Chapter Eight #2
Slow at first, deliberate, like he had all the time in the world and intended to use every bit of it.
She matched his rhythm without thinking, her hands sliding up his back, feeling the shift and pull of muscle beneath her palms. He pressed his lips to her throat, her jaw, the corner of her mouth, unhurried even now, even like this.
She didn’t know how he managed it.
She arched into him and he responded, deepening the angle, and she caught her breath at the sensation. His mouth found her ear.
“Okay?” he murmured.
“More than okay,” she managed.
He smiled against her skin and kept moving, steady and sure, and she felt everything in her begin to tighten and climb.
She dug her fingers into his shoulders and held on.
He seemed to know, seemed to read it in her breathing or the way her body was responding, because he shifted just enough to change the pressure and she came undone completely, his name leaving her lips before she could think to hold it back.
He groaned low against her neck and followed her, his whole body going taut before he finally stilled, his weight settling heavy and warm over her.
For a long moment neither of them moved.
Afterward they lay still in the dark, her head against his chest, his arm heavy across her back. Neither of them spoke. Outside, everything carried on as if nothing had changed.
Inside, everything had.
After a while, Hud stirred, pressing his lips to the top of her head. She felt him smile against her hair.
“Come on,” he said quietly.
She tipped her head back to look at him. “Where are we going?”
“Bath.” He glanced toward the bathroom door. “You strike me as a woman with a good tub.”
She laughed softly. “Jacuzzi. It’s why I took the place.”
Something in his expression shifted, warm and unhurried. “Even better.”
He filled the tub while she sat on the edge of the counter watching him, his T-shirt hanging loose off her shoulders, still feeling soft and loose in all her limbs.
There was something she hadn’t expected about watching this man move quietly around her bathroom, easy and unbothered, like he belonged there. She found she didn’t mind it one bit.
When the water was ready he held out his hand. She took it and he helped her in, then stepped in behind her. She leaned back against his chest and felt his arms come around her, loose and warm.
The bathroom was quiet. The water was perfect. Outside the window the last of the storm had blown itself out and left nothing but still air and a clean dark sky.
She felt his heartbeat slow against her back and closed her eyes.
“Hi,” he said finally, his voice low.
“Hi,” she said back.
She sat up and turned the jets on low, the warm water humming to life around them.
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” she murmured, settling back against his chest.
She felt his laugh more than heard it. “I have one at home. After a long day there’s nothing better.”
“Some nights it’s the only thing that helps me sleep.”
He rested his chin lightly on top of her head. “You have trouble sleeping?”
“Sometimes. I let the day follow me home and then I can’t shut it off.”
“I know that feeling well.”
She watched the water move. “How is your case going?”
“Slowly. I have to go up to Shelby this week.”
“Where is that?”
“Northern Montana. Close to the Canadian border.” He shifted slightly. “I think he’s going to try to cross.”
“Will he make it?”
“Not if we and Canada have anything to say about it. They’re already watching. If he crosses illegally, which is the only way he can at this point, they’ll pick him up and hand him over.”
“There must be a lot of places to slip across up there.”
“Plenty. But he can’t go through any official port of entry. He’s in the system. No passport, wanted on suspicion of murder and livestock theft and whatever else we can make stick.”
“I hope you get him.”
“I will.” No hesitation. Just quiet certainty.
She believed him.
When the water began to cool Blair sat up, switched off the jets and stood, reaching for a towel. She glanced back at Hud.
“Are you staying in there?”
He grinned up at her. “Getting cold, but I’m enjoying the view.”
When he stood the water ran down over him and she let herself look for just a moment before meeting his eyes.
“Fair is fair,” she said.
He laughed and took the towel from her, dried off and stepped onto the bathmat, then hung it neatly on the rack. He took her hand and led her back to the bedroom, then reached for his clothes.
Blair watched him. “Are you leaving?”
“Early morning.” He pulled his T-shirt over his head.
“You could stay and just leave early.”
He hesitated, his back to her, then turned and shook his head. “I’ll head home.”
She pulled on her lounge pants and an oversized T-shirt and looked at him.
“You don’t stay the night.” It wasn’t a question.
“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t.”
“Well, thanks for making me feel like a slut. Do you want to leave money on the dresser?”
“That’s not what this was, Blair.”
“Then what was it?”
“I’m just not used to spending the night with anyone. That’s all it is.”
“Not even Gina?”
“Not even Gina.” He held her gaze. “I don’t want you thinking this was only about sex. It wasn’t.”
“You’re right. It wasn’t. I was the one who led you up here, so I suppose that’s on me.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Goodnight, Hud. Be careful driving home.” She walked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
She leaned against it and listened. His boots on the stairs. A pause. Then the front door opening and closing quietly. No slam. Just closed, careful and considerate even now, which somehow made it worse.
She pressed her head back against the door.
“Damn you, Hudson Anderson.” She said it to the empty bathroom. “I should have stuck to my guns.” She closed her eyes. “I can’t do this with a man who has no interest in anything real.”
She gave herself a minute, then went downstairs and locked the front door just as his headlights swept across the ceiling. She switched off the porch light, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and carried it back upstairs.
She climbed into bed, stared at the ceiling and told herself she absolutely was not going to cry.
****
Hud drove home in the dark and tried to figure out exactly where the evening had turned. He knew the answer though. It was on him. It always was when it came to this.
He hadn’t lied to her. He didn’t spend the night with anyone.
Never had. It wasn’t something he’d ever wanted, that particular kind of closeness, waking up next to someone in the gray light of morning with nowhere to retreat to.
He’d kept that wall standing for a long time and wasn’t even sure anymore where it had come from, only that it was there, and he’d never felt the need to question it before.
