by Seton, Cora
Jesus.
Dancing wasn’t his thing unless it was code for kick some insurgent ass. He eyeballed the dance floor, dredged his memory, and moved to the northwest corner. Three more verses of cowboy-kissing-good-old-boy music and Bree’s uneven line of dancers ended up in Zack’s corner. Bingo.
Since she had her back to him, she didn’t notice him. He slipped an arm around her waist and gently hauled her backward. She squealed and he grinned, burying his face in her hair. The silky strands were soft and smelled like a fruit bowl from her shampoo. Strawberries and…pineapple? Hell if he knew. He just liked it. Liked her.
Without looking up, she shook her head. “No cuts, Zay!”
He shouldn’t have reacted to another man’s name on her lips. He had no right to be jealous and he knew it, but it was an instinctive, primitive reaction. Zay could be her fucking tax accountant for all he knew.
“Wrong name, sweetheart,” he growled against her ear. “I’m your other boyfriend.”
“Zack.” She sighed his name and gave a little wriggle. Okay. So she wasn’t unhappy to see him. “I owe Laura five bucks.”
“Do you need a loan?” He ran a thumb over her hips where she was soft and curvy. Since he was taller, he also had an awesome view down the front of her T-shirt of the pink-checked bra pushing her breasts up.
She laughed and something thawed inside him. “She bet me you’d show up here tonight.”
Score one for Laura. “You shouldn’t have bet against me.”
She shrugged. The jukebox kicked into another song, and the line on the dance floor surged towards them. He wasn’t ready to give her back yet and he damned certain wasn’t two-stepping it in public.
“Come outside with me?”
“Okay.” She slid her hand into his, just like that—and started dragging him towards the door. He’d bet she led when she danced too. He knew he was grinning, but the truth was that he was happy to follow wherever she led.
The parking lot seemed dark after Ma’s brightly lit interior, but the Christmas lights cast a happy little rainbow on the asphalt and there were stars overhead. The clouds moving in, however, meant they might actually get a dusting of snow for Christmas. His cookie-exchanging, reindeer-decorating wife would like that.
She leaned in and sniffed him. It had been a long time since he dated—thirty-six months to be exact—but he was fairly certain that sniffing wasn’t typical behavior. “Problem?”
“You smell like smoke.”
“I rode out with Ben Cortez and the guys to a barn fire.” At the crack of dawn. Despite two showers, the faint smoke smell lingered. He wondered if he could get her to take pity on him and take him to bed. At the moment, he’d even take sleep. A hot date with his pillow—if it included Bree—sounded just about right.
“Is everyone okay?” Her forehead puckered as she waited for his answer.
“Property damage,” he said gruffly. He needed to take her somewhere where they could talk. The possibilities weren’t good, but he led her around the side of the building, past the smoker’s bench of shame. Heading back to the firehouse was also an option, but he hadn’t thought this out. A truck pulled out, further emphasizing their lack of privacy. Shit.
Beside him Bree shivered and leaned into him. Her nipples poked against the thin cotton because she’d followed him without making a pit stop for her jacket. Just like the Bree he remembered—impulsive. She leapt in feet first, confident everything would come out okay. Shrugging off his jacket, he draped the leather around her.
“Everyone’s fine,” he repeated. “MacDougal got his horses out before we arrived. He’ll need a new barn, but he’s already calling the insurance company.”
She grabbed his arm, holding it out in front of her, and turned it over and shoved his sleeve up.
“What are you looking for?”
“Burns. Cuts.” She shrugged. “Life-threatening mortal injuries. I’d like to make sure you’re okay.”
“If I’d sustained life-threatening injuries, do you think I’d be standing in the parking lot of Ma’s?”
“You’re a guy,” she huffed. “You could cut off a leg and you’d be certain everything was fine.”
“Joey is a smoke jumper.”
“And I worry about him too. That’s what family does.”
