Chloe had done everything asked of her. And yet it still wasn’t enough. Feeling a tightening in her chest that might have been anxiety or an oncoming asthma attack, she pulled out her inhaler and took a puff.
“Already?” Maddie asked with some concern. “You’re having trouble breathing today already?”
Chloe shrugged. In times of stress, they all had their ways of coping. Maddie mainlined potato chips. Tara cooked. Chloe used her inhaler. “Maybe I don’t want to settle down.”
“Everyone does eventually,” Maddie said.
“I don’t think it’s for me.” Not looking at either sister, Chloe added more soap to the hot water and dug into the pile of dishes, searching for happy thoughts. Chocolate. Puppies. Rainbows.
Guys.
Yeah, guys always worked as a nice distraction. She thought of Matt Bowers, the sexy forest ranger she’d seen at the gym. Then there was Dr. Josh Scott, the ER doc. She’d met him during a particularly rough asthma attack when she’d landed in the ER on his shift, and they’d since run into each other several times. He’d asked Chloe out but she’d been too busy balancing her travels with the inn. Maybe it was time to sync their schedules and play doctor together.
And then there was Cute Guy. She didn’t know his name. He was a new Lucky Harbor resident and a real mystery. He’d moved into a house on the bluffs, an expensive one. Even the Facebook mavens had been caught by surprise. No one knew what Cute Guy did or who he was, but Chloe had seen him at the grocery store, and he was H-O-T.
And yet as she washed the last pot, it was a different man entirely who popped into her head and made her breath catch—the one who wore both a gun and a bad attitude with such wild sexiness that he’d begun to haunt her dreams.
As had their kiss. Yowza, that kiss. She’d been ignoring him just fine before that. “Damn sheriff,” she muttered, scrubbing hard at the reticent pot.
“Sawyer?” Tara asked.
Chloe closed her eyes. “No, that’s my point. Not Sawyer. I want Matt. Or Josh. Or Cute Guy. Hell, even Anderson at the hardware store. Not the sheriff, thank you very much.”
What followed was such an awkward silence that Chloe could feel it blister her back. With her stomach knotting on itself, she turned to face the room.
Sawyer stood in the back doorway, in uniform, armed, silent, filling up the entire room with his presence.
There was a long beat during which nobody breathed.
“Nothing personal,” Chloe said to Sawyer with as much dignity as she could muster, which wasn’t much. But hell, she had to be the last woman on the planet that he’d pick, too, so no harm no foul, she figured. Except their gazes were locked now, reminding her of how his mouth had felt slanted over hers, hot and hungry, and a sudden, rather powerful longing filled her.
Okay, time to get the hell out of Dodge. She needed to think. Preferably alone, on top of a mountain somewhere. As for what Sawyer needed, it was hard to tell. He was a rock when he wanted to be.
Tara handed him a mug of coffee to go. “Guess you’re wishing you’d stopped at Starbucks this morning, huh?” she quipped, clearly trying to lighten the tension.
“Can’t go into places like that in uniform,” Sawyer told her.
“Why not?”
“Sometimes people spit in the food or drinks when they see a cop.”
“Well, in all my born days,” Tara murmured, her accent thickening with her temper as she spoke into the horrified silence.
Chloe shut off the water and stared at Sawyer, her unhappy awkwardness replaced with something that felt like possessive protectiveness. “Why would you do it then, be a cop, just to be treated like that?”
“You mean besides the glory?” he asked dryly, then shrugged. “I’m good at it.”
She knew he was. He was doggedly determined and aggressive behind that calm veneer, which served his job well. It probably served him well in other areas too.
Like in bed.
Sawyer looked into the bowl of avocado/mayo mix. “What’s that?”
“Not dip,” Maddie said quickly.
“It’s hair conditioner,” Tara told him. “For the frizzies.”
Everyone looked at Sawyer’s wind tousled, fawn-colored hair. It fell thick and silky to his collar. No frizzies, the bastard.