Gina had pushed for more and he’d ended things rather than give it. There had been others before her who’d wanted the same and got the same answer. He’d never lost a minute of sleep over any of it.
So why did Blair’s face keep coming back to him? The way she’d looked before she walked into that bathroom. Not angry, not exactly. Something quieter than that and somehow worse.
He turned onto the long drive toward the house and the headlights swept across the dark barn, the fence line, the familiar shapes of home. He loved this place. The solitude of it, the way it asked nothing of him at the end of a long day except to show up.
But sitting in the driveway with the engine ticking down to silence, he thought about Blair climbing into that bed alone, and the solitude didn’t feel quite as comfortable as it usually did.
He sat there a while before finally going inside.
Monday morning, Hud hung his hat on the rack and knocked on Dave’s open door. Dave waved him in without looking up.
“Three rooms in Shelby, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. I’m also sending Luke with you.” He set his pen down. “I want you all back by Thursday.”
“Understood. We’ll head out first thing tomorrow.”
“Loop in Creed and Luke before you leave today.”
“Yes, sir.” Hud gave a nod and stepped out, crossing to where Luke McCallister sat scrolling through his screen.
“Luke.”
Luke looked up. “Hud.”
“You’re with me and Creed tomorrow. We’ll take one of the department trucks, leave from here in the morning.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“Good.” Hud clapped him once on the shoulder and walked back to his desk.
He pulled up his chair, powered on the computer and while it loaded leaned back and thought through what he had on Amos White.
Which wasn’t much. The man came up clean every way Hud had looked at him.
No priors, no flags, nothing that would draw attention on paper.
That alone made Hud more curious, not less.
Sometimes the cleanest records belonged to the most careful men.
He was looking forward to that conversation. He just hoped it didn’t dead end before it got interesting.
Once Creed arrived, Hud filled him in, then settled back at his desk. He was glad to have both of them along. An agent never knew what he was walking into and he’d rather have too much backup than not enough.
He leaned back, clasped his hands behind his head and stared at the screen. Blair kept drifting in. He’d been trying to push her out since he left her driveway Saturday night and it wasn’t working.
He didn’t know what to say to her. He knew it wasn’t her; it was him, some wall he’d built so long ago he couldn’t even remember laying the first brick. Maybe he could make her understand that. Maybe if he just called and said it plainly.
He had a feeling she was done with him though, and that bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Not just because the sex had been incredible, but because he genuinely liked her. Liked talking to her, liked being around her, liked the way she gave it right back to him without apology.
That part scared him a little, if he was being honest.
He’d been with plenty of women over the years and never felt that particular combination before. He wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“You’ve got that look,” a voice said.
Hud glanced up. Eli was standing beside his desk, arms crossed, expression suggesting he already knew the answer.
“What look?”
“The one that has nothing to do with work.” Eli sat on the corner of the desk. “Woman trouble?”
Hud exhaled. “What else.”
Eli grinned. “Want to talk about it?”
Hud hesitated, then figured what the hell. Anything he told Eli stayed with Eli, always had. He laid it out, leaving out the details of what happened in the bedroom and picking up from the part where it went sideways.
Eli listened without interrupting, which was one of the things Hud appreciated about him. When he finished Eli stood quietly for a moment.
“You’ve been alone too long,” he said finally. “You like this woman, but you’ve still got that wall up, and she’s not like the others. That’s why she’s got you rattled.”
Hud almost said he wasn’t rattled. He let it go and shrugged instead. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”
“Then change.”
Hud huffed out a breath. “Easier said than done.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I want to see her again. I just don’t know if she’ll let me close enough to apologize.”
“She was that angry?”
“More than angry.” Hud leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “Eli, the women I’ve dated before, they knew going in how it was going to be. I made that clear up front. If they tried to change the terms later that was on them.”
“Did you make it clear to Blair?”
Hud opened his mouth. Closed it.
“Because from what you’re telling me,” Eli said, “it doesn’t sound like you did.”
“I didn’t.” Hud shook his head. “Damn it. She had me the minute I laid eyes on her at Dewey’s. I should have walked away after I walked her to her car that first night. But I opened my mouth and told her I wanted to see her again.”
“And then on that first date you tried to get her into bed, made her angry, and still never told her how you are about commitment.” Eli studied him. “Why are you so afraid of it?”
Hud was quiet for a moment. “Maybe it goes back to my mother. You know how that went. She left right after Case was born, left Dad to raise the three of us. She’s on her fifth marriage now. This last one, the guy is my age.”
“I know all about it.” Eli crossed his arms. “But Hud, you are nothing like her. You’ve been letting her live in your head for forty-some years, and she doesn’t deserve that kind of real estate.
Look at your dad. He’s happier without her.
But you won’t give anyone a fighting chance.
” Eli tilted his head. “Is that what it is? You think anything you build is going to fall apart the same way her marriages have? Because she can’t be happy. That’s her problem, not yours.”
“Maybe.” Hud looked at his screen without seeing it.
“I’ve run into her a time or two over the years and it’s never good.
I can’t forgive her for what she did to Dad.
To us.” He paused. “And maybe I look at myself and see the same pattern. Going from one woman to the next, never letting anything stick.”
“That’s something you’re going to have to work out for yourself. But it might be exactly what’s driving all of this.” Eli straightened and glanced toward his desk. “I’d better get back. You heading out tomorrow?”
“Shelby. Creed and Luke are with me.”
“Then I’ll see you when you’re back.” He pointed at him. “You all be damn careful out there.”
“We will.”
Hud watched him cross the room and settle back at his desk, then turned back to his own screen. He sat with it for a moment, turning over what Eli had said.
He wondered if he should try again with Blair. Make it right somehow.
Damn, though. That woman had a temper.
He almost smiled thinking about it.