He shrugged. “You’d know that better than I would.”
“What exactly is that supposed to mean?” she asked, a dangerous edge creeping into her voice.
“Well, I didn’t stop long enough to ask them, Hope. I didn’t think that would be smart. My guess is that someone tipped them off that I was over here.” He eyed her with speculation.
“You think I called them?” Incredulity made her voice squeak. She cleared it away, irritated with herself. “Why in God’s name would I do that?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
She wouldn’t, for a number of reasons, but the most important one being the people currently camped out on her front lawn were the
competition.
Just thinking the word made a sharp pain lance through her belly. No, she would not feel guilty about this! She hadn’t done anything wrong. She had not called them.
Gage’s jaw muscles rippled. Apparently he decided her silence was as good as admission.
“You’re the only person who knew I was here.”
“Not true,” Hope answered slowly. “Willow knew exactly what was going to happen when we left that bowling alley.”
“So you think your friend sold you out?”
“No!” Hope yelled, throwing her hands up with annoyance. “But all it would have taken was an innocent comment to explain why we’d left and everyone within hearing distance probably jumped to the same conclusion. Besides, your bike was parked outside my house all night. You know how efficient the Sweetheart grapevine is. Everyone in town probably knew you were staying the night before we’d even made it upstairs to the bed.”
Gage hummed in the back of his throat. “True.”
“God, I really hate this town.”
He threw her a skeptical glance.
“Sometimes. Most of the time.”
“Then why are you still here?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No, it isn’t, Hope. I know you, probably better than just about anyone.”
“You knew me. Past tense.”
He shrugged. “You’re stubborn. Once you’ve made up your mind nothing can change it. If you wanted out of here you’d already be gone.”
“My dad was sick.”
“And now he isn’t.”
“I’ve taken over so much at the paper.”
“Which you could walk away from tomorrow. There are other employees, right?”
“Yes, but none of them are family. That’s my heritage.”
“Which you don’t want.” A single eyebrow quirked up in a condescending arch. “Lip service, that’s all it is. If you ask me, you don’t really want to leave Sweetheart.”
Hope’s eyes widened. A nasty knot of sludgy emotions filled her belly. Suddenly, she wasn’t very hungry.
She opened her mouth to snarl at him about the article she was going to write—her ticket out of here—but realized she couldn’t rub it in his face without tipping her hand.
The article she hadn’t even made an attempt to work on since they’d been paired together. He was right. What had happened to her resolve? Apparently it had been trumped by her wayward libido.
Maybe now that her lust had been slaked perhaps she could focus.
Gage shifted at her stove, flashing a glimpse of the open V at his hips. The chain reaction through her body was immediate and depressingly obvious. Her knees trembled.
Giving him her back, Hope called him every derogatory name she could think of beneath her breath. And the idiot had the audacity to grin knowingly at her. He was playing dirty.
The mischievously sexy grin made her heart flip-flop.
Which only made her angrier—with herself. He’d been home how many days? And not only had she let him into her bed, but she’d also let him worm his way back into her life. Her attraction to him was clouding her judgment and distracting her from the plan.
Another knock reverberated through her front hall. It was the catalyst that sent her sailing over the edge of civility.
The vultures on her front stoop had gone too far. They’d cast a pall over the night that she and Gage had just shared and they were trying to horn in on
her
story.
Hope headed for the fireplace at the far end of her living room. Above the rough-hewn beam that served as her mantel, the shotgun her great-grandpa had used to defend his land almost one hundred years ago hung in the place of honor.
It was an heirloom, and while it had once been a fine piece of weaponry, it hadn’t been shot in at least forty years. But the people on her front lawn didn’t know that. Worse, they were so obviously city types that they probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a museum-quality rifle and one that could shoot buckshot into their backsides.
At least that’s what she was hoping for.
Scraping the hair back from her forehead, she thought about throwing some clothes on, but decided if she did she might lose her momentum.
Hope stalked to the front door, snatched the knob and yanked it open. As one, the twenty-odd people on her front lawn turned to stare at her.
“Oh, hell,” Gage said from behind her.
She shot a glare at him over her shoulder, hoping the heat in her eyes was all the warning he needed to stay put. The last thing she wanted was for him to walk out behind her half-naked and blunt the impact of her gun.
She grasped the rifle in both hands just as her daddy had taught her. She might not have ever needed to shoot a gun, but every good Southern girl worth her salt at least knew how. The woods that bordered the town were full of dangerous animals—cougars, bears, coyotes, bobcats.
