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“Please,” she said, sarcasm dripping as she closed the door against the hot, humid air, “come in.”
“We have to talk,” he said, striding across the room before turning to face her. “And damned if I’m going to do it in the diner with everyone in town listening in.”
Her fingers tightened on her wineglass. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have come into the diner this morning.”
“Maybe,” he muttered and stuffed both hands into the pockets of his jeans. “But I needed some decent coffee.”
She hadn’t expected that. But he looked so disgusted, so…frustrated, Amanda laughed. His head snapped up, his gaze boring into hers.
“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head as another laugh bubbled out. “But really? Coffee is what finally brought you in?”
“I’ve been getting mine at the gas station.”
“Poor guy,” she said, and he frowned at the humor in her voice.
“You can laugh. But I don’t think Charlie’s so much as rinsed out that coffeepot of his in twenty years.” He grimaced at the thought and made Amanda smile again.
Shaking his head, he nodded at the wine in her hand. “You have any more of that?”
“I do. Also have beer, if you’d rather.”
“Yeah, that’d be good.” Some of the tension left his shoulders and one corner of his mouth tilted up into what might have been a half smile if it hadn’t disappeared so fast.
She walked to the kitchen, opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. Amanda paused for a second to get her bearings. The moment she’d been dreading for years was finally here. Nathan and her were together again. Alone. And there was just no telling what might happen next. But whatever it was, she thought, at least it would be something. Better than the vacuum they’d been in for the last few years. Better than the rigid silence that had stretched between them since she came back to Royal.
With that thought in mind, she walked to the living room, handed him the cold bottle, then took a seat on the couch. Mainly because her knees felt a little wobbly.
Looking up at him, she watched as he opened the beer and took a drink. He looked so good it was irritating. His skin was tanned and there was a slightly paler line across the top of his forehead where his hat usually rested. His brown eyes were watchful as he glanced around the apartment, no doubt taking in everything in that all-encompassing sweep. She wondered if he was remembering all the nights they’d been together, here in this room. Could he still hear the whispered words between them? Probably not, she thought. Nathan wouldn’t want to be reminded of a past that had no bearing on his life anymore.
She studied him as he studied the apartment. He wore scuffed brown boots, blue jeans and a short-sleeved, dark green T-shirt with Battlelands Ranch emblazoned on the shirt pocket. He stood stiff and straight as if awaiting a military inspection.
He was off-duty and yet everything about him screamed police. Nathan was just that kind of man. Devoted to duty, he preferred order to chaos, rules to confusion. He would take a road trip and stay on the highway, where Amanda would prefer the back roads, stopping at everything interesting along the way. No wonder they had clashed.
And even knowing all of that, she still felt the rush of attraction that she couldn’t deny. She wanted to be immune to him and, clearly, she wasn’t.
But this was exactly why she needed to be here. Because until she was immune to Nathan Battle, she’d never be able to move on. Instead, she’d go on being haunted by memories, by thoughts of what might have been.
He took another drink of his beer and looked down at the bottle in his hand. “I was sorry about your dad.”
She blinked against the sudden sting of tears. The one thing she hadn’t expected from Nathan was kindness. It was…disarming. “Thanks. I miss him.”
“Yeah, he was a good man.”
“He was.” Safe ground. Talk about their families. Don’t mention the tension coiled so tightly between them.
“Why did you come back?”
And there was the Nathan she knew best. So much for the pleasantries—it was on to Round One. “Excuse me?”
“Well, hell, Amanda.” He frowned down at her and looked a little surprised that she didn’t seem affected by his displeasure. “You were gone for years. Why come back at all?”
“Are you in charge of Royal’s borders now, Sheriff?” she asked. “Do people have to check in with you before they move in?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She pushed to her feet. Even though she stood five foot ten, she was forced to tip her head back to meet his gaze, but she did it. “Royal’s my home as much as it is yours, Nathan Battle.”
“Couldn’t tell from how you acted,” he said, completely ignoring the hard glare she fired at him.
“I seem to recall you living in Houston for quite a while. Were you interrogated when you moved back home?”
