Chapter Six

Maisa bit her lip, watching Sam bear down on her out of the corner of her eye. It’d seemed like a good idea earlier when she’d left Dyadya’s cabin with the excuse that she needed to pick up a few things in town. She’d go to Ed’s—where everyone would be on a Friday night—and find out what Sam knew about the guy who’d crashed his car. She wasn’t about to approach the stranger by herself—for all she knew he was some kind of mob courier—but she had to at least try to discover what was going on. Dyadya had smiled and gently deflected all her questions, acting suspiciously innocent before declaring that she shouldn’t worry, the whole matter would be resolved in the morning.

Maisa snorted softly to herself. Yeah, and the Russian mob had suddenly become a charitable club.

“Hey,” a male voice said by her elbow.

She turned quickly, but she already knew it was the wrong male voice. A huge guy with an untrimmed beard and scuffed Sorels stood there, looking shy.

She smiled at him and then froze when he smiled back.

Flakes of chewing tobacco were stuck to his front teeth. “Wanna, y’know, da—”

“Sorry, bud, she’s already taken.” Sam appeared next to the guy, and although he was over six foot, Tobacco Boy was easily a head taller.

And also, he’d lost his smile. “Listen, asshole—”

“Ah. Ah.” Sam shook his head. “Watch the language in front of the ladies.”

“Damned straight.” Becky belched.

“May?” Sam held out his hand and although his voice held the polite question, his posture sure didn’t.

She narrowed her eyes a moment. If she didn’t need him for information, she might be tempted to go with the other guy, tobacco-stained teeth or not, just to show Sam.

But she did need him, so she placed her hand in his, rising. She smiled apologetically at the big man. “Maybe another time.”

He might’ve replied, but Sam was already dragging her to what passed for a dance floor in Coot Lake.

“Do you mind?” she hissed as he turned her and drew her much too close.

One corner of his mouth quirked up and stayed there as he placed his big hands on her waist and began swaying gently.

She huffed and put her palms on his shoulders. He was wearing a denim shirt so warn and faded that the fabric was like suede. She couldn’t help but surreptitiously circle her fingertips, her eyelids half lowering. Soft, soft fabric over warm, hard muscles. If she let her head sway forward just a little she’d bet she could smell his shaving gel. He used something corny, cheap, and all-American, like Old Spice.

Perfect.

“How’d you get into town?” His voice was a quiet rumble beneath the gentle croon of Bonnie Raitt.

“Dyadya’s pickup.” She caught his brows lowering and added, “He’s got snow tires on, you know he does.”

He shook his head. “Snow tires don’t mean a damn if it starts to ice or the snow’s too deep.” But his voice was still low. He knew it was too cold for the roads to ice over tonight. She had another hour or so before the pile up of snow got dangerous for driving.

His hands slipped down a little—nearly, but not quite settling on her rear.

She was so tempted to lay her head against his worn denim shirt and just forget about mysterious pink heart diamonds for the night.

The jukebox hiccupped and a new song started: Pink imploring “Please Don’t Leave Me.”

That song always made her tear up for some reason. She fought the feeling, pulling back a little from his embrace. “Did you have any more wrecks to take care of this afternoon?”

He tilted his head, studying her, and she was reminded once again that Sam West might be a small-town man, but his intelligence was anything but small. “A few people skidded off the road, but no major wrecks.”

“That’s good.”

“Yup.” He bent his head and murmured in her ear, “How long you stayin’ this time?”

She swallowed drily. “Just the weekend. Like usual.”

“Too bad,” he whispered, his hips brushing against hers. “I’d like to see more of you.”

“What for? Sex?”

For some reason her hostile tone made his mouth twitch in amusement. “That, too. Mostly, though, I want to get to know you.”

“What for?” She found she’d gripped his shirt in her fingers and she carefully smoothed it out, frowning at the wrinkles. “It’s not like we have anything in common.”

“Oh, I think we do,” he said, confident as always, his voice deep and seductive.

“Like what?” she demanded.

He shrugged, his big shoulders moving under her hands. “You care. I do, too.”

“Care?” She laughed incredulously, feeling vulnerable, almost pained. “What gave you the idea I care?”

“Because,” he said tenderly, “you stopped to talk to Becky though you didn’t want to, apologized to that musher with the bad breath, and asked about the people on the roads tonight.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I have an ulterior motive.”

He looked straight at her with blazing blue eyes, no lies, no sidestepping. “Do you?”

“I…” She shook her head—partly at his naïveté, partly at herself. What was she doing? She’d come here to get information, not to fall into Sam West’s too-honest blue eyes. He’d never had to swim that muddy gray stream between right and wrong. “No. You’re a fool if you think we have anything in common.”

“Now how can you say that when you don’t even know me?” he asked, slow and hard.

She stumbled, maybe because she wasn’t used to that tone from him, maybe because he was right.

He just kept on talking in that gravelly voice. “You don’t know what I eat for breakfast, what my favorite baseball team is, if I snore at night. You don’t know what I think about in the middle of the night. What I’m afraid of. What I’d die for. Hell, woman, you haven’t even tried, have you? You scratched my surface and stopped right there.”

“Maybe I don’t want to,” she hissed low and defiant and not a little shaken. Was she really as shallow as that?

“You want to, all right,” he said, a kind of flaming anger behind those blue eyes.

Maisa wondered vaguely if she should be frightened. But they were in the middle of Ed’s, for God’s sake. Sam wouldn’t do anything here.

Would he? Suddenly she realized that she had no idea what he was going to do next. He was right—she didn’t know him.

