by Linz, Cathie
“Talk to me about the evidence,” she said.
“We don’t have anything definitive yet.”
“Well, that sucks.” Skye flung herself onto the couch. An instant later, Gravity jumped onto her lap and started purring. “Maybe I should have had Angel take Gravity with her so she’d be safe too.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re worried about the cat but not about yourself?”
“She’s still a kitten. I can look after myself.”
“Which brings me to the garbology incident on Saturday morning.”
“We’re not doing that anymore.”
“I’m very glad to hear it.”
“I thought you would be.”
“So what are you doing instead?”
She blinked at him with feigned innocence. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“Yes, I do. And I plan on ignoring you.”
“Ignoring me, huh?” Nathan sat beside her and moved closer until she could feel his warm breath tingling her ear. “How’s that plan working?
She pushed him away. “You said we couldn’t have sex.”
“I didn’t say we couldn’t make out like maniacs.”
“No, I’m saying that.”
“Why?”
“I don’t have to tell you my reasons.” She paused as Gravity jumped down, clearly uneasy about the prospect of getting sandwiched between two humans. “You’re here to do a job, and that’s all. You’ve made that very clear. You have a schedule to keep—mmmph!”
Nathan’s mouth covered hers without any advance warning. Not that knowing his tongue was about to do a tango with hers would have made her take immediate defensive action, but Skye liked to think it could . . . possibly . . . maybe . . . have happened. She might have protested. Not likely, but still . . .
He didn’t kiss like an uptight cop. Why was that? He didn’t have the lips of an uptight anything. His lower lip was full and yummy. She nibbled it a bit, then stopped so he could stroke his tongue across the roof of her mouth.
Where had a hunky side of beef from the cornfields of Nebraska learned to French-kiss like a pro? She’d have to ask him sometime . . . some other time, when he wasn’t doing all these delicious things to her.
Nathan eventually broke off the kiss to rest his forehead against hers. “You’re right,” he murmured.
“Of course I am.” Her voice was unsteady. “Uh, about what?”
“It’s tough to stop with just one kiss. Making out probably isn’t a good idea.”
“Yeah.” Like she’d been a fan of good ideas all her life. “Right.” She jumped to her feet. “Let’s play poker instead.”
He leaned back on the couch and blinked. “Poker?” “Yeah. You know, a card game where players bet on the hands they hold.”
“I’m pretty good at poker.”
“Really?” Fresh meat, Skye thought to herself. The poor guy didn’t stand a chance. Because she was better than pretty good at poker. She was damn good.
Skye surveyed the pile of matchsticks in front of her on the Formica table. “Okay, time to cash in my chips now. Remember, we were not playing for money or for matches. We were playing for truths. For each matchstick, you need to tell me a truth.”
“Today is Wednesday.”
“A truth about yourself. I already told you that I don’t like the taste of eel. Now it’s your turn.”
“I’m sheriff of Rock Creek.”
“A truth that I don’t already know about you,” she reminded him.
He appeared stymied by her request.
“Hey, nobody twisted your arm to get you to play truth poker with me.”
“I didn’t know I’d be facing a New Age cardsharp,” Nathan grumbled.
“Lucky you.” Skye grinned. “Come on,” she said, holding out her hand and wiggling her fingers. “Pay up.”
“I don’t like eel either,” he finally said with a charming smile intended to coax the clothing right off her.
“No distracting me with your dimple, ’cause that bluff ain’t gonna work.”
“I do not have a dimple.” At first, Nathan seemed highly insulted by her accusation, but then the flash of the dimple gave him away.
“Aha, there it is again.”
“What about you?” he said.
“What about me?”
“No distracting me with flashes of cleavage.”
“If I wanted to distract you, I’d do this.” She lifted her tank top and flashed him.
“That works.” His voice was hoarse.
“But distracting you wasn’t my goal. Having you pay up is. Come on, another truth I don’t know about you.”
Silence.
