Resisting Samantha (Hope Parish Novels Book 10) (7 page)

“It was.”
He shrugged. Inside Imogene’s, he paused when we came through
the front door.

“I don’t
remember that sign.”

I whirled to see it
still on top of the beautiful pie safe. “Your Aunt Evie found
it at an estate sale, along with the journal and Imogene’s
voodoo handbook.”

I turned the lock
and pocketed my keys. “I love the historical significance, and
I’ve already had some customers mention it.” I reached
out and adjusted it. “They….” Warmth tingled in my
fingertips and I dropped my hand.

Chase had turned
away and was heading toward the kitchen.

“They?”
he prompted, and I realized my voice had trailed off. The hair on the
back of my neck prickled. I reached out again, but it felt cool to
the touch now.

“Samantha?”
I turned to find him framed in the kitchen door. “Are you all
right?”

“Yes, I was
just thinking about something.” I gave the sign one last look
and said, “Anyway, my customers think it’s cool. Even
after two years, this Yank can use all the help she can get.”

“Maybe if you
got a Dixie flag,” he suggested, with a straight face.

“Do you think
that would help?” I asked, then caught the glint in his eyes. I
gave him a mock-ferocious scowl. “You’re no help at all.”

He chuckled and
settled his hand on my lower back as we went into the kitchen. “I
can see that teasing you about being a Yankee is going to give me
hours of fun.”

“Oh, you think
so?” I said, turning around and grabbed for his waist. And
there it was, that fire between us. We stood there for a moment while
Chase took a deep breath.

“Yeah, that
hand-shaking thing isn’t going to cut it,” he said, his
voice sexy and husky as hell.

I breathed around
the sudden tension and need that ambushed me, and prudently kept my
hands to myself as I let out a heated breath of my own. “Maybe
we should keep our hands busy with less…fraught…activities,
then.”

I went to the coffee
maker and started it brewing. Chase backed up to the butcher block
and his arms and shoulders bunched while he slid his well-formed
backside up onto the table and watched me move around. It felt good
to have his eyes on me. “What’s this?” he asked,
picking up a long wooden cylinder with a knob at one end.

“It’s an
old-fashioned rolling pin—only one knob instead of two. I love
it, and use it to make all my pies.” I got the crab dish out of
the fridge. “Could you grab two plates?”

He gave me another
sultry look, replaced the rolling pin in a special stand I had made
for it, and jumped down. Keeping his eyes on me, he backed to the
dinnerware, selecting what we would need, then handed the plates to
me, leaning his hip against the counter.

No matter how hard I
concentrated on dishing up the crab, my hands trembled when he leaned
closer and very deliberately nuzzled my neck. I also liked his
closeness, and cupped his head for a second. “If you keep
distracting me, we won’t get to eat.”

He pulled back and
grinned. “All right. I’ll behave.”

I put the two full
plates into the microwave, one after the other.

Outside on the dimly
lit deck, we set the plates, coffee, and silverware down.

He forked up a bite
and made a soft sound of satisfaction in his chest. “Damn,
Samantha. You sure can cook.” He glanced at me and said, “So,
tell me everything.”

Suddenly nervous, I
wiped my hands on my jeans and picked up my own fork. “Before I
was a small town restaurant owner, I was a cop in New York City.”

“Damn.”
The fork suspended halfway to his mouth, this time from amazement
instead of shock. “I didn’t see that coming. You were a
cop? The uniform and everything?” He took the bite.

“Yup, even the
gun, and I know how to use a nightstick in all the tender places.”

He swallowed and
said, “I’m going to make sure I don’t get on your
bad side.”

“I killed a
man.” I hadn’t actually meant to say it so bluntly, but
how do you work up to that kind of a declaration?

“Wow.”

I nodded. “Wow
is right. I knew it was always a possibility, but when it happens,
when you pull the trigger, and know you were responsible for taking
another person’s life, it does something to you, Chase.”

He reached out and
covered my hand, squeezing. “He was breaking the law? He
threatened other people? You?”

“Yes. Darryl
Mayhew. He’d been pulling off convenience store robberies with
his brother Kyle. I also wounded Kyle, but he escaped. They were
quite the pair—a couple of Alabama boys who had come to the Big
Apple to take a bite out of it. They killed several people before we
caught up to them, and Kyle shot my partner, but I chased them down,
killed Darryl, and winged Kyle.”

