Becoming Bella

by Sarah Hegger

  “The boring kind.” Bella really wished she could summon up the spirit of Liz at will and be that confident.

  “No.” Nate tipped up her chin. His gaze warmed her from within. “The sweet kind. The one a man needs to be worthy of having.”

  Snorting, Bella pushed away from the table. She’d better have some beer in that fridge. Yup; she silently blessed her creature-of-habit self who always stocked up. “Beer?”

  “Sure.” He shrugged. “I’m now officially off-duty.”

  She popped the cap on two beers and handed him one.

  He raised it in a silent salute to her. “To good company.”

  Well hell, wasn’t that every girl’s dream right there, and just what she wanted to be: good company? She had trouble remembering this was the same man who’d pushed her up against the wall and kissed the sweet girl out of her. What if she suddenly pinned him up against the wall?

  “You’ve got a funny look on your face.” Nate glanced at her as he separated eggs, cupping the yolk in his palm and letting the white run through his fingers. God help her, even that she found sexy.

  “Just thinking.” She shrugged around the question.

  Everybody thought of her as sweet, a good girl. To be fair, it was a part she’d played since birth. She didn’t like thinking of herself as a people-pleaser, but if the Mary Jane fit...

  Nate put a bowl of pasta in front of her and took the seat opposite. “Those are some big thoughts you got going on there.”

  Thoughts aside, she was hungry, and the pasta smelled delicious. She dug her fork in. “It’s the sweet thing.”

  “You are sweet.” Nate twirled spaghetti like an expert. “Even when I dunked your hair in paint, you were sweet about it.”

  “I wasn’t thinking sweet thoughts.” The incredible thing going on in her mouth demanded attention. “And, damn, this is good.”

  “You should have kicked me, or punched me. At the least pinched me.”

  “Nah.” Because from that moment on, he’d soared as boy god in her eyes. “I didn’t want to get you into trouble.”

  “See.” He stabbed his fork at her. “Sweet.”

  He tucked into his dinner with relish. Watching him love on food ranked right up there as one of her most sensual experiences. Didn’t that make her some kind of sad? “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s kind of a weird question.”

  He smiled. “Those are often the best kind.”

  Here went nothing. “If I hadn’t been sweet, would you . . . ? I mean . . . would we . . .” She couldn’t do this, not with him shifting in his seat and looking like he’d gone off his dinner. “Forget it.”

  “Shit.” He breathed through his nose. “When you said weird, you really meant awkward as hell.”

  “Don’t answer that.” She waved her hand and stuffed her mouth full of pasta. That way she couldn’t open it and make even more of an idiot of herself.

  Narrowed eyes on her the entire time, he ate three bites of pasta. Then he put his fork and spoon down. “Actually, I want to answer that.”

  “I really don’t want you to anymore.” Because his silence screamed louder than anything else.

  “I’m a guy, so I’m always looking.” He shrugged. “Anyone who tells you different is lying. Did I notice your hot little body? Sure. Did I like your big, beautiful smile? You betcha.” He picked up his utensils again. “But the thing is this: some girls you put in your not-fuckable category and keep them there.”

  Never ask a question you don’t want to hear the answer to. Hi, my name is Bella and I’m not fuckable. There had to be a support group for that somewhere. People Pleasers Anonymous, we’ll be over here having a meeting if nobody else minds.

  “But they don’t always stay there,” he said. “Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, the girl keeps crossing out of the box and then you’re in big shit.”

  She didn’t want this conversation. It depressed the crap out of her. Leaping up, she took her bowl to the washer.

  “Sweetheart.” He grabbed her hand. “We gotta talk about what’s going on.”

  “No, we really don’t.” She tried for arch. “I’m in the not-fuckable category.”

  “You should be.” When she tried to free her wrist, he held on. “You for damn sure should be, but you’re not. And that kiss didn’t help.”

  “It was just a kiss.” And the Titanic was just a ship that hit a minor snag in the ocean.

