by Lilian Darcy
“Some of them are fantastic,” Kate said, thinking of bright, diligent Tully Morgan and of Neve Shepherd’s fourteen-year-old sister Kira, who wasn’t showing any sign that she would be nearly as wild or knowing as Neve. Then there was nerdy Ren Fletcher and the sheriff’s own nephew Andy Pearce. Boys like the Sheenan twins, Troy and Trey, too, would turn out just fine once they grew up a little, and so would Jay Brown, she thought. “I love watching the way they blossom and change as they begin to discover who they really are.”
“Whereas me, I mainly get to co-ordinate searches when they go missing, or arrest ‘em for doing stupid stuff,” Harrison said. “And sometimes I really wish I didn’t have to.”
“That could be hard.”
“Worse is when I have to tell their parents—” He stopped.
“That there’s been a crash,” she finished for him. “I can’t even imagine how hard that must be.”
“So we’re both at the teen front line, in our different ways.”
“We definitely are.”
Something else they had in common.
Kate glowed for the rest of the day.
CHAPTER FIVE
Only a woman who lived in a house that had five kids and one bathroom could enjoy showering in a high school gym.
Kate waited until Wednesday’s after-school training sessions wound up at five o’clock before sneaking in there with her overnight bag containing towel, toiletries, and change of clothing.
But she should have waited a little longer. A couple of girls came in while she was in the shower stall getting dressed.
Talking about prom, of course.
“All the cool kids are going out to the Sheenan ranch for an after-party in their barn.”
“The cool kids? Well, that won’t be us.” Kate recognized Tully Morgan’s voice.
“Your after-party will be way better,” the other girl said kindly. It was Louise Meissen, Kate thought.
“Hope so,” Tully said. “It definitely won’t be cool, at my place, though. We’ll probably play charades and drink apple juice.”
“And listen to classical music.”
“And our parents will inspect our dresses to make sure they don’t have a hemline above the ankle.”
“I have my corset and my modesty veil already,” Louise said.
“And your white lace gloves?”
“And my chastity belt.”
“And I might put up a few abstinence posters to uplift our souls. ‘Lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine.’ ”
“If you’re hit by Cupid, don’t do it, Stupid.”
They departed a minute later, still batting back and forth their exaggerated notions of a chaste after-party and giggling at themselves. Kate was smiling, too. Lovely girls! Bright and sweet and funny and well-behaved, the kind who made high school English teaching a pleasure.
She stepped out of the shower cubicle and studied herself in the mirror. She had her makeup still to put on, in the privacy of a hopefully deserted staff room. She had her hair to air-dry while she graded papers to fill in the remaining hour and a quarter before she needed to leave. The fine-knit skirt and top in dark blue hugged her figure nicely and showed off the legs she’d feverishly and messily waxed last night in the bathroom at home after everyone else was in bed, and she thought she looked okay, but couldn’t be completely sure.
Oh, gosh, this was probably why she liked Tully and Louise so much. She wasn’t cool at all!
And she was distinctly nervous when she finally walked through the lobby at six forty-five. Marietta High was almost deserted at this hour. She could hear the cleaners at work in the staff bathroom, and someone was still in the copying room in back of the main office, because she could hear the copy machine wheezing back and forth.
There was a message slip in her pigeonhole on the wall behind the front desk. She debated going in to retrieve it, but decided not to. A complaint from a parent? A notice about an upcoming meeting? Whatever it was, it could wait until tomorrow.
I have a date.
Not that she was panicking or anything, but it had been a while. She’d had a boyfriend for two years in college, but the relationship had run its course by her final year and they’d parted company with no huge regret on either side. Since then, the odd date here and there, but nothing serious. She was thirty-two years old.
I have a date, and I’m way out of practice.
Harrison Pearce did not seem like the kind of man you practiced on. He seemed like the kind you were serious about.
I have a date, and I’m way out of practice, and I like him a lot.
He was already waiting for her at Grey’s Saloon, even though she was five minutes early. Sitting up at the old-fashioned bar, he broke into his slow smile when he saw her come in, and she had that wonderful and very female feeling of knowing that a good-looking man was studying her and liking what he saw.
She also had the scary realization that she would want to go to bed with him tonight, if things went in that direction, and yet she was massively under prepared. Unprepared, completely. She hadn’t even thought about contraception, or about telling Rob not to worry if she didn’t come home. Oh, help! Oh, shoot!
But then she reached him, and the usual calm happened.
It would be okay. She breathed in confidence and breathed in him, and after they’d said hi, they just sat there for a moment, smiling at each other and feeling good.
So good. She almost slid onto the floor.
“You look great,” he said.
“So do you.” Because it was true. He’d dressed up for the occasion, cowboy style, in new jeans with a leather belt studded in tiny pieces of copper and turquoise malachite. He wore a blue chambray shirt and neat brown boots that peeked from the leg hem of the jeans, and they kind of matched, the two of them, with their variations on the color blue. It was nice.