“I’m not interrogating you, Amanda,” he countered. “I’m just asking a damn question.”
“That you already know the answer to,” she shot back. “Pam needed help with the diner. I came home. That’s the story. None of this concerns you, Nathan. This is my business.”
“Damn straight it is, but now that you’re back, it’s my business, too.” He stood as still and cold as a statue.
“How do you figure?”
“I’m the sheriff here. This is where I live. For you to come back now and start stirring things—”
“What am I stirring, Nathan?” she interrupted, and saw with a jolt of glee that he still hated being cut off. It infuriated her to remember that in the old days. She’d have shut her mouth so he could keep talking. Well, that time was gone. “I’m working at my family’s diner.”
“And getting tongues wagging again,” he pointed out.
“Please. People in Royal gossip about everything. I didn’t have to be here to have them talk about me.”
“They’re not talking about you,” he elaborated grimly. “They’re talking about us.”
“There is no us,” she said flatly, and was surprised by the twinge of pain that clutched at her heart.
“I know that and you know that, but the folks in town—”
“Forget about them,” she interrupted again.
He took a long deep breath from between clenched teeth. “Easy for you to say. But as sheriff, I need to have the respect of the people I’m protecting. I don’t like being the subject of gossip.”
“Then tell them that. Why tell me?”
“Because if you leave, it’ll stop.”
She set her wineglass down before she was tempted to throw it at his rock-hard head. “I’m not leaving. And, it’ll never stop, Nathan.”
That statement hit him hard. She saw the proof of it flicker in his eyes. But she wasn’t finished.
“Until we’re ninety, people around here will be speculating and remembering.…”
“Damn it, Amanda, I want you out of town.”
“And I want you to stop caring what other people think,” she snapped. “I guess we’re both doomed to disappointment.”
He set his beer bottle on the table beside her glass and moved in on her. He was so tall, he didn’t have to put much effort into looming. She supposed it just came naturally to a man used to having his own way. A man accustomed to telling people what to do and having them do it.
It might have worked on her years ago, Amanda told herself, but no more. She was her own woman now. She made her own choices and decisions and lived with the consequences. She wouldn’t be ordered out of town and she wouldn’t be scared off by a big, gorgeous sheriff with eyes as cold as a winter wind.
“If you think you’re worrying me, you’re wrong.”
“I don’t want you worried.”
“Good, because—”
“I don’t want you at all.”
Direct hit, she thought, as an icy fist slammed into her chest and squeezed her heart. But she wouldn’t let him see it. “I don’t want you, either, Nathan. I’m not that young girl anymore, dazzled because Nathan Battle noticed her. I’m not going to follow you around all doe-eyed, hoping for a smile from you. I’m—”
He grabbed her, yanked her close and kissed her with a fierce desperation that was fueled by desire and anger, all twisted up together. She could feel it in him as she felt it in herself. Past and present tangled together and memories were as thick as honey on a winter morning.
But those memories were swamped by all of the new sensations coursing through her. Amanda didn’t try to pull free. Didn’t pretend that she wasn’t as hungry for him as he was for her. Instead, she moved into him, wrapped her arms around his neck and held on.
This is what she’d missed for so long. This man’s touch. His kiss. The feel of his hard, strong body pushed up close against hers. She parted her lips for him and took him inside her. When he groaned and held her even tighter, Amanda felt bolts of heat shoot through her system like a summer lightning storm. So much electricity between them. So much heat.
Was it any wonder they had flashed and burned out too quickly?
His hands slid up and down her back, holding her, pressing her as close as he could. His mouth took hers again and again, and she met every stroke of his tongue with eager abandon. God, she’d missed him. Missed them. She had found nothing that could compare to what happened when they came together. No other man she’d ever met could compare to Nathan. Which meant that she was in very deep trouble.
Her mind raced even as her body lit up like a sparkler factory. This was a huge mistake. Falling into Nathan’s arms was not the way to get over him. But right now, all she was interested in was feeling her body come back to life as if waking up after a seven-year nap. Her skin tingled, her heartbeat crashing in her chest, and in the pit of her belly, heat settled and began to spread.
