Talk Me Down (2 page)

He gathered his phone and keys, then stopped on his way out the door to grab a lead-weighted stick. He’d seen too many cougar and bear attacks in his lifetime not to be cautious. Spring was far more dangerous than fall, but there was no reason to be careless.

Careless. Like he’d been when he’d seen Molly standing there in the grocery store like some vision from his most embarrassing dream. Ben grimaced and pushed his body into a fast run without bothering with any warm-up. Hell, he was warm enough already. He’d blushed like a damn schoolgirl at the sight of her. Another mortifying moment with Molly Jennings.

But he wasn’t some twenty-two-year-old kid anymore. And she definitely wasn’t seventeen. She’d looked fresh and natural and fully mature, standing there with her dark gold ponytail swaying and her belly just peeking out between ratty cargo pants and a tight baby-blue T-shirt.

God, he loved cargo pants. Strange, probably, but they always seemed to hug a woman’s ass just right. Thankfully he hadn’t been treated to the sight of Molly’s ass, because the rest of her had been more than enough.

Ben pushed his body up the steep incline where the road ended, then turned left onto a worn trail. The trail just happened to follow the ridge that ran behind Molly’s house, but it was his favorite route and he wasn’t going to change it just to avoid her. And if he happened to glance down into her back windows as he passed, that was only natural. Of course he was curious. They’d been friends, or at least he’d been around her all the time in their youth. And sure, he’d thought her utterly cute as a teenager, but she’d also been his best friend’s underage little sister. Completely off-limits. Now she was twenty-seven…and still completely off-limits.

He didn’t date women who lived in Tumble Creek. Too much talk, too many complications. If there was anything worse than being lovers in a very small town, it was being ex-lovers. The definition of messy. So Ben pretty much confined himself to women outside the town, and since half the roads were closed in winter, whatever affairs he did have were seasonal.

Molly would be here year-round. Or maybe not. Maybe she was just here for the winter. Maybe she’d stay for a few months and then leave for another ten years.

That decade in Denver had been good to her. She was slim without being skinny, curvy and firm in just the right places. And her sparkling green eyes were livelier than he’d remembered. More confident. Knowledgeable even.

Ben shook off the dangerous thought and ran higher up the path. The trail forked here, one path cutting back to the street, the other toward a ridgeline that eventually curved out to look over the wide valley west of town. The sun shone bright and warm, the air just crisp enough to cool his sweat but not nearly cold enough to numb his roiling emotions.

Breathing in the scent of turning aspen, he headed toward the ridge and did his best to breathe out the memories of Molly that insisted on flitting through his mind.

He was still in the thick of the trees when his phone beeped. “Lawson,” he said into the phone.

“Chief,” the voice of his secretary/receptionist/dispatcher answered. “It’s Brenda. Are you home?”

“Not quite, why?”

“Oh, we’ve got a small problem. Andrew’s over to the Blackmound place, helping round up some cattle that broke through the fence. Now there’s a big moving truck taking up half of Main Street and it can’t get through. Jess Germaine’s car is in the way and he’s not answering his door.”

Ben grunted and slowed his pace. The situation would probably resolve itself by the time he got back down the ridge, but then again, if Jess was sleeping off a few drinks…

“All right. Give me twenty minutes. Call if Jess shows up.”

“Right. Say, what’s a moving truck doing here?”

He felt his jaw jump with tension. Thank God no one knew about his brief, inadvertent history with Molly or there’d be delighted whispering all around town. “Molly Jennings is back,” he made himself say calmly.

And damned if she wasn’t causing him trouble already. It was going to be a hell of a long winter.

She didn’t have a big table and chairs; though her loft in Denver had been everything she’d wanted, it had also been small. So Aunt Gertie’s dining room was no more. It was now Molly’s office. Wouldn’t the old woman have been horrified?

I leave my home to my grandniece, Molly Jennings, in the hope that she will abandon her unsavory city life and move back to the bosom of God’s country where she belongs.