“I think I’m good,” he said. He was leaning back against the counter, clearly right at home, feet casually crossed, long legs at rest, the muscles of his thighs pressing against the material of his uniform.
Yeah, he was good…“Your skin’s dry.” Chloe nodded to the bottle next to the conditioner, which held a special blend of vitamin E and tea tree oil in a petroleum jelly base. “That’d cure your problem.” Though she had nothing to cure the big, bad, broody thing he had going on. “That is, if you’re not still afraid I’m going to poison you…”
He looked at her steadily, then picked up the bottle, which looked small and feminine in his big hand. Very gingerly, as if maybe he was holding a bomb, he lifted the lid and took a sniff. “Smells like flowers.”
“Does that threaten your manhood?” Chloe asked.
Tara opened her mouth to object, but Sawyer laughed, the sound low and slightly rusty, as if he didn’t have a lot of reason to laugh lately.
“Use it twice a day,” Chloe said. “And you’ll be glowing in no time. Just like Maddie here.”
He looked like he wanted to say something about Maddie’s “glow” but he squelched it. Smart man.
“I heard about what’s been going on,” Tara said to him. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Sawyer said. “It’s another angioplasty. He’ll be fine.”
Tara paused. “I meant at work. Who’s having an angioplasty?”
Sawyer sighed. “My father. It’s just routine. He’s too ornery to let a heart problem slow him down.” His face was calm and blank. The cop face again, which meant he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Tell us about the robber,” Maddie said.
“What robber?” Chloe asked.
Maddie looked at Sawyer, who just sipped his coffee.
“He single-handedly caught the convenience store robber,” Tara told Chloe. “You didn’t see it? It was all over the papers. I emailed you the link.”
Hmm. Maybe she should’ve checked her e-mail last night instead of hanging out with Lance. “The convenience store got held up?”
“And Sawyer was outside the store when the thief made a run for it,” Tara said. “Money falling out of his pockets as he went.”
Sawyer shook his head, like he still couldn’t believe the stupidity of the guy.
“Sawyer chased him in his car,” Tara went on. “And then on foot, with innocent people getting barreled over by the suspect. The librarian broke her ankle.”
Chloe gasped. “Ms. Bunyan?”
Tara nodded. “Finally Sawyer pulled his gun and got a few shots off before tackling the guy to the ground. By the time the rest of the cavalry came, Sawyer had the guy subdued and cuffed.”
Chloe stared at Sawyer, who was looking mildly annoyed. “Really?” she asked him.
“No. Ms. Bunyan broke her ankle when she came running out of her house looking at her cell phone instead of where she was going, trying to record a video for YouTube. She was nowhere close to the action.”
“But there was action, right?” Maddie asked. “Gunshots?”
“No gunshots,” he said.
“Well, damn,” Maddie said, disappointed. “I like Tara’s version better.”
Chloe didn’t. Not at all. She was glad there’d been no shots fired, but that still left the chase, the tackle, the wrestling…It wasn’t the first time she’d been forcibly reminded of how dangerous Sawyer’s job could be, but she marveled just the same at the ease in which he faced it all, day in and day out. “Are you okay?”
Sawyer met her gaze. Right. He was always okay. And if he wasn’t, no one would ever know otherwise because he’d keep it to himself. The thought made her wonder if maybe they didn’t have more in common with each other than she’d imagined possible.
“The paper said that the perp was in the middle of a divorce, and he just snapped,” Tara said. “His ex is taking him to the cleaner’s, and he’s going around stealing money to pay his lawyers. Takes all kinds of crazy.”
Sawyer nodded, and Chloe had to laugh at the resigned look on his face. Clearly he had seen the “all kinds of crazy.”
“You were definitely the talk of the town yesterday,” Maddie said. “Our hero.” She grinned as he grimaced and pushed away from the counter.
“But that’s not all that happened to you yesterday,” Tara said.
Sawyer slanted her a look. “Yes, it is.”
“Nope. You also got called to Mrs. Abbott’s house.”
“Which turned out to be nothing,” Sawyer said.