Too. Was he part of her family? He’d come home hoping so, but knowing he’d have a job convincing her to take the chance on him. His jacket wriggled before he could get too lost down memory lane and he grinned when she shrieked. She’d made a sound like that in the front seat of his truck once upon a time, and he’d give pretty much anything to hear her make it again.
She leveled the death stare at him. “What’s in your pocket?”
“Maybe I’m just happy to see you.”
She shook her head. “Don’t.”
Don’t what? Too bad Bree didn’t come with an instruction manual, because he had no idea what she really wanted. She’d followed him to Nevada; she’d followed him out here. He’d have to work with what he had.
“It’s a present.” He patted the wriggling spot in his jacket. Given the way the fabric bunched up on her, too large, he also managed to pat her breast.
“For Christmas?” Now she sounded suspicious. “It’s twelve days until Christmas and we’ve never exchanged so much as a Christmas card.”
“I have three cards from you.”
“Uh-huh.” She poked him in the chest. Hard. “And I have zero from you. Do the math, hotshot. That’s not an exchange.”
Shit. She had him there. It wasn’t like he didn’t know how many Christmases he’d missed with her either. He’d counted them off and then, one day, he’d found himself counting down to the time when he could come back to Strong. Back to Bree. He didn’t know what had changed, but something had. The long distance thing wasn’t enough anymore. He’d been ready to come home.
To Bree.
“I should have sent a Christmas card.” And probably birthday cards, Valentine’s Day cards, and anniversary cards. He could add one more screw up of epic proportions to his credit.
“You bet.” She curled her fingers into the front of his T-shirt.
“In my defense, I did send postcards. And I wrote letters.” He’d picked up a box of Pixar postcards with illustrations from the movie storyboards and, at first, he’d sent her those, one on the first of each month. The cards were funny and cute, but romantic? Not a chance in hell. Plus, since he’d never known what to say to her (at least not until she’d started sending sexy letters his way), the small space on the back of the card had suited him perfectly. He’d scrawled a few local phrases. Talked about the weather and the MREs. Drawn a happy face on more than one occasion.
The letters, though…yeah, he’d poured his heart out there.
“I liked your letters.” Her face softened some, but he had no idea how to fix this. Even for her, he couldn’t go back in time and send her the cards she wanted.
Fortunately, his kitten rescue bailed him out, fighting the pocket in a determined effort at a jailbreak.
“Your present is trying to make a break for it.”
She narrowed her eyes.
He smiled at her. “You know you want to look.”
That was the thing about Bree. She was so goddamned curious. She couldn’t not look. Expressions flitted across her face, but her resistance gave out after five seconds and she dropped a hand to the pocket. He guessed she’d be curious like that in bed too, although they’d never actually made it to a bed.
Gingerly, she pried open the pocket, and the kitten seized the opportunity. A small gray head popped out, followed by two paws.
“Oh,” she said softly.
“It’s a kitten,” he said, like she wouldn’t recognize a kitten when she saw one.
She ran a finger over the small head. “Why do you have a kitten in your pocket?”
“I told you. That’s your Christmas present right there. The first one,” he said, because she was three Chris
tmas cards up on him and he had ground to make up. “I’m doing that Twelve Days of Christmas thing.”
“Right,” she said, but there was no heat in her words now. She was staring at the kitten rubbing against her finger. “I’ll bet you can’t recite the words to that song.”
She had him there.
“Shut up and pet your present.”
*
Zack had brought her a kitten. A smoky, bedraggled, itsy-bitsy, absolutely perfect gray kitten. Her heart turned over.
Stop it. Their marriage had been intended as a stopgap, as insurance in case a small mistake turned out to be a great, big enormous mistake.
“This isn’t a partridge in a pear tree,” she said.
The expression in his eyes made her melt, damn it. “I’ll do better tomorrow.”
He was killing her. If he did any better than this, she’d climb him like a tree, wrap herself around him and never, ever let go. The attraction was there between them. And they were married, which practically made acting on said chemistry an obligation. Or an impossible temptation. She thunked her head against the bar wall, the kitten cradled against her chest.
