The Sheriff Meets His Match (3 page)

B
y the time
Laurel listened to her uncle’s harebrained scheme, tried to talk him out of it—with no luck—and drove him to The Rendezvous Hotel where he’d been staying, she was seriously late getting back to work. The only good news in her craptastic day so far, was that the storm had finally loosened its grip on the turbulent skies.

She couldn’t believe the mess she was in. Her family needed her help and she felt obligated since they’d always been there for her and her mother. But on the other hand, Laurel really liked this town—and its surly sheriff. She didn’t want to run any more.

When she’d tried to explain this to Max, all he said was, “We’ll be careful, luv. They’ll never know you had a part in it at all.”

Sure.

That had worked well in the past—not. And Grace was so sweet and kind. How could Uncle Max even consider swindling her? He’d actually been proud of the fact he already had her nibbling his carefully baited hook of a lonely old man down on his luck. Another week or two, he said, and he would have her caught on his line and ready to land in the net. Which is where she was expected to drop the ‘
oh so shocking
’ news of her uncle’s imminent need of a costly surgery they couldn’t afford to pay for. A few crocodile tears later and they’d hopefully be on the road to Florida with a large cash donation in their possession.
If
everything went according to plan.

Laurel yanked on the heavy glass door and entered the foyer of the sheriff’s office. She stomped her feet on the rubber mat to dislodge snow, and maybe some of her temper. It wouldn’t accomplish anything to get mad, she knew that. But sometimes…

“So you decided to grace us with your presence after all.”

She jumped and let out a little screech, her hands flapping in the air like a beheaded chicken’s wings. The damn man did it on purpose, she knew he did.

“I was just thinking about getting together a search party.” Jack’s imposing figure filled the doorway. It took a minute or two for Laurel’s heart to slowly settle. She glared in his direction as she hung up her jacket and wrapped her scarf around the hook, wishing it were someone’s neck instead.

“Did you have to startle me like that? I told you I’d make it up to you.” She tried to move past, but he wasn’t going anywhere, so she was forced to take a step back out of his space. He leaned one massive shoulder against the doorframe and crossed his ankle over one booted foot, obviously in no hurry to let her get to work.

Laurel couldn’t help but admire his physique. Long, muscular legs were encased in well-worn jeans that fit him like a glove. A rugged face with eyes that saw too much topped a blue uniform dress shirt rolled up revealed forearms covered in a smattering of dark hair.

“What?” His silence put her on the defensive, making her nervous. She dug around in her handbag until she located her gum.

“Want a piece?” He quirked a brow at her offer and she shrugged, embarrassed at her word choice.

“So, your uncle, huh?” His espresso-colored eyes followed her every move. Laurel stilled, the stick of spearmint halfway to her mouth. Then with forced nonchalance she smiled and slipped the gum between suddenly dry lips. Jack’s gaze narrowed.

“Look, I’m sorry I took off like that, but my uncle hasn’t been well lately and I… I worry about him.” She glanced up to see if he was buying any of this, but his face was noncommittal, so she hurried on, “He raised me and my brother after my dad died. I was still pretty young then.” At least that part was true. “Mom tried, but it was too hard to find childcare she could afford for two children on a minimum wage job. She had to ask her brother for help. Uncle Max insisted we move in with him and his daughter, Bethany. My Aunt Joan had passed away years earlier so it was just the two of them.”

Laurel blinked rapidly and coughed to clear the lump in her throat. Much as the Doyle family lived under a different code of ethics from her own, she still loved them with all her heart.

Jack straightened from the wall and took a step forward. His hand came up and brushed her mussed hair back from her face, his palm a rough caress against her suddenly heated cheek. He tipped her chin up until he could see into her eyes.

“Don’t apologize. Family is more important than answering some phones for me,” he teased, reminding her of when she first started and couldn’t keep up to the phone calls coming into the office. “I think it’s commendable that you are so close to your uncle. If you need a few days off while he’s in town, let me know, I’m sure we can make some sort of arrangement.”

