A Sweet Life-kindle

by Andre, Bella

  He whispered an oath even as his arms imprisoned her, as his mouth consumed hers. That summer storm came to mind again, sizzling energy, pounding, violent, churning. At first she was too surprised to do more than stand there. Then she was too stunned by the heat zinging through her body, by the hunger that seemed to come out of nowhere.

  Her eyes slid shut and she forgot to breathe, forgot to think, forgot everything but the dark and wild wonder of it. How long had it been since she'd felt so alive, so wonderfully, terribly alive?

  His mouth danced against hers again and again. Somehow, without realizing it, she'd entwined her arms around him and she clutched at his back pulling him closer. Muscles taut, he pressed her against the kitchen counter, his hands buried in her hair, and she nearly cried out at the need surging through her.

  She knew the world continued spinning because she had vague awareness of life outside the circle of their bodies. The whir of the refrigerator. The counter gouging into her back. The ticking of a clock somewhere in the house.

  Nothing else mattered, though. The only thing with meaning was Will. His mouth on hers, slick and hot and demanding. His body, hard and urgent. The cedar tang of his skin, meshed with the faint, slightly wicked echoes of liquor and tobacco from the Stockman.

  Andie heard a soft moan of arousal and realized with some surprise it came from her own throat. Will, as if jerked back to his senses by the sound, suddenly stiffened.

  His arms slid away and he stared at her. "I don't want this," he growled, backing away. "I don't want you. I can't."

  His words pierced through the cotton-soft haze of desire enveloping her, ripping into her like a jagged blade.

  I don't want you. So familiar. So cruelly familiar. She took a shuddering breath while shame and hurt burned through her.

  Hands shaking, Andie turned and opened the freezer door. The frigid air puffing out did absolutely nothing to cool her fevered skin, her scorched emotions, and she closed her eyes for a moment, trying to regain control while anger and desire and old pain warred within her.

  I don't want you.

  It shouldn't hurt so much, not after five years. First Peter, now Will.

  I can't want you. You understand, don't you, Andie?

  She didn't. She never would.

  Very carefully, she removed some ice cubes, closed the freezer door, and reached for the dish towel hooked over the oven door to wrap the ice in. "If you don't want that eye to be swollen shut in the morning, you'd better put this on it." She was immensely proud of herself that the words came out as cool as the ice she held in her hands.

  "You're right." Will stood watching her warily, as if he expected her to dump the pack, ice and all, on his head.

  She was tempted to, but it would have taken more energy than she could summon right then. Instead, she handed the towel to him without touching him and headed for the door.

  His voice, rough and low, made her falter for a moment. "I'm sorry, Andie."

  She turned back. Even with one Technicolor eye and his hair mussed from her fingers, he was gorgeous. Beautifully, ruggedly male, with his sculpted features and that shock of thick, auburn-streaked brown hair.

  She wanted to step right back into his arms, she realized with shock. How could she possibly be so weak, so completely and utterly powerless? Disgusted with herself, she stiffened her spine and continued walking.

  The phone was ringing when she opened the door to the ranch house. It was probably her friendly breather, she thought, and decided to ignore the strident ringing. She couldn't handle it. Not tonight.

  Tonight she would just climb into her bed and lie there alone and try to forget. To block from her mind the taste of him, the feel of his heat under her fingertips, the way their bodies meshed together as perfectly as the mountains and sky outside her window.

  And all the reasons he would never want her.

  Chapter 5

  Will rotated his bad shoulder as he opened the door to the sheriff’s office. The shoulder seemed a little better. Still not quite up to his old abilities, but he could move it with more flexibility, and it seemed to be regaining the strength Zamora's bullet had shattered.

  It must be all this clean living, he thought, and surprised himself with a rusty chuckle. He'd learned in the past month that despite its wild and woolly name, Whiskey Creek didn't offer much in the way of vices.

  The reason he felt so good surely couldn't have anything to do with that ointment his landlady had given him. Or with the odd, sparkling emotions she sent twisting through him, could it?

