Irresistible Force (8 page)

When she disappeared through the doorway, he glanced around to call Bogart to heel, but his partner was already at his side, staring up at him as if he were about to hatch.

Bogart looked back over his shoulder toward the kitchen and then again at James, his brows twitching up and down, signaling confusion.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I need to fix it.”

Reluctantly, he headed after her.

*   *   *

Shay didn’t release her breath until she was all the way into the kitchen. She’d been unforgivably rude to the man who’d saved her and was now just trying to help. What was her problem?

Oh hell.
She knew what was wrong.

Struggling to regain control over her stressed-out emotions, she emptied the container of iced oysters into the sink. She was so grateful that James had appeared when he did that she was tying knots inside herself just to keep from showing it.

Because her emotional reaction had ranged far beyond simple relief.

It had been nothing short of thrilling to see his tall silhouette filling her doorway. Even unshaven and still dressed in wrinkled camo, James had the look of capable protector written all over him. Her very own Avenger.

Get a grip, Shay.

She couldn’t afford to think that way, for even a second, about Officer Cannon. He wasn’t hers. Nor was Prince … Bogart. Just because they had unexpectedly appeared as the tag-team rescuers she had been praying for didn’t mean she should let her emotions run wild. In a few minutes, she’d be all alone again.

And James was right. Eric would show up again in her life, sooner or later.

Shay’s throat began to constrict with mounting anxiety.

“No! Not yet!” she whispered under her breath. There’d be plenty of time for an anxiety attack over her future once she was alone.

James found her standing before the sink. He paused in the doorway, propped a shoulder on the door frame and crossed his arms, trying his damnedest to look less like a cop and more like a regular guy.

While he decided what to say, he took in all the details of her he hadn’t had time to notice when he walked in.

He liked the way she looked in skinny jeans shoved into hand-tooled cowboy boots so scuffed and creased that they appeared to have been her favorite footwear for a long time. A teal-blue turtleneck sweater covered her from chin to the tops of her thighs. He knew from wrestling with her that it hid a body with plenty of feminine curves. Not that he should be thinking about her in that way. Yet nothing he’d done so far today fell into the
should
category.

Unable to think of anything intelligent to say, Shay tried to ignore the man standing in her doorway. It wasn’t easy. Her gaze kept straying halfway toward him before she could snatch it back. Each foray made her more fully aware of his presence. The easy grace of his long body draped in camo reminded her of the hard muscles beneath. Of the way he’d effortlessly lifted her off her feet this morning. She could still recall the hard band of his arm pressing under her breasts.

Oh crap.
She needed to stop thinking altogether.

Desperate for distraction, she looked down at Bogart, who had come up to her with his tail wagging, certain that his presence was welcome.

She squatted down and hugged his neck. “My hero.” She didn’t dare glance at James for fear he would realize that she was referring to him. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t shown up.”

Finally, she peeked at James as she leaned her cheek against Bogart’s back, stroking him with long slow glides of her hand. “Thank you.”

James sucked in a long breath. Her stroking hand was damned distracting. He leaned away from the wall. “You’re welcome. Glad we could help out.” He glanced around, uncertain of what to do next. “So, I guess we should be going.”

He signaled to Bogart, who whined and lay down at Shay’s feet instead of obeying.

A chill shot through James. Bogart had never disobeyed him before. Just how badly was their bond ruptured by their weeks apart? Or was Bogart still feeling very protective of Shay? The color had come back into her face but her expression was as wary as ever. Maybe his dog understood her needs better than he did.

“Have you fed Prin—Bogart today?”

James shook his head. “He shared my package of peanut butter crackers at the station but…”

Shay stood up. Trying to ignore the fact that he was watching, she leaned up on tiptoe to take down a bag of food from an overhead shelf.