  Giving her hand a tug, Nate grinned. “Is that so?”

  Cocksure son of a bitch actually got a smile out of her, which, given how her day had gone so far, constituted a miracle. “Maybe I’m downplaying it a bit.”

  “Yeah, maybe.” He turned and pulled her between his splayed thighs. “I want to kiss you again, Bella. Put my hands all over you.” His voice deepened. “Taste you. Fuck you.”

  Should she be slapping his face ’round about now? Instead, she melted. Her breathing came a little faster and her skin grew sensitive. “Er . . .”

  “But here’s the thing.” He swept his thumbs in slow circles over the backs of her hands. “I’m not a forever kind of guy. I won’t stay, Bella. We might have some laughs, hang out a bit, but at the end of the day, I will go.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” A war erupted inside her. Her girl parts yelled for her to get on board with him, her heart vacillated, and her head issued a firm, Nana-sounding warning.

  He looped her arms around his neck and stood. He brushed against her on the way up and stood there connecting all the right parts. “We’re attracted to each other. We’re both adults. Want me to draw you a picture?”

  “I’m good.” More than good, in fact. Her girl parts surged into the lead.

  He stepped away from her, taking all that lovely heat with him. “I like you, Bella. And I’m attracted to you as well, and I’d like to do something about that, but only if you understand the way it is.”

  Her lust fog faded. “So, you’re saying we do this your way or not at all?”

  He grimaced. “It sounds even more dickish when you put it like that, but yeah. I really don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I think you should go.” Before she did something stupid. Whether that would be cry or throw herself at him remained uncertain.

  Face inscrutable, he stared at her for a long time. Then he nodded and grabbed his jacket. “See you around, Bella.” He tugged up his jacket zipper. “We would have had fun, sweetheart. No doubt about it.”

  She locked the door behind him and trailed back into the kitchen. Picking up Nate’s beer, she finished it. She should clean up the kitchen after dinner, but Nate hadn’t even made that much of a mess. What a truly crazy day. So far, her Prince Charming options amounted to a stalker or a player. Way to go, Bella. Way to live the dream.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Most days Nate felt okay with the man he saw in the mirror. Sure, he’d messed up big as a kid, but he’d gotten his life together, made good on his promise to old Sheriff Wheeler. This morning, as he shaved, he saw a self-involved prick.

  Since he first hit puberty he’d been laying down that line with women, and it had never occurred to him how screwed up it really was. Ergo how screwed up he was. The take-it-or-leave-it, sex-with-no-strings, love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of messed up. In his defense, he’d started laying it all out in an attempt to stop the women in his life from getting hurt by his inability to commit. Seeing a woman you’d cared about hurting and knowing you were the cause really sucked, and if she knew going in that you weren’t the hanging-around type, she could make the choice to leave or stay. But while he was having a moment of ruthless introspection here, he might as well confess that he had also started with his patter as a built-in escape clause, a way of leaving the back door open for when he was ready to make his escape.

  Which was why he had always stayed away from Bella. He was no good for her. Bella needed a different sort of man, one who hung around, and he’d never be th
at.

  So why couldn’t he get Bella out of his mind? Not just his X-rated version of her, but her eyes. Every thought she had went through those eyes like a ticker tape. It had always disconcerted him, the way she looked at him. As if she saw some better version of him, and it scared the shit out of him. He washed shaving foam off his face and stared at his reflection. What exactly did Bella see in him? It sure as hell wasn’t the same man he saw.

  This introspection crap sucked. He flipped the shower knobs until he got the temperature right. He should have done what he’d been doing since first grade. He should have walked away. He still should walk away.

  Too pissed at himself to want to spend more time in his own company, he got his workday started.

  Already halfway through her cup of coffee, Gabby beat him to it again. The woman must get up in the middle of the night and hit the office.

  She nodded to him as he walked into the small Ghost Falls satellite office. “Morning, Sheriff.”

  “Isn’t it your day off ?”

