Shelter from the Storm. RaeAnne Thayne
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let it rest but he just couldn’t seem to make himself shut up. “Why?” he pressed. “He’s good-looking, successful, probably loaded. Seems like a good catch.”
“Maybe you should date him,” she said tartly.
“I’m not the one the good doctor couldn’t take his eyes off.”
“You’re delusional. I’d be happy to refer you to a doctor who can prescribe something for that.”
He laughed, but figured he should probably change the subject before he revealed too much, like the attraction he had done his best to hide for more than a decade. Before he could come up with a conversational detour, she beat him to the punch.
“What about you?” she asked. “I heard rumors of wedding bells a few summers ago when you were dating little Cheryl White.”
“She wasn’t little,” he muttered.
“Not in physical assets, anyway. But wasn’t she barely out of high school?”
He had to admit, he was a little stung by her implication that he might be interested in jailbait. At the same time, he had to wonder why she noticed who he dated. “Cheryl was twenty-one when I started dating her. She didn’t even have to use fake ID to get into Mickey’s.”
“That must have been a relief for you. It probably would have been a little awkward to have to arrest your own girlfriend.”
It must be late, if she could tease him like this. The tension usually simmering between them was nowhere in sight as they drove through the snowy night. He savored the moment, though he was fairly certain it wouldn’t last.
“For the record, Cheryl was never my girlfriend. We only dated a few times and we never discussed wedding bells or anything else matrimony-related. You ought to know better than to listen to the Moose Springs gossips.”
Even without looking at her, he could feel her light mood trickle away like the snow melting on the windshield.
“You’re right. Absolutely right.” Her voice cooled several degrees in just a few seconds. “Who gossips to you will gossip of you, isn’t that what they say? And I certainly don’t need to be the subject of any more whispers in Moose Springs.”
The ghost of her father loomed between them and all the usual tension suddenly returned. He would have given anything to take his heedless words back, but like those snippets of gossip spreading around town, they couldn’t be recalled.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel and he made some innocuous comment about the weather. She responded in a quiet, polite voice, as if those shared moments of intimacy had never been.
It was nearly midnight when he pulled up in front of the clinic. Three or four inches of snow had fallen while they had been in the city and her aging Volvo was buried.
He reached across the space between them to his jockey box for his window scraper. The movement brought him closer to her and he was surrounded by jasmine and vanilla.
His mouth watered and his insides gave one big sigh, but he did his best to ignore his automatic reaction. He pulled out the scraper and returned to the safe side of the vehicle—but not before he heard a quick, indrawn breath from Lauren.
He chanced a look at her. The SUV was parked under a lamppost and in the pool of light, he found her blue eyes wide and her lovely features slightly pink.
He wasn’t quite sure what to think about that so decided to put it from his mind. “Wait here where it’s warm,” he ordered.
Her forehead furrowed with her frown and now any flush that might be on her features turned to annoyance. “Are you kidding? I just put seven stitches in your arm, Daniel. You wait here where it’s warm. Better yet, go on home and rest. I don’t need a police escort to scrape the snow off my car.”
“Wait here,” he repeated, in the same no-nonsense voice he used with the prisoners at the jail.
Her sigh sounded exasperated, but he didn’t let that stop him as he stepped out into the blowing cold that soaked through the layers of his coat to settle in his bones.
Nights like this made him feel all his thirty-three years—and more—and he couldn’t help but remember every single hit he took as a running back at Wyoming. He ignored the aches, especially the throb and pull of the stitches in his arm, as he brushed the snow off her car then scraped the thick ice underneath.
He wasn’t particularly surprised—just annoyed—when she joined him in the cold. She slid into the driver’s seat of her vehicle and turned over the engine. After a chugging kind of start, the motor engaged. A moment later, she emerged with another window scraper and went to work on the other side of the vehicle.
When the windows were clear, she stood back. “Thank you for your help,” she murmured. “And for the ride.”
He didn’t want it to end, he realized, as tense and uncomfortable as things became at the end there.
How pathetic was that?
“Don’t you have any gloves?” he asked. “Your hands are going to be freezing by the time you get home.”
“They’re around somewhere. I keep buying pairs and losing them between here and my house.”
He reached into the pocket of his parka. “Here. Take mine. I’ve got an extra pair in the squad vehicle.”
Her mouth lifted slightly. “No offense, Sheriff, but your hands are a little bigger than mine.” She waggled delicate fingers that would be dwarfed by his gloves and he felt huge and awkward. “Thank you for the offer but it’s only half a mile. I should be fine.”
“Good night, then,” he said. “Thanks again for your help earlier stitching me up.”
“You’re welcome. Be careful of those sutures.”
She smiled a little and it took all his willpower to keep from reaching between them, tucking her into his warmth and kissing the tired corner of that mouth.
She climbed into the Volvo and he returned to his Tahoe as she slowly pulled out of the parking lot into the deserted streets, her tires crunching on snow.
He pulled out behind her and they seemed to be the only fools out on the road on a cold January night. Everybody else must be snuggled together at home.
Okay, he didn’t need that image in his head. Suddenly the only thing he could think about was cuddling under a big quilt with Lauren in front of a crackling fire while the snow pelted the windows, her soft body wrapped around him and jasmine and vanilla seducing his senses.
Reality was light-years away from fantasy—so far it would have been amusing if he didn’t find it so damn depressing as he followed her through the snowy streets.
She lived on the outskirts of town, in a trim little clapboard house set away from her neighbors, the last house before the mountains. When they reached it, Lauren pulled into her garage and slid from her Volvo. In the dim garage light, he could clearly see her exasperated look as she waved him on.
He shook his head and gestured to the house. He waited until the lights came on inside and the garage door closed completely before he drove off into the snowy night.
She stood at her living room window watching Daniel’s big SUV cruise slowly down the street.
How very like him to follow her home simply to ensure she made it in safely. It wasn’t necessary. The distance between the clinic and her house wasn’t far. Even if her ancient car sputtered and gave out on the way, she could easily walk home—in good weather, she walked to and from work all the time.
Yet Daniel had been concerned enough to take time out of his busy schedule to follow her home. A slow, steady warmth spread out from her core as she watched his taillights disappear in the snow.
She shouldn’t feel so warm and comforted by his simple gesture, as if those big,