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He wondered if it ever did. She had a face made for smiles.
“You, too.”
She reached the end of the fence and finally turned away, crossing into her front yard.
Her hair swayed and bounced.
Sloan shook his head and went back inside. Whether or not the boy was her brother or her son, a young woman like Abby Marcum didn’t need something temporary in her life.
And temporary was all he had to offer.
* * *
The car was unloaded. Most of the boxes unpacked.
Abby sat on the wooden barstool at her breakfast bar and looked at Dillon. He was sprawled on the couch, a fleecy blanket pulled up to his chin, sound asleep. He’d had his triumph at ‘White Hats.’ Had his popcorn. Had the casserole she’d managed to throw together.
It was nearly midnight. She could have gone to bed herself.
She sighed and poked through the box of chocolates, selected one and followed it up with a chaser of milk. She doubted her girlfriends would approve. They’d also sent her away with a bottle of champagne. It was sitting, unopened, in the refrigerator.
No champagne and no horizontal entertainment for her, both of which they’d insisted it was high time she finally experience.
She held up her grandmother’s delicate crystal flute and stared at the milk. “Happy New Year,” she murmured just as the lights flickered twice then went out completely.
With the television silent, all she could hear was the ticking of the clock that she’d hung on the kitchen wall and the faint hiss from the log burning in the fireplace.
By firelight, she leisurely finished her milk and waited for the electricity to come back on. When it didn’t, she retrieved the lighter from the mantel where Sloan had left it and lit several candles.
Then she headed back to the barstool and the chocolates.
There was a loud knock on her door as she picked up the gold box. And at that hour it was certainly unexpected. But it wasn’t alarm that had her hurrying to the door; it was the fact that she didn’t want Dillon waking up. He was sleeping so soundly, and she didn’t want to ruin it. It was a rare night that passed without him waking out of a bad dream.
She cracked open the door and looked out. Sloan stood there, a sturdy flashlight in his hand, and she opened the door wider. The air outside felt bracingly cold in comparison to the warmth slipping through her at the sight of him.
“Everything okay here?”
“Fine.” She poked her head out the door, looking up and down the darkened street. “Why?”
“Just making sure.”
“It’s only a power outage.” She smiled. “Did you think I’d be over here shaking in my boots?”
The beam of his flashlight shifted, moving across her bare feet. “You’re not wearing boots.”
She curled her toes against the carpet. “You caught me.” She realized she was still holding the gold box and extended it. “Care for one?”
“I don’t know.” His deep voice was amused. “There was a time when my mother told me not to take candy from strangers.”
Abby grinned. “Wise woman. But it’s your loss. These aren’t just ordinary chocolates.” She held the box up a little higher. In the glow from the flashlight, he couldn’t fail to notice the distinctive box. “You sure? I promised the friends who gave them to me that I’d share them with someone other than Dillon.”
“I see. Can’t have you breaking a promise, then.” He raised his flashlight and took one.
“No point in standing out in the cold. Come on in. I’ll get you something to drink.” And then she held her breath, because she was pretty sure that he wouldn’t accept her invitation.
But he stepped past her.
Her stomach swooped.
She noticed that Dillon still hadn’t moved as she quietly closed the door before crossing to the bar again. “Have a seat.” She waved at the second barstool and set the chocolates on the counter.
He shut off his flashlight and shrugged out of his jacket. “Looks like you’re putting your grandmother’s crystal to good use.”
“Trying.” She got a second flute from the cupboard then pulled open the refrigerator and snatched the champagne. She set the glass and the bottle in front of him. “You’ll need to open it, I’m afraid.” She didn’t even know how.
He tilted his head slightly as he picked up the crystal flute she’d been using. Candlelight danced over it. “Definitely doesn’t look like you’re drinking champagne.”
She felt silly. Grown women didn’t drink milk out of champagne glasses. “I’m not.”
He lifted her glass to his nose. The old crystal looked shockingly delicate in his long fingers. “You mind?” But he didn’t wait to see if she did; he simply took a sip. Right from her glass.
Her mouth suddenly felt very dry, and she sat down weakly on her own barstool. The width of the counter separated them, but she still felt dwarfed by him. It wasn’t just that he was tall. His shoulders were massive. And up close like this, she was pretty sure she could make out a tattoo of some sort on his neck, not quite hidden by the neckline of his long-sleeved T-shirt.
“Milk always goes well with chocolate,” he murmured. He set her glass down on the counter and slid it toward her. “That’s what I’ll have if you’ve got enough to share.”
She nodded, afraid that if she tried to speak, her voice would just come out as one long squeak. She went back to the fridge, blindly snatched the milk carton and filled his glass.
“Anything else your friends say you’re supposed to do besides share the chocolate?” He kept his voice low, and even though she knew it was because of Dillon, it still felt unbearably intimate.
She picked up her own glass. She couldn’t lie to save her soul, and there was no way she’d share what they’d told her about finally having sex, so she just grazed the side of her glass against his. “Cheers,” she whispered instead.
“Not exactly an answer, Abby.”
“I guess it isn’t. What’d you say your name was?”
His teeth flashed in the dim light. “Sloan McCray,” he finally offered.
And just like that, she realized why he’d seemed familiar. Because she’d seen his face before in the newspapers. On the television news. On the internet.
