ylan leaned a bare shoulder into the doorframe and raised his coffee mug. He took a swallow and shoved his free hand into the pocket of his Levi’s. The morning sun spilled through the blinds, striping his bed with light and picking out the gold in Hope’s hair. She lay beneath a tangle of sheets, one arm thrown above her head, her face turned slightly into his pillow. Her breath was slow and steady in sleep.

Dylan rubbed the warm mug against his chest and watched her. She’d wanted him to take her home in the wee hours of the morning. Instead, he’d taken her mind off leaving.

It had been a while since he’d had sex. Even longer since he’d slept with a soft woman draped across him, and he didn’t know which he had missed most. Waking up with her warm curves pressed against him and her silky hair in his mouth was something he’d forgotten he missed. The other... he hadn’t forgotten that, he just hadn’t remembered it feeling so good.

In his life, Dylan had been with more women than he could remember. He wasn’t proud of his past, but he couldn’t change it. As a teenager, he’d been wild. In his twenties, he’d slowed down a bit. By the age of thirty, he’d certainly become more choosy, but he’d never really thought about the full ramifications of such an intimate act. It had taken his relationship with Julie to bring it home. It had taken a broken condom and the birth of his son to make him realize the full physical consequences, but beyond that, he’d discovered there were deeper emotional consequences, too.

Hope stirred in his bed and he watched her foot peek out from beneath the sheet.

Until now, he hadn’t been willing to risk it, but there was definitely something about Hope Spencer that made him forget about the consequences of becoming involved with her. Something beyond the scent of her skin and the taste of her mouth. Something beyond her beautiful body and how she made him feel.

Dylan liked her dry humor and sarcasm and laughter. He liked that she didn’t take a lot of bullshit. He liked her pink toenail polish, too.

He wanted to know more.

They’d made love three times last night. The first time fast and explosive, the second time slow and... explosive. The second time he’d taken his time, licking frosting from Hope’s nipples and munching peach slices that he’d placed on her breasts but had slid down her body to her thighs. She’d eaten cake from him, too. From his belly and lower. The third time the sex had started in the shower and ended in his bed.

And he’d do it again. He couldn’t seem to help it. He didn’t want to hurt Hope. He didn’t want to hurt himself or Adam, but he knew he’d be with Hope again. He’d thought one night would be enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. He’d have to be very careful.

Hope moved her hand and Dylan watched her slowly come awake. She blinked and her brows lowered.

“Good morning,” he said and pushed away from the doorframe.

She sat straight up as if she’d been doused by water. Her hair swung across one side of her face, and the sheet slipped to her waist. “Where am I?” she asked, her voice husky from sleep and a night spent using her mouth for something other than talking.

“If you don’t remember, then I didn’t do my job,” he answered as he moved to the side of the bed. Keeping one foot on the floor, he sat next to her and brushed her hair from her face. “Is it coming back to you now?”

She didn’t answer, but her cheeks turned pink.

“Here,” he said and held his coffee mug to her lips. “This might help.”

Hope took several deep swallows, then pushed the mug away. “You were supposed to take me home.”

Dylan lowered his gaze to her full breasts, her pink nipples beginning to pucker against the cold. “I guess I forgot.”

She scooted away from him and raised the sheet to her arm pits. “I didn’t want to wake up here.”

He lifted his gaze to her face. “Why?”

“Because I always look like crap in the morning. I don’t have clean clothes or underwear, and my eyes are puffy.”

He would have laughed, but she appeared to be very serious. To him she looked so good he wanted to pounce on her and bury his face in her neck. He wanted to make her smile and sigh his name. Instead, he stood and walked over to his closet. He took out a terrycloth robe that was too short and which he never wore. Tossing it onto the end of the bed, he moved to his dresser. “These have never been worn,” he said after he found a pair of boxer shorts. “My mom bought them for me for Christmas, but I don’t wear underwear.” He tossed them by the robe. “She hasn’t given up on trying to reform me.” He slanted her a smile, but she didn’t say another word. So much for putting her at ease. “I’ll make you breakfast,” he said as he left the room, giving her a chance to dress by herself.