  He hadn't seen Andie since their heated embrace of nearly a week before—hadn't wanted to see her. In fact, he'd done all he could to avoid her, working long shifts and spending most of his free hours at the Bar W helping Jace put his hay in for the winter.

  Hell, he'd even taken her advice and eased his old body onto one of the Bar W horses and gone out with Emily on a couple of rides, for all the good it had done him.

  No matter how hard he worked, though, no matter how far he rode, he hadn't been able to escape her. The memory of her lips on his, warm and welcoming and alive, of the coming-home feeling of being in her arms, always hovered on the fringes of his mind, waiting for him to relax his guard.

  As if his thoughts had conjured her, he heard a familiar low laugh. It tightened his gut, and his heartbeat picked up a pace. He followed the irresistibly compelling sound into the jail office and found Andie perched on a desk, laughing at something one of his deputies had said. Both Joe Whitehorse and Wade Jenkins, set for their shift change, were hovering around her like bees on honeysuckle.

  His good mood disappeared. "Nice to see you two have so much time on your hands," he said.

  If he hadn't been fighting a sensation that felt suspiciously like jealousy, he would have laughed at the way his two deputies jumped to attention. He had no idea they viewed him as such an ogre.

  "Sheriff Tanner. Sir," Joe began. "Andie was just, uh... we were just..."

  Will took pity on him. The kid was green, but he had a dedication to the job that Will envied. Once, a long time ago, he'd had his share of that same enthusiasm.

  "I just got a call on my cell," he said to the deputies, "about some kids spray-painting something on a grain silo down at the Peterson place. Why don't you two go check it out."

  "Both of us?"

  "Either of you got a problem with that?" He stared the two men down.

  "No. No, sir." They both grabbed their hats from the rack and rushed out the door, nearly knocking each other over in their haste to escape. He sighed and turned back to Andie.

  Of course, she had that smile on her face, the one that always made him fear she was secretly laughing at him.

  "Your eye looks good, Sheriff. Not much swelling and only a bit of color."

  The last time she'd looked at his eye, she'd stepped closer for a better view, he remembered, and he'd ended up crushing her against the counter. A vision of her wrapped around him in his kitchen, her skin soft and seductive, her mouth sweet and hot, made his stomach clench with need. Hungry, aching need. He frowned and forced it away.

  "What can I do for you, Ms. McPhee?" he asked curtly.

  She studied him for a moment, then straightened off his desk and slid into a chair, folding her hands demurely in front of her. "I want you to arrest somebody."

  "You have somebody in mind, or would just anybody do?"

  She frowned. "Somebody in particular. A rancher named Tom Jessop."

  "Jessop? I don't believe I've had the pleasure of meeting him."

  "Lucky for you," she muttered.

  Will took a seat behind the desk and pulled out a notepad, more grateful than he cared to admit that she'd given him a diversion from his wayward thoughts. "What'd the poor guy do? Give you a bad load of manure?"

  "It's more like what he didn't do."

  "Meaning?"

  She pursed her lips. "How much do you know about the migrant laborers around here?"

  "Not much. M
ost of them don't cause any trouble, so I haven't had much to do with them. Why?" He was instantly alert. "Has one of them been bothering you?"

  "No," she assured him. "Not at all. It's nothing like that."

  "What's the problem, then?"

  "I work with many of their children at the preschool. We have a grant through the Migrant Head Start program, and you'd be surprised how much information filters through there. I know quite a bit about what goes on at some of the bigger ranches, and most of the ranchers treat their workers decently enough."

  "But not Jessop?" It was the logical guess.

  Andie's eyes blazed with anger. "Jessop is the worst. He has six families living at the Rocking J this time of year to help him with the harvest and some fruit orchards he has. He works them twelve to eighteen hours a day without a break. I'm surprised nobody's been killed. Do you know how dangerous farm work can be, especially for an exhausted worker?"