  “Yeah.” Gabby picked up her cup and walked over to the machine. “But Jeff ’s wife is having a hard time with the new baby, so I said I’d take his shift.”

  “You take the day off tomorrow.” He snagged a mug and poured. “I can’t have tired, stressed-out officers on my hands.”

  “Stressed out?” Strolling back to her desk, Gabby sniffed. “Please, Sheriff, nothing ever happens in this town.”

  Gabby had a past; he would bet every dime the county didn’t pay him on it. He knew that look. Hell, he wore that look often enough. But she’d come highly recommended from a former colleague in Salt Lake City, her record had impressed him, and his options around Ghost Falls came down to Jeff . . . and Jeff. Jeff already had the job, so Gabby had been hired.

  “I want you to run a background check for me.”

  She raised her brows. “Adam Smith?”

  “You got it in one.” Like she said, not much happened around here. “Not really liking our chances of that being a real name.”

  “Me neither.” Fingers flying across the keys, she went back to staring at her screen.

  Despite her attitude, Gabby was pretty. Dark hair, tawny skin, startling green eyes that tipped up like a cat’s. Fortunately, she’d never done it for him, or him for her, which made working together a lot easier. She’d also give him the unvarnished truth, and he was having enough of a navel-gazing day to want to hear it.

  Hiding his face behind pouring another coffee, he waded in. “What do you see when you look at me?”

  Gabby’s keyboard-tapping stopped. “What?”

  He’d started this crap, may as well finish it. “How would you describe me?”

  Glancing at him askance, she frowned and then said, “White male, six three, early thirties, dark hair, light eyes.” She shrugged. “Actually, your eyes are kind of weird; I’d have to say yellow.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “And what else?” She shrugged.

  Despite feeling stupider by the minute, the need to know drove him forward. “I meant, when you look at me, what sort of guy do you see.”

  “A cop?”

  Shit, she sucked at this game. He’d ask Pippa, although he suspected he knew what her answer would be. He stalked toward his office.

  With his hand on the door handle, Gabby’s voice stopped him. “You mean like do I see a nice guy or a jerk? That sort of thing?”

  “Yeah.” Now she was getting this.

  From top to bottom and back again, she studied him. “A player,” she said. “Basically a nice guy, but mostly a player.”

  Exactly what Pippa would have said and did say often enough. Good thing he loved the hell out of his sister-in-law. “What makes you say that? Specifically, I mean.”

  Gabby rolled her eyes and snatched a pile of notes off her desk. “Let’s see here. Mrs. Kranz would like you to go around to check her panic button. Old Lady Myers can’t find her cat again, and she didn’t use the word cat.” Raising her eyebrows, she consulted her notes. “Blythe, Carly, Pippa, Maggie, Anna, and Rachel all want you to call them.”

  “Pippa’s my sister-in-law, so she doesn’t count.”

  “She said you weren’t answering your cell.” She squinted at her pile and tapped the top one. “Actually, Rachel here got quite pissy with me when I wouldn’t give her your cell number.”

  “They call me.” It looked bad, but things often looked bad out of context.

  “I know that.” Gabby shrugged. “Because you’re basically a nice guy but still a player.”

  Which meant what exactly? “Why would they call me if I’m a player?”

  “You’re saying you’re not a player?” She snorted.

  “I never said that.” It would be stretching the truth too far. “But if I’m a player, why would they call me? Knowing that about me?”

  Gabby smirked. “Because of the nice-guy thing.”

  “Explain.”

  “When women look at you, they see crack on legs. A man who shows the potential for being reformed.” She went back to her keyboard. “Are we done with this whole Oprah thing or would you like to talk about your childhood?”

  Nate slammed his office door on her smug expression. Is that what Bella saw when she looked at him? The player thing didn’t bother him too much. All right, it did, but he’d done enough to earn it, so there didn’t seem much point in getting his shorts in a wad about it. The other thing stuck like a splinter under his nail. Did Bella want to reform him? Did she look at him and see a work in progress?