What was wrong with her, anyway?
Three (#u90ebe143-7c0c-5668-a5c5-53c8a3f7a6c5)
When Nathan suddenly released her and took one long step back and away, Amanda swayed unsteadily and gasped for air like a drowning woman. Her mouth burned from his kiss and her body was trembling.
“See?” he practically growled at her. “This is why you shouldn’t have come back home.”
“What?” She blinked up at him and saw that, once again, Nathan’s expression seemed to be etched into stone. He looked hard, untouchable and about as passionate as a slab of granite. How did he turn it on and off like that? And could he teach her how to do it?
“I kissed you and you were all over me.”
A sudden spurt of ice water flowed through her veins and put out all the lingering fires inside. Maybe he wouldn’t have to teach her after all.
“Excuse me? I was all over you?” She took a step closer and stabbed her index finger at him. “Just who grabbed who, here? Who came to whose house? Who started kissing?”
His mouth worked and his lips thinned into a tight line. “Not the point.”
“It’s exactly the point, Nathan.” Furious now, more at herself for falling so easily into old habits than at him, Amanda said, “Just like before, you came after me. You started all of this, then and now.”
“And I’m going to end it.”
Hurt raged inside, but was soon swallowed by a wave of fury. He decided when to start things. When to end things. And she was supposed to go quietly along. Nathan Battle, Master of the Universe.
“Big surprise. You like ending things, don’t you?”
His eyes narrowed on her and his jaw muscle twitched so violently she was pretty sure he was grinding his teeth into powder. Well, good. She’d hate to think she was the only furious one in the room.
“I’m not the one who ended it seven years ago,” he finally said, his voice a low throb of barely leashed anger.
“Not how I remember it,” Amanda countered, the sting of that long-ago night still as fresh as if it had happened just yesterday. “You’re the one who walked out.”
“It’s what you wanted.” His gaze drilled into hers.
She met him glare for glare. “How would you know, Nathan? You never asked me what I wanted.”
“This is pointless.”
A long minute or two of tense silence stretched out between them. The only sound—the oven timer going off—rang out like a bell at a boxing match signaling the end of a round.
It worked to jolt both of them out of their defensive stances and a second later, Nathan was heading for her door. When he got there, he paused and turned back to look at her.
“This town chews on gossip every day, but I’m not going to be gnawed on.”
“Good for you!” She picked up her wine and took a swallow she didn’t really want before setting the glass down again. If he thought she was looking forward to being the topic of whispered conversations, he was nuts.
“The Battle family has a reputation in this town—”
“And the Altmans aren’t in your circle, are we?” she interrupted again and felt a small swift tug of pleasure, knowing it irritated him.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” Walking toward him, Amanda glared up into his dark brown eyes. “I’m amazed you ever deigned to propose to me in the first place.”
If possible, she thought his eyes actually went black for a second or two. How twisted was she that she still thought him the most gorgeous man on the planet?
“You were carrying my child,” he told her flatly.
That statement, said with such frigid control, sliced at her like a blade and Amanda fought against the pain.
They hadn’t spoken about their lost baby since the night he’d walked out on her. For him to bring it up now…“That was low.”
He paused for a long minute or so, just studying her through narrowed eyes. “Yeah, it was.” He scrubbed one hand across his face. “Damn it, Amanda, we’ve got to find a way to live in this town together.”
She slid her hands up and down her arms. Funny—even with the hot, humid air of summer, she felt a chill. Maybe it was him being here, so close. Maybe it had been the loss of heat when their kiss ended. And maybe, she thought, it was because of the memories he’d brought up and waved in her face.
The memory of the child she’d carried and lost. The baby she had wanted so badly. Whatever it was, she wanted to be alone until that icy sensation was gone. She needed time to herself. To think. To regroup. And she couldn’t do that until she convinced Nathan to leave.
“I’m guessing you have a plan,” she said with a sigh.
“Damn straight, I do,” he told her. “We go about our business. We live our lives. If we see each other, it’s friendly, but distant. No more private chats. No—”
