Just a Cowboy Read online

For some reason, that made him reach for her hand, and his heart eased a little as he felt her welcome his touch by twining her fingers with his.

  All the demons of caution shut up for a little while and he was glad. Had to be something seriously wrong with you if you couldn’t just enjoy holding a woman’s hand as you strolled down the street.

  Nobody was out and about, except for an occasional car passing slowly on the street. While lots of folks around here enjoyed walking on nice days, with a storm rolling in, they’d choose their cars for that quick run to the store or library.

  He decided to go farther, until they reached the park. It was unusually deserted for a Saturday, and given that the march of thunder was getting louder, he opted not to linger, although another time it might be fun to push Kelly on the swing.

  If Kelly was still around. Dammit, that thought darkened his mood more than it should have. What was going on here?

  But before he could ponder that cosmic question, a patrol car came by and pulled up beside them. Deputy Beauregard leaned out. “How’s it going, Hank?”

  “Just great.”

  “This must be Ms. Scanlon?”

  “Hi,” Kelly said.

  Beau gave her a salute, finger to the brim of the cowboy hat he wasn’t wearing inside the car. Even without the hat, the gesture worked. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am. Just keeping an eye out.”

  “Thank you.” Kelly’s reply sounded heartfelt.

  “Just doing my job, ma’am.”

  Talk turned to the unusual weather for a few moments, then Beau drove on.

  “They really are watching,” Kelly remarked.

  “Yup. We’ve got us a good sheriff’s department here.” He squeezed her hand gently as they continued their walk.

  That’s when he realized what had truly made him antsy. It wasn’t thinking about the past. It was that smoky desire he felt around her and tried so hard to ignore. It was an urge to fall into bed with her and finish what they had begun last night. That and that alone had made it impossible for him to sit still a moment longer. Damn, he wanted this woman.

  And he had no idea if she felt the same way. Yes, she’d seemed to last night, but that was last night and he’d ruined it by tumbling out of bed because of his hip.

  She’d probably be relieved if he never touched her again after that.

  Which soured his mood beyond belief. Overreact much? he asked himself. But the question didn’t help, and the mood didn’t improve.

  “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” she asked.

  Aw, hell. Yes and no. Yes because he was worried about her. Yes because he wanted her. No because he was afraid passion might overtake him again.

  “I can stay at my place,” she said quickly. “I just need to know whether I should get more clothes.”

  He gave up before he’d even waged the battle. “Let’s get you more clothes.”

  “Thanks. I really appreciate it.”

  “Well, considering that Ben made a total hash of it by doing that credit check…” Good excuse but not the complete truth. Not even Fran had made him feel this mixed up. But of course, with Fran, things had been simpler. No shadowy killers, no half-finished divorce, no warning signs that she was going to hit the road any day.

  He waited while she unlocked the front door and together they stepped into her house. And both of them halted in the same instant.

  She turned to him swiftly. “Someone was in here.”

  He smelled it. “What the hell kind of killer wears cologne?”

  It hung on the air, faint and threatening. And it was undeniable.

  Kelly began to shake. She recognized the odor. She recognized it even more clearly than she would have recognized the face of the man who had attacked her. “It’s him,” she said, barely a whisper.

  Hank swore. Without another word, he tried to pull her out of the house.

  “No,” Kelly said. “No.” She pulled free and looked around. There was a hammer lying on the floor and she picked it up. “He’s not scaring me off again,” she said quietly.

  So Hank grabbed a screwdriver from the window ledge. “We should call the cops,” he muttered.

  “Not yet. If that SOB is in my house, I want my licks first.”

  The statement appeared to startle Hank a bit, but she ignored it. Her mind was focused on one thing and one thing only: That man had knocked her on the head and tried to drown her. And if she got anywhere near him, she was going to make him regret it.

  Step by quiet step, they worked their way through the house, front to back. At least there was no upstairs to worry about. Well, an attic, but that wasn’t foremost in her mind. If the guy was up there, he wasn’t going to come down now because she wasn’t alone.

  And she was so grateful that Hank was with her. He was moving as quietly as possible, given his limp, but that irregular gait behind her reassured her. This time she was not alone in some parking garage or at canal-side. This time she had backup.

  Still, this was the scariest thing she’d done in her life, creeping through a house looking for an intruder. Every doorway presented a threat, every closet held a dark secret. One by one they checked them all and found no one. The house appeared empty.

  She looked at Hank. “The attic.”

  “I’m no chicken, but I’m not poking my head up through an attic door, and neither are you. If he’s up there, he’s trapped for now. So now it’s time to get a cop out here.”

  She leaned back against the wall and let him make the call, her eyes fixed on the attic door in the bedroom ceiling. Funny, she’d never noticed it before. Certainly she hadn’t worried about it.

  But now it looked dangerous. Very dangerous. A killer could be behind it.

  Five minutes later, Gage Dalton arrived in the company of another deputy. To Kelly’s surprise, they were both dressed in jeans and light jackets, not uniforms.

  “Figured it was best not to advertise,” Gage said when he saw her look. “Just in case. So you smelled him?”

  “I smelled his cologne,” she agreed. “I’ll never forget that smell. He wears too much of it.”

