A Lawman for Christmas Read online

  Now that he had opened the door, he couldn’t very well shut it in her face, even though talking about this hurt like hell.

  “Beth was my wife.”

  “You’re divorced?”

  The moment stretched out between them until she could almost swear she heard it creaking. And then he finally said, “No.”

  The moment the word was out, she understood. Understood and felt horribly guilty, ashamed and a whole host of other emotions that all but stampeded right over her. He meant that his wife was dead. And she had stirred that up for him.

  “And your daughter?” she asked hoarsely. She’d come this far, she had to know.

  This time, Morgan didn’t answer. He just looked at her and she saw it, saw the anguish that was in his soul reflected in his eyes.

  “Oh God,” she whispered, her heart aching for him. “How?”

  His voice was flat, emotionless and all the more frightening for it. “Does it matter?”

  “No,” she answered quietly. Telling him that she asked because she felt for him, wanted to share his pain, to make it an iota lighter, didn’t seem appropriate right now. He wouldn’t believe her anyway. “I am so sorry, Morgan. I didn’t mean to hurt you by bringing it up. I was just…”

  His eyes darkened. “Just what?”

  The whisper sent chills down her spine. They weren’t the kind of chills she would have welcomed. “I was just afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  Back away. Make something up. Just get out of there, she ordered herself.

  But instead of saying something vague and shrugging him off, Kelsey heard herself telling him the truth. “Of being sucked in again. Of being made a fool of.”

  Kelsey dragged her hand through her hair and blew out a none-too-steady breath. She didn’t talk about this, ever, not to her brothers, not even to her mother who knew everything else about her. But she owed Morgan a measure of penance for stirring up memories he clearly would have preferred leaving undisturbed and for storming in on him in the first place.

  Wanting to pace, she forced herself to remain still. “I was—for lack of a better word—involved with a policeman a little over a year ago. He was handsome, charming and so wonderful I kept wanting to pinch myself because I couldn’t believe he was real.”

  “Let me guess—he wasn’t.”

  “My story, let me tell it my way,” Kelsey instructed, struggling to keep her voice matter-of-fact. It wasn’t easy. She pressed her lips together, then continued. “I wound up falling in love with him. He even talked about marrying me.”

  She was laying herself bare. The hurt in her voice burrowed into his indifference. “So what happened? Your brothers run him off?”

  Kelsey laughed shortly. “My brothers would have killed him if they’d found out.”

  “That he was sleeping with you?”

  She gave a half shrug. “That would have gotten them perturbed. What would have ticked them off was finding out that Dan was married.” Kelsey didn’t want to continue explaining. She looked at Morgan, praying he would connect the dots and understand. That he would forgive her over-the-top reaction. “So when I saw that photograph in your wallet—”

  “You jumped to conclusions,” Donnelly finished for her.

  From where she stood, it sounded like a harsh accusation. But she knew she deserved it. She had no business invading his privacy, no real business going through his wallet.

  Kelsey nodded. “I have a tendency of doing that. I’m sorry.” Kelsey rounded out her apology. “I shouldn’t have gone through your wallet. I shouldn’t have carried on like that. And I wouldn’t have if I didn’t—”

  She stopped abruptly. Too much, she was giving away too much. He had enough for a valid apology. She’d ripped out her heart, she didn’t have to barbecue it. Exhaling slowly, she vainly sought some source of inner calm.

  But that still eluded her. “If you have no objections, Officer Donnelly, I really would like to start over.”

  He looked like an immobile statue as he said, “I wouldn’t.”

  “Oh.” Okay, what did she do with that? she wondered, a sinking feeling in her stomach taking hold. She needed some kind of graceful exit line.

  Nothing came to mind.

  “Mistakes are to learn from,” he told her. “With any luck, they wind up making you a better person.”

  Morgan paused again, wrestling with words he knew were going to hurt if he said them. But she had put herself out there to make amends. He could do no less.

