loody finger one block awaaay...” Beneath a makeshift tent of blankets, safety pins, and kitchen chairs, Hope shined the flashlight under her chin and stared at the two young faces across from her. She opened her mouth and continued her scary story in her scariest voice. “I ran and hid behind my bed, but still I heard, ‘Bloody finger one house awaaay...’ ” She slid her hand under a pile of sleeping bags and rapped her knuckles against the hardwood floor. “Bloody finger at your door...” Adam’s eyes got wide and Wally chewed on his lower lip. “... knock... knock... knock.” She reached out her hand. “I opened the door... and there was a kid standing there.” She paused for dramatic effect, then continued. “He had a bloody paper cut, and he needed a Band-Aid.”

For several long moments the boys stared at her within the darkness of the blanket tent. Then they looked at each other and snorted.

Adam shook his head. “That was really lame.”

“It wasn’t even scary,” Wally added.

“You guys were scared,” she said. “I saw you.”

“Wally was, but I wasn’t.”

Wally punched Adam on the shoulder. “No way.”

“Come on, guys,” Hope complained as the two started punching each other in the arms. “You’ll knock down the tent again, and next time I won’t put it back up.” The two had spent most of the evening in a wrestling tangle, and while they seemed to really enjoy slamming and pounding on each other, it drove Hope crazy. Made her contemplate that bottle of zinfandel she had in her refrigerator. One glass probably wouldn’t hurt, but Adam’s daddy already thought she couldn’t handle two little boys. Probably wouldn’t look good if he came to pick up his son and Hope was knocking back vino.

“You two tell each other stories while I clean up,” she said as she crawled out of the tent. She stood and stretched her arms over her head. Growing up, she and her brother had wrestled, and he’d tickled her until she’d wet her pants, but geez, never like Adam and Wally. Those two were in constant motion.

She picked up the half-empty cans of Pepsi from the coffee table, a bowl of popcorn kernels, and walked into the kitchen.

She’d heard from Dylan about forty-five minutes ago, calling to tell her that they’d transferred Shelly to the hospital in Sun Valley. The wound in her hand had been severe enough to require surgery to repair some of the damage. He’d also said that the twins were on their way to the hospital, and that as soon as they arrived, he would leave to pick up the two boys.

Hope set the bowl on the counter, then dumped out the cans of Pepsi and tossed them in the recycling bin. The drive from Sun Valley would take Dylan at least an hour, so she figured he’d arrive at her door anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour and a half, depending on the Aberdeen twins.

“Hey,” came a muffled cry from the other room, “get off my head, butt-munch.”

“You’re the butt-muncher.”

She closed her eyes and lifted her hands to the sides of her face. She was going to ignore them for a few minutes; maybe they’d work out all their energy and just pass out. Instead, they giggled, which she’d learned was not a good sign.

She walked into the living room and stood quietly outside the tent made of blankets.

“That was bad, Wally,” Adam said.

“I’ve got another one. Quick, pull my finger.”

She thought for sure no one would be so stupid as to follow that command. She was wrong, and the room was filled with rude noises and more giggles. Hope made a vow to herself right then and there: If she ever decided to adopt a child, she would adopt a girl. No boys. No way.

She turned on the television and watched the ten o’clock news out of Boise. To her vast relief and utter surprise, the commotion within the tent quieted, and halfway through the weather report, Adam crawled out and informed her that Wally had fallen asleep.

“Do you want to sit with me or color something?” she asked him.

“Color, I guess.”

Hope gave him a box of colored pencils she used to correct her articles after she printed them out to proofread. She placed pieces of copy paper on the coffee table and he got busy.

“What are you going to draw?”

“My dog.”

Hope sat next to him on the hard floor. The antler legs of the table provided very little room beneath, and she was forced to sit Indian-style.

“What are you going to draw?” he asked.

