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“If you wanted to marry your girlfriend, you must have had feelings for her.”
He averted his eyes. “I wanted her. We spent most of our time apart, and that suited us. She had a high-powered sales job and was mostly on the road.”
What an empty life, she was thinking. He was a man who wanted love, needed a family, but he’d convinced himself that it was impossible.
“That’s not why you didn’t want kids,” she said, as if she knew.
His big, warm hand came down over her small one where it was resting on his chest. “My father used a leather strap on me when I misbehaved,” he said curtly. “He laughed while he did it. He used it on my sister, too. The books all say that abused children grow up to be abusers.”
She let her head fall back against his shoulder and looked up at him. “I can name you four kids in this very community who had similar childhoods and grew up to be exceptionally kind people. One of them is our own sheriff,” she added with a smile.
“Ralston,” he recalled. “I met him. He’s a nice guy.”
“His father drank and beat him and his mother. He said it was why he went into law enforcement.”
He smiled. “That happened to a friend of mine when I was living in Delaware. It’s why I went into it, too,” he confessed.
She touched his hard, chiseled mouth. “I wonder if anybody has that sweet, wholesome upbringing they write fairy tales about.”
“I seriously doubt it.” He drew in a long breath and his eyes sketched her face. “I have to go.”
“Are you sure? Couldn’t you take a personal day and we could go fishing?”
He burst out laughing. “Now how did you know that I fish?”
“Because you probably get enough shooting on the job that you don’t want to consider it for recreation.”
“And you like to fish, do you?” he teased.
She nodded. “But with a cane pole.” She made a face. “I don’t do well with more technical things.”
He smoothed back her soft hair. It was coming loose from its scrunchy. “I love your hair.”
“It’s just ordinary,” she said.
“No, it’s sexy.” His dark eyes narrowed. They ran down her body to her breasts, which had little hard peaks on them.
He stared at them long enough that they began to feel uncomfortable. She swallowed, hard.
“You know why they get like that, don’t you?” he asked gently, indicating her breasts.
“I’m a nurse.”
The smile grew. “I noticed. Pity about the pole dancing.”
“Now, look here, just because I work nights . . . !”
His mouth eased down over hers in a slow, sweet pressure that very quickly made all the throbbing and breathlessness much worse. Her nails caught at his shoulders as the pleasure worked its way down from her mouth, making her moan softly.
He turned her in his arms and his mouth grew insistent, slow and ardent. She held on for dear life. This was the stuff of dreams, this gorgeous man holding her and kissing her as if he wanted her.
He lifted his mouth away a breath. His dark eyes glittered with desire and frustration. “I’m not living in the wilds of Colorado.”
“And I’m not living in the wilds of Chicago,” she managed.
“So it’s a good thing that we’re not getting involved,” he continued. While he was saying it, his big hand was working its way under her blouse and up to the frilly, brief little bra she was wearing.
She caught his wrist halfheartedly.
