by Alisha Rai
Though he wasn’t exactly in a sweet and cuddly mood, she couldn’t resist giving him a hug. A protective male was so cute. “Well, to tell you the truth, I’m not too fond of it either.”
Reynolds chose that moment to let out a low moan. They looked down to see him blinking up at them before rage contorted his features at the sight of Genevieve in Alex’s arms. “You son of a bitch. You’re supposed to be dead.”
Alex snarled. He let go of Genevieve and reached down to grab the man by his collar. Genevieve winced as he hauled back and threw a punch to the man’s face that snapped his neck back. “That’s for shooting me, asshole.” He punched him twice more, until Reynolds lay limp again on the floor. “And that’s for hurting my woman.” He rose from his crouch and held out his hand to Genevieve. “Was that fucking pure?”
“Nope.” No one but he would understand how happy that made her either. “That was awesome.”
“Come on, angel. Let’s take care of this piece of shit first.” He led her out of the barn and frowned at the sky as she closed the doors and snapped the padlock for good measure. “I’m sure Reynolds must have driven here. You know this area—where would he have hidden his car?”
After some searching, they found the vehicle hidden behind some brush about a quarter mile out. Alex grinned at the sight of the car and practically rubbed his hands in glee. “It’s his cruiser. We’ve got a radio. Time to call the cavalry in.” He paused. “But first, let’s get all of our stories straight.”
15
“Did you just make the sign of the cross?”
Alex’s aggrieved question, directed toward a wide-eyed deputy, would have made Genevieve smile if she wasn’t feeling quite so miserable.
They had managed to call the cavalry in, or what passed for the cavalry in Harrison, a few old patrol cars and pretty much the entirety of the police force. The dispatcher had been shocked to hear Alex’s voice, and even more stunned when he’d told her where he was. Apparently, after shooting Alex, Reynolds had moved his car to the lake, almost fifty miles away from where he’d actually been injured. The search party had been braving the blistering cold to search in absolutely the wrong place.
The target of Alex’s ire was a young man Genevieve knew by sight as someone who’d been a couple of years behind her in school. He’d been a bit of an idiot back then. Nice to see things hadn’t changed.
“N-n-no, sir.”
Alex pinned him with a gaze so black, Genevieve was relieved that she wasn’t on the receiving end of it. “Are you finished taking her statement?”
“Yes. I’ll, uh, go see if they need any help with that guy.” Genevieve guessed the guy was Leonie. Or maybe the deputy just wanted to be away from her.
Alex sighed and dropped to squat in front of her where she sat huddled on her porch steps. “Did you stick with our story?”
Genevieve knew the others were out of earshot, otherwise Alex wouldn’t have risked asking. “Yes. I said you shot Leonie.” Leonie’s car had been found a little farther west than Reynolds’. Since it had been filled with all sorts of incriminating evidence, Genevieve wasn’t too worried about Alex being formally charged, though she wasn’t thrilled with his decision to absolve her of any blame. She had questioned what would happen when Leonie’s wounds healed quicker than they otherwise should, but Alex had shrugged and said people would just consider it a miracle.
“And you downplayed my injury?”
“I said when I found you, your greatest worry was a bullet crease and frostbite. Nothing a bandage and chicken soup wouldn’t cure.”
“Okay. Good.” He stared at the ground between his feet. “You weren’t kidding, were you?”
“That everyone in that little town hates me? No sirree, Bob.”
He looked up and smiled. “And here I thought the biggest stumbling block would be people who frowned on an interracial relationship.”
“I wish.” She cast an uneasy glance at where the pack of police officers stood huddled together. She didn’t like the way they were staring over at the two of them. “Alex, you need to go.”
He reached out to touch her face, but checked his motion when she flinched back. His hurt expression tore at her heart.
She had to make him understand, and quickly. Whatever hope she’d had that they could ease into a relationship had been steadily demolished when the other people had intruded on their seclusion. “Listen up. This is the real world now. You think you’re going to have a job or a place in that town if word gets back that you were sharing my bed? Be rational.” His job meant so much to him. She’d caught that from him. The man didn’t care how or where he did it, as long as he was a cop.
“I don’t care what anyone thinks.”
“Alex.” She closed her eyes in an effort to compose herself. “I…I think I could love you very easily. But I can’t just give up everything I’ve pledged myself to. I’m sorry.” The words cost her. With him around, she’d started to really believe she didn’t need to do penance for the rest of her life. Once he left, though, it would be tougher to rationalize.
He waited to speak until she opened her eyes. His expression was a mix of anger and resignation. “This isn’t about being a part of the real world. We could work something out.”
How could they? Still she knew if he was given half the chance, he would turn his life upside down for her. He was so damn noble. She had to be the one who was thinking with the brain instead of the heart. “Your mom and brother are waiting for you, aren’t they?”
He frowned at the reminder and stood immediately. She would have felt guilty about knowing exactly what would worry him most if she wasn’t so heartsick. “I’ll come back…” he began, in a quiet tone.
