When he spotted Carol and her guard bear weaving their way through the crowd, a flicker of something warm and wonderful sparked inside him. His heart quickened and he felt the rush of blood in his veins. What was it about her? How did she continually sneak her way into his thoughts? Under his defenses?
Carol Foster was a dangerous woman. Even more so because she didn't know how dangerous she was. So she kept right on doing whatever the hell it was that kept getting to him. And for some damn reason, he couldn't seem to stay away from her.
Her blond-streaked hair was windblown and wild, as if a man had spent hours raking his hands through it. He curled his fingers into his palms to keep from doing just that. Instead, his gaze raked over her. From the top of her head and her slightly sunburned nose, down her skimpy tank top with the elf on it, across her denim shorts and along the length of her tanned, smooth legs. Something low inside him crouched and
growled in a hunger he hadn't known in way too long. If he had any sense at all, he'd turn his back and head the other way.
He started toward her before he could talk himself out of it.
"Where's the baby?" he asked, when he stopped directly in her path.
"Whoa." She stopped short to avoid crashing into him. Then tipping her head back, she met his gaze, one corner of her mouth quirked slightly. "Is this an official investigation?"
Fine. He'd asked the question a little more harshly than he'd planned to. But it was hard to talk when there was a knot of need lodged in his throat. A need he didn't want to think about, much less admit to.
Jack nodded absently to the people passing by him. "No. Just curious." He glanced down at the dog watching him through suspicious eyes. "Hi to you, too."
Quinn murmured his opinion in a low growl.
Carol's hand dropped to the big dog's head and the animal leaned into her while she smiled. A truly great smile, Jack thought as the full force of it hit him hard. There was warmth in that curve of her mouth and the same warmth shone just as brightly from the depths of her dark brown eyes. Even in the dimly lit dark, it was as though a light clicked on behind her eyes and Jack wanted to bask in the heat she offered; he wanted, suddenly fiercely, to stand in the light with her, despite knowing that he belonged in the darkness.
"Quinn's just protective," she said unnecessarily as the big dog's upper lip curled back on a rumble that erupted from his broad chest.
Warily, he kept an eye on the oversized hound. "Quinn just wants to eat me."
Her mouth twitched again. "Not really. Chew on you for a while, maybe."
"Well, that makes me feel better," he said and lifted his gaze from his nemesis to Carol. "You gonna tell me where the baby is?"
"She was kidnapped."
His body stiffened. His gaze narrowed. His heart thudded to a stop and his breath caught in his chest. Every cell in his body went on red alert. "What?"
"Hey," she said, reaching out to lay one hand on his forearm. "Just a joke, Sheriff."
Heat shot from her hand up his arm with the effect of a stray lightning bolt. His breath slid from his lungs slowly, like air escaping a leaky balloon. Stupid. Of course she was kidding. If anything had really happened to Liz, Carol wouldn't be standing here quietly driving him insane. He kept his gaze locked with hers and tried not to feel the sizzle of her hand on his flesh. Her skin was soft, her hand small, and yet her touch seemed to go bone deep.
God, he wanted to be warm again. He wanted to feel the heat of her against him.
Scraping one hand across his face, he took a step back, letting her hand fall from his arm. "Sure it was a joke. Sorry. Long day."
"Yeah," she said, still watching him as if expecting him to explode any minute. "It was."
Someone slammed a cooler into his right knee and Jack moved to one side. Though what good that would do when the crowd surrounded them on both sides like the parted Red Sea, he didn't know. But he was in no hurry to move on. No hurry to stop talking. Which was weird, since he couldn't remember a time in the last two years when he was actively seeking conversation.
She swayed slightly as the crowd surged around her, as if she were caught in a riptide and fighting for her balance. "Liz is with your mom."
"My mom?"
"Uh-huh." Carol jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Liz fell asleep and, well, I almost did too," she admitted on a soft laugh. "Right in the middle of the pounding noise and fireworks. Staiffed falling asleep sitting up."