James was paying attention, not only to obvious things like how her sweater lifted to reveal her nicely rounded butt, but to how hard she was trying to push past the trauma of the last minutes by finding ordinary things to do. Her hands shook as she poured hard nugget chow into a bowl, but he hadn’t yet seen a single tear. Many victims dissolved into a puddle the instant they were safe. Shay’s reaction was to retreat into a porcupine ball of thorny hostility.

“What’s that?”

Shay paused in pouring liquid from a jar she’d taken from the refrigerator. “Chicken soup left from last night.” She put the bowl in the microwave for several seconds then stuck a finger in to test the temperature. When she put the bowl on the floor, Bogart gave her hand a quick lick and then began wolfing it down.

James shook his head. “It’s embarrassing what that dog will do for food.”

Shay turned to James with a grin so wide he had to laugh.

When the laughter subsided they were left standing looking at one another. Shay’s eyes were wide, speculative, as if weighing every ounce of him for clues. To what?

On James’s side at least, there was an undercurrent of something coming to life, something remarkably like sexual attraction. It made no sense. But then nothing about the day had made sense. He’d just ended the worst relationship of his life. And Shay, from what he could gather, was still trying to end one. Neither of them needed another entanglement. He groped for a way to break the moment.

“You should have told Deputy Ward about last night’s visitor.”

She gave him a startled look. “How do you know about that?”

“I was in the woods, doing a stakeout, looking for Bogart. Saw someone watching your cabin. The way you went after him, I’m guessing you already knew it was Eric. Why didn’t you mention that to Deputy Ward?”

He saw her internal struggle reflected in her expression. Definitely hiding something. In the end she just said, “I was about to make dinner. I suppose there’s enough.”

James decided that might just be the most ungracious invitation he’d ever received. But he wasn’t offended. The excuse would give him time to learn a little more about her. “Thanks.”

“It’s nothing special. A little Hoppin’ John and fried oysters.”

James’s mouth watered in anticipation. “Sounds great.”

She looked him up and down again in a way that made him suddenly very aware of every slept-in wrinkle and blade of grass still clinging to his clothing, and the hard scratch of stubble on his face. “You really slept in the woods last night?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you probably want to clean up.”

“That would be great.”

James wasted no time in striding out to his truck and grabbing his gear stuffed into an old army-issue backpack. When he came back in, she was waiting for him in the living room. Her expression was once again guarded and her hands were sliding up and down her arms as if she were cold. He wondered if Eric had left marks on her there, a thought that made him wish he’d done more than shoulder-check him.

He noted wood stacked in the fireplace, ready to be lit. He wondered if she would think he was making himself too much at home if he offered to light it for her. Yeah. Better wait.

As soon as he moved away from the door, she hurried over to lock it.

Then she turned back to the room, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she walked past him. “The bathroom is back here.” He followed.

She came to a stop in a narrow hallway and pointed. “On your left. Through the bedroom. Towels are in the cabinet. The shower takes five minutes to deliver hot water. Dinner in twenty minutes.”

She tried to let him pass, backing herself up until she was flat against the wall.

James turned sideways, too, but it didn’t quite work. The backpack slung across his shoulders wouldn’t allow him to press against the opposite wall.

Things were fine until his chest grazed her right breast. He heard her softly drawn breath on contact and sucked in his stomach in response. That only inflated his chest another inch, making more surface to brush against her. She began trying to slide past him, her gaze strictly on his chin. He was free to gaze down at her, to inhale the ginger scent rising from her hair. The mere brush of her against him, muffled by his clothing and hers, was enough to make him instantly hard as concrete.

He levered his body forward, jamming his butt against the wall in the hopes that his chest would be the only thing brushing her. If his johnson touched her she’d know he was ready for action.

“Sorry.” He murmured the word in a husky voice as he closed his eyes and tried to think of
nothing
.

