Vivian might have “Mr. Bumble” cooking personal meals for her, but Hayley was still left with a lot of empty shelves.
She pulled out the bakery box sitting on the bottom one and cut herself a thick slice of leftover wedding cake. Then she poured herself a glass of chardonnay from the half-empty bottle stuck inside the refrigerator door.
“I know,” she told Moose as he followed her out of the kitchen, water dripping off his muzzle onto the gray-stained wood floor. “I’m going to regret it when morning comes. But some days just call for extreme measures.”
She carried her wholly inappropriate dinner out to the front porch and sat in one of the two old-fashioned rocking chairs.
The house she rented and that Vivian had evidently deemed unsuitable wasn’t far. Just a few circuitous blocks away. Vivian would learn quickly enough that available housing in Weaver generally didn’t allow for much choosiness. That was one of the reasons there was so much new construction going on at the other end of town.
Out where Seth lives.
She mentally lined up the whispering voice inside her head, threw a dart and imagined a punctured balloon spewing air as it spun around until spent.
The sun was heading toward the horizon. She propped the heels of her tennis shoes on the other rocker and watched the colors bloom as she sipped on her wine and plowed her way through the velvety chocolate cake with salted caramel filling. No such thing as an ordinary white cake for Jane and Casey. They both loved chocolate, so chocolate they had served. When her plate was empty, she set it on the porch rail out of Moose’s reach. He’d fallen asleep beside her chair, but she wasn’t taking chances where he was concerned. Then she sat back again and cradled the wineglass against her midriff while the sunset slowly faded.
“You look like you’re ready to fall asleep.”
She jerked her feet off the other chair and gave Moose an accusing look. “Some watchdog you are.”
The dog’s eyes didn’t open. His snoring didn’t cease.
Not even when Seth came up onto the porch and stepped right over the canine.
Seth still wore his running gear: loose black gym shorts and a dull green T-shirt with the arms ripped out. Neither of which did a bit of good hiding his sinewy muscles.
Realizing she was staring, she looked away and took a fortifying gulp of wine that emptied the glass. “What are you doing here, Seth?”
He held up his hand, revealing a paper sack that she hadn’t noticed while she’d been busy ogling his bod. “You’ve probably replaced it by now, but just in case.”
She didn’t want to know what he’d brought. Undoubtedly, it would be something that would send her right back down the track of the emotional rollercoaster that she was on where he was concerned.
When she didn’t reach for the bag, she heard him sigh a little. He pulled out the package of her favorite brand of coffee beans, set it next to her empty plate on the porch rail and turned to go.
She ground her molars together. She was not going to go after him.
She was not.
“Sugarnuts,” she muttered and pushed off the rocking chair. “Seth. Just... Oh, for cryin’ out loud.” She sounded exactly as grumpy as she felt and didn’t care. “I seriously do not know why this has to feel so complicated,” she said when she reached him. Before she let herself think—and talk herself out of it—she pulled his head down toward hers and pressed her mouth to his.
Exhilaration shot through her veins when his hand went immediately behind her neck, his lips moving hungrily against hers. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” he muttered.
“Then you shouldn’t have come here.” She didn’t care that they were in full view of any neighbor who cared to look. “You said you had no exes. I know you don’t have a wife here. I’d have heard about her by now.”
“No wife anywhere.” His hand slid from her neck down her spine, fingertips kneading.
“You were all set for this three and a half months ago,” she reminded and went back to his lips. Sank her fingers in his hair. The thick strands were tangled. Slightly damp. And heaven help her, she was reveling in it.
“Hayley—” His hands slid to her hips and she felt his resistance.
“I might have had some wine,” she added, “but I’m not in danger of passing out this time.”
He broke the kiss and then pressed his forehead against hers while holding her hips at bay. “I didn’t think you were.”
Her breath was fast. “Then what’s the problem? What’s so different now from the night you took me home from Colbys?”
“McGregor.” His voice was low. Flat.
It was the very furthest possible response from her mind, and she was certain she couldn’t have heard right. “What?”
Seth’s wide shoulders lifted and fell. He pulled his hands from her and took a step back. “McGregor,” he repeated.
She felt everything around them—the man two houses down tinkering with his car in his driveway, the woman across the street pushing a stroller, the breeze rustling a set of nearby wind chimes—fade into a single pinpoint where Seth was the center. “What do you know about him?” Her own voice sounded hollow in her head.
“I know if you don’t stop it, he’s going to get away with killing his partners.”
She rubbed her tongue against the sharp edge of her teeth, attempting to drag her hormones back under control while trying to figure how on earth she could respond.
Excluding Tristan Clay and the guards at the safe house, Hayley could count on one hand the number of people around Weaver who she knew for certain were involved with Hollins-Winword. Tristan’s nephew, Axel, and his niece, who was married to the sheriff, were local. Hayley had also done some counseling with three other individuals, none of whom lived right there in Weaver at all. Tristan had flown her to work with them in Seattle for two weeks.
That had been nearly two years ago.