There he was being the nice guy again. Why couldn’t he be a jerk so that she wouldn’t feel so bad about lying to him? Stupid tears floated to the surface though she tried to squelch them.

Jack frowned and used his thumb to sweep them away. “Hey now, none of that. I’m not firing you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Laurel tried to laugh, but it came out more like a burble. Why did this have to happen now? She’d finally found a job she enjoyed in a town she wanted to call home along with a growing attraction to the man standing in front of her with the body of a Greek god and the heart of a pussycat. And in another couple of weeks it was all going to come crashing down around her ears.

“Thanks, boss.” The urge to wrap her arms around him and burrow into his broad chest was oh-so-tempting, but that would only make an already complicated situation that much worse. She bravely lifted her eyes to meet his gaze—and gulped. He was fixated on her lips. Her tongue reflexively flicked out to lick their dryness and his pupils dilated. Laurel’s breath suspended in her throat.

“This isn’t a good idea,” she whispered as his head lowered.

“Probably not,” he agreed just before he consumed her, there was no other word for it. She’d been kissed before, but never like this. There was nothing but Jack. From the faint spicy scent of his cologne paired with the impossible width of his shoulders, to the exquisite firmness of his mouth upon hers.

Laurel grabbed his forearms and held on for dear life, caught up in a maelstrom of desire she was powerless to resist. He tasted like the finest chocolate, wickedly delicious and oh-so-bad for her health. This couldn’t end well for either of them, but she couldn’t bring herself to step back.

Soon. Soon, she would have to, she knew that.

Just a little more.

* * *

J
ack was losing his mind
. He had to be. What other excuse could there be for him to accost his employee in a public foyer? Crazy. She’d cast a spell over him, one he was loath to break. What other reason could there be for this insane urge to hold her in his arms and protect her from the world?

Her lips were soft, like her creamy skin. They tasted like sweet, tart cherries, and reminded him of her personality. She seemed so small and delicate within his embrace, but the grip she had on his arms and the fire sparking in her eyes showed him her inner core of strength. It ignited a conflagration in his body he had to fight to resist. He craved to feel her passion burning him alive.

The last time he’d felt an all-consuming desire such as this, it had proven to be his destruction. The reminder of his ex-wife was enough to bring him to his senses. This was a mistake. Jack didn’t lose control any longer. He’d learned his lesson the hard way. He eased away, his lips clinging, reluctant to part company with such temptation.

Her sandy colored eyelashes fluttered before languidly opening to reveal golden brown eyes hazy with lust. She blinked a couple of times, then straightened, her hands falling away from his body. Jack felt the loss keenly.

Shit.

He didn’t need this right now. His life was crazy enough with a teenage daughter to raise, not to mention the demanding duties of his position as sheriff of a town facing growing pains. He valued normalcy and regularity in his everyday life. There was nothing wrong with a peaceful—okay, dull—existence; he liked his world to operate that way.

“What did you do that for?” Anger had replaced the soft look of desire in her face, turning her cheeks rosy, which in turn highlighted the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her cute button nose.

Jack would have smiled except he wondered the same thing himself.

“Consider it a momentary aberration. It won’t happen again.”

I hope.

“It better not,” Laurel snapped, her coppery red mane glowing with static electricity—or temper, he wasn’t sure which. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” She brushed by him and fiery tendrils of her hair whipped out as though attempting to flay him.

“Some of us can’t stand around doing nothing all day, you know.” Her parting words as she flounced into the office worked like nothing else could have.

Jack burst out laughing like he hadn’t done in a very long time.

L
aurel hummed
along with the tunes playing over the radio while she decorated the office’s Charlie Brown Christmas tree. She’d turned the worst side against the wall, but it was still adorably ugly. It kind of reminded her of one of the older deputies, Sid Carmichael. Skinny and knobby-kneed, it bowed at an awkward angle and looked ready to crash to the floor at any moment, so she tied it with silver garland and hooked it to the coatrack. There, much better. She stood back and grinned.