She looked over at the knot of deputies, catching the same young guy making the sign to ward off evil. The little man paled when he noted her watching him. “No. Please. I don’t want you to. There’s no way it could ever work between us. I can’t see you in that town without making myself miserable and you can’t come here and still be happy.” Sensing his wavering, she brought out the big guns, real tears welling in her eyes. “Please…please don’t hurt me more by coming back here and showing me what I can’t have.”
He opened his mouth, only to close it and swallow hard. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “No. No, I’ll never hurt you.” He stuck out his hand, and feeling a bit surreal, she grasped and shook it. “Thank you for everything. I’ll…I’ll never forget it.”
He turned around, whistled to the other men. With varying degrees of speculation and looks of fear leveled at her, they climbed into their cars and started to make their way out of the snowy land.
Genevieve sat on her porch for a while after they left. It was cold and damp, the wet plank floor seeping into her jeans to freeze her butt, but she couldn’t go inside and face the aching loneliness of her small cabin.
For the first time in three years, she understood an inkling of what her mother must have felt. Sacrificing to protect someone you loved from themselves hurt like hell.
But sometimes there just wasn’t any other choice.
16
Three weeks later
“Folks, get your snow gear ready, ’cause we have a doozy of a storm heading our way—” The announcer’s voice was cut off as Genevieve hit the dial on her brand-new HD radio. The thing had been dropped on her doorstep yesterday, the latest in a series of presents.
It joined the ranks of a brand-new shortwave radio, a prepaid cell phone that received amazing coverage even out here, a case of ammunition, brand-new pots and pans, a box full of gourmet canned foods, and—her favorite—a box of lacy lingerie, the exact same brand she’d loved to wear in her old life.
The gifts had started showing up in the middle of the night twenty-four hours after she’d sent Alex packing. She’d cried over the shortwave, the first one, knowing it was a gesture to show how concerned he was over her safety. Then, a few days later, she’d gone out in the morning to find the next one.
And she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Everything in her home screamed his name, from her bed to the shower to the kitchen. She couldn’t get away from it. Nor did she really want to. She wanted him back. In her life. In her bed.
God, yes, in her bed. Who said love couldn’t start from good old animal attraction? She stared into the fire and curled her legs deeper underneath her in the armchair.
The fact that he was coming so physically close to her to leave her the little presents was driving her crazy too. Though she might have to wait a while for another visit. The forecaster had confirmed what the little flurries she’d noticed while eating dinner had told her.
The thump on her porch had her heart jumping in her throat before she darted a glance at her wristwatch. It was dark, but barely nine. Besides, Alex had never made any noise before.
A bit nervous, she crossed to her bureau to remove her handgun before she walked to her window, twitched the curtain aside, hit the light and peered outside.
A box. A large brown box sat on her porch. And it was…moving?
Intrigued, she opened her door to hear a plaintive howl come from inside the thing.
She had her suspicions and they were confirmed when she opened the flaps to find a tiny golden puppy staring up at her and shivering. Mostly lab, she guessed, though there was definitely some pure mutt running through his veins.
The pup mewled again, and she couldn’t take it. As she reached in to pick him up, he went into a frenzy of excitement, his small body wriggling, the heat of his heart warming her hands. She brought him up to stare into his deep eyes. The poor guy just about stroked out trying to reach her nose with his tongue. “A radio, I understand. What’s your practical purpose?”
“He doesn’t have one.”
Even though she was half expecting it, she jumped as Alex stepped onto the porch. He looked tired and…hot. She realized she was seeing him fully dressed for the first time, and wasn’t that a kicker? His jeans fit him perfectly, a battered leather jacket hiding the rest of him.
“I figured you had enough practical gifts. You needed something unpractical.”
“Impractical.”
His dimple, that beloved dimple, winked. “That too. Anyway, I couldn’t come up with anything more impractical than that goofy mutt.”
Without thinking, she brought the puppy closer to her chest. “He’s not goofy. He’s a baby.” She jumped when the dog tried to burrow under her shirt.
Alex smiled. “He’s cold. So am I. May we come in, Genevieve?”
He was so polite, it seemed weird. As if he was reading her thoughts, he raked his hands through his hair. “I didn’t ask the first time. Figured you deserve a choice.”
Though she was finding it a bit difficult to breathe, she nodded. After collecting the dog bowl in the box, she held the door open for him. When he came inside, she noticed that he was holding two duffels.
He raised the smaller one. “This is everything you’ll need for the dog. If you want to keep him. If not, I’ll take him back.”
She looked down at the guy, cradled like a baby in her arms. He watched her with complete trust and blind adoration already and gave a tiny bark. “I’ll keep him.”
To give herself something to do, she filled up the bowl with water and set it down. When she deposited the dog on the ground, he gave a growl and attacked the bowl as if it were his enemy.
They laughed at his antics, and it seemed to break the tension and weird formality of the moment. When she looked at him, he was smiling, a sheen of moisture in his eyes. “Reynolds and Leonie are both behind bars. Leonie didn’t get bail, and Reynolds’s is too high. He seems to have lost all of his friends.”
Satisfaction flowed through her. “Good. I hope Reynolds is finding out what they do to cops behind bars.”
“I’m sure he has. I’ve missed you.”
