"You could come here," Mallory replied eagerly. "Tremont is a lovely place to live."
Celia was nodding in agreement but Dani appeared conflicted. She didn't like spur of the moment decisions, preferring to weigh all the options first. It made her a hell of a CFO but it drove her friends a little bonkers.
Sighing, Mallory nudged Dani with her elbow. "Spill it. Clearly you have issues with what I just said."
Dani shrugged. "It's just...I think that Liz has a point. Would she be running away instead of facing her fears? I don't have the answer to that one but I think it's worth delving into. Your problems just follow you and you end up dealing with them anyway."
"I'm trying to deal with them," Liz said. "I'm not trying to run from them, but Denver won't ever be the same for me after what happened."
Celia leaned forward, wrapping her arms around her knees. "Do you feel safer here?"
Yes, but...
"I do but probably not for the reasons that you think. I feel safer because I have my friends all around me."
"What about your friends in Denver?" Mallory asked.
Good question. Tough answer. What friends?
"Most of my friends were from when I worked at the bank. When I left..."
"You didn't exactly take them with you," Celia finished for her. "It makes sense, though."
"Honestly, I don't think they wanted to be around me any more than I wanted to be around them. We all reminded each other of that traumatic event. We sort of drifted apart. I have nice neighbors but I wouldn't call them close friends. We're more wave when we drive by or chat over the mailbox kind of acquaintances."
"That's just awful." Dani's eyes glittered with unshed tears. "Why didn't you tell us? We would have visited more often or brought you to see us. We thought you had lots of friends there to support you."
I didn't want to dump my problems on other people.
"It wasn't terrible, actually. You all took turns staying with me in the weeks afterward, and then later I needed some time to myself to process it all. Because of all of you, I never once felt alone. You were always a phone call away. We texted regularly and we had our weekly Skype call. And we did visit each other. I didn't need you to be physically in the room with me, and you all had your own lives, too. You dropped everything to come to my aid and I'm so grateful for that, but I needed to stand on my own two feet. And I did."
"You certainly have," Mallory agreed fervently. "We're all incredibly proud of you. I hope you know that."
Celia and Dani were both nodding vigorously in agreement.
"I'm proud of me too, but I still have a ways to go."
"The fact that you're thinking about the future is a huge step forward," Mallory insisted. "Thinking about moving, starting to date Noah. That's real progress."
Liz quirked an eyebrow. "Even if I'm packing heat while I do it?"
"Even then. This second chance with Noah could be the start of something wonderful. You never know," Mallory giggled. "These Anderson boys can be mighty addicting. Next thing you know, you're in love with one of them."
Liz had a feeling that she could fall in love with Noah quite easily. She'd already fallen for the man that she'd met before. If he was anything like it in the after...
She was toast.
17
Now that the other bridesmaids had arrived in Tremont, it wasn't as easy for Noah to get time with Liz. The ladies were busy with last-minute dress fittings, wedding favor craft sessions, and just generally catching up after not seeing one another for months. He hadn't seen her at all yesterday but she'd managed to carve out a few hours the next afternoon while her friends rested and caught up with their loved ones back home.
He'd picked her up from Dizzy's house and taken her to the diner for a late lunch. They were both hungry and it was cheeseburgers and fries all around. He didn't bring up the subject of Kenneth McGuire until the waitress had disappeared back into the kitchen after taking their order.
He reached across the table and laid his hand over hers, still marveling at how satiny soft her skin felt. "I'm glad I could see you today."
"I'm glad I could see you, too."
There was a warmth in those amber eyes that he recognized. She was thinking about the other night and honestly, so was he. He'd thought of little else but her, and he wasn't unhappy about that in the least.
"I have some news for you that you might find surprising."
"Okay...I'm listening."
He'd thought about how to give her the news and there were about a dozen different options, but the most straightforward seemed the best way. Might as well start off with the biggest news.
"Kenneth McGuire is dead."
Liz blinked once, then twice, then shook her head. "What? He's... I mean...how?"
"Prison fight. He's gone, Liz."
Sitting back, she stared out of the window of the diner for a long time. Noah kept quiet, letting her gather her thoughts together. This had to have come as a shock.
"He'd dead."
Her words were barely audible. She was still looking away, her attention somewhere else. Possibly the past?
Eventually she turned her gaze back to him, her expression stormy. "He's dead? From a fight? When? And how do you even know this?"
"I asked my cousin Jason to look into what happened at the bank. He found out that McGuire is dead. He died a couple of months ago."
Liz pressed her lips together and she pulled her hand back, placing it in her lap.
"You did what? You...checked up on me?"
Shit. She didn't understand. He needed to right this ship immediately before it hit an iceberg.
"No, not at all. I just wanted to be able to help you as much as possible and I needed to know if there were any details about the robbery that you'd left out."
When he said it out loud...it didn't sound any better. In fact, it kind of sounded worse.
Fuck. Danger. Red alert.
"I was just trying to make sure that I could help you, Liz. I'm sorry if I've overstepped any boundaries."
