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Disobeying, she followed him into the kitchen on tiptoes. She watched as he opened the back door, unlatched the screen, and stepped through it. The moon cast enough light to make him a tall silhouette as he crossed the yard. He had brought a flashlight with him and turned it on, shining it into the dense forest that surrounded the cabin. When her father bought the property, he had cleared only enough land to build the cabin. By design they had left the wooded lot as virgin as possible.
From behind the screen door, Sunny watched Beaumont disappear around the far side of the shed. She could see the flashlight’s beam arcing over the pier and through the trees. It seemed to take forever before he came back into view. He switched off the flashlight before reentering the kitchen.
She moved aside, holding the screen door open for him. “Well?”
“You had intruders, all right.”
“Intruders, plural?”
“Four,” he said grimly.
Her face paled. “Four.”
“Yep, a mama raccoon and three babies.”
Sunny opened her mouth to speak, decided that anything she said would only make her look more ridiculous, and shut her mouth quickly. Her teeth clicked together in the sudden silence.
“They were stashing leftovers behind a row of buckets,” he told her. She kept her head down and could all but feel his damned blue eyes boring a hole into the top of it. The thought of him laughing at her was untenable.
She raised her head suddenly. “It’s partially your fault,” she shouted accusingly. “All that talk about window peepers and wackos.”
“You brought up the window peepers, not me.” He casually laid his flashlight on the kitchen table. “Got a cup of coffee?”
“No.”
She could see his wide smile in the darkness. “Not even for the trooper who rescued you from a family of rampaging raccoons?”
She planted her fists on her hips. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
He righted the chair she had overturned and plopped down in it, sitting more on his spine than his bottom. He grinned up at her. “Well, you gotta admit that the scenery is breathtaking.”
When Sunny realized that she had nothing on but the scanty nightgown and that her stance was stretching the sheer cloth tightly across her breasts, her arms dropped to her sides. She spun around and went charging out of the kitchen.
The mess from the drawer lay directly in her path of retreat. She broke one of the pencils under her foot, while her other heel made contact with the head of the nail. Cursing in a most unladylike fashion, she hobbled out of the kitchen.
Minutes later she returned dressed in a tank T-shirt and a pair of shorts. The light in the kitchen was on and Ty already had a pot of coffee perking on the gas range.
“Make yourself at home.”
Ignoring her sarcasm, he replied, “Thanks, I already did.”
She went to the cabinet and began taking down cups and saucers. “Cream and sugar?”
“Black’s fine. Got any cookies?”
She rolled her eyes ceilingward and produced a package of cookies from the pantry, which she had stocked for her week’s stay.
“Just for the record,” he mumbled around a big bite of chocolate-frosted cookie, “I liked the other outfit better.”
“No doubt.”
“Although this one has distinct possibilities.”
On the word “distinct,” his eyes slid down to her breasts. It was evident that she wasn’t wearing a bra under the soft knit fabric that molded to her figure. The longer he looked at her, the more evident it became.
Sunny tried to cover her discomfiture with a snide question. “Do the taxpayers of Latham Green have any idea that their sheriff is a sex fiend?”
He chuckled. “I’m on duty.”