His bare feet didn’t make a sound when he moved down the hall, past Adam’s room and the bathroom. In the kitchen, the cake mess was still everywhere. Earlier, while he’d waited for the coffee to perk, he’d picked up the biggest hunks, but a lot of the frosting still smeared the table and floor.

Dylan opened the refrigerator door and looked inside. Since he hadn’t expected to come home for a few weeks, he’d cleaned it out and there wasn’t much inside. A tub of margarine, a jar of mustard, and some ketchup. In the cupboards he found boxes of macaroni and cheese, instant potatoes, and canned fruit and vegetables.

Down the hall, he heard the bathroom door open and shut, and then the water run in the sink. There was nothing in his house to eat, and he couldn’t take her to breakfast. Not when she was wearing his boxer shorts, and not when the news of them together would be served up at lunch.

Dylan took the broom and dustpan from the closet and swept up as much cake as possible. If this were any other town, if he were a man other than the sheriff trying to live down his own past and Hiram Donnelly’s, no one would have cared so much, but he wasn’t just any man and Hope didn’t exactly blend in with the locals.

He threw more cake into the trash and smiled to himself. The next time Paris asked him how he’d liked her cake, and she would, she always did, he could tell her in all honesty that it was the best damn cake he’d ever eaten.

Dylan put the broom and dustpan away, and when he turned, Hope stood in the doorway. Her hair was brushed, her face scrubbed. The edges of his boxer shorts hung just below the bottom of his robe.

“I’m afraid I don’t have anything for breakfast,” he said.

Her gaze slid from his and moved around the kitchen. “That’s okay. I never eat before noon anyway. Have you seen my clothes?”

He pulled out a kitchen chair and pointed to the bundle he’d folded earlier.

“You folded my clothes?”

He shrugged and watched her move to the table. He hadn’t known what to expect this morning; he hadn’t really thought about it. But even if he had, he wouldn’t have expected her to be chilly. She reminded him of the Hope who’d first driven her Porsche into town. Sometime during the night, between the time he’d pulled her against him and the time she’d opened her eyes, something had changed, and he didn’t even pretend to know what that something might be.

When she reached for her clothes, he reached for her hand. “What are your plans today?”

“I have to work. I’m really behind.”

“Did you get the police files yet?”

“Yes.”

“I could help you look them over.”

“Ah, no, thanks.” She looked somewhere over his left shoulder, and he placed the tips of his fingers against her jaw and brought her gaze to his. Her eyes gave nothing away, and in giving nothing, she told him what he needed to know. She was hiding from him, and he would have none of it. He lowered his lips to hers and lightly kissed her. She tried to take a step backward, but he cradled the nape of her neck in his palm. With his mouth poised just above hers, he ran the tip of his tongue across the seam of her lips and felt her relent by degrees. Her shoulders relaxed, her stance softened, then a light puff of a sigh and a silent “Ahh.” He kissed her more fully. He kissed her until her hands found the back of his head. Until she’d risen on the balls of her feet and pressed her breasts into his bare chest. He drew back and looked into her eyes. “Sorry about breakfast?”

“Mmm... I’m still full from all that cake.”

Dylan smiled. Damn, but he liked her.

* * *

Hope chose a photograph of a normal-looking grandmother from her computer files. She gave her purple hair and lipstick. As she made the alien’s eyes beneath the purple eyeshadow a little rounder and her fingers a bit too long, she wondered if Walter would think all the purple was too far-fetched and make her change it. In her wildest imagination, she’d never have thought to make up a character like Eden Hansen.

Not even she was that good.

She’d already sent two alien articles to her editor. He liked them both and wanted more. She clicked the send icon on her computer screen and shot her third story through cyberspace.

The first article had just hit the stores, and according to Walter, the preliminary reader response was positive. The paper wanted to run with the series as long as possible. Which was fine with Hope. She had enough material to last a while. And when she ran out, she’d just make a trip into town.

She was writing some of the best articles of her career, and she didn’t need a psychiatrist to tell her it was because she no longer felt empty, trying to create from a dry well.