“This is private property. You have exactly ninety seconds to clear out before I start shooting.”
“Come on, Ms. Rawlings, you’re one of us,” a voice yelled from the back of the group.
She smiled, baring her teeth in an unfriendly snarl that probably resembled one of the animals her skills were supposed to defend against. “No, I’m not. I’m a journalist, not a vulture happy to pick through the scraps of someone’s misfortune. Now, just to be fair, I should probably point out that the sheriff is my godfather and if I tell him I was afraid the mob on my front lawn was about to turn rabid he’s likely to believe me.”
To prove her point, Hope raised the rifle to her shoulder, closed one eye and sighted down the barrel, picking out a man in the back of the pack to aim at. If the rifle had actually been loaded she never would have done that, but since she didn’t even own bullets for the damn thing...
The bluff worked and everyone scattered. She was actually impressed at how quickly they could move. Unfortunately, several of them paused long enough to snap a photograph. She’d probably regret this when she appeared in a newspaper or online somewhere. She could already see the headline—Crazed Local Journalist Threatens First Amendment with a Rifle.
When she was certain they were all leaving Hope walked back inside, closed the door and then sagged heavily against it.
“Hell.”
Gage stood there, two plates in his hands, and stared at her across the space.
“You’re remarkable, you know that?”
10
“
R
EMIND
ME
AGAIN
, why are we doing this?” Gage asked, stalking up the walk to his sister’s store hot on Hope’s heels. He had no desire to eat dinner with his sister and the guy she’d been paired with.
Not when he could have had Hope flat on her back in bed. After the incident on her front lawn, they’d come to an uneasy truce. Neither of them mentioned anything likely to require her to pull that gun out again and he got to kiss and touch her as much as he wanted.
“Because Lexi asked us to meet Brandon.”
“Why? She’s known the guy for less than three days.”
Hope paused, her fingers wrapped around the door handle. She swept him with a warning look that was probably supposed to shrink his balls to an appropriately cowed size, but really only made him want to kiss her senseless.
She was so cute when she was trying to be fierce. And if he hadn’t been tortured by some of the best in the business the glance might have actually worked.
“What difference does that make? You’ve only been home for a handful of days and look at how quickly you made it to home plate.”
“That’s different,” Gage growled. The thought of anyone—especially a stranger—doing to Lexi what he’d done to Hope last night...didn’t sit well. At all. “We’ve known each other for years.”
A shadow passed across her eyes, dulling the glitter in the green-gold depths. “Have we?” she asked, pulling open the door and rushing inside.
He grasped her arm and pulled her around to look at him. But she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”
“Gage. Hope.” Lexi popped up from the back of the store, interrupting. Gage sent her a warning glance, but either she didn’t see it or ignored it. Neither option made him happy.
His sister rushed around the counter and hugged Hope. She whispered something into her ear that had Hope dissolving into laughter.
Turning to him, Lexi gave him the same hug, but instead of whispering in his ear she pulled back, glared at him and said, “You had better behave.”
Hope smothered a snort. “I think that’s a lost cause, Lexi. When has Gage ever done what he’s told?”
“Never.” His sister sighed.
Gage split his focus between the two of them, waited for a beat and then headed for the door. “I don’t have to take this shit.”
Lexi grabbed one arm. Hope grasped the other. They both tugged at him. He relentlessly drove toward the door, anyway, dragging them behind him.
“She’s sorry. Say you’re sorry, Lexi,” Hope prompted, her voice full of checked humor.
“I’m sorry,” his sister said, contrition filling the words. But her eyelids dropped to conceal the telltale glitter behind them.
“Sure you are.”
The bell above the door jangled. All three of them glanced up at the man standing just inside the doorway.
Lexi dropped his arm as if she’d been burned and ran a hand over her hair.
The man’s gaze, way more calculating than Gage liked, took in the entire scene. “I could come back later.”
“Don’t you dare.” Lexi shot forward, grabbed his hand and pulled him farther into the front of her store. “Gage was just being an idiot, as usual.”
His sister brought the other man over and made the introductions. “Brandon, this is my brother, Gage, and his date, Hope. This is Brandon. He’s a nurse in Hilton Head.”
“Nice to meet you,” Gage grunted, narrowing his eyes as he studied the other man. He didn’t look like any nurse Gage had ever met.
Brandon answered him stare for stare, refusing to flinch. If they’d been anywhere else Gage might have given him points for taking him on, but there was something about him...