Molly grinned and shook her head. Oh, she’d moved back all right, but she’d brought her unsavory life right along with her.

One push of a button and the computer hummed to life, prompting her grin to widen. Her work had ground to a halt in Denver thanks to the stress of living with constant anxiety, but here…here she was already finding inspiration.

The mystery of what she did for a living would take on a whole new life here in Tumble Creek, but she’d braced herself for that. And all the gossip and speculation would be worth it if Ben Lawson proved as wonderful a muse as he had been ten years before. Yes, indeedy.

She moved a few things around her desktop, and even opened a new, blank document. The tingly feeling that started in her stomach reminded her of the joy she’d taken in her work up until six months ago. Not as good as sex, but very close to being turned on.

Her blossoming good mood popped like a bubble when a familiar tune sang from her purse. Molly dug around until she found her phone, then groaned at the sight of the caller ID. “Wonderful.”

She could just ignore it, but he’d call back. And then another one would call. Then the big kahuna himself. Cameron.

Not bothering to hide her impatience, Molly answered the call. “What?”

“Hey, Molly! It’s Pete!”

“I know.”

“How are you?”

She clicked around on her computer screen, opening random documents, wondering how many CornNuts were left in the bag in her purse. “Great.”

“Are you really living in the mountains? I hope you’re not planning on staying there. That’s dangerous driving during the winter.”

“I’ve moved here, Pete. It’s done.”

“We’ll see what you think after a long, cold winter.”

Molly groaned. “I know I’m a helpless, stupid female, but I did grow up here. Some knowledge of my surroundings managed to sink in over those eighteen years.”

“Hey, you inherited a house, and that’s exciting! I’m sure you want to try it out. But your condo hasn’t sold yet. There’s no need to make any decisions—”

“Did Cameron ask you to call?” she finally snapped.

“What? No. We’re all concerned about you, Molly—”

“Who? Cameron and his band of merry men?”

“Molly, come on. We’re friends. I just—”

“No, Pete,” she interrupted. “No, we are not friends. If we were friends I would have made you a bracelet and painted your toenails. We would have laughed about how small my first boyfriend’s penis was. We would have flirted with men over appletinis. We are not friends, we were
dating,
Pete. Until someone else swooped in and stole your little heart away.”

“Huh?” She could almost hear him crinkling his forehead. “No one stole my heart. We both decided it wasn’t working out.”

“By ‘both,’ I assume you mean you and Cameron?”

“Hey, what are you implying?”

“I’m implying that Cameron seduced you away from me. Just like he’s seduced every man I’ve dated since he and I broke up.”

“That’s sick!” Pete yelped.

“Yes, it is sick. Not that you or Michael or Devon seems to mind. You’re all so eager to hang out with Mr. Wonderful Personality!
Jesus.
”

“Cameron’s right,” Pete muttered. “You’ve got problems.”

“Yes! Yes, I have problems!”
she screamed into the phone just before it went dead in her hand. Molly stared at it, panting in rage. They’d followed her to Tumble Creek. Cameron and his boy band of Molly’s former potential sex partners.

She really couldn’t allow that. She’d have to ditch the cell phone. She’d keep her aunt’s local number. Her brother had it. Her editor had it. Plus her parents, and they’d finally gotten over their addiction to Cameron.

Cameron Kasten—
Supervising Sergeant
Cameron Kasten—was the star hostage negotiator for the Denver Police Department. His job was to manipulate, coerce, seduce and negotiate. And he was damn good at it. Everybody loved him. His friends,
her
friends, the whole darn police department. Paramedics, firefighters, district attorneys and any damn male of the species that Molly dared to date.

No one believed that he was ruining her life. He hadn’t been able to talk Molly into staying with him, so he’d talked every man since out of her life. It was creepy. Not to mention frustrating. Cameron was a giant whirlpool sucking all the sex out of her world.

Or maybe not
all
of it.

