his best friend,” Nick said, filing the information away. It tied in with his reason for being there.
“Not anymore.”
Nick shoved his hands into his back pockets and considered. “Sounds like the boy needs help.”
Her shoulders stiffened. Hostility boiled between them, distorting the air like summer heat on asphalt. It was a defensive reaction on her part, he reminded himself. On his part, neither anger nor any other emotion had a place in his dealings with her. She was simply the parent with a kid in trouble.
“Doogie…Douglas is fine. He’s just…” Her voice trailed off, and she looked uncertain.
“Going through a phase?” He ended it for her.
“Yes. All boys get up to mischief. What has he done now? Another fight?” She almost looked hopeful.
“Shoplifting.” The word came out harder than he meant it to do, but there was no way to pretty it up.
Her shoulders sagged. She closed her eyes for a second while she dragged in a shaky breath. Her skin, usually a smooth, healthy pink, mottled.
Nick took a step forward, his hands going out, his arms opening instinctively before he caught himself. He tucked his hands into his back pockets again, where they’d be safe, and backed up a step.
She opened her eyes, and he saw the heat in the usually cool depths. He steeled himself. People always took their anger out on cops. The Bad News Boys, as the sheriff labeled them in his jocular moments.
“Where? What?” she asked.
“Video, over at Joe Moss’s.”
“A video,” she echoed. “Why? Why would he do something like that?”
He shrugged. “Kids.”
“Is he in…at the jail?”
“No. I, umm…Joe decided not to prosecute.”
“You talked him out of it I…thank you. Where’s Douglas? Did you take him back to the store?”
“Yeah.” He knew the boy stayed in town on Saturdays, hanging around the clothing and accessories boutique that Stephanie successfully owned and managed with the mayor’s wife. The kid ran errands for some of the merchants or went to a movie. It could be a lonely life for a twelve-year-old.
Stephanie was pretty strict about who her son was with and where he went. Since Clay’s death she was even more so. That’s what Nick had heard. He didn’t see her much. He didn’t want to. Steph was a part of his past that he’d never come to grips with. The fact that she still had the power to bother him made him angry, but that’s the way it was.
Okay, he could handle it.
“Did you drive up?” She looked around for his cruiser, a four-wheel-drive utility truck.
“Yeah. Down here under the trees.”
She’d walked the half mile from the Glass Slipper Boutique to the isolated park on a rise at the edge of town, a thing she often did during her brief periods of freedom. He shortened his steps to her pace and guided her down the sidewalk and around the corner.
The cruiser was parked in the shade of some ancient cottonwoods. A creek ran along the road and under a thirty-foot bridge nearby. The spot was pretty, romantic even. There was a nice grassy area for a picnic. Bittercress bobbed and nodded in shades of pink, white and yellow.
Not that she took the time to notice.
Without waiting for him, she wrenched open the truck door and attempted to climb inside. Her skirt was too narrow. She hiked it midway to her thigh, but still couldn’t manage. He hooked his hands on each side of her waist and lifted her.
He held himself in check as her perfume wafted around them, brought out by the warmth of the sun and the exertion of the fast walk. He was aware of the hitch in her breathing and swallowed a groan that crowded his throat.
She fell back against him, and he realized he’d taken her by surprise. Strength flowed into him in a tidal wave of adrenaline and hunger. She wasn’t a featherweight, but neither did she feel heavy. In fact, she felt wonderful in his arms, but then, she’d always felt perfect to him during those long-ago days.
“You can put me down now.”
Her voice came from far away, barely audible over the roar of the blood pulsing through his ears.
“Nick! Nicholas! Put me down.”
The sharp panic that underlined the command jerked him back from the edge of control. He released her and slammed the door.
Stalking behind the truck, he paused and swiped a hand over his forehead where sweat had gathered in a fine-beaded sheen. He caught sight of himself in the tinted rear window.
Picture of a haunted man.
He yanked his sunglasses from his shirt pocket and jammed them on his nose. There, he thought, that at least hid the treachery of raging lust from her view. The anger surged anew. He didn’t want to be susceptible to Stephanie. He forced himself to calmly walk to the driver’s door and climb in.
When the engine was purring, he flicked the fan to high. Cool air swirled around them, drowning out the need to talk as he eased into gear and headed for the heart of the. town nestled in the foothills of the Rockies, an hour out from Denver.
Stephanie hopped out of the truck before Nick had a chance to come around and lift her down. His eyes, dark as bitter chocolate when he removed his sunglasses, bored into hers.
“Thanks for the ride. And for taking care of Doogie.”
“It was nothing.”
She nodded, closed the door and dashed across the parking lot to the boutique before he could say more. One thing she didn’t need was advice from a thirty-four-year-old bachelor on how to raise her son. She was only three months younger than Nick Dorelli. She and Doogie were doing fine, just fine.
Anxiety belied her shaky confidence as she walked into the cool, pleasant interior of the shop. “Doogie?” she said.
“In your office,” Pat, the assistant manager, told her.
Stephanie hurried toward the back. No surge of satisfaction filled her as it usually did when she walked through her little kingdom, as Clay had once called it.
Passing the curtained dressing rooms, she entered the back hallway and went into the office, which was piled high with catalogs and samples. Her son sat in a wing chair, one leg thrown over the arm in a careless position. She noticed his sneakers were wearing thin. He’d soon have a hole under the ball of his big toe. She sighed. Twelve-year-olds went through everything—clothes, shoes and food—so fast.
“I just spoke to Officer Dorelli,” she said, slipping into her chair behind the desk. She hooked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked at her son. Really looked at him.
He
