Zeph Undercover

by Jenny Andersen

  “Except for that one little quirk?” A smile curled her mouth. Her father returned it, in one of those moments of perfect unity. He liked Zeph. He liked Zeph.

  She liked Zeph.

  Her dad put an arm around her shoulders. “You’re my girl, Allie. He’s nuts if he doesn’t think you’re wonderful.”

  She snuggled her head against his solid warmth and allowed her unruly heart to admit what she felt for Zeph. What she’d been denying ever since he came to town. Ever since That Night.

  She wanted the dream, a Zeph who enjoyed animals.

  One who liked Stone’s Crossing.

  One who loved her.

  ****

  The noon sun beat down on the corral in back of Allie’s clinic where Zeph leaned on the fence. His horse nosed at the hay he’d put out for it. It—she—looked a lot happier. Winn had unloaded her and shown him how to put out feed and water, and how to groom her. Now his horse, if not shiny, at least looked clean. He couldn’t wait for Allie to see.

  As if he’d summoned her with the thought, she opened the back door of the clinic. “Zeph? Where are you?” she called.

  “By the barn. Come on out,” he yelled.

  “Winn said you had something to show me. What’s going on?”

  The frost he’d heard in her voice at six this morning had melted away. Something had happened while he and Winn were at Seldon’s. Whatever it was, he’d take it. She stopped abruptly, close enough to him that he could feel her warmth.

  But her gaze had zeroed in on the horse. “What’s she doing here? Winn didn’t say anything about her. Is she worse?”

  Good thing she’d focused on the horse. He couldn’t have met her gaze. Embarrassment mixed with elation as he explained. “It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” he said sheepishly.

  Allie’s mouth hung open. She shook her head and focused on him. “You bought a horse.”

  He nodded.

  “Didn’t Winn explain that you won’t be able to ride her?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s a little large to keep in an apartment. Oh, right. You have a house. With about four square inches of perfectly manicured yard.”

  Her level gaze made him want to squirm. “Well, I thought—I hoped—well, maybe she could—ah—”

  “Stay here?”

  “Well, uh, yeah. At least until she’s better.” The words burst out in a torrent. “I couldn’t leave her there. She’s so patient. And she—she looked at me.” He looked at Allie, prepared to grovel if necessary. Instead of ice and disapproval, he saw definite thawing.

  “Well, my God. She got to you.” Allie shook her head. “And here all this time I thought you were nothing but a sneaky sleaze of a detective...”

  He hated to say it. “I am. But I had to—”

  “You really aren’t an animal hater, are you? You’re a marshmallow.” She threw her arms around his neck. “Zeph, you’re a big softy. I love it.”

  He’d buy a whole flock of horses if it got him a response like this. He pulled her close and the familiar frustration of soft, warm woman pressed against him took over. “Allie,” he murmured, but it came out more a groan. A confusion of things he wanted to say roiled inside him, but the heat of Allie so close and willing dried the words to nothing.

  He kissed the side of her neck and felt her heartbeat kick up to match his. She pressed closer and he got dizzy. “Allie,” he repeated.

  “I give up,” she murmured. “I know you’ll hurt me, but this is too good...”

  “There you are,” a voice boomed across the yard.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Zeph released Allie and turned to see who had interrupted this time. “Hello, Mr. Mayor.”

  “Didn’t mean to interrupt,” Bartelett said, as though he didn’t mean it.

  “Of course not,” Zeph muttered.

  “No problem,” Allie said.

  She didn’t mean it. He hoped.

  “What can we do for you?” she continued. “Nothing wrong with Bongo, I hope.”

  “No, no, he’s just fine. I believe Margaret’s bringing him in for his annual checkup sometime soon. I really stopped in to have a word with Zeph.”

  Zeph raised an eyebrow. Their last parting hadn’t left any warm fuzzy feelings on either side, as far as he knew.

  “I’ll leave you two to talk, then,” Allie said. “I’m going to go deal with lunch.”

  “Allie cooks?” Bartelett asked.

  “Not that I’ve seen.”

