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  With the very sound of her breathing, excitement radiating within each breath.

  He was vaguely aware that they’d started out fully dressed, and then somewhere along the line, they weren’t anymore. Whether she’d undressed him or he her—or they’d undressed one another or just themselves—none of that left an impression or even fleetingly registered in his memory bank.

  None of that mattered.

  What mattered, what left its indelible mark, was making love with her. What mattered was giving himself up to the heat, the passion, the demands that all but raged within him.

  He couldn’t get enough of her, but he kept trying.

  He’d missed her, he admitted to himself, missed her the way he would have missed the very air had it been taken away from him.

  Because in a way, it had.

  Until this very moment.

  Each soft curve that he touched, every pliant inch of skin he kissed brought back memories. Memories that had gone a long way in sustaining him.

  And yet, somehow it almost felt as if this was the very first time he’d had her. He couldn’t make sense of it, and he stopped trying. Stopped doing everything except enjoy her the way he’d yearned to for so long.

  The very first time they had ever made love, they’d been in her father’s barn, up in the hayloft. It was close to midnight, and moonlight had streamed in through the cracks in the uneven shutters, highlighting her face, adding to the glow that radiated from her.

  Though each time they made love together had been special, he never forgot that first time. Never forgot the sense of awe that had pulsed through him. Making love with Carly, he’d felt as if he’d captured a sunbeam in his hands.

  That wondrous sense of “something special” hadn’t faded. If anything, it felt as if it had been utterly underscored.

  His heart racing in his chest, he kissed Carly over and over again, fanning flames that were, even now, already over the top. Flames that threatened to incinerate them both and reduce them to a single fused, burnt, shriveled crisp.

  Ten minutes, Carly realized somewhere at the height of her surrender, ten minutes was all it had taken. Ten minutes from the time Hawk had knocked on her door until she was here like this with him, her body nude and wanting.

  Aching.

  All it had taken was ten minutes to make her abandon her charade and silently own up to how much she still wanted him.

  How much she still yearned for him.

  On the floor, with nothing between them but red-hot desire, Carly immersed herself in the sensuality of the world that had temporarily opened up for her. There was almost a frantic sense of urgency to avail herself of all this.

  Instinctively she knew that soon, very soon, everything would recede, and she would go back to doing what she had to. Back to being the responsible one. The only one who could rescue her sister from a life of servitude and hell—if not worse.

  But for now, for this moment frozen in time, she was just Carly Finn, madly, hopelessly and eternally in love with Hawk Bledsoe, and nothing and no one else mattered outside of this.

  Outside of the two of them.

  Her body primed, her pulses visibly throbbing, Carly arched beneath him, silently making him aware that she was ready.

  More than ready.

  Ready for their union. A union of the body and the soul.

  She wondered if he knew that she was his for all eternity. That she was wedded to him until all time ceased, even though words to that effect had never been said over them.

  No priest, no minister or justice of the peace could have cemented their union more indelibly.

  She was married to him and always would be, no matter what separate directions their two paths in life would ultimately take them. She knew that now.

  Once more sealing his mouth to hers, he wove his fingers through hers, and then Hawk thrust himself into her. He was home. It was completed. Their union was reinforced.

  And then, after a heartbeat had passed, they began to move in unison, melting into the same dance that they had discovered up in that hayloft so long ago.

  The languid tempo stepped up, growing more demanding and urgent with each passing second until the final crescendo found them, sending them crashing over the edge still clinging on to one another, holding on for support, for love.

  Slowly, his heartbeat began to slow down until it finally reached a rate that didn’t threaten to match the speed of light. And as it slowed, his breathing returned to normal.

  Hawk became aware that he held her to him with one arm wrapped around her, while with his other hand, he gently, slowly, stroked her hair. The ends of it were splayed out along his chest, her head cradled against his rigid pectorals. He could feel her heartbeat mingling with his. Or maybe the two had merged into one.

  He found the latter thought comforting.

  It was as if the past ten years had never happened. As if his heart hadn’t been ripped apart by the callous words she’d uttered.

  Words he no longer believed to have been true.

  For some reason, she’d lied to him to make him leave town. Why didn’t seem important, at least not right now.

  It took Hawk more than a couple of minutes to find enough breath to enable him to speak.

  The words left his lips slowly, as if languidly coasting on a spring breeze that had yet to come. “Nice to know some things haven’t changed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Too tired to lift her head, Carly asked the question with her cheek still pressed against his chest, unaware that her warm breath was tantalizing his skin with each word she uttered.

  “I think that’s rather obvious,” Hawk answered with a soft laugh. Then because her silence made him think that perhaps it wasn’t so obvious to her after all, he said, “You can still reduce me to a palpitating mass of desires, needs and emotions faster than a speeding bullet. I find that pretty impressive.”

  This time Carly raised her head to look at him. The admission he’d just made left him momentarily vulnerable, exposed, and she knew he was aware of that. If she said something flippant, she’d be protecting herself, but it was a safe bet that it would also succeed in making him pull back, away from her.

