First Comes Love

by Heather Heyford

  What had gotten into him? He had no business making promises he couldn’t keep.

  Nothing of great consequence had happened yet. It would be best for everyone concerned if he nipped this in the bud.

  Tomorrow. Maybe.

  But the next day, he ended up in a foot chase with a guy who’d robbed the pharmacy, resulting in a sprained ankle and an X-Ray, and the day after that, he’d been forced to detain both the husband and wife involved in a domestic dispute. By the end of the week, he found himself wishing for another simple supper with a decent woman and her sweet girls, the kind eaten with your hands and paper napkins.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Kerry called Hank to explain why she and Alex had stood him up. He had already heard about Indra’s accident, of course, and he waved away her apology. But when he asked if Alex wanted to reschedule, Kerry didn’t know what to say. They had parted outside the taqueria without making any more plans.

  Then came the heat wave.

  Most older homes in the Willamette didn’t have air-conditioning. But not even her parents had requested it in their new place. Historically, it simply wasn’t needed. The average summer temperatures hovered around the seventies during the day and the nights were delightfully cool.

  This summer was turning out to be an exception. The day care took the kids to the pool during the day while Kerry was at work in her air-conditioned office, but the evenings felt more like Florida than Oregon. Her girls were too listless to play with their toys. They stripped down to their swimsuits and watched movies on TV in the path of a box fan cranked on high.

  As Kerry rinsed the supper dishes, she could hear Hobo panting, lying on the kitchen floor behind her. She glanced at the old thermometer outside her kitchen window. Still eighty-six degrees.

  That’s it. The dishes only half done, she dried her hands. “Girls, put your shoes on. We’re going to town to get a new pool.”

  Ella, deeply into The Little Mermaid, didn’t budge.

  “’K,” said Chloé.

  Kerry went upstairs and pulled a gauzy caftan on over her suit. On her way back downstairs, Shay finally sighed and got up off the floor and slid into her flip-flops.

  Kerry grabbed the remote, clicked the TV off, and lifted Ella into her arms.

  But as they were piling into her SUV, her hand paused on the door handle when she heard a car.

  Shay and Chloé followed Kerry’s gaze down the lane until a white Taurus came into view.

  “Coach Walker,” Shay murmured. “Wonder what he wants?”

  A kaleidoscope of butterflies danced in Kerry’s midsection as she watched him come closer and closer.

  He parked and hopped out with a wave and a grin. “Hey, girls.” He went around to his trunk and retrieved a large box, which he carried toward the circle in the yard where the grass was still yellowish and matted down. “Got you something.”

  “A present!” shouted Chloé. She and Shay were out of the SUV in a flash, tailing after him.

  “I want out,” cried Ella.

  Kerry carried her over to where Alex was dismantling the box and set her on her feet.

  The pictures on it were a dead giveaway.

  “A pool! He got us a new pool!” The girls skipped around him, forgetting that they were sweaty and drained from the heat. Apparently, a pool brought by Alex warranted way more excitement than any pool Kerry had ever bought them.

  Ella looked up at Kerry with her toothless grin and said, “Poowl.”

  “We were just on our way to get one. How did you know?” asked Chloé.

  “Figured you were probably missing the old one in this heat.”

  He pulled the pool from the box and unfolded it, frowning. “Where do you suppose the thing is to blow it up?”

  “That’s a lot bigger than our old pool,” breathed Shay, duly impressed.

  Kerry set Ella down and carried two folding lawn chairs over from another part of the yard and sat them at an angle to each other.

  “Thanks.” There was an unmistakable twinkle in Alex’s eyes when he glanced at her before lowering himself into one of the chairs. He found the inflation valve and blew a mighty breath into it. And then another, and another.

  “Nothing’s happening,” said Chloé.

  Kerry grinned and sat down in the other chair while the girls ran to where the hose was coiled up alongside the house and began bickering over who was going to drag it to the pool.