The outside door clanged open and a teenage girl burst through laughing at something behind her. Make that someone. Jack followed her in, brushing what was left of a well-aimed snowball off his chest.

“Lucky shot,” he said, and tossed a chunk of ice in her direction.

“No fair, Daddy. You said first one in wins,” Tina gasped. She whirled away, only to come to a sliding halt when she noticed the tree. “Hey, that’s supposed to be my job. I do the Christmas tree every year.” She glared at Laurel.

“Tina, you know better than to be rude. Apologize.” Jack’s brows rose in surprise.

Laurel turned away, embarrassed to have caused a scene. “It’s okay, Sheriff. I wouldn’t have started this if I’d known.” She moved to the radio and shut it off, and was immediately sorry she had, because the silence was so much more awkward than listening to “Rudolf, the Red-nosed Reindeer.”

She chanced a glance at Jack’s stern countenance, decided absence was the better part of valor and hurried toward the filing room, but stopped before she’d taken more than a couple of strides. She’d dreamed of having moments like she’d just witnessed between the Garrett’s with her own father. She wasn’t sure what to say to end the animosity between them, but she had to try.

Nostalgic memories rushed to the front of her mind. “The last time I decorated a Christmas tree I was six.”

Her brother, Gabriel, had loved to throw handfuls of tinsel at the branches. Her mother always laughed and rearranged the clumps into colorful dripping icicles. Her father had the important job of climbing the ladder to place the angel on the very top while the woodsy scent of the fresh cut pine filled the room. But best of all, Laurel recalled her parents dancing in front of the newly lit sparkling tree, eyes filled with the light of love. That was the last time she remembered truly being happy. Her father had died not long after that Christmas.

She turned and faced the sullen teen. “I’m truly sorry for ruining a special tradition you share with your father. Just take off the decorations I added and start fresh, I haven’t done too much yet anyway.”

“Tina didn’t mean to be so rude. Right, Tina?” Jack prodded his girl.

Her brown eyes, so like her dad’s, glistened. “No,” she mumbled. “I’m sorry.” She dropped her head and scuffed the toes of her UGGS so they squeaked on the linoleum.

Laurel avoided the compassionate look in Jack’s eyes. The last thing she wanted to do was come between father and daughter.

“Okay, well then, I’ll just be in the filing room if you need me, boss.” She added the moniker as much for him as for his daughter. Things had been a bit tense between them the past few days since their… encounter. She couldn’t even think about it without becoming hot and flustered. The man knew how to kiss that’s for sure, which led to the interesting question of what else was he good at?

Not that she planned on finding out, of course. She could already see the headlines—‘
Felon in bed with Lawman
,’ news at six.

With a last reassuring smile at the teen, Laurel turned away intent on giving father and daughter their quality time together, but Tina’s voice stopped her forward momentum.

“You can stay if you want.”

Laurel hesitated, torn between the longing to be included in their world, if only for a little while, and escape.

“C’mon, Laur… Miss Thomas, we could use your help. I seriously suck at untangling strings of lights.” The laughing appeal in Jack’s words sealed the deal. After all, what could be more innocent than decorating a tree in a police station with a teenager and her way too appealing father?

* * *

J
ack told
himself he was just being a good cop. There was something going on with his receptionist and her elderly uncle, but so far he hadn’t managed to question her about Max, possibly because he’d done everything in his power to avoid her since their encounter last week.

Laurel had shaken him with her response to his kiss. His loss of control embarrassed him. He never crossed the line with the people he worked with; at least he hadn’t until now. But, he’d known from the moment he laid eyes on her that first day she was going to be trouble.