His gaze ran over her, head to toe and back to her eyes again. Eyes he couldn't seem to look away from. Eyes he didn't want to stop staring into.
"Anyway," she said, clearing her throat and shifting position under his solemn stare. "Your mom noticed and offered to take Liz home for the night. Let me get some sleep."
"Sounds like her," he admitted. Nothing his mother liked better than a baby in the house. Maggie and Eileen had done their best to keep Mom happy on the grandchildren front. But she hadn't stopped hoping that Jack would come through for her, too. She wanted more little Reillys running around and she wouldn't be getting them from Sean. But, Jack thought, with a small twist of pain at the bottom of his heart, she didn't have much chance of getting any out of him, either. Not anymore.
"So you're free," he said tightly.
"Yeah."
He dragged his gaze from her mouth and idly watched faces stream past him. "You want to catch a cup of coffee or something?"
She looked as surprised by the suggestion as he felt. Hell, he didn't even know where the words had come from. All he knew for sure was that he hadn't stopped thinking about her since their late-night coffee and cake the night before. He kept seeing her, in the bright light
of the kitchen, surrounded by wildly overgrown house-plants. He heard her laughter, he saw her eyes. Even sleeping, her image chased him, which was, he silently admitted, a damn sight better than the dreams that usually haunted his sleep. But the point here was ... what was the point again?
Oh, yeah. He didn't want to be alone. He was so damn tired of alone.
"Sure," she said after a long minute or two of studying his features as if waiting for his head to do a 360-degree spin. "Where? Reindeer Cafe?"
He shook his head. Not in the mood to deal with his family—and he'd surely run into them at their restaurant. "Come back to the office with me?" he suggested. "Gotta close up, anyway."
"Okay."
He turned and she fell into step beside him. Naturally, Quinn kept his big body between them—like a living, breathing, old-fashioned bundling board. And a part of Jack was grateful. Keeping Carol at a distance was getting harder. Best for all of them if the bear continued to stand guard.
Over the rumblings of the crowd, he heard the jingle bells she wore on her shoelaces again. Music danced along with her at every step. Cheerful. Bright. And, he'd thought only a day or two ago, annoying. He heard that tinkle of sound at all hours of the day and night. It burrowed through her apartment door, across the hall, and into the silence of his own apartment. Refusing to be ignored or silenced, the tinkle of bells continually reminded him just how close she was. Just how ... alive she was.
And just how silent his world had become.
Hell, it hadn't always been like this. He remembered
a time when he'd rushed at life like an adventure waiting to be discovered. He'd had a wife and a baby on the way. He'd had a job he loved and a partner he'd trusted.
Until he'd lost it all in one rainy night.
"They did a great job on the fireworks this year, didn't they?"
"What?" He glanced at Carol and stepped out of the way of an old woman pushing through the crowd, using her umbrella like a cattle prod. "Yeah. The Dooleys always run a good show."
"I know."
"Right." Stupid. Of course she knew. She'd dug herself so deeply into Christmas, she was more connected here now than he was.
Not that he wanted connections anymore.
Not that he missed them.
Carol glanced up at him and not
iced his jaw twitching spasmodically. Gritting his teeth? Well, wasn't that nice? If he was that miserable about going for coffee with her, why had he offered?
And more importantly, why had she agreed?
Wasn't it enough that he lived directly across the hall from her? That she could hear him moving around in his apartment? That whenever she heard the roar of the shower in his place she was imagining him wet and naked?
Okay, back up.
Get a grip.
And for heaven's sake, stop listening to Phoebe extol the virtues of good, healthy, uncomplicated sex.
But that was the key word, right? Uncomplicated. There was absolutely nothing uncomplicated about Jack Reilly. The man walked around under his own personal rain cloud. He snarled louder than Quinn if
anyone came too close and kept whatever he was thinking and feeling buried so deep under layers of crabass that she couldn't tell from one minute to the next what he was going to say.
