Talk Me Down

A woman answered on the first ring. “Jennings Architecture.”

“Is Quinn available?”

“Good morning, Chief Lawson. Yes, he’s in. Please hold.”

Ben nodded as the phone clicked to silence. He’d tried friendly conversation with Quinn’s receptionist, but the woman was having none of it.

“Ben,” Quinn grumbled when he came on the line, absorbed as he always was in some design.

“Put the pen down and back away slowly.”

“Huh?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “I learned the last time I called not to have a conversation with you while you’re drawing. I sat in that damned hoity-toity bar until nine o’clock.”

“Right. Did I mention I was sorry about that? I honestly had no memory of the conversation.”

“That’s my point,” Ben grunted in answer. “So you never mentioned that your sister was moving back to town.”

“Oh, yeah. She seemed to make up her mind real quick about it. I only found out last week.”

“You sure about that?”

“Well, she claims to have mentioned it in September, but I’d swear she’s lying.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So is she there? Would you check on her for me? Mom’s worried.”

Ben shifted in his seat and ran a hand through his hair. “You want me to stop by her place?”

“Yeah, you know. Check out the security. Single woman with an obsessive mother.”

“She lived by herself in the big, bad city. I think she’ll be fine here.”

“Tell that to my mom. She’s convinced Molly will fire up the woodstove without opening the flue and die from smoke inhalation. Or was it carbon monoxide?”

Ben looked at the clock again. Eight-fifteen. Was she up yet? Dressed? Half-naked and heavy-eyed? “Okay, I’ll drop by.”

“Thanks.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Just a favor for a friend. “Hey, you guys must have found out what Molly does for a living by now, right?”

“Nope. All I know is she swears it’s legal.”

“So why won’t she say?” His mind began to churn through all sorts of unsavory possibilities.

“Who knows? I think she’s just stuck with the mystery of it now. It’d be damn anticlimactic to own up to being an IRS agent at this point. She’s fine and she’s healthy and I’ve finally convinced Mom to leave it at that.”

Shit. He’d already used Google to search her name and had come up with nothing. He didn’t like mysteries. Not many cops did.

Ben promised one more time to check on Molly—did she sleep in pajamas? Nothing at all?—said a quick goodbye to Quinn and grabbed his hat and coat.

Just a favor for a friend. It had nothing to do with Molly’s tight blue T-shirt or the glimpse he’d caught of her moving through her kitchen when he’d come back down the path yesterday. It had nothing to do with the wicked sparkle in her eyes when she’d smiled up at him at the store. It certainly didn’t matter that he’d spent a good part of his shift wondering if her ass was as perky as it had been ten years ago.

Damn, she’d driven him crazy that summer, always dropping by in little shorts and tank tops that he wasn’t supposed to notice on a sweet, innocent girl like Molly. So he’d forced himself not to notice. He’d known her since she was a baby. Her smooth, tanned legs didn’t exist for him. Neither did her firm breasts or round bottom. Nope. Nothing there.

And they didn’t exist now, either. She was just another citizen. A responsibility. A favor for a friend. One who was surely awake and fully dressed.

Ben had assumed his strictest police mien by the time he pulled his black SUV up to her house on Pine Road. Then he saw the car in her driveway and his jaw dropped.

His fist hit her door a little harder than he meant, but after two minutes there was still no answer. He knocked again, then made himself take a deep breath and count slowly to twenty. The door opened on nineteen.

“Tell me that is not your car.”

She hid her mouth behind a hand and yawned. “Hey, Ben.”

“You’ve got another vehicle in the garage, right?”

“The garage is full of boxes.”

“You can’t drive that up here in the winter.”

She leaned out a little to look past him toward the blue Mini Cooper. “I put snow tires on before I left Denver. It’s fine.”

“No. No, it’s not fine. First of all, I’m almost entirely certain they don’t make twelve-inch snow tires. Second, you’re going to get high-centered on the first rut of snow you drive over. Third, you will then be crushed by one of the three-hundred SUVs driven by the saner citizens of this town.”

She leaned against the door jamb and nodded sagely. “Mmm. Fascinating. Did my mother call you?”

“No, but she will call. And I don’t have the manpower to drive by your place every time it snows just to reassure her. And I definitely don’t have the manpower to rescue you from your own driveway twice a week.”

“I’ve already arranged with Love’s Garage to have it plowed.”

“Okay, I don’t have the manpower to rescue you from the grocery store parking lot every Saturday.”

She crossed her arms and smiled up at him. “You’re kind of sexy when you’re in charge. Has anyone ever told you that?”

That was when he noticed her shirt. Her long, worn-out, practically translucent white T-shirt. Her naked legs. The bare feet tipped by painted pink toes. She yawned again, then shivered, clearing up any mystery about whether she was wearing a bra.

“I apologize,” Ben said, his tone carefully formal. “Did I wake you?”

“Yes, but I’ll have to keep some sort of civilized schedule here or I’ll get awfully lonely. No one else stays up till three around here. Actually, maybe you do. It’d be just you and me…and the snowplows.”

Just you and me…

“I really, really like your hat,” she added with that twinkle in her eye again. “Really.”