“You.” She reached for the green pencil and drew a boy with big green eyes and brown hair sticking up on his head. She wasn’t much of an artist, and when she was through, the drawing looked nothing like Adam.

He looked at it and laughed. “That’s not me.”

“Sure it is.” She added a few freckles and pointed to the missing front tooth in her picture. “See?”

“Okay, I’ll draw you.” He grabbed a clean sheet of paper and a yellow pencil.

“Get my good side.” She presented him her profile.

“My mom’s got yellow hair, too. But it used to be brown.”

Her interest thoroughly piqued, Hope carefully asked, “Where does your mom live?”

He glanced up at her, then back down at his drawing. “Most of the time in California, but when I see her, we go to my grandpa’s house.”

“Where’s that?”

He shrugged. “Montana.”

Hope felt a little bad pumping the kid for information, but not bad enough to stop. “Do you get to see her very often?”

“Yep. She’s on the TV.”

On the TV? “You mean her picture is on your TV?”

“Yep.”

One more question and then she promised to stop. “Where does your mom work?”

“I’m not supposed to talk about that.”

Really? Hope immediately wondered what Dylan’s ex-wife did that was so bad Adam couldn’t talk about it. Hooker or stripper came to mind. “Hey,” she said and pointed to the drawing of her. “My nose isn’t that big!”

Adam nodded and laughed. “It is now.”

“Fine.” She grabbed another piece of paper and drew Adam with big ears and crossed eyes. “Look at you,” she said, and the race was on to draw the goofiest face. When they finished, Adam won with his picture of Hope picking her nose with “wolverine claws.”

“What do I get?” he asked.

“What do you mean, ‘What do I get’?”

“I won. I get something.”

“Hmm... I have some microwave popcorn.”

“No way.” He looked around and pointed at the stuffed bobcat on the hearth. “What about that?”

“I can’t let you have that. It’s not mine.”

He pointed to the bearskin rug. “That?”

“Nope.” Hope rose to her feet and walked into the dining room. The only thing she could think to give him was a small crystal hummingbird she’d bought to hang in the window by her computer. “How about this?”

“What’s it do?”

“When you hold it up to the light,” she explained as she handed it to him, “it shoots really cool prisms around the room. It works best in sunlight.” His hair was a little too long and fell in his eyes as he studied the bird. She wondered what it would feel like beneath her fingers, or what he’d do if she pushed it from his eyes.

“It’s pretty, huh?”

“I thought so,” she said and gave in to her curiosity. She raised her hand and combed his hair off his forehead. Warmed by his scalp, the baby-fine strands slid through her fingers.

Maybe one little boy wouldn’t be so bad to have around the house, she thought as she dropped her hand to her side. “What do you think?”

Adam’s shoulder itched and he scratched it. The bird was kinda girly, but okay, he guessed. “It’s all right.” He shrugged and walked back into the living room, watching his bare toes as he moved to the tent. He looked over at Hope. “Tell me when my dad gets here,” he said and crawled inside next to Wally. He lay down on a sleeping bag they’d found in a closet upstairs and stared up at the blankets arching over his head. He wished he were at home. He wished his dad would hurry.

He held up the bird Hope had given him, then lowered it real close to his eyes. Light from the living room filtered in through the blankets and if he squinted really hard, he could see it through the hummingbird. He thought about Hope, and about her drawing pictures with him even when his dad wasn’t around. She’d given him a present, too. And she hadn’t brought it to his house just so she could see his dad. Not like those other girls.

Maybe Hope was like Shelly. Shelly wasn’t like the others. She didn’t come over and pretend she liked Adam so she could talk to his dad.

He rolled onto his side and shoved the little bird into his shorts pocket. Maybe he’d find Hope a cool rock. He liked it when she took pictures of him and Wally, and he liked those blue boots she wore sometimes. She’d built the tent out of blankets, and she was funny when she ran from bats. He liked the way her hair shone.

