Snowbound with the Sheriff Read online

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  From Monday to Thursday, she managed to follow through. She spent time with Laura, hung out with Maggie, got to know her half siblings’ significant others better. Checked off every sister to-do box. Even managed to avoid Ryan all week—apparently, he was living and breathing the cattle-theft investigation. And when her lawyer called on Friday, saying that the CIO was close to accepting a plea bargain and asking her back for a Monday meeting with the investigators, she felt almost complete. Until Maggie walked into the kitchen right as Stella was booking her flight.

  Her sister’s face crumbled. “Can you at least stay for the final work party at the barn tomorrow?”

  Stella couldn’t say no to that. “Yeah. I can go back on Sunday.” A thought crossed her mind. “You know, I’m not going to need all the money from the whistleblower settlement I’m hoping to get. You and Lachlan could start a full-on search-and-rescue-dog foundation, let alone a training facility.”

  Maggie shook her head. “Lachlan likes working with the animals. He doesn’t want to be hung up in administration.”

  “Right. Well, it was just a thought.” And it was a thought that bugged her all night long. Her brain pinged back and forth between how damn lonely her bed was, and the possibility of expanding on her half siblings’ business plan. She dragged herself across the street to the barn the next morning, wearing her lone pair of jeans and yet another shirt she’d borrowed from Maggie—plaid flannel this time.

  Okay. One more day of painting—one more day of dodging questions about Ryan—and she’d be on a plane back to normalcy.

  This feels pretty normal, though. Coffee in a travel cup, bright January morning sun on her face. The yips of dogs from the kennel of Maggie’s clinic, and the bangs of hammers filtering through the doors of the barn.

  Shaking her head, she entered the facility. All traces of the fire were gone, and the place looked close to perfect. “Hey, Lach, Gramps, how—?”

  Except it wasn’t her brother or grandfather wielding the hammer. Ryan, biceps straining against the short sleeves of his black T-shirt, glanced over at her in midswing. The tool landed with a thunk, and he let out a yelp.

  “Goddamn it!” He squeezed his eyes shut and fanned his hand rapidly, flexing his thumb.

  “Crap, I startled you,” she said, ignoring their audience—her family and the same crowd of search-and-rescue people as last time, plus Rafe Brooks and his son—as she rushed over and took his hand to examine it. The skin was split along one side. “You’re cut. Sorry.” She called over her shoulder for her brother. “Lach, where are the Band-Aids?”

  “In the clinic. Over the sink in the staff room,” Lachlan answered.

  “Come on.” She tugged on Ryan’s wrist, avoiding connecting with that serious blue gaze.

  “It’s nothing, Stella. I’m barely bleeding.”

  “It could get dirt in it.” She tugged again.

  Sighing, he followed, clearly humoring her.

  She pulled him along the short path between the barn and the clinic.

  “Stella, you can let go. Should let go,” he said quietly.

  Of course. Oops. She dropped his wrist. “Sorry. Again. About that, too.” She held the clinic’s back door open for him and tried to ignore his sculpted pecs as he climbed the two-stair stoop. But that chest... So yummy. And it looked like he still hadn’t shaved since the cabin. His stubble was veering into beard territory.

  Need pooled between her legs, and she shifted uncomfortably.

  He glanced back, tilting his head in question. “Coming?”

  “No!”

  He snorted.

  Cheeks bursting with heat, she waved him forward. “I mean, yeah, I’m coming behind you.”

  “No way, Stella. You’d always come first.”

  God, she had to be the color of a tomato by now.

  He paused and cupped her cheek. “And not just in bed. You know that, right?”

  “Okay, now who needs to let go?” She skirted around him, passing the treatment rooms, and entered the staff room. The space used to be the house’s kitchen, and the appliances and faded linoleum betrayed the original age of the building. “Maybe I’ll buy Maggie and Lachlan a non-harvest-gold stove next Christmas.” She made her way over to the cabinet and pulled out a red canvas first-aid kit with shaking hands.

  Ryan rinsed his thumb in the sink and dried it on a paper towel before leaning a hip on the counter beside her. “Hey. Bleeding’s already stopped. Don’t worry about it.”

  She jerked her gaze to his. “I thought you’d be working your case today.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “We made some headway yesterday. Recovered one of the Hallorans’s animals in a barn outside Billings. Made an arrest, which could lead to more. I figured I deserved a day off.”

  “Not much of a day off. Big news like that—you should be celebrating.”

  He grimaced. “Tried to go out with some work folks last night.”

  “But?”

  “I wanted to see you,” he grumbled.

  She inched closer to him and palmed the center of his chest. So warm. And hard. She splayed her fingers. “You knew where I was.”

  “And we agreed to keep our distance.” He smiled wryly. “Amazing I managed to focus enough to do my job this week, knowing you were still close.”

  “You did your job well, no less.”

  “Took effort, though.” He dipped his head and pressed a soft kiss by her earlobe. “I hear you’re leaving tomorrow.”

  The disappointment knitted into those words snagged her chest. “Flying out in the morning. Meeting with the investigators on Monday.”

  One strong arm slung around her. She wished she could take that with her, feel that unyielding support as she sat across a conference table to give yet another statement.

