by Susan Stoker
Family.
“I can exercise the horses on my days off.” He’d spoken before he realized the words were ready to be said. Then another feeling rushed through him.
Relief.
“Good. Good.” Pa wasn’t one to be emotional, but he loved his family with a ferociousness that hadn’t dimmed over time. No matter the colossal mistakes his children had made. “You best go sort out Beatrice’s situation then. If I had a thief at my house I want to know about it so I can cut his balls off.”
Laz found himself smiling and it felt good. No, it felt great. “Yes, sir. I’ll be back on Sunday then.”
Pa turned and held out his hand. The big paw that had swallowed Laz’s smaller hand, had supported him when he’d stumbled, picked him up when he’d fallen, now reached out when Lazarus, like the character of old, returned from beyond.
After a long, hard handshake, Laz left the barn shaken. His nerves danced along his skin. What had just happened? Had his father really given him the salvation he’d ached for?
Atonement. He’d never expected it.
Chapter Six
‡
Beatrice sat at Mr. Graham’s desk, availing herself of the pens and paper that were stacked on top. She’d gone through the file he’d left her and made notes as she looked through details.
When Laz came back in the room, she glanced up at him. He held his hat in one hand, his expression odd.
“Everything okay, Ranger?”
“Yeah, it is.” He gestured to the papers spread out in front of her. “I should be doing the investigating here.”
“I’m enjoying the hunt. It’s exhilarating, isn’t it?” She tapped the pad of paper. “I found evidence that three of the five business owners attended the expo. Three! The other two could have been at a business event like that. Someone is targeting them. Now we have a list of who else was there.”
She felt a thrill in finding a clue, like a real detective or cop. The store had been her entire world, for nearly her whole life, but running a gun business didn’t give her this kind of deep thrum of interest. Of satisfaction.
“Then we’d better get started finding out which of the guests had motive to do what they did.” He held out his hand she put the list she’d compiled in it.
“The crime at my store was full of rage, even more so than what I read happened at the other businesses. This was more personal.” That disturbed her more than anything.
“Or the perp escalated with each crime.” He scanned through the names. “Some of these are women.”
She raised her brows. “You think women can’t take a baseball bat to a window in a fit of rage?”
“Fair enough. I’ll run down these names and see if anything pops.” He tiled his head. “Good work.”
She flushed at the praise, wondering how long it had been since anyone had complimented her on anything. Maybe some loser who leered at her boobs. She never did much for anyone to admire except run her business and survive. Self-pity never did anything for anyone. She didn’t abide by it, and she didn’t allow herself to wallow in it.
Yet hearing a simple “good work” from Laz made her feel good. More than that, it boosted her self-esteem. Silly to admit, and she sure as hell wouldn’t say it to him, but there it was. Bea needed to be praised, just as any human being would.
“We’re not done yet. I’ve got a few more things to read through here.” She offered him the documents she’d already reviewed. “Did you want to go through these?”
“I don’t think I need to. Your notes are very detailed.” He sat in the chair on the other side of the desk.
She peered at him, wondering what had happened during the conversation with his father. His expression could be described as poleaxed. Her curiosity ran around inside her head, screeching to be satisfied. It was none of her business, of course. Hell, until two days ago, she’d forgotten he existed. Or at least tried to.
Now he was her quasi-partner and they were investigating a crime together. Life surely couldn’t get any stranger. Although she’d probably just hexed herself by even thinking that.
“My pa asked me to come by and exercise the horses.”
She raised her brows at his unexpected words. “Violet doesn’t do that?”
“She’s busy with the yearlings so the older horses don’t necessarily get the attention they need, I guess.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “I’m not sure why fate has decided to play with me, but I never expected any of this.”
Bea didn’t know whether to be insulted or complimented. She got to her feet and walked over to him, squatting down to be at eye level. His eyes were full of confusion and what might have been pain.
“Families always accept us, no matter what we’ve done. If your father wants you to come home, what’s stopping you? You’re a ranger, and work all over the state, right? The Circle Eight will be yours one day, why not take the chance.” She didn’t want to be someone who gave advice to Lazarus Graham, but perhaps he needed to hear it anyway.
He pursed his lips and looked down at his feet. “I want to.”
“Then do it.” She put her hand on his knee and squeezed. The exhilaration of touching Laz hadn’t dimmed an iota. The man was made of steel everywhere. “The only thing stopping you is you.”
He cupped her chin and kissed her with a gentleness that made her eyes prick with tears. What the hell was that about?
“If your store hadn’t been broken into, I would be somewhere else alone. Now I’m here, kissing you, about to accept an invitation back into my family.” He kissed her again. “What did I do to deserve all that?”
Happiness bubbled inside her and she was as confused by it as he appeared to be. Her life hadn’t been sunshine and puppies, that was for sure. She’d barely scraped by for years, staying afloat with sheer grit and a determination to keep her family’s legacy alive.
Now everything had changed. She had started to fall a little in love with a man she’d hated, or at least he’d been the image she had projected her hate onto, for so long. That sense of weightlessness washed over her and she was glad she was close to the floor or she might have toppled over.