Like an angel. Like his mom. Adam knew his mother wasn’t a real angel. He knew she lived in California and sometimes in Montana with his grandfather, but never in heaven. He knew she didn’t sit around on clouds and pray a lot, because she didn’t even pray at dinnertime. He knew his mom couldn’t live with them ‘cause she had to be on television. He knew he couldn’t tell all his friends about his mother because then people would come and bug her during their special time in Montana. The only friend who knew about his mom was Wally, and he couldn’t tell anyone, either.

Adam tried to keep his eyes open, but the left one kept shutting. He thought maybe he’d close them both for just a few minutes, give them a rest before his dad came.

He knew his mom was an actress and that was her job. He knew some of the stuff she did wasn’t for real, like she couldn’t fly and she couldn’t come into the room and be invisible if she wanted. But he figured some of the stuff she did on her show had to be real, and he wished he could meet those kids she’d saved when their house caught fire last week. She’d saved their cat, too. And his mom knew Santa Claus. She’d saved Santa when he’d drunk too much and got hit by a bus. She’d told him that he had to live for all the kids in the world who loved him, and Adam wished he could go to the North Pole and meet Santa. He and Wally had talked about that. Since his mom had saved Santa, for Christmas Adam would ask for something big, like the go-cart his dad said he couldn’t have until he turned ten.

Adam yawned and shoved his hand beneath his cheek. He wished his mom could come live with him and his dad. Maybe if he were really good and wanted it really a lot, she would.

Dylan knocked on Hope’s door and waited for her to answer. It was half past eleven, and he’d left the hospital as soon as the twins arrived, leaving them to take care of their father as much as their mother. Dylan had never seen Paul so upset. He’d never seen him so emotional before, but when they’d wheeled Shelly away, her husband had started bawling. Paul blamed himself and was acting as if he’d plunged the knife in her heart. He’d said he just couldn’t stand to see her hurt.

Sure, Shelly’s cut was bad, but it was nowhere near life-threatening. As he’d sat with his friend, instead of being repulsed by Paul’s blubbering, he found himself a bit jealous instead. He’d never loved a woman like that. Not the kind that could make him cry like a girl, especially after nineteen years of marriage. He wondered why he’d never found a woman he could love that much. He wondered if he ever would.

Now, lust. Lust was different. He’d had a real luston since the morning MZBHAVN had pulled into town. And during the drive home, he’d thought of little else but standing in Shelly’s kitchen, studying the soft skin of Hope’s hand and the lines on her palm. And during that long drive from Sun Valley, he’d thought about the night he’d brought her home from the Buckhorn, too. He remembered the way she’d touched him, and like watching a movie stuck in slow motion, he recalled every detail. The moist texture of her mouth, the caress of her hands sliding down his chest, the heavy ache between his legs.

The front door swung open and there she stood before him, backlit by the chandelier in the entry. After so many hours with Wally and Adam, he expected Hope to resemble a crazed Medusa. She didn’t. Her hair was down and a little messy, but she looked warm and drowsy, like she’d just gotten out of bed.

“Did I wake you?” he asked.

“No, I was lying down on the couch watching the end of Leno.” She stepped back and he entered the house.

She smelled all warm and drowsy, too, he thought. “The boys give you trouble?”

“They’re asleep.” She led him to the living room, and he let his gaze travel from the top of her hair, down her straight back, over the nice curve of her behind, to the backs of her smooth thighs. Her feet were bare. “We found some sleeping bags and kind of camped out.”

The tent made out of blankets shocked him. He supposed he would have been less surprised if they’d constructed a beauty parlor.

“They played haunted house upstairs for a while, and then when they got bored with that, we told scary stories down here.”

He moved his gaze from the tent to Hope. “They weren’t too much for you?”

“Well, they did wrestle almost constantly. Everything they picked up turned into some sort of sword or knife or gun, and the pulling-finger thing was a bit disturbing.” She cocked her head and looked up at him through the corners of her eyes. “I only thought about hitting the sauce once or twice.”