  “Ah, love,” Bartelett sighed. “When you don’t care about things like that. Well. What I wanted to ask you about is this. I know you do a lot of walking around town, and I just thought—Margaret saw someone in the woods back of our house this morning, and, well, you know how women are. She said he was lurking, and acting suspicious. I wondered…” His voice trailed off as though he didn’t quite know how to say what he wanted.

  Zeph shoved the thought of love to the back of his mind and laughed. “If it was me? So I’m a suspicious character?”

  “Not at all. But I wondered if by any chance you might have been out there. Just taking a walk, maybe.”

  “Nope. Innocent. I was out at Seldon’s with Winn Wentworth.”

  Bartelett grimaced. “That worthless—scratch that.” He sighed. “After all, the man is a voter.”

  “New at politics, are you?”

  “Afraid so. Well, you have an alibi, I’m sorry to say.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Now I have to face the idea that Margaret might actually have seen a prowler. She gets quite nervous staying alone. I call her every hour or two when I have to be away. And today her car’s in the shop, so she’s stuck there.”

  “You might want to call Monty,” Zeph said. “He’d be more likely to solve the case of the mysterious lurker. After all, he knows everyone in town.”

  “I suppose.” Bartelett sighed again. “Um...I heard you’re a detective. Could I...uh, hire you to...well, maybe check it out?”

  Hell. Everybody did know. And what to do now? He couldn’t say he was already on a case and he couldn’t take on a new job since he really was...double hell. “You don’t have to hire me. Be happy to have a look around.”

  When he had gone, Zeph offered his horse the chunk of apple Winn had left with him, careful to keep his palm flat and fingers out of the way as she’d shown him. Not necessary, he realized with pride. His horse was a lady. No snatching or biting for her. She gently lipped the treat from his hand. When she’d finished, he patted her neck again and went into the clinic.

  He found Allie in the small kitchen. “Where were we?”

  “I think we—” She broke off at the shrill jangle of the phone. “Hold the thought,” she said and answered it.

  Damn. If she had to go out on another call... But no.

  After a brief chat, she put down the phone and walked into his arms. “We were here, I think.”

  “Does this mean I’m forgiven?”

  “Forgiven for being good at your job? Yes. I’m sorry I got so mad about last night.”

  The kiss that went with the apology fired his blood.

  She drew away and said breathlessly, “I thought we might have a picnic.”

  A wicker basket sat on the kitchen table, a checkered cloth covering the contents. “Does this mean we’re getting away from the phone?”

  “No. I have to take my cell phone. But there’s a great place up there,” she waved toward a nearby mountain, “that’s sheltered and will be nice even on a cold day.”

  Zeph’s body surged with the memory of what they’d been doing when Bartelett had interrupted. The surge ebbed when he remembered the temperature. But what the heck. It meant time alone with Allie. He grabbed the basket and headed out the door

  She followed, saying, “We’d better take my truck. The road’s pretty steep.”

  He couldn’t take his gaze off her as she drove. For the first time since he’d come to Stone’s Crossing, he didn’t care about narr
ow, winding roads or the sheer drop-offs that lurked around every curve. Pictures of Allie filled his mind. Allie giving him that look, the one that said, “Yes, now.” Allie reaching trembling hands to unbutton her shirt...

  Get a grip, man. She packed a lunch, for God’s sake. Sandwiches. A few kisses. Her damned phone ringing, and then back to that paradise, Stone’s Crossing.

  With a final roar of the engine, the truck made it up a final, steep rise and stopped. She maneuvered the vehicle around to face back downhill. “There’s a nice spot to eat just up there,” she said, flicking him a shy, apprehensive glance that belied her outward calm.

  “It’s warmer here than I expected,” he said.

  “We’re out of the breeze.” She grabbed a blanket out of the back of the truck and led the way around some car-sized boulders. He picked up the basket of food he no longer had much interest in and followed the mesmerizing twitch of her jeans-clad rear to a small flat that looked out over the whole valley.

  Nice location. No picnic table. No firepit. None of the roughing-it accoutrements common to city parks. “There’s nothing here.”

