Stolen Hearts Page 5

  After crawling out from beneath the RV and putting away his light and dusting himself off, he found himself standing outside her bedroom door with a weighty feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. Somehow he would make this right. He lifted his hand and knocked.

  “Go away,” she said, and if he wasn’t mistaken there was a sniffle there at the end.

  “I can’t do that, not until I apologize. There are a million things I could say, excuses I could make, but none of it matters. I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions.”

  The door flew open and he lifted his gaze to find her red-rimmed eyes glaring at him.

  “I’m—I’m sorry,” he said.

  Her folded arms fell to her sides and the stiffness in her shoulders seemed to ease. “Why did you think I was involved, other than what happened last night with those guys?”

  He went on to explain about the tape and the shed, and apologized again, praying she understood and knew how bad he felt for suspecting her.

  “I suppose I would think the same, under the circumstances,” she said, plucking at the hem of her baggy shirt, not meeting his gaze.

  He crouched down to get a look at her eyes. “Then am I forgiven?”

  She peeked at him from beneath damp lashes and nodded. He gently eased his arms around her, and with a weighty sigh, she rested her head against his shoulder.

  “I guess we don’t know each other all that well,” she said, her breath warming his chest.

  He stroked her back as he pressed his lips to the top of her head. “No, we don’t.” He wanted to say “not yet,” but knew she wouldn’t stay, even if he asked her again, but his mouth decided to give it another try anyway.

  “I think you should move into town, sweetheart, and stay at Liddy’s. Or…”

  She lifted her head from his shoulder. “What?”

  He traced the edge of her face, studied every inch of its softness. “You could stay with me.”

  Her gaze warmed as she cupped his jaw. “As much as I want to stay with you, I think—I think it might be best if I left. I still have a job to do, and the sooner I get on the road, the sooner I can get home before winter hits.”

  Clamping his eyes closed, he grasped her wrist and pressed a kiss to her palm. He’d tried and failed, but didn’t regret asking.

  “Do you, um, have to be at work soon?” she asked, her voice soft and enticing.

  He opened his eyes and grinned. “I happen to be off for the next two days.”

  With a cat-in-cream smile, she linked her hands behind his head and tipped up on her toes. Brushing her lips across his, she said, “Then I think some make-up sex is in order.”

  Chuckling, he lifted her off her feet and carried her back into her bedroom to the bigger bed. He was going to need some maneuvering room for what he had in store.

  ****

  It was time for Jake to get back to work and for Chris to get back on the road. With her gear safely stowed and her car loaded in the rear of the camper, she was ready to set out. Ready to leave Iron Horse, Wyoming behind. She’d miss Liddy, and Mr. Cooper, and all the nice people she’d met…and Jake.

  “A girl could love a man like that,” she muttered, her voice scratchy with unshed tears as she slid the key into the ignition.

  But that girl wasn’t her. She couldn’t just plant herself in Wyoming on a whim. Could she?

  Her gaze met Jake’s where he stood by his truck, his hands in his pockets and a forced smile on his lips. The last two days had been pure heaven. The way he’d made love to her had been the sweetest, most intense experience of her life. But it couldn’t always be like that. Men didn’t fit into her life, not even the really good ones like Jake Conrad. And after all, she had a job to do, traveling the country and writing her stories, and her home was in Virginia.

  “Tell yourself a few more whoppers,” she said under her breath.

  The camper rumbled to life and she looked out the window. No, it was definitely time to leave if she was actually thinking about staying. She gave Jake one last wave, then pulled out of the campground. It was going to be a very long ride home.

  Chapter Seven

  Jake sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee as he scanned the morning paper, trying to ignore the travel magazine Chris wrote for sitting on the edge of his desk. He’d read the article twenty times, and each time he felt a twist in his gut, like a knife turning. She’d wrote some really nice things about Liddy and the town in general, and even a few remarks about the nice welcome she’d received from all including the town sheriff. He grinned behind his cup again, remembering how many times and how many ways he’d welcomed her. But the grin faded and the burn in his stomach returned. He missed her more than he thought possible.

