Chapter Seven – Bad Moon Rising
Chapter Seven
Cooper
BAD MOON RISING
Performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Someone had done a number on her. Someone had taken this confident, beautiful, tough-as-nails woman and broken her.
That pissed me off. But it also had a voice in my head screaming at me to run.
Because I couldn’t afford another broken woman entering my life. I couldn’t afford the destruction that came in the aftermath.
Scandal. Heartache. Loneliness.
Screw that. I wasn’t lonely. I didn’t have time to be lonely. Not with an entire town counting on me. Not with my dad watching over my shoulder so I wouldn’t fail at the job he’d held with pride. Not with a tween son rebelling against everything and everyone, including me.
And if I didn’t have time for loneliness, I certainly didn’t have time for the sweet havoc that was Andrina Nealy.
I watched as she carefully and slowly pulled herself back together, and hell, if that wasn’t as much of a turn-on as the fire she’d sent my way when she’d interrupted my argument with Cleaver. The show we’d put on had been a good one, as intended. But she hadn’t known that. Couldn’t know that.
“Can’t you take a hint, Sheriff?” Andie tossed at me.
“Excuse me?”
“If I’d wanted to respond to your messages, I would have by now. As far as I’m concerned, the incident is best forgotten.”
“My son broke a very expensive, antique pane. I intend to pay for it and fix it.”
“Since I want neither your money nor your help, the discussion is over.”
She rose on spiked heels, and the knee-length, dark-orange dress that had ridden scandalously close to her underwear while she’d been sitting danced around her thighs. My body reacted to it, just like it did whenever I was in proximity to this woman. She was pure fuel for my libido.
Beckett’s dog barked again from the back seat, and Andie looked in at him.
“It’s okay, Vader. Everything is all right.”
The dog whined as she shut the door and started to walk around the back of her older-model SUV. It was nothing flashy, but it was completely paid off—I knew from looking at her credit report.
For all of two seconds, I felt guilty about the background check I’d run on her.
But after seeing that glimpse of distress in her eyes when she’d talked about understanding how abused kids felt, I’d been concerned.
Not just for her, but for my son, who she’d easily and readily invited into her house.
Luca didn’t need yet another bad influence in his life.
So I’d done what my cop instincts had told me to do. I’d checked her out. And not a single thing about her had raised a flag.
When disappointment had filled me at my lack of findings, I’d been disgusted with myself.
Because I’d known the truth. I’d wanted to find out she was hiding from an abusive asshole so I could ride in on my white horse and save her, just like I had with the woman who’d mothered my child.
I needed to find a cure for this need of mine to rescue damsels in distress before it punched another hole into my life—into Luca’s.
She was still shaking when she opened the driver’s door and dropped her keys. I stalked around the car and took them from her hand just as she retrieved them.
Surprise flitted through stormy eyes.
“What the hell?”
“You’re not driving,” I told her. “You have two choices. Have a seat in my truck, or let me drive your vehicle home. I can have someone bring me back in the morning to pick up mine.”
“I hate to tell you, Sheriff, but you’re not the boss of me.”
And damn, did all sorts of images flood in at her words. Silky white skin spread across my bed, listening to every single command. Images I knew better than to have.
Driving her home wasn’t a good idea. I needed to back away, put distance between this wild attraction before I did something really stupid, like pull her to me and put my mouth on those sexy-as-sin lips.
Instead, I just stared down at her, waiting for her to make a choice.
She was the one to break our locked gaze first, eyes darting down and to the side.
She crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing her bare arms. For two seconds, she reminded me of Luca, lost and trying to find their way through the fog.
Before I could stop myself, I’d lifted my hands and placed them over hers. I gentled my voice as much as possible. The contrition I felt at having upset her was real. “You’re rattled, Havoc. I caused that, and I’m truly sorry. Let me make sure you get home safe.”
Her throat bobbed, but she didn’t look at me.
Instead, she took another long inhale, exhaling slowly. Then, she eased away from me and back around the car. I easily made it before her, opening the passenger door and watching as she slid into the seat, giving me another flash of firm, long legs.