Seth was still watching her silently. Her fingers still carried the feel of his thick, dark hair.
She curled them into her palms and folded her arms. “Who do you work for?”
“Who do you think?”
She exhaled. “I think we’d better take this inside.” She turned on her heel and returned to the house, snapping her fingers to draw Moose’s attention. She carried the empty plate and wineglass back to the kitchen and heard the front door close.
A moment later, Seth walked into the kitchen, too.
“You’re not really a security guard,” she said.
“No.”
“And you work for Tristan Clay.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before now?”
“There was no reason for you to know.”
“And there is now?”
“Eleven years ago, Manuel Rodriguez, Jonathan Solomon and I served together in a joint operation. They were—”
“—Marine recon,” she finished for him. “I read their files.” Along with Jason’s. “Everything that hadn’t been redacted, anyway.” She set the wineglass down on the counter and decided it was the perfect time to empty the bottle into it. Fortunately, considering the way she couldn’t make her hand stop shaking, there wasn’t a lot of wine left.
“They were good men. And a little more than six months ago during an operation in Central America that had been years in the making, they were betrayed. By their own partner. By McGregor.”
“You have proof of that?”
His blue eyes narrowed. “The only proof that matters is he’s alive. They’re not.”
“Not exactly an ironclad case, or he’d have been charged by now.”
He planted his palms flat on the gleaming granite island. “Lying about his memory buys him time. He’s guilty.”
Her patient could very well be guilty. She
couldn’t deny that. But she didn’t believe he was lying. “And me? How long have you known about my involvement?”
“Since the party out at Tristan and Hope’s.”
Everything inside her sank.
That had been just over two weeks ago. The very first day she’d met with Jason.
It felt so much longer.
“So that’s what the supposedly renewed interest in me was about,” she murmured. She lifted the wineglass and drank down the remaining mouthful.
It tasted like vinegar.
“You could have just asked me outright what Jason has been telling me during our sessions together.” She could barely bring herself to look at him. “I wouldn’t have told you then, either, but at least it would have saved you some trouble.”
“There’s nothing supposed about my interest in you.” His voice was flat. “I knew you wouldn’t tell me squat. Not intentionally.”
“Not unintentionally, either,” she said tightly. “Sorry to burst your bubble, Seth, but not even in the throes of passion would I have broken a patient’s confidentiality.” Anger dripped from her words.
“You had me drop you off at the safe house where he’s located. Because you were starting to trust me.”
“God forbid. Trusting someone to drop me off at the home of a friend.”
“Tristan saw us.”
Her jaw was so tight it hurt. “So? If you’d have been the Cee-Vid security guard you claimed to be, why would that matter?”
“I’m not a security guard. I’m an intelligence analyst with Hollins-Winword and I have a history with the victims. Having a relationship with the psychologist in charge of the number-one suspect in their murder isn’t exactly smiled upon. The hint of something compromising like that could blow the case out of the water before there was even the slightest chance of getting it in front of a judge. And that’s only if we don’t lose McGregor to the Feds first!”
Her chest squeezed. “We don’t have a relationship.”
His eyes sharpened. “You sure about that?”
Her mouth felt arid. She turned away from his too-sharp gaze and rinsed the glass under the faucet with soap before turning it upside down on a dishtowel to dry. “We aren’t dating. We haven’t even—” she struggled to push the rest of the words out “—slept together. We are not in a relationship.”
He threw her words back at her. “This thing between us that is not in your imagination tells me otherwise.”
She finally turned back around to face him. “Seth—”
His expression was tight. “I need to stay away from you. Until this business with McGregor is over. I need to stay away from you, for everyone’s sake. Even McGregor’s.”
She swallowed the knot in her throat. She was shaking from her head to her toes. “Then stay away.”
A muscle in his jaw flexed. “Believe me,” he said. “I have tried.” He slowly moved around the island until he stopped in front of her, trapping her in the corner where she stood near the sink.
She couldn’t seem to look away from his blue, blue eyes.
“And I can’t,” he finished in a low voice.
Her lips parted.
His head dipped toward hers, his lips grazing hers, lighter than his whisper. “Don’t trust me, Hayley. Be stronger than I am.”
A sound she didn’t recognize slid from her throat. Her hands curled into fists, one against the counter and the other on the cool edge of the old-fashioned apron sink. The front of her felt singed by the heat emanating from him. “I’m not strong.”
His lips rested against hers and his palms covered her fists. His fingers circled her wrists. Then he lifted and placed her hands on his shoulders and she didn’t resist. “You have to be.” Then he lifted her by the waist, bringing her mouth up to his level. “You have to be,” he repeated and kissed her.
Her mind exploded in color. She instinctively wrapped her legs around his hips, thinking that she’d be anything he needed her to be as long as he never stopped kissing her.
“Where’s your room?”
She twined her arms around his back and tasted the hard line of his jaw. Salty and rough with bristle. “Upstairs. First door on the left.”
She expected him to put her down. But he just turned, sliding one arm beneath her rear and carried her.
