“Yeah. Welcome to the Garrett Ranch, where the motto is, if it doesn’t kill you...just wait.”
“That is distasteful. I’m sure.”
“Completely, but also the story of our lives. Now, I’m willing to bet your shutoff is somewhere inconvenient, like...maybe the shed outside?”
“I haven’t looked.”
“All right, come on. If we find it, I can show you how to shut it off.”
“Maybe I know how to shut it off,” she said, following him back out the door and down the stairs. “Maybe I’m a water-valve expert.”
“But you aren’t,” he said, opening the door to the shed.
“Fine. I’m not. But I usually have nearby landlords who...do this for me. Which is sort of what’s happening now, except you’re involving me. Although, I have to say, I have never had a pipe just...explode all over me before. Not a euphemism.”
“How could that be...?”
Her eyes widened and she looked at him meaningfully. “Pipes...burst...liquid all over the... Oh, wow. Think about it. Please don’t make me say it. And I’m going to stop talking now. Please shut my water off.”
Suddenly, he got it. Heat shot from his face down to his groin. This was what happened when he spent six—okay, honestly, it was closer to seven—months without sex. His mind was completely void of anything that went beyond boobs and the innuendo that had just popped up. So to speak. It was enough to...well, as she’d put it, explode his pipe.
He did not have time for this. He didn’t have the patience for it, either.
“Fine,” he growled, stalking to the pipe that was sticking out of the ground in the back of the old building, wrapped in a thick swath of insulation. He reached down and pushed the valve up. “So now your water’s off. Direct me to your flood and I can see if there’s a quick fix that won’t require you to go without water all night.”
“It’s in the upstairs bathroom. So...back to the house. And I hope you’re enjoying this tour of...things that are not finished in the yard,” she said, leading them both back to the house.
“What are you doing with the flower bed?” he asked, looking at the bare dirt.
“I don’t know... Something. I was hoping someone could tell me which plants you...plant here this time of year. I don’t know anything about flowers or grass or... I’m going to do some investigating tomorrow.”
“Haven’t you planted flowers before?”
She shrugged. “There’s never been any point. I leave before anything grows. Or...when I was in San Diego I had an apartment and I had, like, a little pineapple plant in a pot. But some asshole stole it off the balcony. So I figured unless I wanted chains on my potted plants I’d just forget it. This is nice. I don’t have to chain things to the porch.” She opened the front door and walked in, then paused at the base of the stairs. “Up that way. The one off the master bedroom.”
He sighed and walked upward, toward his watery doom. Or something like that.
He could hear her following behind, her footsteps softer and off rhythm to his own.
He walked into the bedroom and saw a few damp footprints on the wood floor, then he looked into the bathroom, where there was a sizable puddle by the sink.
He sighed heavily and got down on his knees, the water seeping through his uniform pants, then he opened the cabinet doors. “What the...hell?”
“I had to improvise,” she said, her voice small.
He leaned in and examined the makeshift stopper she’d wrapped around the pipes. A shirt, a pair of sweatpants and...a black lace bra winding it all together.
“I was about to get in the shower, so I was already naked, and then there was water and so I had to stop it, and then I had to...tie it off. With something. I think that bra is toast.”
He cleared his throat. “Probably.” He reached out and started unwinding the bra, and tried not to think about how this was the first time he’d touched a woman’s underwear in seven—okay, maybe it was more like eight—months.
It was Sadie Miller’s bra. He should focus on that. On the fact that he remembered what a gangly, hissing little miscreant she’d been back when she was a teenager. All long limbs and blond shaggy hair, smelling like booze and cigarette smoke as she kicked at him while he’d tried to put her in handcuffs without breaking her slender wrists.
Sadie Miller’s bra should hold no interest for him. And neither should her breasts. Or her innuendos.
* * *
ELI UNWOUND THE strap a little bit more and the rest sprang free, spraying his face with water.
Sadie bit her fist to keep from whimpering as she watched Eli Garrett, on his hands and knees, fiddling with her bra. She was so mortified she wanted to flush herself down the toilet. It would be preferable to this nightmare.
She was just one giant explosion of embarrassment after the other tonight. The whole pipe euphemism? What was her problem? Why did she say things like that around him? Good gravy.
She was good at talking to people. She did it for a living. Spoke with calm authority and with self-control, and with carefully chosen words.
And here she was pointing out every innuendo and dying a million tiny deaths—not in the good French way—like some extra awkward high school geek she’d never been.
What was it about Eli that caused regression? It was a mystery to her. He made her feel flaily. And kind of...horny. And that was just stupid. Cracking lady-wood over a cop said nothing good about her deep emotional issues. She was a therapist. She really should have a better handle on this.
Though she wasn’t really a therapist at the moment. She was a bed-and-breakfast owner who was sinking her life savings into a place with leaky pipes, populated by grumpy, muscular men. Who said she didn’t make good life choices?
He unwound all of her clothing—thank God she hadn’t used her panties. She was just really, really thankful. Then he stood up, the sodden garments in his very large hand, his dark brows drawn together. “This isn’t a quick fix. You will need a plumber. Which my brother will pay for.”
