Chapter 35
Eleanor’s House — Evening
By the time Reid Calloway turned off Main and started up the hill, the route to her place was embarrassingly familiar.
Left at the old oak, follow the curve as the street climbed, houses getting bigger, lots getting deeper as the road wound toward the ridge.
Snob Hill.
He’d heard it called that since law school—the pocket where Sylva’s who’s who tucked themselves a couple streets off downtown. Doctors. Bankers. Old families with old money.
Made a certain kind of sense that Eleanor Harper was tucked up here, too.
He spotted her house as he rounded the last bend: white brick, black shutters, porch gaslights already lit against the deepening blue of evening.
Those gaslights had stuck with him from the first time he’d dropped off paperwork here. A little too Charleston for a mountain town, a little too dramatic for a brick ranch, and somehow exactly—inevitably—Eleanor.
He parked at the curb, grabbed the bottle of wine from the passenger seat, and climbed the brick steps. Jazz seeped under the door—piano and trumpet, smooth and low—twined with the scent of garlic and butter.
He rang the bell.
Footsteps. The muffled clink of something in the kitchen. The deadbolt slid back.
The door opened.
Eleanor stood there barefoot in worn jeans and a silky cream-colored camisole, her hair loose in soft waves around her shoulders.
Reid’s brain took one look and kindly handed control over to the part of him that remembered her in his bed instead of a courtroom.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hey.” He held up the wine. “I brought a peace offering. Since you left my house Sunday after an entire weekend of bliss—if I do say so myself—and then walked into the sheriff’s office Monday morning looking at me like we were meeting for the very first time.”
Color shot into her cheeks. “Reid.”
“What?” He leaned one shoulder against the frame, relaxed, shameless. “That’s accurate. I’ve spent all week walking around like a sixteen-year-old schoolboy with a crush, and you’ve been out there perfecting the art of the polite nod.”
“I have not.”
“Eleanor, you tried to have a conversation with my tie instead of my face in Burke’s office.”
“I was surprised to see you there,” she said tightly. “There’s a difference.”
“Mm.” His mouth curved. “You know they all know, right?”
Her eyes flashed. “No. They don’t.”
“Oh, yes, they do. Maybe not the details. But anyone with half a brain in that bullpen can see something’s going on.”
“Because of you,” she snapped back. “You were the one hanging on to my hand like we were at prom.”
He huffed a quiet laugh. “You offered it. I was being polite.”
“You were being smug.”
“And you,” he countered, “were blushing.”
“I was not.”
“Oh, you were.” A smug little smile tugged at his mouth. “They see the way you look at me.”
“Me?” she demanded. “They see the way I look at you?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, enjoying this far too much. “Can’t get enough of me.”
She stared at him, horrified and half a second from laughing. “Oh my gosh. Ego much?”
“Hey, you can’t blame me, Counselor.” The grin he gave her was pure trouble. “You’re the one who invited me over for dinner. I’m working with the facts as presented.”
She rolled her eyes hard enough to qualify as an athletic event. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet,” he said, holding the wine out again, “here I am. On your porch. Invited.”
Despite herself, her mouth twitched. “Are you coming in, or are you planning to flirt with my gaslights all night?”
“I like the gaslights,” he said easily, pushing off the frame.
“Very you.” His gaze dipped, taking her in from bare toes to the slim straps of silk.
“Also like the jeans. Don’t get me wrong, I deeply appreciate the skirts and heels in court—closing arguments are a spiritual experience—but casual Eleanor has her charms.”
Heat flared under her skin again, for a different reason.
“Get inside, Calloway,” she said, stepping back. “Before one of my neighbors decides to come out and eavesdrop.”
He brushed past her, close enough that she felt the heat of his body through the camisole, and let the door swing shut behind them. Jazz and the smell of whatever was on the stove wrapped around them.
He followed her down the familiar hall into the kitchen. The pan on the burner was simmering, sauce thickening to a glossy gold. A salad waited in a big wooden bowl, bread on a cutting board beside it.
Reid set the wine on the counter and turned, leaning his hip against the island, eyes tracking her as she moved.
“You cooked,” he said.
“I am cooking,” she corrected, reaching for a wooden spoon. “Active verb. This could still end in spectacular failure.”
“You reopened one of the most infamous cases in the county and still found time to feed the District Attorney,” he said. “I’m honored.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But I’m your insufferable tonight.”
She thrust the spoon at his chest before her brain could fully process that. “Stir. If you’re going to stand there and be intolerable, you can at least be useful.”