Like the coffee invite, for instance.
Where had that come from?
No. Her life was fine as it was. She had the added bonus of Liz now ... temporarily, at least. She didn't need this. Didn't need to start caring about someone else. She didn't want to risk it. Her emotions were swinging wildly from one extreme to the other. Her brain raced with too many thoughts to slow down and count.
Tired, she thought. She was just too damn tired to be dealing with any of this. Carol swiped her hair back from her face and realized that she was also way too tired to be trusted with him. Phoebe's suggestions kept rattling around in her brain.
Sex.
With Jack.
Not a good idea.
Wasn't she teetering dangerously close to her breaking point already? Hadn't she allowed Liz into her heart, despite her best attempts at protecting herself? Did she really need to start caring about Jack? A man who had made it painfully obvious that he wasn't interested?
No. She didn't.
Best thing to do then, she decided, was to back out of this coffee thing and go home. Alone.
"You know," she started.
"I was thinking," he said, practically at the same moment.
"You first," she said.
"Not important. Go."
She blew out a breath, stepped around an overflowing trash can, then came back to walk beside him and Quinn again. "Okay, I was just going to say that maybe coffee isn't such a good idea."
He looked down at her briefly before shifting his gaze ahead again. "Yeah. Funny, so was I."
She stared at him for a long minute. Her steps slowed a bit, and he matched his stride to hers. The rest of the crowd surged past them until there were just a few stragglers on the beach behind them.
"Well, then," Carol said, trying to remind herself that this was a good thing.
"It's nothing personal," he said tightly and she looked up in time to see that jaw muscle twitch again.
"Sure," she said, "I can see that. It's not personal. It's not me you don't want to have coffee with. It's anybody. Or is it just the coffee you don't want?"
Anger warred with disappointment inside her and neither feeling made sense. Hadn't she already decided to not get involved? Hadn't she only a minute or two ago told herself that Jack was a bad thing for her equilibrium?
Yeah. But, it was one thing to back out of something because you felt it was the right thing to do. It was another thing entirely to have a guy jump back and away from you like a vampire dodging a well-aimed crucifix.
Phoebe was off with Cash Hunter again, enjoying every last minute of her day off. And Carol was going home to watch a Twilight Zone marathon and eat popcorn with Quinn. Sure, life was fair.
Jack stopped dead.
Carol walked past him, then stopped and looked back at him. "What now?" she demanded, just a little more hotly than she'd planned. "You want me to walk on a different beach?"
He scraped a hand across his face, turned his gaze on her, and studied her for a long minute or two. A cold, crisp wind danced in off the ocean and lifted her hair with icy fingers. Now that the people were gone, Carol heard the soft hush of waves sliding in to shore more clearly. The scent of gunpowder still clung to the air, but the only sparklers in the sky now were the glittering stars.
"You're not part of my plan," he muttered, pinning her with a gaze that was sharp enough to draw blood.
"Excuse me?"
"You. My plan. Never the twain shall meet."
One eyebrow lifted. She set her hands on her hips and stared at him, baffled.
"Don't give me those big brown eyes, either," he snapped.
She shook her head and tapped the heel of her hand against her temple. "Huh?"
"Oh, please." He snorted, scowled at her, then slid a glance around them, making sure they were alone. "You know what you're doing."
"Walking, you mean?" she asked. "Yeah, I do it often. Almost every day now for years."
"Cute."
"You sure spend an awful lot of time telling me how cute I am for a man who doesn't want to have coffee with me."
"You didn't want to have coffee, either."
"Not the point."
"Right. The point is, the plan."
"Ah, yes." She nodded sagely, having no idea at all what the hell he was talking about now. "The plari"
His tan uniform shirt was wrinkled and stained with God knew what after spending a long day dealing with a
town full of people. His black hair was ruffled by the same wind dancing around them, his blue eyes shone in the dim light, and his really terrific-looking mouth was twisted into its perpetual scowl.
Damn it.
He looked really good.
