Sandra Steffen - Wyatt's Most Wanted Wife

Easing into a small, tentative smile, he said, “Nice enough to take in dinner and a movie with me?”

“Too nice for that.”

Suddenly the word nice sounded as grating as fingernails scraping a blackboard. “I beg your pardon?” he croaked.

Her hands covered her cheeks. “Oh, my gosh. I’ve done it again, haven’t I? I’m sorry if that sounded like an insult. It was far from intentional. You really are a very nice man. You’re like one of those good guys on TV, right down to your white hat. You probably go to bed by eleven every night and to church every Sunday. Heck, you were probably a choirboy when you were a kid. Now that you know about my past, you should understand why I’m looking for someone completely different.”

It took a lot to make Wyatt mad, but no matter what she said, he was no saint. He clamped his mouth shut and jerked the car to a stop in a parking space in front of the store. He threw the gearshift into Park, got out, kicked his door shut and gave the back door a yank. Slightly dismayed, Lisa got out, too. Hoisting a heavy box into his arms, Wyatt looked at her over the top of his car. The smile she attempted did nothing to put him in a better frame of mind.

“Look,” she said, carrying a smaller box to the front door, “I probably didn’t say any of that the way I should have. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

Instead of replying, he waited for her to unlock the door, then plowed past her into the store and dropped the box on the floor, only to stride back out to the sidewalk to get another. Lisa figured there was nothing like anger to light a fire underneath a man’s feet. By the time the trunk and back seat were empty, Wyatt had made two trips for every one of hers. And he still hadn’t uttered a word.

She felt horrid, but for the life of her she didn’t know what to do or say to make things right. Still, she had to try. “Look, Sheriff—”

He stopped abruptly. Spinning around, he hiked the box to one hip and scooped his hat off his head. “If you’re thinking about apologizing again, there’s no need. Your opinion of me is certainly humbling, but no matter what you think, I don’t spend all my time rescuing kittens out of trees.”

“Of course you don’t. I didn’t mean to imply—”

“For your information, I broke up a band of cattle thieves a few years back, and I once arrested a bank robber down in Westover.”

Wyatt crammed his hat on his head and hid a world-size cringe. Why didn’t he bring up the trophy he took for roping calves when he was thirteen, for cripe’s sakes?

They stared at each other. Neither of them smiled or moved or said a word. Her dark hair was messed, wispy tendrils framing her face in total disarray. Wyatt imagined it would look much the same after a long night of making love. He spent so much time on that thought he had to remind himself to breathe, but he certainly didn’t have to remind himself what the heat coursing through him meant.

Watching the play of emotions cross her face, he couldn’t help wondering what she was thinking. If their hearts weren’t beating the same rhythm he would eat his hat. She may have thought he was nice on an intellectual level, but physically her body was thrumming with something much more earthy and sensual and wild, and so was his. He moved closer, his breathing a husky rasp in his own ears, his eyes trained on her mouth, his thoughts slowing to only one.

A sound near the door stopped his forward motion. Wyatt glanced up as Cletus rushed in, winded. “Boy, I’ve been waiting for you to get back for hours.”

“What is it, Granddad?”

“Mertyl Gentry’s fit to be tied. She was almost in tears the last time she called. Made me promise I’d tell you the second you pulled into town.”

Wyatt nodded abruptly, hoping the gesture would spur his grandfather to tell him what the old woman was upset about. Mertyl Gentry was a seventy-eight-year-old widow who’d lived in the same house on Pike Street for sixty years. A few days ago he would have assumed she was calling to complain about neighbor kids trampling her flowers. Now that he knew a car thief was on the loose, he wasn’t so quick to dismiss the possibility of something much more serious.

“Is Mertyl all right?” he asked.

“Far as I know.”

Wyatt glanced at Lisa and found her eyes mirroring his own concern. “Granddad,” he sputtered. “Are you going to tell me or aren’t you?”

Cletus snapped his suspenders and raised his craggy chin. “I’m gettin’ to it, I’m gettin’ to it. Ya don’t hafta get huffy. It’s that confounded cat of hers. Went and got himself stuck up in a tree again. Mertyl says you’re the only person she trusts to get him down safe and sound.”

Adrenaline seeped out of Wyatt like a tire with a leaky valve. He vacillated between dropping his head into his hands and telling Mertyl Gentry to get her own stupid cat out of her tree.

“What’s the matter, boy? Cat got your tongue?”

Wyatt wished his grandfather had used some other cliché. He glanced at Lisa and found her looking back at him. She didn’t say a word, but the lift of her eyebrows spoke volumes.

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