by Gina Wilkins
He had some possible suspects in mind—the O’Brien boy and his rebellious crowd of followers high among them. But there wasn’t enough evidence to even think about making an arrest.
He was still shaken from finding Emily lying on the floor of her living room, though he’d done his best to conceal his emotions from everyone else. He could still remember the sheer terror that had flashed through him when he had seen the blood on her forehead, the deathly pallor of her skin. The strength of his reaction to that moment—and the distress the memory still brought him—only proved that his feelings for Emily weren’t casual ones. That they never had been.
The public pressure on his department had been bad enough before the attack on Emily happened, but now the townspeople had begun to panic. Martha Godwin had been standing at the door of Wade’s office even before he arrived that morning, just to add her two cents’ worth. She’d stayed until Wade had wondered if he was going to have to have her escorted away. Half an hour later, one of the two full-time reporters from the Honoria Gazette had called, demanding to know why Wade hadn’t been more visible in his pursuit of the criminals who were, as he put it, “terrorizing their town and brazenly attacking innocent women in their own homes.”
Emily had always implied to Wade that the locals didn’t think much of her or her family. It certainly didn’t seem that way to him, judging from the number of people who’d expressed concern about Emily’s welfare. As far as Wade could tell, most of the Honoria’s townspeople were quite fond of Emily. He couldn’t imagine where she’d gotten a different impression.
It was the sound of Emily’s name that drew Wade’s attention toward a conversation going on in the booth behind him. Knowing the speakers couldn’t see him, he listened as someone continued, “It’s just a miracle she wasn’t raped or killed.”
Wade winced, having spent some uncomfortable hours during the night visualizing both of those horrifying possibilities.
“If I hear someone say ‘poor Emily’ one more time today, I just might be sick,” another woman said scornfully. “I didn’t know being hit on the head qualified a person for instant sainthood, or I might have tried it myself.”
“Oh, April, you just don’t like anyone in the McBride family,” the first woman said.
April. Wade thought back to the fall festival, remembering the unpleasant food fight between the winner of the baking contest and the runner-up—April Penny. The woman who’d accused Emily of unfair judging.
“Can you blame me?” April retorted. “After all the vicious things the McBrides said about my poor brother when he refused to take responsibility for Savannah’s bastard twins? Vince swore he hadn’t fathered those kids, but the McBrides were determined to trap him. If his friends on the football team hadn’t backed him up about Savannah’s promiscuity, the McBrides might have permanently ruined Vince’s reputation in this town. Now Savannah’s married that rich, famous writer and they’ve got more money than God, and poor Vince is working his fingers off selling cars for a living. There’s nothing fair about that, if you ask me.”
“I did hear that Savannah got around some,” the other woman admitted. “But Emily seems nice enough.”
April snorted. “She’s no better than her cousin. Everyone knows she’s sleeping with the new police chief. Why else would he have been driving over to her house at nearly ten o’clock at night? What kind of example is that to set for his poor little boy? And you haven’t been around long enough to know this, but I heard plenty about it when I was growing up—Emily’s mother was the town whore. Slept with half the men in town, then ran off with a married one. He left his poor wife with two young children to raise on her own.”
“That’s terrible.”
“And that’s not all. Emily’s brother is a cold-blooded murderer. He killed Roger Jennings—the son of the man his stepmother ran off with. Roger and Lucas used to fight all the time, and when Roger was killed, everyone knew Lucas did it, though no one could ever prove it. Especially with that silly Lizzie Carpenter swearing he’d spent the entire night with her—though most people thought that was just wishful thinking on her part.”
“I’m still not sure you’re being entirely fair to Emily. I haven’t heard anything bad about her the whole time I’ve been in Honoria. Everyone seems to like her okay.”
“If you ask me, she’s no better than the rest of them. Sam Jennings hinted to me that she was caught in something shady at the bank, but she got off because the police chief had the hots for her. Guess we know how she repaid him?”
Wade had had enough. He set his coffee mug down with a thump and pushed himself out of his booth. His actions drew the attention of the gossips who’d been sitting behind him. At the sight of him, April Penny’s face drained of color.
“Ladies,” he drawled, his tone as cold as ice.
A touch of defiance returned to April’s face. “Chief,” she replied, just as coldly.
The other woman wasn’t as quick to recover. She stammered a greeting that was mostly incoherent.
Several different put-downs lodged in Wade’s throat. He considered and rejected all of them. After just standing there for a moment, looking at the women with narrowed, angry eyes, he decided his most prudent course would be to simply turn and walk away. He left a painful silence behind him, and knew that April Penny was well aware of his disdain for her.
He only wished he knew some way to make sure the woman never spoke Emily’s name again.
EMILY WASN’T surprised when her doorbell rang late that evening. She’d been expecting it.
She started to open the door, then paused to first look out the window to make sure of her caller’s identity. It wasn’t something she’d been in the habit of doing before, but that old, comfortable sense of security had been forever shattered last night.
Confirming her guess that Wade was on the other side of her door, she ran a quick hand over her hair and let him in.