She thought again of Ben Lawson, of his familiar brown eyes and big hands and…oh, so much more. He would make a glorious end to this dry spell. She just had to keep Cameron as far away from Tumble Creek as possible.

“Satan, be gone,” she said to the phone as she purposefully turned it off.

Molly was back in Tumble Creek, Colorado, and she was ready to pick up just where she’d left off…with Ben Lawson naked and at her mercy.

Only this time she’d actually know what to do with him.

Brenda’s bangs brushed her thick eyebrows when she shook her head. “It’s 8:00 a.m. You need to go home and get some rest. You’ve got a whole twenty-four hours off.”

“Right.” He looked over the schedule for December once more before closing it. It was fairly straightforward. Winter made for slow work in Tumble Creek. No mountain biking, no rafting, and the pass to Aspen was snowed in until May. After the craziness of spring, summer and fall, it was a much-needed break.

And speaking of Aspen…Ben rubbed his eyes and glanced toward the ancient clock hanging in the hallway. Quinn Jennings had to be in his office by now. The man was obsessive when it came to his work.

A woman answered on the first ring. “Jennings Architecture.”

“Is Quinn available?”

“Good morning, Chief Lawson. Yes, he’s in. Please hold.”

Ben nodded as the phone clicked to silence. He’d tried friendly conversation with Quinn’s receptionist, but the woman was having none of it.

“Ben,” Quinn grumbled when he came on the line, absorbed as he always was in some design.

“Put the pen down and back away slowly.”

“Huh?”

Ben rolled his eyes. “I learned the last time I called not to have a conversation with you while you’re drawing. I sat in that damned hoity-toity bar until nine o’clock.”

“Right. Did I mention I was sorry about that? I honestly had no memory of the conversation.”

“That’s my point,” Ben grunted in answer. “So you never mentioned that your sister was moving back to town.”

“Oh, yeah. She seemed to make up her mind real quick about it. I only found out last week.”

“You sure about that?”

“Well, she claims to have mentioned it in September, but I’d swear she’s lying.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So is she there? Would you check on her for me? Mom’s worried.”

Ben shifted in his seat and ran a hand through his hair. “You want me to stop by her place?”

“Yeah, you know. Check out the security. Single woman with an obsessive mother.”

“She lived by herself in the big, bad city. I think she’ll be fine here.”

“Tell that to my mom. She’s convinced Molly will fire up the woodstove without opening the flue and die from smoke inhalation. Or was it carbon monoxide?”

Ben looked at the clock again. Eight-fifteen. Was she up yet? Dressed? Half-naked and heavy-eyed? “Okay, I’ll drop by.”

“Thanks.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Just a favor for a friend. “Hey, you guys must have found out what Molly does for a living by now, right?”

“Nope. All I know is she swears it’s legal.”

“So why won’t she say?” His mind began to churn through all sorts of unsavory possibilities.

“Who knows? I think she’s just stuck with the mystery of it now. It’d be damn anticlimactic to own up to being an IRS agent at this point. She’s fine and she’s healthy and I’ve finally convinced Mom to leave it at that.”

Shit. He’d already used Google to search her name and had come up with nothing. He didn’t like mysteries. Not many cops did.

Ben promised one more time to check on Molly—did she sleep in pajamas? Nothing at all?—said a quick goodbye to Quinn and grabbed his hat and coat.

Just a favor for a friend. It had nothing to do with Molly’s tight blue T-shirt or the glimpse he’d caught of her moving through her kitchen when he’d come back down the path yesterday. It had nothing to do with the wicked sparkle in her eyes when she’d smiled up at him at the store. It certainly didn’t matter that he’d spent a good part of his shift wondering if her ass was as perky as it had been ten years ago.

Damn, she’d driven him crazy that summer, always dropping by in little shorts and tank tops that he wasn’t supposed to notice on a sweet, innocent girl like Molly. So he’d forced himself not to notice. He’d known her since she was a baby. Her smooth, tanned legs didn’t exist for him. Neither did her firm breasts or round bottom. Nope. Nothing there.