His attention was drawn to her smile, to her pink lips, and he wondered if she’d taste all sleepy, too. If she’d taste all warm and willing, as if he’d just woken her in the middle of the night to make love.

“Adam’s a nice little guy. You’re lucky to have him.” She brushed her hair behind her ears. “How’s Shelly?”

He opened his mouth to ask “Who?” but caught himself. Pushing aside the opening in the tent, he looked in on Wally and Adam. “She cut herself pretty bad. The doctors had to repair some tendons, but she’ll be okay. She should be home by morning.” The boys lay on top of more blankets and sleeping bags and were curled up like hibernating bears.

“That’s good news, I guess.”

“I think she’s doing better than Paul. He was carrying on like he’d killed her.” Dylan dropped the edge of the blanket and looked over at Hope. “I wasn’t around when Shelly had her boys, but she said that Paul was pacing and crying when they were born, too.”

“Didn’t you pace and cry when your wife had Adam?”

He didn’t correct her about Julie not being his wife.

“I didn’t have time. I barely got Julie to the hospital before he was born.”

“Short labor?”

“Long drive. We were visiting her father.” He moved toward her and glanced at the drawings on the coffee table. “Adam was born in the hospital there.”

“Adam mentioned her tonight.”

Dylan glanced up. “Julie? What did he say?”

“Just that she lives in California and has blond hair that used to be brown.”

It was definitely time to change the subject. “You all recovered from your encounter with Rocky Mountain oysters?”

“I’ll answer your question if you answer one of mine.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What your ex-wife does for a living.”

He looked her right in the eye and lied, “She’s a waitress.”

“Oh.” A wrinkle appeared between Hope’s brows as she sat on the arm of the couch.

“Now tell me if you’re recovered from the oysters.”

“Barely. If someone had told me that there were people who actually ate those things, I wouldn’t have believed them. It’s just too bizarre.”

At least when she talked about it now, she wasn’t screeching and pale and looking like she was about to vomit. In fact, a smile threatened the corners of her lips. Dylan liked her smile. He liked the sound of her laughter, too, feminine and sort of breathy. He liked it so much, he opened his mouth and told her the second biggest secret he knew. The secret so embarrassing no one in his family talked about. Not even at Thanksgiving, when they all got together and got hammered. “If you think that’s bizarre, then you should meet my cousin, Frank. He can hypnotize chickens.”

Hope’s brows rose and she looked at him like he was crazy. “How?”

Dylan raised his right hand. “He holds them down and makes them concentrate on his finger.”

She laughed. “You’re full of it.”

If his mother found out he’d spilled the beans about Cousin Frank, she’d kill him. She didn’t want anyone to know those kind of genes warped their DNA, but hearing Hope’s laughter just might be worth getting killed. “I swear it’s true.”

She shook her head and her hair fell forward and brushed her right cheek. “Why would anyone hypnotize a chicken?”

“ ‘Cause he can, I guess.”

“What does he hypnotize them to do? Go up on stage and act like people?”

He chuckled and moved toward her. “They just lie there, looking dead.” He pushed her shiny hair behind her ear, and the backs of his knuckles brushed her smooth cheek. “My aunt, Kay, seriously thinks he’s gifted.”

“You are seriously demented.”

Her hair tangling around his fingers was cool to the touch, and very soft. “You don’t believe me?”

“No.”

The brief contact twisted his belly into a knot, and he lowered his hand. “I told you the truth about the Rocky Mountain oysters.”

“You also told me you ate a lizard.”

“No, I never said I ate lizard.”

“You let me think you did.”

“Yeah, but that’s not a lie.”

“Maybe not technically, but you wanted me to believe something about you that wasn’t true.”

His gaze slid from her cheek to the bow of her top lip. “Well, then, I guess that makes us even.”

“You think I lie to you?”

He looked into her clear blue eyes, gone all wide and innocent. “Since the day you drove into town.”

