When I return, intending to lie beside her and hold her, she’s sitting up with the sheet beneath her chin, covering her tits.
“You’re welcome to stay the night if you’d like, but I’m going to go take a shower.”
Her body still looks relaxed, but her smile isn’t. And there’s a strange expression on her face.
“Be back in a bit.” She leaves the bed and enters the bathroom. The door closes firmly.
Well, shit. I think that strange expression means she’s coming down with a case of regret.
Thoughts racing, I walk naked into the kitchen to get a drink of water and think about my next step. I can’t start talking about my feelings for her because I don’t think she’d welcome that.
I don’t know what I should do or say. I pace the living room and when I turn around, I glance at the empty cat bed. Wait a second.
My stomach tightens. When we got to her house and she unlocked the door, the cat was nearby. Please tell me she didn’t dart out. Stormy would be devastated if her pet was lost.
Everyone in town knows how much she adores Checkers. Rumor has it that her elderly neighbor even knitted a sweater for the cat.
I quickly snatch a bath towel from the folded stack on the sofa, wrap it around my waist and rush to the yank open the front door. I peer out onto the porch.
Something rustles in the bushes nearby. I turn on the porch light, but its glow is pitiful. Dammit.
I can’t take a chance that her cat got out and is hiding in the bushes.
I step gingerly onto the porch. “Kitty? Checkers? Come here girl.”
The rustling gets louder.
I’m going to have to go investigate. I hurry down the steps wishing I’d thought to get my phone to use as a light.
“Come here, darlin’. Be a good girl and come to your future daddy.”
Something runs by me toward the road and I catch a flash of white on a small face.
“Checkers!” I spin around and sprint after it. My towel snags on something and falls. I stumble over it and keep going. I’ll get that after I secure the cat.
I’m on full display but I can’t let—what the fuck? I stop and stare at the animal backed against my truck tire. A damn racoon? I put my hands on my hips. “Were you the one in the bushes?”
A car screeches to a stop in front of Stormy’s house, and I shade my eyes against the glare of the headlights.
“Alright, buddy. I can see all of you, now let me see your hands.”
Clint Hall, the new deputy motions me forward.
I cover my junk with my hands. “Wait a second. There might be a misunderstanding here.”
Stormy’s elderly neighbor thrusts open a window and leans her head out. “I told the sheriff last week I thought there was a Peeping Tom. I think he came from Clover County.”
“I’m—” I start to defend myself and say I was with Stormy but then stop. If I say that, it’ll be all over town before sunup that I was naked with her. And I want to protect her reputation. So I amend it to, “I have a towel somewhere behind me.”
“Oh, that’s just nasty,” the elderly neighbor screeches. “Wanking off in the bushes! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“Show me your hands!”
I put my hands up. “Is Deputy Jackson Parker on duty? He knows me.”
“Is that right?” The deputy spins me around and slaps cuffs on me. Then I’m told I’m under arrest.
The elderly neighbor comes outside clutching her robe under her chin. She’s carrying a huge flashlight and sweeps the beam quickly across Stormy’s yard. “There’s no towel,” she says triumphantly.