Zack braced a hand beside her head. When she turned her head, her lips were inches from his strong wrist dusted with hair. He was so damned sexy.
“Bree.” He growled her name.
Maybe if she closed her eyes, she’d be able to drum up some resistance, because right now she was one breath away from kissing the ever living daylights out of her husband.
He lowered his head. Slowly, like he actually believed she needed a chance to make up her mind. She’d gotten her first taste of him all those years ago and no man had measured up since. She might not have touched—she took her promises seriously even when she’d made them in the cheesiest wedding chapel ever—but she’d tried looking. She had, because waiting for a man who showed no signs of coming home was stupid.
She wasn’t stupid.
She was…lonely. Horny.
Swept off her feet.
And, when he brushed his mouth over hers, she was lost. Erotic fantasies crashed through her head, part memory, part frantic need. She’d dreamed about him and then she’d written those dreams down on paper and sent them to him—and now he was clearly prepared to use each and every word against her. First he kissed her soft and slow but, when the hungry groan she couldn’t hold back slipped out…then he kissed her harder.
Deeper.
He angled his mouth over hers and licked and tasted like he couldn’t possibly get enough of her. She wrapped her free hand around his neck pulling him closer. Oh, yeah. His chest pressed against hers, his thighs melded with hers, the heat of him searing her through the cotton and denim. She wanted him naked. Over her, under her. In her. Right now, pretty please.
The kitten meowed, tiny claws scrabbling against her hand and recalling her to where they were.
She pulled her mouth away and, to her eternal disappointment, he let her. “We shouldn’t.”
But it was hard to remember all the reasons kissing Zack Medina was a bad idea.
“I think we should.”
“I don’t do kisses.”
“But we’re married.”
Sort of, but not really. She’d married him impulsively, because she’d had sex with him. She didn’t jump in feet first like that anymore. Liar, her brain yelled. One more taste, her body coaxed. Sex with Zack had been anything but simple and uncomplicated.
Of course, the sex had also been fantastic.
Shoot. If she took him to bed, she’d bet he’d be even better and that was a problem. She needed to be able to walk away from him, or to at least not care when he left her. It had to be just sex and nothing to do with her heart or her feelings. Because, whatever Zack thought he was doing here in Strong, she couldn’t believe he was really ready to settle down or that he actually wanted to make a go of their marriage.
After all, he’d managed to ignore the fact that he had a wife for years. It wasn’t the lack of Christmas cards that she cared about. It was the total radio silence on his part. He couldn’t be bothered to give her more than a handful of polite words on the back of a postcard that anyone could read.
She looked down at the kitten. He didn’t talk to her for years and then he did something like this.
Chapter Four
‡
Strong wasn’t a big town. With only a handful of streets, the place barely qualified as a blip on the map. Zack loved it. Maybe he had a Mayberry gene in him, but it was impossible to get lost here, everyone knew his name, and no one had drawn a gun on him or opened fire from the shadows. That worked for him.
He re-stowed the kitten in the pocket of his jacket and grabbed the bag of kitten supplies from his truck while Bree ducked inside Ma’s to collect her things. She’d shimmied out the leather before he could tell her to keep it. He liked looking at her in his things. The leather smelled faintly like her perfume now, something sweet and floral. Pretty.
She came back out of the bar, her eyes going straight to him. He didn’t realize until he saw her that he’d been worried she wouldn’t come back out. She’d come here with friends and he wasn’t a prize, marital or otherwise. He couldn’t imagine her friends being real happy about his tentative place in Bree’s life and friends talked. She didn’t look upset though, so he pulled her up against his side and started walking.
She melted into his side without a moment’s hesitation, her hip bumping his with each step she took. Strong was plenty peaceful and quiet at night. It was dark too, although the bungalows they passed shed some light on the sidewalk and there was always the starlight overhead. He’d navigated by far less and gotten the job done. The soft tap of her cowboy boots on the sidewalk made a nice rhythm, though, and the rhinestones still make him smile.
