by Grace, Carol
Brady waved and Suzy’s cheeks flamed. She wanted to hide under the table.
Tired of waiting, Dottie went back to the kitchen and they were stuck in never-never land.
“It was the dinner from hell,” Suzy told Tally on the phone later that night. “Poor Allan. He left an extra-large tip to make up for the mess Travis made. Crumbs all over the floor. And he never got any pot roast. I’ll bet that’s the last time he’ll wax nostalgic over authentic small-town diners. Or take a one-year-old to dinner.”
“Or take on the sheriff in arm-wrestling,” Tally added.
“I tried to talk him out of it,” Suzy said. “I told him Brady never loses. But he insisted. He didn’t believe me. ‘Just a little friendly competition,’ he said. How’s his wrist, anyway?”
“Just a mild sprain. Nothing that will prevent him from taking off for Utah tomorrow,” Tally assured her. “I’m just sorry it turned out so badly. For everyone.”
“Not for Brady,” Suzy noted. “He seemed to be having a great time for all the noise he and his friends were making. Shaking dice. Arm wrestling. All that male macho stuff. It was no place for an outsider.” She didn’t mention the “Da-da” incident. She was trying her best to forget it.
“You warned him,” Tally said. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s better. Well enough to take Travis tomorrow. So call me at work if you come to town. We’ll have lunch.”
Suzy dreaded going to work the next day. Didn’t know what to say to Brady. She needn’t have worried. It was as if yesterday had never happened. None of it. The lunch at her house, the ride out to the Gentry ranch, the cattle in the road, the dinner she didn’t go to with him, or the arm wrestling.
That’s what made him such a good sheriff. The ability to put aside the past and move on to the next step. He looked up briefly when she came in the door, but made no cutting remark about her being late. Didn’t tease her about her quest for a husband, or nag her about ordering more signs.
Was he mad, sad, upset or just indifferent? She sat down at her desk and stared at her appointment book. The next few weeks until the election were packed full of events, a spaghetti dinner in the church basement, a coffee at the Dunwoodys and the barn dance. She just had to endure being his secretary until he won, and then she’d leave.
Which reminded her to order champagne for the victory party. She picked up the phone and ordered streamers, too. Might as well go all out.
He heard her. “What are those for?” he shouted from his office.
“For the celebration,” she shouted back.
He opened her door and leaned against the doorjamb, his broad shoulders filling the doorway. A shock of dark hair fell over his forehead. Her fingers itched, wanting to sift through his hair again, massage his shoulders and hear him moan deep in his throat again. She knotted her fingers together and willed her heart to stop its erratic drumming.
“You’ll be celebrating whether I win or lose,” he said. There was a bitterness in his tone he couldn’t hide.
“How do you mean?”
“You’re leaving,” he said flatly. “Unless you’ve already found Daddy Right.”
“No, of course not.”
“Really?” He raised his eyebrows. “Two dates in a row with what’s-his-name.”
She pursed her lips together to keep from saying something she’d regret. “When I find him, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Spare me,” he said. “I’m not sure I want to know.”
Puzzled, she drew her eyebrows together. “I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“I thought so, too. But I don’t like it, you throwing yourself away on some yokel.”
“There are other people in the diner besides yokels,” she said.
“Yeah, like amateur pilots. Did Travis like him?”
“I didn’t ask Travis.” She knew he was thinking that Travis didn’t call Allan “Da-da.” He’d reserved that name for Brady. But he didn’t say it, he just stood there, leaning against the woodwork, exuding pent-up energy and filling her office with sexual tension. She used to think she understood him, but not anymore. She didn’t know what he was going to do or what she wanted him to do.
Restless, she got to her feet. “I’m going out to put up Brady for Sheriff signs in front of houses. I’ve got a big list of supporters who’ve agreed to let me post the signs.” She took a hammer from her bottom drawer and went to the door. He stayed where he was, blocking the doorway. “Do you mind,” she asked, stopping just short of bumping into him.
“Yes, I mind. I mind your blowing me off for dinner last night I mind being your baby-sitter when you go out with other men. I mind most of all when you look like that.”
“Like what?”
Her eyes were wide and innocent as if she had no idea what he meant. But her lips were soft and inviting and only inches from his. He felt the heat from her body, smelled the scent that clung to her skin. “Like you want to be kissed.”
She gasped. “That’s ridiculous. Brady, get out of my way.”
“I’m not moving. Come any closer and I’ll have to take action.”
“Action? You’ll take action?” she sputtered. She put one hand against his chest to push him out of the way, still gripping the hammer in her other hand. “You wouldn’t dare.”
That was all he needed to push him over the edge. He didn’t answer. He kissed her. A hard, possessive kiss. He had no choice. She dared him. She drove him to it. He felt the shock waves hit her body. He heard her sharp intake of breath. Then her lips softened and molded to his and she kissed him back. One hand, instead of pushing him away, took a handful of shirt and pulled him closer, and she kissed him again. Tasting, testing...and in one moment, their relationship underwent a drastic change, from boss-employee, from colleagues, friends...to something else entirely.