"I'm only in town for a few weeks," he snapped. "Then I'm outta here. I'm not getting involved with a woman who jingles when she walks and wears felt elves on her tank tops."
Carol glanced down at the front of her shirt. Winky the Elf was damn cute, she thought and she wouldn't let Jack ruin the fun she got out of wearing her Christmas-themed clothes.
"Well, who asked you to get involved?" she demanded, taking a step closer to him and jutting her chin up to a fighting tilt. "I don't remember saying anything at all like, 'Hello, big boy.'"
He frowned at her. "I'm just saying—"
"Oh, you've already said plenty, trust me."
"I'm trying to do you a favor, here."
"Gee, thanks."
"You don't know anything about me," he said, his voice hitting a low, deep note that scraped along her spine and settled somewhere south of the pit of her stomach.
She would not be affected. She would not give in to the simmering attraction bubbling between them. "I know your brother and sisters got all the charm in your family."
"I'm not trying to be charming."
"Well, congrats," she snapped. "You're doing a hell of a job."
"I'm just saying—" He broke off, glanced up at the blackness overhead, then shifted his gaze to her again.
"Me being here. It's temporary. That's all. I didn't want you to—"
"What? Plan a wedding? Book the church?" She took another step closer and poked him in the chest with her index finger. "You're amazing. You really are. I give you a cup of coffee and a piece of cake to thank you for helping me out last night and you're worried I'm looking for a wedding dress?"
"Nobody said anything about a wedding."
"You did."
His eyes widened. "You are nuts."
"No, I'm just standing in awe."
"Apparently not stunned into silence, though," he muttered.
"So what exactly is your plan, Mr. Wonderful?" She lifted a hand. "Not that I'm trying to find my way into it, just color me curious."
"My plan is to get out of here."
There was such deep longing in his voice, she almost ached for him.
"Why do you hate this place so much?" she asked, her voice softer now, more confused than angry.
"It's not hate," he said, looking out toward the edge of town where multicolored
lights twinkled and shone in the darkness with tiny splotches of primary colors. "It was a good place to grow up—naturally every kid in town thinks it's corny as hell, but the people are good." His voice softened a little and Carol tried not to hear the sigh behind his words. "Couldn't hate this place even if I tried. But being surrounded by Christmas can make you a little crazy." He looked pointedly at her tank top.
"What?"
"Nothing," he muttered. "Hell, you fit right in here, don't you?"
"You mean, do I like it here? Yes."
"Yeah." He laughed shortly. "You didn't play on a high school football team that was known all over the county by its nickname: Santa's Little Helpers."
"Oh, yeah, there's a hardship. Growing up in Christmas."
He snorted. "Hey, when you're a teenager, you want to live in a cool place—not the Capital of Corny."
"Poor you."
He shot her a look from the corner of his eye.
Disgusted, Carol shook her head. "You grew up in a great little town with a family and friends. Hard to feel sorry for you."
His gaze narrowed. "I didn't ask for your sympathy."
He shifted his feet in the sand, spread his legs wide, and folded his arms across his chest. Heck, Carol thought, it was practically textbook body language. Closing himself off, shutting her out.
"Didn't you?"
His jaw went tight and his voice even tighter. It was as if each word were snapped off deep in his throat and chen hurled at her. "You don't know anything about me."
"Back atcha."
He inhaled sharply and nodded. "You're right. I don't."
"And don't want to."
"Right again."
"Fine. We'll leave it at that then, Reilly."
Something flashed across his eyes and she thought it might have been relief. Well, what the hell was she supposed to make of thaft
Last night, they'd had cake together, whispering in her kitchen, keeping their voices pitched low so they wouldn't wake up Liz. They'd talked about the baby and how much out of her depth Carol was. They'd been almost... friendly.
They'd shared chocolate, for God's sake. That meant something.
"You know," she snapped, giving in to the urge to say everything she was thinking. "Your attitude stinks."
Some Kind of Wonderful Page 9