By moving to Gospel, she’d inadvertently kick-started her career and her life. She was sleeping and feeling better than she had in a long time. She’d always known that her life and creativity were so intertwined that when one suffered, they both suffered. She supposed for a while she’d just tried to ignore the truth. She’d focused on something she’d thought she could control, her career, but she’d found herself hanging on by her fingernails.

Now she had a social life, and she had something else entirely different to work on besides her stories for The Weekly News of the Universe. When her aliens were giving her a headache, she took out her article on Hiram Donnelly. She didn’t know if she’d ever sell it, but writing it gave her another outlet.

She reached for the large envelope she’d received in the mail a few days prior and removed the FBI report inside. From the sections that weren’t blacked out, she’d read that the FBI had been tipped off and provided proof of embezzlement by someone inside the sheriff’s office. An informant who had access to bookkeeping records. Hope wondered if that someone was Hazel Avery. Or perhaps even Dylan.

She leaned back in her chair and her gaze lowered to the telephone next to her computer screen. Dylan said he’d call. When he’d dropped her off that morning, he’d said he had some work to do at the Double T, but that he’d call her tonight. She glanced at the clock on her monitor. Five-fifteen. Officially evening.

Hope pushed back her chair and stood. When she thought of last night, she felt equal parts thrilled and terrified. Like she wanted to laugh one second and hide the next. She felt schizophrenic. Torn in two. Wonderfully alive and scared to death. Looking for meaning in a meaningless affair. Trying to protect herself while running toward a collision with something that was bound to hurt her. Completely out of control.

He’d licked frosting from her body and they’d been as intimate as two lovers could be, yet before he’d taken her home that morning, he’d given her a baseball cap and helped shove her hair up into it. He’d given her one of his big Levi’s jackets to wear so no one in town would recognize her and start rumors. That was what he’d said anyway, and she wondered if that was true, or if he was secretly embarrassed to be seen with her.

He’d asked about her scar. He’d finally noticed it as he’d bathed her in the shower. She’d told him her ex-husband had given her a tummy tuck, because it hadn’t been the time or the place for the truth. Then he’d kissed her old hysterectomy scar and made her feel bad for lying.

He’d folded her clothes. Such a small thing for him to do, yet it felt huge. While she’d slept, he’d folded her bra and panties in half and laid them with her skirt and tank top in a neat pile like they’d just come out of the dryer. And as she’d tried to draw away from him, tried to put some distance between them, he’d pulled her close and made her feel as if the sex the night before hadn’t been so meaningless after all.

Falling in love with Dylan would be easy. So easy and so stupid. He’d told her once that a girlfriend was the last thing he needed. She believed he meant it. If he’d wanted a woman in his life, he certainly would have had one before she’d shown up in town. There were plenty in Gospel to choose from. He didn’t want a relationship. He’d made that clear. He wanted sex, and while she wanted sex, too, she knew she would ultimately want more. She knew she would begin to care about him more than she did already, and she would be hurt when he didn’t feel the same. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was just the way things were between them.

It would be best to end it now, before she got hurt.

If and when he called, she would just have to tell him she couldn’t see him anymore. She’d have to find the willpower to just say no.

In the end, she didn’t talk to him at all. When the telephone rang, she didn’t pick up. She didn’t trust herself. Since the moment Dylan had kissed her the night of the Buckhorn incident, her willpower had gone into hiding. She didn’t trust that it would make an appearance now. Not after the memory of his kiss, and not after the night they’d spent together painting each other with frosting. Not when all she had to do was close her eyes and feel his mouth on her body. Not when she could recall with perfect clarity the seductive timbre of his voice when he’d lowered his face between her legs and said, “Relax, honey, I’m just going to eat this little peach right here.”

No, her willpower was less than zero.

She would have to avoid him for as long as possible, but complete avoidance would be impossible in such a small town.

The next time she saw him, she’d just act natural. Cool, as if she’d had lots of affairs in the past.

At around midnight, she went to bed and jumped at every sound, wondered if he’d show up at her house, or if it was even Dylan who’d called earlier. It could have been Shelly. Or Walter. Or a telemarketer. It probably hadn’t even been him. The jerk.

At a little before ten the next morning, Shelly knocked on Hope’s front door. Hope had just gotten dressed and her hair was still wet from her shower.