And they didn’t exist now, either. She was just another citizen. A responsibility. A favor for a friend. One who was surely awake and fully dressed.

Ben had assumed his strictest police mien by the time he pulled his black SUV up to her house on Pine Road. Then he saw the car in her driveway and his jaw dropped.

His fist hit her door a little harder than he meant, but after two minutes there was still no answer. He knocked again, then made himself take a deep breath and count slowly to twenty. The door opened on nineteen.

“Tell me that is not your car.”

She hid her mouth behind a hand and yawned. “Hey, Ben.”

“You’ve got another vehicle in the garage, right?”

“The garage is full of boxes.”

“You can’t drive that up here in the winter.”

She leaned out a little to look past him toward the blue Mini Cooper. “I put snow tires on before I left Denver. It’s fine.”

“No. No, it’s not fine. First of all, I’m almost entirely certain they don’t make twelve-inch snow tires. Second, you’re going to get high-centered on the first rut of snow you drive over. Third, you will then be crushed by one of the three-hundred SUVs driven by the saner citizens of this town.”

She leaned against the door jamb and nodded sagely. “Mmm. Fascinating. Did my mother call you?”

“No, but she will call. And I don’t have the manpower to drive by your place every time it snows just to reassure her. And I definitely don’t have the manpower to rescue you from your own driveway twice a week.”

“I’ve already arranged with Love’s Garage to have it plowed.”

“Okay, I don’t have the manpower to rescue you from the grocery store parking lot every Saturday.”

She crossed her arms and smiled up at him. “You’re kind of sexy when you’re in charge. Has anyone ever told you that?”

That was when he noticed her shirt. Her long, worn-out, practically translucent white T-shirt. Her naked legs. The bare feet tipped by painted pink toes. She yawned again, then shivered, clearing up any mystery about whether she was wearing a bra.

“I apologize,” Ben said, his tone carefully formal. “Did I wake you?”

“Yes, but I’ll have to keep some sort of civilized schedule here or I’ll get awfully lonely. No one else stays up till three around here. Actually, maybe you do. It’d be just you and me…and the snowplows.”

Just you and me…

“I really, really like your hat,” she added with that twinkle in her eye again. “Really.”

Ben found himself reaching up self-consciously to touch the brim and made his hand jerk back to his side. It was the same kind of Stetson most law enforcement wore in the Rockies. Nothing special enough to make her look so…naughty.

“Back to the car,” he growled. “If it can be called that.”

Molly opened the door wider and a breeze swept in, molding the shirt to her chest. Ben almost swallowed his tongue at the sight of hard nipples outlined so lovingly by thin white cotton.

“You want some coffee?”

She turned, leaving the door open for him, and Ben stepped inside in self-defense. He had to close the door before another gust of wind caught her shirt, because he did
not
need to get that well acquainted with the curve of her ass. Even if his brain was giving a little victory whoop.

“Jesus,” he muttered, and stayed next to the door. It was time to go. He couldn’t remember why he’d come in the first place. She still needed waking up about that toy car, but now was the time for a strategic retreat.

“You want cream and sugar?” she called from the kitchen.

“No, I—”

The jangle of an old-fashioned phone interrupted him.

“Hold on!” Molly called.

Ben heard her answer cheerfully, then her voice dropped to an ominous note that brought all his cop instincts to life.

“Where did you get this number?” she growled.

Ben headed straight for the kitchen.

“Yes, I turned my cell off. Take the hint, Cameron.”

He slowed as he came to the white molding that outlined the kitchen archway, but she’d stopped talking. She stood with her hand pressed to her forehead, murmuring “Mmm-hmm,” every once in a while.

She squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them to catch Ben staring at her. Eyebrows flying high with alarm, she whipped around to face the sink, but he could still hear her side of the conversation.

“No. Is that clear enough?
No.
Now goodbye.”