Her mouth was so soft, so unbelievably sweet. Her body meshed with his as if they were made for each other.
He slid his arms down her back and pulled her even closer, hearing his heart hammer against his chest. Feeling his body respond, he knew he should quit while he was ahead. Instead he nibbled gently on her bottom lip. Her lips parted and he slipped his tongue inside. So deep, so rich, so mysterious. He’d known her for years and yet he’d never known her. Never known she would respond like this to him. Never known he’d respond to her. Not like this. Like he’d gone out of control. Like he wanted to shut the door to her office and sweep her up into his arms....
The phone rang. She jerked out of his arms. And dropped the hammer on his toe. He howled. She answered the phone.
“Yes, sure. I’m on my way.” She picked up the hammer and brushed past him on her way out the door, flushed, disheveled and breathing hard.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Out,” she said. And she was gone.
Suzy marched down the street, eyes staring straight ahead, cheeks burning. At the first house, the Mc-Clearys’, she stopped, picked up the Brady sign leaning against their front gate and like a robot, hammered it into the hard dirt next to the front porch.
And while she was hammering, she was muttering under her breath. “Idiot, you idiot. What is wrong with you? Kissing your boss in the middle of the day, in the middle of your office? Haven’t you learned anything in the past two years?” The answer was obviously no. She was just as stupid now as she was then. Making bad choices. He was not the right man for her. And she was a woman with a history of falling for the wrong man.
Fortunately she hadn’t fallen for Brady. Not really. She’d kissed him, yes, but that was all. It could be explained and forgotten, swept under the rug. They could go on as they were. After all, it was just a matter of weeks and it would all be over—the election and their working together.
She stood on the sidewalk and observed her work. The sign was crooked just like Brady’s smile. She tore her gaze from his image on the sign. Why did he have to be so good-looking, why did he have to taste so good, be so strong, and s
uch a good kisser. Damn, damn, damn.
Think of Travis, she told herself. But when she thought of him she thought of him lying on Brady’s chest on her living room couch. She thought of him happily bouncing along on Brady’s back at the wild mustang ranch. She thought of Travis’s ecstatic expression when he spotted Brady in the diner.
When she finally returned to the office, her arm aching after putting up a dozen signs, Brady was gone. There was a note on the door saying he’d be back later. She heaved a sigh of relief. She threw herself into her work, pretending nothing had happened. But she jumped whenever the phone rang and felt a rush of disappointment when it wasn’t him. Where was he? How was he? She left the papers on her desk to pace back and forth from her office to his. When the phone rang again it was Carla at the drugstore.
“Tell Brady his medicine is ready, would you, Suzy?”
“What medicine?”
“You know, for his broken toe.”
“For his broken toe?” She almost dropped the phone. Oh, good Lord, she’d broken his toe. She felt sick with guilt.
“I mean for the pain. He saw Doc Haller this morning and the doc phoned in his prescription. Said Brady would pick it up, but he hasn’t. Could be because he’s feeling no pain, if you know what I mean.”
Good old Carla, with her finger on the pulse of Harmony and its inhabitants.
“You mean...”
“I heard he was over at the saloon hoisting a few.”
Suzy hung up, locked the office and drove up the street to the pharmacy, picked up Brady’s medicine and drove the three blocks to the saloon on the corner. She only had to look through the crowd to locate him at the table in the back. There he sat, with his right foot in a thick white sock propped on the table, and a mug of beer in his hand.
He saw her, she was sure he saw her, but the only acknowledgment was the way he raised his eyebrows. She plowed right through the cigar smoke and the wall-to-wall cowboys, and up to his table.
“Look who’s here,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Sit down, darlin’, and have a drink.”
Darlin’? He must be drunk.
“No thank you,” she said primly. “I came to apologize.”
“For what? Kissing me?”
Suzy swallowed hard and glanced over her shoulder. She could feel the heat rise up her neck into her face. Did he have to raise his voice so the whole bar could hear him?
“No,” she said in a loud whisper, “for dropping the hammer on your foot.”
“Then you’re not sorry you kissed me?” he asked loudly with a wicked grin.
Her knees buckled and she sank into the seat opposite his elevated foot, hoping to prevent him from sharing any more of what happened with the whole world.
“Could we forget about what happened and talk about your foot?”
“Foot’s fine,” he said. “Long as I don’t walk on it.”
“How did you get here?”
“Don’t remember.”
“How will you get home?”
He shrugged. “Who wants to go home? Nobody there.”
Was this Brady Wilson, the consummate loner saying he didn’t want to go home because nobody was there?
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?” she asked, noticing the half dozen empty glasses on the table.
He shook his head and lifted his glass to his lips for another swig of the dark beer.
“I only came here to bring you your pain pills,” she said, “but I’m not going to leave you here like this.” After all, this was all her fault. She’d kissed him. She’d dropped the hammer on his foot. He could get over the kiss, but what about his broken toe?
“Come on,” she said, getting to her feet. “Lean on me. I’ll take you home.”
He lowered his foot to the floor, and she pulled him up by the hand. Then he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and he hobbled out through the crowd to the sidewalk, leaning heavily against her. She opened the car door and watched him ease himself awkwardly into the front seat.
