by Linda Turner
Startled, her cheeks aflame, Becca couldn't for the life of her think of an explanation.
"Well, uh, I"
"It just sort of popped out, sweetie pie," Riley said, coming to her rescue.
"I guess I could have called her peanut or curly top or even Fred, but I thought sweetheart sounded better. It's got a nice ring to it, don't you think? "
Chloe giggled.
"You called me sweetie pie."
He grinned.
"It's my favorite nickname for special ladies."
"I'm not a lady!"
"You will be one day," he promised, tugging at one of her soft curls.
"And then the boys better watch out.
You're going to break a lot of hearts. "
Recovering her voice at last, Becca said quickly, "Why don't you collect the cans for me and set them up again, honey? This time farther away. We don't want the sheriff to accuse us of baby stuff."
As competitive as her mother, Chloe didn't have to be told twice.
"All right! We'll show him!"
She skipped off, grinning, and as soon as she was out of earshot, Beeca drawled, "Okay, sweetheart, what are you doing here, anyway?"
"Lucille thought some kids were back here' shooting off fireworks, so I drove over to check it out." He glanced at the gun holstered in her shoulder harness, his eyes glinting with devilment as they lifted to hers.
"You got a permit for that thing?"
She did, but she had no intention of telling him that just yet, not after that crack about her shooting. Cocking her head at him, she lifted a delicately arched brow.
"Why? You going to haul me in if I don't?"
He wanted to haul her in, all right, right into his arms.
And if he didn't get out of there damn soon, he was going to do just that.
"Don't tempt me," he growled, and meant it.
"So let's have it, Becca. Do you have a permit or not? You know the law as well as I do."
"Which is why I have a permit," she replied, her green eyes twinkling.
"So you don't have to read me my rights. I'm legal."
"Then I'll get out of here," he said gruffly.
"See you around, peanut."
"You can count on it, sweetheart. I'm not going anywhere." She watched him walk away, the heat from the touch of his eyes sparking a glow deep inside, an ache she would have sworn she wanted no part of.
Shaken, she didn't hear Chloe return until the little girl leaned against her and slipped her small arms around her waist.
"Are we going to move back to Dallas, Mama?"
"What?" Surprised, Beeca frowned down at her, smoothing her wild curls back from her face.
"Why would you think that, honey?" She shrugged.
"Some of the kids at school said you can't beat the sheriff. So I thought we might have to move ...."
"Oh, no, honey!" Squatting down, Becca gave her daughter a fierce hug.
"I don't know who's going to win the election—no one does—but this is our home now. You heard me tell the sheriff I'm not going anywhere and I meant it. So don't you worry about what the kids at school say. They don't know what they're talking about. Okay?"
Relief easing the worried lines of her little face, Chloe nodded.
"Okay."
Praying she wouldn't have to eat those words'," Becca sent her inside to clean up for supper, promising she'd be in herself in just a second. Then she went looking for Lucille.
Since only strangers used the front door, she cut across her own unfenced yard to the older woman's back door, where she heard murmured laughter. Suspicion stirred, and with nothing more than a, sharp knock, she quickly let herself in.
If she lived to be a hundred, she'd never forget the identical expressions on the three old ladies' faces: guilt, pure and simple.
Suddenly wanting to laugh, she said easily, "Sorry to interrupt, ladies, but the sheriff was just here. It seems Lucille thought someone was shooting off some fireworks out back. Didn't you warn the others about my target practice, Margaret?" Margaret, to her credit, couldn't quite look her in the eye when she fibbed.
"Target practice?" she repeated vaguely, as if she'd never heard the words before.
"I must have forgotten. You know how my memory is, especially when I'm working with my clay."
It was a good excuse, but Beeca wasn't buying it. Margaret was sharp as a tack when she wanted to be. And so were the others. If Lucille could tell which dog was barking at the Cavender Ranch a quarter of a mile down the road—which she could—she should have been able to distinguish between gunshots and firecrackers.