“He said he wasn’t sure where all that fell in the agreement.” She reached out and took the ball of clothes, water dripping onto the floor.
“But I am,” he said, his voice hard. “It’s BS to act like he won’t pay for a burst pipe. Obviously that had nothing to do with your improvements. My brother is just being a lame landlord. Trust me, he’s not doing it on purpose. He’s just...nonfunctional right now.”
Sadie’s heart squeezed tight. “I’m sorry about his wife. I... If he ever needs to talk...”
“He would rather shove barbed wire under his fingernails. And I’m being literal.”
“Okay, then, so maybe vouchers for my services wouldn’t go over well in exchange for this debacle.”
“Connor isn’t a talker,” Eli said.
“Well, big surprise,” she retorted, dumping the wet clothes into the sink and walking out of the space that really was way too small to be sharing with a man of his stature.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It just seems like it runs in the family, that’s all.”
“Meaning?” he asked.
“You’re a little uptight,” she said, walking near the bed and feeling a sudden surge of heat and self-consciousness. Dear Lord, it was like she wasn’t even an adult anymore. Internally jittering because she was standing near both a man and a bed and they were alone.
“If by uptight you mean responsible for a shit-ton of stuff, sure,” he bit out, “I’m uptight. Do you need water?”
“I have some,” she said. “All over my floor.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” he said, his civility clearly almost at an end. “You’re going to need...coffee in the morning at least, I assume, and you need to shower.”
She lifted a shoulder. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
“Either Connor will get his ass in gear and try to fix this tomorrow, or we’ll want to call out a plumber. Either way you don’t have water tonight, beca
use the main has to stay shut off since the pipes are so old. And it means you don’t have water until midmorning tomorrow. So, would you like to come to my place and shower and get a couple gallons of water?”
She blinked. “I...uh...”
“It’s a simple question.”
“I just didn’t expect you to extend me hospitality,” she said.
“I’m not a complete asshole.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“You say that like you don’t believe me.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, Eli, but whenever you’re around I get a tension headache. Or I end up in handcuffs. So, suffice it to say, I’m not entirely convinced that you aren’t a total asshole. Sorry.”
And she also wasn’t convinced she wanted to go to his house and get naked when he was in a nearby room. And run her hands all over her wet, slick skin, which would inevitably feel really good. And with his image so very large in her mind...
Yeah, well, again, she regressed in the company of this man. What grown woman worried about this stuff? It was...prurient. And juvenile. And things.
She needed both a shower and some water and the man was offering. So she should stop sweating, and stop insulting him, and just go with it.
“That would be great, actually,” she said. “And I’m sorry about the asshole thing.”
He put his hands on his lean hips and she took a moment to admire him. His uniform conformed to every muscle in his body; the tan shirt and dark brown tie, along with the gold-star-shaped badge honest-to-coffee did things to her insides that were unseemly.
Obviously she needed to buy batteries for her long-neglected vibrator. Dammit, how sad was it that her vibrator was neglected. A sex life, sure. People had crap to do. Who had time to go around hooking up and sweating and making walks of shame? She certainly didn’t.
But she barely took the time to orgasm anymore. And when she did, she had to kick Toby out of the room, because it was awkward, and then it sort of felt like she was announcing her masturbatory intentions to her cat, which felt even weirder. There was something unspeakably sad about the whole thing.
But that was the reason Eli’s presence had her so shaken. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.
“Whatever,” he said. “Come with me.”
He certainly didn’t make a big song and dance about graciousness. He almost seemed burdened by inescapable chivalry, which was sort of hilarious, or would be if she wasn’t so busy marinating in her embarrassment.
“Let me get some clothes,” she said. “You can wait downstairs.” Because she would probably fizzle into an ash ball and blow away in the wind if he watched her pull a new bra out of a drawer.
“Fine,” he said, walking out of the bedroom and swinging the door partway closed. She waited until she heard his footsteps on the stairs before rummaging for new clothes. She pulled out a long-sleeved thermal shirt and a pair of black yoga pants, and a new bra and panties. And then she got a duffel bag to conceal it all in.
She stuffed the clothes inside and walked downstairs to where Eli was waiting, standing there staring at Toby, who was still on the table, looking defiant.
“I’m ready,” she said. “Do you have jugs at your place?”
“Yes,” he said. “We always save a bunch for target practice, so that won’t be a problem.”
Holy hell, she really wasn’t in San Diego anymore. She was in Oregon, no question at all. “I should have guessed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, holding the door for her.
“Nothing. I just forgot the kinds of things you good ol’ boys get up to in your spare time. I’ve been living in a city, if you recall.”
“You’ve been gone for how long?” he asked, walking down the front porch steps. She followed him closely, clutching her bag to her chest. Looking at his dark brown pants, which seemed to be giving his butt a hug while shouting, “Look at it! Look at it!”
“Ten years.”
“And where have you been in those ten years?”
“Polite conversation?” she asked.
“Why don’t we try it?”