He studied the purple lump, still visible on her forehead, where she’d hit the small table as she’d fallen. “Still sore?” he asked.
“A little.”
“How about the back of your head?”
“A little more sore,” she admitted. “But on the whole, I’m fine. I’m going back to work tomorrow.”
He held out a manila envelope. “I brought you something from Clay.”
Emily frowned as she took it. “You didn’t tell him what happened, did you?”
“I didn’t have to,” Wade answered grimly. “The kids at school took care of that. I reassured him that you’re okay, and that I’m going to catch the crooks and put them in jail. That’s a promise I intend to keep.”
With misty eyes, Emily studied the drawing Clay had sent her. The boy had drawn a picture of himself holding a huge bouquet of multicolored flowers. In careful lettering at the bottom of the page, he had written, “Miss Emily, I’m sorry your head got hurt. Love, Clay.”
She touched a fingertip to the funny little face in the child’s drawing. “I think I’m in love with your son, Wade,” she said, trying to speak lightly.
“Well, that’s half the battle won,” he muttered, and pulled her into his arms.
His mouth came down on hers with a hunger that only seemed to have intensified since the last time he’d kissed her.
She told herself she should pull away. No matter how spectacularly he kissed. No matter how good he made her feel. This wasn’t wise. It couldn’t last.
But, oh, how she wanted it to go on.
She wrapped an arm around his neck—only to steady herself, she decided, knowing a mental lie when she heard one.
Her mouth opened beneath his—but only because his probing tongue gave her little choice, she thought sheepishly.
And then she returned his kiss with a greed of her own—but only because she thought she’d die of wanting if she didn’t, she admitted in surrender.
Maybe it was the attraction that had been building between them from the first. Or maybe it had somethi
ng to do with the events of the past few days. But she didn’t want to be reasonable and cautious and sensible now. She wanted Wade. She needed him...if only for tonight.
“Your head...” he murmured, drawing back only an inch or so.
“Is spinning,” she admitted. “But it has nothing to do with my injuries.”
“Emily, I...” He grimaced, as though he wasn’t sure what to say.
Emily had no difficulty forming the words. “I want you, too, Wade.”
It would have been pointless to lie. She had no doubt that he would have seen right through her.
His eyes glittered as he drew her closer again. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure I want you. I’m not at all sure it’s wise,” she said.
“And are you always wise, Emily McBride?” he asked, his lips moving teasingly against hers.
She almost groaned with the longing that welled inside her. “I’ve always tried to be,” she whispered. “But tonight...”
He kissed her lingeringly. “Tonight?” he prodded.
“Tonight I don’t want to be wise,” she murmured, drawing his mouth back to hers.
If she was going to start having all those adventures she’d dreamed of, she might as well begin tonight, she thought recklessly. And she could hardly imagine anything more exciting than making love with Wade Davenport.
Without allowing herself to think about it any longer, she led him to the bedroom she would always consider her own.
She had left a small lamp burning beside her bed. It provided all the illumination they needed as they turned to each other with searching eyes. Emily tried to gauge Wade’s emotions from his expression.
Could this decision possibly be as momentous for him as it was for her? Or was this something that Wade took more for granted? Something he did far more casually than Emily ever had?
He cupped her face gently in his hands, and she felt the faint tremors running through him. Looking into the warmth of his beautiful brown eyes, Emily realized that Wade wasn’t taking this casually at all. In fact, he looked so serious, it made her nervous all over again.
She hoped he understood that tonight changed nothing as far as their future was concerned. So maybe she was a little in love with Wade—okay, maybe she’d tumbled head over heels, heart over head. But that didn’t mean she intended to scrap all the plans she’d made. Not for a man she’d known less than two months.
Not for anyone.
And then Wade kissed her again, and she forgot about those plans for the future. Forgot the past. Forgot everything except this man, this moment.
His mouth was avid, his hands eager as the kiss turned from tender to frantic. Their clothing came off in layers, tossed heedlessly around the room as eagerness changed to impatience. They tumbled gracelessly onto the bed, laughing through kisses.
And then Wade slid his hand down Emily’s body and the laughter changed to a gasp of delight.
That quickly, Wade’s impatience was transformed. Suddenly, he seemed to have all the time in the world.
He began with her mouth. Devouring her lips. Sliding his tongue between her teeth to taste her. Kissing her until she wasn’t sure if her euphoria was due to his skill or her lack of oxygen—and she didn’t care.
He turned his meticulous attention to her right ear, tracing the outer shell with the tip of his tongue, nibbling at her lobe. She shuddered. Until that moment, she’d been unaware of just how sensitive her ears could be.
And her throat. Just a brush of his fingertips from her jaw to the hollow made her tremble. When he followed that with a series of gently biting kisses from her throat to her breasts, she couldn’t bite back a moan of pleasure.
By the time Wade had memorized every inch of her breasts and moved down to nuzzle her tummy, Emily had lost whatever semblance of rationality she might have retained.
