Raeanne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One: Blackberry Summer

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” Alex asked around a mouthful of sandwich.

“You make him sound like some frat boy with a drawer full of condoms. He’s a decorated police officer. Maybe you ought to remember that and give him a little more credit.”

Alex blinked. “O-kay.” She drew out the word.

“I mean, what’s the difference between the two of you? You’re thirty-five years old and you haven’t dated any man for longer than two weeks in your life. You’ve got exactly the same commitment issues. In yourself, you consider it exercising discernment. When Riley does the same thing, you all think he’s a dog.”

“You implying I’m a female dog, Claire-a-bell? Because I can go there, if that’s what you want.”

Although Alex’s tone was mild, Claire could see the temper spark in her eyes. It jarred her back to her senses. Why was she doing this? Alex was her best friend. She loved her better than any sister.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think you’re a player, honey. You know I don’t. But Riley’s not, either.” She paused. “He’s ripped up by the accident and what happened. Layla and Taryn and…everything. Give him a break, okay?”

“Fine,” she said after a moment. “And just to show you what a kind, loving sister I am—not to mention what a good friend—I’m not even going to ask why you’re suddenly so quick to jump to his defense.”

Claire wasn’t sure she could answer that question, even if Alex had not decided to be so magnanimous.

“Now that’s out of the way, tell me the truth. How are you really feeling?”

Claire hadn’t given any thought to her assorted aches since Riley showed up with his chain saw two hours earlier.

“I don’t feel like I was dragged down the mountain behind a snowcat anymore.”

“That’s something anyway.”

“Now I’m just impatient to get back to work. I hate that I had to dump everything at the store on Evie.”

“She’s coping.” Alex rose and carried her plate to the sink, just as her brother had done. She went him one better, though, and started automatically unloading the dishwasher.

“I talked to Katherine this morning,” Claire said. Without the lifeline of her telephone, she would have gone crazy stuck here at home while she healed, not being able to even reach out to her grieving friends.

“I haven’t called in a few days,” Alex answered. “How are things?”

“She said they were placing a feeding tube through Taryn’s nose.”

“That genuinely sucks.” To Alex, who loved food and everything about creating it, Claire imagined a feeding tube would seem the worst trial a person could endure.

“Katherine said they’re talking about a long-term rehab facility for her now. Doctors said they can give her another week at the hospital while the rest of her injuries continue to heal and if she doesn’t come out of the coma by then, they’ll move her.”

So much sorrow. She couldn’t bear it. She had to do something for her friends to ease the pain a little, but she had no idea what. The usual gestures of a warm meal or a lovely card seemed wholly inadequate. She needed to do more.

“Enough of this,” Alex said, her voice firm as she closed the now-emptied dishwasher. “Let’s do something fun. I don’t have to be at the restaurant until five tonight, so I’m hanging out here with you until then.”

“You don’t have to babysit me.”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Who said I was talking to you? I’m here to visit Chester.”

At his name, her basset hound lifted his head off the rug and gave Alex the happiest look he could muster out of his droopy eyes.

“That’s right, you gorgeous cuddle monkey. You’re such a good boy. Yes, you are.” Chester obediently rose and headed over to Alex to nudge against her leg. “Chester and I are going to snuggle up and watch Charade, aren’t we, you?”

He licked her hand, his tail wagging hard enough to churn butter.

Alex grinned at the dog, then looked up at Claire. “I guess you can join us.”

“Thank you,” she said dryly.

“A perfect afternoon, right? We can admire Audrey Hepburn and her hats and moon over the lovely Cary Grant.”

It did sound perfect, she had to admit.

The only thing better would have been sharing a longer kiss with Riley.

CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_6ce3a786-3fd9-5d34-8532-987806af0550)

HE WASN’T AVOIDING CLAIRE over the next week, he was only busy.

That’s what Riley told himself anyway, as the unusually wet and cool May dripped along. He was still trying to settle into his new role as a small-town police chief, a task made more difficult by a few strident voices who didn’t want him there, led by J. D. Nyman.

He had plenty to do preparing for the preliminary court proceedings in the robberies—filling out paperwork, interviewing the other teens involved, trying to inventory the stolen items they’d recovered so that they could be returned to their rightful owners. And it wasn’t as if that little crime spree was all he had to deal with.

Throw in a half-assed knife fight at the Dirty Dog between a couple of drunk, stupid tourists, some shop-lifters at the grocery store who tried to shove a couple of pot roasts down their pants and a pair of domestic assaults and he had plenty on his plate. His obligations didn’t leave much time for social calls.

That’s what he told himself anyway. He might almost believe it, too, if not for the annoying little voice in his head that whispered the truth.

In his heart, he knew he was avoiding Claire for one reason. That kiss they shared had rocked him off his foundation and he didn’t quite know what to do about it.

Claire wasn’t the sort of women he was used to. She was soft and pretty and homey, the kind of woman who could spend months fixing a crumbling old house so her family could have a comfortable nest. She was soft quilts and warm cookies after school and flowers brimming over weathered baskets on the porch steps.

All the things he’d been running from like hell since he reached adulthood.

As he headed home from the station on Thursday evening, nearly a week after he had seen those flickering porch lights as he passed her house, Riley mulled all the reasons he needed to ignore the urge to stop by her place to check on her, the same litany of excuses he’d been telling himself every day since their shattering kiss.

As stunning as he found the experience, he knew he couldn’t repeat it.

Claire and he were entirely different. His relationships tended toward fun, casual, no-strings-attached sorts of encounters with women looking for the same thing. He knew it probably had to do with his father deserting them all when he was fourteen. As he had watched his mother’s stunned devastation in that first year after James McKnight decided he was being smothered by his family and needed to escape, Riley had decided he wasn’t going to ever be in that position, where one person could have that kind of power over him. Nor would he ever be the one doing the hurting.

He had almost married once, when he was seventeen years old and his girlfriend found out she was pregnant. The marriage would have been a disaster, he knew that now. The miscarriage she’d suffered at two months, while a tragedy at the time, had probably been one of those blessings-in-disguise things.

Riley wasn’t sure he was cut out for that life. Watching his sisters’ various marital misadventures had only reinforced that conviction. Casual and fun and flirty, that was him, where no one could end up with a broken heart.

Claire wasn’t like that. She needed a man who would stick around. Because that man wasn’t Riley—and because he couldn’t seem to spend a moment in her company without wanting to become whatever she needed—he decided he was better off staying away.

He was still telling himself that on his way home from the station that evening when he spied a kid trying to ride a bike with his arm in a cast and making no effort to dodge the puddles left by the steady rain of the day.

He smiled as he recognized Owen Bradford under the blue helmet and the Star Wars clone fighter backpack. Nice to see the kid’s broken arm wasn’t keeping him from the simple pleasures of puddle jumping. Riley had spent many a drippy day when he was a kid seeing just how high he could make the water splash.