He looked different from the clean-cut man in the snapshots she remembered, but she was certain he was the undercover ATF agent who’d brought down the horrendous Deuce’s Cross gang a few years ago. She remembered watching the news stories on the television in her grandfather’s hospital room. Sloan had succeeded at something no one before him had been able to do. He was a hero.
And he was sitting right here, watching her with narrowed eyes, as if he were waiting for some reaction.
She got the sense that if she gave one, he’d bolt.
So she didn’t.
“So, Sloan McCray,” she said softly. “Why aren’t you out celebrating New Year’s Eve somewhere?”
“I am out celebrating.” He tilted the glass and drank down half of the milk.
She couldn’t help grinning, even though she was afraid it made her look like a cartoon character.
He set the glass down again and pulled the gold box closer so he could study the contents. He’d folded one arm on the counter and was leaning toward her. “Anything besides the job bringing you and Dillon to Weaver?”
“No.” She realized she’d mirrored his position when he looked up from the box and their heads were only inches apart. Her heart raced around fiendishly inside her chest. “We lived in Braden, but working at the school here was too good an opportunity to pass up. I’ll have essentially the same hours as Dillon.” Her grandfather had planned well, but that didn’t mean Abby could afford to spend money on after-school care if she didn’t need to.
“And you want to stay close to Braden,” Sloan concluded. “For your grandmother.”
“You did overhear that.”
He nodded once. Took another sip of milk, watching her over the rim of the flute.
“What about you? What brings you to Weaver?”
“Maybe I come from here.”
If she recalled correctly, the news stories had said he’d hailed from Chicago. “Do you?”
He didn’t answer immediately. He selected a chocolate. Studied it. “My sister lives here,” he finally said. Then he turned his back to her and stood.
Disappointment flooded her, but all he did was walk across to the fireplace and quietly place another piece of wood on the dying embers. Then he returned to his barstool. He held up his nearly empty glass. “Unless you’ve got more, we might need to open that champagne after all.”
“I have more,” she said quickly and retrieved the milk carton. She filled his glass, emptying the carton.
“You’re not going to have any left for Dillon in the morning.”
She curled her toes around the wooden ring near the base of her barstool. “He likes brown sugar and raisins on his oatmeal anyway.”
His lips twitched. “That’s the way my mother used to fix oatmeal for us. What else did you leave behind in Braden?”
Her mouth went dry all over again at the way he was looking at her, his eyes so dark and hooded. “I tried to bring everything that mattered.”
“Grandma’s crystal.” He held up his glass.
“And Grandpa’s shotgun.” She smiled. “Safely stowed away in a cabinet, well out of Dillon’s reach. Plus his video games. Dillon’s that is, not my grandfather’s.” She was babbling but couldn’t help herself. “Photographs. Clothes.”
“You’re not answering my real question. You have a boyfriend waiting for you in Braden? Some nice kid as fresh-faced and wet behind the ears as you?”
She didn’t know whether to be charmed or insulted. “I’m neither a kid nor wet behind the ears.”
He gave that slight half smile again. “How old are you?”
She moistened her lips. “Twenty-three.”
He made a face. “I’ve got ten years on you.”
She managed to hide her surprise. He was ungodly handsome, but his face held far more wear than any man in his early thirties should. She guessed that was the price for the kind of work he’d done. “In any case, no, there is no one waiting for me to come home to Braden.” She plucked a chocolate from the box and shoved it into her mouth with no regard for its fineness. “No boyfriend. No husband. No nothing,” she said around its melting sweetness. “Been too busy raising Dillon for the past two years. Even if there had been time, I’m still a package deal.”
His eyebrows rose. “Where are your parents?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Who knows? He’s my half brother. We share the same mother, but she was no more interested in raising him than she was me. Which is why—”
“The grandparents,” he concluded.
She nodded. “What about your parents?”
The devil laughed mockingly in Sloan’s ear. That was what he got for showing some curiosity about Abby. She naturally showed some curiosity in return. “They died when my sister and I were twenty,” he said abruptly. Tara had turned into a homebody after their childhood, and he had been the opposite. But he knew they shared the same distaste for talking about that childhood.
“That must have been hard.”
Not any harder than growing up without parents at all, which seemed to be the case for her. He folded his arms on the counter again, leaning closer. Close enough to smell the clean fragrance of her shining brown hair. “You start work when the holiday break is over?”
“In two days. At least it’ll be a short week.”
“Nervous?”
She shook her head. Made a face. “Guess it shows, huh?”
“You’ll be fine.”
She toyed with her glass for a moment. “What do you do?”
“Deputy sheriff. For the next few months, anyway.” He didn’t know what the hell had him offering that last bit. Maybe a thin attempt to lay some groundwork. Some temporary groundwork.
“What happens after that?”
He hesitated and wasn’t sure what he would have said if the electricity hadn’t kicked on just then. Light from the overhead fixture flooded the kitchen, and the television came to life.
“Look,” she whispered, leaning to the side to peer around him. “The ball in New York is nearly down.”
He glanced over his shoulder. Sure enough, the TV showed the famed crystal ball inching its way down while a mass of people around it cheered and screamed.
“Three.” He turned back to watch Abby, whose gray gaze was focused on the countdown.
“Two,” she whispered on a smile.
“One,” he finished.
Her pretty eyes lifted to his. “Happy New Year, Sloan.”
Maybe it was the devil. Maybe it was the angel.
Maybe it was just him.
“It is now,” he murmured. And he leaned the last few inches across the counter and slowly pressed his mouth against hers.
Chapter Three
