The Sheriff’s Christmas Surprise Read online

  Her heart all but melted right there in her chest. “Maybe I don’t think it is a mistake.” She searched his face, trying to read what was on his mind. But she couldn’t. She could only hope. “Do you?”

  His eyes held hers. “I don’t know what to think,” he said honestly.

  “Then maybe you and I shouldn’t think at all. Maybe,” she continued, raising herself up on her toes, her lips achingly close to his, “we should just let things happen and see where it goes.”

  Straight to hell on a toboggan, Rick couldn’t help thinking. But he couldn’t very well tell himself that he was being noble and shielding Olivia if she didn’t want to be shielded. And heaven knew he was hungry, as hungry as a man coming off a forty-day fast.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been with a woman. The last time being with a woman had mattered to him, he’d been with Alycia. The night before she’d died in the crash.

  Although he didn’t want it to, Rick had the feeling this time would matter. Making love with this woman would leave a lasting impression on him. It would change him.

  But it was far too late to put on the brakes, too late to walk away. Because she’d turned her face up to his, offering him something he wanted more than anything else in the world.

  He wanted her.

  As gently as if she was in danger of shattering, Rick took her into his arms and drew her to him. He softly touched his lips to hers. The sweetness of her kiss took his breath away and his heart began to hammer wildly.

  As did hers.

  He could feel the way it beat against his chest. Could feel her heartbeat echoing within him until two hearts had somehow melded into a single one.

  He wasn’t quite sure when the frenzy took hold, but the tempo of the inner music between them increased and the gentle kiss deepened until there was nothing gentle about it.

  He kissed her over and over again, finding that the more he kissed her, the more he wanted to. She put a fire in his belly the likes of which he hadn’t experienced in a long, long time.

  All of her life, she had measured twice before cutting once. She had always been so cautious, so careful that she’d earned the teasing nickname of “Grandmother Olivia” when she was just in junior high school. The nickname followed her all the way to college.

  She didn’t care, because reckless actions had consequences and would have gotten in the way of her making something of herself. And even if she were given to reckless behavior, she didn’t have that luxury, because there wasn’t just herself to think of. There was Tina, always Tina. Even if she had wanted to be wild, she couldn’t take the risk because she always had to be there for Tina.

  But being there for Tina hadn’t exactly worked out all that well, had it? All those years of behaving, of being restrained, of thinking everything through to its conclusion not once but several times, that all seemed wasted now. Tina had rebelled and not only gotten pregnant, but then run off with the father of her baby, leaving her to rattle around alone in her expensive, empty high-rise apartment.

  With all that in her background, Olivia saw no reason not to give in to this incredible pull, the overwhelming attraction to this man that surged in her veins.

  Her mouth sealed to his, Olivia fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, working them through the holes until the material hung freely about his torso. She eagerly yanked the shirt from his shoulders, from his body, wanting to touch him.

  Olivia ran her palms over his hard torso, gliding her fingers over the ridges of his abdominal muscles the way she’d longed to do ever since she’d seen Rick walk into his kitchen with his shirt hanging open.

  The hardness she discovered sent a jolting electric current zipping through her veins, at the same time that it moistened her very core.

  She wanted him, wanted him to make love with her, to kiss her until she was mindless. Their lips locked in a kiss, they somehow managed to stumble their way out of the bathroom, working their way into the bedroom. The path was marked with clothing that had been shed.

  With each new frontier she crossed—taking off his shirt, his jeans, sliding her hands along his underwear and tugging at it, teasing herself as well as him—her breathing grew progressively labored. Maintaining focus became difficult. Her mind was spiraling out of control.

  She bit her lower lip to keep from crying out as he trailed his lips along the side of her neck, nibbling at her sensitized skin. He set off fireworks within her. Showers of blues, reds, golds, greens and so many more exquisite, indescribable colors danced through her mind’s eye as Rick lowered her to the bed.

  She felt as weak as a thin thread and as resiliently strong as a steel wire as Rick brushed his lips along the more sensitive areas of her body, bringing about a quickening that was equal to nothing she’d ever experienced before.

  As he explored, caressed, suckled, the excitement within her grew until she almost couldn’t breathe, couldn’t pull in enough air to sustain herself. A cry of ecstasy escaped as she felt his tongue taking possession of her, inciting a mini-riot within her very core.

  She gasped, bucking, arching, trying to follow the feeling, to frame it and hang on in order to prolong the climax.

  When it was done, when she couldn’t hold on to even a sliver of it a second longer, Olivia fell back on the bed, exhausted and all but disoriented. In a haze, she thought she heard Rick laugh softly and then felt the warmth beginning all over again as he started to take her on a second journey, the route different, the result identical.

  This time, she cried out his name, clutching at his shoulders like a woman about to go spinning off the edge of the earth and desperately trying to anchor herself before that happened.

  Before she disappeared into space and became nothing more than a speck in the heavens.

  And then, suddenly, he was there, just above her, distributing his weight equally between his arms, his hands firmly planted on the mattress on either side of her.