  “I lost Beth and Amy two and a half years ago to a drunk driver. That was just after my father had killed himself. With my service revolver.”

  “Oh God.”

  He continued as if he hadn’t heard her. He laughed shortly, shaking his head. “It seems oddly ironic that everything bad in my life involved alcohol somehow. My father used to drink because he couldn’t handle life without my mother. Drank himself right into a stroke. He didn’t die, although he wanted to, but he was paralyzed from the waist down. That made him feel like half a man. Eventually, the half that still functioned killed the half that didn’t.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “There was an inquiry—”

  She didn’t understand. “An inquiry? By whom? Into what?”

  “By the police. Into me.”

  Morgan saw indignation enter her eyes and thought it almost amusing. And strangely touching. She knew next to nothing about him and yet she was indignant for him, taking offense that this had happened to him. Why?

  “My father shot himself. The coroner thought it might have been a mercy killing.” He saw the question Kelsey wasn’t asking. “It wasn’t,” he said firmly, then relented. “At least, not consciously.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Before I became a policeman, I used to go to the gun range to practice shooting. I wanted to become a letter-perfect marksman.” Morgan shoved his hands into his pockets. “When I got married and moved out, I left my old gun in the house. I don’t know why,” he said honestly and then shrugged. “Maybe I wanted to help relieve his suffering without having him on my conscience, I don’t know.”

  “You’re not like that.”

  She sounded so convinced, so sure. “How would you know?” he asked, controlled anger rippling through his voice. “A few minutes ago, you thought I was capable of it.”

  “No, I didn’t,” she told him. “I just wanted to hear you say you didn’t do it.”

  It still made no sense to him. People just weren’t unconditionally trusting like that. “How would you know I wasn’t lying to you?”

  She couldn’t say why she suddenly knew that he wouldn’t lie to her, she just did. She was so certain of it that she would have been willing to bet everything she had that he was telling her the truth. For some reason she couldn’t put into words, in these last few minutes, something in her soul had connected with his.

  She really felt bad about the accusations she’d hurled at him.

  Kelsey doubted if Morgan would understand if she told him what she was feeling. She wasn’t completely sure she understood it herself. But it didn’t change the fact that she knew he was being truthful.

  She smiled at him, her heart both aching for Morgan and filling with empathy.

  Empathy and maybe something more.

  Morgan was a wounded soul, and in a way that was minor when compared to what he’d gone through, so was she.

  Morgan was still waiting for her to answer. “Let’s just say I’ve had an epiphany and it made me realize that you couldn’t have done something like that,” she told him simply.

  He scratched his head. The woman blew hot and then cold—and confused the hell out of him. “You’re one hell of a strange person, Kelsey Marlowe.”

  The grin on her lips reached her eyes, lighting them up. “My brothers would tend to agree with you.” It was time to go. Before she found a way to put her other foot into her mouth. “Well, I brought you your jacket and wallet—”

  A hint of amuse
ment curved his mouth. “Not to mention a barrage of accusations.”

  She nodded self-consciously. “That, too,” she allowed. Kelsey glanced toward the front door. “I’d better be going.”

  Now that things were no longer adversarial, he relaxed a little. And realized that he didn’t want her to leave just yet. Having her here pushed the loneliness back. “You can stay for a while if you like.”

  Their eyes held for a moment. “I’d like that very much.”

  Her tone was silken and he realized something more. If they stayed inside the house, things might get complicated. He couldn’t uninvite her without looking like an idiot. And then a way out occurred to him. “How are you at taking orders?”

  Where had that come from? “Excuse me?”

  He nodded toward the side of the house that led into the garage. “I could use some help working on your mother’s car. Since you’re here, I thought you might want to lend a hand.”

  She hadn’t expected that. But from the little bit she’d picked up last night, she found she rather liked watching a car being taken apart and fixed. The prospect intrigued her. “Sure. Fine. Just lead the way.”