She drew her brows together. “You could always do a check on me.”

“I could, but I don’t check a person’s background unless they give me a reason. It’s against department policy.” He paused before he asked, “Do I have a reason?”

“No.”

“Break any laws recently?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“No warrants for indecent exposure?”

“No.”

“Sexual harassment?”

She laughed. “Not recently.”

He looked her over from head to toe, then back up again. “That’s a shame.”

She tucked in her chin and regarded him out of the corner of her eye. “Are you flirting with me, Sheriff Taber?”

“Honey, if you have to ask, then I must be getting old.”

“How old are you?”

“Almost thirty-eight.”

Her lips became a seductive smile that warmed his chest. “You look pretty good for such an old guy.”

“Ms. Spencer, are you flirting with me?”

“Maybe.” A wrinkle appeared between her pale brows. “It’s been a long time since I’ve flirted with anyone, but I think so.” The wrinkle smoothed. “I guess you got lucky.”

Lucky. He didn’t know if he should run like hell or push her down on the couch and show her lucky. He took a step back. “Did you send in a request for Hiram Donnelly’s old file?” he asked, again changing the subject and putting a distance between them.

She stared at him for a few moments as if she didn’t follow the sudden shift in conversation. “Ah, yeah,” she finally said. “Last week.”

“Good. Let me know if you need help making sense out of them.” She stood and he took another step back. “I better get the boys home and put them to bed.”

“Their shoes are upstairs. I’ll get them.” Hope moved toward the stairs and felt very much like she had the night in her kitchen when he’d kissed her. After one touch, he couldn’t get away from her fast enough, and like that night, she didn’t know what she’d done.

When she got to the top of the stairs, she headed down the hall and went into a room on her right. Maybe she shouldn’t have admitted that she hadn’t flirted for a long time.

Maybe she’d scared him.

Beside the bed in the spare room at the end of the hall, she found Wally’s cowboy boots and one of Adam’s blue sneakers. As she crawled on the floor looking for the other shoe, she wondered if she gave off some sort of desperate vibe that freaked him out. By admitting she hadn’t flirted in a while, maybe he thought there was something wrong with her, and maybe he was right to do that. She’d met Dylan just over a week ago. She really didn’t know him, but when he looked at her or smiled at her or talked to her, her chest got tight. And when he touched her, she didn’t think at all.

She walked into the closet and looked around. As she rummaged though the camping gear inside, she heard the heavy tread of Dylan’s bootheels enter the room. She found the sneaker next to some extra sleeping bags, and when she came back out of the closet, Dylan stood in front of the window, over six feet of hard man, looking out across the lake.

“I’ve never seen the view from over here.” His shoulders filled the window, and the weak sixty-watt bulb overhead picked out the buried layers of gold in his hair and emphasized the stark white of his T-shirt tucked inside his Levi’s.

Hope set the shoe by the others next to the bed, then moved to stand beside him. She really couldn’t see out the window, but she really wasn’t dying to, either. She still felt no awe for the beauty around her, but she had to admit that there was a certain stillness to it all. A sort of tranquility that couldn’t be found in the most expensive resort or bought at the trendiest spa.

“You can’t see it from here, but there’s my house,” he said, pointing to the left and sliding over so she could see. “Right over there beyond that biggest ponderosa. And see that bright star at about sixty degrees north?” When she didn’t move, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to stand in front of him. With her back pressed against the solid wall of his chest, and one hand resting on her hip, he pointed to the stars. “Look directly below to that pale spot. That’s Devil’s Chin rock. Right below that is the Double T Ranch. That’s where I grew up. My mother and my sister still live there. If my mother had her way, I’d live there, too.”

He smelled faintly of musk and cologne, and the scent of cool night air clung to his skin. She looked out into the night, but there was nothing to see. The window faced the empty lake, and not so much as a sliver of light for her porch or the Aberdeens’ yard penetrated the darkness. Instead of watching where Dylan pointed, she watched his reflection. “I take it you don’t want to live there.”

