Blackberry Summer (26 page)

“Don’t you think most people in your situation would rather escape the awkwardness?”

“I’m no saint, Riley. We’ve established that. My motives are mostly selfish. I love running String Fever, and my friends and support system are here, too. I’m comfortable here.”

“You belong here.”

“So do you.”

“I’d say the jury is so far out on that one that nobody knows where they are anymore.”

She studied him for a long moment. “Why did you come home? Really? Don’t tell me it was only because the position of police chief opened up. I’m sure when you decided to leave the Bay Area, you could have found a job in a hundred places.”

“Maybe.” He sighed. “When I found out Chief Coleman had decided to retire, I had just spent months undercover as a pimp and a drug dealer. Before that, I spent nearly a year posing as a white supremacist. I needed to wash the dirt out somehow and the job here just seemed right.”

“You needed to be home,” she said softly.

“I wouldn’t have put it that way. But yeah, I guess.”

“You’re doing a good job, Riley. J. D. Nyman is an idiot and he always has been. Just give people a little time. When the wounds of the last month aren’t so raw, people will see you’re exactly right for Hope’s Crossing.”

Her staunch defense of him, the faith he knew he didn’t deserved, warmed him. He gazed at her, so earnest and lovely. He ached to kiss her, to pull her close and just hold on.

He released a slow breath and pushed away his half-
eaten dinner. “This was delicious, Claire, but it’s late. I’d better go.”

She looked a little disconcerted by his abruptness but nodded. “Thank you for staying. It was nice to have company besides Chester.”

He glanced at the dog, now splayed out on the floor. “I’ll go check to make sure the gate is latched before I leave so he doesn’t escape on you again.”

“Thank you.”

He left through the back door, grateful for an excuse to put a little badly needed distance between them. The high mountain air cooled his face and he filled his lungs with it. He should never have walked into that house. He should have just brought back her grumpy little dog, left him on the porch and headed back to his own space where he could be safe.

He had lived among despicable thugs for months, but he found Claire Bradford far more frightening than any of them.

He took his time walking around the backyard, steeling his will against making a stupid move. Finally he knew he couldn’t put it off any longer and he returned to the kitchen to find she’d cleaned up and was closing the dishwasher door.

“You’re right, the fence was ajar. I latched it now, so your escapee should have a harder time making his break.”

“Great. Thank you.”

“Good night, then. Thanks again for dinner.”

“You’re welcome,” she said as he headed out onto the back porch. “Oh, wait. You forgot the cinnamon rolls.”

Keep them,
he almost said but he knew she would insist on his taking them.

He stepped inside while she walked back to the kitchen for the container, then she returned and held it out for him.

“There you go. Throw in a coffee from Maura’s place in the morning and you’ve got the breakfast of champions.”

He managed to return her smile, although he kept one hand tight on the doorknob and the other gripping the container of cinnamon rolls like it was loaded with C-4 ready to blow.

“This was nice,” she said. “See? We don’t have to throw away a perfectly good friendship just because…”

Her voice trailed off and she blushed a little.

He closed his eyes. “Because I can’t spend sixty seconds near you without wanting to smear Angie’s frosted cinnamon rolls from your head to your toes and then lick it off inch by slow, delicious inch?”

She gulped and her eyes darted to the rolls, then to his mouth, then back to the pastries. With a defeated groan, he threw the box on the counter and grabbed for her, shoving the door closed with his foot.

He devoured her mouth, tasting cinnamon and coffee and a lingering hint of rosemary. Her lips parted and he dipped his tongue inside, sliding along the length of hers. She made a sexy little sound and buried her hands in his hair, pulling him closer, and he lost his grip on the last tangled thread of his shredded calm.

The kiss was wild, heated, tongues and lips and
teeth, full of all the pent-up frustration and longing of the past two weeks.

Somehow through the urgent ache, he held on to one semirational thought, that he couldn’t leave her standing here when her leg was in a cast. If he wanted to continue kissing her—and did he!—he would have to move her to a more comfortable position.

