Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sam stroked May’s hair and listened to the storm raging outside.
“We should get up,” she murmured sleepily.
“No point.” He glanced at the window where the snow blew against the glass. “We can’t go anywhere.”
“I suppose.” She yawned. “How are we going to get back to your cabin after the storm?”
“Walk if we have to.” He thought a moment. He was pretty sure there was an easier way.
“ ’Kay.” She turned to snuggle against his side, and he wondered if he was ever going to recover from this. It was as if she’d shot a bolt through him, and only she could fill the hole.
“This’s pretty great,” he said carefully.
She snorted. “Being trapped in an unheated cabin on a hard floor with a storm outside? I’m especially appreciative of your friend Hopkins’s taste in food.”
“Be nice.” He squeezed her. “I meant us.”
She was quiet so long, he thought she might’ve fallen asleep. “Yeah.”
He turned and brushed his lips against her forehead.
She began struggling. “We ought to get up.”
“May—”
“At least be prepared for when the storm stops.”
He turned and took her arms. “What are you doing?”
“Let me go.”
“May.” He waited until she glanced up at him, her eyebrows lowered ominously. But he wasn’t going to be turned aside by her orneriness this time. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She was so damned stubborn he just wanted to yell at her sometimes, but he knew that wouldn’t get him anywhere. He wondered if that was her goal all along with her bitchiness: to distract and confuse him.
So that they never got to the important issue.
“We’ve got something good here.” He squeezed her arms for emphasis. “Something that isn’t real common. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never felt it before.”
She opened her mouth, but he gave her a look.
“Let me finish and then you can go off on me all you like.” He lowered his voice. “If that’s what you really want.”
She pinched her lips together, but nodded jerkily.
“Okay.” He took a breath. He’d never been much of a talker—wasn’t real eloquent even at the best of times—and this was important. Maybe the most important thing to ever happen to him in his life. So he took another breath and tried to think of the words that might make her see things his way. “You’ve been running ever since I first pulled you over—what was that, summer before last?”
“May.”
“What?” He blinked, confused.
She cleared her throat. “It was in May.”
“Oh, okay.” He smiled a bit and hoped she didn’t see: she remembered the month they’d met in. She cared more than she let on. “So two years, come next May, then?”
“Yes.”
“And the thing is, I’ve never quite known why.”
“You do too know why,” she said at once. “I’m not attracted to you.”
He just let that sit for a space.
“That’s not what I mean,” she said gruffly. “Sex isn’t the same thing.”
“Well, I think it is,” he said, not pushing it too hard, just stating it. “With you, anyway.”
“I don’t want… I don’t need anything beyond this.”
“You know, you act like you’re a real good liar,” he said. “And I suppose to most you are. But the fact is, I’ve gotten to know you a bit, and now? Now I can tell that you’re not being honest with me.”
He thought she’d fly into a rage, maybe yell or even hit him, but she gave a sigh instead, like all the air had gone out of her.
“I don’t know if it can work, Sam,” she said, and he got worried because May could get angry and sarcastic and even kind of evil, but she never got sad. “You’re a cop and I’m… well, you know what Dyadya is.”
“He’s mafiya.”
She nodded, her head down on his chest so he couldn’t see her face. “Exactly. You’re… not.”
He chuckled then, even though he knew he shouldn’t.
Her head snapped up so fast she nearly clipped him in the chin. Her glare could kill a man at thirty paces. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. Nothing,” he said hastily. “It’s just… I never knew you were so romantic.”
“What?”
He smiled down at her angry face. This was the May he knew. “Like Romeo and Juliet.”
“What? No…” Her mouth opened, but no more words came out.
He threaded his fingers back through her hair just because he could. “Two star-crossed lovers kept apart because of family politics?”
“It’s not the same at all.” But she sounded uncertain.
“Nope,” he agreed. “For one thing I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t look good in tights.”
She slapped at the hand he had laying on his chest, but then she wrapped her fingers around his, listening.
“And for another,” he continued, his voice low, “I always thought it was kind of stupid they couldn’t get together. I mean, they were teenagers, I know that. But we’re not.”
“They had everything against them,” she said low. “Society, their families.”
“Yeah, but we don’t.” She shook her head, but he talked over her. “I don’t even have family, not really.”
“You have this town.”
Yeah, that was actually kind of true, now that he thought about it. He had Coot Lake. “Okay, and no one in this town is against you and me being together.”
She twisted to look at him, her face skeptical. “Doc Meijers? I always got the feeling he isn’t my biggest fan.”
“Yeah, Doc isn’t particularly happy about us being together. But see, here’s the thing: I’m not a teenager. I’m not Romeo. I make my own decisions, and if I decide to be with you because—” he almost said the words, but then figured it was too soon “—because I want to be with you, then people have to kind of come to terms with that.”
Her mouth twisted cynically. “And if they don’t? Sam—”
“What makes you so sure everyone in this town is against you?” he asked. “Have you asked around? Have you gotten to know people here?”
“No, but people know Dyadya, and—”
“—and they like him.”
“You don’t,” she whispered.
That took him aback. “Yeah, I do, actually. I don’t like what he was, I don’t like him bringing his past troubles to my town and endangering you and Coot Lake, but Old George himself? He’s okay.”
He peered at her, but she still seemed skeptical. “Look, I’m not saying everyone in this town would throw a party if we got together, but you haven’t given them a chance yet, have you? You’ve decided all on your own that we won’t work, and you’ve given up before we’ve even tried.”
That made her brows draw together.
He smoothed a thumb over one. “Why don’t we try? Not forever, nothing permanent, just for a little bit. See what happens.”
“What…” She bit her lip and tried again. “What would ‘trying’ include?”
This was the most she’d ever given him, and it was more than he’d hoped for so soon, but he knew better than to let triumph show on his face. “You could let me take you out to dinner, for one. Come up here twice a month instead of once. I could come down to visit you in the Cities on my off days.”
“That’s all?” she asked softly, but her words were a challenge. “Just a couple of dates.”
The hell with being cautious. He rolled, pinning her beneath him. “You know damn well I want more than just a couple of dates. I want more of this.” He pressed his hips into her sweet warmth. “I want Saturday mornings with French toast, I want walks with Otter, I want to hear about your day and the clients you can’t stand. I want you, Maisa Burnsey. I want you.”