  “I’m sorry again for lying the other day,” he said. “I’m mad at myself about that.”

  Spreading her fingers along both sides of his jaw, she reveled in the week’s worth of sexy facial hair. “Of all the ways we’ve hurt each other over the years, I think we can let that one go.”

  He dropped his forehead to the crown of her head and she held in a whimper. Being close to him—it was the best and worst way to spend some of her last hours in Sutter Creek. She wanted to bottle his smell and take it back to New York with her. Spread it on her sheets so when she woke up in the morning, she could pretend he’d slept next to her all night long and was waiting for her in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and a devastating smile.

  “I meant it when I said I wanted to show you how much I’ve changed,” he explained. “Failed there, I guess.”

  No way could she leave tomorrow having him think he was anything less than amazing. “Ry.” She hoisted herself backward onto the counter so they were eye-to-eye. Taking his hands, she pulled him between her legs. He looped his arms around her middle, holding her right close. She kissed his temple. “You don’t need to prove yourself to me. I see who you are. I see how I could—” Oh, God. She was not saying those words. Not even hypothetically.

  He groaned. The hand at her waist sneaked under her loose shirttail. A rough thumb stroked along her belly. Need shimmered in its wake, a skin-on-skin vow of all the good things this man could give her.

  “What could you see, Stella?” His voice was so low, so gruff, that she could barely hear it.

  An honest response hovered on her tongue. Maybe by hiding her feelings, she had it all wrong. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already guessed what she was going to say. “I could love you again.”

  His eyes slid shut. Pain marred his features. “But you can’t.”

  “Not without losing everything I’ve built.”

  “Stella.”

  Her pulse thrummed. She’d be hearing him rasp out her name in her dreams for the rest of her godforsaken life.

&n
bsp; And what kind of life is it going to be if I’m alone?

  Shoving aside the question, she tried to kiss him.

  He tilted his face, avoiding her lips. “I do love you, doll.”

  An unintelligible squeak escaped her throat. She’d waited eighteen years to hear him say that again, and it was as wonderful and terrible as she’d imagined. Her pulse raced. “I—”

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “But...”

  “This’ll hurt less if you don’t say anything.”

  She buried her face in the crook of his neck. “Less isn’t good enough. We shouldn’t have let things get this far.”

  Two hands slid down her back, cupping her ass. “So let’s figure out a way not to get hurt.”

  But that meant changing everything. All her plans.

  Fear flooded her, stiffening her muscles and filling her mouth with a metallic tang.

  “You’re scared,” he stated.

  “You figure?”

  “I am, too. You rolled into town, back into my life. Into my heart. And I’ve got a massive case to manage, and a campaign to plan. But I think it’s worth exploring if I can do those things and love you. Doesn’t anything good in life have some fear attached to it?”

  “Well, yeah. But everything you mentioned requires me to live here.”

  He looked thoughtful. “There is that.”

  “But I have a plane ticket. And an ongoing investigation. And a career to rebuild.” It was all she’d ever had.

  “And a life to live,” he said quietly. He tipped up her chin with his fingers and claimed her mouth in a long, bruising kiss.

  And she melted all over him. Crossing her legs around his hips, she gave in to the craving she’d been repressing for a week.

  “Only you feel like this,” she said, her voice a half moan.

  He lifted her off the counter and carried her over to the door, which he locked.

  “I’m going to end up naked on the couch, aren’t I?” she asked.

  He kissed her neck, mouthing a slow trail up to her jaw. “If you want to.”

  “We weren’t going to do this again.” She tipped back her head, exposing more for him to nibble on.

  He eased onto the love seat, taking her with him. Their limbs spilled over the edge. Flicking open the buttons on her shirt, he followed the path with his tongue. She writhed under his big, hard body, trying to coax him to kiss her breasts.

  “Use your words, Stella,” he teased, cupping a tender globe and sucking the tip.

  Pleasure rocketed through her. “Mmm.”

  His hand shifted, unbuttoning her jeans. “Not sure I’d call that a word.”

  “Your hand. In. My pants.” She arched her hips. “That’s five.”

  Pupils flaring, he grinned. “Like this?” One finger trailed a hot line along her pelvic bone.

  “We should be quick.” She fumbled with his belt buckle and undid his jeans, pushing them toward his hips, along with his underwear. He was long and thick, and she knew if she could just get her own pants down, he could be inside her and all would be right with the world, at least for one short moment.

  Or, knowing Ryan, not short. He’d sure as hell proved his stamina last weekend.

  Grinding against his hand, she wriggled her own jeans low, spreading her knees and cradling his hips. His fingers were pinned between them, still coaxing, building her toward the release she desperately needed. Just one more. Tide her over for a while. Forever. “Condom?”

  “Back pocket.”

  She snatched the packet with two fingers and sheathed him.

  “This is really quick, doll. You sure you don’t want to—”

  Grasping his erection, she slicked her hand down his length, mimicking exactly what she wanted from him. “Ryan, please.”

  “Anything.”

  “Just you. Just... I need to let go. To feel you—”

  He thrust into her, filling her, a sensuous, teasing stroke. “Better?”

