THE BACHELOR PARTY

by Paula Detmer Riggs

  "Trouble is, I'm the one who's supposed to do the helpin'." He climbed into bed and watched her do the same.

  "Who says?"

  "The people who elected me sheriff."

  She gave him an incredulous look. "Seems to me that's exactly what you were doing when you went after the man who'd sold those boys rotgut."

  "If I'd found that still a week ago the youngest McEwin boy would still be alive, and LeRoy King wouldn't be facing surgery."

  "You don't know that."

  "I know I didn't do my job." He slipped between the sheets, furious with himself for ruining damn near the best night of his life.

  "Of course you did." She drew a breath. "You're not perfect."

  His face twisted. "Now that's an understatement."

  "You saved Eli's life."

  Damn that kid's hide, he thought. Probably spreading that all over town, which just meant he'd spend the next month having to listen to people telling him how brave he was. Yeah, right. He was brave, all right, a real cool head who passed out cold at the sight of blood. Disgust clawed at his throat, worse than any sickness.

  "Look, can we talk about somethin' else?"

  Sophie understood the haunted look in his eyes all too well. The nightmare had reminded him that there were things he couldn't control, no matter how strong he made himself or how tightly he sealed himself off from his emotions.

  "Okay, tell me about the nightmare."

  "No." Just like that, he had shut her out, as though the intimacy they'd shared meant nothing. It hurt that he could push her aside so easily.

  "Since I'm already wide-awake, I think I'll just have a quick shower and be on my way." She offered him a friendly smile, which wasn't returned.

  "You're runnin' away 'cause I won't open a vein and bleed all over you, aren't you?"

  "No, I'm going home because I have to be at work in less than two hours. I just hope Arnie Maxwell doesn't mind an early wake-up call."

  His frown wasn't unexpected. The quick flash of something very like pain in his eyes was.

  "Tell you what," he said, taking her hand and lacing their fingers. "I'll take that shower with you, and then drive you into town myself. Save you taxi fare."

  "Thanks for the offer, but you're off showers at the moment, remember?"

  Ford caught the anxious look she flicked at his bandaged shoulder and consigned Frenchy Ducette to an eternity of fire and brimstone.

  "So we'll take a bath." He brought her hand to his lips and enjoyed the sudden leap in her eyes. "A nice long bath."

  "No time," she murmured, trying to tug free. "Ford, let me go, please."

  "Not until I get a good-mornin' kiss from my lady." He attempted to draw her closer, only to stop dead by the sudden sheen of tears in her eyes. "Sophie?"

  "I'm not your lady, Ford," she said, her voice vibrating with emotion. "Not when you're only willing to share your body with me and nothing more. So let's just agree we had great sex and let it go at that."

  Ford narrowed his gaze and studied her face. He'd learned never to trust the look in a woman's eyes, or even the tears that she might squeeze from them on command. But the hurt radiating from her was too sharp and too vivid to be anything but real. He drew in air, cursing his lack of education and limited vocabulary for the feeling of helpless frustration ripping through him.

  "You know that past we keep talkin' about?"

  She nodded, her expression still wary. The need to draw her against him was painfully real, as real as the hurt he still sensed in her.

  "I reckon you know how my mama and daddy died?"

  Sophie nodded again, watching his face. Something had changed, something intangible and important. "Katie told me that you … found them."

  "Found the bodies, you mean." His mouth twisted. "But that hadn't been the first time I'd been out to the hangar that night."

  Because she knew nothing she could say would change the pictures he saw in his mind, she simply took his hand and held it. His fingers stiffened, and then slowly curled around hers until he was gripping her tightly.

  "I'd been working on this Cessna for Tim and needed a part from the factory. On my way home I stopped at the post office to pick it up, then went home to look after Lucy while Mama went to a meetin' at the church."

  Sophie found the lack of emotion in his voice more chilling than the most violent expression of emotion. "My old man was workin' late, so I hung around the house with Lucy till he came home, then decided to go on back to the hangar and get in a few hours more work. I parked around back and was about to let myself into the office so I could turn on the hangar lights when I saw my mama and Tim." He shook his head, his mouth taking on a bitter line. "I'd never seen my mama naked before. At first I didn't believe it could really be her I was seein' on top of my best friend, doin' a whore's work."

