6. Diamond
DIAMOND
I stare at Nash when he doesn’t offer anything more. “A luxury resort?” I can barely even utter the words.
“I know.” He sighs. “It isn’t public knowledge yet. Let’s keep it that way, or pandemonium will ensue.”
“B-but the town meeting?” I stammer. “We have to vote.”
“Somehow, the developers managed to garner some votes under the table, so even if a town meeting is called, Lanzetti already has the majority vote.”
“By who? Who the hell would want to build a resort in Saddle?”
“I guess that will all come to light, but I’d say people who don’t care about Saddle and took the cash instead. You’d be surprised at the number of people who are swayed by money.”
I frown. Nobody I know would want a resort here. This is Saddle, not fucking Disneyland. Still, Nash is right. People sell out all the time.
“Here I was thinking I was being a complete bitch because of a wind farm.” I throw my arms in the air. “When all along that slimy fuck was sneaking around right under my nose the entire time. He can go fuck himself, by the way. I’m not selling, not for any price.”
His eyes dip to my mouth, then lift again. He backs off, and holy Christ, I don’t want him to.
I want to know how that scruff feels on my mouth, between my legs, all over my body.
“I knew you’d say that.”
“Some things just can’t be bought,” I affirm. “He can’t have what’s mine. This isn’t about money.”
“And yet it seems he needs it, because the resort can’t go ahead because he needs a certain number of acres. He needs your land to properly develop the site.”
“I guess he’s shit outta luck then, isn’t he?”
“These guys can get pretty aggressive,” Nash says, surprising me. Why does he care?
I shake my head, adamant. “I’ll rally around. We’ll protest, call the TV station, the radio. Then I’ll stage an emergency meeting. He won’t get away with this.”
“I admire your spirit, Diamond,” he says, his voice low. It’s then I realize the thud I can hear is the beating of my own heart. “Truly. It’s admirable.”
“I mean every word.” I stand straighter, but he’s everywhere.
He nods, and there’s a look in his eyes that tells me he understands. “I know you do.”
I want to pull him by the lapels of his uniform and feel his lips on mine.
I want him to cage me in again. No, scratch that, I need him to cage me in. But that’s irrational, and I don’t do irrational.
This intense heat between us can’t be tamed.
I know I’ve only met him twice, but my heart has never pounded like this.
Nash does things that make my stomach turn upside down and clouds my vision.
I’m levelheaded, but even I can admit when I’ve been blindsided by my own rage.
Whether he’s going to be an ally remains to be seen, so I shouldn’t be dropping my guard this easily.
I push him away with my palm. “I have to go.”
“So soon?”
“It’s getting dark.”
“You’re not allowed out past witching hour?”
I jab a finger between us. “This, whatever it is? Isn’t happening.”
He folds his arms over his chest, smiling. His biceps bulge. I could knock that grin off his pretty face, and maybe I should. “Why not? For argument’s sake?”
“If you must know? You’re not my type.”
His eyes darken somehow, or maybe it’s just me, but this man is one hundred percent alpha. “What type is that?”
“Law enforcement, for one.”
He doesn’t lose his smirk. “Come on now, you can hardly hold that against me. You know what I think, Wildcat?”
Wildcat?
Holy fuck.
“I think I’m exactly your type, but you don’t want to admit it,” he goes on. “It would kill you, wouldn’t it? Because we’re probably more alike than you think.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Really?”
I place my hands on my hips and reaffirm my stance. “Yep.”
He nods slowly. “Right. So you haven’t thought about our back and forth, the tension between us?”
Of course, it’s like he can read my mind. I had a nice ol’ time with my vibrator last night. Just when I was seeing stars, I imagined it was Nash, pinning me down and pistoning me with those hips. Jesus, I’ll bet he’s big—everything else about him is big.
“Tension?” I scoff. “Really, Nash? I hate to break it to you, but I don’t even like you.”
“Well, that’s a lie. You don’t even know me. You just think I’m against you because I’m the new town sheriff, but you couldn’t be further from the truth.”
I swallow hard, remembering what he said about his daughter. “So, you don’t have a wife?”
“If I did, do you think I’d be here?”
I clear my throat, not sure if I should be asking my next question, but curiosity gets the better of me. “What happened?”
He keeps staring at me. “She didn’t want Charlotte.”
Okay, I didn’t expect that. My mouth opens and closes again. “What do you mean?” Fear grips me while I wait for his answer.
Nash runs a hand through his hair, and he has every right to tell me to fuck off, but he doesn’t.
“When she got pregnant it was unexpected. Sure, we’d talked about kids, but she wanted to get to a certain place in her career, which I supported.
Things became strained, and at one point, I thought she might terminate the pregnancy, but she didn’t.
She agreed to have the baby, so long as she could leave the marriage—leave us, effectively. ”
I gape at him in horror.
He clears his throat. “Before you jump to conclusions, I’m not an abusive man.
I never treated her badly. She just wasn’t going where I was going, and though hearing that was hard, I have my daughter so I can’t hate her for it.
So, I took Charlotte, and we started a new life together. Me as a single dad.”
I can’t even fucking breathe. “That’s… the bravest thing I’ve ever heard,” I say truthfully.
It makes my own situation with Annalise spring to the forefront of my mind. I can’t even imagine a mother doing that.
“It wasn’t what I would have chosen, but Charlotte has a lot of amazing women in her life. My mom and sisters helped. I, somehow, made it work.”
“How old is Charlotte?” I ask.
“She’s just turned seven, going on seventeen.” He laughs. It’s the first time I’ve seen him laugh wholeheartedly. “She has the Calloway spirit, I’ll give her that. I come from a long line of strong women. I have three sisters, and my mom is a ball buster.”
“Sounds like we might get along.”
He reaches for me, his fingers tug slightly on the pendant around my neck, lifting it. In doing so, his fingers brush against my skin. Goosebumps raise on my flesh as I feel my pussy clench. “What’s this?”
“It’s the ashes of my first horse, Rosie.”
He strums his thumb over the gold circle, the outline of her body in full flight etched onto the cool metal. It’s a beautiful piece. Small diamonds surround her, like stars in the night sky.
“You love your animals,” he observes.
I nod, my powers of speech evading me.
With clear distinction in his voice he says, “I can’t stop thinking about what you said to me the last time we met.”
“What? That you’re reaching, and you’re messing with the wrong bitches?”
He chuckles, then drops the necklace, two of his fingers push my chin up, so I’m forced to look at him. “About being shackled to your bed. Is that how you treat all your lovers?”
Holy shit, we’re really having this conversation.
Little does he know that, lately, there hasn’t been many. Saddle isn’t exactly a hotspot to snag yourself a man. The pickings are slim.
“I don’t know, maybe you should stick around and find out.”
Heat flashes in his eyes, and he leans toward my ear. “I want to know something, Wildcat.”
I try my best to keep my voice level. “Shoot.”
“If you hate me so much, why do your cheeks pinken and your breathing accelerates every time I get close to you?”
That’s a very good fucking question. One I don’t have any reasonable explanation for. “They don’t, and it doesn’t.”
“So if I told you I’ve been hard for days after our first meeting, you’d tell me to leave?”
A few seconds pass with our eyes locked on each other.
“No,” I breathe, because he’s right at every turn. “I’d tell you to put your money where your mouth is.”