Without breaking the connection of their mouths, he scooped her up into his arms. She gasped a little but didn’t pull away—instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as he carried her through the kitchen and into the family room.

He lowered her to the sofa, but she didn’t release her hold around his neck and he had no choice but to follow her down, careful even in the midst of the wild hunger scorching through him to take care with her injuries.

They kissed for a long time, stretched out side by side on her sofa while the old house shifted and settled around them. He lost track of everything but her softness and heat, the welcome of her mouth, of her body.

“I haven’t been able to think about anything else but this for two weeks,” she murmured against his mouth. “I dreamed about you every night and hated waking up alone and aching.”

He closed his eyes while the silky heat of her words slid down his spine like the flick of her finger.

What was he supposed to say to that? She might have dreamed about it for a few weeks, but he’d been thinking about her for
years.

He kissed her, overwhelmed all over again that
Claire Tatum Bradford was here, in his arms, kissing him as if she couldn’t get enough.

That sentiment he certainly shared. None of this was enough. He should have known it wouldn’t be. He wanted more, he wanted their bodies tangled together, he wanted to lose himself in the sweetness of her skin, every lush curve and angle.

He eased up on one elbow, entranced by the fluttery pulse at the base of her neck. Thinking only to steal a taste, he dipped his head and flicked his tongue there. She gasped and arched her back a little. The cotton of her shirt was soft, warm from her body, as his fingers moved to the first button and worked it free, revealing more of that delectable lace of her bra underneath. Taking a chance, he unbuttoned the next one down, leaving the shirt only fastened by two or three buttons near the bottom.

His body was hard and heavy with need as he brushed his mouth along the slope of her breast above the lace. The scent of her here intoxicated him, strawberries and wildflowers, and he wanted to sink his face into her skin, drunk with her.

She made a tiny sound of arousal and he slid his mouth to the edge of lace, licking and tasting as he went.

“More,” she murmured, her voice low and throaty, and with one hand she worked the fastenings of her front-clasp bra and pulled the sides away.

The world receded, everything else fading to nothing except for Claire and this moment and the surge of his blood.

He dragged his gaze away from those alluring curves
and found her watching him with a shadow of nerves in her eyes. “I’m thirty-six and I’ve had two children. Just keep that in mind,” she whispered, a hint of color dusting her cheekbones.

“You’re beautiful,” he growled. “Look at me. I’m shaking, you’re so beautiful.”

He lowered his head and kissed first one peak and then the other, then he took his time there, flicking a tongue over the rosy nipple, tasting and exploring.

She made that sexy little sound again and gripped his head, holding him in place, her body shifting restlessly on the sofa.

When he couldn’t think straight another moment, he slid his hands across her abdomen, loving the way the muscles there contracted under his touch. He needed to touch her, to feel wet, silky heat. He slid a hand to the waistband of her skirt, but just before he would have worked the buttons free, she shifted restlessly and he caught a flash of navy blue.

Her cast.

The sight of that hard, bulky casing on her leg hit him like a bucket of snow dumped over his head.

He sat up abruptly, his breathing ragged and his heart racing and his body just about howling with frustration.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her eyes huge and slightly unfocused.

He scrubbed his face. “I… We can’t do this.”

She blinked a little and he thought he had never seen anything as beautiful as Claire half reclined on her sofa, tousled and undone, her lips swollen and her gorgeous full breasts white and lovely in the lamplight.

“You have a broken leg and a broken arm. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re a creative guy. I’m sure you can come up with some clever way to work around them.” She gave a tiny, sensual smile. “Those aren’t the critical regions anyway.”

All those delectable curves, that luscious expanse of skin, made him want to whimper.

“I can’t, Claire. Right this moment, I’ve never wanted anything more in my life. You are…everything.”

“Then why stop?”

He sighed. “Haven’t we been through this a few dozen times? I don’t think either of us wants to face the consequences.”