  Because he was vulnerable, she didn’t want to hurt him, didn’t want to make him feel that he was the only one in this relationship who felt that way. The only one who was exposed.

  So she smiled at him, allowing the sentiment she felt to reach her eyes as she said, “Right back at you, Hawk.” And then she took a breath before adding, “But this really doesn’t change anything.”

  He wasn’t so sure about that, but he knew better than to say so at a time like this. “We’ll talk.” The word “later” was an unspoken given.

  Before she could even think to challenge his assumption, Hawk surprised her by shifting. With his hands on her waist, he deftly moved her so that she was now over him.

  It was hard to carry on any sort of a serious argument with their more than warm bodies pressed against one another like this.

  She let him win the round.

  For now.

  Because in doing so, she won, as well.

  And winning, as they said, was everything. As long as it was with Hawk.

  Chapter 8

  So much for staying strong, Carly upbraided herself as she slowly descended back to reality and the demands of the world around her.

  Now what?

  Although she was incredibly aware of the man lying beside her, that didn’t change the situation. They couldn’t actually progress anywhere from here. The earth might have stood still and caught on fire when they made love just now, but that didn’t block out the years gone by or even start a new chapter in their lives.

  What had just transpired between them, she supposed, could be thought of as an aberration at best. A single aberration.

  “So,” she finally said, unable to take the silence anymore, “same time, same place ten years from now?” She was doing her damndest to sound
chipper and not like a woman who expected promises.

  Hawk turned to look at her. “Don’t,” he chided. His face appeared as if it was carved out of stone.

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t do that.”

  Same old Hawk, she thought. No one could ever accuse this man of running off at the mouth. There were times when he doled out words as if each one came from a rare collection.

  “Don’t do what?” Carly pressed a little more sharply.

  “Don’t be flippant.”

  Well, she couldn’t deny she was guilty of that, but it wasn’t because she was being cynical. She was just behaving the way she thought he’d want her to. Like the women he was probably accustomed to encountering—both in and out of bed.

  “Okay,” she said gamely, “what would you like me to be?”

  His eyes held hers for a moment before he said, “Honest.”

  Was he accusing her of lying? About what? He couldn’t possibly be referring to their last conversation ten years ago, so what was he talking about?

  “I’m always honest,” she fired back defensively, then prayed he wouldn’t delve too deeply in order to point out the contradiction.

  The expression on his face when she said that told her that he knew better—or that he thought he did.

  But he didn’t take her to task for the lie she’d just uttered or challenge the words she’d told him ten years ago that had sent him packing and on his way—the words she’d used to tell him that she didn’t love him. He knew Carly well enough to know that she could have never made love with him, especially like that, if love wasn’t at least a factor.

  “Carly, I want you to tell me the truth,” he began.

  Carly headed him off, teasingly saying the words that she’d heard many a man wanted to have the woman he’d just bedded say. “Yes, the earth moved.”

  Hawk didn’t laugh the way she’d hoped he would. His subject was too serious for him to laugh.

  “That’s not what I’m asking you,” he replied evenly.

  Nerves began to dance throughout her body again. Hawk had always seen right through her, except for that one time. Her words had hurt him too much for him to see beyond the pain, to guess why she was saying what she had.

  But now he seemed deadly serious, and his eyes felt as if they were boring into her very soul, lifting words, reading thoughts.

  Wanting to momentarily escape, she started to rise. Before she could stand up, his fingers tightened around her wrist.

  She wasn’t going anywhere.

  “I thought you had murders to investigate,” Carly reminded him.

  That was the whole point, didn’t she see that? “I do, and I don’t want you to wind up joining that unholy number.”

  Was it that he actually cared about her, or that she represented extra paperwork? Don’t get carried away, remember? No future, you know that.

  She waved away his voiced concern. “I’m fine. In case you weren’t paying attention, I’m alive and well.”

  “I was paying very close attention,” he assured her. “And for the record, I want to keep you that way—‘alive and well.’”

  Hawk really did need to lighten up. She relaxed a little as she asked, “What makes you think anything is going to change?”

  That was a safe bet. Her remaining safe was not. He had a feeling that Grayson might already see through her act—because what else could it really be? Carly was way too intelligent, too savvy to be taken in by a second-rate motivational speaker no matter how slick he tried to be.

  She’d had him going at first, Hawk thought, but he saw through it now. Because she really was still Carly, for all her protests to the contrary.

  “That’s simple enough,” he told her, then warned, “Grayson doesn’t like being played.”

  “Who’s playing Grayson?” she asked innocently.

  Hawk didn’t buy the act for a second and rather resented that she was continuing with this charade after they’d made love. She was definitely not being honest with him.

  “You are,” he bit off. When she opened her mouth to protest, he ordered curtly, “Save it. You’re still the same woman you were ten years ago. That woman wasn’t a fool.”

  “I don’t know about that,” she murmured under her breath, remembering the way she’d ached, sending him away. Maybe she shouldn’t have.

