by Diana Palmer
And Faith had a front-row seat. Which was the only reason she believed that men like Cody actually existed, and finding a love that pure and solid was a possibility. Before meeting Shelby, Faith had never bought into the whole happily-ever-after BS. Heck, she’d never believed that love could be healthy.
Clearly, Faith had been doing it wrong. Or something was wrong with Faith. Even her relationship with her mother was complicated. Hope had done her best to raise and care for Faith, working hard to make sure Faith never went to bed cold or hungry. But when it came to making a safe home for her kids, Hope wasn’t equipped with the necessary tools. Her kids came second to her need for a co-man-ionship.
Hope desperately wanted to be loved, which drove her from one man to the next. The more frogs she kissed, the more desperate she became, and the lower that bar was set. If he had a good sense of humor and good looks, Hope was game, and it didn’t matter that he might also have a good reason for being incarcerated for life.
She was the type of woman who needed a man to be happy but was too afraid of men to be around them—a side effect of sustained close proximity to Faith’s father. Which made Inmates.com Hope’s dating site of choice, and Faith’s life more and more unpredictable.
But watching Shelby and Cody, the way they put each other first, and JT’s well-being above all else, was eyeopening. Looking in from the outside, Faith recognized that their relationship was helping her reconsider her self-imposed table-for-one lifestyle. She was no longer petrified at the idea of having someone to come home to, to share her day with over a home-cooked meal. What would it be like to have a person, her person, to stand next to when times were rough or, even better, when they were amazing?
Faith wasn’t afraid of commitment or even love. She was gun-shy about putting herself out there, only to learn that she wasn’t worthy of love, wasn’t worthy of protection or care from others.
“Hey, you sure you’re okay?” Shelby asked again.
“Yeah, fine. I was thinking about my fun-filled night of baking ginger bear cook . . . ies . . .” Faith froze, looked around her dark kitchen, then out the window at the other houses on her block. All dark.
She flicked the switch on the wall. A big fat nothing.
“No, no, no, no, no.” She rushed to the electrical panel next to her back door and did a complete reset—three times. Still nothing.
“This can’t be happening.”
“What’s going on?” Shelby asked, but Faith was checking on her cookies, which were no closer to frosting-ready than they had been in her refrigerator.
She put her hand in the oven, warm but not the 375 degrees her little bears needed in order to bake. She thunked her head against the stovetop. “I have no power!”
“With that wind, I doubt anyone in the county has power.”
Her forehead was still pressed to the stove. “I need power to bake my ginger bear cookies. If I don’t have power, they won’t be ready in time for Saturday.”
“Hopefully the power will come on in a few, but if not, you can skip the wrapping party to finish up.”
She could, but she didn’t want to. Because that meant missing girl time. And she loved girl time—almost as much as chocolate.
“Oh God.” Faith’s head snapped up and she looked around her mess of a kitchen, wondering what she’d gotten herself into.
The panic was back. Only this time it stemmed from disappointment. Not hers, but Ester’s. The sweet great-grandma-to-be, with her apple cheeks and generous spirit, counting on her to bring the gingerbread.
A Christmas bake sale was not a Christmas bake sale without gingerbread.
“Otherwise I’ll have to bake them tomorrow. And if I bake them tomorrow, then I’ll have to wait until they are fully cooled before I can frost them. And then the frosting will have to harden before I can put them in their individual wrappers, which are then tied with a bow. That’s six hundred cookies to frost, and harden, and tie up with a cute little bow! Six hundred—”
“Breathe,” Shelby ordered. “And count to ten, or you’re going to spin yourself right into a crazy lady.”
She hated that her friend was right. Faith was already a little crazy by nature. If she spun herself any tighter, she’d snap. Followed by a total and complete meltdown. Two things that did not fit into her already overly crowded schedule, so she took a few deep breaths.
One.
Two.
Three. Four.
Five six nine ten! “What the holly am I going to do?”
