The Sheriff's Secret Wife

“Tammy brought me a raw steak for my eye.”

“With a healthy side order of cleavage and fawning.”

His gaze dropped from her face to her chest. Racy knew the flimsy cotton tank top was no match against the purple satin push-up bra filled with her own generous assets. She tightened her arms beneath her breasts and took a deep breath.

A single tic danced over his jaw. Served him right.

His gaze moved higher and lingered on her neck. She had to fight to keep her hand from going to her throat. The love bite he’d left above her collarbone was long gone. It had taken almost three weeks for the mark to disappear, but the memory of how she’d gotten it, and who’d given it to her, remained powerfully strong.

Especially when the man was standing right in front of her.

His eyes locked with hers again. “I think your Belles lead by your example.”

“Your deputies must do the same. Tammy’s got a busier social life than Britney Spears and Paris Hilton put together.”

“Present company excluded. I’m not interested in Tammy.”

He backed up a few steps and yanked off his hat. A quick push of his fingers through his dark hair left spiky tufts standing on end. They disappeared when he returned the Stetson to its proper place. “My point is Gina could be teaching at any college in the country.”

“She’s twenty-two years old.” Racy broke in, glad he was backing off about the bar fight. And from her. She was still reeling from his statement about not being interested in her waitress. Why, she didn’t want to consider. “Your sister wants to have some fun, meet people and wear sexy jeans.”

“That’s not Gina.”

“Maybe you don’t know her as well as you think.” Racy pushed away from the desk and took a wide circle around him. Not wide enough. Her bare arm brushed against his jacket as she headed for the door. The movement caused goose bumps to skate down to her fingers.

He followed. “We’re not finished here.”

“Yes, we are. I’m not firing Gina.”

“This isn’t about Gina. It’s about us.”

Racy’s hand tightened on the doorknob as she wrenched it open. “Nice try in changing tactics, but there is no ‘us.’”

“I’m talking about Vegas.”

One booted foot hesitated at the threshold. A rocking country song that warned of T-R-O-U-B-L-E rang in the rafters. “We agreed to never bring that up again.” She tossed the words over her shoulder.

Gage’s arm shot out.

His palm landed against the doorjamb blocking her exit. “If you keep walking, I’m going to follow.” He leaned in, his mouth at her ear in order to be heard over the loud music. “Do you want everyone to find out we’re still married?”

Racy’s vision blurred at his hotly whispered words. “What?”

Gage pulled her back into the office and kicked the door closed. He turned her to face him, the warmth of his touch on her bare shoulders searing her skin. He placed one hand beneath her chin and gently forced her to look him in the eye.

“Did you hear what I said?”

His rich baritone voice, barely above a whisper, caused a brand-new Vegas memory to spring to life. Five months ago he’d asked her the very same question. About what, she couldn’t remember, but the recall left her feeling warm and fuzzy.

“Racy?”

She locked the memory away with the rest from that night and twisted free from his hold. “You’re lying!”

“I’m—what? Why would I lie about something like this?”

She didn’t know, but he had to be. How could they—no, they couldn’t. They couldn’t still be married! Two hours in that stuffy lawyer’s office had taken care of the legal mumbo jumbo before they’d left Vegas. “If you’re playing some sick game—”

A loud buzz cut off her words and brought forth a classic F-bomb she’d never heard Gage utter before. He grabbed the two-way radio from the belt clip at his hip and brought it to his mouth. “Steele here.”

“Sheriff, Deputy Harris here.”

His eyes never wavered from her. “What is it, Harris?”

Racy listened as the calm voice of one of her best friends filled the air. “We caught some kids drag racing on Razor Hill Road. Got one driver. Still in pursuit of the second.”

“Fine, bring ‘em in.”

“Ah, Sheriff … Garrett is the driver.”

His younger brother. Gage’s eyes closed, but Racy still caught the shadow of fear in their blue depths.

“Was he—was anyone hurt?”

“Negative.”

He released a held breath and opened his eyes. “Okay, I’ll meet you at the office.”

“Roger that. We’re on our—wait one,” a crackle came from the walkie-talkie before Leeann came back on. “Deputy Bailey just pulled up. He’s got the second driver in custody.”

“Good. Contact the parents of the other driver.”

“Sheriff, the other driver is Giselle.”

Racy bit back a choke of laughter, but part of it escaped in a loud oomph. Gage and Gina’s twin siblings, both seniors at Destiny High School, caught drag racing. Each other.

Hell, she’d done the same thing many times as a teen in her father’s rattrap of a pickup that hid a killer engine. Usually against Bobby Winslow, who never seemed to get caught. But she had been, and her old man had left her overnight in jail while he and her brothers went on a bender in Cheyenne.

She doubted the Steele twins faced the same fate.

Gage’s eyes narrowed as he took in her attempt to hold back her amusement. “I’m on my way. And take their cell phones. They aren’t to talk to anyone until I get there.”

“Their cell phones?” Racy asked.

Gage ended the call and jammed the radio back on his hip. “Those two will call our mother with a sob story so fast, she’ll end up lecturing me instead of them.”

Racy didn’t doubt it. Sandy Steele was well known for her nurturing. Racy had experienced it firsthand years ago when the woman had provided a hot meal, a homemade quilt and a soft pillow to a scared teenage girl who’d spent the night in one of her husband’s jail cells.

The heat of Gage’s touch as he grabbed her hand and slapped an envelope into it yanked Racy back to the present.