by Julie Miller
“Can I trust you not to lie to me again?”
Lightning forked from the sky, striking a distant tree. When Melanie jerked against him, he tightened his hold on her. “You got a thing about storms?”
“My father died on a night like this.”
He felt her relax and adjust herself to a more comfortable position. He stifled a groan as her bottom nestled against his groin. She was seeking honesty and comfort, not the passion she sparked inside him.
“The violence reminds me of that night. Thunder woke me and I went to Dad’s room. He wasn’t there. I never saw him again.”
He could imagine the little girl’s terror had doubled when the one person she counted on wasn’t there for her. Melanie kindled something far more potent than passion inside him. He hurt for that little girl who’d never gotten the answers she needed to understand why her daddy wasn’t coming home. “I’m sorry.”
Hugging her tight against his chest, Duff gave in to the need to taste her. He nosed aside her hair and pressed a kiss to the cool skin at the nape of her neck. Her answering shiver moved through him, stirring needs and desires.
When she tilted her head to give him access to more of that creamy expanse, Duff obliged by lapping up each droplet of water clinging to her skin, and lingering on the warm pulse beating underneath. “This is where I feel closest to Dad,” she murmured, giving him the smooth line of her jaw to explore. “Life here was a part of who he was. We spent so many wonderful days on or beside the water.” She tipped her head forward, pulling her hair over her shoulder and wringing it out beside her. “That probably sounds childish.”
He was far too aware of his forearm caught beneath the weight of her breasts, and how badly he wanted to fill his hands with them. But this embrace was about rebuilding trust, and maybe even earning her forgiveness. So he pressed a chaste kiss to the base of her neck, cooling his jets. “Makes sense to me.”
He watched the charcoal-gray water and whitecaps slapping against the bobbing dock as the lake churned with the storm’s fury. Even as his body warmed with the woman sitting on his lap, his thoughts strayed back to the city and to memories that were equally turbulent. His grandfather’s unconscious, bleeding body. A shooter disappearing into the snow.
He let his thoughts drift farther back in time to that fateful night when he’d seen his father crying for the first time. He wasn’t entirely aware of his arms tightening around Melanie, but he was aware of when she shifted in his lap so that she could see his face. “What is it?”
He thought he smiled, but it was probably more of a scowl as those long-buried emotions surged inside him. “The night at the hospital when Dad told me Mom had been shot—she never even made it into surgery. I remember being so angry. I didn’t believe him. I jumped in my car and drove like the crazy teenager I was to the convenience store to see the crime scene and police cars and blood for myself.”
A hand on his shoulder allowed him to continue.
“I thought I could find Mom there—that Dad and the other cops just hadn’t looked hard enough. That the woman in the ER was someone else.” He pulled his gaze from the lake and his thoughts from the past to look into whiskey-brown eyes that glistened with tears. Duff caught one tear with his thumb before it joined the raindrops beading on her cheek. “I drove by that store nearly every day for years, always with some irrational thought that one day she’d be there.” He caught the next tear, too, and found the pain of his past easing with Melanie’s empathy. “Even though the place has been torn down and built into a drugstore, I drive by that corner every now and then. So, yeah, I get why this place means so much to you.”
And then Melanie Fiske, the woman who was one surprise after another, framed her hands around his jaw and sealed her lips against his. Her kiss was as tender as it was bold. He didn’t need to teach her a damn thing about what turned him on, about what touched his heart. The woman might be inexperienced, but she was a natural talent and Duff needed everything she was willing to give him.
He tunneled his fingers into her hair, tilted her head back and opened his mouth over hers, sliding his tongue between her lips to claim her heat. She slipped her arms around his neck and lifted herself into the kiss. Her breasts pillowed against his chest, their lush shape imprinting his skin through the wet clothes between them. His hands fisted in her hair as his body caught fire with the need to consume her caring and passion. Each foray of her lips, each skim of her hands against his neck and hair, each husky moan deep in her throat was like tinder to the desire burning through him.
He spread his thighs, giving the response she triggered in him room to swell behind his zipper. She dragged her hand between them, he thought to push him away because he was moving way too fast for her. But she brushed her fingers over the taut button of his nipple in a curious caress, and he groaned as his skin jumped. Perhaps startled by his eager response, she turned her mouth from his. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pinch—”
“It’s all good. That reaction means I like what you’re doing.” He pulled her fingers back to his chest. “I really like what you’re doing.”
“If you’re lying to me—”
He reclaimed her mouth, telling her as succinctly as he could that this was no act. She made the pain of his past go away. She made him believe he could trust a woman again, that he could allow himself to need her. She must have gotten the message. Because her hand slipped lower, and when she tugged his shirt from his belt to slide her hand against bare skin, he thought he might explode.
Duff moved his lips to the point of her chin, to her eyelids and the tip of her nose before coming back to claim that sensuous mouth. He battled with the bulky poncho to get his hands inside her clothes to explore her the way she was learning his body. Her cool skin heated beneath his touch, and she stretched to give him access to each delectable curve. He flicked his thumb over the straining tip of her breast through the satiny material covering it and felt her jump in response, just as he had.