It was only after paying close attention to every remaining inch of her body that Wade gave in to his own need. His movements growing urgent, he swiftly donned protection, and then returned to thrust deeply inside her. Emily welcomed him with a hunger that definitely equaled his.
As she cried Wade’s name, Emily was aware of a touch of fear beneath the thrill. She’d wanted to believe that she could make love with Wade without falling so completely in love with him that nothing would ever be the same for her again.
She understood now what a fool she’d been.
“I WISH I COULD STAY all night...just holding you like this,” Wade murmured after a lengthy period of recuperation.
Emily nestled her face more deeply into his bare shoulder and remained silent. She had mixed feelings about asking Wade to stay all night, sleeping in her bed. It would be wonderful, she had no doubt of that. But she didn’t want to risk growing even more attached to him than she was already. Not if she wanted to leave Honoria with her heart intact—more or less.
Wade answered himself with a faint sigh. “But I can’t. Clay expects me to be there for breakfast, unless there’s an emergency.”
“You’re a wonderful father, Wade,” Emily said with a touch of wistfulness she couldn’t quite conceal. “I’m sure Clay never doubts that he always comes first in your life. It’s so obvious that you adore him.”
Exactly the opposite of the relationship she’d had with her own father, she couldn’t help thinking.
“I can hardly remember not being Clay’s dad,” Wade admitted.
“It must have been difficult for you at times, being both mother and father to Clay. He was so young when your wife died.” It was the closest Emily had ever come to asking about Wade’s late wife.
“He had just turned three.”
“He doesn’t remember her at all?” Again, Emily was putting herself in Clay’s place, knowing exactly how it felt to have no memory of a mother’s love.
“No. Not only because he was so young when she died, but because she wasn’t a major part of his life while she was alive.”
Startled by his words, Emily lifted her head to look at him. Wade’s expression was solemn, his eyes shuttered. “What do you mean?”
“My wife and I married because she was pregnant with Clay,” Wade answered flatly. “We’d been dating on what I naively considered a rather casual basis. I’d just finished the police academy. Kristi told me she was taking care of birth control. I was young enough and foolish enough to leave it up to her. It turned out she had lied. She had decided that marriage to me would give her the kind of security she’d never found in her dysfunctional home. What she discovered, instead, was that she didn’t like being tied down to a husband or a child. We tried in our own ways to keep the marriage going, but it was effectively over even before she died while driving too fast on rain-slick roads.”
Though he’d told her the story with little emotion, Emily sensed that Wade had suffered deeply during the past few years. “I’m sorry, Wade,” she murmured, touching his face. “Because she died so young...and because your memories of your marriage aren’t happier ones.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry about both of those things, too.”
Emily mulled over what he’d told her. After a pause, she asked carefully, “You never considered not marrying Kristi when she told you she was pregnant? Never questioned that the baby was yours?”
“I knew he was mine. And, no, I had no intention of allowing a child of mine to be born without my name. Old-fashioned of me, maybe, but that’s the way I was raised.”
“Too bad all men don’t take that kind of responsibility for their actions,” Emily said. “My cousin Savannah got pregnant with her twins when she was only seventeen. The father denied all responsibility and even got a bunch of his friends to lie that they had slept with Savannah. She swore to us that Vince had been the only one, and we believed her.”
“Vince Hankins.”
Wade said the name with a confidence that suggested he’d already heard the rumors. Emily wasn’t surprised, considering the efficiency of the Honoria grapevine, and the lingering fascination wi
th the McBride family in general. “Yes. The jerk. I wouldn’t ever buy a car from him if I were you. Any guy who could lie as well as he did at seventeen is probably a master of the skill by now.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. I could never respect a man who didn’t take responsibility for his own children.”
“As it turned out, Savannah and the twins were better off without him, anyway. They’re so happy with Kit—Christopher Pace, the writer. He and Savannah were recently married.”
“I’m a big fan of his work.”
“He’s good, isn’t he? I liked his futuristic thrillers even before Savannah met him. She was reluctant to get involved with him at first because of his celebrity. She’d been the subject of so much gossip here in Honoria that she developed a real obsession about her privacy. Of course, marriage to a man who makes his living writing bestselling books and blockbuster screenplays hardly guarantees that. But Kit quickly won her over.”
“I’m glad things have worked out for her and the kids.”
“So am I. I’m very close to both Savannah and Tara. They were like sisters to me growing up, and Tara’s younger brothers were my playmates. I never got a chance to know my mother’s family—most of her relatives moved away long ago, and my father never attempted to stay in touch with them. The McBrides have always been my only family, just as this has been the only home I’ve known.”
“And yet you’re still planning to leave at the end of the year.”
She caught her breath. “Yes,” she answered quietly after a moment. “I’m planning to leave.”
Because she didn’t want to think of leaving while lying in Wade’s arms, she quickly changed the subject. “Are you hungry? I have about a dozen casseroles in the refrigerator. Several of my neighbors brought food when they heard what happened here last night—the standard small-town response to disaster,” she added with a slight laugh. “As though green-bean casserole could make anything better.”