Her smile was bright and cheerful when she spun back around, still clutching the phone. “The coffee’s almost done!”

“Who was that?”

“Who?”

“On the phone.”

The wide smile didn’t budge as she shook her head in patently false confusion.

“‘Cameron,’ I think you said.”

“Oh,
Cameron!
He’s just a guy from Denver.”

“An ex kind of guy?”

“Huh?” She raised her hands, palms up, and frowned as if he’d just asked if Cameron were a superhero. “Of course not. No. Why?”

“No reason.” More secrets. Perfect.

“So, cream and sugar?” She moved through the small kitchen with easy grace, completely comfortable wearing almost nothing in front of him. Who
was
this girl he’d known his whole life? This girl with secrets and…and…
nipples?

“Yes,” he heard himself answering. “Cream and sugar.”

She flashed a smile over her shoulder as she poured. “A real man’s man, huh? Confident enough to drink girly coffee? I’m impressed.”

“
Girly
coffee? Wow. Thanks, Molly.”

“I said I was impressed.”

“Right.”

She handed him a cup, then leaned against the counter with her own mug clasped between two hands. Ben was very aware of her eyes taking him in, pausing on his chest and his mouth. He was very aware of her thighs, golden and rounded and
totally off-limits
and what the
hell
was he still doing here?

He closed his eyes and raised the cup to his mouth.

“So…” she said. “About that night…”

Coffee exploded into his windpipe, burning and choking him. He wheezed and coughed until he could breathe again, then opened his eyes to her stunned laughter.

“Are you okay?” she gasped.

“You did that on purpose.”

“Did what?”

Ben set his cup down with a thunk. “I’d better go.”

“It’s been ten years, Ben. I just wanted to apologize. I should never have walked in like that. And I certainly shouldn’t have watched.”

He froze in the act of turning away. His muscles seized up as prickly heat spread over his skin and horror turned his stomach. “Excuse me?”

“I didn’t know you had, um, company. And then I was just…”

“What the hell do you mean, you
watched?
”

“Oh…well…”

“No. I looked up and you were standing there in the doorway. You’d just walked in.”

“Yeah, um…there may have been a few seconds between my walking in and you noticing me. You were a little distracted by that blonde. She was—”

“
I know what she was doing.
Jesus, Molly.”

“Right. Anyhoo…I just wanted to say I’m sorry if I caused you any embarrassment.”

Embarrassment? More like abject torture. Mortification. Guilt. The knowledge that he’d corrupted a young girl. The utter shock in her eyes when Ben had looked up to see her there, both hands pressed to her mouth. The endless moment when his muscles had refused to react, when he’d tried to stop his date’s avid attentions. Ben hadn’t been able to fully enjoy a blow job for two years afterwards.

And now Molly was confessing that she’d been standing there for…how long?

“Oh, Jesus.” He pressed a sweaty hand to his fore head. “You were just a kid.”

“Ah…Yeah, not really. I lost my virginity that night, and I turned eighteen a week later. And then there was college.”

“Stop it!” Ben slammed both hands over his ears. “Oh, my
God!
”

Her muffled laugh echoed through his head. “Ben, what is wrong with you?”

A picture of himself suddenly flashed before his eyes. He was standing in Molly Jennings’s kitchen with his eyes clenched shut and his hands over his ears. Ben forced his heart to slow and lowered his hands.
A little dignity here, Chief.

He let out a long breath. “You were like a little sister to me. It was very disturbing.”

“Oh, it disturbed me as well. But if it makes you feel any better…” She leaned closer as if to confess a secret. One corner of her soft mouth quirked up. “You were never like a brother to me, Ben Lawson.”

“I…”

She leaned closer still, just six inches away. Ben could smell coffee and something soft and sweet. Her shampoo or lotion or some other feminine thing. Her lips flushed a dusky pink that drew his eyes like a magnet as they smiled at him.

“And you
definitely
weren’t like a brother to me after that night.”