more than it already had.
* * *
Liam walked out the front door of Ruth’s house later that night, rubbing his hand along the back of his neck. He’d brought her home after she won several rounds of bingo. He’d promptly fallen asleep in her bedroom’s big recliner as they watched reruns of I Love Lucy. She was fast asleep when he’d woken up a few minutes ago.
It was almost midnight as he pulled his phone out of his coat pocket. Several texts had come through from his latest ex-girlfriend, asking to see him again. Gretchen had called herself his girlfriend, although they’d only dated a couple of weeks before he’d ended things. Liam hadn’t allowed himself to have a serious girlfriend since—well, since Natalie had chosen Crimson over him.
Seeing her boy had been like a swift kick to the gut for Liam. Long ago, he’d imagined himself as the father of Natalie’s children. Those days seemed like a lifetime ago. He looked over his shoulder at the dark house. Liam’s chest tightened at the thought of Natalie curled up asleep inside. He tipped back his head, marveling at the amount of stars in the sky above him even as his lungs burned from the frosty air. He’d forgotten that about Crimson, both the hollow cold of night and how clear the sky could be without the city lights in the distance.
As he turned for his SUV, he noticed a light on in the workshop that sat at the barn across the driveway. He started toward it, then noticed a woman’s frame silhouetted in the window. Natalie.
He watched her for several minutes, her hair pulled back in a messy bun and wearing a faded chambray shirt rolled up to her elbows. Memory sparked in his mind, and he smiled as he headed for the door to the barn’s workshop.
Natalie didn’t notice him come in and he realized she had earbuds in her ears as she hummed softly along with music he couldn’t hear. She held a pair of needle-nose pliers in one hand as she twisted a thin wire held under a bright light. After a moment, she reached for a bead from a case in front of her. She glanced up, and her gaze crashed into his.
She screamed, slapping one hand to her chest as the earbuds ripped out of her ears. Her fingers upended the jar of beads, which went flying in all directions.
“Sorry,” Liam said, although he wasn’t sorry to not be the only one in the room with a racing heart, even if it was for an entirely different reason. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” That much was true.
“What are you still doing here?”
“I fell asleep watching TV with Ruth. Someone put a blanket over me.”
She took several deep breaths, her chest rising and falling in a way that made his mouth go dry. “I check on her before I go to bed each night.”
“You’re not in bed.”
“So observant, Liam.”
“And you’re wearing my shirt.”
At this, her gaze dropped. “Was this old thing yours?” She wrapped her arms around her waist. “I’d forgotten.”
He didn’t bother to call her out on the lie. “It was my favorite.”
“Want it back?”
“It looks better on you.” He crouched down and began collecting the scattered beads from the floor. “As I remember, most of my clothes did.”
She also picked up beads, and Liam found the silence oddly companionable. That was until the waistband of her jeans slipped down her hips and he got a flash of creamy skin again. He forced his thoughts away from her and focused only on reaching for the last of the beads.
But as he came around the table and straightened, he found himself directly in front of Natalie. She stood totally still, her hand holding steady the bowl of beads. He dropped the ones he’d collected in and interlaced his fingers with hers, drawing his thumb along the calluses on the pads of her fingers.
“How long have you made jewelry?”
“A few years now,” she whispered with a self-deprecating smile. “I don’t sleep much and it relaxes me.”
“You have talent.”
“It’s just for fun.”
He let out a bark of laughter. “I don’t believe that for a minute. When was the last time you did something just for fun?”
Her mouth tightened as she looked deep into his eyes. “You were the last thing I did just for fun, Liam.”
Despite how wrong it was, he wanted to be that for her again. He smoothed back the hair from her face and leaned forward. She closed her eyes, but instead of taking her mouth the way he wanted, he kissed the edge of her lips, then the tiny birthmark on the side of her temple. Her skin was as soft as he remembered, and she smelled like everything that had ever been good in his life.
When she turned her face toward his, he couldn’t resist anymore. He claimed her mouth, gently exploring her with his lips and tongue. She opened for him and he delved in, reveling in the feel of her in his arms once again.
Before things became too heated, she pulled away. Liam nearly groaned, but he took a step back. One thing he knew for certain about Natalie was that if he pushed too hard and too quickly, she’d only retreat further.
“My life isn’t simple anymore,” she said quietly.
“I don’t want to be a complication.”
She took a breath and raised her hand as if to touch him before pulling away. “I think I know what happened to Ruth’s money.”
He stiffened.
“I didn’t take it. I promise.”
“Tell me everything.”
She shook her head. “I can’t until I know for sure.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means you’ll have to trust me.” She dropped her gaze to the floor, then back to him. “Please, Liam.”
Trust her? The last time Liam trusted Natalie it had been with his heart, and it ended up crushed into a million pieces. But in the quiet of this evening, he didn’t want to fight. Right now he remembered all the reasons he’d first been attracted to her, how she’d pulled him to her in a way no woman had before or since.
“I’ve rented a house outside of town for a month. You have that much time to get this figured out, but you have to promise me that no more of Ruth’s money will go missing in the meantime.”
She gave a small nod. “Don’t you usually stay in Aspen when you visit?”
So she had kept track of him, at least a tiny bit. The knowledge gave him a rush. He’d always stayed in the nearby town using the excuse that it was more to his taste than homey, quaint Crimson. The real reason was standing in front of him. He had never trusted himself to be so close to Natalie, hadn’t wanted to chance running into her around town. Now he realized how foolish that had been. Even if she wasn’t standing in front of him, she had never been far from his mind, no matter what he’d told himself.
“I