  “However much he wears,” Gage answered, “we remember smells better than faces. This is Deputy Locke. So we need to check the attic?”

  “Please.”

  The sheriff looked at Locke. “You’re young.”

  Locke half smiled. “That’s one way of phrasing it.”

  “All right, you have a harder head. Go grab a chair.”

  Laughing with quiet good humor, the deputy went in search of a chair. Gage looked up at the attic door. “Is that the only way in?”

  “Yup,” Hank answered. “Not likely anyone could get in there without leaving some sign behind. Like a chair.”

  “Yeah, but it never pays to overlook something like that.” He returned his attention to Kelly, who had her arms wrapped around herself, feeling cold to the bone. She’d left the hammer on the bed.

  “You don’t have to stay,” he said. “You can go home with Hank, if you’ll feel better.”

  “I have to know.”

  Gage nodded, understanding.

  Deputy Locke returned with a kitchen chair and climbed on it, pushing the board that sealed the attic up and in. Gage passed him a flashlight from his jacket pocket, and they waited while he scanned the space.

  “Nothing’s been up here recently,” Locke said. “Dust rules. I like it better than rain for giving away a perp.”

  He lowered the door back into place and climbed down.

  “Thanks, Locke,” Gage said. “Look around outside, will you? But take a clipboard so you look like some kind of workman. There’s one in my car.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Questions were mounting in Kelly’s mind as the first shock passed. “Why are you pretending not to be cops?”

  “In case he’s watching. We don’t want him to know we’re in on this. The easier he thinks it’ll be to get at you, the more likely he is to help us catch him.�
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  She nodded. That made sense to her, especially since she had realized she had only two choices: One was to run again and try to stay alive for the next two months, and the other was to stick it out here and hope to catch the guy so she didn’t have to keep looking over her shoulder. And having been on the run, it was not something she wanted to do again if she could avoid it.

  “Look around inside,” Gage suggested. “See if he tampered with anything.”

  Thankful for something to do, Kelly wandered through the house, trying to remember how she’d left everything. The task proved difficult, considering that the house was still half torn up and awaiting the arrival of the big trash bin to get rid of the flooring. But she hadn’t brought much with her to begin with, and a search of the two dresser drawers she was using didn’t indicate that anyone had gone into them. If they had, they hadn’t moved anything.

  “Nothing,” she said finally in the kitchen.

  Gage spoke. “He may have just been scoping the place. You were out, right?”

  “Since yesterday,” Hank volunteered. Kelly nearly blushed at the implication, but Gage didn’t seem to take notice of it at all.

  “He could have entered any time then. I know if I were him, I’d want to know the layout and where obstacles were.” He leaned back against the counter and folded his arms. “So, the question is what do we do now?” He looked at Kelly, as if awaiting her judgment.

  “You’re asking me? I’m not a cop.”

  “No, I’m asking you what outcome you want to see. Do you want to stay, now that you know he’s here? Do you want us to try to end it here? Or do you want to move on?” He paused. “Before you answer, keep in mind that my department isn’t omniscient or omnipotent. You’re in danger. I have no way to guarantee with complete certainty that you won’t get hurt, no matter what we do.”

  She appreciated his honesty, even though she’d already pretty much figured that out. “You know,” she said, “I’ve had enough of Dean and his machinations. I’ve had enough of him ruining my life one way or another. All he had to do was let me go. He started this mess, but I’m going to finish it.”

  She didn’t miss the way the two men smiled at her. She hoped they weren’t looking at her like a mouse who was pretending to be a lion, roaring with nothing to back it up.

  “Okay then,” Gage said. “I’m going to get you a beeper. Wear it around your neck. If anything at all makes you uneasy, push the button. I’ll have everyone on alert and keep at least two people nearby at all times. If that beeper goes off, we’re coming. And I don’t want you to ever hesitate to use it. Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Gage looked at Hank. “Is she going to be staying at your place again tonight?”

  “Do you think it makes a difference?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. She has to appear to be alone here, and unprotected.”

  “Then you’d better give me one of those beepers, too, so I can tell if she’s in trouble. I can make it over here lickety split.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll get you a receiver, too.”

  Locke returned, useless clipboard in hand. “He came in by way of the mudroom window. I can see the scraping where he worked on the lock.”

  “Well, damn,” Hank said. “I knew I should have gotten to those sooner. I’ll replace them today. The new windows can’t be jimmied easily.”

  Kelly reached out and touched his arm. “No. Let him think he knows how to enter. Let him do it. I’m going to get him this time. He’s going to be sorry he ever came after me.”

  Chapter 10

  The determination that filled Kelly did not abandon her. Before Dean, she’d had more fire. She remembered it. If she looked back to the days before they met, she could easily remember a feistier Kelly. The feisty Kelly who had finally come to her rescue again when she at last accepted that there was no way to please Dean all the time. The Kelly who had the gumption to pack and leave.

  The Kelly who had the gumption to stand in the muck of a canal and beat off an attacker.

  “I like myself better now,” she announced to Hank after a female deputy in civvies dropped off the beeper and receiver.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I’m going to deal with this instead of running. I ran from Dean, but I’m not running from this any longer.”