“Kyle started
sending me truly creepy hate email from jail. It continued to come
the month after I laid Jeff and Scott to rest, so I changed my email
address to something obscure, and didn’t leave a forwarding
address when I left New York City. It was probably moot, since Kyle
had shot a cop, as well as several other people during numerous
robberies. It was unlikely he’d ever get bail.”

Chase’s eyes
had gone hard. “Then isn’t using deadly force justified?”

It was true, the
Mayhew brothers were murderers and there was something definitely off
about Kyle, something that lurked just below the surface. I’d
always thought he had dead eyes, and, as a cop, I took my instincts
seriously. I still didn’t like having Darryl’s death on
my conscience. “In law enforcement rules and regs, yes. Did I
do my job? Did I do it well? Yes. It was a clean shooting. But you
have to see a shrink after a line of duty shooting, and getting shot
at is pretty stressful.” I gave him a wan smile. “At
first I played it off like I wasn’t affected, but the
department shrink was too good at his job.”

“And you
questioned whether you could be a cop anymore?”

“I questioned
whether I
wanted
to be a cop anymore. I had to be honest with myself. It shook me to
my core, and I had a job crisis on my hands. Plus, I had Scott, and
the very real chance of getting killed in the line of duty was driven
home to me. And, even more important, Jeff was a firefighter, one of
the most dangerous jobs there is. Even more dangerous than being a
cop.” Even as I laid it out for Chase, deep down I noticed I
wasn’t telling him the full truth, was leaving out something I
didn’t even want to acknowledge to myself. The real reason I
quit and left New York.

“So you
wrestled with being there for your boy. How did your husband take
it?”

“He totally
understood. Jeff was like that. We hardly ever argued. We had
discussion time instead. He wanted me to be happy. We even discussed
leaving the city so I could stay home with Scottie. I’m not
sure what we would have done if they hadn’t been murdered. I’ll
never know. But it was a terrible two weeks for me. I’d shot my
first two perps and killed one of them. I questioned my whole career
path…and then I lost my family.”

“What brought
you here?”

The wrenching agony
from the memory of how utterly alone I’d been made tears burn
in the back of my throat, my eyes filling. “I was devastated. I
couldn’t stay in that house. I couldn’t stay in New York
any longer. I saw an advertisement for this run-down, dilapidated
place, and I fell in love.”

He clasped the back
of my neck, the warmth of his hand bolstering me. I brushed away the
tears. “I needed hard work and something to distract me. I
bought it sight unseen, quit my job, packed up everything and came
down here.”

“That was
brave, Samantha.” His eyes were warm and honest. “Did you
have any cooking experience?”

I shrugged and
looked away, the feelings too intense. “Just in college. I was
a cook in a diner, and I loved it. But it was the project and the
history that intrigued me. I knew I wanted to preserve Imogene’s
legacy. And I wanted the hard physical labor to rebuild it. I know
that must sound crazy.”

“No,” he
said quietly, and his expression faltered, a flash of something
fleeting in his eyes, then a taut silence. He drew a deep breath and
let it out. “It sounds like a woman who needed something to
make sense in her life after the senselessness. After losing
everything.” His voice caught and he cleared his throat. “I
know a little about that.”

“I bet you do,
being the black sheep of the Sutton family.”

The muscles in his
throat contracted, and his eyes shuttered as he tried to smile. “I’m
sure you’ve heard all the talk. I don’t need to rehash
it.”

“If you ever
want to talk about—”

“Not right
now.” Then his voice softened. “I made a grand gesture,
something I had to do for my sanity. It wasn’t well received.”
He looked away, took a breath, and I realized he’d bottled up a
lot of stuff. Like me. He looked back at me and gave me a wry smile.
“I stopped trying to make them understand.”

“All right,
but just for the record, I think you’re brave, too. We’ve
both built something out of the rubble of our lives.” I leaned
forward and slid my hand over his face, his delicious stubble prickly
and silky in different places. “We have that in common.”