He didn’t take it right away.
Instead, his fingers closed gently around her wrist, stopping the motion. He gave the lightest tug, drawing her a half-step closer until they were almost chest to chest, the heat of him sinking through the thin silk of her camisole.
“I sure have missed you,” he said quietly.
The air between them tightened. Her pulse kicked hard against his fingers where they circled her wrist.
His gaze dropped to her mouth. With his free hand, he brushed his thumb along her lower lip, rubbing it lightly, tugging it enough that she felt flustered and undone.
Then he bent and stole a brief, soft kiss—nothing like the wild, hungry thing from her hallway and his bedroom. A deliberate press of his mouth to hers that said I remember and I’m glad I’m here.
By the time her brain caught up, he’d eased the spoon from her fingers.
“Now,” he murmured, finally taking a small step back, attention still fixed on her. “I’ll stir.”
He turned to the stove, easy and unhurried, like he belonged there, and started to stir the sauce as if he hadn’t unraveled her in two seconds flat.
“Timeline check,” he said lightly, watching the sauce.
“I left my house Monday morning after our weekend of bliss, thinking, ‘That was incredible.’ You left my house thinking, ‘I will now never acknowledge that ever happened.’ Then you walked into Burke’s office Monday and looked at me like I’d crawled out of a drain instead of like a man you were completely, helplessly over the moon for. ”
“Reid.”
“Or,” he said, entirely too pleased with himself, “at the very least like a man you’d spent the entire weekend thinking about.”
“I did not,” she protested.
He slanted her a look. “You absolutely did. And now, tonight, you’ve invited me into your home. Alone. No Deck. No sheriff. No witnesses.” His voice went a shade softer. “I’m going to take that as progress.”
She stared at the counter, fighting a smile and losing. “You are… a menace.”
“And yet you keep calling,” he said gently.
Jazz curled around them. The sauce thickened under his hand. Her heartbeat finally, finally started to settle...into something that didn’t feel like panic.
Maybe, she thought, he wasn’t wrong.
Maybe this was progress.
Dinner was easy. Too easy, really.
They ate and talked and argued lightly over nothing, his foot brushing hers under the table often enough that she was pretty sure it was on purpose.
By the time the plates were cleared and the jazz on the speaker had slipped into something slower, the air between them felt thick with unspoken decisions.
They wound up back in the kitchen, side by side at the sink—her rinsing, him drying. His arm brushed hers. Once. Twice. On the third pass, he didn’t bother to pretend it was an accident.
“You know this isn’t damage control,” he said quietly.
She kept her eyes on the dish in her hands. “I know.”
“Good.” He set the towel down, turning to face her fully. “Because I’d hate to think you made all this to manage my expectations.”
She turned too, water still dripping from her fingers into the sink.
“I made all this,” she said, “because I wanted you here.”
Something in him stuttered, subtle but there. “Say that again.”
“Don’t push it, Calloway.”
He stepped closer anyway, hands braced on either side of the sink, effectively caging her in without touching her.
“Tell me to go,” he said, eyes searching hers. “If you want me to, I’ll walk out that door, and we’ll go back to arguing about case law and pretending—”
“I don’t,” she cut in. “I don’t want you to go.”
Something bright and stunned flashed across his face.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
His voice dropped. “Then what do you want?”
She slid wet hands up his chest, fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt, tugging him down.
“This,” she said, and kissed him.
The towel hit the floor. His hands found her waist, dragging her closer until she was pressed flush against him. He kissed her like he meant to make up for every second of the week he’d had to pretend he didn’t know exactly how she tasted.
Her back met the counter with a muffled thud. She didn’t care. She hooked her fingers in his belt, pulling him in, chasing the way his control slipped every time she did.
“Eleanor,” he murmured against her mouth, voice scraped raw. “Tell me to slow down.”
“No,” she said, voice already unsteady. “Faster.”
He laughed, a low, disbelieving sound that vibrated against her lips, then kissed her harder.
His hands slid beneath the hem of her camisole, fingers splaying against her bare skin. She shivered, arching into his touch. He traced his thumbs along the curve of her ribs, memorizing every inch he could reach, before his mouth left hers to find the vulnerable line of her throat.
He kissed a slow path along her neck, teeth scraping lightly to feel her gasp, one hand firm at the small of her back to keep her right where he wanted her.
“Reid—”
“Yeah,” he murmured against her skin. “I know.”