  Sophie flinched. "Perhaps she was in love with him."

  "Love." His voice gave the word an ugly, obscene twist that tore at her. "Mama used to talk about that a lot. About how Daddy came home from the war and swept her off her feet. How much in love they were until I came along and ended the honeymoon."

  He turned his head to look at her. His eyes were bleak as a winter sea. "I bought a jar of 'shine on my way home and drank until I passed out. The next thing I remember was Lucy comin' into my room with that damn ring she got from Daddy's mama in her hand, tellin' me that Mama and Daddy hadn't come home."

  "So you went back and found them."

  "What was left of them, yeah. Daddy was always a crack shot, but this time he used a shotgun. I never knew why for sure. Maybe because he was afraid his hand would shake when he got Mama's head in his sights."

  "Oh, Ford, I'm so sorry." Her hand trembled slightly as it came up to smooth the sweat-rumpled hair from his forehead. Ford saw the anguish in her eyes and realized that he'd never told another soul what he'd just told her.

  "That's what I see, Sophie. My mother splattered all over that office. And then I wake up, knowin' I could have prevented three people I cared about from dyin' like that."

  A shiver chased through Sophie at the vicious sting of self-hatred in his voice. "You don't know that," she said gently.

  "I could have stopped them before Daddy got there," he said in a tone without any emotion at all. "All I had to do was open the door and walk in, but I couldn't. I was afraid my mama would end up hatin' me." He looked at her with eyes so haunted he couldn't quite keep all the hurt hidden. "Folks think I'm some kind of hero for stay in' home to take care of my sister. Now there are two of us who know I'm not."

  "I know that you're much too hard on yourself, Ford Maguire. Perhaps you could have prevented what happened that night, though I think at best you would have simply postponed the inevitable. More probably you would have ended up as dead as everyone else. And then Lucy wouldn't have had anyone to hold her when she woke up screaming."

  Sophie saw that she'd touched him in some small way and wanted to weep for the torment he'd put himself through all those years.

  "You really believe that, don't you?"

  "With all my heart."

  She felt a slight easing in the terror tension holding him captive. "How'd you get to be so wise?"

  "I'm not wise," she whispered, her voice thick with conflicting emotions. Though he would never know, she had her own bloody memories. Memories that still woke her in the dead of night. Memories that had the power to batter at barriers that she suspected weren't quite as solid or as permanent as his. "I just don't want you to hurt anymore."

  "I don't, not when I'm with you," he murmured, cupping his hand around her slender neck. He kissed her lips before she had a chance to refuse. He eased her to her back before she could protest.

  Passion flared in her quickly this time, needing only the taste of his mouth to send her blood surging. Was it so selfish to want what only he could give her? Was it so terribly wrong to need another memory to take with her when she left? Even as she argued with herself, she let her head fall back,
giving him access to the pulse throbbing in her throat.

  His gaze welded to her face, he watched her eyes go soft and cloudy before her lashes fluttered closed. On a sigh, she whispered his name, sending his own need spiking. But this time was for her, only for her. To that end, he leveled his own desire, using all the skill he'd learned to control his body as well as his mind.

  It wasn't as easy as it should be, nor as utterly successful as he might wish, but the sharp flare of urgency slowly diminished to a bearable ache as he slowly, thoroughly explored the soft contours of her breast, using his lips and tongue and, when he had her trembling, his teeth to gently nip the tender nipple that had once suckled a child. When he felt her hands fisting in his hair, he shifted his attention to the other breast, tracing the fullness with his tongue before taking the nipple into his mouth. At the same time he trailed slow, caressing fingers along the inner fullness of her thigh, feeling the soft warm flesh quiver beneath his fingertips.

  She breathed his name, her hands frantic, her body moving restlessly. Schooling himself to patience, he moved lower, pressing slow, moist kisses in a meandering line from her breasts to her navel, feeling the muscles contract beneath his lips.