He nodded. I covered
his hand, caressing his skin. “I want to be ready to move on.”
I squeezed. “I do, Chase. It’s just that sometimes
emotions can be complicated, and after loving Jeff so hard…losing
him took a tremendous toll. I’m just not sure how this will go
between us, but if we don’t take a step toward trying it on for
size, we’re never going to know.” Jeff’s death had
left a gaping hole, and losing a child? There are no words for that
kind of pain, but I had mourned them for more than two years. The
question of my happiness, of a full life, hung in the balance here.
Would it work with Chase? I didn’t know, but I wanted to find
out.

“How about we
take this slow and easy? No pressure for now. Does that sound like a
good plan?”

“I think it’s
the best plan we’ve got for now.” I didn’t want to
get in too deep, then hurt Chase. Ha, that was like walking into
quicksand and expecting to only sink a little. At this point, I
didn’t even know what I was capable of. All I knew was that he
was a special man. Warm and kind, sexy as hell, and someone I wanted
to get to know better.

“Look, this is
hard for me, too,” he said. “I’ve been isolated in
the bayou for years. Ever since high school. I left home when I was a
senior. There aren’t many women interested in a guy who lives
in the backcountry and fishes for a living. At least not many with
all their teeth.”

I chuckled, then
gave his arm a soft punch and said, “Stop it.”

He sobered. “I’ve
had a major crush on you for some time. Let’s see where we go.”

I rose at the same
time as he did, as if we couldn’t stand up fast enough, get to
each other quickly enough. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held
on. So many facets to this man. How hard his body was, how the scent
of outdoors, sunshine, and spice was so much a part of him. How our
bodies fused together, and how his strength and warmth wrapped around
me, making me feel more protected than I had felt since I moved here.
His breath was warm against my temple, the weight of his arms across
my back, the press of his hips to mine…

I let my breath go
in a rush, my heart pounding. I couldn’t let my mind go those
places just yet. I took a deep, uneven breath and held it, forcibly
regaining my control.

“I think we’re
on this crazy ride together.” There was no way to take it back.
It had been reckless to say it, words that took us from a friendly
comfort zone to a not-so-comfortable zone of intimacy.

And it had become
intimate. Because finally, after years of avoiding the truth about my
interest in Chase, I had openly acknowledged it to him and to myself.

Where we would go? I
didn’t know, and that terrified me almost as much as seeing a
ghost who was part of a mystery I urgently needed help unraveling.

Wherever that led
us.

***

The next day, I was
tending to my herb garden just outside my new French doors. It had
been a heavy, emotional day yesterday for the both of us. I hadn’t
gotten Chase to talk yet, but I wanted him to open up to me. The
voodoo charm and the ghost sighting were still heavy on my mind, and
I was thankful I hadn’t had any more dreams. In the sunny light
of day, I chose to enjoy the scents of spring and pick fresh herbs. I
decided I would use the mint for a dressing. Maybe a pork tenderloin
dish.

When my cell rang, I
hoped it was Chase, but he mentioned he’d be fishing all day
and out of touch when he dropped me off last night. His good-night
kiss reminded me of the kind of tangled mess I could get into with
him.

When I saw it was
Evie, I answered. “Hey, there. What’s up?”

“I thought
you’d want to come by and see if we can dig up any of those
transferware plates. I know how you loved the one you broke. You
seemed so distressed.”

“Oh, that
would be wonderful. Would you like some fresh mint and basil?”
I offered. This actually worked out. Evie had mentioned that her
granny knew some things about voodoo, but she had passed. I wondered
if Evie knew anyone else who could help. I could really use her
advice.

“Oh, that
sounds divine. Bring it along. I’ll brew some tea.”

Evie Sutton was a
beautiful, gentle, and optimistic woman. It was clear she was deeply
in love with her husband of just over two years, Winchester Sutton,
Chase’s uncle. It was quite a whirlwind of a courtship, which
took place during a heart-wrenching time in the Outlaw history, to
the accompaniment of a lot of nail-biting and drama, until they found
their way to a sweet happily-ever-after.

River Pearl’s
stormy, steamy romance with Braxton Outlaw had kept the old biddies’
tongues flapping for a long time. It had been so good to see them
yesterday, now contented, tired parents, and still head over heels
for each other.