  “That’s going to take forever.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Genius. How’d you get your old one blown up?”

  “Same way. Good old-fashioned lung power.”

  “Any time you want to take a turn, it’s all yours.”

  She laughed. “No one said you had to get one twice the size of the old one.”

  The girls ended up each grabbing a length of hose and walking it over.

  “I wasn’t thinking, or believe me, I wouldn’t have. Either that or I would’ve bought a pump.”

  “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. It was a very thoughtful gesture. You saved me a trip.”

  “Should’ve done it sooner.”

  “Here,” she said, reaching for the pool. “I’ll take a turn. Your face is red as a beet.”

  Alex and Kerry alternated blowing for a quarter of an hour, while the girls tried to be patient, giving Hobo drinks from the hose, squealing with laughter when he bit at the stream of water.

  “What kind of dog is he?” asked Alex. He had never had a dog himself.

  “The guy at the shelter said his mother was mostly Sheltie, and judging from the puppies, they thought the father might be some sort of terrier.”

  Finally, Alex and Kerry sat back in their chairs and Hobo lay down in the shade of the house, all three of them exhausted, while the girls alternately sat in the spacious, empty oval and held the hose over it. They were delighted to find it was large enough to hold all three of them, with room to spare.

  Kerry and Alex talked and watched the girls play until the sun went down and a silver moon sailed into view and the bats swooped low overhead, making the girls duck and shriek in mock terror.

  “Keep an eye on them a minute?” Kerry went into the house and returned carrying a tray laden with Mason jars, a small plate of cheese and crackers, and two glasses of red wine.

  The girls cavorted after fireflies in the dense night air, their long hair flying as they pounced in the grass, yelling, “I caught one! I caught one!” until Ella, whose jar was still empty, began to cry and Chloé gave her some of hers.

  Finally, Kerry stood and drifted over to them. “It’s that time, girls.” Over the usual protests—though tonight they were weaker than usual, thanks to the heat and the exercise—she said, “Tell Coach Walker good night, and don’t forget to thank him for the pool.”

  She warmed inside as she watched Alex close his eyes with each child-size hug, savoring it.

  “Guess that’s my cue to go, too,” he said, rising on stiff legs.

  “Sit here and enjoy the quiet, why don’t you?” said Kerry. “They’re worn out, thanks to you. I shouldn’t be long.”

  There it was again, that spark of something that looked like hope in his eyes. It made Kerry rush through her bedtime routine with the girls, making her feel guilty. A little.

  A few minutes later, she returned and collapsed into her chair next to him, letting her head fall back. “Ahhhh.”

  Alex tipped his wineglass. “After you left, I wasn’t sure if I should have offered to help or what.”

  “The girls passed out the second their heads hit the pillow.” Kerry’s head lolled toward him. “How’s the wine?”

  He smacked his lips in satisfaction. “I’m already writing my blog entry in my head. It’s going to say, ‘best enjoyed in a camp chair on a hot summer night, when the stars look close enough to touch.’ ”

  Kerry raised her glass to him. “And you claim you don’t have a way with words.”

  For a few minutes, the only sound was the drone of
insects in the meadow beyond the lawn.

  Kerry gathered her hair together and held it in a bunch at the back of her head, letting the air cool the nape of her neck.

  “I’m hot.” It wasn’t just the climate. Alex had awakened something that had long lay sleeping, something she thought she would never feel again. She was suddenly very aware of him. She imagined she could feel his breath on her skin, hear his heart beating in his chest. She had to get away from him. She rose, pulled her caftan over her head, tossed it onto her chair, and stepped into the pool. There she wedged her wineglass among the tall blades of grass, sat back, and swirled the water with her hands.

  What was she doing? He’s a cop, whispered a small, inner voice. You can’t trust cops. But lately, that voice seemed to come from farther and farther away. And hadn’t she just finished telling him he was a decent man—and meant it?

