by Paula Graves
But damn, it felt right. Like she was made just for him, fitted perfectly to his shape. Soft where he was hard, filling in all the empty places inside him.
Her mouth drove against his with a hunger that caught him by surprise. She clutched his shoulders, her grip strong and fierce. He felt himself losing control of the moment, hurtling into a strange void where the ground beneath his feet disappeared, leaving him with nothing to hold on to but her.
No, no, no, he thought, panic beginning to set in. He couldn’t let this happen. Not again.
He struggled for control until he felt the ground beneath his feet again. He eased himself away from Stacy, sucking in deep breaths until the wildfire inside him began to ebb.
She stared at him from the distance of a few feet, her eyes wide and as dark as bruises. Her lips were pink and swollen from his kiss, and it took every ounce of strength he could muster to keep from closing the distance between them again.
She cleared her throat. “Okay. Glad that’s over with.”
A bubble of laughter rose in his throat. Her lips curved in response, and a few seconds later, they were both laughing.
“That can’t happen again,” she said after the mirth subsided. “It just can’t.”
“I know.” He meant the words, even as he was forced to silently admit that he didn’t know if either one of them could control whatever it was that came to life between them when they were in the same room.
And now that he’d moved in, with no way out before the governor’s fundraiser, keeping their distance was going to be harder than ever before.
“CARRIE RIVERS WANTS Vince Russo to coordinate with her own security,” Stacy told Harlan Tuesday morning as they met in his office for a briefing. She felt a little flicker of pride in how steady her voice was, even though she was having trouble thinking about anything besides how good he smelled.
She’d sneaked a peek at his toiletries the morning after he moved in and saw that he really did use nothing but soap to shower and shave. She didn’t find any shower gel or shaving lotion in his kit. Her father had been that kind of man, no frills, no fuss. He said what he meant and meant what he said, and when he’d died of a heart attack during a dangerous cave rescue, she’d felt a little piece of herself die with him.
She sometimes thought she’d been so vulnerable to Anthony’s charms because he’d swept into her life only a few months after her father’s death.
Was she falling into the same trap again with Harlan?
Not that he was anything like Anthony. Anthony had been wife-shopping when he’d spotted her at a political fundraiser years earlier. He’d never admitted it, but Stacy suspected he’d had a list of attributes he was looking for in a woman, and Stacy had fit the bill. Good academic record, clean background, calm temperament, pretty but not too pretty. Quirky backstory that could be exploited in the press-daughter of a college professor and a cave-diving daredevil who was equally at home in the halls of academia or the heart of an Ozark cavern.
Poor Anthony, she thought with a bitter half smile. He hadn’t realized she was a lot like her father’s beloved Ozarks-riddled with hidden depths full of secrets and surprises.
“I’m sure Vince will be happy to do that.” Harlan shot her a wry smile. “Let me know when they plan to be in town and we’ll set up a meeting.”
“Actually, they’re supposed to be in town this afternoon-Carrie has a show in Lubbock tomorrow night, and they asked if they could come by while they’re in the area. Can Vince meet with them around three this afternoon?”
Harlan frowned but nodded. “Yeah, I think I can work them in. I’ll call Vince and set it up.”
“I also have a handful of names to add to the list of people who’ll be at the fundraiser, too,” she added, handing over the list she’d compiled during a meeting with the governor and Greg Merritt early that morning.
“I take it their trip to Amarillo went well in spite of the hullabaloo?” Harlan’s fingers brushed hers as he took the list, setting off prickly sparks.
Living with Harlan had proved even more frustrating than she’d expected. Just being in the room with him could raise her temperature and send her thoughts careening into dangerous territory. And when their arms brushed while they were sharing kitchen duties, or when his fingers touched hers while passing her a spoon or a magazine, she found herself having more and more difficulty resisting the urge to have one more last kiss.
She dropped her hands to her lap, clasping her fingers together to stop their trembling. “The governor said it went better than she expected.”
“That sounds promising.” Something about Harlan’s tone of voice made her wonder if he was talking about the governor’s trip. But when he spoke again, his tone was back to normal. “What’s on your agenda for the afternoon? Working from the guesthouse?”
“Zachary’s riding with Trevor Lewis-one of the governor’s stable grooms. It’s his afternoon off, but he volunteered to take Zachary riding today so I can finish taking care of the hotel arrangements for Carrie and her people.” She had felt a little wary about accepting Trevor’s offer, afraid he might consider it a quid pro quo that would require her to do him a favor, too. But he had shown no signs of expecting anything from her, even turning down her offer to pay him for his time.
“Working on my off day makes me look good in the boss’s eyes,” Trevor had said with an engaging grin. “You and the little guy are doing me a favor.”
She wasn’t sure she believed him, not completely, but she was in no position to turn down the offer of a free riding session to keep Zachary happy and occupied while she took care of the work piling up on her desk.
“You sure Zachary’s okay with this Trevor guy?” Harlan asked.
She looked up in surprise at the worried tone in his voice. “Yeah, he’s fine. Trevor’s taken him riding a few times before. He’s good with Zachary, and Zachary’s always happy to go riding.”
