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“The meeting starts in an hour. I should get inside.” She stood. Looked at what she could see of him in the moonlight, and the artificial low light of the walkways. She’d always loved the courtyard garden of the Barratt-Finley Creek. But never had she been out here with a man who burned her insides the waythisone always had.
He just burned her in a different way tonight than he had before.
She knew herself well enough to know one thing: that scared her. Straight down to her toes.
Time toretreat.
That was how she operated, after all. She’d been accused of that before.
“Me, too. But don’t abandon your date, darling. It is just not the done thing.” He gave a wicked grin, just visible in the low lights. Then she was back in his arms—just that fast. “Dance with me. Right out here. Beneath the moonlight. It’s probably the only shot at it we’ll ever have. You with your fancy rich friends now and me with the Fuzz. Unless I’m a good boy, anyway. And get to come play here in Finley Creek. You dance with me, I’ll tell you what I learned from Gillian the librarian. I had to stop by last night and unclog the library toilet. Because that’s official Garrity sheriff business.”
“Nice to know you are kept busy without me.” Small towns had their charms. She’d loved living in Garrity. In being a part of that community, with people who knew her name, knew Pen’s. Who watched out for her sister when Zoey couldn’t. She was afraid the larger Finley Creek wasn’t going to be like that. She’d grown up in Dallas. She’d moved Pen to Wichita Falls when she’d been assigned there. But nothing had felt likehomelike Garrity had.
She was afraid Finley Creek never would. “I’m going to miss it there. I already do.”
She’d stayed with Melody for part of her medical leave. Then she’d stayed with her brother Caine’s family for a while. She’d been back in Garrity some, but not more than a few days at a time. Not since the shooting.
MaybeGarrityhadn’t been home for a while either.
Home was where her family was. She was telling herself that already. Every day. She believed it, too. But Garrity was thefirstplace she had ever felt at home. Safe.
Letting go of that hurt.
Far more than she would have ever expected.
“I’ve been missing you.”
His arms slipped around her. Like they were almost meant to. It took every bit of strength, fortitude—whatever she wanted to call it—to keep herself from resting her cheek right there on his broad shoulder.
This wasMurdoch.
LikingMurdoch in any way was completely insane. Wanting, desiring Murdoch Michael Lake in any way at all was well beyond insane.
Yet all Zoey wanted to do was press closer.
They could just hear the music. It was almost like it was just her and him, and…oh, hell.
This wasn’tZoeyat all.
Then he was slipping his arms around her again, like he actually meant it. Making her feel a little less alone than she had in that damned crowd.
She’d just been going through the motions inside.
Playing a part, one she barely knew the lines for.
That was all. Trying to fit in with the people in the new place she’d found herself once again. Just like she had so many times before.
Where was the realhernow? Zoey didn’t know.
She just didn’t know.
Her eyes were wet when she let him pull her closer.
TheZoeyin Melody’s fancy ballroom wasn’t reallyher. She knew that and always had. This was just the bizarre world Zoey had found herself in since that day Ariella had shown up on her office doorstep, practically saying “Surprise, we’re your family; and, oh, by the way, our big brother has billions. Your world just changed completely.”
Murdoch was the pickup-football-game-in-the-backyard kind of guy?
Well, Zoey had once been thegirlin that backyard kind of life.