  Maybe it was the heat, or maybe it was because it had been a very long time since she had simply sat in the moonlight with a man. Any man, but especially a man whose relaxed demeanor couldn’t hide the power she sensed he was capable of unleashing at the slightest provocation.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Alex narrowed his eyes and watched Kerry bask in the dark water, her wet skin glistening in the moonlight.

  You sure are, he thought with admiration. Hot, that is.

  Until he’d moved to Newberry, his life had been a meaningless sequence of unrelated events on a timeline leading nowhere. Just like Curtis Wallace, one day he would die, and that would be that. He had come to accept it. What else could he do? He was too old to believe in happily ever after—if indeed, he ever had. He and his ex had only gotten engaged because all their friends were doing it, and look how that had turned out. After growing up being passed back and forth by his own parents, he should’ve known better.

  But recently, he was seeing connections everywhere he looked. A certain momentum was gathering force. Like a storm cloud, or a snowball rolling downhill, growing larger as it went. A vibration hummed in him that made him feel like he was teetering on the cusp of something big. Something earth-shattering.

  Kerry shook back her hair. “Come on in, the water’s fine.”

  “I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”

  She looked around. “Who’s going to see you?”

  He gulped. She was, that’s who. The thought of the Kerry O’Hearn viewing him buck naked for the first time was disconcerting enough, but to stride over there blatantly displaying the erection that was currently safely tucked away in his shorts?

  His pulse began to thrum at the potential. “You sure?” he asked, buying time while he worked up his nerve.

  “If I weren’t,” she said wantonly, “I wouldn’t have asked.”

  Alex had never been one to back down from a challenge. He downed his wine in one gulp. “Ready or not, here I come.” He stood, whisked off his shirt and stepped out of his shorts, and headed toward the pool with his head high and his shoulders back like Poseidon, his trident proudly leading the way.

  As he drew nearer, Kerry blinked, quite unprepared for the sight of that.

  He stepped into the shallow water in front of her and planted his feet in a wide-legged stance. Two things were clear: one, there was no way he could hide his towering arousal, and two, she couldn’t hide from it. It was the proverbial elephant in the room, seeming to take up the entire space between them.

  He spread his arms. “Where am I supposed to sit?”

  “The pool seemed a lot roomier before—” She giggled without finishing, hugging her knees to her chest.

  He lowered himself with control, ab muscles contracting and water sloshing over the side when he finally sat down with his legs on either side of hers, their coarse hair brushing up against her smoothness.

  He looked around, suddenly at a loss. “Should’ve got more wine first.”

  “We can share.” She took a sip and leaned forward, meeting his lips with hers, letting the wine drain from her mouth into his.

  His arms went around her and he pulled her close, kissing her again the way he had kissed her in his driveway, kisses she relived every time she closed her eyes. But this—this was so much more. She arched against him, throwing all caution to the night wind.

  Alex scooted her closer still, lifting her feet up over his thighs until she could feel his warm, insistent arousal pressed up against her abdomen.

  “This was a bad idea.” He frowned down at her, sucking in a much-needed breath between kisses.

  “Why is that?” she panted.

  “Because now I’m going to have to buy another damn pool.”

  With that, he positioned her across the pool’s inflated edge and balanced himself above her on his thick forearms.

  A short time later, a pfuff affirmed Alex’s prediction. Kerry’s lower back sank softly onto the earth, while his hands cupped beneath her lifted her entire pelvis off the ground to meet each powerful thrust of his hips, and she gazed over his shoulder at the stars winking down on them, gasping as her pleasure built and built until she shattered into a million pieces.

  * * *

  Alex lay facing the sky, half on the flattened pool and half on the grass, waiting for his breathing to return to normal.

  Ever since his father died of a heart attack at forty-two, he took for granted that he was doomed to the same fate. If this was what a heart attack felt like, bring it on. It was insane. For a decade he had told himself that he detested Kerry O’Hearn. So why was he sprawled out in a kiddie pool with her next to a vineyard at eleven o’clock at night, when he should be in bed alone with his copy of Birds of America? Yet here he was, lying in her backyard. Behind the tough trial lawyer façade was a deliciously sensuous woman and, God help him, he couldn’t get enough of her.