“No. I grew up herding cows and baling hay. It’s a hard life. One you better love. I don’t, but maybe Adam will someday.” He was silent for a moment, staring off into the distance as if he could see something that she could not. “I couldn’t wait to get out of this town. I left shortly after graduating high school.”

“But you came back.”

“Yeah. Sometimes you have to wander around until you find where you really belong. And sometimes it’s right where you started. I had to get really miserable before I wanted to come home.”

“Where were you living that you were so miserable?”

Within the window’s reflection, his gaze met hers and he smiled. “First I lived in Canoga Park, and then I moved to Chatsworth.”

“You lived in L.A.?”

“For about twelve years.” His grasp on her hip tightened a fraction. “I was a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department.”

“I lived in Brentwood.”

“I probably could have guessed that,” he said and slid his hand from her side to her stomach.

“But I grew up in Northridge,” she added. She took deep, even breaths and thought about whether she should step away from his embrace or remove his hand. She felt like a teenager again, uncertain while every cell in her body tingled with life. But unlike that innocent time long ago, she knew where the feelings heating her up like a grow light would lead. What she didn’t know was if she wanted to go there with him, or if he wanted to take her.

“You moved a little farther uptown than me.”

The heat from his palm seeped though the cotton of her tank top and warmed her abdomen from the inside out. With a little effort, she controlled her impulse to turn within his arms and touch him the way he touched her. “Blaine already had a lot of money when I married him.”

“That was your husband, Blaine? Was he gay?”

“No.”

“You really married some guy named Blaine?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?”

He shook his head. “A guy named Blaine can’t be any good at buttering the muffin.”

“That’s ridiculous. He could butter the muffin just fine.”

“Exactly. I said any good.”

“He is a very smart man,” she said, then wondered why she was bothering to defend her ex-husband.

“Uh-huh. What does he do?”

“He’s a plastic surgeon.”

Through the glass, his green-eyed gaze shifted to her breasts.

“No, those are mine.”

He lifted his gaze and smiled, unrepentant. “I’d hate to think they weren’t.” He settled her into his chest and said, “Something like that just might blow all my fantasies about you.”

She stilled. “What fantasies?”

He buried his nose in her hair and looked at her reflection in the glass. “I don’t think I should tell you.”

“Why? Am I tied up?”

She felt his smile. “In a few.”

A few?

Creases appeared in the corners of his eyes. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Did she? She probably should. “What, with the fact that you fantasize about me, or that I’m tied up?”

“Either.”

But she didn’t. No problem at all. Just the opposite. It raised her temperature another notch and threatened to lower her lids. The heat in her abdomen spread between her thighs, and she squeezed her legs together. “Did I enjoy myself?”

His thumb fanned her abdomen and brushed the underwire of her bra. “Of course. I treated you real good.”

As if he’d actually touched her, her breasts grew heavy, and beneath the thin cotton of her top and the thin nylon of her bra, her nipples tightened into hard, sensitive points.

“Do you want to hear how good?”

With her breath stuck in the back of her throat, she nodded.

Through the window glass, he watched her as he lowered his face and lightly ran the tip of his tongue down the shell of her ear. “You liked it when I did this,” he whispered, then gently sucked her lobe. His breath warmed her cheek and a shiver tickled her spine. With his free hand, Dylan pushed her hair aside and slid his mouth to the side of her throat. “And this.” He placed warm kisses on her neck, and she watched his face settle into the crook of her neck, felt him gently suck her flesh into his hot mouth, but before he left a mark, he moved on, and slowly he slipped the straps of her tank top and bra from her shoulder and down her arm.