“How about a generator?”
“Actually, I haven’t gotten around to buying one. I’ll add it to my shopping list. Right under NEW FERRARI and TRIP AROUND THE WORLD.”
“I’ll let that go since I know you’re stressed,” Shelby said primly. “But I was actually talking about ours. Cody keeps a spare one in the barn. It will take him twenty minutes tops to get it over there and hooked up.”
“That’s so sweet, but I don’t know . . .” Faith wasn’t used to people going out of their way to help her. She didn’t like the thought of putting someone out.
“I know you hate admitting that you need help.”
“I do.” Even saying that made her uncomfortable.
“And I hate when a friend is struggling and won’t let me help. So this can go down a few different ways, and you get to choose.”
“Lucky me.”
Shelby ignored her. “One, you don’t let me send the generator over and I bring you here, to Ms. Luella’s kitchen, where we finish your cookies.”
“Next.” Faith would rather clean Molly-Mae’s toilets than cook in Ms. Luella’s kitchen. The woman ran that house with an iron rolling pin.
“Two, you let Cody hook up our generator and finish your cookies there.”
“Next,” she said with a noticeable lack of confidence.
“Or three, you miss the party Thursday and stay up all night preparing while we laugh and eat all the chocolate.”
“Now you’re just being mean.” Faith thought of her helpless bears in the oven and their misshaped hats and—
Why was she arguing? She needed help. Ester was counting on her and, in the end, her word was more important than her pride.
“Fine, but are you really going to make me say it?”
“Nope. That you thought it is enough,” Shelby said, and Faith could all but hear her friend high-fiving herself. “One generator is headed your way.”
“Fine, but you have to let me pay you back somehow.” Faith didn’t like owing people.
“How about after the holidays you take JT so Cody and I can catch up on some of that quiet time?”
“Deal.”
Fifteen minutes, a hoodie, and a pair of pajamas she blindly pulled from the dryer later, Faith saw headlights through her front window. She secured her hair back with a hair band right as a firm knock sounded at the front door.
Not wanting Cody to stand in the rain longer than necessary, Faith padded through the front room and swung open the door. “You are my hero. Seriously, I so owe you and—”
Faith froze, because standing on her stoop, wearing a tool belt, a dark gray Henley, and looking for all the world like a sexy husband-for-hire, was Noah Tucker. And no amount of breathing was going to save her now.
His eyes ran the length of her, and he grinned. “So I’m your hero, huh?”
Faith slammed the door shut.
Chapter Six
As a Ranger, Noah had become accustomed to doors slamming in his face. It came with the territory. What he wasn’t used to was this strange tightening in his chest every time he heard Faith’s name or saw her around town—or thought he saw her around town.
Or saw her standing in her doorway in nothing but her bare feet and pajamas, her hair twisted into some kind of messy knot on the top of her head, and a light dusting of flour across her left cheek and forehead.
Faith Loren was the pissiest, messiest, and sexiest domestic goddess he’d ever laid eyes on. And she’d slammed the d
oor in his face. Talk about a turn-on.
He’d been looking forward to a moment like this all week. And she didn’t disappoint.
Deciding to give her a moment to figure out a strategy for how to deal with him, Noah took in the potted plants, the two bicycles leaning against the porch rail—not the smartest idea in this neighborhood—and a wreath hanging on the door. He couldn’t remember the last time domesticity got him smiling. Then again, he’d never seen a wreath fashioned from those stick-on bows sold in the wrapping paper aisle, all blue, with spiky teeth in the middle and two big cartoon eyes over the top.
“Nice wreath,” he called through the door.
“It’s supposed to scare you away.”
He could hear her pressing her face to the door, likely to look through the peephole. It made him wonder if she had to go up on her toes to reach it. And that made him smile.