“Sorry it’s so small,” she said noting his legs were jackknifed against the glove compartment and his face reflected the pain he must be in. “What did the doctor say, anyway?”
“Stay off the foot”
Suzy pictured Brady in his big house, unable to walk to the kitchen, crawling to the bathroom. And all because she’d broken his toe. “Maybe you’d better come home with me.”
Brady opened the window and let the cool night air hit his face. It had a sobering effect on his woozy state of inebrium. Go home with her. If he couldn’t keep his hands off her in the office, what would happen at her house? “I’d better not,” he said.
“I don’t think you ought to be alone. Besides I feel responsible for what happened.”
“No doubt about that,” he said, glancing at her profile in the semidarkness, at the curve of her cheek, her straight nose and her lips. Those tempting lips that had gotten him where he was right now.
“I was talking about the way I dropped the hammer on your toe,” she said.
“I was talking about the way you kissed me.”
“You keep talking about my kissing you,” she said. “You seem to have forgotten that you started it. You kissed me first,” she said.
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said. The memory of her mouth on his, of her beautiful breasts pressed against his chest made his body throb with unfulfilled desire just thinking about it. It would be hard to forget and he wasn’t even going to try. “I’m not sorry it happened, but I’m sorry I put you in an awkward position.”
She gave him a rueful smile. “Looks like you’re the one in the awkward position. And it’s my fault for dropping the hammer.”
“Let’s stop blaming ourselves or each other,” he suggested. His toe was throbbing and he was tired of apologizing for something that had left him dazed and shaken and experiencing feelings he didn’t want to deal with. And he wasn’t talking about his foot. “Take me home,” he instructed, “and tomorrow we’ll go on as if nothing happened.”
“I’m not taking you home,” she said. “Not when you’re supposed to stay off your foot. I’m taking you to my house for the night.” She pulled up in front of her mother’s house.
“If you’re feeling guilty,” he said, “don’t.”
“Don’t tell me how to feel,” she said, and marched up the steps. In a few minutes she was back with Travis in her arms.
He squealed with happiness when he saw Brady. Brady grinned, despite his pain, remembering the night Travis called him Da-da. Kids were so great. At least this kid was. He really hadn’t known any others. But they didn’t seem to worry about who kissed who first and whose fault it was. They were either happy or sad. If they were happy they laughed, and if they were sad they cried.
When they got to Suzy’s house, Brady opened the car door and stuck his good foot out. Suzy unbuckled Travis from his car seat and headed for her front door.
“Stay there,” she told Brady. “I’ll be back for you.”
“No way,” he muttered, bracing himself on the car door. He would not be treated like a helpless invalid.
“I’m not a helpless invalid,” he said when she returned to get him and he hadn’t made any progress on his own. He blamed that on the beer. He had had a lot to drink. But, he who’d never leaned on anyone, leaned gratefully against her shoulder for the second time that night. She was stronger than she looked. Both physically and emotionally. He guessed she had to be to raise a child on her own. He admired that. He admired everything about her. Her spunk, her humor, her good nature. And her big, meltingly soft eyes and her mouth and her long legs....
Yes, that’s what got him in trouble earlier that day. Admiring everything about her. He shouldn’t be there. He shouldn’t stay at her house and sleep under the same roof. It was just going to make it that much harder when she left. When she worked at the diner and went out with other men. He groaned.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, bringing him into th
e living room.
“It hurts to have to depend on someone to walk.”
“Hurts your pride, you mean. There’s nothing wrong with depending on someone else. Even if you’re the big, tough sheriff.” She led him to the couch and he fell onto it, grateful to be off his feet.
She dragged the coffee table up and he stretched out his leg. “You don’t think anyone saw you help me out of the saloon, do you?” he asked.
“Only about twenty-five men and seven women. Didn’t you hear the cheering as we left?”
“I thought it was jeering.” He sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”
“Pot roast. I put it in the crock pot this morning. Too big for one and a half persons, but I like to have leftovers. Probably not as good as the diner’s, either, but I do my best. I’m going to put Travis to bed.”
“Without his pot roast?” Brady asked.
“My mom fed him early and he’s tired. Will you be all right?”
“Will I be all right?” he repeated. “As long as you’re not gone more than five minutes. After all, I’m suffering major injuries here. Not to mention thirst and hunger and humiliation. You can’t just walk off and leave me. Especially since I’m here against my will. And since you caused the injury that caused the pain and the humiliation. Is that clear?”
She paused only a moment to take all this in. “All clear, Sheriff,” she said with a snappy salute. Then she left the room.
He put his head back against the couch and let the unfamiliar smell of a home-cooked meal permeate his senses. If he had the sense God gave a mongoose, he’d get out of that house as fast as he could. Before he succumbed to the charms of Suzy and the homey atmosphere she’d created. The ferns in the corner, the soft lights and the couch just inviting him to stretch out, the framed baby pictures of Travis on the mantel all said: this is a home...this is a family...a family without one important member—the one she was leaving him to find.