“Why is this so difficult for you?” she demanded in exasperation.
He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I’m not into exposing truths about myself for anyone to see.”
“Is that what I am? Just anyone? Thanks for the clarification,” she said bitterly.
“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Yeah, you did. Whenever I get too close emotionally, you slam the door on me. Fine.” Skye gathered their cards and stuffed them back into the box. “Whatever. Welch on your bets. See if I care.”
But she did care, and that was becoming a bigger problem all the time.
Unable to sleep, Nathan stared up at the all-too-familiar crack in Skye’s living room ceiling. He was an idiot. He knew he’d hurt her by his inability to open up to her. But he didn’t know how to fix it.
There was no changing him. Women usually thought they could do that to a guy—change the fundamental basis of his character. He’d seen it as a cop plenty of times. The woman who thought she could cure the guy of his drinking or drug habit. The woman who thought that, even though the guy had beaten his other girlfriends, he wouldn’t beat her. They’d all been wrong.
The point was to accept someone the way they were. Faults and all.
Could he do that with Skye? Accept her as she was?
As much as Nathan told himself that she wasn’t getting to him, the truth was, she’d already made it through his first line of defense and was in danger of breaching his inner sanctum.
She seemed unfazed by his attempts to keep her in line. Probably because she knew they were futile.
He wasn’t in charge of the world. It was a lesson learned the hard way, when Annie had died. He’d thought that he’d been in charge of a perfectly planned-out life back then. One truck running a red light was all it took to annihilate that belief. He was actually in charge of very little.
Had he been a better man, he’d have told Skye a key truth tonight—that the reason her daughter freaked him out was because Annie had been four months pregnant when she’d died in that accident five years ago. Which meant that Toni was about the age their child would have been had Annie lived and given birth.
But he never talked about that with anyone. Ever. Because saying the words out loud might make him crumble.
Crumbling, like failure, was not an option.
Nathan never thought it would still be this gut-wrenching so many years later. That smacked of weakness, to his way of thinking. He should have recovered by now. Sister Mary told him once that he couldn’t recover by jamming his emotions into a dark pit and refusing to acknowledge them. They just festered there without ever healing.
Well, hell. Tough shit. He’d never been a touchy-feely kind of guy. That’s why the Marine Corps had appealed to him so much. The few, the proud, the Marines. The Corps values of honor, courage, and commitment matched the values he’d been taught from childhood.
The Marine Corps saying—Sweat dries, blood clots, bones heal. Suck it up, Marine!—was a creed Nathan followed. It had served him well up to this point, allowing him to get up every morning and keep going. Never give up, never give in.
As for his personal life . . . well, he hadn’t had much of one until Skye had come belly dancing into his world. Well, she
might be able to belly dance her way into his bed, but no way was she belly dancing her way into his heart. That door was permanently closed.
Rehashing the past wasn’t his thing. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with him tonight, but he knew that, somehow, it was all Skye’s fault that he felt this way.
A sudden noise from the bedroom had him up and moving swiftly down the hallway. The door to Skye’s room was open. Pale moonlight filtered through the sheer curtains. He really should talk to her about security issues, including the need for drapes that prevented anyone from seeing inside.
She’d kicked off the covers and was turning restlessly, obviously dreaming. Looking down at her, he was struck by how different she looked, and not just because her short hair was sticking up at odd angles. She looked . . . vulnerable.
Maybe he wasn’t the only one adept at building walls.
She could look so tough that he was surprised by how innocent she appeared right now, the kitten curled up on the blanket next to her.
He didn’t mean to sit on the bed and watch her, but he did. He didn’t mean to tuck the sheet around her when she snuggled next to him in her sleep, but he did. He didn’t mean to fall asleep there . . . but he did.
Skye was dreaming about Nathan again. She knew it was a dream because he wasn’t being bossy. Instead, he was sweet and comforting, his body spooned against hers.
Her eyelids fluttered open. There was a man in her bed. Mmm, nice.