“I don’t scare all that easy. In fact, maybe you can teach me how to make one so I can impress JT.” Silence. “No rush. Whenever you have some spare time. I can stand here all night. When I first joined the force, I pulled an eighteen-hour stakeout, didn’t leave the car once. True story,” he said. “I also navigated a run-in, yesterday in fact, with some locals. I went to Mable’s Corner Market to pick up a few things for Shelby. It wasn’t a long list, but incredibly generic, not a detail to be found. Eggs not a big deal, but apples? Do you know how many kinds of apples there are? So there I am trying to figure out what kind of toilet paper to buy, because women seem to be particular about that kind of thing.”
He heard a snort.
“I wasn’t about to lose to some brand with packaging that says, ‘Enjoy the Go.’ So I turn to the lady next to me, who had enough food to feed a family of nine. I figure, she must be a pretty good judge of TP. I didn’t even get to ask my question because she says, ‘Excuse me, you’re a Texas Ranger, aren’t you?’ I figured she was a woman who appreciated a good pistol, but she wasn’t interested in that in the slightest. Neither were the six of her friends she called from the store. She insisted that I wait for them to arrive before I began my detailed explanation of all the qualifications a Junior Ranger must possess.”
A string of words that would have had Ms. Luella reaching for the bar of soap came from behind the door. He listened as the dead bolt was unlocked, grinned when the chain was disengaged, and was flat-out smiling when she opened the door.
“What did you say?” she asked.
Lord have mercy, those eyes could slay a man. They were bedroom eyes, he decided. Big and smoky brown and highlighted by her rich blond hair. Then there was her hoodie, which he hadn’t had a chance to fully appreciate before she slammed the door. It was the softest shade of pink and clung to her breasts in a way that said she wasn’t wearing a bra.
He continued his scan, lifting a brow when he got to her flannel bottoms and red tipped toes. “Pokémon?”
She looked down and cursed again. And she wasn’t using the G-rated words this time either. Seemed Angel’s day had been bad enough to warrant the adult kind. Which got him wondering what other kind of adult things she might be in the mood for.
“The laundry room is at the back of the house. No windows,” she said, fiddling with the strings of her sweatshirt. “It was dark. I must have grabbed Pax’s pajama bottoms by mistake.”
Which would explain why they fit her like a second skin. Who knew Pikachu could be such a turn-on?
“What did you say?” This time when her eyes flashed to his, she looked frightened.
Faith didn’t seem like the kind of woman who cared what other people thought of her. But the panic she was trying so hard to hide tore him up a little. She did, however, care what people thought of her brother. So it didn’t sit well that he’d stirred up more drama in her already-complicated world.
“I mainly agreed with what the ladies were relaying,” he said gently. “It was a lot of them talking and me nodding and Uh-huhing and Yes, ma’aming. But I did make sure to mention that the Texas Ranger organization isn’t taking applications right now. It’s more of a ‘stand out in the crowd’ kind of position and that JT and Pax were invited to participate in a small internship this summer in Austin.”
“Thank you,” she said right as the sky let out a supersonic boom precisely as lightning cracked overhead, turning the neighborhood to momentary morning and Faith into a vibrating ball of panic.
Noah ducked closer into the doorway and Faith nearly leapt out of her Pikachu pajamas and pink hoodie. Her face flashed to frightened, her body dialed to run, and her stomach bottomed out. Her reaction hadn’t been solely from the storm’s sudden reappearance. Nope, a good portion of that fear had been caused by Noah’s rushing her. And that realization sent every one of his protective instincts into overdrive.
“Caught me off guard,” he said, honestly. He was used to Faith meeting him toe to toe, not flinching away. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, with an embarrassed laugh, but her head was shaking hard in opposition. And that wasn’t the only thing shaking. Her hands were clasped tightly together, yet trembling.
Another strike flashed and before the thunder made its presence known, Faith stepped onto the stoop and into his arms. She didn’t say a word, gave no heads-up, simply released a panicked sound that broke his heart, and wrapped her arms around him.
