Linda Conrad - Last Chance Reunion

She would never forget those days gone by, afternoons spent with the boy who’d held her heart in his hands. Back then he’d been both a dream and a brilliant reality all wrapped into one. More important than being a rich and sexy cowboy, every teenage girl’s wish come true, he was the very first person who’d ever cared about what she thought and who she was inside.

This morning, negotiating her beat-up hatchback over cattle guards, a dry wash and past horses grazing in their pasture, she let her mind drift back. Back to those terrible teen years when the world had seemed determined to make her life miserable and every day looked darker and bleaker than the one before. It seemed everyone and everything had been set against her then, save for one bright and shining star. One person who kept her sane and alive through it all.

Colt Chance.

Last night she thought she’d been seeing ghosts when he appeared out of the darkness. But as she’d touched him and felt that same old sizzle, it’d been clear she wasn’t dreaming. Her past came back with a resounding thud, reminding her of the many questions that still had no answers.

It seemed Colt had his share of unanswered questions, as well. Last night his eyes had filled with curiosity every time his gaze turned in her direction. And she had noticed that he’d asked a lot more questions than he’d answered.

When his mother’s old office mobile home came into view under a stand of winter-whipped cottonwoods, Lacie thought of what she’d learned after spending a couple of hours on the internet last night. The first thing she’d looked for was evidence of Colt having a wife—either current or past. Nothing came up except pictures of him attending society events with various debutantes. Never the same one twice.

She’d also discovered that Colt had become a big-shot lawyer working for the justice department. Not so much of a surprise, as she’d always known he was smart. A “boy wonder,” some news article from a DC paper had called him. No doubt that was why he’d considered himself entitled to ask all the questions. Asking questions had been what he’d done for a living before his department’s sting went so horribly wrong.

But being a sheriff’s deputy gave her the right to a few questions of her own. In fact, in Chance County, her questions took priority.

Streaks of reddish-gold shot above the horizon and across the prairie as she pulled up next to a pickup she recognized from last night as being Colt’s. Instead of just watching him walk away after they’d left the sheriff’s office, she’d volunteered to drive him the half mile down the highway to the truck he’d hidden behind a couple of dried-up mesquite trees and a boulder. Obviously he hadn’t wanted anyone to spot him coming and going. But she still didn’t know why.

He had a lot to answer for this morning.

After turning off her car, she hopped out and headed for his door. But as she put one foot on the first step of the front porch, a noise originating in the side yard caught her attention. Something—or someone—had to be back there.

Out this far from civilization it could be anything. A coyote. A giant coon. Or maybe Colt had a pet dog. But she wanted to double-check before she went inside. Just to be on the safe side.

Carefully rounding the corner with her hand resting on her weapon, Lacie felt her heart skip a beat when she discovered what was there. Before her stunned eyes stood Colt, naked to the waist, straddling a bench and working out with a barbell. Earplugs, probably connected to music, had kept Colt from hearing her or her car’s approach.

Thinking she’d be unobserved, she let her gaze roam freely down his sweat-glistened chest to the dark hair that arrowed past his waistband and disappeared beyond his jeans. Heat flooded through her veins, bringing dampness between her breasts and at the apex of her thighs.

She wasn’t a naive young girl. She’d seen plenty of men working out, with and without their shirts, and never thought a thing of it. But the sight of Colt using his chest and shoulder muscles, bunching and rolling, left her stupefied and panting like some preteen girl.

He looked up just then and his gaze arrowed straight to her face. His eyes met hers and darkened as though he’d known exactly what she’d been thinking. He set the weight down, pulled the earplugs free and lifted his chin.

Her pulse began to race. “I...uh...” She knew her face had gone beet-red, but she couldn’t put a coherent thought together.

“Morning. You’re very punctual.” He grabbed a sweatshirt off the bench. “Go on inside. Coffee’s hot. I’ll be there in a sec.”

She turned tail and hustled into his kitchen, grasping for both air and calm. What was her problem? An old boyfriend, accent on the old, should not shake her up this way.

By the time Colt arrived and pulled a bottle of water from the fridge, Lacie more or less had her nerves under control. She’d come here to find out what was going on with him and why he’d been sneaking around the sheriff’s office. Not to start up anything between them.

Colt probably wouldn’t be interested in a relationship with her anyway. He’d been living in the big cities, the way he’d always claimed he wanted, and, according to the papers, had plenty of sophisticated girlfriends. Women who knew all about how to please a man.

As he took a long swig from the water bottle, her eyes locked on his mouth and throat. The blast of heat inside her ignited again and branded her as an idiot for a second.

She tore her gaze away and coughed. “You look pretty healthy to me.” What? That wasn’t what she’d wanted to say. “I mean, it’s good you work out. You’ll get back to health sooner that way.”

Colt set aside the water and took a deep breath. “My upper body never was a problem.” He didn’t want to talk about this with her. “It’s the lower body that may never heal. There was a time when the doctors claimed I would never walk again. Now they say the limp might be the best I can hope to achieve.”

Well, hell, he shouldn’t have said that much. “I’ve come this far. I’m not ready to give up yet.” Something about her felt so comfortable. So right.

“Good.” She moistened her lips and swallowed hard, and his body hardened in response. “We need to talk about last night. You have to tell me what’s going on.”

Jumping into things without thinking them through was one of his bad habits, and a tough one to break. But this time, his gut told him everything would work out all right. She hadn’t changed that much. So, she was a deputy. She hadn’t told anyone about last night, had she?

He pulled out a chair and sat down. “My career, the one I screwed up, was as an investigator for the...”

“Justice department. Yes, I know.” She sat at the table across from him.

He let a big, sloppy grin cross his face. “Been checking up on me, Deputy?”

“It’s my job.”

Before she could say anything else, he plowed ahead. “The job made me the inquisitive type. Do you ever wonder about things from our childhood? Things that never seemed quite right back then?”

“Stop doing that.” She screwed up her mouth and narrowed her eyes on him. “This is my time to ask questions.”

God, she was beautiful. Not classically gorgeous or sophisticated in her uniform and with a gun on her hip. But he’d always thought she was the most alive and vibrant person he’d ever known. None of that had changed.

“No, really,” he said, ignoring her complaint and urging her to answer. “Anything still bothering you about the past?”

“I’m a little curious about a few things.” She frowned but added, “That’s at least partially the reason why I came back to Chance—to exorcise old ghosts.”