He was right. Fate was a mighty strange thing. She could either fight it or fly with it.
“What happens next?” She wasn’t sure whether she was terrified or excited by the answer.
“Tracking down the leads and investigating the potential suspects.” He sat up and ran his hand down his face. “The crime scene techs haven’t sent me their reports yet so we may be able to connect all of it together.”
Bea swallowed the lump in her throat. “What happens next?” she repeated.
His expression softened. “Anything.”
She smiled, her heart all squishy. “Oh.”
They spent the next hour going through the rest of the paperwork, searching for information online about the other participants. It was the most fun she’d had in a very long time. Detective work was a surprise delight and could become addictive. It might have been because she’d spent the time with Laz.
Or maybe a combination of the two.
Laz put all his notes in a pile and got to his feet. They had made significant progress in narrowing down the suspect pool. He enjoyed his job every day, or at least he thought he’d enjoyed it. Bea had shown him he had been missing a key ingredient.
Passion.
She’d aroused him in so many ways, sexually, emotionally, and mentally. He hadn’t felt such a deep level of satisfaction in chasing down information. The only new thing in his life was Beatrice Cartwright.
Maybe it was because he’d been alone for so long. He had his cousins and his sisters, but they were occasional company. He spent his days, and nights, in a solitary existence. Being with her had shown him what being in a relationship could be.
It was too soon to say they even had a relationship, but it was something. Indefinable at the moment, but not nothing. A lot more than nothing.
He had been such
a shit to her when they were kids. It was in the past and they were both different people. However, he felt a niggling desire to make things right, as much as he could. There were some memories he could not erase, but they could make new ones.
“What do you say to a picnic by the pond?”
Her brows shot up. She swiped a strand of hair that dangled over her eye, the kinky ginger curl moved merrily in the air conditioner’s breeze.
“Aren’t you on duty?”
“Supper picnic then.” The idea of a moonlit swim with Bea raised his temperature in an instant.
“At the pond.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I thought it would be good to create a new present and shed the past.”
“I like that idea. A lot.” She smiled and the world seemed to be a brighter place. “I’m not sure the last few days have been real. It’s like one of those movies where you see what the world would be like if your choices had been reversed. Something like that Christmas movie where the angel gets its wings.”
He shook his head. “I’m no angel.”
“That makes two of us. I’m not a devil either, but maybe somewhere in between.” She glanced at her watch. “I need to meet Lenny at the shop. He is going to reinstall the front windows today.”
He didn’t want to leave his pa’s study. There had been a monumental shift in Laz’s view of the world in that room. At the ranch again. He could see more than the hazy mist that had been his future.
Now he had something he’d lost. Hope.
They rode back into town together and he got to work doing background checks. When the afternoon waned, he ordered their picnic lunch from Waverly’s diner. Not too hard to believe they were still in business given their food was the best in the county.
He didn’t think to ask what she liked to eat other than sandwiches, so he ordered standard picnic fare and picked up a six-pack of beer to wash it down. He wasn’t the wine drinking type and if she was, perhaps she might want something different.
Laz was certainly that. He was a man unused to emotional commitments and was stubborn as all hell. He also had treated her badly when he had been a boy. The truth was, he wasn’t a catch. Hell, he was held together with spit and duct tape most days.
Self-doubt began to creep in. What if it was a fluke and was just the after effects of incredible sex that lasted for days afterward? That was possible, wasn’t it?
He drove the now familiar path to the gun store and pulled in. Laz wasn’t nervous, but he sure as hell wasn’t as confident as he wanted to be. His life had been routine, predictable. Maybe even boring. Now it was upside down, all because of Beatrice.
To be fair, he couldn’t blame her. He could have left her at any point to continue the investigation on his own. She had charmed him, pulled him back into the land of the living. The problem was, he wasn’t sure he was ready to stay there.
The scent of fried chicken filled the car, distracting him from his mental meanderings. It was time to pick up his date, because there was no doubt about it. This was a date and the pond offered them privacy as well as a romantic setting.
He got out of the car and walked to the door, surprised to find he was nervous. His gut did a little dance and his dick urged him to be as nice as possible. The memory of Bea’s body was the stuff of dreams.
He raised his hand to knock when the door opened and Bea stood there with a tote bag, a blanket and other items sticking out. She wore a pair of cut-off shorts and a yellow T-shirt with what appeared to be a bikini top beneath it. Her spectacular breasts were literally staring him in the face. He licked his lips.
“Hi.” She raised both brows. “If you’re done looking at my tits, can you let me out?”
He snorted a laugh and stepped back. “I’m sorry. They, ah, are…”
“Magnificent?” She laughed, an earnest one from her belly, not a little tinkling, girlie one. Bea did everything with gusto, which might be why he was drawn to her life force. She was vibrant.
“Yes, they are.” He gestured with his arm to his car. “My chariot?”