Hope, apparently sensing the impending danger even if Lexi didn’t, stepped up beside him. She placed a cool hand on his arm. “Lexi, is there anything Gage and I can help with in the kitchen?”
“Absolutely not. Y’all have a seat.” Lexi waved her hands at a table on the far side of the room that she’d set for four. Several rosebuds—probably from Petals—sat in a small vase next to drippy candles she’d placed in an old wine bottle.
The three of them moved to sit, but Lexi stopped her date. “Brandon, could you help me?”
Gage froze halfway to his seat and immediately began to reverse directions. Hope stopped him and softly murmured, “Let him go.”
He glared at Brandon’s back as the two of them disappeared behind the red-and-white-checkered curtain. When the object of his ire was gone, he switched the glare to Hope.
Her mouth was pulled straight into a serious line, but her eyes shimmered with amusement.
“I don’t like him.”
She nodded solemnly, the agreeable gesture at odds with the sarcastic tone of her voice. “Really,” she drawled. “Would you like anyone your sister was dating?”
“Of course. She’s dated before and I didn’t have any problem with the guys. It’s him...” His voice trailed off as Hope shook her head.
“She was what, twelve, when you left?”
Gage nodded, trying to see the minefield she was laying for him with the question. Instinct told him it was there, he just hadn’t found it yet.
“Not exactly dating then, was she?”
He shook his head, finally seeing where Hope was going with this and not liking it one bit.
“Give me some credit. I know she’s an adult. A perfectly intelligent woman capable of taking care of herself. But...”
Hope leaned across the table. She set both of her hands on either side of his face and brought them close. She stared into his eyes for several seconds before saying, “It’s sweet. How much you care about her and want to protect her. I wish I had an older brother who cared about me that way.” Then she pressed her mouth to his.
The kiss was soft, soothing, although that ever-present lick of need still managed to whip through him.
She pulled back, but instead of letting her, Gage wrapped his hands around her arms and held her there. “I distinctly remember you saying something about thinking of me as a brother.”
Her lips pulled down at the corners. Gage leaned forward and touched his mouth to them. “I lied,” she mumbled against him.
“No, really?”
A cough sounded from across the room. He glanced over her shoulder to find his sister standing there, both hands full of serving platters. Behind her, Brandon watched. The back of Gage’s neck tightened and tingled a warning.
The last time he’d ignored the sensation he and several of his friends had ended up in a shitload of trouble. He had no intention of ignoring it again.
* * *
T
HE
DINNER
WAS
NICE
.
Lexi was a fantastic cook and her talents went much further than candy and chocolate. Watching Gage and Brandon dance around each other might have been amusing if she hadn’t been on constant alert for a sign that it was getting out of control.
Gage had been...on edge all night. At first she’d thought it was just the in-your-face reality of his sister dating. But it was more than that.
She could feel the buzz of energy running through him. The charge had transferred to her when their skin touched. And it wasn’t pleasure.
His eyes were watchful and hyperaware, taking in every detail around them. There’d been a hardness in the golden-brown depths—still was twenty minutes after they’d left and were settled into the comfort of her living room.
Hope had purposely changed into something comfortable and made them both a warm cup of tea while Gage lit a fire. She wasn’t sure how to take it that he hadn’t immediately tried to get her into bed when they’d walked in the door.
Part of her was relieved, because in his current mood, she wasn’t sure she’d have been up for that. He obviously had something on his mind and she didn’t want to be the nameless, faceless distraction he used to ignore it.
Tucking her bare feet beneath her, she curled up into the armchair directly across from the fireplace. Gage crouched in front of it, poker in hand, and stared at the fledgling flames, ignoring the cup she’d placed on the hearth beside him.
How easy it had been to fall straight back into the comfort of their past friendship. It was almost as if those twelve years, and that final fight, had never happened. Although, even if they hadn’t mentioned it, both of them remembered.
“Want to tell me what’s wrong?”
Gage glanced over his shoulder and then, with a steady grace that always managed to surprise her, stood. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Now who’s lying?”
His jaw flexed and his molars ground together. He glared at her, but didn’t argue the point. They both knew she was right.
“Are you still worried about your sister dating Brandon?”
“Yes.”
But even as he said the word Hope knew that wasn’t the real problem. His mixed emotions over that might not be helping, but the surly, bottled-up anger went deeper than that.
“Is it what happened in Afghanistan?” she asked slowly. Part of her wanted him to say no. She wasn’t sure she could deal with the details if he decided to open up. What he’d been through...her imagination had filled in enough blanks and nothing she’d come up with had been good.