Steepling her fingers, she took her time responding while Noah sweated it out.
"You did cross a boundary. A big one. You went behind my back because you didn't trust that I told you the truth."
Her words were calm and controlled, but her cheeks were red. She was pissed off and Noah didn't blame her. In his zeal to help and protect, he'd fucked up. Royally.
"Mea culpa. I messed up big time. I didn't think it through. I just wanted–"
Liz held up her hand and shook her head. "No, you don't get to mitigate it, Noah. You were about to say that you wanted to help me. You made this situation about what you wanted, not about what I wanted. Your wants are not more important than mine. They're equal. If you were concerned that there was something you didn't know, you should have come to me. If you'd told me that you wanted your cousin to check into the robbery, I would have told you to go ahead but that I'd told you what I considered to be the most important details. But you went behind my back. I have to wonder if that's because you felt, deep down, that it was wrong."
He was in deep shit. Far deeper than he'd originally thought.
Think. Don't be a jerk. Think before you speak.
"You're absolutely right," he replied slowly, taking a deep calming breath. Was this their first fight? Shit. He didn't want his stupidity to ruin what they had between them. "My wants are not more important than yours. I should have discussed it with you. I guess it's in my nature to step up and try and take control of a situation. It's what I have to do in my job every day, but clearly, this was the wrong call here. I really am very sorry."
The red color in her cheeks was gone and she didn't appear as agitated. "Thank you for apologizing. As long as you understand that going forward, I'm not a situation to manage or control. I get that you need to be that way in your job. That makes sense. But I'm not the ranch, I'm a human being. If we're going to do this, we have to be equal partners."
"I want to do
this. I am sorry."
Blowing out a breath, she shook her head. "Stop apologizing. I probably blew this out–"
"No," Noah said firmly. "You were right. I shouldn't have gone behind your back and asked Jason to check the bank incident out. It was a reflex action but you're right. You're not a job to manage or a problem on the ranch."
"Well...good, then. We understand one another."
"We do. Hey, we made it through our first fight," Noah laughed. "That was pretty good."
Liz smiled in return. "We did do well, didn't we? I'm actually impressed. We had a disagreement, we talked about it, and we came up with a plan going forward. No butt hurt feelings, no whining, just talking it out. Look at us...adulting like pros."
They were both grinning like crazy and then Liz's smile fell, her shoulders dropping.
"Shit, for a moment I forgot the whole point on this conversation. He's gone."
"He can't hurt you anymore."
She rubbed the side of her face and groaned softly. "I've let him and his friends haunt my dreams for a long time. It's hard to believe that he's dead."
"He's definitely dead. Jason confirmed it. He's not going to get out of prison and come after you. You don't have to afraid."
Placing her hands on the table, she sat up straighter in the booth. "I kept seeing his evil grin over and over in my nightmares."
Noah had read the transcripts of the trial. She hadn't told him every detail.
"He singled you out, didn't he?"
"Yes." Her gaze traveled to the window again and he waited while she gathered her thoughts. Eventually, she turned back, her lips turned down at the corners. "I don't know why."
"Probably because you're an attractive woman."
"There were other attractive women."
From what the transcripts read, McGuire had kept Liz with him the entire time in the bank vault, making her sit beside him and telling everyone that when the time came she would choose the first person to be shot. Like she was his girlfriend and accomplice. He'd tried to pull her into his savage little game.
"Maybe he liked brunettes. We'll never know except that what he did was sick and evil."
"Sick and evil," she echoed softly. "That sums it all up, doesn't it? The whole situation."
"There are bad people in the world, and they do bad things. Luckily, there are far more good."
"There are," Liz agreed. "I just can't help but wonder what turned him that way. What made him the way he was? Was he born that way or was he made?"
"That's the age-old question. Nature or nurture? I don't have the answer except to say that Jason told me that the whole family lacks a moral compass. McGuire's brother and father are both living on the wrong side of the law."
"His mother was there every day of the trial. She loved her son and she cried when they sentenced him to prison. I don't think she wanted to believe that he'd done those things."
Noah was a tad cynical about McGuire's mother sitting in court every day crying when people said mean things about him.
But I'm a cynical asshole anyway.
"Twelve people on a jury said that he did," Noah finally replied, keeping his more skeptical thoughts to himself. "A bunch of eyewitnesses said he did—hell, his own accomplices said that he did. Whether she believes it or not is on her, but I can see why she'd be upset. Her youngest son was going to prison. But I do know that none of this was your fault. None of it. And I hope this news will give you some of the closure you didn't get with the trial."
"Closure," she sighed with an eyeroll. "My therapist was big into that. This is the end of some of it, though. I've been dreading going to his parole hearings in the future. I don't have to worry about that."
"And the others? What about them?"
"I know they're just as guilty, but I barely saw them at the bank and then they pleaded guilty. For some reason..."
Her voice trailed away but Noah understood.
"They didn't make the impression on you that McGuire did?"
"That's an understatement."