Ben found himself reaching up self-consciously to touch the brim and made his hand jerk back to his side. It was the same kind of Stetson most law enforcement wore in the Rockies. Nothing special enough to make her look so…naughty.

“Back to the car,” he growled. “If it can be called that.”

Molly opened the door wider and a breeze swept in, molding the shirt to her chest. Ben almost swallowed his tongue at the sight of hard nipples outlined so lovingly by thin white cotton.

“You want some coffee?”

She turned, leaving the door open for him, and Ben stepped inside in self-defense. He had to close the door before another gust of wind caught her shirt, because he did not need to get that well acquainted with the curve of her ass. Even if his brain was giving a little victory whoop.

“Jesus,” he muttered, and stayed next to the door. It was time to go. He couldn’t remember why he’d come in the first place. She still needed waking up about that toy car, but now was the time for a strategic retreat.

“You want cream and sugar?” she called from the kitchen.

“No, I—”

The jangle of an old-fashioned phone interrupted him.

“Hold on!” Molly called.

Ben heard her answer cheerfully, then her voice dropped to an ominous note that brought all his cop instincts to life.

“Where did you get this number?” she growled.

Ben headed straight for the kitchen.

“Yes, I turned my cell off. Take the hint, Cameron.”

He slowed as he came to the white molding that outlined the kitchen archway, but she’d stopped talking. She stood with her hand pressed to her forehead, murmuring “Mmm-hmm,” every once in a while.

She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them to catch Ben staring at her. Eyebrows flying high with alarm, she whipped around to face the sink, but he could still hear her side of the conversation.

“No. Is that clear enough? No. Now goodbye.”

Her smile was bright and cheerful when she spun back around, still clutching the phone. “The coffee’s almost done!”

“Who was that?”

“Who?”

“On the phone.”

The wide smile didn’t budge as she shook her head in patently false confusion.

“‘Cameron,’ I think you said.”

“Oh, Cameron! He’s just a guy from Denver.”

“An ex kind of guy?”

“Huh?” She raised her hands, palms up, and frowned as if he’d just asked if Cameron were a superhero. “Of course not. No. Why?”

“No reason.” More secrets. Perfect.

“So, cream and sugar?” She moved through the small kitchen with easy grace, completely comfortable wearing almost nothing in front of him. Who was this girl he’d known his whole life? This girl with secrets and…and…nipples?

“Yes,” he heard himself answering. “Cream and sugar.”

She flashed a smile over her shoulder as she poured. “A real man’s man, huh? Confident enough to drink girly coffee? I’m impressed.”

“Girly coffee? Wow. Thanks, Molly.”

“I said I was impressed.”

“Right.”

She handed him a cup, then leaned against the counter with her own mug clasped between two hands. Ben was very aware of her eyes taking him in, pausing on his chest and his mouth. He was very aware of her thighs, golden and rounded and totally off-limits and what the hell was he still doing here?

He closed his eyes and raised the cup to his mouth.

“So…” she said. “About that night…”

Coffee exploded into his windpipe, burning and choking him. He wheezed and coughed until he could breathe again, then opened his eyes to her stunned laughter.

“Are you okay?” she gasped.

“You did that on purpose.”

“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

STRIPPER.

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

That couldn’t be right. Sure, she’d started some mystery career during college, and plenty of good, nice, college girls had been sucked into dancing for money, but it still couldn’t be right. There were no strip clubs up here. Whatever she was doing, she had to be able to do it from home. Stripping was good money, but she couldn’t have saved enough to retire at twenty-seven.

Unless she was one of those headliners who traveled the country and got paid big bucks to dance at the best clubs. Maybe he shouldn’t have crossed it off so quickly.

Or maybe he’d seen too many HBO specials in his life.

Ben threw the pen onto the flimsy newspaper open on his desk and turned back to the computer to search for her on Google one last time. His name was there in black and white in the weekly rag, right next to hers. He wanted to find out her secret before Miles Webster did.

Good old Miles had ruined Ben’s high school years. Or more accurately, Ben’s father had ruined those years, and Miles Webster had gleefully magnified each painful moment, drawing out the scandal until every last detail—true or not—had been reported.

Ben had hated Miles for years, perhaps because it had been so hard to hate his own father. Hard, but not necessarily impossible. Not for a teenager anyway.

Still, he’d worked through all that, or thought he had, but seeing his name in Miles’s gossip column was burning a hole in his gut.

And our dedicated Chief Lawson added a new duty to his job description this week. He played welcoming committee to Tumble Creek’s newest citizen, visiting her in the early morning hours to offer a friendly and thorough hello. And who is this new citizen? Our very own Molly Jennings, returning to a hometown that welcomes her with open arms. Check back next week for more information on what Molly’s been up to for the past decade!

“More information,” Ben snarled. Miles was going to love this.

What a fiasco. He was going to have to avoid her like the plague, at least until he figured out her secret. What if she’d been a prostitute, for God’s sake?

“You’ve lost your mind,” he muttered to himself. He was not going to let Miles drive him crazy again. He was an adult now, not some tortured kid.