  A heartbeat earlier, she’d felt the hard contours of his body as he’d pulled himself up along hers. The quickening within her core began just on the promise of what was to come. She was more than ready for him, more than ready to share the moment rather than to experience its wonders alone, the way she’d just been doing thanks to his clever actions.

  Or she thought she was ready for him.

  There was no way she could have been prepared for this. For the crackling rhythm that flashed through her body over and over again as he entered her and then began to move his hips. She breathlessly hurried to synchronize her movements to his.

  They went faster and faster, racing to catch the ride of their lives.

  She heard him make a sound as he was swept up in the moment and heard her own voice blending with his as the whirlpool seized them both at the same time, lifting them up, freezing in the moment and then, slowly, receding again.

  She couldn’t catch her breath. And quite possibly, she would never catch her breath again. But it had been worth it because this, she knew, was going to be the one precious experience of a lifetime.

  Her lifetime.

  Oh, she’d made love before, if she could actually apply the label to that. Couplings would be a more adequate description. A handful of couplings that had turned out to be far less than memorable events. The experiences had been so forgettable that she would have been hard-pressed to recall the faces of any of the men who had shared, however briefly, a bed with her. At that time, to her, sex had become much ado about nothing.

  But this, she knew, would be something she would always remember—vividly—even when she blew out a hundred candles on her birthday cake. Time would never dim the memory of this.

  Olivia felt him withdraw, felt the mattress—rather than the earth—move as Rick fell back beside her. She waited for him to get up, to gather together his clothes and get dressed, behaving, more or less, as if nothing had happened.

  Or, if not that, then she expected him to roll over and go to sleep, exhausted by the pinnacles they had b
oth just climbed. What she didn’t expect him to do was what he did.

  She didn’t expect him to slip his arm around her and pull her close to him. Nor did she expect him to press a kiss to her temple as he released a sigh that sounded as if its source went down deeper than even his soul. After having her entire world rocked, she did not expect tenderness on top of that.

  Yet that was exactly what she got.

  “You are one incredible lady,” he murmured against her temple. The words made her even warmer than his breath did as it danced along her skin all the way down to her neck.

  “Me?”

  In her estimation, she’d done nothing to merit his words. He was an incredible lover. A man who’d played her body as if it was a rare, finely tuned, precious violin. Yes, she’d responded to him but the comparison between the two of them couldn’t be measured by any kind of instrument known to man.

  Olivia turned in to him, expecting to see a smile of amusement on his lips.

  He was smiling all right, but she could see that he was also serious. How was that possible? He was the one who’d made the earth not only move, but explode. It was all his doing, not hers. He had to know that.

  “You,” he confirmed. As he spoke, he toyed with a strand of her hair, winding and unwinding it around his finger. Anticipation began to move through her. “I guess it’s true what they say.”

  “What who says?”

  “They,” he repeated with a smile. “The all-important ‘they.’”

  “And what is it that they say?” she asked, still not following him but content to remain like this, lying here with him, feeling the heat of his body as it reached out to hers. This was the perfect moment. If she were to die now, this minute, she would die utterly content.

  “That still waters run deep.”

  She thought of the past half hour, steeped in mounting frenzy. There’d been perpetual motion involved. “I wasn’t aware that I was so still.”

  “Well, not strictly speaking,” he admitted, a widening smile curving the corners of his mouth and going straight to her heart. “But talking to you someone might get the impression that you took yourself too seriously to let go like that.” He tucked her against his side and before she could say anything about his evaluation, he added, “You took my breath away.”

  Any protest she might have had to offer died instantly. Another reaction rose in its place. Affection swirled through her and, while she knew it had no future and that she couldn’t allow herself to get too caught up in this feeling, for the moment, for right here, right now, she gave herself permission to savor it. To revel in it. And to pretend, just for an instant, that it would last.

  Olivia cupped her palm along his cheek, feeling things that had never had a place in her life before. “The feeling, Sheriff Santiago,” she said, enunciating his title and name slowly, seductively, “is more than mutual.” She teasingly brushed his lips with her own. “What’s that expression?” It was a rhetorical question, she was well aware of the expression she was about to use. “Ridden hard and put away wet? That’s just how I feel.”

  He did his best to look serious. “Is that a complaint?”

  She laughed softly. “That is so far from a complaint, Sheriff, that it’s not even remotely in the same time zone.”

  Humor glinted in his eyes. “So you wouldn’t mind, if say, you and I went out for another ride?”

  “You want to do it again?” she asked, staring at him, stunned. She would have thought that after a performance like that, he was done for the night.

  Obviously she knew nothing about this man.

  He grinned at her and she realized that she really liked his grin. “Nothing much else to do,” he answered philosophically. “It’s raining outside and the TV’s down.”

  Another delighted laugh broke through. “You do know how to sweet-talk a girl, Sheriff.”

  “No, not a girl,” he contradicted, lightly kissing the side of her neck. “A woman. Because you, lady, are all woman.”

  There went her heart again, she thought, pounding wildly and wickedly. “You really do know how to turn a phrase,” she breathed as the fireworks inside of her began all over again.