  He figured he’d fallen in love with her from the start, but hoped it would fade with time, not hurt so much, but the opposite was true. Without her, he felt like half a person. His days were long and bleak and not even a good bar room brawl could get his adrenaline going. But the nights, they were the worst. He’d wake, damp with sweat, hot and eager for her touch, cursing the vivid dreams, the exquisite memories.

  “You got something against The Sentinel or are you pissed at someone in particular?” his deputy asked.

  “What?”

  “The newspaper,” Ray said, nodding to the crushed paper in his hands.

  “Oh.” He set his cup aside and smoothed out the newspaper as best he could, then tossed it to the corner of his desk, covering the travel magazine.

  “So?” Ray asked.

  “So, what?”

  “Who are you mad at?”

  Jake opened his mouth to say no one, then realized that wasn’t exactly true. He was furious, all right, but with himself for letting the love of his life drive off without a decent fight. She’d told him about her past, about her father, so he understood her hesitancy with relationships. But damn it, that just wasn’t good enough! Not when he could see so much in her eyes, feel so much when they made love.

  “It’s that reporter lady, isn’t it?”

  Jake paused as he rose from his chair, and gave Ray a look. “What about her?”

  He smiled wide, and hooked his thumbs in his pants pockets. “Hell, Jake. Everyone knows you’re loopy over the woman. We’ve all been wonderin’ when you were going after her.”

  Jake narrowed his gaze and leaned on his desk. “Is that so?”

  Ray held up his hands and backed away. “Now, Jake, don’t go gettin’ riled. It was just a little friendly gossip.”

  He slid around his desk and Ray continued to step back. “Liddy.”

  “She says you make a right nice couple. Says you should get married. Even Mr. Cooper agreed with her, and you know that old codger never agrees with anyone,” Ray said with an awkward chuckle.

  Jake shook his head with a sigh. “Did Rachel hear all this?” He’d not said hardly two words to her since he met Chris, and he felt like a heel for it. Sure they’d just been having a few laughs, nothing had ever been said about any type of permanence to their relationship, but she deserved better.

  “Rachel? I thought you’d heard. I thought maybe that’s what had you in such a mood these past few weeks. That is until Miss Liddy explained things.”

  “Ray, the point?”

  “Oh, well, Rachel took off with a truck driver not long after we got all those drug traffickers. Apparently they’d been seeing each other off and on for a while, and he finally asked her to marry him. She packed up her bags and left with him that same day.”

  Jake rubbed his aching brow. Dumped by two women within days of one another. How did he get to be so damn lucky? And yet he only wanted one of them, wanted her as much as he wanted his next breath. He’d been a fool to let her go so easily.

  He grabbed a few things off his desk, and headed for the door. “You’re in charge,” he said over his shoulder. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. Get Earl to help out.”

  He ignored Ray’s chuckle as he jogged to his truck, eager to get
on the road. It was a long drive to Virginia.

  ***

  Chris straightened the ragged newspaper on the coffee table as she dusted, telling herself she needed to throw it away, but couldn’t seem to do it. Once she’d gotten home, she’d subscribed to Iron Horse’s only paper, The Sentinel, and tortured herself with every issue. She could see the people and the places so clearly, it made her feel homesick every time. But this particular issue was her favorite. It had a story about Jake and his deputy and how they’d made the biggest drug bust in the state. For the umpteenth time she wondered if leaving Iron Horse had been a mistake.

  There was a knock at the door, and she set aside the duster, feeling silly for cleaning and already clean room, but she had to do something. She couldn’t write, couldn’t sleep, had no appetite, and all because of a sheriff in a little no-place town in Wyoming, a place she’d give anything to be.

  “Yeah, I think I totally screwed up,” she muttered, and with a sigh, went to the door.

  The minute she pulled it open, all the air left her lungs in a whoosh.

  “Hi,” Jake said, a crooked grin on his handsome face.

  She forced a calm smile to her lips, before she made a fool of herself, and gripped the door handle, hoping her knees wouldn’t give out on her. “Hi.”