“Dylan just phoned me,” Shelly said as she followed Hope into the kitchen. “He wanted me to come over and see if you were okay. He said he tried to call you last night, but you weren’t home.”

“I wasn’t answering the phone.” Hope reached for the coffeepot and poured two cups. “I was busy working.”

“He said he called this morning, too.”

Hope raised her mug and blew into it to keep from smiling. She hadn’t heard the phone, but maybe she’d been in the shower when he’d called.

“Is something going on between the two of you?”

“Not a thing. Do you want milk and sugar?”

“No.” Shelly raised her own coffee and blew into it. Both women stared at each other through the steam. “Did you know that an informant inside the sheriff’s department gave the FBI information about Hiram Donnelly?”

“I’d figured that out.”

“But have you figured out who is it?”

“Hazel?”

“No.”

“Dylan?”

“Wrong again.”

“Do you know?”

“Yes,” Shelly answered through a smile. “But I’m not going to tell you. And do you know why?” She didn’t wait for Hope to answer. “Because I can keep a confidence. No one knows but me and the FBI. If someone tells me to keep something a secret, I can. I’m a good friend.” She looked pointedly at Hope as if to say Hope was not.

“Okay.” Hope relented and it all came out in a rush. “Okay, I spent the Fourth of July night at Dylan’s house.”

“I knew it! When Paul told me that Dylan was giving you a ride home, I knew he was going to try his old cheap moves on you.”

Hope was too embarrassed to admit that he hadn’t tried very hard. “You can’t talk about this to anyone. I don’t know how I feel about what happened, and Dylan doesn’t want this to turn into town gossip.”

“Oh, that Dylan,” Shelly scoffed and waved her bad hand. “He thinks his business is sacred or something. Somehow more off-limits than everyone else’s. He thinks everyone is just dying to know what’s up with him.” She shrugged. “Which, of course, we are, but I swear I won’t breathe a word.”

Hope blew into her own coffee and took a drink. When she looked up, Shelly was staring a hole into her. “What? Do you want details?”

“Not if you don’t want to give them.”

“I’ll just say that I stayed with him all night, and I had a really good time.” She took another sip and added, “Really good.”

Over their coffee mugs, they smiled at each other. Two completely opposite women who recognized a true friend in the other.

“How’s your hand?” Hope asked.

“Good.” Shelly looked at it and remarked, “This polish makes Paul frisky, but it’s starting to chip now.”

“Come on, let’s do our nails.” Hope motioned for Shelly to follow. She gathered her supplies and set them on the coffee table in the living room. She chose Rebellious Red polish, while Shelly settled on Mountain Huckleberry.

“Are you going to see him again?”

Hope shook her head. “No. I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Why?”

Hope reached for a bottle of remover and a bag of cotton balls. “Well, it can’t go anywhere because I’m leaving in five months.” The thought of leaving sent an unexpected qualm of dread through her. She felt so alive here and had found so much, but this wasn’t her home. She just couldn’t see herself living here forever, but then she’d never tried to envision it, either. She removed the lid and soaked a cotton ball. “Dylan doesn’t want a girlfriend, and I would end up hurt.”

Shelly thought for a moment, then said, “Probably. Too bad you can’t just have fun. You know, use and abuse him while you’re here.”

Hope thought it was too bad, too.

After Shelly left, Hope fixed her hair in an inverted ponytail and put on a blue summer dress. The top of the dress looked like two bandannas sewn together and tied behind her neck and back, while the skirt hit her about mid-thigh. When her makeup was perfect, her lips a glossy red, she drove into town. She stopped first at the M & S to pick up some fresh produce and a Hershey’s big block.

She looked over a small selection of CDs displayed near the postcards and gum. She’d never been a fan of country-and-western music, but since she was living in a town where if it wasn’t country it wasn’t cool, she grabbed a Dwight Yoakam CD and placed it in her basket. She’d never listened to his music, but she’d seen him in Sling Blade. She figured that anyone who could act so good at being so bad had to be talented in other areas also.

Stanley stood behind the counter as always, a copy of The Weekly News of the Universe spread out in front of him.