  “I’d hardly classify leaving an abusive husband as running. What were you going to do? Stay around and fight with him over and over until one of you was decked? That wasn’t running. That was the only proper way to deal with him. The killer is a different thing and, honestly, I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to keep running.”

  “I’d blame myself. That’s not me. Not the me I used to be before Dean.”

  He smiled. “I like you just the way you are.”

  “Well, running is not the way I am. Enough.” She fingered the beeper that now hung around her neck on a chain. “I guess I need to stay here tonight. Alone.”

  “I guess so. But I’ll be awake right next door.”

  “Thank you, Hank. Thank you for everything.”

  His brows rose. “Hold it right there. That sounds like a goodbye.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” Far from it. As she looked at him, she felt something approaching a craving to feel his arms around her again, his mouth against hers, his hands continuing the journey of exploration they had begun just last night.

  Her heart must have been in her eyes, because he moved closer.

  “Kelly?” His voice was quiet, husky.

  “Yes?”

  “Last night…I’m sorry about that.”

  A spark of hurt mixed with anger flared in her. “Sorry you kissed me and held me?” She heard the truculence of her own tone but couldn’t call it back.

  “No. Sorry I rolled away like that. I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted me to touch you again.”

  Her heart squeezed, an ache so sharp it surprised her with its force. Too fast, some little voice whispered. Remember what happened with Dean.

  But she ignored that voice because if there was one thing she was absolutely certain of it was this: Hank was nothing like Dean. Nothing.

  Pain and yearning propelled her forward, and she slipped her arms around him, hugging him. To her vast relief, he hugged her back.

  “Don’t apologize,” she said, her throat tight. “You couldn’t help it. I didn’t feel rejected.”

  “Thanks. Because it was certainly about the most offensive thing I could have done.”

  She felt awful for him. That he should consider a helpless reaction to terrible pain to be offensive… “No,” she said firmly. “It wasn’t offensive at all. I can’t imagine that kind of pain, but I can sure understand why you needed to move.”

  She felt his big hand stroke her hair and for an instant she thought she could purr like a cat. It felt so good, she could hardly believe it. Had she ever felt that way with Dean? Probably. Maybe. But one thing for sure: She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt like this.

  She couldn’t help but snuggle closer, needing to feel his warm strength, his male hardness everywhere. She wished he could just wrap right around her.

  And with that came the unmistakable pulse of desire, but this time so strong it overpowered everything else in her mind. She wanted him. She didn’t have room to spare for a thought about killers, or Dean, or the fact that her house had been invaded.

  With an instinct so primal and so undeniable, she pressed her pelvis closer, sending a message as old as time. I want you.

  She heard him catch his breath, and his arms tightened almost spasmodically around her. Then the world spun and she realized he had swept her off her feet. Dimly she was amazed that he could do that so easily after what he’d been through, but she liked the way it made her feel. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to block out everything but the delightful sensations that now sparkled across her nerve endings, and the ache deep between her thighs that demanded an answer, and soon.


  “Kelly.”

  Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and saw Hank looking down at her. He had a drowsy look that told her he was feeling the same things she was. Another spasm of need cramped between her legs.

  “Are you sure?” he asked hoarsely.

  Her answer came on a nearly breathless whisper, for all the air seemed to have vanished from the room. In fact, everything vanished except the arms that held her and the man who looked at her with sleepy hunger. “Yes…”

  He had to turn sideways to get her through the kitchen door, down the short hall and into the bedroom, but it wasn’t far and didn’t seem to hurt him. She watched his face through heavy-lidded eyes, almost afraid that if she closed her eyes he would vanish.

  He winced only once, as he bent to lay her down on the old bed. It wasn’t as comfortable as the one she’d slept on at his place, but she was well past noticing that. At that moment the stone floor of a cave would have felt like heaven.

  The merest brush of her own clothing seemed to strike sparks, and even the material of her pants, pressing between her legs, added to the flames. Never before had she realized just how erotic the whisper of her own clothing against her flesh could feel. The least movement fueled her hunger.

  She felt herself opening, opening, like a plant eager for the sun’s kiss. He tugged a foil packet from his jeans pocket and tossed it on the pillow. Then he moved cautiously to lay beside her and draw her carefully back into his embrace.

  It was as if time stood still. The only thing that still existed, that still changed, was the syrupy heat that drizzled through her entire body. Arms around each other, they stared into one another’s eyes, as if marking the exquisite importance of what was about to happen. As if any movement might dash the moment out of time.

  Then he kissed her. Such simple words for such an explosion of feelings. The touch of his lips affected her as no one’s ever had. Of that she was certain. No kiss had ever carried her so far, so fast, or stripped the last of her inhibitions away in an instant.

  His did.

  Over the past year, she had endured the death of most of her hopes, and all of her most cherished dreams. And then she had looked death in the eye. A deep change had occurred in her, one she did not realize until that instant: Everything good in life needed to be grabbed when it came by, because the chance might never come again. The only moment she could believe in anymore was right now. The future could hold almost anything. Much of her past lay in ashes. There was just now—this moment and this man.