He drank a light beer, while she had a club soda, and they talked about where they might go. There weren’t many options in Marietta in the middle of the week, but there was a struggling European-style restaurant across the road from the saloon that deserved more clients than it received, so they decided to try there, and were given a table at once, as there were only two other couples dining.
Kate recognized Ren Fletcher’s parents, Robert and Pascale, and said a quick hello to them, but she didn’t know the other pair. She suspected that word would soon get out that she and Sheriff Pearce had been seen out together, and this didn’t seem to matter a bit.
They spent two delicious hours over the meal, talking in a rambling, relaxed way about all sorts of things, and the other couples had both gone by the time Kate surfaced and realized it was after nine-thirty, it was a school night, and the restaurant staff were probably itching to close the place.
Outside in the street a few minutes later, she was so clueless and out of practice that when Harrison stopped her in the lee of a store doorway and looked down at her with clear intent in his dark eyes, it came as a surprise. He put his hands softly on her shoulders and smiled down at her, making her breath catch. He bent, and his mouth brushed hers.
“Is this okay?” he whispered.
“Yes…” Much more than okay.
He took his sweet time over it, pressing the warmth of his lips over hers, cradling her jaw with the delicate touch of his finger-tips, tasting her, discovering her.
“I’ve forgotten how to do this,” she told him shakily, after a few moments.
“You haven’t.” As if to prove his point, he kissed her harder and deeper, taking her into his arms and pressing his body against hers. She sank against him and surrendered to the moment. To the way he smelled, to the strength of him, to her own dizzy happiness.
It was a gorgeous, luxurious, wonderful kiss, and he was good at it, and he knew it.
Somehow, she hadn’t expected that.
Hadn’t expected him to be so confident and… and so talented. He made her melt so fast, he knew exactly what he was doing and he knew how it
made her feel and beneath the wonderfulness of it, it scared her. She really was so out of practice. Could she do this?
She wanted him to be… well… rusty about it like she was, but he wasn’t, and it definitely scared her.
He buried his face in her neck, and she arched back and gasped and he stretched his hands around her ribs, just under her breasts so that she could feel their weight pressing on him, and she knew her hardened nipples must be jutting right at him, too. She ached for his hands on the almost painful peaked buds. Or his mouth.
Not here. Not in the street, even though it was quiet. But somewhere. His place. How could she say that without sounding too brash and brazen. Her shyness surged, and she pulled her body away from him.
He gave a soft laugh. “You haven’t forgotten anything, Kate.”
“You’re pretty good at reminding me.”
“Can we go somewhere better than this?”
“My place? It would be warm, quiet.”
“I’d like that.”
“Get in the truck. Follow me there. That okay?”
“I—I think so.”
“You only think?” He looked down at her, traced the line of her lower lip with his thumb.
“No, I think I know, but I’m not sure.”
He laughed. “Crazy girl.”
“A little, yes.”
“I think I like that,” he said.
“You only think?” she mimicked.
“No, I am absolutely, completely sure that I like it.”
“Okay, I’ll get in the truck and follow you.”
As long as I’m not too shaky to drive.
He walked her to the pickup she’d left parked around the corner outside Grey’s Saloon. His own car was just down the street. “Wait here and I’ll catch up to you. Don’t want you getting lost in the dark…”
So she waited and followed, and his tail lights guided her out of town on the ten-minute drive. The stars were out, and the moon, and she could see the bluish light of it shining on the lingering snow on Copper Mountain.
As soon as he’d parked in front of his house, he came and opened the pickup door for her, his warm body looming above her the way it had when he’d stopped her on the highway two months ago. She slid out and up, into his waiting arms and they kissed again right there, standing between the opened door and the vehicle, soft and sweet and deep and slow, as if they both had all the time in the world.
He slid his hips softly against hers and she could feel how aroused he was, but there was no impatience. He touched her, tracing the curve of her backside with soft palms, cupping her breasts, bracketing her hips.
She thought about his bedroom, or his couch, or even his kitchen countertop if things got really intense, and she felt scared and… rusty… again. What was it like when it was good? Had she ever known? She couldn’t remember.
“I really have forgotten how to do this,” she told him. His shirt felt warm and just a little crisp beneath the flat of her hand. She felt the solid wall of his chest and wanted to touch him all over, explore all the shapes of him, the way he was doing to her.
“You really haven’t.”
“No?”
“You need me to convince you?” he growled, so low that she felt the words more than heard them. Felt their vibration in his chest.
“Yes. I think so.”
Turned out she’d misunderstood what he meant.
“You’ve set me a challenge, Miz MacCreadie.” Through her skirt, he cupped his hand against the steamy warmth of her crotch and her pulses kicked.
“Oh, no, I… I didn’t mean - ”
I didn’t mean here and now.
But he wasn’t taking any notice, because he was kissing her again.
Starting something, this time.
Planning to finish it, she could tell.
He tasted wonderful… felt wonderful… was wonderful. So strong and steady against her, his mouth full of questions asked without demand and without words, just with touch. Here? Like this? Soft? How deep can I taste you?