  Using his tongue, he enjoyed a leisurely exploration of the swell of her belly, lapping at the shallow indentation before tracing the downward slope of warm silken flesh to the downy triangle of sable curls between her legs.

  For his own pleasure as much as hers he rubbed his face in the luxuriant softness, drawing in the scent of rose-flavored bath powder and the intensely erotic hint of womanly musk. Barely leashed desire clawed his loins, threatening to override his control, and he tightened his grip on her hips, willing the savage hunger to ease its grip.

  Buffeted with a wild wanting, she felt him freeze, his breathing a hot rasp against her thighs. Frustration ran through her, prodding her to arch upward, needing release from the urgent tingling turning her soft and hot and tense inside. Helpless, she tossed her head from side to side, her lip caught between her teeth to keep her cries from exploding into the room. Her hands pulled frantically at his hair, urging him to finish what he started. Blood roared in her head, and sang through her veins. Everywhere her body touched the sheet beneath her was sensitized, the pressure nearly unbearable. Desperate, she moaned, his name coming from her lips in a long keening cry, blending with the hoarse groan of a man in pain.

  But before she could focus her thoughts, he was nudging her thighs apart, his clever fingers already seeking, now stroking, now rubbing, until she was sobbing helplessly, desperate to feel him inside her.

  "Easy, darlin'," he urged, his voice hoarse. He moved, his hands sliding down her thighs, then up, his breathing a tortured sound.

  His tongue lapped where his fingers had stroked, and she cried out, lost in a frenzy. Helplessly, instinctively, she bucked upward, increasing the pressure, heightening the pleasure, until release came in a hot, hard wave, shuddering through her in one wave after another.

  Ford felt the spasms shaking her, and felt his own body react. Before he could prevent it, he was shuddering, powerless to prevent his own orgasm, and his seed pulsed onto the sheets. Crying out, he held on, riding out the most intense wave of pleasure he'd ever felt.

  Long moments later, he lifted his head from the soft pillow of her thigh and looked at her. Her eyes were closed, the dark lashes contrasting with the flush of arousal still blooming on her cheeks. Her lips were passion full, the corners still soft and dreamy, giving them the look of a woman who had just been thoroughly kissed.

  Satisfaction rocketed through him, followed more slowly but surely by a rare easing of thought that he could only label contentment. He wasn't a particularly generous man, but suddenly he wanted to shower her with gifts, beginning with the security of knowing that no one would ever hurt her again.

  "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty," he murmured, easing himself into position to press his mouth to hers lightly. Her lips curved slowly, sweetly, her lashes fluttering up to reveal passion-sated blue eyes.

  "I'm beginning to see a whole new dimension to that old story," she murmured, her husky voice setting his blood to humming again.

  "For better or worse?" he asked gruffly, kissing her chin.

  "Definitely better."

  "Now about that bath," he said, easing to a sitting position.

  "Mmm." She licked her lips, and he all but groaned. Her throat was flushed, and the shadowed cleft between her breasts was dewy. His imagination had him lapping up those pearly beads of moisture one by one. A quick glance at the clock told him that that particular pleasure would have to wait.

  "Much as I'd like to spend the rest of the day wrapped around you in this bed, I'm forced to confess something important."

  She smiled, her eyes still dark with passion. "What's that?"

  "You're about to be late for work."

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  « ^ »

  "I still think we should paint it yellow."

  Sophie wiped her nose with the hand that held the paintbrush and regarded the ancient biplane with a critical eye. It was primitive by modern standards, a toy constructed of wood and fabric and held together by thin wires and Ford's determination. Even though he'd repeatedly rhapsodized over the Jenny's aerodynamic stability and reliability as a World War I training plane and barnstormer after the war, she still shuddered every time she thought about his actually flying it.

  "She's a she, not an it," Ford corrected, rising from an inspection of the plane's undercarriage to drop a kiss on her nose. "All airplanes are female."

  "How do you know?" she asked, secretly enjoying the masculine aroma of sweat and lacquer thinner that clung to his paint-spattered shirt.