“Not exactly nothing,” Maddie broke in.
“Maddie.” Sawyer’s voice was meant to scold, but he actually sounded patient and maybe slightly amused. Definitely gentle.
Chloe was fascinated by this glimpse of a gentle Sawyer. But then again, Maddie inspired that in a man.
Chloe sure as hell didn’t. “What happened? Is Mrs. Abbott okay?”
“Mrs. Abbott’s fine,” Sawyer said.
“Only because you rode in on your white horse to save the day.” Maddie turned to Chloe. “Her smoke alarm went off, and Sawyer got there first.”
“Oh no,” Chloe said, genuinely dismayed. Mrs. Abbott was a favorite of hers. Chloe made her a special moisturizer weekly, the only thing that helped ease the older woman’s psoriasis symptoms. They had tea, and Mrs. Abbott would regale Chloe with tales of her wild youth. “Was there a fire?”
“No.” Clearly trying to get out before Maddie finished her story, Sawyer moved to the door.
Chloe tore her gaze off his very fine ass and glanced at her sister.
“No fire,” Maddie assured her. “And not twenty minutes later, the smoke alarm went off again. And then again, with Sawyer responding each time.”
Sawyer stopped with a sigh. “Only once more, not twice.”
“I have got to start reading Facebook,” Chloe said. “What was wrong?”
Maddie grinned. “Her smoke alarm needed a new battery.”
“Aw,” Chloe said. “Those things are a bitch.”
“No, the ‘aw’ is that Sawyer went to the store for her and bought a battery,” Maddie said. “Then he came back and put it in for her. So sweet.”
Sawyer looked pained. “Not sweet, a necessity. I was tired of driving out there.”
“Sweet,” Maddie repeated.
Chloe snorted, and Sawyer’s eyes cut to hers. “Like you’d want to be called sweet,” he said.
“Not me,” she said. “But then again, I’m not even halfway close to sweet.”
And truthfully, neither was he, she thought. He was big and bad and alpha and gorgeous and smart and brave and loyal…
But not sweet. Hell, no.
“It’s okay,” Tara told him, patting his shoulder. “Your secret’s safe with us.”
“Bullshit if it is,” he grumbled. “You’ll tell Ford and Jax. And Jax’s such a girl that he’ll tell…everyone.”
“And what’ll happen then?” Chloe asked. “Will they revoke your man card?”
In tune to Maddie’s and Tara’s laughter, Sawyer muttered something beneath his breath about the entire female gender and was gone.
Chapter 7
“Always remember, you’re unique.
Just like everyone else.”
Chloe Traeger
The next day Sawyer was sitting in the hospital, waiting to hear how his father’s surgery had gone. The TV was tuned to some soap opera, and there was no remote in sight. After two hours, he was feeling a little trigger happy and might have shot the thing, but Chloe showed up. She plopped down next to him.
“All My Children?” she asked. “Didn’t peg you as the type.”
“I’m not watching it.”
She made the exaggerated motion of checking out the room.
He was the only one in it.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What are you doing here?”
She handed him a bag. “Bringing you pick-me-up muffins from Tara. Banana–chocolate chip. She says they can fix anything.”
Well, that explained her presence. Tara had sent her on a Good Samaritan errand. There were four muffins in the sack. He handed one to her and started in on the other three, finishing them before she’d finished hers.
“Hey. How’s that a fair division?” she asked.
“Weight ratio.”
She slid her eyes over his body, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she also sucked in a breath, but all she said was “Hmm.”
She finished her muffin before she said, “Oh! Almost forgot!” and pulled out a thermos from her huge purse. “Milk.”
He offered her the first sip, and when she shook her head, he downed it.
“Better?” she asked.
He nodded, and she laughed softly. “Don’t hog all the words, Sheriff.” Not appearing overly insulted, she settled in next to him, leaning back in the uncomfortable chair, her legs stretched in front of her, crossed at the ankles.
“I figure we can do this one of two ways,” she said. “Awkward silence, or I could keep talking and you can pretend to listen.”