He bowed his head to hers, a tender gesture, but his words were anything but tender. “Something’s just holding you back. Spent most of last fall trying to figure it out, you know. Thought it might be the small-town thing or the no-college thing or the blue-collar thing, but that’s not any of those at all, is it? It’s something else, and May, if you think I’m going to rest or give up without finding out everything that makes you tick in that sweet little head of yours, well, you’d better think again.”

She wanted to wrench herself from his arms, run away and hide, but she still needed that information.

Or maybe that was just what she was telling herself.

“Come on,” he said low, his voice like smoke, insidious and unavoidable, almost taunting. “Tell me what you’re doing here tonight in my arms, May.”

“What if it has nothing to do with you?” she spat. “What if I’m just here for information?”

“Yeah? Like what?” His mouth twisted again, but this time it was bitter. She hated that she’d put that cynical look on his face. “I’m an open book, right? That’s what you think, isn’t it.”

And for the first time she faltered. Was Sam West an open book? He must be. He was a small-town cop, never been to college. What more could there possibly be?

For a moment the room tilted ever so slightly to the left. What if everything she thought she knew was wrong? What if Sam West was a man she wanted—no, needed—to know?

Then she stomped that uncertainty right down. Dyadya might be in trouble. She needed to focus and find out what Sam knew about the man in the car crash this afternoon.

Maisa steeled herself and met his gaze with a confident half smile on her lips. “Where did you put him? That guy in the accident?”

“He’s at the Coot Lake Inn,” he said easily, as if the information was nothing. As if he was telling her that snow was white. She hated herself for using him. But then he tilted his head closer, whispering as if imparting a secret. “Why d’you ask, May?”

And suddenly she couldn’t catch her breath. She panted, looking up at him, wishing they were in an empty room—hell, a dark corner would do. She wanted to strip off his baby-soft shirt and feel the hard muscles beneath. Wanted to forget this stupid game she was playing.

“I think,” he said quietly as the jukebox changed again. The beat was all wrong—a pounding pulse—but he ignored it, continuing to hold her close. “I think Old George has some questions, doesn’t he? And he’s using you, sweet May, as his hunting dog to scare the pheasants.”

“Dyadya wouldn’t use me,” she said breathlessly. “Did you just call me a bitch?”

“ ’Course not.” His hands had slipped slyly down and now he cupped her ass frankly as he pulled her against him, insinuating a long leg between hers.

“Stop it!” she hissed.

“What?” His blue eyes were wide and innocent while his lean thigh pushed against the V of her legs.

Oh. Oh, just there.

For a moment she lost the thread of the conversation. Forgot that she needed to keep alert. She pushed against his shoulders, but it was like trying to move granite. Not to mention her hips had begun to undulate against his leg, which wasn’t exactly helping her case.

She glared at him, trying to ignore the heat pooling low in her belly. “Half the town’s here.”

His lips twitched. “Yup.”

“Including your boss.”

“Uh-huh.” He lifted her a bit so that she was standing on her tiptoes, most of her weight balanced on his leg. She could feel the hard ridge of his erection pressing into her stomach.

“Sam.” Embarrassingly, his name came out a breathless whine. “You’re a cop!”

“I’m off duty.” He chuckled then, the vibration traveling through his body and hitting her where they touched: breasts and belly and the juncture of her thighs. “Why’re you using me, May?”

“I… I don’t—”

“Bullshit,” he murmured gently. An endearment. “You already said you didn’t come here for me. Either Old George needs the information or you do.”

How could he think to ask questions when she could feel his big body hard against her? She wanted to get mad. Wanted to pull away and stomp out.

He shifted his thigh again, and she only just suppressed a moan.

He bent his head to hers. “Which is it?”

“I… I…”

“May.”

“I…” She swallowed, gathering her wits. “I’m the one—”

“The one what?” he whispered against the side of her face. He took her earlobe between his teeth and bit.

For a second everything whited out.

She ducked her face into his chest, her panting breaths humid against the denim shirt. “I’m the one who needs you.”

His hand tightened against her hips, and she immediately realized her mistake. She pressed her hands against his chest. “Needs your information.”

One of his hands left her bottom as he set her gently back on her feet. “Why?”

She was silent.

“Why, May?”

She shook her head, still recovering but determined that she wasn’t going to talk anymore. This whole night had been a very bad idea.

She felt his fingers threading her hair. “I’d love to kiss you right now, but I have the feeling it’d be a while before you talked to me again if I did. That right?”

She nodded vigorously, her face still hidden.

“Then why don’t I get your coat? That snow’s not getting any thinner on the ground, and I’d like it if you made it home tonight.”

Grown-up women didn’t hide forever, even if they might’ve had a rather intimate encounter in the middle of a bar dance floor. Maisa took a deep breath and raised her head, hoping she wasn’t as flushed and sweaty as she felt. “Okay.”

His wide mouth curved and he bent to brush it against her temple. “That there doesn’t count as a kiss. I just want you to know.”

“I know,” she said. “And it doesn’t matter anyway.” She pulled away from him and stood on her own. It felt a bit like peeling a layer of skin off, but she did it anyway. “I doubt I’ll be seeing you again this trip up.”

He frowned at that. “Look, May…”

She aimed a smile in his general direction. “I’d better be going, remember? Roads will only be getting worse.”

She turned without waiting for his reply and strode to the table where she’d left her jacket. She didn’t stop for more than a few words with the ladies sitting there, and then she was pulling the door open.

The snow hit her with an icy blast, and if there’d been any lingering haziness, it was blown clean away. Sam West wasn’t a viable option.

Maisa made a mental note to herself: Stay away from the man.