  His grin was cocky, his cocked-hip, legs-planted-wide stance pure male. Since the night they'd spent together he'd been blatantly and aggressively courting her. For a man who loudly and regularly proclaimed his inability to flirt, he was proving to be an ardent, irresistible lover. Knowing that she couldn't stay in Clover much longer made the time they spent together that much more precious to her.

  "Because Jenny there's a lot like you, darlin' Sophie. One minute she's treating this old boy sweet as you please, and the next she's frustratin' him all to hell," he drawled, sidestepping the punch she aimed at his flat belly.

  "Watch it, buster," she threatened, working at a menacing look that only won her another of those slow-forming, beguilingly off-center grins.

  "Watch what, sugar? The way your skin turns pink when I kiss your breasts, or the way your eyes get all dreamy after sex."

  "Shh, someone might hear you."

  Experiencing equal parts of acute embarrassment and extreme sensual pleasure, she cast a quick look around the cavernous hangar. Ugly as sin, the place smelled like machinery in various stages of repair and stale smoke from the cigar the owner, Bud Staley, puffed on incessantly.

  "No one's here but us," Ford said, moving closer. "Bud's busy givin' a lesson up there," he said, pointing a greasy spanner toward the high arching ceiling. "And I haven't seen another soul since we got here."

  It was Sunday, her day off. For the third week in a row, Ford had wheedled her into spending it with him. For the third week in a row she'd tried to use spending time with Jessie as an excuse to give her some breathing room from his determined pursuit. And for the third week in a row, he'd simply included Jessie in his plans.

  At the moment she was asleep in a portable playpen a safe distance from the paint fumes. Sophie had resisted when Ford had suggested buying the folding contraption that also served as a bed in a pinch. He'd simply ignored her protests and bought it, anyway. At the same time he'd bought the best car seat he could find and installed it in the back seat of the Camaro.

  So far, they'd used both a half-dozen times, mostly when she'd visited him at his house. She knew it wasn't smart or even safe to continue a relationship with him that she knew had to end, but every time she brought up the subject of breaking it off, he simpl
y kissed her into a bemused silence.

  "When are you going to stop stalling and take me for a ride in this crate?" she demanding, loving the indignant look that came over his rugged features whenever she maligned his beloved Jenny.

  "Watch your tongue, woman," he drawled, moving closer.

  The weather was warmer than normal for late January and even warmer under the hangar's metal roof. Wrestling with a stubborn lug bolt on one of the Jenny's wheels had put him into a sweat, staining his shirt in a triangle stretching in a narrowing line from his strong throat to his navel.

  "You're wasting your breath threatening me, Sheriff Maguire. I know what a softie you are under that macho crust."

  Scowling, he hooked his clean hand around her waist and lifted her to her toes. "Only with you," he declared gruffly before subjecting her to a long, draining kiss that had them both wanting more.

  "Have dinner with me tonight," he ordered as she drew a shaky breath. "We'll drive to the shore and have lobster."

  "I can't. Katie and I are taking Jessie to the petting zoo at the mall in Magnolia."

  He dropped the spanner into its proper drawer in the outsize tool chest and wiped his greasy hand on one of the rags he kept handy.

  "Sounds like fun," he said as he tossed the rag on top of the chest. "I'll be honored to escort three such lovely ladies."

  Sophie returned the brush to the can of lacquer thinner with the others and wiped her hands on the bandanna she'd tucked into the back pocket of her jeans.

  "Ford, be serious. People are beginning to think of us as a couple."

  "Now that's downright silly," he declared firmly. Before her stomach sank all the way to the floor, he shot a look at the baby, his expression softening. "You and me and Jess, we're a threesome. Some might even call that a family."

  "But we know we're not."

  He glanced down at his grease-stained running shoes for a moment before directing his attention her way again.

  "Maybe we ought to give some thought to changin' that." His voice was so calm, his tone so matter-of-fact, that for an instant she didn't realize exactly what he'd said. When she did, she felt as though she'd just been offered the greatest gift in the world, only to be told that she would die an agonizing death if she accepted it.