His men had surrounded her like bees to honey. Then he got his first glimpse and realized why. She was like Marilyn Monroe in Technicolor. Tendrils of copper colored hair pulled up in a no nonsense bun slipped down around the alabaster skin of her neck and flirted with the collar of her snowy white blouse. Pearly teeth worried lush, full lips outlined in coral pink lip-gloss.

The closer Jack strode to the counter the more he’d wondered what Angie, his regular receptionist, had been smoking when she hired the debutante to fill the position while she was away. Post-it notes adorned every surface in cheerful abandon, reminders covering all aspects of the job. Reminders she wouldn’t need if she were as experienced as he’d been led to believe.

But the instant he’d met her intelligent golden brown eyes and saw more than the flirty, slightly disorganized secretary, Jack’s interest was well and truly caught. What brought a woman who looked like a pin-up girl all the way from Florida to Washington? So far as he knew, all of her family resided in the Sunshine State. Admittedly, there were days when he’d like to be a few thousand miles away from his brother and two sisters, not to mention his parents, various aunts, uncles and cousins, all of who resided in Tidal Falls. But, this was home. He loved it here and couldn’t imagine a better place to raise his daughter.

Laurel’s laughter drew him out of his musings. Jack shook his head at the silly, sexy image of her with an elf’s hat perched precariously upon her head, curls peeping from beneath the brim. She was smiling at something Tina had just said, a box of shiny Christmas balls in her hand. He swallowed a lump of tenderness at the care she was taking to draw his daughter out of her funk. It hadn’t been easy not having a mom for Tina. He’d done the best he could, and his sisters, Ashley and Bear—Bernadette—were great with her, but nothing could take the place of a real mother.

He’d thought himself in love almost from the moment he slept with April Montgomery. Smart, beautiful, crazy. Too bad he didn’t pick up on that last one until it was too late. She was pregnant and begging for marriage, and he’d given in for all the wrong reasons. Not long before Tina was born he’d been offered a football scholarship at Penn State, a dream come true. April was thrilled, her stature in the community guaranteed. But the more he made, the more she spent. And then she started staying out at night, socializing, she called it. He had another name for it. Their fights over the issue had culminated in a car accident that ended him and his buddy, Mitch Taylor’s careers. And then she left.

“Are you just going to watch us, Daddy, or are you going to help?” Tina stood grinning quizzically at him, her hands on her narrow jean clad hips.

Jack’s mouth quirked. No one did attitude like his girl. “I was waiting on you two hens to quit clucking so we could get down to work,” he teased.

“Sure, you were. Did you know daydreaming is an early sign of the onset of dementia?” She threw him a string of lights and he grimaced at the knotted mess.

“I thought I taught you to respect your elders?” he said, and grinned at Laurel’s sputtered laughter. “See, Miss Thomas agrees.”

She shook her head and the hat slid south. A quick catch righted its position. She handed the glass ornaments over to Tina and picked up a second one from the supplies. “Leave me out of this, you two. I’m just an impartial observer.”

She turned and carefully hung a shiny red bell on one of the nearby branches, giving it a little flick with her fingertip that resounded through his core. A snow globe of a festive village followed, then she lifted a blue velvet Santa from the box and stood for a moment contemplating the best location. Jack was about to suggest a bare spot on a lower branch when she stretched up on a death defying pair of candy apple red heels and damn near stopped his breath. Her modest, knee-length skirt slid inch-by-tantalizing-inch up her thighs, revealing shapely legs and a taut heart-shaped derriere. Her furry white sweater lifted to play peek-a-boo with a cherry blossom branch tattooed onto the small of her back. Jack’s fingers itched to touch the engraved symbol of feminine strength. His mouth watered with the urge to nuzzle her neck below her raised chin. To turn her into his arms and pick up where they’d left off. To...

“Dad, you’re making it worse.”

Tina’s voice jarred him awake. What was he doing fantasizing with his daughter right there in the room? And over someone who probably wouldn’t even stick around until spring either. He glanced down and saw the jangled mess he’d made of the lights and swore under his breath.