She pressed her face to his neck. If she hadn’t already been swooning, she would have then, as he went up the stairs to the guestroom she was using and kicked the door shut after them. But not even then did he let her go. He crossed to the bed, leaned over and deposited her slowly on the mattress.
He straightened and Hayley’s arms fell away. She stared up at him, mute, when he lifted one foot and then the other, pulling off her tennis shoes. They dropped to the floor, two soft thuds in the room that was silent except for the sounds of their breath, the rasp of the zipper on her jeans as he pulled it down and the rustle when the jeans followed. He yanked his shirt off, and she pulled off hers and groaned when the collar got caught up in her ponytail holder. “I’m stuck,” she nearly wailed.
He laughed softly and knelt on the bed next to her. “Hold on. You’re going to make it worse.” He nudged her shoulder so she was on her side, her back toward him, and she felt his fingers against the back of her head for a moment.
Then the stretchy collar was loose, her hair was falling free and he slid the shirt over her head. “All better,” he murmured and she felt his lips on her shoulder. Then the center of her back.
She fell weakly forward onto her stomach when he nudged, and shivered when his fingers slowly trailed down her spine, hooked in the edge of her plain cotton panties, and pulled them, too, down her legs. And this time, when the mattress dipped again under his weight and she felt the singeing heat of his skin against hers, there was only skin.
His arms surrounded her and she turned until they were flush and her breath hissed out of her. Everything about him was hard.
Except his eyes.
She could get lost forever in his eyes.
“I should have showered,” he murmured.
“Later.” Impatience suddenly ruled and she slid her thighs along his and took him in with an arch of her back.
He let out a low, choked oath.
Breathing fast, shuddering against the indescribable sense of fullness, she stared up at him through her lashes. “Is there a problem?”
“You tell me.” In less than a breath, he’d anchored her wrists in one hand above her head and tilted her hips with his other, sinking even more deeply.
She gasped, pleasure unlike anything she’d ever known rocketing through her. “No,” she managed faintly. “No...oh, Seth...no problem.”
His teeth flashed. And then he began moving, and words ceased to exist and all she could do was feel as he drove them both straight into oblivion.
Chapter Eight
It was the sound of Moose whining and gnawing on the other side of the door that finally roused them sometime later.
Seth untangled his legs from hers, pushed off the bed and turned on the lamp sitting on the nightstand.
With unabashed pleasure, Hayley watched his considerable naked glory as he crossed the room and opened the door.
“Moose, stop,” he said.
Moose’s whines immediately ceased. He dropped his butt and his tail pounded the floor happily.
Hayley propped her head on her hand. Outside the bedroom window, the sky was dark. “I should probably let him out. He’s not entirely accident proof yet when it comes to piddling in the house.”
Seth scooped up his running shorts and pulled them on. The lazy gaze he ran over her made her hot. “I’ll do it.”
It was only after she could hear him and the dog going down the stairs that she realized she’d been so busy staring at his ridged
abs that she hadn’t offered a single objection.
She flopped onto her back and pressed her palm flat against her belly. Every muscle she possessed felt liquefied and the notion of lying there, feeling just as she did, for the rest of eternity, seemed extremely appealing. She closed her eyes, drifting on that lovely fantasy until she heard Moose’s toenails scrabbling on the wood floor again.
A moment later, he raced through the door, launched himself into the air midway across the room and landed on the bed with a slathering woof.
Hayley turned her face away from the dog kisses, but he wasn’t deterred, simply transferring his adoration to her arm and hands. “Good grief, Moose.”
She finally left the bed to him and pulled on her short robe as she headed downstairs. “I think we’re both in need of a shower now,” she called as she reached the base of the stairs and turned toward the kitchen. “Which makes me think of at least one very interesting scenari—” She stopped abruptly at the sight that greeted her. “—Oh.”
Seth was squared off on one side of the island against Tristan on the other. A third, hard-looking older man she didn’t recognize was handling the old violin that Casey kept on a shelf.
Hayley tightened the sash of her robe. “Hello, Tristan.” She gave Seth a quick look. Aside from his hands clenched at his sides, his expression was unreadable. “I didn’t know you were here,” she finished as if it were perfectly normal that he was even though it wasn’t.
Tristan didn’t look pleased. “Dr. Hayley Templeton.” He pointed toward the stranger. “Coleman Black. The head of Hollins-Winword.”
Dismay clutched inside her. She didn’t know anything about Coleman Black but couldn’t imagine any positive reasons for his presence. But she wasn’t going to act as if she and Seth had been caught breaking some law, either, just because the situation was...delicate.
“Mr. Black,” she greeted the stranger with a faint nod. “May I offer you gentlemen something to drink?”
At that, Seth moved away from the island. “Nice try, Doc, but I don’t think a show of good manners is gonna help things.” He stopped when he reached her only long enough to squeeze her shoulder and brush his lips over her temple. “McGregor’s more dangerous than you think. Be careful,” he murmured before leaving the room.
One Night in Weaver... Page 10