Five too-short minutes later and they were standing in front of her bungalow. The reindeer heads went up and down, twinkling like mad. Santa hadn’t deflated yet; his most recent repairs must have held.
She peeled away from his side and hotfooted it up the sidewalk, fumbling in her bag for the key. Her cheeks were pink, but he was hoping it wasn’t from their walk. Please let it be me. Jesus. She did something to him. He’d never been one for introspection—the Navy-mandated counselor who had spoken with him before he’d left base for the last time had suggested he “do an inventory of his feelings” and he’d laughed out loud—but he felt something for Bree all right. He took the steps two at a time, right behind her.
“So.” She rocked back on her heels, rhinestones flashing in the porch light. “We’re here.”
“Uh-huh. You going to take that kitten inside?”
She didn’t make a move towards the door. “He—she?—needs a name.”
“He.” He flashed her a grin. “I checked.”
She cupped her hand against his jacket pocket, her fingers brushing his shirt and side. He wondered what it would take to coax her into putting her fingers elsewhere.
“Sparky? Pickles? Smoke?”
All of which merited a place on the World’s Worst Names for a Cat list. “It’ll come to you.”
“Come on. Help me out here.” She tugged lightly on his shirt.
“Peshtigo? Miramichi? Cloquet?” He rattled off the names of some of the worst fires in U.S. history. If she wanted fire names, those were doozies. And…he sucked at naming things.
She made a face. “Maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t have a baby. You’d have given the little guy some kind of fourteen syllable name of ridiculousness.”
Maybe?
She blew out a breath and looked up at him. “Do you want to come in?”
Hell, yeah.
“For adult beverages. Or cocoa. I’ve got that too.” She babbled her drink list. Did he make her nervous?
“I’d love to come in.” More than anything.
“Okay, then.” She rummaged again in her purse and this time produced a zebra-striped lanyard with her house keys. He waited while she messed with the door, then fol
lowed her inside. She didn’t have a security system. He’d fix that, make sure she was safe. Although Strong was no hotbed of crime, bad shit could and did happen anywhere. It happened here, in her house, however, over his dead body.
Tonight he was in a better place to pay attention to the room. It helped too that it wasn’t crammed full of women hell-bent on exchanging Christmas cookies. He wondered what she did with her lifetime stash of Pepperidge Farm. Maybe the women had divided that shit up. Or perhaps he’d innocently open a cupboard door in Bree’s kitchen and be buried in an avalanche of cookie packages. She had a twelve-foot Christmas tree brushing the ceiling, lights twinkling like mad. The fireplace sported a load of balls and pine boughs.
She had Christmas spirit up the ying-yang.
Was there such a thing as Christmas porn? If so, he bet she’d have multiple copies.
He took the kitten out of his pocket and set it down on the couch. Parked its bag of goodies near it on the floor. The as-yet-unnamed furball wouldn’t want for chow or litter. He watched the kitten for a moment, but it ignored him and promptly curled up on a sofa cushion, settling in for a nap. All good. He went after Bree.
He found her in the kitchen, head in the fridge. Given the way the hotpot was boiling away, cocoa might be in his future after all. He’d get through it.
“You need a hand?”
She retreated from the fridge, waving two bottles of Christmas Ale microbrew in her hand. “I’m betting you’re a beer person, not a cocoa person.”
Thank God.
“Got it in one.”
He took the bottle from her, popped the top. She was already halfway back to the living room. She was going to give him whiplash. At least the view of her ass was spectacular. The denim skirt hugged her in all the right places. Tight at the top, it flared out into a patchwork ruffle cover with tiny flowers he’d certainly never spotted in a natural setting. The little devil on his shoulder, however, didn’t give a damn about the botanical inaccuracy and immediately suggested the fantasy of sliding his hand underneath all that pretty pink-and-white, shove the skirt higher and…