  He started to, then stopped for a moment as he asked, “What do you know about cars?”

  “More than I did before I came over last night,” she answered brightly.

  Morgan sighed. “I guess I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

  Kelsey offered no argument, only a smile. “I guess so.”

  Morgan rested the torque wrench on the padded towel he had draped on the left side of the opened hood. They’d been at this for two hours now. “You follow orders better than I thought you would.”

  Despite the cool evening, Kelsey had managed to work up a sweat. Brushing the perspiration off from her forehead with the back of her hand, she grinned. She had a feeling Morgan did not dispense praise freely. “Glad I could surprise you.”

  It was getting late. “We’ve done a fair share of work,” he told her. Putting the wrench back where it belonged on the wall, he crossed back to the car and dropped the hood back down. “But that’s enough for one night.” Turning away from the car, he looked at her. “Hold still.”

  “Why?” Had she done something wrong? Was she about to step on something crawling around on the floor? The thought made her heart jump. Black widows had a tendency to seek out warmth in the corners of garages and under rocks. She hated black widow spiders.

  “You’ve got some grease on your forehead.” Using the edge of his handkerchief, he wiped the smudge away. And as he did, Morgan realized that flicker of attraction was alive and well—and getting stronger. He dropped his hand to his side. “You’d better get going,” he urged.

  Rather than settle down, her heart was still jumping around. A great deal.

  “Do you want me to?” she heard herself asking, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “No,” he told her honestly, his eyes never leaving hers. “Which is why you should go.” Otherwise, things could go in a whole new direction. And they really shouldn’t.

  Her breath grew short. There was hardly enough air in her lungs for her to say, “Funny, it sounds more like a reason to stay to me.”

  “Neither one of us wants this to go anywhere,” Morgan told her quietly. Even though he believed what he was saying, his words sounded as if they lacked conviction, even to him.

  “Speak for yourself, Officer Donnelly.”

  Taking the rag that he’d picked up out of his hands, Kelsey let it drop onto the hood as she rose up on her toes.

  The words she’d uttered slipped along his skin, warming his face. Heating his blood. Morgan could feel his gut tightening.

  And his desire growing.

  “I thought I was speaking for you,” he said, each word making its appearance slowly, in a measured cadence that seemed to take a great deal of effort just to push out.

  Kelsey moved her head slowly from side to side, her eyes never leaving his. “Nope,” she murmured. “You weren’t.”

  “If I kiss you again,” he warned even as he wove his arms around her, drawing her closer, “I’m not going to stop there.”

  He saw the hint of a smile in her eyes. Saw the same smile curving her mouth. “Promises, promises,” she murmured.

  There was a sense of danger here that he didn’t encounter on the street. On the street, he knew the odds, knew the chances he was taking. This was walking a high wire without a net. One misstep and it was all over. “I’m not kidding, Kelsey.”

  She could feel her heart racing. Felt excitement starting to build. Her voice was husky with anticipation as she said, “I certainly hope not.”

  Kelsey’s lips were only inches from his. So close he could all but taste them against his own. Taste every word as it was spoken.

  His body throbbed.

  How much was a man supposed to take? How long could he resist something he wanted so badly? Something, even as he wanted it, he knew he shouldn’t indulge in.

  If he was sensible, he would just walk away.

  But he wasn’t sensible. And he couldn’t walk away.

  “Whatever happens here is on your head,” he told her in one last-ditch effort to scare her off.

  The last-ditch effort failed.

  He knew it would.

  “I know. I accept full responsibility,” she whispered. This time, as she spoke, her lips lightly grazed his.

  The dam burst. The last straw broke. His mouth came down on hers as his arms tightened around her. He was swept away by his feelings, by his all but overwhelming need for her. A need that seemed to be mushrooming within him even as he tried to assuage it.

  But it was impossible.