  “Yes. No. Why can’t it be—?”

  Setting a rhythm that she’d be dreaming about for years, he slowly drove her toward the brink. She was need and pleasure, full and satisfied but wanting... The raw power of his body, the soft parts of his soul that he let her see—

  Why couldn’t she hang on to him? Make it work?

  She dug her fingers into his shoulders and reached for completion, for the stars hanging just out of reach.

  He kissed her softly. “I love you.”

  And she shattered. Clinging to him, she let out a sob. Tears pricked her eyes and she hid her face against his shoulder as she drifted back to earth.

  Thank God she was leaving. Because he was so much. More than a quickie on an ancient sofa. More than their mingled, gasping breaths. He needed to hear “I love you,” too. Deserved it. And until she could figure out how to say it, it was only fair that she board that plane and never look back.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ryan held Stella tight as he sat on the couch, waiting for his body to descend from the pinnacle of pleasure she had sent him to. Had he been given a choice, he wouldn’t have picked the Reid clinic staff room for their final intimate moment.

  Intimate moment. That’s underplaying it.

  She blew his mind. And had him thinking about solutions, impossible choices. If he was going to hang on to both her and his heart, he might have to start making some sacrifices.

  “I love you,” he murmured, kissing the soft skin by her earlobe.

  She jolted and leaped out of his embrace, leaving a hollowed, physical ache in her absence. That empty feeling? That’s going to be the rest of your life if you don’t figure something out.

  “I—Ryan, I want... I don’t know how...” She fussed with her shirt and jeans, fingers fumbling with her buttons. “We should go back to the barn separately.”

  “Why?” His brain stuttered in time with her clumsy attempts to get her clothes put to rights.

  “The court of public opinion can’t seem to decide if I’m the hero or a secret villain in a fraud investigation. You don’t need that in your life.”

  “But I need you.” His chest ached. How were they going to work this? “I’ll take you how I can get you, Stella.”

  Her shoulders slumped, and she crossed her arms. “I’ll—I’ll have to think about it.”

  “So will I, but can we at least agree to keeping the conversation open?”

  “Yeah. Okay,” she said.

  “And none of this ‘leaving separately’ BS.” After rising and fixing his own clothes, he settled a hand at her lower back and guided her toward the door.

  He expected her to shrug off the gesture, especially when they reentered the training facility, but she didn’t. The small measure of acceptance warmed him to his core.

  The high, arched ceiling had been fixed by the contractor before the work bee, and the room smelled of the wood used for the rafters and crossbeams. But he still had the scent of Stella’s skin in his nose. He smiled to himself, loving the secret moments they’d shared even if things would be a mess going forward.

  The work crew was spread out in the various rooms: the conference and teaching areas, storage spaces, the large training ring and Lachlan’s office. A few pairs of eyebrows rose in their direction as they reentered. His buddy Rafe downright glowered.

  Ryan sent his friend a cautionary look. Just because Rafe had been jerked around by his ex-wife didn’t mean it was fair to lump Stella into the “manipulative ex” category.

  He leaned down to Stella’s ear. “Too bad they ripped out the loft. We had good times up there. Could have revisited it.”

  “With one hundred percent better use of contraception,” she whispered. “We conceived a baby up there.”

  He startled. He still wasn’t used to that yet.

  H
is brain ran with the idea. The mental picture of Stella, pregnant with their child—but a year or two from now, not at eighteen—was pretty damn irresistible.

  Reminding himself that was putting the cart on an entirely different road from the horse, he gave her shoulder a stroke and asked, “Where should we get started?”

  The door opened behind them, and they both glanced back. A chattering crowd entered, a whole pack of Hallorans. Emma, Graydon and Nora, the oldest. And Georgie.

  Georgie frowned, matching Rafe’s earlier dark expression.

  Yikes.

  She wiped her feet on the brand-spanking-new doormat, as her kids dealt Ryan various looks of sympathy and spilled into the room.

  Stella looked up at Ryan, clearly concerned. He kept his hand exactly where it belonged. He was done with hiding, with worrying about what the future would bring. He knew Stella was innocent, and if his supporters couldn’t see that, that was on them. And if it impacted him? He’d deal with that when it came.

  “I hear Ryan and his deputies arrested someone for last weekend’s theft,” Stella commented to Georgie. “You must be thrilled, given how hard it is to crack a livestock case.”

  Georgie’s jaw was tight, but she nodded. “I am. And it’s pretty important to me that he’s able to keep doing what he does best. And if he’s planning to up and move to New York...”

  Stella lifted a hand, palm out. “Well, we’re not—”

  “If that’s what it takes to keep Stella,” he interrupted, shifting his palm from her back to her shoulder, “it’s not out of the picture.”

  He loved Sutter Creek. But he loved Stella more.

  Stella went rigid under his touch. Blue eyes pierced him, confusion and fear and her own measure of love mixing in their depths.

  “Ryan,” she said, the word almost a breath. Then she laughed, the sound tinny and hollow, and nudged him playfully with her elbow. “This guy, Georgie. I tell you. He’s a real joker.”

  Georgie narrowed her eyes. “Since when?”