Of course I’m going after Dalton. There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m staying in Rockton, and I need to tell him that. He did not, however, head out for a quiet walk in the woods. I’m halfway across town when I hear the roar of an ATV and look to see him on one, ripping into the forest.
I don’t have time to get an ATV. I know the path he’s on, and the next one over will let me cut him off if I run. So I run as fast as I can, ignoring the stares and the calls of “Casey?” and “Detective?”
One of the militia guys tries to come after me, alarmed, but I yell back, “I just need to talk to Eric. He didn’t take his radio,” and he nods and waves away the concerns of anyone else who finds it troubling that their detective is running like a madwoman for the woods.
The paths converge about a half mile in, so it’s no short sprint. But I manage to make it to the convergence point just in time to see him ripping around a bend. When he spots me, he’s off the ATV almost before it comes to a stop.
“Get the hell back to town,” he shouts to be heard over the engine.
I shake my head. “I want to talk—”
“No. You know the rules. Get your ass back to town. Now.”
I loop past him and shut off the ATV. “I want to talk.”
“And I don’t.”
I walk over to him and look up. “You’re overreacting, Eric.”
I expect a flash of rage and a hot denial. Instead, he says, teeth clenched, “Yes, which is why I’m out here. By myself. And why I don’t want to talk.”
I back up to the ATV and perch on it. He looks down the side path, the one he’s just come from, and I know he’s ready to walk away, leaving me with the ATV, so I can get safely back to town.
I take the keys from the ignition and pitch them into the forest.
“What the hell?” he says.
“If you walk away, so will I. In the other direction. Which leaves me out in the forest alone.”
His eyes narrow. “That’s not very mature.”
“Just following your lead, Sheriff.”
I get a glower for that.
“I admitted I was overreacting,” he says. “It’s been a fucking long day. I’m exhausted, and I’m on edge. This morning you said if I got kicked out of Rockton, you’d come with me, and then, a few hours later, you’re thinking about leaving? What the hell was that this morning, Casey? Why would you say you’d come with me—” He breaks off, shaking his head sharply as he steps back, putting distance between us. “I’m tired, and I’m overreacting, and I’m going to ask you, again—”
“You never said I could stay.”
“What?”
I slide off the ATV. “Twice last night, I said I would leave with you … if you weren’t going to kick me out after six months. You never said you’d changed your mind.”
“We were joking around. Fuck, how could you even think I still planned to send you back?”
“Because you’ve never said you changed your mind. Because you don’t threaten unless you mean it, and until you say I’m allowed to stay, I’m going to presume I’m still on probation. I just found out that my best friend betrayed me. Completely and utterly betrayed me. Then Beth—whom I consider a new friend—tells me I have no reason to stay, and that stung. But you know what hurt a whole helluva lot more, Eric? When you let Beth go on about me leaving and said nothing.”
“I was waiting for you—”
“To say I wasn’t leaving. And I was waiting for you to say I can stay. So it was a misunderstanding, and I’m here to clear it up. There’s nothing for me to think about. I don’t want to leave. I have work to do—”
“Work to do…”
“Yes, and I’d never leave you in the lurch like that.”
“It’s not about leaving me in the lurch, Casey. Goddamn it. This is about…” He looks away and lowers his voice. “Maybe you should go home.”
“What?”
He groans and runs his hands through his hair. “I don’t mean that. Fuck, of course I don’t. If you’re happy here, you can stay as long as you want. I just—” He turns away. “We need to get back to town.”
I get in front of him. “No, we need to talk. If you don’t want me in Rockton—”
“Of course I want you here,” he says. “That’s the fucking—”
He bites it off and turns again, ready to leave the other way, but I block him again.
“Don’t do this, Casey,” he says, his voice low. “Just let me go.”
“And leave me here? In the forest?” It’s a low blow, and the turmoil in his eyes almost makes me regret it, but I’m determined to hash this out.
I step closer to him.
“Back up,” he says, barely unclenching his jaw.
“So you can run away?” I say. “No. If you don’t want me here, Eric, you’re damned well going to tell me now, not leave me dangling—”
I don’t see it coming. One second I’m telling him off, and the next I’m against a tree, his hands on my hips, his mouth coming down to mine. There’s one split second of What the hell? followed by another second of Shit, this is a bad idea, but by then he’s kissing me, and I don’t really give a damn where it came from or how lousy an idea it is.
He’s kissing me, and that’s all I think about, all I can think about, because it’s no tentative Is this all right? kiss. Nor does it go from zero to sixty in five seconds flat. It starts at sixty and stomps down on the accelerator. I’m against the tree, and he’s kissing me like I’m the first woman he’s seen in ten years and he’s not wasting one moment getting this kiss to its ultimate destination.
His hands are under my shirt, running up my bare sides and around my back, pulling me against him. Once, when he has to stop for breath, he gives a ragged, “I don’t want to do this,” but before I can even decipher the words, he’s kissing me again, as if the sentiment didn’t pass from his lips to his brain.
He says it again, as he breaks the kiss when my belt doesn’t unfasten quite as fast as he’d like, but this time it’s only, “Don’t want to,” before he continues wanting to and doing so, yanking out my belt and pulling at the button on my jeans, and kissing me so hard my lip catches in his teeth, and there’s a jolt of pain, just enough to zap the top layer of lust from my brain, enough for me to hear his words again.
I don’t want to do this.
Don’t want to.
I could ignore that. He’s leading, so I can just let him take this where he so obviously intends to take it, where he so obviously wants to take it, despite his words.
I’m squelching my doubts as hard as he is. I want this. Hell and damn, I want this. My whole body ignites at his kiss, at his touch, at the feel of him against me, and I want more. More, more, more, and now.
I don’t want to do this.
Don’t want to.
I shudder, and he takes that for passion and stops tugging my jeans over my hips and lifts me up onto him instead, straddling him as he pushes against me, his hands going to my face, holding it between them as he kisses me. A two-second break in the momentum for a sweet, deep kiss, and that’s all I need. One moment’s delay and a sweet kiss to remind me that this isn’t a stranger I met in a bar, quick sex in the back hall, never to see each other again.
This is a guy I care about, and some part of him doesn’t want to do this, and if I let him, it’ll be guilt and shame and That was a mistake and It won’t happen again and awkwardly avoiding each other. And it’ll be more than that. It’ll be heartbreak, because I care about him, more than I really want to care about any guy, and when it’s over, I’ll have sacrificed something good for five minutes of passion.
His hands drop to my waist again, pushing my jeans down, the lust reigniting, the kiss deepening, his breath coming harsh as he sees the end in sight and—
I pull back. “No, Eric.”
He doesn’t seem to notice, just pulls me to him again, pushing between my legs as he flips open the button on his—
“No, Eric.” I put my hand on his chest and push him. “Stop.”
He blinks. Then he pulls back, sucking in breath, and before I can even catch a glimpse of his expression, he steps away, letting me drop, and then turns and strides off.