  Morgan had known in his heart that kissing her wasn’t going to solve anything, wasn’t going to end anything. On the contrary, it sent him launching headfirst into a completely different world. One of their creation. One that only the two of them inhabited.

  They might as well have been the last two people on earth.

  In her bruised and damaged heart, Kelsey knew Morgan was right. She should have just stopped it while she still had the power to do so. He wouldn’t have pushed, wouldn’t have insisted. She instinctively knew that wasn’t the kind of man he was. Maybe that was why she hadn’t allowed him to back away. Hadn’t wanted him to back away. Because he would have if she’d asked him.

  She wanted a man who cared enough about her, not himself, to take her feelings into account. He was that man.

  Besides, his story had gotten to her, had made her open up her heart and bleed for him. And now she was vulnerable. So vulnerable that when intense desires sprang up within her, they all had his name indelibly tattooed on them.

  He couldn’t stop.

  Didn’t want to stop.

  Knew he should do the right thing and back away, but he just didn’t have the strength, the willpower, to do so. It just wasn’t in him. If she’d given him a sign, just one little sign that she realized this was a mistake, that she wanted him to pull back, he would have forced himself to stop. For her.

  But faced with her compliance, with her fervor and enthusiasm, he couldn’t. Couldn’t do it alone. Not when her mouth tasted sweeter than any fruit he’d ever had. Not when her skin smelled of vanilla and the scent of her hair made his head swirl.

  Holding her fast to him with one arm, he felt around on the wall until he located the switch that would automatically close the garage door, locking them away from prying eyes. He hit the switch and he heard the mechanism slowly begin to grind, sending the door back down into place. It vaguely registered. His mind was otherwise occupied. As were his hands.

  God, but she felt soft. Soft and pliable. Touching her was like sifting a small piece of heaven through his fingers.

  The fire within him flared. If he wasn’t careful, he would wind up ripping off her clothes and taking her right here. Snatching up the last of his control, Morgan picked her up in his arms and pushed open the door that led from the garage into his house. />
  He felt as if he was stumbling through the dark. His lips never left hers as he made his way in. She was the source of his madness and, for now, the source of his fragile solace, as well.

  Once inside the house, Morgan got no farther than the family room.

  His passions running rampant in his veins, Morgan was only vaguely aware of undressing Kelsey. He tried to strip away barriers, tossing them aside to get ever closer to the warmth, the heat that he suddenly needed more than he needed to breathe.

  The kisses grew deeper, the pace faster.

  Morgan felt her fingers, flying along his chest and he realized that she was breathlessly doing to him what he was doing to her. Tearing away anything that got in the way.

  Material went flying, replaced by palms that were spread out, pressing hard into warm, willing flesh, replaced by lips eager to sample new tastes and to anoint new regions.

  Thoughts came in disjointed pieces and feelings rode on lightning bolts, crackling as they made contact on planes no one else could see or feel.

  But they did. They saw, they felt. And most of all, they made love.

  Chapter Eleven

  He made her want to do insane things, like just be there and absorb what was happening. Savor it and revel in it before disintegrating into hot, spent ashes.

  But by nature, Kelsey had never been a passive soul willing to merely accept, to quietly receive. Something inside of her, the competitive streak of being the youngest and only girl in her family, burst forward. She was determined to make Morgan feel as weak in the knees, as ecstatically overwhelmed as she was.

  But if this were an actual contest, Kelsey knew she would have come in second. In her own defense, it was hard to concentrate when her insides turned to liquid flame. When the feel of Morgan’s lips, his hands, his tongue, his very breath along her skin drove her to a world where coherent thoughts no longer existed. Where only incredible pleasure mattered. And the pursuit of more was the single reason for drawing breath.

  She wasn’t a novice at lovemaking, but she might as well have been because she had never felt a connection like this before. Never felt as if she were having an out-of-body experience before. Never hit the heights exclusively and more than once before she finally became one with her lover.