Her smile faded and after a moment, she grabbed the edges of her shirt and tugged them together. She eased up a little higher on the sofa. “Why do there have to be consequences?”

“Because that’s who you are, Claire. A woman who needs, I don’t know, some kind of a commitment before she takes such a step.”

“Maybe I don’t want to be that woman anymore,” she said a little wildly. “I’ve been alone for two years. Maybe I’d like to be the kind of woman who wears something besides boring white underwear. Who makes love under the stars or…or who lets a man lick whipped cream off her.”

“You are. You absolutely should do and be those things. Just not with me,” he said quietly, although the thought of her with another man gutted his insides worse than a prison shank.

He forced himself to rise and move away from
the sofa, away from all her sweetness and warmth. “Claire, I feel things for you I’ve never felt for another woman. Never
wanted
to feel. The truth is, I’m more than halfway in love with you. I think I have been since I was too stupid to know the prettiest girl in town would one day grow into a smart, kind, incredibly sexy woman.”

She stared at him and he saw a hundred emotions flit across her expressive eyes. Shock and uncertainty and the remnants of that hunger. And, he thought, a sharp flare of joy, quickly hidden. “Riley—”

“I love you, Claire. But despite how incredible I know it could be between us, not this—” he gestured to the sofa “—but all of it, some part of me can still only think about running, just like my old man did. Like I’ve always done when anyone gets too close. I won’t hurt you like that. I can’t.”

“What do you think you’re doing right now?” she asked, her voice low and filled with pain. “Do you think I would be here with you like this if I didn’t care about you, too, Riley? I haven’t been with another man in my entire life except my ex-husband. My plan was to wait until the kids were a little older and things were more settled before I even thought about…about letting another man into my heart. And then you came home and everything changed.”

He had never hated himself as much as he did in that moment, never wanted so desperately to be a different kind of man.

He wanted to tell his conscience to screw off so he could just take what he wanted. But the images of all the women he’d failed in his life seemed to be crowding
his brain, starting with Lisa Redmond, pregnant and scared at sixteen. He thought of Oscar Ayala’s
chica,
killed in front of him while he did nothing, of his sisters and his mother.

Of Layla.

If he did this, indulged himself in her arms and her body, Claire would expect things. That was the kind of woman she was. The hell of it was, he wanted to give her those things. He had a crazy vision of living with her here in this house, of helping her raise her children, of cuddling in bed at night while the January snows blew under the eaves and piled up on the driveway.

That picture seemed rosy and wonderful right now, but how long would it take for him to start panicking and edging toward the door?

Better to just do it now before he could do serious damage.

“I can’t, Claire. I’m sorry. So sorry.”

F
OR ABOUT TEN SECONDS
after the front door closed behind Riley, Claire sat clutching the edges of her shirt, stunned and achy and still trying to cope with the jarring shift from delicious heat to this icy, terrible cold.

What just happened here? She drew in a shaky breath and tried to button her shirt with fingers that trembled. After a moment she stopped with a frustrated cry and just whipped the whole thing off and picked the soft knit throw off the back of the sofa. She huddled in it, shirtless, limbs trembling.

Hot tears burned her eyelids, but she refused to let them escape. Damn him. Oh, damn Riley McKnight
straight to whatever hell that had spawned him for doing this to her. How could he tell her he loved her with one breath and then walk out the door without looking back
again,
leaving her lost and reeling?

It’s not you, it’s me.
He hadn’t said it in so many words, but his meaning had been the same. She wasn’t buying it. She felt old and desiccated, about as appealing as a frost-killed flower garden.

Covering her face in her hands, she rocked for a minute there on the sofa, aching and more lonely than she’d been one single moment since her divorce.

The worst part of all of this? She was in love with the idiot. Somehow Riley—with his solid strength and his blasted charm and his innate ability to make her laugh—had slipped into her heart, filling all those cold, empty corners.

What was she supposed to do now?

Those tears pressed harder and she wanted nothing so much as to give in to them, just sprawl here on this sofa and weep and sob and rail against him.