  He thought back to all those times when merely observing her across the courtroom had driven him to distraction, to the point where he couldn’t tear himself away. Throughout the remainder of the trial, he’d gone back again and again. He’d told himself that his obsession was normal. After all, it was his case. His offender. His dignity, if not his reputation, on the line. Only now did he understand the deeper meaning of his actions. He had fallen in love with Kerry way back then. How could he have not recognized it? Was he that out of touch with his own feelings? His own needs?

  After all this time, he was still in love with her. It explained everything. His anger at her besting him in court. He winced at the memory. He’d been young then, young and cocky and hot-tempered. Unprepared for a lioness like her in his life.

  It explained why he had never found another woman who sent all his senses reeling the way she did—not that he hadn’t tried. Once the trial was over, he was at loose ends. There was a period in which he’d gone out every night with the intention of never going home alone. Usually, he succeeded. But he soon gave that up when he realized that being with women he felt nothing for only made him lonelier.

  But this . . . he looked over at Kerry, lying on her side with her cheek resting demurely on her hands, and his heart melted like warm caramel. Here, with this woman, and her girls nestled safely upstairs in the old farmhouse, he had never felt so whole . . . so complete. It was the closest he’d ever come to being happy.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Alex began spending more and more of his free time at Kerry’s place.

  He didn’t plan on taking charge of Hobo. It started one cool evening when he got there after dinner but before the kids’ bedtime.

  “Hi, girls,” he said, tossing his keys in the usual place on the foyer table. “Where’s your mom?”

  “She just went upstairs to give Ella her bath,” said Shay, watching a music video on her phone. One earbud was lodged in her ear, while the other swung back and forth as she wiped the supper dishes.

  Hobo sat panting at the back door, tail wagging, an anxious look on his face.

  “Whatsamatter, boy? You need to go out?”

  The dog whined softly but urgently and wagged his ent
ire rear end. Alex wondered how long he’d been patiently waiting there.

  “Where’s his leash?” he called to the girls.

  Shay had put in the other earbud and was singing along.

  Chloé’s head was buried in a book. “I dunno,” she said without looking up.

  Alex searched through the pegs crowded with hoodies and jackets next to the back door, retrieving the items he knocked onto the floor until he finally found the leash buried beneath a fuzzy pink vest.

  The dog barely made it down the porch steps before lifting his leg on the first bush he came to. Poor fella. There was no mistaking the gratitude in his eyes when he looked up at him.

  “Must be tough being the only testosterone in a houseful of estrogen.”

  Hobo pulled the leash taut and gazed out at the meadow with longing, then back at Alex, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, exuding pent-up energy like a spring.

  He’d seen him pull the girls around on his leash. Walking him had become a real challenge for them.

  “I could use a good run, too, bud.” Kerry would be busy upstairs for a while yet. “Let’s do it.”

  Thirty minutes later, they returned to find Kerry matching the socks in a laundry basket. Hobo ran to her, while Alex hung up his leash and filled his water dish at the sink. He was still on a high from his run and that feeling he got from doing something good for someone else, even if that someone was only a dog.

  “Where have you been?” Kerry looked at Alex, ruffling the fur on Hobo’s neck.

  “The dog wanted to run. So, I took him.”

  Kerry walked over, took the water dish from Alex, and set it on the floor, where Hobo began loudly lapping it up.

  Then she rose to her full height and folded her arms. “I don’t need your help.”

  Alex was struck speechless.

  At the dining table, Chloé looked up from her book. Over on the couch, Shay turned her head.

  “I never said you did.”

  “I’m perfectly capable of taking my own dog for a walk.”

  “No offense, but a dog that size needs more than an occasional stroll around the yard. He needs regular exercise. How would you feel if you were cooped up in a house all day?”