“It feels good, doesn’t it,” he murmured against her mouth. She nodded, burying her face against the side of his neck. “How about this?”
He palmed her breast, lifting its bountiful weight in his hand. He skimmed the backs of his fingers beneath the stretchy material of her bra, capturing the pearled flesh between his fingertips and palm. Melanie gasped his name, tilting her passion-glazed eyes up to his.
“Say it again,” he whispered, lowering his head.
“Tom.” She pushed herself into his hand.
“Again.”
“Tom—”
He reclaimed her mouth, savoring the rush of her response. Incendiary was the only word that flashed in his mind when he thought of the two of them together. Melanie didn’t need to be experienced—she just needed to be his.
He’d just found his way to the clasp of her bra when he heard the snap of a twig.
Swearing against her lips, he pulled his hands from her clothes, shifted her against his side in a one-armed hug and reached for his gun.
Chapter Ten
A swath of dripping brunette hair swung into view before Deanna Fiske came face-to-face with the barrel of Duff’s Glock. “Whoa!”
She backpedaled a step, colliding with Roy Cassmeyer when he came around the edge of the boat. “Now what?” Roy saw the gun, grabbed Deanna and reached for his own weapon.
“I wouldn’t do that, son,” Duff warned. The wary alertness pounding through Duff’s veins didn’t want to dissipate.
“No, sir.” Roy put up both hands, leaving the gun strapped at his waist. “We didn’t mean to startle you.” He glanced over at Melanie as she straightened her clothes. “Or interrupt.”
“You two alone?” Duff asked.
“Yes, sir.” Roy must have realized his hands were still up in surrender because he pulled them down to his side. “Sorry, Mel. I never
figured you... We were looking for a place to get out of this rain.”
Duff grabbed Melanie before she bolted like a skittish colt and anchored her to his thigh as he lowered his weapon. “You know better than to sneak up on a man, Roy.” He slipped the gun back into its holster and prayed that Melanie wouldn’t say or do anything—either accidentally or intentionally—that would give away his real identity and purpose for being here. He inclined his head, inviting the two twentysomethings to duck under the rusted overhang of the old boat’s windshield. “What are you two doing out in this mess?”
Deanna giggled as she squeezed in beside Roy. “Same thing you are. Mom will never believe me, Mel, when I tell her you’re here, making out with Duff. And there I was, offering you pointers. You’re always about books and work and ‘I miss my daddy.’ I’d never have guessed that you knew how to give a man a little sugar.”
Duff thought he’d choke on the treacly sweet barbs Deanna was dishing out.
Before he could shut her up, Melanie pointed to the gun Roy was wearing. “Do you always carry a gun on a date? Is my cousin really that much trouble?”
Direct hit. Duff couldn’t help but grin. Give him a woman with a brain and a backbone any day. He was already falling a little bit in love with Melanie’s unique blend of fire and innocence, with her commitment and compassion. But he was proving to be a total sucker for that wicked sense of humor.
Deanna arched a dark eyebrow, maybe miffed that Melanie hadn’t folded at her taunt. “Duff has a gun. Doesn’t it make you feel safe to be with an armed man?”
“I’m on security detail,” Duff reminded the skinny little flirt who needed to watch her mouth, especially those not-so-sly digs at Melanie.
“Uh-huh.” Now that was a brilliant comeback.
Melanie straightened the hair he’d tangled in his hands, then splayed her fingers at the center of his chest. Was she taking over the charade of two lovers who weren’t very happy to be discovered? “Is there a reason I shouldn’t feel safe out here?”
“No, ma’am,” Roy answered. “The security around the farm is really tight. Silas makes sure of that.”
And yet the young man was still packing a gun. Did Henry think his daughter needed protection from something out here in the woods? From someone? Why wouldn’t Duff have been informed of any particular threat to look out for, unless Henry and Silas didn’t want him to know about whatever Roy was up to? “Where have you been?”
“Boat dock.”
“Nowhere.”
“You two want to get your answers straight?”
Roy draped his arm around Deanna’s shoulders, glaring down at her. But, apparently, she couldn’t take a hint. “I surprised Roy at the boat dock. He was out on the water. Barely made it in before the storm hit. I thought we could warm each other up, but he insisted we leave—”
“Shut up, Deanna.”
“Don’t tell me to—”
“There’s a storage shed at the boat dock,” Melanie pointed out. “You could have used that for shelter.”
“That’s what I said,” Deanna pointed out, poking Roy in the stomach.
Roy straightened, about to spew some well-rehearsed line. “I wanted to get Deanna home. You know how spotty cell reception is out here. I didn’t want Henry and Abby to worry.”
“There’s a landline in the storage shed,” Melanie reminded him.
Roy’s cheeks colored like bricks. “I forgot.”
Duff needed to check that dock and the boat Roy had been on. He liked the kid, and would hate to discover he was part of the smuggling operation. But, whether Roy was innocent or not, retracing his activities tonight, before Silas or Henry knew Duff was onto them, meant squaring things with Melanie and getting the two lovebirds out of the way. “The storm’s letting up.” He pointed to the hills to the west. “Home and dry clothes are that way. You’ll still get wet, but it should be safe to travel.”