He helped her into the car like a true gentleman. As his mother had taught him to. She had liked Bea, to his knowledge, although after the incident at the pond, he was certain Bea had refused to come to the Circle Eight.
Laz had a lot to make up for, and he hoped this was the first step forward. What happened after that was unknown, and a bit frightening. Laz was a ranger, however, and danger wasn’t anything to run from. He wasn’t about to give up before the real challenge began.
The ride out to the Circle Eight was a comfortable silence. The moment was broken when Bea’s stomach growled. She laughed. And shrugged at him.
“It’s your fault. That fried chicken smells like heaven. I didn’t have a snack because I was looking forward to the picnic.” She peered into the backseat. “What other culinary delights did you bring?”
“Patience, grasshopper. You will know when we get there.” He kept his tone even, although he was anxious to get to the pond. To kiss her again. Taste her passion again.
To live again.
The sun hung low in the sky, its orange rays bouncing like diamonds on the surface of the water. The pond had changed somewhat but it remained the same in other ways. The trees had grown taller, the bushes fuller, but the small beach beckoned swimmers. A warm breeze greeted them as he pulled the car to a stop at the edge of the pond.
She blinked against the brightness of the sun. “This is going to be good, right?”
He took her hand and kissed the palm. “It’s going to be better than good.”
A flash of something moved through her face, but it was gone in a moment. She smiled a bit too brightly and opened the door. “You’d better bring that food and eat when I do or you might not get any.”
He didn’t know what was going through her mind, but he did know this place held bad memories for her. Laz would not allow that to continue. He grabbed the bag of food and followed her to the beach. She was laying out a few blankets, then slipped off her flip-flops.
Laz watched with what he would call lascivious intent while she stretched, pushing her breasts forward. His dick twitched. God, she was amazingly sensual.
“Bring that food, Ranger, and I might let you see these magnificent breasts again.” She smiled and sat down cross-legged on the blankets.
They spent the next twenty minutes consuming the rich, perfectly prepared food. Bea groaned too many times for him to count. His boxers were getting tighter and tighter with each passing minute. She licked her lips, patted her belly and lay back on the blankets.
He’d barely eaten and if he had, he didn’t remember tasting it. She turned her head to look at him.
“Weren’t you hungry?”
He was ready to step off the cliff and fly. “Not for food.” He tossed the food containers behind him as he crawled toward her.
Her eyes widened, but not in fear. Excitement shone from the depths of her expression. And damned if her nipples didn’t harden.
“Do you want to go swimming?” He paused inches above her mouth, his breath gusting against her slightly parted lips. He wanted to devour her, show her infinite pleasure until she, and he, were thoroughly satiated. Then begin again.
She hesitated, no doubt remembering the last time they had been at the pond together. A dark spot in his past he needed to erase from both their memories.
“Sure.” She didn’t move.
“Let me help you.” He pulled her to her feet while she watched with a wary expression. He tried to smooth away the frown between her brows with his thumbs, and then kissed his way from her forehead to her lips. She sighed as he licked at the seam of her mouth.
“You’re seducing me.”
“I’m trying my damndest.” He tugged at the T-shirt she wore, pulling it up as he continued to tease her with his lips and tongue. Her skin tasted of sunshine and woman. He shook with the need to move faster, but he held tight to his control. This was about her.
> He pulled her shorts down and helped her to balance as she stepped out of them. With a smile they walked to the pond, hand in hand. He wanted to run his hands up and down her curves and revel in the pure sensuality that was Beatrice.
They stepped to the edge until their toes were covered in the cool mud and warm water. He lifted her hand and kissed the back.
“I used to take the world for granted, and everyone in it. Including you.” He swept his arm wide. “Thank you for coming here and for giving me a chance. This pond has to be rechristened today with the sweet memories we make together.”
She blew out air through her mouth in a rush. “You’re awfully poetic for a ranger.”
He snorted. “I used a thesaurus when I was rehearsing.”
She laughed, a boisterous and beautiful activity that included her entire body. Laz had never known someone who was so genuine. She humbled him with her fresh, open approach to everything.
“Let’s go swimming, cowboy.” She dove into the water and cut across the still pond with beautiful strokes of an accomplished swimmer.
He watched her for a few moments before he jumped in after her. The water was refreshing on the hot summer’s day. He had missed the simple joy of a dip in the afternoon. There wasn’t much call for it as a ranger. Most days he worked from sunup until well past sundown.
Now he was here, off duty on time again, and he was relaxing. Doing nothing but existing and living and enjoying himself. It was liberating and terrifying. What had Bea’s influence done to him? He was turning into a regular human being.
He liked it.
Laz finally caught up to Bea as she lay on her back, swimming in lazy circles. He came up beside her and cupped her perfectly round ass.
She hooted. “Someone’s goosing me.”
“I can’t help it. Your ass inspires me to grab it.”
“It’s not magnificent, is it?” The teasing glint in her warm eyes made him laugh.
“Glorious.”
“You have been using the thesaurus.” She spread her arms as she floated, her curls dancing around her.