Legs that caused another ridiculous reaction that required me to adjust myself before I got in the car. What the hell was wrong with me?
My irritation found a home again. This time, it was directed fully at myself.
On the drive from the ranch into town, I felt her studying me. While I was much more comfortable being the one doing the scrutinizing, she’d earned her assessment. So I just focused on calming the fuck down and on the windy lanes curving between the rivers that bracketed our county.
The mountains and trees rose high on either side of us.
The asphalt wasn’t yet slick with ice, as it would be in a few more weeks, but it was narrow and could be dangerous in the dark.
As a teen, I’d driven these roads wildly, believing I could handle anything I encountered.
Deer. Drunk drivers. Mountain lions. Now, I knew better.
Even after receiving training in high-speed pursuits, I knew how quickly things could get out of control, so I took my time.
“You’re quite a conundrum, Sheriff.”
My chest tightened at the word sheriff dripping off her tongue. At least this time it hadn’t held the condescension and scorn it had the other times she’d used it.
“It’s Cooper,” I told her, shooting her a look. “We’re neighbors after all. And that’s a big word, conundrum. Why is it you think it applies to me?”
“You act like a heartless asshole, accusing Josh of ridiculous things, breathing fire at your son and me. And then, I catch these glimpses of…concern and caring…for your son, even for me in the middle of a panic attack. It makes me wonder which version of you is the real one.”
It irritated me that Cleaver was Josh to her. Had they dated? That thought turned my stomach sour almost as much as her thinking I’d been angry with her.
“I haven’t breathed fire at you.”
She snorted. “Well, if that wasn’t you breathing fire, I’d hate to see what you look like when you really are.”
I glanced over, and right before she turned toward the window, I saw the flicker of fear that ran over her face again.
It wasn’t my business. Nothing had turned up in her background check.
Not a marriage. Not a restraining order.
She’d gone to college in Arizona, had a string of jobs in New Mexico, and then she’d shown up in Swift Rivers.
She was an only child, and both her parents were dead. She was alone.
The perfect target for some asshole looking to put his thumb on someone, thinking no one would come looking if she vanished from the face of the earth.
Except, she had friends and coworkers here, and from what I’d heard, she was well-liked.
Someone in town would make a fuss if she disappeared, not the least of them being Fallon Steele.
“Does he know you’re here?” I asked softly.
She jolted, whirling back around to look at me in the shadows of the car’s dashboard lights.
“Wh-what?”
“Whomever you’re terrified of. I figure it’s gotta be a guy, based on the way you’ve reacted to me. Ex-boyfriend, right? Can’t be your dad—he’s dead.”
“H-how do you know that about my dad?”
Shit. I’d dug myself into a hole. This was why you always let the subject do the talking. Opening your mouth revealed far too much.
When I didn’t reply, she went on, “You looked into me? Checked into my background? Why would you do that?” The pitch of her voice rose.
“You had my son in your house. You came at me. I wanted to know what I was dealing with.”
Her thumb slid back and forth over the edge of her chin—a nervous habit if I’d ever seen one —but she didn’t respond.
As I pulled into downtown, I focused on the huddle of people crossing the street.
It was early enough that Main Street was still humming with the kind of easy energy that made evenings here seem like they stretched a little longer than anywhere else.
Cars lined the curbs where the shops and restaurants had their doors propped open, hoping to catch the last of the tourists drifting by.
The town I’d grown up in wore its forty-niner roots proudly.
Weathered wooden buildings stood freshly painted, the plank sidewalks swept clean and smooth.
Hitching-post parking meters gleamed beneath wrought-iron lampposts draped with baskets of fall foliage.
Framed by mountain peaks that stayed snow-capped most of the year, the entire street looked like it could have been lifted straight from one of Eden’s movie sets.
And when night fell, as it had now, neon signs flickered to life, washing the Old Western sidewalks in a kaleidoscope of color that felt part Nashville honky-tonk, part vaudeville magic.