“Are you reading about aliens again?” she asked him as she set her basket next to the cash register.

“Yep, only this time there is a pack of ‘em living in the Northwest. Says right here they’re masquerading as humans, running around playing tricks on people.”

“Really? Hmm.”

“Says they’re responsible for lost backpackers and a few injuries.”

She made her eyes go wide. “Wow.”

“Says they place bets.”

“That’s horrible.”

“It ain’t right betting on others’ misery.” Stanley spun the paper around and pointed to the center spread. “Call me crazy, but that looks like Gospel Lake.”

Hope took a closer look at the photograph she’d taken the day she’d met Shelly and the boys on the beach. She hadn’t thought anyone would recognize the picture. “I think it looks like Eugene, Oregon,” she said, to throw him off the track.

“Could be. An alien could blend in real good with all those militant tree huggers they got over there in Eugene.” He shook his head and reached for her basket. “Sure could be Gospel, though.”

Hope was a fairly good actress when she put her mind to it, and she tried to appear as if she were giving his idea some serious thought. “Do you really think so?”

“Nah, but it’s fun to wonder who in this town might be an alien.”

She glanced up from the paper and smiled. “Maybe the woman who runs the Sandman Motel.”

“Ada Dover?” He laughed and rang up her oranges. “Could be you’re right. She is an odd one at that.”

“Yeah, kind of spooky.”

“Don’t you worry.” He patted her hand, then rang up her items. “I’ll protect you from aliens.”

“Thank you, Stanley,” she said and was still smiling when she left the M & S. She dropped off some film she’d shot of the mountains taken from her backyard, and drove into the self-serve Chevron. The pumps had yet to enter the new century, and after filling her car with gas, she had to go inside to pay with her debit card.

When she walked back outside, Dylan stood on the other side of the pumps, leaning against his dark blue truck, filling it with gas. His black T-shirt was tucked inside his black jeans, and his black Stetson was pulled low on his forehead. He looked like he’d stepped off the silver screen—an irresistible baddie—on a mission to wreak havoc and break the hearts of good women.

Her steps slowed and her heart ground to a halt. She couldn’t see his eyes for the shadow of his hat, but she could feel his gaze on her. Like always, it reached across the distance and touched her all over. As she approached her car, he straightened and a slow smile curved his mouth.

“Looks like someone wrapped you up in his hankie,” he said, his smooth voice pulling her to him like an invisible tractor beam, tempting her with the memory of his hands and mouth touching her.

She looked down at her dress and couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say. “Oh” was the only sound she was capable of uttering. She looked back up into his shadowy eyes and seductive smile, and like the coward she was, she ducked her head and dove into her car. She fired up the Porsche and sped off, leaving temptation in her dust.

Oh. That was it? Oh? Her knuckles turned white on the steering wheel and her cheeks burned all the way home. Oh? He probably thought she was an idiot. So much for acting cool and sophisticated.

She carried her bags into the house and put her groceries away. She wondered what Dylan thought of her now. Now that she’d behaved like a boob.

She didn’t have long to wait. She’d listened to only a few songs on her Dwight Yoakam CD when someone pounded on her door. She hit the stop button on her stereo, then opened the door, and there Dylan stood, over six feet of extremely irritated man. “What in the hell were you trying to prove?” he asked and stormed into the entry, bringing the scent of his aftershave with him. She looked behind him outside but didn’t see his truck.

“Where’s your truck?”

“You pulled out of the Chevron and nearly T-boned Alice Guthrie’s station wagon. She had her kids strapped in the back, and you could have seriously hurt someone.”

“That station wagon was a long way from the intersection.” She shut the door behind him and folded her arms beneath her breasts.

The light from the chandelier bounced prisms about the hall and across Dylan’s black T-shirt. Within the small confines, he seemed larger than life. A big, muscular he-man dressed in black. He placed his hands on his hips and studied her beneath the brim of his hat. “Why are you avoiding me?”

“I’m not.”

“Why won’t you answer your phone?”

“I’ve been working.”

“Uh-huh.”

He wasn’t buying it, so she decided to be honest. “I just don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

“Why the hell not?”