“You know, you could always bring him here with you if you need to. I bought a couple of horse books to keep here.” He waved at the bookshelf behind him, where two large picture books with horses on the covers lay on the top shelf. “I tried to find something I knew he didn’t have at home.”
His consideration touched her so deeply it nearly brought tears to her eyes. She blinked back the moisture, determined not to let her emotion show. As sweet as she found the gesture, she knew she couldn’t take him up on it.
“That’s really so considerate, Harlan. I appreciate your thinking of Zachary that way-”
“But?” Harlan asked, his brow furrowing as he caught the hesitation in her voice.
“But it’s not a good idea for Zachary to get…too comfortable around you.”
“Because of his Asperger’s?”
“Well, yes. That’s part of it,” she admitted. “He forms crushes on people-he can be quite ruthless about it-”
“I think I can handle a five-year-old with a crush.”
“I’m not worried about you. I’m worried about him.”
Harlan looked a little insulted. “I would never hurt your kid, Stacy. I don’t know what kind of person you think I am-”
“You wouldn’t mean to hurt him. But if he gets too attached to you, too used to having you around, it’ll be hard for him to adjust when you’re gone again.”
“I see.” His frown didn’t go away, but his gaze softened, and his voice held gentle sympathy when he asked, “How did he handle your husband going away?”
“Not well,” she answered flatly. “It was sudden and we didn’t have time to adjust.” She realized too late that she’d said we instead of he.
If Harlan picked up on the slip, he was kind enough not to comment. “Little boys need daddies. Are you sure your ex doesn’t want to see more of Zachary? Maybe he has regrets about the way he left.”
“He has a new son,” she said bluntly. “A perfect little boy with his perfect new wife. He’s just not really interested in revisiting the past now.”
Harlan’s mouth tightened to a line. “And he’s in politics? Does he really think something like that isn’t going to come back to bite him?”
“Oh, he pays his child support on time. He sends Zachary presents on his birthday and Christmas.” The bitterness welling up in Stacy’s throat tasted like bile. “I really don’t want to talk about this.”
“My wife cheated on me,” Harlan said.
She looked up, not sure she’d heard him correctly. But the humiliation in his eyes suggested she’d heard him loud and clear. “I don’t know what to say,” she admitted.
“Not much to say, really.” He sighed. “I never had a lot of money, growing up. My parents did the best they could, worked hard, but they barely had high school educations and there wasn’t much either of them could to do to bring in a lot of cash. I never went without, but I had to make do a lot.”
She nodded, understanding. There had been years like that for her, as well, until her mother finally earned tenure at the college where she was a professor.
“I met Alexis in the seventh grade, when my family moved to Snellville, Georgia, after my dad got a job at a trucking company there. She was the prettiest girl in school. Also one of the wealthiest. I had such a crush on her. All the way through to high school. When she agreed to go with me to the Homecoming game, it felt like winning the lottery.”
Her first romantic date with Anthony had felt the same way, she realized. Magical, but sort of unreal, as if she knew deep down that it was mostly an illusion.
“I think our relationship must have been more a symptom of her rebellious stage than anything lasting and real,” he murmured, leaning back in his chair and steepling his hands over his flat abdomen. “Hindsight and all that.”
“How long were you married?”
“Seven years. We dated through high school and into college. She broke up with me her sophomore year and dated other people, but after graduation, when I came home from college for the summer before going to boot camp to fulfill my G.I. Bill commitments, she had just broken up with her latest boyfriend-some guy her father had seemed determined she should marry. Of course, to show her father who was really in charge, Alexis asked me to a party at the country club.”
Ouch, Stacy thought. “And you didn’t see through it?”
“Oh, hell no. She was prettier than ever, and I was about to head to Parris Island, then off to God knows where-on a global conflicts scale, we were somewhere between the Balkans and Iraq at that point, and I knew I had a good chance of seeing combat sooner or later. So of course I said yes. It might have been the last time I saw her. At least, that was my romantic take on things.” He shot her a wry smile. “I didn’t know it was going to lead to seven years of matrimony.”
“Anthony swept me off my feet. We got married about three months after we met, then we had a big church wedding a few months later because Anthony thought it was important to have the big write-up in the paper and the photos on his desk at work. He was always very aware of appearances.”
“Alexis, too. She came from money, and she had expectations.”
Stacy nodded. “It’s hard to fulfill people’s expectations, especially if they’re set in stone.”
“She wanted me to quit the Marines as soon as I could. But I started rising in the ranks. I’d gone in as a private, and I took to it like a pig to mud. I was good at it-especially shooting. I’d learned how to fire a rifle when I was a little kid in the Georgia woods, and the Marines needed snipers.” He flexed his right hand, his gaze dropping to the web of scars radiating from a larger scar in the middle of his palm.
“You didn’t want out.”
“I’d found a job where I could make a real difference.”
“That must have strained your marriage.”
“You think I should have left the Marine Corps.”
She shook her head. “I think you both should have probably compromised. Maybe you could have looked for a job in the Marines that wouldn’t put you overseas all the time. And she could have accepted that you were a Marine for life.”