"He's gone now. He can't hurt you anymore," Noah repeated. "This can be a brand-new start for you, if you want it to be."
She raised her eyes to him, a smile growing on her beautiful face. "I do want that. I want it all. I'm sick and tired of being afraid. I didn't realize how bad it was until Mallory pointed it out to me. I want to be more like the person that I was before. She lived life to the fullest."
Noah grinned and waggled his brows. "She certainly did."
"Noah Anderson, are you thinking about sex?" she asked in a mock scolding tone. "I'm shocked, absolutely shocked."
"Would you be even more shocked if I asked you back to my place after lunch?"
"Do I get dessert first?"
Fuck yes.
"We can even get it to go, if you prefer."
Chocolate cake in bed was always fun.
"Then I accept your offer. I do have to be back at the house in a couple of hours."
"That should be fine. I'm not as young as I used to be, honey."
But she sure as hell made him feel that way.
18
"We always seem to be in a hurry," Liz panted as she backed into Noah's bedroom, his arms around her, nipping her neck. They'd scrambled out of his truck and kissed all the way into the house. "We have such good intentions, too."
Blown to hell.
"We should slow down," Noah agreed in between kisses. His lips grazed her earlobe before sliding down to where neck met shoulder. She tightened her grip on his shoulders as her knees weakened. He was far too skillful. "Take our time."
But they didn't seem to be doing that. Both of them were tugging at clothes and tossing them aside like old newspapers. By the time they hit the mattress they were both naked.
She was desperate for him, wanted him badly. They had two years to make up for after all, but...
She wanted to savor this beautiful man lying on top of her, his delicious weight pressing her into the bed. There was something so incredibly sexy about his larger body almost protecting her own. It made her feel small and delicate when in reality she wasn't either of those things.
With her palms on his chest, Liz gently pushed him to his back. For a moment, he protested but then meekly allowed her to straddle him, pillowing his head on his hands.
"What are you planning, babe?"
"We're going to slow down a little," Liz replied firmly. "I thought we could start here."
"Here?" he teased with a sizzlingly evil grin. "I can't wait to see where here is."
"Here can be many places."
It wasn't that Liz had never taken the lead in the bedroom...she had, but it wasn't an everyday sort of occurrence. Summoning her confidence, she leaned down and brushed their lips together, enjoying the feel of his soft mouth against hers. She thought about deepening the kiss, but there was far too much territory to be covered and she couldn't wait to explore every inch of the gorgeous male specimen spread out like a buffet in front of her.
Dropping kisses along his jawline, she traveled down his neck and across his collarbone, her tongue darting out to taste the salty skin. Her fingertips glided down his muscled arms, and she delighted in the stark differences between them - his golden skin contrasting with her much fairer complexion, his body hard and hers much softer.
He moved restlessly underneath her as she trailed kisses down his torso, stopping every now and then to give a flat male nipple a lick or to run her tongue along the ridges of his stomach. His groans and sighs gave her the confidence to keep going farther south but she paused when she reached his treasure trail, the silky path of hair that led down to his cock.
"You're not stopping now, are you?" he asked, his voice strained.
"I am definitely not stopping."
Running her fingers over his thighs, she lightly scraped the flesh with her nails as she leaned down to give him a lick from root to tip, enjoying the way his entire body jerked in reaction and then a hiss through his gritted tee
th.
"Fuck," he rasped, his hand clasping the back of her head, the fingers flexing against her scalp.
"We'll do that in a few minutes. But first I want to do this."
This was taking was him so deep in her mouth he bumped the back of her throat. Then slowly pulling back, keeping as much suction as she possibly could so there was a push-pull action that she hoped he'd like. From the way he was fisting the sheets and groaning, she was on the right track.
Over and over she sunk back down, taking all that she could, and then pulled back until only the head was in her mouth. She'd swirl her tongue a few times and then start all over again. His back was arched and his hips were lifted off the mattress, his fingers buried deeply in her hair. She was getting ready to do it again when his hand cupped her cheek.
"No more, babe. I don't want this to be over so soon."
She didn't either, to be honest. She wanted them to slow down and enjoy each other, but it wasn't easy. The entire time she'd been going down on him she was already thinking about how well he'd fill her up.
"We're going to take this slow," Liz replied, running her hands up his chest. "Take our time."
"I don't think that's going to work out."
She didn't have time to reply.
Before she could open her mouth, she was flat on her back with a happy and very aroused male hovering above her. His body brushed hers and her breath hitched as heat swept through her veins.
"I wasn't done," she protested weakly. She'd been enjoying herself but she could feel her arousal rising as images of what he might have in mind filled her brain. "I had more planned."
Leaning down, Noah pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth and then several more down her neck. Her heart skipped a beat and then accelerated in her chest, leaving her breathless. "You'll have to save it for next time. You did too good of a job."
It was hard to concentrate when his tongue was tracing patterns on the skin between her breasts.
Dancing With Danger (Danger Incorporated Book 10) Page 12
