soft and parted. “I think,” she said, so low he could just hear her, “I’d like it if you would. Kiss me, I mean.”
He gave a laugh that might have been a groan and drew her toward him, cursing the console between the front seats. Tension quivered through her, making the shoulder he gripped feel brittle. And yet she lifted her face willingly.
Their noses bumped as he bent his head. Her giggle lightened the moment. “It looks so easy in movies,” she breathed against his mouth.
He felt her smile when he closed the last distance. Her lips were incredibly soft, her scent a trace of something once familiar but almost forgotten. His mother might have used the same shampoo or soap. Lavender. Why did he think lavender?
This kiss had to be gentle, tentative; he couldn’t let himself demand more than she offered. Their mouths brushed, tasted, nibbled. She made a throaty little sound that sent a rush of pure heat to his groin and tightened his fingers on her upper arm.
Her lips parted, and for just a moment he deepened the kiss, touched her tongue with his, nipped a little harder. Then Jack made himself ease away, trail his mouth over her cheekbone, nuzzle her ear, lay his cheek against that cloud of dark hair.
“Oh!” she murmured, in a tone of wonder that had him gritting his teeth on a surge of hunger.
If his tone was gravelly, he almost managed to inject some amusement in it. “Not so bad, eh?”
A chuckle rippled through her. “Did I hurt your feelings by implying a movie star would be a better kisser?”
“I looked at it as a challenge.”
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.” Beth sighed and straightened away from him. “Now, I will say good-night.”
“I’ll walk you to your door.” He was out and around to her side before she had done more than step onto the running board.
He took her hand to help her down, and kept it clasped in his as they climbed the steps to the front porch of her old house. Canned laughter from the television drifted from inside. Under the porch light, Jack could see her face better than he had since they left the restaurant.
Her expression was grave again, questioning, although she said only, “Thank you, Jack. I had a good time.”
“Yeah. Me, too.” He bent and kissed her again, quick and hard, letting her feel some of the heat that would have him heading home to a cold shower.
The throatiness in her voice told him he wasn’t alone, which was some comfort.
“Good night, Jack.”
“I’ll cal
l.” He let her go reluctantly, stood there when she slipped inside, gave a final uncertain smile and shut the door.
He wanted to pump his fist and exclaim, “Yes!” Or maybe hammer on the damned door and beg her to let him in. He hadn’t felt like this since he was a teenager, somebody else altogether named Johnny Murray, who couldn’t get enough of his girlfriend.
That teenage boy had been a stranger to him for almost nineteen years. In one day he had become someone else and taken to calling himself by another name. Jack Murray was a hard man who didn’t beg and who had forgotten how a simple kiss, a certain soft voice, the memory of a scent, could exhilarate.
Making himself back away from her front door and finally stride to his Dodge, he was shaking his head over himself. How the hell had he gotten in so deep, so quick?
CHAPTER SIX
BETH STARED at herself in the mirror with disgust. For Pete’s sake, she was going to a backyard barbecue, not dining and dancing. She was supposed to be dressing down from church. The kids would wonder if she reappeared in a dress she usually saved for Rotary Club events.
Pulling it over her head, she called, “You guys almost ready?”
“I am.” Without knocking, Stephanie opened the bedroom door. “Oh. Sorry. You’re still not dressed?” Her gaze went to the dress, lying on the bed. “You’re not going to wear that, are you?”
“Of course not! I was just trying it on. I feel fat,” Beth lied. “I figured I could tell if I’ve put on weight.”
“Is the scale broken?”
“The scale?” She could see it through her bathroom doorway. “Um…I thought it might be weighing light. Do you know your weight? Why don’t you try it?”
Stephanie rolled her eyes but went into the bathroom and stepped on the scale. “One hundred and ten!” she wailed. “I was only ninety-nine pounds last time. I’m getting fat!”
Beth buttoned the jeans she’d hastily grabbed. “Sweetie, you’ve grown at least two inches in the past few months. Of course you’ve gained weight. You’re not getting fat.”
Almost twelve, Stephanie was only a couple of inches shorter than Beth and gaining fast. She was at that gawky, ugly-duckling stage where her legs were too long and her feet too big, her face all eyes and cheekbones. More than Lauren, Stephanie would be beautiful when she’d matured and everything fit together. Right now, she was skinny and long.
“But eleven whole pounds?” Stephanie rushed from the bathroom to stand beside Beth and examine herself anxiously in the full-length mirror on the closet door.
Beth laughed. “I defy you to find enough fat to pinch.”
“Rochelle only weighs eighty-six pounds,” Steph said gloomily, turning from side to side to see herself from every angle. “She was bragging the other day.”
“Rochelle’s mother is barely five feet tall. I don’t even want to think about what she weighs. The whole family is miniature. You can’t compare yourself.” Beth held up a cotton twinset in a soft shade of sky blue. “What do you think?”
Stephanie glanced and shrugged. “It’s okay. If you don’t spill barbecue sauce down the front.”
“And I always spill something. Great.” Beth shook her hair out after pulling the sleeveless sweater over her head. “I need a bib.”
Her daughter giggled, sounding more like a friend than a child. “Sheriff Murray would wonder about you, wouldn’t he?”
If he didn’t already wonder about her, Beth thought wryly. But he must have enjoyed their Friday night date, or he wouldn’t have called the very next day and casually invited her to bring her kids for an afternoon barbecue at his house.
“Will surprised me last night,” he’d said. “I got home and here he was. With company. He has a new girlfriend he wanted me to meet. She’ll be here Sunday, too.”