  “We’re here,” she told him, spreading the blanket on the ground and plopping down on it. “There’s food and a view. And…” The shy glance she gave him through her eyelashes made his heart stutter. “And no one else.”

  His blood pressure shot skyward until she set her phone on the blanket next to the basket.

  “We’d better have lunch. There’s no telling when I might get an emergency call.” A faint smile curled one side of her mouth as she handed him a sandwich.

  “Martha’s home-made bread. I never had real bread before this.” But he put it down, leaned across the package of cookies she’d set between them and kissed her, a long, slow touch that set his heart hammering.

  When it ended, Allie leaned back, looking at him for a long minute. “Zeph?” The single, breathless word asked a hundred questions.

  His mouth had gone dry as the Los Angeles River. He nodded, unable to speak for a moment. When she kept looking at him, he made a monumental effort and said, “Up to you Allie. We’ve been dancing around this for months.”

  She giggled. “I know. I’ve been here too.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders. “Hey. This is me. No pressure.” And not much sense. Shut up, you idiot and let her talk herself into this. “Relax. We’re going to have a picnic. That’s all,” he said, hoping like hell he lied.

  “I’m scared because it is you. I’m afraid you’re too important.” Allie didn’t look at him.

  And so might she be. His confirmed-bachelor brain didn’t want Allie to be the too-important woman who would derail his life. But without anything more than a few steamy kisses, that’s what had happened, and hearing that she felt the same—major scary stuff. He wanted to blame altitude for the sudden gallop of his heart. Didn’t work.

  She couldn’t be— “You—you’re not—you can’t be—”

  “A virgin? No. But this isn’t something I do lightly. It means something to me.”

  He choked, unable to get out the words that would change things, unable to not feel them, to avoid the fact that nothing would ever be the same in his life after this afternoon.

  As if she read his mind, a smile bloomed on her lush mouth and she took his sandwich, tucking it back in the basket. Her hand drifted down his chest, popping buttons open.

  “Are we actually alone?” he asked, and covered her hand with his. “Around here, you never know…” He looked around and shouted. “Hello!”

  “What was that for?”

  “Just checking. Is your father going to pop out from behind a rock? Or Winn just drop by to say hello? Maybe Betty has binoculars trained on us? Do we care?”

  “Dad went to Sacramento. Winn is giving lessons this afternoon. Betty—well, Betty, maybe. But it would take a telescope… And no, we don’t care.” She scooted closer to him, her warmth a golden lure, and he put his hands against her face, sinking into a kiss that made the prospect of being the porn star of Stone’s Crossing the last worry on his mind.

  Chapter 9

  She didn’t care if the whole town watched. Zeph’s mouth smoldered like flame against hers. Heat poured through her, turning her blood to liquid fire, everything she’d wanted from the first minute she’d seen him.

  His hands trailed sparks over her skin. If this were fiction, clothes would fall away in their path. Instead, he yanked at her shirt and she grabbed his wrist. “Those are buttons, not snaps,” she said. “And it’s a new shirt.”

  With a muttered “Damn,” he wrestled the buttons until her shirt fell open. Her nipples peaked. From the chill air? From his gaze? She didn’t care. When he rolled away to pull off his boots and jeans, she stretched, naked and unashamed under the touch of the sun, a little chilly but more confident and more aroused than she’d ever been in her whole life. She pulled condoms out of the picnic basket just as he turned back to her, holding an identical strip.

  Her gaze met his over the dozen little packets. After a breathless, silent moment, she grinned.

  “How long do you have for lunch?” he asked

  A giggle rose in her throat. She tried to swallow it, but it burst out, swelled into a full laugh, and she looked at him guiltily, helplessly, collapsing in his arms when he began to guffaw. “Until—until—my phone rings,” she choked out. “Do you work well under pressure?”

  “I’ll do my best, honey,” he said, leaning over her and bearing her back down onto the blanket.

  “I’m sure you will.” Abruptly she realized that they lay twined together, and awareness of all that nakedness, his skin hard and hair-dusted where she was soft and smooth, silenced her.

