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When he rounded the last curve and headed up the small hill, he saw a white four-door Jeep parked right there.
A familiar one.
What in the hell was his woman doing out there now?
He pulled up behind her Jeep and parked.
She wasn’t anywhere to be seen. She had to have seen him pull up, heard him. Where was she?
The church itself was locked up tight, with boards over the windows he’d helped the former pastor hang after the storm two years ago had blown out all the windows. This church still got a bit of use. Funerals, mostly. It would be torn down or abandoned eventually. Probably when that former pastor died and no one else wanted it or even cared that it was still out here. The graveyard would get grown over. Forgotten, by all but a select few who still had relatives here.
Sad, really. It had once been an important center of good old Coleson Hollow life.
He had taken over as co-sheriff two days after helping with the clean-up in Finley Creek. This church had been his first task. He’d met Sheriff Zoey Sofia Daviess right there next to the front steps that day.
He felt rather sentimental when he looked around. Murdoch loved the old church on Old Coleson Hospital Road. He came out here sometimes. Just to think. Came out here when he was feeling existential mostly.
He found the woman of his dreams—or possibly nightmares, he wasn’t picky—in the cemetery. Staring at a headstone, a piece of paper in her hand. “Hey, babe, I didn’t know you were into cemeteries. Should have called me—we could have made a date out of it. It’s been three whole days since I saw you last—I’ve been pining. Well, so has Peach the Fuzz. Found him on your old porch again. He misses you.”
She jerked. Almost like she hadn’t heard him. Murdoch hadn’t exactly been quiet about it. The idea that she had been that distracted…didn’t sit well with him at all.
And once again—no guards to be seen.
He was going to call that brother of hers himself and tell the guy the way things needed to be. Billionaire bubby needed to keep a better eye on sneaky sissy. Murdoch could have been anybody out here like this. “Hey, what’s going on?”
Murdoch stepped closer. Right up to her. He took the paper from her hand before she could stop him. The woman was closed up like a clam most times. Sometimes a guy just had to take charge.
“Hey! That’s…private. This isn’t TSP business, you jerk.” She reached for it. He held it over her head. He smirked down at her, then froze as she stretched up and pressed against him.
Reaching. Pressing.Reaching, pressing.
Just like that.
Holy hell, her front pressed against his and rendered him her boy toy forever. Not that he wasn’t already. But…
Murdoch couldn’t help himself. He hooked his free arm around her waist and pulled her closer. Very unlike a sheriff, but hell. He was off the clock. Wasn’t in uniform or even his TSP polo.
He was just…Murdoch Michael.
The man in love with Zoey Sofia.
She could report him to IA if she wanted. He’d tell the truth. She mesmerized him, made him unable to think.
He’d appeal his case all the way to…the governor.
Of all the other men in the world, the governorshould understand—since the governor’s wife looked a lot like the woman in Murdoch’s arms now.
The governor would pardon him instantly. It was a given. “Well, hello. This? I’ve had dreams start out just like this. We were in my bedroom, though, not a creepy old cemetery.”
She jerked back, heat hitting her cheeks instantly. It was so girlish and sweet. Almost shy even. Not like the tough-as-steel Zoey Daviess he knew at all. How cute. But he’d best be careful. She might just kick him here. “What are you doing out here all alone? I thought you left me and Garrity behind forever. Miss me already?”
“Give me that.” She yanked the paper from him before he could see it. “Not your business, Lake.”
He had wanted her to be his business from the moment he had first met her. She had been very, very scary to a messed up man like he had been back then. No denying that.
Zoey deserved a man who could do long term. The whole picket-fence-and-five-point-eight-kids-plus-big-shaggy-dog thing wasn’t his game. He wasn’t really that good at the whole family-and-forever life.
* * *