Beth had never expected to have so much in common with some boy’s college girlfriend: the one was there to be approved by the dad, the other to be approved by the son. At least Will’s girlfriend didn’t have to hope her children were on their best behavior, too.
“Okay.” Beth took one last glance at herself in the mirror. The makeup she’d put on earlier for church had stood the test of time. She fluffed her hair, decided she’d do and asked, “Do you know where Lauren is?”
“I think she’s downstairs already.”
The phone rang. Beth circled the bed, but the second ring was cut off as Lauren apparently picked up one of the downstairs phones. Beth quelled her brief moment of disquiet. The Caller ID she’d finally added had ended the reign of nerves imposed by their anonymous tormenter. When the phone rang these days, the caller was always someone they knew.
At the foot of the stairs, she heard Lauren chattering happily in the living room. She was talking about the barbecue and how Mom wasn’t ready yet. Hearing the footsteps, she turned, her freckled face cheerful.
“Here comes Mom. I gotta go, Dad. Unless you want to talk to Steph?”
“It’s Dad?” Stephanie said from behind Beth. She sounded almost as appalled as Beth felt.
How could she ask the girls to censor what they told their father? How could she even explain why they should? His anger was scary to them as well as to her, but Lauren especially wasn’t old enough to have to watch every word she said to him.
But instinct obviously kicked in with the advent of teenage years, because the moment Lauren hung up the phone, Stephanie exclaimed, “Jeez! Why are you telling Dad all about who Mom is dating? You know he didn’t want the divorce! And he’s always talking about how maybe he and Mom can fix things.”
Her younger daughter was crestfallen. “Dad just wanted to know what we were doing this weekend. It’s not some kind of secret, is it?”
“No.” Beth came down the last steps. “Your dad may not like the idea of me seeing somebody else, but he’d hear sooner or later anyway. Besides this isn’t exactly a date.”
“Then how come you were so worried about what you were wearing?” her oldest daughter wondered aloud.
Beth gave her a look. “Just because I wanted to look nice…”
“Tiffany says he’s a babe. For an old guy.”
Lauren’s eyes widened. “But he’s not Mommy’s boyfriend or anything.”
“He might be,” Steph said blithely.
“But what about Dad?”
Beth gave a gentle tug on her daughter’s ponytail and then urged her out the front door. As she locked behind them, she said, “Your dad and I are not getting back together, whatever he tells you. Remember how much we all yelled. That’s no way to live. He’s just…having a little trouble adjusting. But someday he’ll meet a woman who is right for him.”
“And we’ll have a stepmother?” Steph trailed her mom and sister down the stairs. “What if she’s wicked?”
“What if she’s really, really nice?” Beth countered.
Steph dropped the subject. “Are we walking?”
“You thought we’d drive? Two blocks?”
“The neighbors will all see us. Everybody’ll talk about you and the sheriff.” She said it in a singsong voice, finishing with, “‘First comes love, then comes marriage….”’
“Stop!” Lauren said fiercely. “Mommy’s not gonna get married!” She grabbed her mother’s hand. “Are you?”
Beth managed an easy laugh. “You’ll be the first to know. I had a nice dinner with Mr. Murray, and he invited us over today. There might even be other neighbors there.” Uh-huh. Sure. “And that is all,” Beth concluded, her firmness as much for herself as for the girls.
“See?” Over her shoulder, Lauren stuck out her tongue at her sister.
“Mom!” Steph complained. “She’s being a brat.”
Beth stopped dead on the sidewalk. “When we get there, you will both make me very happy by being incredibly polite, eating at least a little bit of everything offered to you including foods that look disgusting, not squabbling and not interrupting when other people are talking. Very happy.”
They both mumbled assents. Beth
took a deep breath and marched on. Two neighbors, including the infamous Mrs. Finley, were working in their yards. Beth exchanged polite greetings with both and was aware of their stares following her and the girls down the street. Both, she was sure, saw them stop in front of the sheriff’s riverfront Queen Anne home.
Taking a deep breath, Beth didn’t let herself pause, turning up the walk between narrow hedges of boxwood. To distract herself, she studied the paint job. The color wasn’t quite as soft as sage, she would have had to admit. Grass-green, perhaps.
“It’s awfully bright,” Steph whispered.
“I like it,” Lauren said in her usual penetrating voice. “It’s like a…a big playhouse.”
A deep male voice said, “It’s cool, isn’t it?”
All three spun to face the man who let the wooden screen door bang behind him as he stepped onto the porch. No, not man, Beth realized, even as she stared in shock: teenager. Jack’s son, unmistakably. In person, the resemblance was even more stunning. Dark-haired, broad-shouldered, with a face that should have been homely but was instead masculine and even sexy, Will Murray—or did he have a different last name?—must be breaking hearts wherever he went.
“You look like Mr. Murray,” Lauren decided.
“Yeah, he’s my dad. You must be Ms. Sommers and her daughters.”
“I’m Lauren. And this is my sister, Stephanie.”
Cheeks pink, Steph mumbled, “Hi.”
“Nice to meet you, Will,” Beth said. “Please, call me Beth.”
“Okay!” He grinned. “Come on in. Everyone else is in back. We can cut through the house. Dad’s been wondering where you were. He was about to send out a search party.”
“We only live two blocks away.” Trust Lauren.
“That’s what I said.” He lowered his voice to a very loud, conspiratorial whisper. “But Dad is the sheriff, you know. He sees bad guys behind every bush.”
Will and her youngest seemed to be great friends already. Steph was suffering from an attack of shyness, probably because she was old enough to notice that he was the babe his dad was too old to be. Amused, Beth speculated on what Tiffany had had to say about him.
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