"I know what you're doing," she warned them.
"And it's not going to work."
"Doing?"
"We don't know what you're talking about, Becca, honey. Is something wrong?"
"You're darn right something's wrong. The three of you think you can throw the sheriff and me together and stir up a romance and it's just not going to work." All talking at once, they assured her they'd never even considered such a thing, but Becea knew them too well. Romantics right down to the tips of their soft-soled shoes, they'd made it clear on numerous other occasions that they thought she was too young to spend the rest of her life alone. It was just like them to take matters into their own hands and decide that Riley Whitaker was just the man she needed.
They couldn't have been more wrong.
Chapter 5
The clock on the stove read 11:43.
"Almost midnight. And the loneliest time of the day, as far as Becca was concerned. Restless, with thoughts of Riley, of the grannies' plot to throw them together, pushing in on her, she settled at the kitchen table to work on the speech she would be giving early next week to the local garden club.
But her mind wasn't on the task and kept drifting to the following evening, when she would have to handcuff him and in the process, touch him, manhandle him. Images stirred. Hot, erotic, totally unacceptable.
Flushed, cursing her overactive imagination, she tossed down her pencil and headed upstairs for a bath. But a hot soak didn't do a thing for the tension knotting the back of her neck, and an hour later, she was still up, prowling the house in the dark, checking on her neighbors to make sure they were safe and sound.
It was a habit she had started the first night she'd moved in with her grandmother, when she'd realized she and her three elderly friends had no one within shouting distance but each other. If there was trouble, no one would hear, so Becca had made it a practice of making sure the neighborhood was quiet each night before she went to bed.
Glancing out the east window of the kitchen, she grinned at the sight of the lights blazing in Margaret's studio. When she was working with her beloved clay, Margaret had been known to stay up all night.
Figuring she was okay, Becca moved to the opposite end of the house to check on Lucille, then Clara, who lived at the far end of the row of four houses.
Lucille's place was dark, as was Clara' s. Relieved, Becca started to turn away from the study window, only to catch a whisper of movement out of the corner of her eye.
Surprised, she froze, her narrowed gaze searching the darkness. It was a moonless night and quiet, without a breath of a breeze. If there was anything out there, she couldn't see it.
"It's late," she told herself.
"You're imagining things." But just as the words left her lips, she saw something white and flowing drift from the deep shadows engulfing the house two doors down.
"Oh, God!"
It was Clara. She was sleepwalking, wandering through the night as if she were out for an afternoon stroll and headed straight toward the road. Dismayed, Becca flipped on the floodlights and ran for the door.
Running late because of some rowdiness he'd had to settle at the County Line Lounge in the far northern corner of the county, Riley took a shortcut back to town and told himself he was only taking the two-lane ranch road to save time. The fact that Becca lived on the road was just a coincidence and had
nothing to do with his decision to go that way instead of the main highway.
"Yeah, right," he muttered.
"Tell another one." His chiselled face was grim in the darkness as he approached the string of four houses sitting in the middle of nowhere, and he thanked God that he wouldn't have to stop. For hours now, he'd thought of nothing but her and the glint in her eyes when she'd teasingly called him sweetheart.
She'd just been giving him back some of his own, and he should have forgotten all about it by now. But there were some things a man couldn't forget, like it or not. And Becca laughing up at him, the endearment slipping naturally from her lips, was one of them.
"It's time you took another little trip up to Silver City, Whitaker, and found someone to scratch this itch for you," he said tightly into the darkness of his patrol car.
"You've been without a woman too long."
It was a damn good idea, but one, he was irked to note, that held little appeal. Lately, when he thought of a woman, there was only one that seemed to come to mind. And she had a sassy mouth and wanted his job.
He would have raced right by her house without sparing it a glance, but the damn place was lit up like a Christmas tree. Floodlights blazed from very corner of the two-story structure, stripping the night away.