“No.”
She should have felt relief, but she didn’t. “Then what, Gage? Talk to me.”
A bitter sound erupted from his throat. Rubbing his hands over his face, Gage sank onto the sofa.
Neither of them had bothered to turn the lights on. Firelight flickered, but it wasn’t enough to let her see the expression on his face.
And she wanted to see him. To help him. To solve whatever had tightened his shoulders with unforgiving stiffness. She hadn’t seen him this...tense since the night of the cocktail party.
Slowly, she rose from her chair and transferred to the cushion beside him. Her arm brushed against his shoulder. She tried not to let it hurt when he shifted away from her, but it was difficult to stifle the reaction. Of course it hurt.
She didn’t want it to, but what was it Jenna had said? Oh, yeah. Not
wanting
to care and not caring weren’t the same thing.
Boy did she understand what her friend had meant. She hated to see anyone so tied up in knots. Especially someone as brave, protective and honorable as Gage.
Finding the strength to push through, she laid her hand on his thigh, bracing to be rebuffed again. But he didn’t move away this time.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
She grasped his chin and made him look at her. “Tell me.”
“No,” he growled, fire and anger and bitterness staring back at her. “Let it go, Hope. This has nothing to do with you.”
She narrowed her own eyes. Part of her begged to coddle him. To stroke his hair and kiss his lips and promise him whatever was wrong would be okay. But he’d hate that. And it wouldn’t get either of them anywhere.
It certainly wouldn’t help him.
So she stuffed down her own protective instincts and decided to fight fire with fire.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with me? Just a few days ago you showed up on my doorstep in the middle of the night. Sadness, guilt and dread exhausting you to the point of collapse. You didn’t keep that to yourself, you self-righteous bastard.”
A snarl curled his lips. In one surge he had her flat on her back. She hadn’t even had time to brace for the impact...but maybe that was better.
She could see it, that wild, reckless passion that had always scared her, filling him up. It flushed his sun-tinged skin, glowed at her from flashing eyes and crushed her beneath the weight of what she’d goaded from him.
For the space of a heartbeat she wondered if she’d gone too far. And then his mouth crushed hers and she didn’t care. His hands ripped at her clothes, fighting to find bare skin. His lips punished her, sucking the blood to the surface of her skin and leaving marks she’d wear tomorrow.
And the whole time he argued with himself—and her.
“Do you think I want you to know what I’ve done? That I’ve killed men?”
“Only in self-defense,” she argued, holding onto him because he was the only solid thing around her.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
His mouth latched onto her shoulder. She expected the draw as he tugged on her skin, but it never came. Instead, the soft edge of his tongue brushed against her.
And she knew the anger he’d been using as a shield was gone.
“I’ve seen terrible things,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. With anyone else she probably wouldn’t have even noticed the miniscule sign of vulnerability, but she was so attuned to him now...there was no way she could have missed it.
“But I refuse to tell you about them. I don’t want to relive the memories. All I want to do is forget.”
His hot mouth traveled up the sharp edge of her collarbone. “Try to forget,” he whispered.
And her heart broke. The damn thing just cracked wide-open. She’d been holding it closed with everything she had, but it wasn’t enough. Not when the strong, honorable man he’d become was this damaged.
His mouth played across her skin. His fingers pulled at the neckline of her shirt, exposing more of her that he could taste. The frenzy of anger had left him, but she almost wished for it back.
That she could deal with. This...she wasn’t sure. Not and keep herself protected, anyway.
Gage pulled back. He stared down at her with cloudy, shadowed eyes. “I don’t want it to touch you, Hope. Ever. You or Lexi or my mom and dad.”
“But it does. It touches all of them because it touches you.”
He pressed his forehead against hers. “But I don’t want it to.”
Hope kissed him. She didn’t know what else to do. How else to get through to him. He was so damn strong, her soldier.
No, he wasn’t hers. At least not past tonight. Or tomorrow. Or this week. But for now that was enough.
Touching him was enough.
Why hadn’t she realized that so much sooner?
Hope opened for him, spreading her lips and thighs and soul wide so that he could have a soft place to land.
Last night had been all about the rush. The first discovery of each other. This time—now—was all about savoring.
Her toes dug into the end of the sofa, giving her purchase so she could rub against him. She luxuriated in the sensation. The drag of his body against hers. The rough abrasion of cloth and skin. Her eyes slid closed and she just felt.