  Granted he was more successful now, but he didn’t look any happier than he had back then. As a matter of fact, he looked less so, and she certainly wasn’t ready to do cartwheels over the course her life had taken. She was still struggling to make a go of the farm, or had been before she’d decided to walk away from it and Cold Plains. That plan had involved being determined to start over somewhere else.

  But she wanted to start over not just for herself but her sister, as well, something that was proving impossible to do since Mia wanted to remain here to become the Bride of Dracula—or at least his first lieutenant.

  “She wasn’t a fool,” he repeated. “She was noble, loyal and giving. And she was the type to make sacrifices.”

  He knew, she thought as she looked into his eyes. Hawk knew. Knew what she’d done all those years ago, knew what it had cost her. But until she confirmed it, he had only his speculation to go on. “You’re giving me too much credit,” she said dismissively.

  Lying there, he began to stroke her thigh as he spoke. “And you’re not giving me enough. I want you out of here, Carly. Grayson is trouble. He has blood on his hands, and despite the wide, artificial grin on his face, he wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate whoever gets in his way—male or female.” Hawk’s meaning was very clear.

  For a moment, she thought about continuing her act. But then she decided not to keep up the pretense, which meant trying to defend Grayson’s character and actions. She wasn’t that good an actress. She loathed the man and what Hawk was saying really scared her. Not that she was afraid for herself—she could take care of herself—but she was exceedingly worried about her sister. Mia was apparently an integral part of Grayson’s plans for the future.

  “I can’t leave Mia,” she told him flatly, thinking that was the end of the discussion.

  Hawk surprised her by saying, “I know how you feel, but Mia’s a big girl, she can look out for herself.”

  She’d forgotten that in his case, his sense of family left something to be desired.

  “No, she can’t,” Carly insisted. “If I don’t do something, Mia’s going to get married in two weeks to a man she doesn’t love. A man who’s too old for her. A man whose first wife went mysteriously missing. I don’t want the same thing happening to Mia, not when I can stop it.”

  She was finally being honest, he thought. Took her long enough. “So I was right.”

  That caught her up short. “Most likely,” she allowed, “but about what?”

  “That you’re still in Cold Plains for a reason. That you’re not hanging around because Grayson charmed you into remaining.” His mouth curved for the first time, his smile stirring her the way it always did. “I knew you weren’t that empty-headed.”

  Carly laughed shortly. “Still have that silver tongue, I see.”

  He knew she was taking exception to the word empty- headed, but he made no attempt to apologize because that had been his concern, that she’d somehow lost all her common sense and that almost seemed inconceivable.

  “You could always think for yourself,” he continued, “not follow the crowd like some lemming, programmed to drop off the edge of a cliff straight into the ocean.”

  In all honesty, she hadn’t wanted him to think that she was captivated by Grayson. That was just too demeaning. “So you understand that I have to stay until I can get her to see reason—or until I can find a way to kidnap the bride before the wedding? At this point,” she confessed, “I don’t care which way I do it as long as I can keep Mia from marrying that man.”

  He wondered if she’d thought through the consequences or, if she had, if she was turning a blind eye to
ward them. “If you wind up having to kidnap her, she’s going to hate you.”

  Carly shrugged. Mia already blamed her for what she considered her unhappy, deprived life. “Won’t be the first time.”

  Hawk sighed. He might have known trying to talk her out of it was useless. “So you’re not going to listen to me and get out of Cold Plains?”

  “I’ll get out of Cold Plains—after I have Mia,” she assured him. “Not before.”

  They were lying here, carrying on a conversation, dressed in nothing but the warmth of their own body heat. Body heat that reached out to the other.

  Hawk slipped his arm around her and drew closer to her. He propped himself up on his elbow and looked down into her face. “Were you always this stubborn?” he asked her.

  “Always,” she whispered.

  Hawk shook his head. “Funny, I don’t seem to remember that.”

  “What do you remember?” she asked.

  The smile that came over Hawk’s features told her exactly what he remembered. The same thing she did. The lovemaking that nurtured their souls and kept them both sane, making their stark world bearable.

  Rather than say anything, Hawk showed her.

  He stayed the night, even though when he’d first stopped on her doorstep, he’d had every intention of returning to his hotel room at the end of the evening. Somehow, he just never made it out of the room.

  When Hawk finally woke up the next morning, he reached for her.

  And found only emptiness beside him.

  Carly was gone.

  He was programmed to think the worst in any given situation, and all traces of sleep and contentment instantly fled. He was alert and ready to go searching for Carly.

  But the next moment, the scent of freshly brewed coffee mingling with the tempting smell of bacon and eggs frying registered. He sincerely doubted Grayson or any of the man’s robotlike minions were here, making him breakfast.

  Pausing only to pull on his jeans, Hawk padded down to the kitchen in his bare feet.

  He was relieved to find Carly there, standing over the stove, making breakfast. Instead of wearing her own clothes, she had on the light blue shirt he’d worn last night. It hung down to her knees, and he had the feeling that she was completely naked underneath.