Kathleen Creighton - The Sheriff of Heartbreak County

Wished he’d never have to move from where he was at that moment…a woman’s long sleek body beneath him, pulsing warm around him, heart tapping lightly against his chest, hands gliding over his sweat-slicked back, shallow uneven breaths stirring his hair. This woman. Mary.

Mary. The name quivered through him like a seismic shock-wave. What had he done?

He raised himself and looked down at her…mouse-brown hair spread across the flowered bedspread, porcelain skin still stained with the flush of passion and dusted across the bridge of her nose with tiny jewel-like drops of sweat. Her eyes were closed, the lashes clumped together in wet spikes, and her mouth was swollen and glazed with moisture from his kisses. He stared at her…framed her face with his hand and lightly brushed his thumb across her lips…and waited for the regrets to come. What have I done?

What had he done? Made love to a woman for the first time since his wife died, a woman in his protective custody, a woman he’d arrested, a woman accused of cold-blooded murder. Surely, there would be regrets…shouldn’t there?

But all he felt was a tremendous sense of awe, and pride, and yes…of ownership. For Mary he felt warmth and tenderness, and maybe something deeper. Yes…time to admit it was definitely something deeper. And instead of feeling scared or ashamed or guilty about that, he felt… happy.

He leaned down to kiss her and felt her lips curve under his with her smile. “I’m trying to think of something to say,” he said softly between light, brushing kisses. “Guess what I am is speechless.”

“Yeah, me too.” She nudged his lips with hers.

He felt her stir beneath him and instantly tensed. “Am I too heavy?”

Her arms tightened fiercely around him. “No-I love the way you feel…inside me. I wish-” She didn’t finish it, but he knew what she meant. He felt that way, too. “It’s been…a very long time,” she whispered brokenly.

His throat tightened. Frowning into her eyes, stroking her wounded cheek with the backs of his fingers, he asked thickly, “Did I hurt you?”

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “No-oh, no. I’m fine-really.” Her smile was like a flash of sunlight, and he felt it warm his soul as he kissed her.

Then, with the tightness still gripping his throat, he murmured, “It’s been a long time for me, too. First time since my wife died, actually.”

“Really?” Her eyes widened with shock. “Wow-why? I mean, I know why I didn’t, but…”

“Why didn’t you?” He didn’t want to talk about the terrible grief and rage that had left him a hollowed-out shell for so long. He’d tell her someday. Not now. “Surely not…ten years?”

This time her smile was a faint flicker, without any joy. “No, not ten years. At first I wanted a relationship. I was lonely, you know?” She turned her face away from him, so he eased his weight away from her and propped his head on his hand, leaving his other arm draped across her, keeping her close while she talked. “I’d accepted this would be my life from now on, that there was no going back. And I sure didn’t want to spend the rest of my life alone. So I tried it, a few times. But always…at a certain point there’d be this…I’d have this need to share who I really was, even if it meant breaking security. And I knew I couldn’t do that, so…it was really hard.” Her voice broke, and she jerked back to look at him with shimmering eyes. “It was…like having to wear a mask all the time, even during the most intimate times. It felt awkward…suffocating.” She looked away again and whispered, “In the end, it was just too hard. Intimacy-real intimacy-was impossible. And without it…well, it just wasn’t enough. So…I’d break it off and move on. Eventually I stopped trying.”

There was silence, then, while Roan stared down at her face, lashes quivering on her cheek, moisture pooled in the corner of her eye. He cleared his throat and said huskily, “Well, seeing as how I already know all your secrets-” he bent down and touched his mouth to the tear puddle, dispersing the salty sweetness over his lips and her eyelid like dew “-there’s no mask necessary anymore. Not with me.”

She turned her face to him; her eyes searched his and slowly came alive with wonder. “No…” she breathed, like someone beholding a miracle. “I guess…that’s true.”

He lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her deeply, taking a long sweet time about it. Desire for her was welling up hot in him again, like steam in a geyser, and when he rolled onto his back and brought her on top of him, her body already felt familiar to him. Her soft warm body slid over his hardness like an all-over caress, as she settled herself with a pleased little wiggle and a chuckle of surprise.

“Told you it’s been a long time,” Roan growled.

The SUV sped along the two-lane paved road that wound between pastures nestled among foothills studded with junipers and carpeted with wildflowers. Along the summits, pine trees stood like dark sentinels against a pale-blue sky streaked with feathery clouds. Roan drove with the windows down, and the air was warm and smelled of grass and pine needles and grazing cattle and all sorts of new growing things. It teased Mary’s hair and stirred across her skin like a lover’s caress, reminding nerve-endings of sensations reawakened such a short time ago.

Memories of that reawakening blew through her with a blast of heat that took her breath away. She glanced over at Roan, biting her lip to hold back a smile. But he was driving, as he had been since they’d left Hartsville, with one elbow planted on the window ledge, his hand resting across the bottom part of his face, eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses and focused on something far beyond the road ahead. He’d done that on the way back from Bozeman, she remembered-it seemed an age ago now, the day she’d first known she was falling in love with the Marlboro Man-the Sheriff of Hart County, Montana.

Heartbreak County, she thought, and felt the heat inside her dissipate before a wicked little chill of fear.

“Regrets?” she asked softly.

He threw her a quick surprised glance. His eyes were shielded behind the glasses, now, but a smile deepened the little depressions in his cheeks in a way that made her heart wallow drunkenly. “Regrets? Nah…worries, maybe.” Eyes back on the road, his smile grew wry.

“Worries?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, like how I’m gonna keep my hands off you when you’re sleeping under my roof, living with me in my house, right along with my father-in-law and my child.”

Her stomach was quivering with something that felt oddly like butterflies, and she didn’t reply.

After a moment Roan threw her another glance, this one without the smile. “Truth is, Mary, I don’t know quite what I’m gonna do about you.” She couldn’t think how to answer that, so she didn’t. He faced front again and gave a gusty sigh. “I don’t know if you have any idea how you’ve complicated my life.”

“ Your life!” It burst from her on a gust of incredulous laughter. “What about mine? I’ve got a hitman after me and a murder charge hanging over my head!”

“Yeah,” he growled, “and I’m the one that’s got to keep you safe and at the same time find some evidence that’ll clear you.”

Happiness burst inside her and spread through her whole being. She felt breathless with joy and hope. “You believe me? That I’m innocent?”

“Well, yeah, I thought I made that pretty clear a little while back.” He glanced at her, forehead creased in a puzzled little frown, then shifted as he faced forward again, as if the seat was getting uncomfortable for him. “Never did think you were guilty, to tell the truth.”