  “I, um, was in town and thought I’d drop by. I hope it’s not a bad time.”

  She blinked a moment, making sure she wasn’t imagining him standing in front of her before replying. “No. It’s, um, nice to see you. Come in,” she said, and forced her legs to move her numb body to the side so he could enter.

  He crossed the threshold and stood in her tiny foyer. She took a moment to catch her breath and concentrated on closing the door.

  “You have a nice place,” he said.

  “Thanks. Um, come in and sit down.” She motioned him into the living room as she passed, and caught herself sniffing the air to get the slightest hint of his cologne. “Can I get you something to drink or eat?”

  He took a few steps into the room but didn’t sit down and neither did she. They stood there looking at one another as awkward as a couple of kids on their first date.

  “No thanks, I’m good.”

  “So, um, what brings you so far from home?” She didn’t know what to do with her hands, they wanted to grab him and never let go, so she settled for clasping them behind her back.

  “Well,” he said, glancing to the floor before pinning his dark gaze on her. “I’m following a thief.”

  “I see.” She tried not to let him see how disappointed she was that he hadn’t come just to see her, but she understood, and yet… “What could they possibly have stolen that has you going out of state?”

  His lips turned up in a devilish grin. “She stole my heart. I thought I’d see if she’d either give it back, or maybe make an exchange. Mine for hers.”

  “Oh,” she breathed, then swallowed hard as tears formed in her eyes. “I’m afraid she can’t give you hers.”

  His grin fell and an emptiness filled his gaze.

  “She can’t give you her heart,” she hurried to say, “because you already have it.”

  “Chris,” he said, his voice choked with emotion as he opened his arms and they closed the space separating them.

  She held on to him with all her might as tears spilled over the rims of her eyes.

  He kissed his way to her mouth. “I’m no good without you, sweetheart. I can’t think, I can’t sleep.”

  “Neither can I.”

  Resting his forehead against hers, he said, “I love you, you hard-headed female. I should’ve told you before you left, but I just—I was afraid.”

  “So was I. It all happened so fast. I didn’t want to admit it either, but I love you too.”

  He clamped his eyes closed for a second and squeezed her tighter. She’d never felt more loved or more safe in her life.

  “Will you come back with me? I know it’s a lot to ask, but I am the sheriff. I can’t walk out on the folks that voted for me. At least not until my term is up. After that we can come back here, or go wherever your job takes you. I’ll find some sort of work, I’ll do—”

  She smiled and covered his mouth with the tips of her fingers. “Take me home, Jake. I want to go home to Wyoming.”

  He swallowed hard. “To stay?”

  “To stay. No more traveling journalism. I’m done running from my past. It’s time to concentrate on now, on you—on us together.”

  Moisture gathered at the corners of his eyes. “Marry me?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, barely able to hold back her happy tears.

  He kissed her hard and long, and it was pure heaven.

  “Mmm, I just had a wonderful idea,” she said.

  He pressed feather-light kisses across her cheek to her ear. “That makes two of us.”

  She giggled and cupped his face in her hands. “Mine first. I think we should take the camper and honeymoon on the way home.”

  “That sounds like a very good plan.”

  “I’m glad you like it. Now, about your idea…” she said with a grin, and led him to the bedroom.

  About the author…

  Jo currently resides in North Carolina with her patient and supportive family while she juggles her writing career and her position as a programmer analyst. In her early years, she wrote folk songs, poetry, and an occasional short story or two, but never dreamed of writing a book. She didn't even like to read! But one fateful day, she picked up a romance novel and found herself hooked. Not only did she discover the joy of reading, but the joy of writing books. These days, if she isn't tapping away at her computer on a story of her own, she has her nose buried in the latest romance novel hot off the presses, and is enjoying every minute of it.

  Visit Jo’s website at www.jobarrett.net

  Thank you for purchasing this Wild Rose Press publication. For other wonderful stories of romance, please visit our on-line bookstore at www.thewildrosepress.com.

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