“You’re so soft,” he said and pulled her even tighter against his chest. “Even softer than you look.” His hand on her stomach curled, bunching her shirt in his fist. The hard length of his erection pressed into her behind and she went all liquid inside. Lust pooled hot and wet and wanting between her legs. The thought of them naked, making love, almost had her turning around and hooking her legs around his waist. For a moment she allowed herself a fantasy of her own, one in which she stripped off his clothes and ran her hands all over him, but with what remained of the little sanity she still possessed, she reminded herself that she hadn’t known him long enough to actually get naked.

“I don’t think sex is a good idea,” she said just above a whisper.

His gaze lifted to hers in the window. “Who said anything about sex?” he asked and kissed a warm trail to the end of her shoulder. “We’re just messin‘ around a little bit.”

“In front of the window?”

“Honey, there’s no one out there for miles.” He tugged the bottom of her tank top out of her skirt and got back to business. “If I make love to you, it won’t be with two little boys right downstairs. I’ll come prepared, and I’ll make sure I have all night to touch you the way I want.”

She’d completely forgotten about the two boys asleep downstairs. “Maybe we should stop.”

He slipped his hand under her shirt and his hot palm caressed her bare skin. “Do you want me to stop?”

She looked up at him and her forehead brushed his rough chin. “No.”

“Then keep your ears open for little feet coming up the stairs.” With his mouth poised above hers, he asked, “How do you feel?”

“Fine,” she responded without thinking about her answer first. She shook her head when she realized that probably wasn’t what he was asking. She raised her hand to cup his rough cheek. “I feel like I should probably ask you to leave.” She kissed the corner of his mouth and bristly jaw. “But I don’t really want you to go. I want you to stay, but I know you shouldn’t.” She buried her face in his neck and breathed in the scent of his skin. “Mostly you make me feel confused and lonely.”

His fingers fanned her bare stomach, his thumb brushed the bottom swell of her breast, and she had to remind herself to breathe. “With my hand up your shirt, how could I make you feel lonely?”

“Because you remind of things I didn’t even know I missed until I drove into this town.” She kissed his throat, then added, “Like the sound of a man’s boots on my floor and the feeling of a rough, scratchy cheek beneath my palm. The warm, solid pleasure of your chest against my back. Feeling safe.” And sex. He made her realize how much she missed being sexually intimate with a man, being desired and consumed and tangled up in sweaty sheets and raw lust. “And sometimes when I look into your eyes, I think that maybe you’re lonely, too.”

He was silent for a moment, watching her. Then he asked, “Do you know what I see when I look at you?”

Beneath her lips, his pulse pounded and she shook her head.

“I see someone who reminds me exactly how long it’s been since I’ve touched and smelled a woman’s sweet skin.” Again he pressed his erection into her behind, and she felt the heat of him through the worn denim. It spread down the backs of her legs and curled her bare toes against the cool hardwood floor. “When I look at you, I forget exactly why I’m living like a priest.”

She looked up into his face and her skepticism must have shown.

He pulled back. “You don’t think I’m living like a priest?”

“I’ve seen the way some of the women in this town treat you.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have problems with control around them. They don’t tempt me. Not like you do.” With her head tilted up, her neck arched, Dylan softly kissed her lips. “They don’t tempt me into fantasies about hot, down and dirty, no-holds-barred sex. They don’t make me ache to touch their soft skin like I want to touch yours. All over, with my hands and mouth. Hope, I want to kiss your breasts and little belly button and between your thighs. I know I should stay away. Being around you makes it worse, but I can’t make myself stay away. I have no control over wanting you.”

She knew the feeling. He gently pressed his mouth to hers and settled into a kiss so slow and sweet, and in such opposition to the blood she felt speeding through his veins, that she slid her hand from his cheek to the back of his head and forced deeper contact. For a man who said he had no control, he seemed to be doing just fine. She licked the tip of his slick tongue, and the kiss eased into a gentle mating of their mouths, a deep intimacy that teased much more than it satisfied. A maddening chase and follow. A slick advance and retreat of hot tongues and mouths.