  For an instant. Will thought of his father, trapped and bleeding to death under a tractor for hours until Will came home and found him out in the far pasture.

  "Yeah, I know," he said tersely.

  Compassion and understanding softened her features. "I'm sorry, Will. Of course you do." She paused. "Well, Jessop has about twenty people—many of them children—living in one-room shacks without electricity or running water."

  "If they're so miserable, why don't they leave?"

  "To go where? There aren't exactly a surplus of jobs in these parts, and it takes money to move on. Jessop makes sure they don't have the funds to leave until after the harvest."

  Will frowned as her words stirred up an old enthusiasm for the job—the desire to correct injustice, to make things right. It was one of the things that had drawn him to police work and was also the very thing he had come to despise.

  "What about social service agencies? Can't they step in?"

  "These people just want a decent job and a decent place to live in."

  Something of his cynicism must have shown on his face, because she scowled at him.

  "You don't believe me, do you?"

  "I didn't say that, Andie."

  "You didn't have to say it."

  "Look, I'll check it out, go to the Rocking J and ask some questions. That's about the best I can do at this point."

  "They won't talk to you," she predicted. "They see a uniform and get ready to bolt. Even though they all have workers' visas, they don't like to take any chances with the authorities."

  "Just what is it you expect me to do, then?"

  Her hands twisted in her lap. It was the first time he'd ever seen her anything less than completely self-assured. Except when her body was molded against him and her mouth was tangled with his. He found himself staring at that mouth, at the way her full bottom lip jutted out slightly, at the tiny beauty mark almost hidden in the fold where her lips met. When he realized the direction his thoughts had taken, he cursed inwardly and dragged his attention back to the case. "How can I investigate if I can't even see for myself what's going on?"

  "I—I could go with you," she said. "They trust me and they'd talk to me about it."

  Hell no! He started to refuse. How could he possibly spend more time with her without risking a repeat of their passion from the week before? He wanted her, craved the feel of her with a fierce, urgent ache. And he hated himself for the weakness.

  Still, he thought, for the next two months he was the law in Whiskey Creek and he'd sworn to do his best to protect the people in his jurisdiction. If Jessop's place was as bad as she said, Will would have to do something about it. He couldn't let the fact that he was unable to control his reaction to her stand in the way.

  "Can you leave now?" he finally asked.

  She nodded and stood up. "I'm ready. I'll warn you, though. Tom and I have already gone a few rounds on this. He promised Hank earlier this summer he'd clean the place up, but I went out yesterday and not one single thing has been done."

  "Maybe he figures with Hank laid up nobody will bother him about it."

  "Well, I plan to go on bothering him until he makes some changes. If Tom sees you with me, he probably won't let you on his land. He thinks I'm nothing but a troublemaker."

  On that, at least, he and Jessop would agree, Will thought. She was nothing but trouble, wrapped up in one delicious package.

  ***

  The work camp was everything Andie had said and worse. The stench of neglect hung heavily over the motley collection of shanties that looked as if they'd blow over in a stiff wind. Built of what appeared to be leftover barn planks, plywood, and anything else handy, the shacks had no glass covering the few windows, just tacked-up sheets of plastic. A dilapidated outhouse behind the structures was the only evidence of plumbing he could see.

  Will watched Andie pick up a little girl of about three who sported a bright blue cast on her arm. The child spoke in quick high-pitched Spanish to Andie, who must have understood because she obligingly kissed the cast the girl thrust at her before brushing her lips over the child's dirty cheek and setting her down.

  A tired-looking woman stood in the doorway of one shack wearing jeans and a T-shirt and watching them cautiously. She must have recognized Andie, because her features relaxed and she lifted a hand in greeting.

  Andie walked over to her and spoke rapidly in Spanish. With his limited command of the language picked up on the job in Phoenix, Will picked up the words police and help, but most of it was a blur. Whatever she'd said must have worked, though. The woman gave him a wide smile and gestured at the doorway, pushing back a beat-up door hanging crookedly on its hinges.