She let her whole body sigh against him once more and he took the weight with no effort at all. Every inch of her skin seemed to soften and prickle and buzz. When his lips trailed along her jaw and down her neck, she gasped. She said his name.
Harrison.
It made a sigh in her mouth and got lost against his lips. She was lost all over, floppy and dizzy. Happy. Full. He spread his fingers and combed them through the thickness of her hair, ran them down her back to the curve of her butt even slower than before, and the knit fabric of her skirt slipped against his hand. He cupped her breasts through her top and lifted them a little and rubbed his thumbs over her nipples, sending arrows of need into her groin.
“How are we going, so far?” he muttered.
“We’re going… really well. But if you want to go inside…”
“Not yet. Haven’t finished yet. Tell me when I have. I’m betting it’ll be pretty clear.”
“Finished. You mean - ?”
“When you come.” His lips burned the words against her ear.
Oh.
“When you come, you might make me explode,” he muttered. “You are amazing.”
“I’m—”
Lost for words. Lost for everything.
He took her nipple in his mouth through the fabric and blew the heat of his breath over it. He touched her through her skirt, and she realized they were going to do this fully clothed.
Fully clothed, in the open, in the dark, he was going to bring her to orgasm and it wasn’t going to take much longer, at that.
Not quite fully clothed. He unhooked her bra, rode up her skirt with the palms of his hands, slipped her panties aside.
Oh, shoot, she couldn’t think or breathe or see.
Slipped them aside, slipped in his fingers, pulled her top up and her bra off so her nipples met the air. He kept them warm with his mouth.
Oh, oh.
She had to hang onto him for support, lacing her fingers at the back of his neck and sagging, throwing her head back and pushing everything else forward. Her breasts, and that place where his fingers worked their magic, making her breathing go shorter and shallower and faster, making her say his name again, with pleading little cries that came out on those desperate pants of air.
The world went into a spiral, up and up, and then slowly sank back down.
She clung to him, waited for him to say something about the challenge she was supposed to have set, but he didn’t. He’d forgotten about that. This wasn’t a game, it was so real and intense and perfect, it made her want to weep.
He held her close and she knew… felt… that he was listening to her breathing. She was listening to his. In the night, out in the open, there were the sounds of creatures moving. Maybe an owl, a rabbit, crickets, frogs. But what she heard loudest was the way her heart was beating and the way they breathed together, not saying a word, his body so warm and heavy against her.
He was the one to speak first. “You definitely haven’t forgotten.”
“I guess not.”
“Can we see what else you remember, inside?”
“I’d love that.”
“Hope you can stay a while.”
“Hope so, too. Not till morning. I… forgot to tell Rob I might be out pretty late.”
“Forgot, because you thought you’d forgotten a few other things, too.”
“But apparently I haven’t, you tell me.”
“You definitely haven’t,” he repeated.
He took her hand and led her inside. They paused just inside the door and this time she took the lead, cupping his strong jaw in her hands and planting a slow, teasing kiss on his mouth. “Can’t wait to finish this,” she whispered.
“Neither can I,” he whispered back. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me. You don’t know what you did to me out there. You feel so good.”
He pressed her back against the door and made her boneless again, with his touch and heat and need, a
nd she began to wonder how they were going to make it as far as the bedroom. Beneath his shirt, his body was hot and hard, smooth as satin except for the light scratch of hair on his chest. She pulled back enough to start on the buttons and he let her unfasten them all the way and then peel the shirt back and down his arms.
He shook it onto the floor, then took her hand and led her into the living room without turning on the light and there in the dimness they saw that the message light on his phone was blinking red, which brought the whole evening crashing to a close.
“I’d better listen to this,” he said. “I’m not on call tonight, or anything, but you never know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Of course you need to.”
But the message was for her.
“I’m calling for Kate,” her brother Rob’s voice said. “Kate, I left you a message at school at about twenty after five, but I guess you didn’t get it, and then I missed you at Grey’s Saloon and didn’t know where you’d gone next. Call home, can you, if you get this? Doesn’t matter if it’s late.”
“Oh, shoot…” Harrison said. He and Kate both recognized the panicky rhythm of Rob’s words.
She shook off her dreamy, satisfied state and called home at once. In the background, as she listened to the ringing tone, she saw Harrison retrieve his shirt and shrug it on. The action seemed too businesslike and final, but it wasn’t his fault.
She reached Melinda, who said there was nothing to worry about, but sounded very upset all the same. “Jamie’s in the hospital,” she said. “You know how crazy he is about rodeo? He tied a flank-strap to Mickey so he would buck, and Mickey did, and Jamie came off pretty hard and hit his head.”
“Oh, Melinda, no!” The paint pony was only fourteen hands high, but that was still a very long way off the ground for an eight-year-old. “Is he okay?”
“He was unconscious for a couple of minutes, but he’s awake now. Thank the Lord. They’re keeping a watch on him overnight and they’ve done a scan. They say he’s going to be fine, but still… Kate, I so want to be with him at the hospital. Rob tried so hard to get in touch with you.”