“But I wasn’t, was I?” He clenched his hand again. “Within a year of our marriage falling apart, I was out.” He released a bitter laugh. “She should have hung on a little longer, huh?”
She couldn’t see how their marriage could have been saved, given that his wife apparently thought it was okay to sleep with other men when she didn’t get her way, but she wasn’t about to say that aloud. She wasn’t exactly in a good position to judge other people’s marriages, was she?
“I’d contracted with a construction company to build a farmhouse in Walnut Grove, south of Atlanta. I wanted her to have a big house with lots of land so we could raise kids there together.” His sad smile made Stacy’s chest ache. “I had a week’s temporary duty in Hawaii training sniper candidates, and at the last minute, they gave me an extra two days of R & R. All I wanted to do was go home and see how the house was coming. It was nearly finished-Alexis was already staying there…”
The ache in her chest spread as she realized what must certainly come next. “You wanted to surprise her?”
He nodded. “For future reference, that’s almost always a bad move.”
“She wasn’t alone.”
“She wasn’t alone. And she was naked.” Stacy winced.
“So, that whole sad, sordid story was to say, no matter how bad you think your marriage was, it could have been worse.”
She managed a smile, although the humiliation shining in his dark eyes made her want to hunt down his ex-wife and show her how an Arkansas girl dealt with cheating, lying hussies. “Noted.”
“And now I need some air. What time do Vince and I meet with Carrie Rivers’s security team, again?”
“Three,” she answered, rising from her seat as he stood. “Would you like me to call Vince Russo for you?”
Harlan shook his head. “I’ll do it. Listen-be careful this afternoon while I’m gone. I can probably arrange for one of the CSI guys to cover you until I can get back.”
“I’m picking up Zachary from the stables at three, then working from home. I’ll be in view of your security folks the whole time.” She slanted a wry smile at him. “I promise I won’t wander off.”
He didn’t return the smile. “You need to take the threat seriously, Stacy.”
“I am,” she assured him, growing sober. “I still think Lila’s the main target, but people may try to get to her through me and my son. I get that.”
“Good. I don’t want to see anything happen to either one of you.” Harlan walked her to her office. “Let me know if you have any trouble with the hotel accommodations.”
“What are you going to do, yell at them until they fall in line?” she teased.
“I might,” he answered with a grin.
She smiled back. “I think I can handle it without any shouting.”
His expression softened, and he reached out one big hand and cupped her jaw, the touch tender and a little tentative. “Be careful,” he said, his voice gruff.
“I will,” she promised. It took every ounce of self-control she had not to turn her face into this touch.
The sound of footsteps around the corner made them both give a little start. Harlan dropped his hand to his side and backed away, letting her enter the office alone.
She closed the door behind her, something she didn’t normally do, because she was afraid if she didn’t close herself off to Harlan in some way, she’d end up following him outside and suggesting they get some air together.
She was still thinking about Harlan when she walked down to the stable to pick up Zachary after his riding lesson. Would it be so bad, really, to give in to the feelings she was fighting? Would it hurt anything to see where her attraction to Harlan-and his to her-could take them?
Anthony had crushed her heart, but Harlan wasn’t Anthony. The more she got to know him, the more obvious that fact became. Harlan seemed to be crazy about Zachary-he’d bought him a couple of horse books,
for Pete’s sake. He asked about him all the time and he seemed to genuinely find pleasure in Zachary’s company.
But was that enough to build a relationship on? His being nice to her son?
Zachary had so many other problems he’d have to deal with in his life. Screwing him up just because she was feeling lonely and needy was a great way to win Worst Mother of the Year.
She’d do anything for Zachary, give up anything for him.
That was just how it had to be.
Trevor wasn’t around when she got there, but Cory was letting Zachary help him mix the feed for the horses when she walked into the big barn. She had to wait for Zachary to finish his task before he even acknowledged her presence.
“Did you have a good ride?” she asked as she walked him back to the guesthouse.
“Mommy, what’s a bitch?”
Her steps faltering, she turned to look at him. “What?”
“Get the bitch out of my way.” Zachary said the words in a gruff, mimicking voice. Then, in his regular voice, he asked, “Why is the bitch in his way?”
She crouched next to Zachary, alarmed. “Who said that?”
“The big man.”
“Cory?”
“No. The big man.” Zachary lifted his hand high over his head. “Why is the bitch in his way?”
“Zachary, that’s not a nice word to say. It’s a word that’s meant to insult women, and it’s a very mean thing to say.”
“Why?”
She rose and took his hand, tugging him with her. “It’s just not nice. It compares a woman to a dog.”
Zachary was quiet for a few seconds. Then he asked, “Why is it bad to be compared to dogs? I like dogs.”
“Dogs are great,” she agreed, “but they’re not women. I guess dogs might not appreciate being compared to people, either. Don’t you think?” She tried to keep her tone light, though a thousand scary questions ran through her mind, starting with the most obvious: How had Zachary gotten near a big stranger who wanted someone out of the way?