Contact lasted only a few seconds but it seemed forever. Shay held her breath as she stared at the camo design of his jacket only a few inches in front of her nose. Her mind was fully on the rough drag of his jacket across every inch of her breasts. The contact was unexpectedly arousing as his buttons grazed first one and then the other of her nipples. To back him off a bit, she pressed a hand flat against his chest.

He felt rigid in places she didn’t expect, as if touching her were a test of his strength. And damn, every muscle in his body seemed to be trying to impress her with its definition. He was firm and contoured and—something moist and smooth and hard poked her!

Shay looked down. Bogart had stuck his wet nose into her open palm.

A second later, James was past her, moving into the bedroom with a swiftness she could only interpret as the desire to get away from her.

It struck her as she headed back to the kitchen that all she’d had to do was back up into the bedroom to let him by her.

Sure. Now her brain was working.

*   *   *

Shay rolled plump shiny silver oysters in cornmeal and spices before adding them to the skillet, glad she had decided to buy more than she thought she could eat in one sitting. Frying messed up the stove so she’d planned to cook enough to last for a couple of days. Now, of course, she had a man to feed. The thought made her smile. Immediately she banished the warm feeling.

She couldn’t afford to like James. He was an A-type take-charge personality. Just what she didn’t want or need after Eric. Not when the self-respect she’d worked so hard to build for herself the last few years had just come apart at the seams. Timing. Timing was everything. Hers had always been lousy.

As she forked the oysters to turn them over in the grease, she began to analyze her feelings so that they could be brought to heel before James emerged from her bathroom. She needed to think of something to talk about over dinner, nothing too personal. And maybe she should go brush her hair. She must look a mess after—

“Crap!” Shay glanced guiltily at the kitchen doorway. She was making plans for the possibility that the man in her bathroom might care how she looked.

As if she had just found a new prospect for her love life.

As if the last disaster hadn’t just stalked out her door.

No! James made her uneasy. For instance, why had he come back? Just because he had turned up in time to stop Eric before things got completely out of control didn’t mean her silent pleas for help had worked. He must have had some other motive.

She glanced down at Bogart. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what’s up with your partner?”

Bogart thumped his tail, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.

She tossed him a fried oyster which he caught and swallowed without even rising from his prone position.

Afterward, he sat up and barked and offered her his paw.

She laughed and shook it. “Yeah, you’re cute, my charming Prince. But it seems you come with attachments I can’t afford to have in my life.”

When the last oyster had been fried and a salad of kale added to the table to fill out the menu that included black-eyed peas over rice, she glanced at the clock.

He’d been in the bathroom thirty minutes. How much water could one man use?

On the way through the living room, she glanced at her front door. She knew she had locked it after James came back in but she found herself checking, just in case.

All three locks were in place.

Her breath came out in a whoosh of relief. As she turned into the bedroom she heard music coming from behind the bathroom door. No wonder he hadn’t heard her call. He was singing rather loudly to a Jake Owen country and western song.

His rather nice baritone was crooning “can’t be alone with you,” as she tapped on the bathroom door.

No response. She rapped more loudly, saying in a near shout, “Dinner is—”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Shay had seen naked men. But not one quite this impressive close-up. He was bigger than he appeared when clothed. As the steam curled out of the room behind him, he seemed to have emerged from some primitive grotto. Muscles she’d felt in their morning struggle and later brief encounter in the hallway were covered in smooth tanned skin lightly furred in a golden pelt that still held a few drops of water from his shower.

Instantly embarrassed to be staring with lips parted in surprise, she looked down. That didn’t help.

The hair on his torso turned darker and sleeker as it arrowed down his flat abdomen, skirted his navel and then sank out of sight behind well-used jeans left unsnapped and half zipped. In fact, the denim seemed precariously hung on the hook of one jutted hip.

“Yes?” A voice from somewhere over her head delivered the word in a quiet, deep register.

Shay closed her mouth. She’d come here to say something. She was pretty sure she had.

“Dinner ready?”

“Yes.” It took her another second to lift her gaze to his face.