  He followed the woman inside and had to catch his breath at the propane smell oozing from a camp stove in one corner. He spied a mattress covered with sleeping bags and a rickety table set for dinner, with three little faces around it beaming at him. Despite its primitive exterior, the inside of the shack was clean, and he could tell the woman had done all she could to make it homey.

  When the other children saw Andie, they slid out of their chairs and raced to her. Will watched while she laughed and hugged each one.

  "How long have they been here?" he asked.

  Andie spoke to the woman, then turned back to him. "Juana says a month this time. They were here last year for most of the summer, and her husband Frederico worked for another outfit farther south, but nobody else in the area needed extra help this year, so they're stuck with Jessop."

  Another rapid exchange followed, then the woman headed for the cook stove.

  "Their youngest, little Teresa there," Andie went on, "fell out of a tree and broke her arm just after they arrived. Jessop won't give them what they've earned, and they don't want to move on until their debt to Doc Matthews at the clinic is paid."

  The woman handed each of her children a bowl of food, then filled another one and presented it to Will. He nearly refused, but Andie gave a subtle shake of her head, so he smiled and took it.

  "Gracias," he said. He took a taste of the rice dish, which turned out to be surprisingly good.

  The woman smiled and said something to Andie. To his surprise, Andie blushed and replied, shaking her head vigorously while refusing to look at him.

  "What did she say?" Will asked, curious despite himself.

  She glanced at him, her green eyes shimmering with mingled laughter and embarrassment. "She said my man looks strong and handsome when he smiles. Of course I told her you weren't 'my man,' but for some reason she didn't believe me."

  He felt heat soak his own cheeks and spent the rest of their time in the little shanty trying fiercely to keep his expression smile free.

  With Andie translating, Will asked the woman several more questions, then took a quick tour of the other workers' housing. It wasn't until they had left Jessop's property and were heading back to Whiskey Creek that he and Andie had a chance to speak about anything other than the camp.

  "You seem like you have a good command of Spanish," he said. "Where did you pick it up?"

>   "My mother is from Guatemala." She said the words with a slightly belligerent lift of her chin. "She and my grandparents migrated here when she was young, looking for a better life. Maybe that's why I'm so passionate about this."

  "Andie McPhee doesn't sound very Hispanic."

  She laughed, and he clenched his fingers on the steering wheel as the sultry sound slid through him.

  "Try Andrea Milagros de Valdez McPhee. It was quite a mouthful when I was a kid. I guess that's what happens when you have an Irish father and a Guatemalan mother."

  "Milagros. Miracles. Isn't that the translation?"

  A dusky rose tinted the curve of her cheekbones. "My parents were older when they had me. My mother was nearly forty-three. They were both college professors. Mama's a botanist and Dad taught literature. To them, I was a miracle, I guess," she finished, just as they pulled up in front of the rock building that housed the jail and sheriffs office.

  Andie opened her door as if she couldn't wait to escape. "So when are you going to go arrest Jessop?" she asked, one foot on the ground.

  "I'm not," he said bluntly.

  "You're not?" She climbed back in and stared at him across the width of the vehicle. "What do you mean, you're not? You just saw what conditions he's making them live under there. How can you simply walk away from that and do nothing?"

  "I never said I wasn't going to do anything, Andie. And I'm not going to walk away. I just said I wasn't going to arrest him. This is a misdemeanor offense at best, and even then I doubt I can bring charges until I have health and building inspectors down from Pinedale to check it out."

  "In the meantime, the workers are living in absolutely deplorable conditions and there's not one single thing they can do about it."

  "I'm sorry, Andie. I'll work as fast as I can. But this is not the Wild West anymore. I have to work through channels. I can't just ride in like I'm Marshal Dillon or something and haul Jessop off to jail."

  "Of course not." Her voice held contempt and weary resignation. "They're only migrant workers, after all. They don't need to have a decent place to live. Why don't they just go back to their own country where they belong and leave the good jobs that pay ten dollars a day for the rest of us real Americans?"