Page 28 of Due North
“Do you always ogle women behind their backs?” she asked without turning away from the firepit where she was staying warm. The Wise Anchor kept them running on their patio all night to offer a quieter space to anyone who wanted to get away from the loud music and crushing crowd for a few moments.
I walked toward her slowly, my boot heels loud in the silence of the night. “I try not to, but you make it hard, Cece.” And I didn’t just mean she made it hard not to ogle her. She made everything hard. I’d spent too many nights in a cold shower since she showed up at Heavenly Lane.
She spun around and shook her head at me, her hair flowing around her head like a goddess of fire. “I needed a few minutes of fresh air. I was thinking about heading back to the ranch. I want to check on Poppy.”
I took her hand and pulled her into me, dancing her around in a circle. The music was easily heard out here, but at least you could carry on a conversation. “I just checked with Amity. She assured me Poppy is tucked away in dreamland. You can’t go home just yet. We haven’t had a chance to dance,” I said, my words slurring slightly. I didn’t think I’d had that much to drink, but then again, I wasn’t keeping count either.
I spun her around to the music, and she grabbed my shoulders tightly to keep from falling. Her shriek of surprise made my blood pump hard through my veins, and I bit back a moan. I loved how soft and sweet she was. I had to remember that she was a better woman than I ever had the right to have.
“Why do you try so hard, Caleb?”
“Try so hard at what, darlin’?” I asked, pulling her in tight to me when the music changed to a slow one. It was almost midnight, and that meant tomorrow was Halloween. I dreaded tomorrow more than anything. I would welcome it in with nightmares and tears, followed by another year of the same sense of loneliness when surrounded by people. I would spend another year doing the same jobs over and over with no hope of anything ever changing.
You made your choices, son. Live with them.
“That,” she said, motioning up and down my body. “The look. The swagger. Trying to be a Texas cowboy like Blaze and Beau.”
“I am a cowboy. Have been all my life,” I said defensively. “Maybe not in Texas, but respectably so just the same.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t a cowboy,” she argued, her eyes focused over my shoulder at the beautiful jack pine forest. The branches swayed in the breeze to remind us winter was on the way. “I said you should stop trying so hard to be someone you’re not.”
“I don’t do that,” I insisted, loving how she felt in my arms too much to push her away.
“You go by the name Tex,” she said with a laugh. “But okay, believe whatever you’d like. It’s no skin off my nose.”
“Do you know why I go by the name Tex?” I asked hotly. “At least to everyone but you, which by the way, I’d prefer if you’d stop calling me Caleb.”
“I don’t know why you go by Tex, Caleb,” she said pointedly, her clear blue eyes focused directly on my chocolate ones now. I swear to God she could see to the parts of me that I hid behind a concrete wall. That was probably just the whiskey talking, though.
“When I was nineteen, I left North Dakota for a new adventure. I ran into this guy. They called him Pops. Anyway, before he knew my name, he called me Tex. It stuck.”
“Why did he call you Tex?” she asked, confusion on her face.
I swung her around toward the fire, so she didn’t get chilled. “I guess because I was wearing a Stetson and boots. I decided it was a better name for a cowboy than Caleb, so I ran with it.”
Her smile was genuine this time when it lifted her lips upward. It made her eyes sparkle in the light of the fire, and I wanted to lean down and kiss her dewy lips. “Well, you didn’t ask me, but I think Caleb is a good name for a cowboy. I mean, your last name is North, for heaven’s sake. It’s hard to pretend you’re a Texas cowboy when your name is Caleb North.”
I groaned until laughter spilled from my lips. “You make a good point,” I said, just as the music ended. I didn’t release her. I pulled her tighter to me, somehow knowing it might be the last time I held her. “I don’t know much, but I do know I should kiss you.”
I intended to keep it simple with a light kiss of friendship and celebration. Instead, her scent, heat, and taste enveloped me, and she carried me into the night sky to dance among the stars. Her arms came around the back of my neck, and she lifted herself on her tiptoes. I gripped her waist and moaned at the tender swell of her hips under my hands. She tasted like heaven, and it drove me to taste her deeper, my tongue convincing her lips to open.
When they did, I stroked her tongue with mine, nearly losing myself in the sensation of its velvety softness and warm wetness. The colors of her aura swirled around me until I was engulfed in a white light that let me float in suspended animation. While I was kissing her, nothing else mattered. Not the next second. Not the next hour. Not tomorrow. The day that would be unbearable to live through without a memory like tonight. I wanted more than a stolen kiss on the patio. I wanted it all, and while I knew I couldn’t have it, that didn’t make the want any less tangible.
When I pulled back, my hand cupping her tiny cheek, her eyes told me the same thing. She wanted more from me. When the truth hit her eyes, and she realized I could never give it to her, she turned and walked away. She disappeared into the darkness. I should have called out to her. I should have gone after her. I didn’t. I was too much of a coward.
I rolled over slowly, the lumpy mattress under my back forcing me to a sitting position almost instantly. I glanced around, unsure where I was, until the bars surrounding me filtered through the haze in my brain. Why was I in jail? I rubbed my face and tried to gather my wits about me. I didn’t feel well. When I lifted them to my face, my hands felt like a ton of bricks.
“You’re awake,” Sheriff Nash said from his desk.
“What time is it?”
“It’s barely five a.m.”
“Why am I here?”
“I was letting you sleep it off.”
I groaned when the events of a few hours ago hit me.