Roy assessed the sky, as well, before nodding. “We’ll leave you two alone.”
He reached for Deanna’s hand. But she pulled against him. “I don’t want to go home. I snuck out to see you, and you’ve been in a snit ever since I got here.”
“I told you not to come see me tonight.” Deanna stumbled when Roy tugged her to his side. “How am I going to explain to your daddy that you missed curfew?”
“They don’t have to know what we were doing.”
“We weren’t doing anything.”
“Whose fault is that?”
Duff stood, snagging Melanie’s hand to balance her as he dumped her from his lap. “I’ve got a flashlight on the ATV. Take it—if you two don’t mind walking. We’ll use the headlight to find our way back.”
“You won’t tell Mom and Dad you saw me, will you, Mel?” Deanna asked. “Of course not. You snuck out to see a guy, too. I won’t tell, either.”
“Maybe you should get going,” Melanie urged her cousin.
“Ooh, they want to be alone. Take your time. I know we will.” Deanna giggled until Roy shushed her.
“Thanks, Duff.” Roy grabbed the flashlight and pulled Deanna into the tree line with him. “You’re embarrassing me. Now come on.”
“Embarrassing you? You know, Roy, I know a dozen men who would love to—”
“Seriously. Can’t you be quiet for two seconds?”
Once the bickering young couple was out of earshot, Duff turned to Melanie. “I’m sorry about what Deanna said. You don’t need pointers from anybody.”
Melanie pulled her hand from his, hunching her shoulders against the weather as she headed toward the ATV. “She wasn’t lying about my lack of experience. You were hurting. I wanted to comfort you. I didn’t really know what I was doing. It’s okay, Duff.”
He caught her hand and pulled her back to face him. “Uh-uh. Duff’s a nickname I’ve had since I was a kid. I want you to call me Tom. Just like you have been. It’s my real name.” He moved his hands to clasp her shoulders and waited for her to tilt those pretty brown eyes up to his. “Thomas Watson Jr. I’m a KCPD cop, just like my father and grandfather before me. Only one other person ever called me Tom. But I’m getting used to hearing it from you. I like it.”
The thunder had ebbed to a soft rumble. “We’d better get back to the farm, too. The last thing we need is someone sending out a search party for us,” Melanie said.
Duff tightened his grip on her arms. “This isn’t a part-time thing that you turn on and off when we have an audience. You never know when someone will be watching. If we’re going to do this, then we have to work like a team. You have to commit to this mission twenty-four/seven.”
“I get it. Didn’t I cover for you all right just now?”
“You did great, Doc.” Duff watched the rain hitting her freckles as she waited for him to choose his next words. “But I feel like you’re pulling away from me. That something your twit of a cousin said is making you doubt me. What happened here wasn’t any kind of training session or test run. I know other men have taken advantage of your connection to Henry—put the moves on you without meaning it. But other than the fact I lied about my last name and why I’m here, there’s not a thing that’s happened between us that hasn’t been real. Think about the chemistry between us instead of the charade—”
“You don’t have to sell me. I understand what teamwork is.” She pushed at the middle of his chest, and this time he let her move away. “I can do this. I will do this.”
“It could be dangerous. If I’m found out, your uncle—”
“I know. He’ll sic Silas on us. Or something worse.”
He had a pretty good idea of what worse could mean. His stomach churned at the idea of anyone hurting Melanie that way. If it wasn’t for that curiosity of hers, he’d never have put her in this position of becoming an undercover operative with him.
&nbs
p; She needed to understand the consequences the same way he did. “Whether anything comes of you and me, I need your word that you’ll protect my identity and the real reason I’m here, or I’m going to walk away right now and you’ll never see me again.” He caught a cord of her auburn hair between his thumb and forefinger and toyed with the curly wet silk before cupping the side of her neck. “I don’t know how much more honest I can be. My life is in your hands.”
After several long moments when he wasn’t sure what she was going to say or do, she turned her cheek into his palm, sending a rush of reassurance up his arm to nestle close to his heart before she pulled away. “I’ll keep your secret. I won’t tell anyone about your meeting place by the old fire tower. I’ll help you get the information you’re looking for. If you’re ever unaccounted for and someone asks where you’ve been, I’ll cover for you.” And then she broke the contact between them and backed away. “But you have to do something for me.”
“You want me to help investigate your father’s death.” He nodded, already planning to do at least that much for her. He followed her to the ATV. “If anything on my case leads to information about your father, I’ll share it.”
“Can you get your doctor brother back here to take a look at SueAnn?”
“He’s not that kind of doctor. Niall is with the crime lab.” When she started to protest, he put his hand up to stop her. “Okay. Maybe Niall knows enough to help her.”
“And you’ll take me to Kansas City with you when you leave. Once I find out about Dad, I’ll have no reason to stay here.”
“You’re already compromising my mission just by knowing—”
“Escape to KC or no deal.”
The woman struck a hard bargain. Still, he needed her to maintain his cover and help him find the weapons. “All right. It might mean a hasty exit if things go south—as in drop everything and run when I tell you to—but I promise to get you out of this place when my mission’s over. Deal?”