But not completely honest. “Because I just can’t have you coming over here whenever you want sex.”

His gaze narrowed. “You think that’s why I’m here?”

She didn’t know, but she was getting that out-of-control feeling again. The feeling like she was running toward a collision. “Isn’t it?”

“No.” He leaned toward her and said, “Maybe I wanted to see for myself if you were all right. Maybe you’re a sparkling conversationalist. Maybe I just like looking at you.” He leaned in a bit closer. “And maybe I just like spending time with you.”

Hope’s heart pounded in her chest.

“Maybe the reason I’m here has nothing to do with sex.”

“Really?”

“Maybe.” He placed his fingers beneath her chin and raised her face to his. “Maybe I just want to kiss you. Maybe that’s all I want.” He turned his head slightly to the side and said against her lips, “Maybe I just miss the taste of you in my mouth.”

Her breath caught in her chest next to her pounding heart, and she couldn’t remember exactly why she should tell him to go. Well actually, she could remember, but at the moment, what might happen in the future didn’t matter so much. She was standing in the present, and it was filled with a tall, seductive cowboy whose touch set her on fire and made her want to run her hands up his chest and lean into him. “Would you like to come in?” she asked, although, technically, he was already inside.

“Maybe.” He opened his mouth over hers and soul-kissed her, deep down where nothing mattered but him. He was magic, spreading lightning through her body.

He pulled back and looked into her eyes. “Do you want me to come in?”

If she said yes, she would be saying yes to more than sparkling conversations. Was that what she wanted? To be with him for as long as it lasted, or to be alone and thinking about him? “Yes,” she said, as much to him as to herself. She turned before she could change her mind, and the thud of his boots echoed on the hardwood floor as he followed behind her. “Can I get you anything to drink?” she asked over her shoulder, glancing back at him.

“No,” he said and slowly looked up from staring at her behind.

She had very little control over him and herself and the situation between them, and she was losing more with every beat of her pounding heart. But before losing completely, she said, “We have to set some ground rules.”

“Fine. I’ll call before I come over.” He reached for her hand and stopped her by the coffee table. “But you have to answer your phone.”

“I will, but you have to...” She paused as he raised her palm to his mouth and his warm breath tickled her wrist.

“I have to what, honey?” he asked, but the expression in the green eyes looking down into hers told her he knew. He knew he had her right where he wanted her, and he was enjoying himself.

“Uhh... call first.”

“I just said I would.” He kissed the little tickles on her wrist and sent them up her arm.

“Oh.”

“What other rules did you have in mind?”

With him staring at her as if he were about to eat her up, she couldn’t think. She removed her gaze from his and looked into the dining room at the FBI report sitting on the table. “I’m not into anything dirty,” she said, which she supposed was true, as far as she knew.

A frown furrowed his brow, and he dropped her hand. “Okay.” He took off his hat and tossed it on the couch. “Before we go any further, define dirty.”

“Kinky.”

“You better define kinky.”

She thought for a moment. “No whips.”

“Are you speaking from experience?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know you won’t like whips?”

“I don’t like pain. If I get a paper cut, I want morphine.”

“Do you like being tied up?”

Hope had never been tied up before, and the thought of Dylan tying her up made her skin tingle with anticipation. “Yes.”

“Handcuffed to the bedpost?”

She’d never been handcuffed to a bedpost, either. She nodded. Yeah, she could do that. “Can I handcuff you?”

“Any time,” he said through a wicked grin, then pulled her into his chest. “Is that it, or do you have more rules?”

“I think that’s it.”

He lowered his face to her ear and whispered, “So if I were to tie you to my bed and kiss your feet, that’d be okay?”

“Yes.”

He raised a hand to her cheek and kissed the side of her neck. “And what if I slid my hands up the backs of your thighs to your behind and raised you to my mouth? Is that too dirty?”

“No.” Her eyes closed. “That would be okay.”

“It’s better than okay.” He slid his hand up her arm. “And, Hope?”

“Hmm.” She opened her eyes and looked up at him.

“I’d never do anything to you that you didn’t want me to do. I’d never hurt you or cause you pain.” He reached for the knot at her nape. “Not unless you asked me real nice.”