Talk Me Down

“Did what?”

Ben set his cup down with a thunk. “I’d better go.”

“It’s been ten years, Ben. I just wanted to apologize. I should never have walked in like that. And I certainly shouldn’t have watched.”

He froze in the act of turning away. His muscles seized up as prickly heat spread over his skin and horror turned his stomach. “Excuse me?”

“I didn’t know you had, um, company. And then I was just…”

“What the hell do you mean, you watched?”

“Oh…well…”

“No. I looked up and you were standing there in the doorway. You’d just walked in.”

“Yeah, um…there may have been a few seconds between my walking in and you noticing me. You were a little distracted by that blonde. She was—”

“I know what she was doing. Jesus, Molly.”

“Right. Anyhoo…I just wanted to say I’m sorry if I caused you any embarrassment.”

Embarrassment? More like abject torture. Mortification. Guilt. The knowledge that he’d corrupted a young girl. The utter shock in her eyes when Ben had looked up to see her there, both hands pressed to her mouth. The endless moment when his muscles had refused to react, when he’d tried to stop his date’s avid attentions. Ben hadn’t been able to fully enjoy a blow job for two years afterwards.

And now Molly was confessing that she’d been standing there for…how long?

“Oh, Jesus.” He pressed a sweaty hand to his fore head. “You were just a kid.”

“Ah…Yeah, not really. I lost my virginity that night, and I turned eighteen a week later. And then there was college.”

“Stop it!” Ben slammed both hands over his ears. “Oh, my God!”

Her muffled laugh echoed through his head. “Ben, what is wrong with you?”

A picture of himself suddenly flashed before his eyes. He was standing in Molly Jennings’s kitchen with his eyes clenched shut and his hands over his ears. Ben forced his heart to slow and lowered his hands. A little dignity here, Chief.

He let out a long breath. “You were like a little sister to me. It was very disturbing.”

“Oh, it disturbed me as well. But if it makes you feel any better…” She leaned closer as if to confess a secret. One corner of her soft mouth quirked up. “You were never like a brother to me, Ben Lawson.”

“I…”

She leaned closer still, just six inches away. Ben could smell coffee and something soft and sweet. Her shampoo or lotion or some other feminine thing. Her lips flushed a dusky pink that drew his eyes like a magnet as they smiled at him.

“And you definitely weren’t like a brother to me after that night.”

“Molly…” Good God. “I don’t suppose you’re just staying for the winter, are you?”

She pulled back and frowned. “No, why?”

“No reason. I’ve gotta go. Get a real car and check the flue before you fire up the woodstove. Bye.”

“Thank you, Officer!” she called as he rushed for the door.

The cold air slapped him back to reality as soon as he stepped outside. Ben slammed the door behind him and made himself stop rushing. He rolled his shoulders and set his jaw.

Yes, Molly had grown up into a hot woman, but she was still off-limits. Nothing had changed. Nada.

He was almost to his truck when a white pickup approached from the west. It slowed, coming nearly to a stop before it rolled by Ben’s truck. Through the window, Ben spied the gawking, wrinkled face of Miles Webster, proprietor of the town’s biweekly newspaper, if one could call it that.

“Shit,” Ben whispered.

He met Miles’s eyes, careful not to show trepidation or guilt. You’ve got nothing on me, old man, he transmitted through his gaze. Then the man’s eyes shifted, and Ben followed, turning to look toward Molly’s house.

There she stood, waving, framed like a picture in the doorway, the early morning light glowing off her bare legs.

“Oh, shit,” Ben groaned.

Miles offered a smug grin when Ben turned back, then he sped off in a cloud of diesel fumes.

Ben had managed to stay out of the paper’s gossip section for thirty-two years. Come Thursday that was going to change.

And if there was anything he hated more than secrets, it was scandal.

HER COMPUTER SEEMED to be purring at her when Molly sat down to work that morning. Or maybe that was just her body. She’d gotten her groove back and she could feel it. Hoo-yeah.

She knew what her next story would be. Months had passed with not a flicker of an idea, but now she knew.

A serious, hard-jawed cowboy. No, wait. A sheriff. Not in a mountain town though. She’d made that mistake before. She would use Ben Lawson again, but only for inspiration this time, not as the flesh-and-blood man made into fantasy.

Her first story, the one that had made her into a star, the one that still sold better than any of her other books…that had been far too close for comfort. She’d written about Ben, about that night. She’d even identified him as the best friend of the heroine’s older brother. In a small mountain town. In Colorado. Then suddenly her first attempt at erotic fiction had been sold, published, and read by thousands…and it was far too personal. She couldn’t tell anyone what she’d done.

The big secret of her life had been entirely accidental, but she supposed it was for the best. She had a wonderful career that she loved, a decent income, and a little mystery to go along with her boring life. And now she had her muse back.

That first book had been her most inspired, but she had a feeling she could make this one even hotter. She was older and wiser and she had a few good ideas of what she’d like to do with a certain hard-jawed police chief.

“Sheriff,” she corrected herself. “A sheriff in a Wild West town with dark brown eyes and a heart of steel. And maybe some kinky needs he just can’t satisfy with the God-fearing women of the county.”

Molly giggled in guilty delight. Oh, yeah. The sheriff is a lonely man until a mysterious widow moves in next door. A widow who leaves her curtains open at night, lamps blazing. Even an angel would be tempted to watch the show, and the sheriff is far from angelic. But indecent exposure is a crime, and the lawman is determined to make her pay with his own special kind of private discipline.

She pictured Ben in his jeans—unbuttoned—and his black cowboy hat tilted low over his face, and nothing else.

“This,” Molly murmured as she typed the first few words, “is going to be good.”

CHAPTER THREE (#u26a6b4c7-0275-59f9-9037-129c265a9608)

STRIPPER.

Ben wrote the word in his notebook in black ink and underlined it. Then he crossed it off.