“I’m game if you are. Okay, I went to three different schools in four years. I started in Tampa, because, parties and the beach. Which is nothing like the beach here. Turns out, I hate college parties and breathing in Florida is like inhaling soup. So I lasted a year there. I basically toured the South.” She increased her pace to keep up with Eli’s long strides, following him down the darkened driveway. He pulled a flashlight off his belt and used it to light up the bark-laden ground. “Louisiana, North Carolina, and after I graduated I went to Texas, which you really don’t want to mess with, just ask the locals.”
“After that you went to California?” he asked.
“Nope. After that there was New York, Chicago and Branson.”
“Branson?”
“Missouri. It’s Las Vegas for families, Eli. Incidentally, I also lived in Vegas, but not for long. Then I went to the Bay Area and quickly discovered I couldn’t afford to live there unless I wanted to donate a kidney to science, and then I went to San Diego. And now I’m back...here.”
He stopped walking, the flashlight beam still directed at the ground. “I can’t imagine picking up and moving that much.”
“No?”
“I’ve got too much to pack up and bring with me. You know, Connor, Kate, all their stuff. The cows. Plus, there’s this land. Our family land.”
“Yeah, well, it’s just me and Toby. We travel light.”
He started walking again, continuing on straight down the drive. “I’ll regret asking this, because... I shouldn’t care. But what the hell did you expect to find moving from place to place?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. Everywhere is so different. I managed to trick myself into thinking that I’d find a place that made me different. And to a degree, it’s true. Every place changes you a little. When I was doing therapy, I was a crisis counselor, so I always dealt with people going through the worst things possible. Every patient I spoke to changed me in some way. Every home I lived in, every restaurant I ate at... But...the one thing I’ve never done is go back to a place. I’ve only ever gone somewhere new. I thought I would see what it was like.”
“And?”
“No magic yet. But I do think I’ve finally realized that it doesn’t really matter where I live. I’m not going to find a perfect place that makes me perfect. So I figured I’d come back here and wrestle demons.”
“What kind of demons are you wrestling?” he asked.
It was said drily. Insincere. And yet she found she wanted to answer. She found she wanted to talk to him about the demon she’d met head-on the night he’d arrested her. The night she’d nearly been killed.
She didn’t blame him for that. Not really. She knew dimly that some people might. But she’d never put her father’s actions onto Eli Garrett’s shoulders. Because it had started long before then. Because she had a feeling that night was inevitable. Regardless of what date it fell on, regardless of what triggered it.
And it had been the reason she’d gotten into her car and driven away. And never once looked back. Until now.
“This way,” Eli said, pointing his light toward a cluster of pine trees off to the left. “We can cut through here. It’s faster.”
She followed him through the trees and into a clearing. There was a house up the hill, surrounded by trees, the porch light on as if someone inside the two-story wooden cabin was waiting for them. Wide steps led up to a wraparound deck with a glass door, and large windows dominated the front of the place, making the most of the location, set deep into the trees and far away from any roads.
“No wonder you’ve never left,” she said.
“Well,” he said, “not much point when you have a house ready and waiting for you, is there?”
“Sure there is,” she said. “If my parents had given me their house I still would have run. Happily for me, they never offered. I
think the house ended up with the bank when they went to Coos Bay.” She felt like the statement was a little more revealing than she might have liked, but oh well.
“Well,” he said, obviously uncomfortable. And obviously unwilling to say more, even though the well held a wealth of meaning. He was really, at his heart, a decent man, even if he was reluctant in his decency.
“Well,” she said, matching his tone, “my parents’ house was essentially the crap cherry on top of a landfill, so for that reason alone I wouldn’t want it. Thank you for being too nice to say that.” She hopped over a tire rut that was filled with muddy water and continued following him down the road.
“I wasn’t thinking it.”
“Bull, and ten points if you can guess the word that follows.”
“I wasn’t, Sadie. I’ve been to a lot of houses like that. I’ve seen a lot of things. People have hard circumstances. And I don’t like to think of their living situations that way.”
“Why not?” she asked. “They do. Trust me. I mean...we do. We know.”
“I don’t judge people based on where they live.”
“Is that honestly how you feel? Or are you just throwing out some...good-guy line?” she asked, as they came to the end of the road, where it narrowed and led up to his house.
“Honestly?” he asked, turning to face her. “I care about this place. I care about Copper Ridge. And I care about Logan County. This is my home. And the people here are my responsibility. It’s not my job to look down my nose at anyone. It’s my job to protect the people here.” He continued walking, turning away from her again, his broad back filling her vision.
Her heart jammed up against her sternum. Anger mixed with a strange kind of longing that she didn’t want to apply to him. That she didn’t want to apply to anything or anyone, really.
“And you do a damn fine job, I’m sure,” she said, following him up the steps and waiting for him to unlock his door. The man locked his door. In Copper Ridge. Dear Lord.
“I know,” he said. “I haven’t exactly been hanging out for the past ten years so my first arrest could tell me that, but now that you have, it’s sort of nice and circular. I could use it for my campaign.”
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