And right in the middle of the front yard was Becca—in her nightgown, if he wasn't mistaken! —apparently herding Clara Simpson, who was also in her nightclothes, back to her house. Riley never 'remembered t slamming on the brakes but suddenly he was struggling to avoid a skid. Keep on going, the voice of reason in his head ordered sternly.
If the ladies want to have a pajama party and walk in the starlight, it's none of your business.
The thought registered; he just ignored it. Cursing a blue streak, he was out of his patrol car before he'd barely rolled to a stop in the middle of the road in front of her house.
"Dammit, woman, what the hell are you doing? Do you know what time it is? What's wrong with Clara?" He threw the questions at her like darts, the last coming out less harshly as his eyes narrowed on Clara, who seemed to be in a daze. Frowning, he stepped forward quickly in concern.
"Is she okay?"
"She's sleepwalking." Desperately conscious of how her thin cotton nightgown left little to the imagination in the stark glare of the floodlights, Becca prayed that Riley would be too worded about Clara to give her and her lack of clothes a second thought.
Quickly slipping her arm around the older woman's narrow shoulders to guide her toward her own house, she said quietly, "She'll be fine as soon as I get her back inside."
As far as hints went, it wasn't a very strong one, but he should have seen that she had the situation under control.
He didn't. Standing his ground, he eyed Clara warily and lowered his voice to a rough whisper.
"Can't you just wake her?" Becca shook her head.
"I'm afraid I'll startle her, and her heart's not all that strong. Don't worry, though. She's done this before. I can handle her. So there's no reason for you to stay. I'm sure you have more important things to do."
The words were hardly out of her mouth when Clara suddenly moved, quietly slipping free of her hold. Swearing, Riley jumped to intercept the octogenarian before she could once again step toward the road, spreading his arms wide so she couldn't get past him.
"Yeah, I can see you've really got things under control," he drawled, his blue eyes mocking as they met hers over the top of Clara's white head.
"What's the matter, sweetheart? You trying to get rid of me just because I caught you outside in your nightie? "
Oh, God, he'd noticed! With heat flooding her cheeks, she resisted the urge to wrap her arms around herself and snapped, "Don't be ridiculous. I'm sure you've seen hundreds of women in their nightclothes before."
His lips twitched.
"Well, I don't know about hundreds. But if you wanted an exact number, I could probably sit down and figure it out for you. If you were interested, of course."
The look she shot him was withering.
"Don't strain your brain, Whitaker. I'm not."
"Fine. Now that we've got that settled, why don't we see about getting Clara inside? There might be a woman in her nightclothes somewhere waiting for me." He gave her that wicked grin of his, the one that women from six to sixty, herself included, couldn't resist—and Becca found it impossible not to laugh. Damn him, how was a woman supposed to deal with a man who could tease like the devil himself?
"Then God forbid we should keep her waiting," she retorted as she moved toward her friend. Slipping her arm around her waist again, she motioned for him to take up a similar position on the other side.
"If we keep her pinned between the two of us, she'll have to go where we go," she said quietly.
Short of waking her, there was little else they could do. Nodding, Riley moved closer to Clam.
"Let's try it."
Carefully placing his arm around the older woman's shoulders, he accidently brushed the tissue-thin sleeve of Becca's pale green gown.
Just that quickly, the night was suddenly hot, charged, humming.
The uneven beat of her heart an erotic rhythm in her ears, Becca had no idea how long she stood there, for time seemed to grind to a halt.
Something that neither wanted to acknowledge passed between them, something that wasn't going to go away no matter how hard they tried to ignore it.
Then, just when she thought she couldn't stand the hushed silence another second without saying something, anything, they both stepped forward at the same time.
Clara, all but unaware of their presence, hesitated, then moved with them.
"Thatta girl," Becca whispered softly' to her, dragging her gaze away from Riley's.
"Let's get you back to bed."