“Chief?” Brenda asked from the doorway. “You’re not upset about that column, are you?”

“No.” Ben closed the Google screen and reopened the report he was supposed to be working on.

“He’s got no right to gossip about you when you’re doing your job.”

“It’s nothing, Brenda. I was just doing a favor for a friend. No big deal.”

She nodded, but her eyebrows fit together like two puzzle pieces. “How’s Molly Jennings holding up?”

“Fine.”

“I suppose she’s…” Brenda tapped her fingernails together and shrugged. “She must be real different after living in the city so long.”

Different. Ben frowned at his computer. Yeah, she was different.

“Chief?”

“What?” He glanced up just in time to catch Brenda shaking her head as she headed back toward her desk by the front door.

Disgusted with himself, Ben forced his mind back to his Monday duties. He reviewed the report he’d finally finished, then sent it off to the Creek County Sheriff’s office. They kept in close coordination so Sheriff McTeague didn’t have to waste time patrolling this part of the county. If anything needed his attention, Ben got in touch. If Ben needed something—rescue equipment or a search party—the sheriff volunteered it.

A few minutes later, the sheriff’s own report popped up on the screen and Ben took a half hour to go over the whole thing. Nothing out of the ordinary. A few accidents. One dead moose in the middle of the highway. Two DUIs. Domestic incidents.

Ben memorized the names involved and printed out the document to add to his files. Done.

A weather alert popped to life on his screen and Ben scanned it quickly, then breathed a sigh of relief. The first big snowstorm of the season, but it looked like they’d only catch the edge of it. Good thing, since it was supposed to hit on Halloween night. The poor kids around here had a hard enough time with the steep streets, sloped lawns and ancient, icy steps leading to every door. And the teenagers would have the inevitable party—the same Halloween party every generation had had in this town for forty years—and Ben didn’t want them driving home in a whiteout.

With a reluctant smile, Ben thought of the costume party he’d been to when he was sixteen, the last one they’d managed to throw in one of the old mines. Damn, that had been a good one, complete with strip poker and smuggled tequila. And he was darn glad it’d been the last. The idea of a party in an abandoned silver mine had been exciting as hell as a kid, but it scared the shit out of him now.

Ben made a mental note to go check the locks on all the mine gates sometime in the next four days. A drunk kid falling down a mine shaft would haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Chief, I’m heading out to lunch,” Brenda interrupted.

“I’ll walk you out. It’s time for my patrol.” He grabbed his hat and, with a glance out his small window, reached for his quilted uniform coat as well. Snow or not, a cold front had moved in with a vengeance. “You haven’t heard anything about the old mines, have you? I thought I’d better check the gates before Halloween. Remember that last bash when we were kids?”

Brenda’s face blossomed into a rare smile that made her pale blue eyes sparkle. “Well, I don’t know what you remember, but my night ended when Jess Germaine threw up all over my new boots.”

“That’s right. I had to take both of you home, then go wash out my dad’s truck.”

“You always were a gentleman.”

Ben opened the door and gestured her through with a wink. Brenda was laughing as she passed him, but when he tried to follow he walked right into her back.

“Sorry. Is something—”

“Hi!” Molly said to both of them from the bottom of the steps.

Ben nudged Brenda to get her to move out of the doorway and down the three steps to the sidewalk. Molly grinned up at them, a pink, fuzzy hat pulled low over her ears. Her wool coat was feminine and way too white to be practical, but at least it was warm.

“Hey, lovah,” she said to Ben. “I hear we’re a hot item. You move fast for a big man.”

He stumbled on the last step—the cement must have buckled this summer—and had to lock his knees to keep from falling.

“That’s not funny,” Brenda said. “Chief Lawson hates gossip.”

“Oh, I’m—Oh.” Molly grimaced. “I totally forgot about that. Sorry.”

Ben shook his head. “No big deal. Brenda, I’ll see you when I get back.”

Brenda hurried off, glancing back to scowl in Molly’s direction more than once.

Molly watched her go. “Brenda? Oh my God, is that Brenda White? She looks just like her…um, never mind. Wasn’t she in your class?”

“Yes.” Ben scanned the block, looking for Miles’s old pickup.

“Ben, I’m sorry. I forgot about that thing with your dad. I didn’t mean to get you into Miles’s column.”

“Not your fault.” Great, now she was feeling sorry for him. “It’s really no big deal. That was a long time ago.”

Her face brightened, eyes sparkling once more, and Ben was shocked again at how different she was. The same, almost, but more. No longer hesitant or self-conscious, she practically oozed assurance, as if the constant flow of people in the city had burnished her to a lovely glow.

She’d braided her hair into two little pigtails that followed the line of her long neck. She looked soft there…really soft.

“Sooo…” she said. “I was just coming over to tease you about the paper, but now I want to see the station.” She looked behind him toward the double doors.

“It looks the same as it did ten years ago.”

“Well, I don’t know what you were doing with your youth, Ben, but I never saw the inside of the police station. I was a good girl.”

Jesus. He successfully fought off the blush this time, which was a great relief. She seemed to take joy in embarrassing him.