Her eyelids fluttered closed.
Wait a second. She sat up and wiped the sleep from her eyes. Nathan was in her bed. Sleeping on top of the covers.
Which made it highly unlikely that they’d somehow done the deed in their sleep.
Murmuring her name, Nathan tugged her back down into his arms. Even asleep, the guy was trying to tell her what to do. Not that she minded tremendously right at this particular moment.
She couldn’t get back to sleep. Not when she’d seen how wicked awesome he looked wearing low-slung pajama bottoms and nothing else. Lying with her back against his chest prevented her from getting a really good look at him. But his arms were wrapped around her, so she could study those for a moment. And his hands. He had nice hands, for a bossy guy.
His fingernails were neatly clipped but not buffed. This was no metrosexual male into the latest Armani suits and newest-model Infiniti. These were the callused hands of a worker. A man who knew how to use tools. And a gun.
That last one might be a turn-on for some women. She’d heard the talk around town, that women had chased after Nathan because he was a cop, and that he’d ignored them.
Probably because he still loved his wife. His dead wife. The perfect one who was nothing like Skye.
So what was Nathan doing in her bed, then?
She suddenly wanted to boot him out.
Then he nuzzled her neck.
What kind of wimp was she to go all weak because he . . . oh, that was more than nuzzling. That was his hand slipping under her pajama top and cupping her bare breast.
Did he even know who he was fondling? Did he think he was in bed with his wife? Was he dreaming of her while he was touching Skye?
Infuriated by the possibility, she jabbed her elbow into his stomach.
That got a reaction from the horny beast. “Ooof! What’d you do that for?” he demanded with typical male outrage.
“I want your eyes open when you touch me! I want you to be damn sure it’s me you’re touching!”
“Huh?” He blinked and gave her that men-are-from-Mars-women-are-from-another-galaxy-entirely look.
“Mommy, we’re here!” Toni shrieked from the living room.
Nathan leapt out of the bed, almost falling on his face when his feet got tangled in the covers.
“Smooth move,” she said sarcastically.
He tugged at his pajama bottoms, covering up his outie navel right before Toni burst into Skye’s bedroom. “Angel and me came to visit with you.” She bounced onto the bed and launched herself at Skye. “I missed you and Gravity.”
“We missed you, too, lovebug.”
“Why is Mr. Kitten-Book Man here? Did he bring me another book?”
“His name is Nathan. And no, he didn’t bring you another book.”
“Why not?”
“You avaricious little squirt.” Skye blew a raspberry on Toni’s arm.
“What’s av-icious mean?”
“Avaricious means you expect presents all the time.”
“Not all the time. Just most of the time.” Toni looked around. “Where’s Gravity?”
“I think she flew under the bed when you came roaring in here.”
“I didn’t come roaring in. This is a roar.” Toni imitated a lion before modestly adding, “I did that good, didn’t I?”
“Where’s your tutu?” Skye asked, noticing for the first time that her daughter was wearing a regular short set, even if the top and bottom didn’t match.
“I don’t have to wear it all the time, Mommy,” Toni solemnly informed her.
“Right.”
Toni’s attention returned to Nathan, who stood frozen, with a certain deer-in-the-headlights look about him. “So, if you’re not here to give me a book, how come you’re in my mommy’s bedroom?”
“Gravity,” Skye said. “He came to see Gravity.”
“Where’s his clothes?” Toni asked.
“In the living room with his sleeping bag.”
Toni bounced up and down on the mattress. “Are we going camping?” Without waiting for an answer, she scooted off the bed and grabbed Nathan by the hand. “Come with me,” she imperiously ordered him.
To give him credit, Nathan went with Toni without a word of protest. The look on his face was something else, though. Part panic, part resignation.
“Hi, Nathan,” Angel said calmly as she passed them in the hallway, on her way into the bedroom to give Skye a plateful of muffins. “These turned out really good. Blueberry-wheat-bran. Try one.”