  Her hand drifted over his shoulder, down that strong back, and he shuddered under her touch. She could do that, and then her thoughts shut down in the pleasure that his hands created. The chill air, the hard ground under the thin blanket, ceased to exist.

  He stilled for a moment, looking at her, and his gaze grew hot and focused. It started a slow, rolling heat, a blaze of lust deep inside her. He bent his head and took her mouth in a fierce fusion that pushed the fire higher.

  Her tongue tangled with his in a lust-filled dance that mimicked what he would do soon. He touched her everywhere, and everywhere he touched turned molten with wanting. When he shifted and took her nipple in his mouth, she saw stars. His hand trailed across her stomach, brushed across the hair between her legs, and parted her. She shuddered with need, shifting to give him access, rocking against his hand.

  He rose over her. Her heart galloped and breath roared in her throat. The pale, winter sun blazed through her closed eyelids. Her world became Zeph, a world of waves of delight, of the slap of flesh on flesh, until everything overflowed in a surge that left her boneless under him, her mind spinning empty and dazzled.

  A minute or a year or a century later, Zeph raised his head. “Better,” he mumbled.

  She could feel again. His weight still pinned her to the ground, he still filled her, and she’d be happy if they never had to move. “Better,” she croaked and cleared her throat. “Better than what?”

  “Better than I ever dreamed.” He rested his forehead against hers. “Better than anything in the world.”

  She tilted her head so her lips met his. “Mm-hmm,” she murmured through the kiss. She’d meant it to be part of the long, slow descent, but the spark ignited between them again and she pushed up against him.

  The kiss turned demanding. His demand? Hers? She didn’t know, didn’t care, just sank into the rising waves of pleasure again. This time was even better, spinning her on an endless ride that swelled and surged and left her limp and weak as a new-born foal.

  Eventually Zeph rolled to one side. “We could kill ourselves doing this.”

  “Complaining?”

  “Not in a million years.” He looked around. “What happened to the blanket?”

  Grudgingly, she raised herself on one elbow. “Over there. We s
eem to have traveled some.”

  Zeph sat up. Her gaze caught on the wide shoulders, the strongly muscled back, and her heart hitched. “You are so damned beautiful,” she said. “It’s almost indecent that you have to wear clothes.”

  “We can fix that. I’ll go naked if you will. I have a thing for that beautiful body of yours.” He leaned down to kiss her shoulder. “You…you’re something else, Allison Marie,” he said, his voice thick.

  She shivered at the touch. She’d known he’d be important, that this could never be as simple as scratching an itch. But the world-class…no, whole-solar-system-class…sex they’d just had just made it worse. Left her hungry for something she’d never expected: forever. What had happened to being adults in an adult relationship? To letting nature take its course? To getting him out of her system? She blinked hard to keep tears from showing and looked up at Zeph.

  He stared off into the distance and jumped when she shifted to sit up. “You know, we really could have killed ourselves.” He gestured at the drop off into the valley. “Another couple of feet…we should have gone back there in the rocks.”

  Allie shook her head. “Too many snakes.”

  Zeph dropped her hand. He looked from her to the pile of boulders and back. “Snakes,” he said.

  Allie’s heart sank. Dummy. Why did you have to go and say that? “Don’t go all Indiana Jones on me. They’re all hibernating anyway. Mostly.”

  “Snakes. The things I do for you,” he muttered.

  “Come on, let’s eat.” She gingerly walked across the gravelly space, pulled on her clothes, and sat on the blanket.

  After a careful inspection of the area, Zeph followed. He stepped into his jeans and shrugged on his shirt before sinking down beside her and accepting a sandwich. “You should have had soft satin sheets and a big tub with bubbles and champagne for our first time.”

  Allie’s happy body cheered and her heart fluttered at the thought of more times. Until she saw his frown and quivered with insecurity. Her so-not-a-glamour-girl body, her lack of experience... She forced herself to ask, “Does that mean you were disappointed?”

  He leaned close and cupped her face with one hand. “Surely you jest, woman. You opened my eyes to a whole new world. Turned me inside out. If I thought for one minute this was typical of outdoor sex, I’d… But I think it was you and me.” His voice was fat with satisfaction and sandwich.