“Me too.” She couldn’t help the admission. She cleared her throat. “So what is the deal with the presents?”
The tips of his ears turned pink. “I was courting you.”
“With radios and canned food?”
“I figured you’d appreciate that more than flowers and candy.”
She smiled. He had her pegged. “And the lingerie?”
“Well, yeah, so not everything was practical. But everyone needs panties, right?”
“The thong isn’t considered a necessity.”
His eyes flared with heat. “Depends how you’re looking at it.”
Her breath caught. Forget how good his rangy body looked in clothes, she wanted to do nothing more than tear them off. Her brain taunted her with how good he’d looked lying on her bed in nothing but a sheet.
“Anyway, the weather kind of derailed my plan. I couldn’t stand the thought of you spending another snowstorm here by yourself. So…” He lifted the larger bag.
“So you’re planning on getting snowbound with me?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Did you use your vacation days for this?”
“Kind of. Every day’s a vacation day for me. I quit my job.”
“What?”
He dropped the duffel on the floor and shrugged out of his jacket. Underneath, the white long-sleeved shirt molded to his muscles and brought out the tan of his skin. “I handed in my resignation. I’m done.”
“But…you can’t do that. You love being a cop!”
“Yeah, but you made me realize something. I loved being a cop because I felt like I was making a difference in the world. I’m not doing jack shit here except sort paper.”
“There’s different levels of—”
“Genevieve, I get that. I have nothing but respect for small-town law enforcement. This timeout has been good for me. I needed it, but Harrison doesn’t need me. When I handed in my resignation…I’m officially no longer a cop, and ask me how I feel.”
“How do you feel?” she asked cautiously.
He grinned. “Like me. I thought I couldn’t live without this job, without this title. But I don’t need it. I’m still me. Thanks to you, I feel confident in a way I didn’t before. I don’t think I’m magically cured, but it’s like a weight was lifted off me. Like I’ve been redeemed. I don’t need to be a cop to feel like a hero, because when you look at me, I’m already there.
“When I came here, I was so desperate to find any way I could to remain a cop, even if I was unhappy doing it. If I get another job in law enforcement, it will be because I really want it and I’m able to handle it, not because I can’t do something else.”
She smiled back, thrilled for him. “That’s great. I’m happy for you.”
“So, you see, you don’t need to stay away from me to protect my precious job. It’s fine.”
“That’s not the only reason…”
“It was a big one. Admit it.” When she hesitated, he pursued. “If you still can’t leave here, Genevieve, I’ll move in with you.”
“You’d do that?”
Alex’s face was very serious. “We all sacrifice stuff for the people we love, don’t we?”
“You really love me?”
“I think I fell the second I opened my eyes on your porch. One way or another, Genevieve, we’re going to end up together. Call it fate or magic, but I know we were meant to meet. It may not have been the most ordinary circumstances, but I know you better after this experience than I would have ever gotten to know you through a month of scheduled dates. Don’t tell me you didn’t feel something special the first moment you touched me. Tell me you didn’t feel a spark when we kissed. Tell me the world didn’t move when we made love.”
“I can’t tell you any of that.” She looked up at him, certain her heart was shining in her eyes. “You want the truth? I have my own bag packed and ready to go. Once the storm cleared out, I was planning
on hunting you down. Life’s not much fun without you.”
He looked a bit stunned. “You would have come to me, even though you thought I work in a town you despise?”
“Yeah, well. We all sacrifice for the ones we love, don’t we?”
He stilled completely at the word love. Then his relieved grin just about split his face and he walked over to crush her in his arms. “Lucky for you, we don’t have to. We can live here if you want. If you need to.”
“I hate it here, and I know you wouldn’t be able to stand the isolation.” She turned her head so her voice wouldn’t be muffled. “Life’s too short to bring yourself misery. I don’t know if I’ll ever completely forgive myself for the part I played, but I keep replaying what you said, about how my mom didn’t sacrifice herself only for me to throw my life away.” It was time to grow up, and grasp the happiness he offered. She’d wasted years trying to atone for what she’d done, but she realized now how deeply upset her mother would have been if she knew how she’d been living. She’d been ready to sacrifice herself for Alex, not once, but twice. She could empathize with what her mother had done out of love for her. She’d do the same for her own child.
He nuzzled her hair. “I told you, there’s nothing for you to feel guilty—”
She brushed a light kiss against his jaw, and he shuddered. Against her stomach, his cock hardened and lengthened beneath the denim of his pants. She really did resent his clothes. Genevieve slowly stroked his pecs, loving the feel of him, now familiar but no less exciting.
Alex was a risk, yes, but it could have huge payoffs. She started to unbutton his shirt. “So we’re both technically unemployed and don’t know where we’ll live. How does that sound to you?”
“If you’re in the equation? Perfect.” Alex smiled. She glimpsed happiness and relief in his eyes before his head swooped down on her lips. “You won’t regret it. I’m going to keep you too satisfied to regret it,” he promised her as he stripped her shirt off with such force she heard buttons snapping. He lowered his head, pushing her breasts together and burying his face between them. He licked and sucked, causing her to moan loudly.