Angel had never been one to judge Skye, so the fact that she’d had a man in her bedroom didn’t faze her at all. “What are you doing here?” Skye said.
“Toni missed you. She insisted on coming over to see you. I figured it would be safe, with Nathan staying here and all.”
Skye could hear the excited murmuring of Toni’s voice even if she couldn’t hear the words themselves. Nathan didn’t seem to be talking much. No surprise there.
But she was surprised to find them, heads together in mutual concentration, on the floor in Toni’s kitty bedroom a few minutes later. Toni knew the story of Kitten’s First Full Moon well enough that she could tell it to Nathan as she pointed to the illustrations on each page.
And since she was Skye’s child, she added a few elements of her own. “This is the moon. It lives in the sky. It’s a full moon. See how it’s all big and round? You can smile, you know,” she told Nathan, patting his cheek with her hand. “I don’t mind.”
He closed his eyes as if he were in pain.
“Uh-oh. That’s how I look when I got to go poo and it won’t come out,” Toni confided with another pat to his cheek.
Nathan’s eyes flew open, and he suddenly started laughing. He laughed so hard he ended up in a pile on the floor with Toni perched on his bare chest, tickling him.
“Do it again!” she yelled. “Laugh some more and make me bounce up and down.”
He laughed so hard, tears poured from his eyes.
Toni scrambled off his chest to stare down at him in concern. “Why are you crying? Did you pee in your pants?”
That started another round of his laughter before, gasping for breath, Nathan sat up and tried to regain his composure. He leaned forward and rested his forehead on his bent knees while inhaling gulps of air.
“I’m better now.” He sat up straight and looked at Skye. The earlier look of panic and pain was gone. She glimpsed the warmth in his eyes.
The door to his soul had opened.
Skye smiled. “Yeah,” she said
softly. “I think you will be better now.”
The next afternoon, Skye sat on the cream-colored couch in Julia’s picture-perfect living room and studied the rest of her family. Four generations of Wright women in one room. A regular estrogen-fest.
Angel was crocheting beside her on the couch, while Toni and Julia were playing with Ta the Tiger on the floor. On Skye’s way in earlier, Julia had pulled her aside and reminded her not to say anything to anyone about the pregnancy, because she hadn’t told Luke yet. Then she’d hugged Skye, who still found it weird but kind of neat that she and her sister had bonded by sharing secrets while sitting on the hood of Skye’s car and staring up at the night sky.
And there was Violet, the family matriarch, regally enthroned in a high-back armchair. She might look like Betty White, but she often acted like Miss Piggy, with her diva-like sense of entitlement. Yet there were some signs that Violet was transforming.
“You know, in the beginning I wasn’t sure how I felt about having a badass for a granddaughter,” she suddenly announced.
“Mom!” Angel protested.
“You must be talking about me,” Julia noted dryly, which made Skye crack up.
“What? I got that right, didn’t I? That’s the proper term, isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” Skye agreed.
“Who’s a badass?” Toni demanded.
Violet pressed her hand to her mouth. “I forgot that little pitchers have big ears,” she said sheepishly.
“Who has a bad ass and big ears?” Toni insisted.
“Ta the Tiger,” Angel replied.
“Ta’s ears aren’t big,” Toni protested.
Angel swiftly changed the subject. “Who’s ready for some sweet-potato muffins with candied ginger?”
Toni jumped to her feet. “I want candy.”
Angel noted the adults’ lack of similar enthusiasm. “These came out much better than my squash cookies,” she assured her daughters and mother.
“That’s not a real high bar you’re setting there,” Julia noted.
“My squash cookies are famous,” Angel protested.
“Infamous,” Julia said.
Skye had heard enough about the cookies. “Hey, Julia, before I forget, have you ever heard of someone named Roxy Rothafel? There’s a quote from him above the entrance to the Tivoli. I’ve been meaning to Google him, but since you’re a librarian and know everything, I thought you might have heard of him.”