  It was the last thing she said to him for quite some time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I am very sorry to hear about your sister, Olivia, but you have a responsibility to the firm that cannot be suspended at will,” the cold, scratchy tenor voice on the other end of the line informed her. “I am sure that you’ve considered the fact that your sister may never wake up from her coma. One way or the other, there will be staggering bills to pay. Your erstwhile dedication to her won’t pay for a single IV. However, your position here at the firm will. Surely you can see that you have a moral obligation to return to us immediately.”

  Olivia sat on the bed in what had temporarily become her room, listening to the senior-senior partner, Harris Norvil, lecturing her. Mentally, she caught herself throwing up defenses and doing her best to block out the gray-haired man’s words.

  It was Friday morning, two days after she and Rick had sought shelter from the storm and discovered it in each other’s arms. It’d been a full week since she’d arrived in Forever and she now realized that she would need to stay longer.

  Wanting to give the firm a heads-up sooner than later, she’d called to request an extension for her leave of absence. That way, they could find someone to handle her cases. Initially, she expected to speak to the head administrative assistant, but the moment she identified herself to the woman, she was asked to please hold. The next voice she heard was the cold, sharp voice of Harris Norvil. He wielded guilt like a finely honed saber, slicing the air with every word he spoke.

  This was not going to be easy. “I’m afraid I can’t return immediately, Mr. Norvil.”

  She could almost see the man pulling back his bony shoulders beneath his hand-tailored suit, a dour expression on his face. His gray eyes narrowing into slits.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Can’t,” she replied, trying very hard to maintain a respectful tone and not allow her temper to break through.

  The man lived and breathed the firm, she understood that, but the firm did not define who and what she was any longer. She’d had a rude awakening this past week and realized what was really important. Burning the midnight oil at Norvil and Tyler was not it. She had a life outside the briefs and the long, drawn-out court procedures.

  Even before this had come up, she had begun feeling disillusioned with the whole process. It occurred to her that victory in the courtroom wasn’t about justice; it was about who was the most clever at blocking motions, trumping testimonies and manipulating the facts to their own best advantage. That left a bad taste in her mouth.

  “My car broke down when I arrived in Forever,” she explained, “and the mechanic had to send out for parts. I’m told they’re arriving today, possibly tomorrow.”

  She could tell by the way he breathed heavily that Norvil did not find the excuse satisfactory. “Take a plane.”

  “I’m afraid that there is no airport in the vicinity.”

  She heard Norvil mutter an oath. He made no effort to keep it inaudible. “Rent a car and drive back.”

  “There are no car rentals around here, either.”

  Norvil lost his temper. “Where the hell are you, Dogpatch?”

  Ordinarily, the senior partner losing his temper would have made her retrace her steps and tread lightly, but she felt oddly combative, and also protective of the town that she herself had looked down upon only a few days earlier. What a difference a couple of days made.

  “Not every town is as urban as Dallas, but Forever has its charm.”

  The people here were good people. They went out of their way to help one another out. And they’d been good to her. She and Tina had lived in the high-rise apartment for three years now and she still didn’t even know her neighbors’ names, much less feel comfortable enough to trust that neighbor with Bobby for a
few hours. Yet she had absolutely no qualms about leaving the infant with Miss Joan or Lupe.

  “All right,” Norvil snapped, “we’ll send a car for you.”

  He could send a coach made out of a pumpkin, drawn by four horses that had once been mice and she wasn’t leaving, not without Tina.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Olivia said firmly, “but I have to respectfully decline your generous offer. I have to stay here until my sister can be transferred to another hospital.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line and she braced herself for an eruption. Norvil’s were known to be legendary once they got underway. But when he finally spoke again, Norvil’s voice was colder than ever, and exceedingly precise.

  “All right, Ms. Blayne, one more week. But that’s it. If you choose to remain there longer than that, we will be forced to terminate you and send your things to your apartment. Do I make myself clear?”

  He was threatening her. And, for the sake of having a career to go back to at the end of this whole thing, she would let him get away with it. Worse, she would act grateful. God, but she hated this.

  “Yes, sir, perfectly clear. That’s very generous of you, Mr. Norvil. Thank you.”

  But she was talking to a dead line. Norvil had hung up. Muttering a curse, Olivia snapped her cell phone shut.

  “Problem?”

  She looked up to see Rick standing in the doorway. How much had he heard, she wondered. She hadn’t thought to close the door. Things had gotten a great deal more relaxed between them since their return from the motel room. The magical night they’d spent together had stretched beyond its parameters, spilling out into the subsequent evenings that followed. She’d never known that being stranded could be so wonderful.

  She blew out a long breath. “Not unless you call groveling a problem.” She rose from the bed. “I just asked the senior partner at my firm for an extension on my emergency leave of absence. He made it sound as if I was asking for his last pint of blood.”

  Olivia forced a smile to her lips, refusing to fixate on the fact that she had, more than likely, torpedoed her chances of getting a raise this year. Norvil not only demanded team players—which was his right—but that those players live and breathe the firm to the exclusion of everything else—which wasn’t his right.