It took a while, but together they managed to get her across Lucille's yard and then her own to her house, where they were presented with another problem. How were the three of them going to maneuver through the open front door? Riley wondered with a frown. But Clara, obviously sensing that she was home, stepped over the thresh and immediately headed for her bedroom.
Becca hurried to catch up with her to make sure she run into anything in the darkened house, but her was on familiar turf and smoothly avoided any obstacles in her path, finally reaching her bed. With a sigh that seemed to come from deep in her soul, she stretched out, adjusted her pillow, then pulled the covers up to her chin. Within seconds, she was snoring loudly enough to rattle the windows.
Becca laughed softly, half expecting Clara to pop back up again, but whatever worry had sent the woman out -into the night had obviously eased—she was in a deep sleep and wouldn't, Becca knew from experience, move so much as a muscle the rest of the night. Relieved, Becca quietly wished her good-night and returned to the living room, where Riley was waiting for her.
Wishing she had a robe, she contented herself with folding her arms across her chest. The second her eyes met Riley's, however, she knew it was a wasted effort. The knowledge was them in his hot gaze—he'd had ample opportunity to look his fill outside in the revealing light of her own floodlights.
Lifting her chin defiantly, she cursed her fair skin and the blush that burned so readily in her cheeks.
"Her head hardly hit the pillow and she was snoring to beat the band."
He didn't miss the mutinous set of her jaw or her blush. God, she had beautiful skin! Tracing the color in her cheeks and throat with his eyes, he found himself wondering how deep it went, how hot it burned. It was not, he reflected, as his blood started to warm, the kind of thing a smart man would consider when a lady was all but naked before him. Right now, however, he didn't feel like a particularly smart man.
His throat desert dry, he swallowed and had to force himself to concentrate on the conversation.
"I can't believe she was heading right for the road. If you hadn't seen her and tried to stop her, she probably would have stepped right out in front of my car. Does she do this ofte
n?"
"Too often for comfort," Becca replied.
"Though it's usually when she's had an especially tiring or upsetting day. I'll talk to Lucille and Margaret in the morning and see if they know of anything that might have set her off."
"Do you think she should be left alone?" he asked worriedly as Becca started to turn the lights out and lock up.
"What if she gets up again after you've gone to bed?
She could wander out into the desert and get lost. "
"She'll be fine," she assured him, understanding his concern. The first time she'd seen Clara walking in her sleep in the middle of the night, it had scared her to death. She'd taken her neighbor home with her and had watched her like a hawk for hours, afraid to take her eyes off her for fear she'd disappear when her back was turned.
"She's gotten her exercise for the evening. She won't budge again until morning."
Following him out, she pulled the front door shut behind her, then checked to make sure it was securely locked. When she turned around, she expected to find Riley heading for his patrol car. Instead, he was waiting , patiently for her, standing so close that she drew in the' faint, clean scent of his cologne with every breath she took.
"I'll walk you home," he said huskily.
"Oh, you don't have to do that" — "I know I don't. But you shouldn't be walking around like that at this time of night." Or any other time, he almost added, taking her elbow in a firm grasp. Touching was a mistake, of course, He knew it the minute he felt the silken softness of her skin under his fingers. She would feel like that all over or better. Somehow he knew it in his soul.
Later, Becca never knew how she managed to walk the short distance to her house. Her legs had this strange tendency to tremble and she couldn't seem to get enough air into her lungs.
What little breath she was able to drag in was released in a ragged sigh of relief when they finally reached her front porch.
But when she turned at the steps to thank him for helping her, he kept walking, and she either had to back up the steps or find herself plastered to his chest. Shocked and panicked, she abandoned the need to stand her ground and shot up onto the porch like a scalded cat. She had only to catch the hot, purposeful glint in his narrowed eyes, however, to know that wasn't going to stop him. Taking another step away from him, she backed right into her front door. And that stiffened her spine as nothing else could have. She wasn't some inexperienced young thing who let a man take what she wasn't willing to give.