Shocked confusion didn’t accurately describe his reaction to what had transpired. One minute she was I’m a feminist. What’s your superpower? and slamming doors in his face. The next she was burrowing into him as if he were the world’s largest Snuggie and she was in need of some serious cuddle time.
Problem was, cuddling wasn’t standard protocol in Interview and Interrogation, nor was it a skill the women he “dated” required. That left Noah in dangerous territory with nothing but big shoulders and sweet words at his disposal. He may have been born in Sweet, but that was the only sweet thing about him.
Now Faith was another story. Under that tough-girl shell, she was surprisingly sweet and soft. And she felt incredible in his arms, as if she was the perfect size for him, which was a little unnerving since she barely came up past his chest. Then there were her soft spots, pressing into all his hard spots in just the right way. As he ran his hands in soothing strokes down her back, he was acutely aware of how fragile she felt beneath his embrace.
After their run-ins, and the few glimpses of her around town, fragile was the last word he’d ever use to describe her. She was always in a rush and usually looked adorably frazzled, but never fragile.
So when Faith clung tighter, a shuddery breath or two escaping as she nestled farther into his embrace, it became clear that cuddling was not a prelude to anything. It was the actual event.
Instead of palming her delicious backside, while threading the other hand through her silky hair—a classic play from his book that, when it came to women, had a ninety-nine percent chance of ending with both sets of clothes on the floor—he decided this woman needed something gentler from him.
“You okay?” he asked, knowing that regardless of her answer, he wasn’t the guy for the job. Then a shiver ran through her—one he was sure had zip to do with the low temperature—and he accepted that he was the only guy around, so he had to figure things out. And quick.
“Faith,” he said, tipping her face up toward his and—
Pow. It was like a battering ram to the chest. Her eyes were moist, her face tense with repressed emotion, and she was working hard on what had to be the saddest smile in history.
Something bad had happened tonight. Something that left her looking like a broken angel.
Staring down into those sad brown pools did crazy things to him, like inspiring a serious internal monologue. It wasn’t exactly a “What would Cody do?” conversation, but it did involve hunting down whoever had caused this heartache and ending their life. That would come later, though, after she was back to slamming doors in men’s faces.
With a soft, “Whatever it is, I promise you we can fi
x it,” his hands continued a lulling motion up and down her back. Kind of the way he hugged his sister-in-law when she was upset, using gentle, soothing passes along the friend-zone of her spine. Only, he’d never had a problem keeping himself in check hugging Shelby—or any woman for that matter.
But with Faith in his arms, he felt as if he could finally stop running.
“I’m usually not a hugger,” she murmured into his chest, her voice whisper-thin and full of a vulnerable emotion he couldn’t quite pinpoint. “Or a liar.” She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with apology. “But those women can be so mean. When they asked about why Pax was in your car . . . I might have gone a little overboard.”
Again, she was slowly killing him. “You’re not the one who made up a fake internship.”
“You’re not mad?” Even as she said it, her grip loosened, as if she were expecting him to back away.
He laced his fingers behind her, letting her know he wasn’t going anywhere. “Why would I be mad?”
“Because I dragged you into my life drama. Not to mention, a lie that would be easy for Molly-Mae and her minions to ferret out.”
“A heads-up next time would be nice but, angel, that’s the sweetest lie I’ve ever been dragged into.”
Her hands played with the zipper of his jacket, her eyes looking everywhere but at his. “Full disclosure. I gave them your e-mail address and place of work.”
“So women aren’t e-mailing me nonstop because they think I’m charming?” he said, and a hint of a smile teased at her lips. “It’s all public record.”
“It was still a pretty crappy thing of me to do, and you didn’t sell me out,” she said as if every man before him had done exactly that.
“What can I say? A hero’s work is never done.”
She laughed. And what a beautiful laugh—carefree, bold, and a whole hell of a lot better than that heartbreaking smile of a moment ago.
“If you want to talk about it, or anything.”
She held up a hand and stepped back. “Nope. We’re good.”