  He checked on the dog he’d put in the pound yesterday. The pound manager agreed with him; the dog just needed some obedience training and he’d be fine. He put in a call to the boy’s parents and delivered the ultimatum: take the dog to training or say good-bye. He really hoped they went with the former.

  Midmorning, he got called out to referee the long-standing battle between two crusty old plot owners on the outskirts of town. They’d been at each other’s throats for so long, he was convinced they’d be lost without each other.

  When he got back to the office, Gabby pounced.

  “So, I got the information on your Adam Smith,” she said, handing him a bunch of printer pages. “Seems Adam Smith really is his name, at least as far back as I went.”

  “Which was how far?”

  “Five years.” She tapped the top sheet. “But it was hard enough finding that. Our boy likes to move around. He makes big money, works in computers, but he never sticks at one job too long. No record, no outstanding arrests, one parking ticket about a year ago. Mr. Average Joe.”

  He caught her tone and glanced up. “But . . . ?”

  “I don’t know.” Gabby frowned. “He’s like a ghost. He moves in and out of people’s lives and once he’s gone, it’s like he’s never even been there. Nothing of him on social media at all. No tweets, no Facebook friends. He’s not even on LinkedIn.”

  “I’m not on those things either.”

  “Yes, you are.” She motioned him over to her computer and clicked away with her mouse. “Maybe you don’t have an account. But see, here on Pippa’s page, there you are.”

  True enough—and standing next to Bella. In the picture, she gazed up at him, wearing that look that made him itchy. Damn, she looked pretty in her green dress.

  “I ran facial recognition software on him and got no hits,” Gabby said.

  “We have that?” Nate glared at the computer.

  Gabby rolled her eyes. “Of course we have that. But our Mr. Smith doesn’t leave any traces of himself behind.” She shrugged. “That’s weird, right? I mean, everybody leaves some kind of trail behind them.”

  “Yes, they do.” Gut tingling in a way that had nothing to do with Gabby’s tricked-out software and more to do with instinct, he said, “Dig deeper. Go back farther. Everyone leaves a trail; we have to find his.”

  At lunchtime, he went out to get a sandwich, which happened to mean going past Bella’s store, which also meant, be
ing a responsible cop, he should check on her.

  He was so full of crap and Ghost Falls didn’t warrant this much of his time. That still didn’t stop him from taking a moment before opening the door and watching her for a minute.

  Bella was unpacking a large carton at her feet. Her face lit up with her big, gorgeous smile that came from her toes as she looked at something blue in her hands.

  As he pushed open the door, she glanced his way and her smile wavered.

  Damn! Had he done that to her? Bella had the sort of smile that made you want to be part of it for as long as it lasted.

  “What you got?” He jerked his chin at the box.

  Immediately, he got his sunshine back as she smiled at her box. “Some stuff I ordered just came in. It’s new stuff, from a small designer who lives upstate.” Diving into the box, she hauled a bunch of material out. “And it’s beautiful. It goes perfectly with what I have in mind for the store.”

  He wanted to hold on to his happy for a while longer. “How’s that?”

  “Well . . .” She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Firstly, I want to cater to a different sort of clientele. At the moment, we sell to the blue-rinse brigade and they’re all twinsets and sensible shoes.”

  He didn’t have a clue what a twinset or a blue rinse was and he didn’t care. “And you want to cater to a different crowd?”

  “Yes.” She shook something out and spread it over her body. The something was a dress. “See, this will appeal to a more stylish woman. Someone who wants to stay on trend and age appropriate at the same time.”

  “It’s a nice dress,” he said.

  She wrinkled her nose at him—fucking adorably—and laughed. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “It means change.” She beamed at him. “My vision for the store is coming true.”

  Going on pure instinct, Nate hooked his hand behind her nape and tugged her mouth to his.

  She came willingly, bringing all that was Bella and good with her. Her mouth opened on a soft O of surprise and Nate went for the prize, the sweetness inside that was 100 percent Bella. The taste of her rocked through him, making him crave more.