He kissed me again, a soft, lingering kiss, and rolled off me to get rid of the condom. I missed him instantly, so I turned to my side to watch him. His green eyes were soft in the dim lighting, and I considered snuggling closer and going to sleep with him, then waking up in his arms. But I shouldn’t. I’d already indulged in escapism long enough. I needed to get dressed and go. Not that I wanted to. This was fantasy, and outside this motel room, reality was there to bite me in the butt.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t ignore it, so with a sigh I pushed myself up to sit.
“You know, if you weren’t already married to Poplar Springs, I think you might be the perfect man for me.” I put a note of teasing in my voice, setting the tone for my departure.
He grinned, making my heart beat faster. He was sweet, handsome, and sexy as sin. That hadn’t changed about him. But neither had his dedication to a town I’d be happy to never see again. “If you ever revise your policy against returning to our hometown, I’ll be the first in line to buy you a drink,” he promised.
We were joking, but there was a current running between us. There always had been, and it seemed even stronger now.
“Gotta go,” I said and gave him a last kiss on the lips before forcing myself out of the bed and finding my clothes.
“You know I’m more than half serious, right?” he said as I was sticking my feet into my boots. “If you come home…”
I shook my head. That was one thing I could never do. Poplar Springs held nothing but terrible memories for me. Not to mention, my parents were still there. I controlled the shiver that went through me. While they hadn’t been physically abusive, they’d understood all too well how to make me and my brother miserable without laying a finger on either of us. I’d gotten out of that house as fast as possible, knowing I could never go back.
Moving to Texas and choosing not to return had been the best decision for me. I needed to get as far away from my past as possible. I’d found my way once before and I’d figure it out again despite how hopeless my situation felt right now.
“Can’t,” I said, no longer able to keep up the teasing tone. “Bye, Brian. Tonight meant a lot to me. I hope you know that.” I couldn’t say any more without tears coming to my eyes, so I left the room. It was late, and I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the night with him and wake up beside him tomorrow morning. But this special night where I felt valued and beautiful was nothing more than a fantasy. It was time to get back to reality.
THREE
BRIAN
Iarrived at the station earlier than I’d intended, but I was restless, and tossing and turning in bed wasn’t getting me anywhere. Besides, I had a lot of work to do the closer we got to the rodeo. There was another stack of permits sitting on my desk to review and Amy had sent over the list of planned vendors and where she hoped to place them. I needed to make sure there wouldn’t be any bottlenecks with traffic, and I needed to meet up with Rex Brady, our fire marshal, so we could sign off on the planned layout together. It helped that most everything would be outdoors, but there were still concerns about the traffic to and from the high school where the rodeo was being held.
Then there were the personal issues that were weighing on me.
I still couldn’t fully wrap my head around having an older brother again. While Cal looked like Luke, I was cautiously hopeful that he was nothing like him. At least the worst parts. Where Luke could be callous and petty when things didn’t go his way, I didn’t see that trait in Cal. But it’d only been a few days. Things could still go badly, and if that happened, I’d need to protect my mom and Amy from the fallout.
And also, there was Caitlin. Running into her at the bar and then our time in that motel room had been a fantasy come to life. We’d always been good together, but what we shared the other night felt like so much more.
Except, judging from the way she rushed out of there, she didn’t feel the same way.
A car door slammed, snapping me out of my thoughts, and I watched my chief deputy, Sofia Alvarez, and Mack Kilpatrick, another deputy, walk inside the station. Sofia was carrying a pastry box from Carly’s Coffee and Treats, and my mouth watered in anticipation of eating one of her apple fritters.
“Morning, boss,” Mack said.
Sofia brushed past me into the small kitchen and set the pastry box down. I followed her and was already lifting the lid when she reached for a cup. The box was still warm and the sweet scent of cinnamon and sugar along with baked apples quickly filled the room.
“Morning,” I said to the room, lifting a fritter out of the box and setting it on a plate. Turning, I nodded to Sofia. “And thanks for this. I left the house without eating breakfast this morning.”
Sofia poured herself a cup of coffee and took a large sip, slurping it through her teeth to cool it faster. After her third slurp, she refilled the cup and added creamer before finally turning around. She looked exhausted.
“Damn, long night?” She wasn’t on duty last night but that didn’t mean she didn’t get called in. Much like me, my chief deputy was a workaholic.
“Something like that,” she muttered before reaching for a fritter. I watched her nose twitch, and she set it back down.
Ah.Looked like a hangover was the issue. It wasn’t my job to parent my team about how they spent their off hours, so long as it didn’t impact their ability to work. I opened the cabinet above the fridge and pulled out the bottle of ibuprofen and set it on the counter next to her without saying a word and returned to my office.
Two hours later, I was falling asleep at my desk and desperate to do anything but this mind-numbing paperwork. Gathering the papers, I tapped them on my desk before shoving everything back in the file.
“Going out,” I announced to the room and got a nod from Mack. Lois was on the phone, and she lifted a finger for me to wait, so I paused while she finished the call.
Lois has worked for the sheriff’s office answering the phones and directing visitors nearly as long as anyone could remember. She’d been a newlywed when she’d taken the receptionist job and been a dedicated asset to every sheriff and deputy who came through these doors for almost fifty years. I appreciated everything she did for us. She also knew damn near everyone in this town, which came in handy on the rare occasion we actually had to solve a crime.
Poplar Springs, Colorado, wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity unless you counted a mountain lion stealing a chicken or the property damage from loose livestock.
“I’ll be on the radio, if you need anything,” I told Lois.