Then, as if she’d suddenly lit a fire within him, the kiss turned greedy and he devoured her, sucking the breath from her lungs. In an instant, she was consumed, and she thought she rather liked the feeling of giving up control over something she couldn’t control anyway.

Beneath her shirt, his hand moved upward to gently cup her breast, and everything got so hot and dizzy she gave up thinking about anything except his palm and his thumb brushing her nipple through the sheer nylon of her bra.

Dylan groaned deep in his chest and pulled his mouth from hers. His lust-filled eyes searched hers, and as Hope watched his profile, he slowly lifted her shirt up over her breasts, then completely stilled. She held her breath, watching him and waiting for his reaction.

“Look at you,” he said and turned her attention to the refection in the window, of Dylan standing behind her, his big hands bunching the bottom of her tank top. His gaze pinned to her white bra, the material so sheer she might as well have been naked. Her breasts and her tight, puckered nipples straining against the thin nylon.

“You’re beautiful,” he breathed and met her gaze in the glass.

She pressed her arms against her sides and kept her tank top up around her armpits. Then she placed her palms on the outsides of his hands and moved them to cover her breasts. He gently squeezed and a hot flush spread across her flesh. She tried to turn, but his grasp tightened. “If you move, we’re goners,” he said.

“I want to touch you, Dylan.”

“Tonight, I touch you.”

Her eyes closed and her lips parted. It had been a long time since she’d felt so good. Her back arched and her hands fell to her sides.

“Hope, open your eyes. Look at me. Look at me touching you.”

She did. She saw her shirt pulled up, the right straps of her bra and tank top shoved to her elbow. Dylan’s palms cupped the weight of her breasts from behind, the dark pink tips poking out between his widespread fingers. She looked at her reflection, at the desire shining from her eyes.

Dylan squeezed his fingers together and pinched her nipples between them. Her knees buckled and he held her tight against his chest. “If we were alone in the house,” he said in a whisper, “I’d put my mouth right here.” He kissed the top of her head and the side of her face. “Then I’d work my way down.” He reached for the bottom of her shirt and pulled it back down to her waist. “But we’re not alone, and leaving you isn’t going to get any easier.”

He was right. Of course he was right. They couldn’t make love while two little boys slept downstairs. That would be wrong. She supposed locking the bedroom door would be wrong, too.

He took a step back and placed his hands on her shoulders.

“Do you need help with Adam and Wally?” she asked.

“Honey, do us both a favor and stay up here until you see my taillights heading toward town.” His hands dropped from her shoulders and he backed away toward the bed. “I’m afraid I used up all my willpower pulling that tank top down over your breasts. Leaving that see-through bra on you was just about the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and I can’t take much more.” He picked up Wally’s and Adam’s shoes and looked at her one last time before he left the room.

Hope moved to her bedroom in the front of the house, and from the window she watched him start the sheriff’s Blazer. He came back into the house and made two trips, carrying each boy one at a time. When he pulled out of her driveway, she thought she saw him glance up at her. But it was dark and she wasn’t sure.

She looked at her refection in the glass. At her weighted lids and puffy lips. She wasn’t really sure who was looking back. The woman looked like her, but she wasn’t behaving like Hope Spencer.

She walked from her bedroom and headed downstairs. She knew better than to want the sheriff the way she did. She didn’t believe in meaningless sex. She knew better... but she just seemed to forget or not to care. When Dylan was around, she just didn’t feel so lonely anymore.

Dylan Taber made her feel like a desirable woman again. The sound of his deep voice and the touch of his strong hands twisted her insides into hot little knots, and she liked the feeling. She liked it a lot. No man since her divorce had looked at her and made her feel like that. Like a whole woman. She supposed it was because she hadn’t given any man a chance, but it wasn’t as if she were consciously giving Dylan the chance now. She just didn’t have any control. The combination of Dylan’s easy charm and hot touches was very hard to resist.

She wondered if she should even try.