mother.
'I'll take a rain check on that. I have something in the car for upstairs. For your place.'
'Oh.'
'Ladies, nice to have met you. Enjoy your stay at the MacKade Inn, and in the town.'
'What a handsome man,' Mrs. Cox said, with a little pat of her hand to her heart. 'My goodness. Irma, have you ever seen a more handsome young man?'
But Mrs. Berman was busy sizing up the drop-leaf table in the parlor.
By the time Cassie had settled the ladies in with their tea, her curiosity was killing her. She had chores to see to, and she scolded herself for letting them lag as she hurried around to the outside stairs.
Halfway up, she saw Devin hooking up a porch swing. 'Oh.' It made a lovely picture, she thought, a man standing in the sunlight, his shirtsleeves rolled up, tools at his feet, muscles working as he lifted one end of the heavy wooden seat to its chain.
'This seemed like the spot for it.'
'Yes, it's perfect. Rafe didn't mention that he wanted one.'
'I wanted one,' Devin told her. 'Don't worry, I ran it by him.' He hooked the other end and gave it a testing swing. 'Works.' Bending, he gathered up the tools. 'Going to try it out with me?'
'I really have to—'
'Try it out with me,' Devin finished, setting the tools aside in their case. 'I put it up because I figured it was a good way to get you to sit with me on a summer afternoon. A good way for me to kiss you again.'
'Oh.'
'You said you didn't mind.'
'No, I didn't. I don't.' There it was again, that flutter in her chest. 'Aren't you supposed to be working?'
'It's my day off. Sort of.' He held out a hand, then curled his fingers around hers. 'You look pretty today, Cassie.'
Automatically she brushed at her apron. 'I've been cleaning.''
'Real pretty,' he murmured, drawing her to the swing, and down.
'I should get you something cold to drink.'
'You know, one of these days you're going to figure out that I don't come around so you can serve me cold drinks.'
'Connor said you worried about me. You don't have to. I was hoping you'd come by so I could tell you how much I appreciate what you did for him the other day. The way you made him feel.'
'I didn't do anything. He earned what he felt. You've got a fine boy in Connor.'
'I know.' She took a deep breath and relaxed enough to lean back against the seat. The rhythm of the swing took her back, far back, to childhood and sweet days, endless summers. Her lips curved, and then she laughed.
'What's funny?'
'It's just this, sitting here on a porch swing, like a couple of teenagers.'
'Well, if you were sixteen again, this would be my next move.'' He lifted up his arms, stretched, then let one drape casually over her shoulders. 'Subtle, huh?'
She laughed again, tilted her face toward his. 'When I was sixteen, you were too bad to be subtle. Everybody knew how you snuck off to the quarry with girls and—'
The best way to stop her mouth was with his. He did so gently, savoring the quick tremor of her lips, of her body.
'Not so subtle,' he said quietly. 'Wanna go to the quarry?' When she stuttered, he only laughed. 'Some other time. For now I'd settle for you kissing me back. Kiss me back, Cassie, like you were sixteen and didn't have a worry in the world.'
With someone else, anyone else, he might have been amused by the concentration on her face. But it struck his heart, the way her mouth lifted to his, that hesitant pressure, the unschooled way her hands lifted to rest on his shoulders.
'Relax,' he said against her mouth. 'Turn off your head for a minute. Can you do that?'
'I don't...' She didn't turn it off. It shut off when his tongue danced lightly over hers, when his hands skimmed down her sides and up again. Down and up, in firm, steady strokes that had the heels of his hands just brushing the sides of her breasts.
'I love the taste of you.' He pressed his lips to her jaw, her temples, back to her lips. 'I've dreamed of it.'
'You have?'
'Most of my life. I've wanted to be with you like this for years. Forever.''
The words were seeping through that lovely haze of pleasure that covered her whenever he kissed her. 'But —'
'You got married.' He trailed his lips down her cheek. 'I didn't move fast enough. I got drunk the day you married Joe Dolin. Blind, falling-down drunk. I didn't know what else to do. I thought about killing him, but I figured you must have wanted him. So that was that.'
'Devin, I don't understand this.' If he'd stop kissing her, just for a minute, she might be able to understand.
But he couldn't seem to stop, any of it. 'I loved you so much I thought I'd die from it. Just keel right over and die.'
Panic and denial had her struggling away. 'You couldn't have.'
He'd said too much, but the regrets would have to come later. Now, he'd finish it. 'I've loved you for over twelve years, Cassandra. I loved you when you were married to another man, when you had his children. I loved you when I couldn't do anything to help you out of that hell you were living in. I love you now.'
She got up and, in an old defensive habit, wrapped her arms tight around her body. 'That's not possible.'
'Don't tell me what I feel.' She jolted back a full step at the anger in his tone, making him clench his teeth as he rose. 'And don't you cringe away from me when I raise my voice. I can't be what I'm not, not even for you. But I'm not Joe Dolin. I'll never hit you.'
'I know that.' She let her arms drop. 'I know that, Devin.' Even as she said it, she watched him struggle to push back the worst of his temper. 'I don't want you to be angry with me, Devin, but I don't know what to say to you.'
'Seems like I've already said more than enough.' He began to pace, his hands jammed in his pockets. 'I'm good at taking things slow, thinking them through. But not this time. I've said what I've said, Cass, and I can't— won't—take it back. You're going to have to decide what you want to do about it.'
'Do about what?' Baffled, she lifted her hands, then let them fall. 'You want me to believe that a man like you had feelings for me all these years and didn't do anything about it?'
'What the hell was I supposed to do?' he tossed back. 'You were married. You'd made your choice, and it wasn't me.'
'I didn't know there was a choice.'
'My mistake,' he said, bitterly. 'Now I've made another one, because you're not ready, or you don't want to be ready. Or maybe you just don't want me.'
'I don't—' She lifted her hands to her cheeks. She honestly didn't know which, if any, of those alternatives was true. 'I can't think. You've been my friend. You've been, well, the sheriff, and I've been so grateful—'
'Don't you dare say that to me.' Devin shouted the words, and was too twisted with pain and fury to notice that she went white as death. 'Damn it, I don't want you to be grateful. I'm not playing public servant with you. I don't deserve that.'
'I didn't mean... Devin, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.'
'The hell with being sorry,' he raged. 'The hell with gratitude. You want to be grateful I locked the son of a bitch up who was pounding on you, then be grateful to the badge, not to me. Because / wanted to break him in half. You want to be grateful I've been coming around here being the nice guy, like some love-whipped mongrel dog, don't. Because what I've wanted to do is—'
He bit that back, his eyes cutting through her like hot knives. 'You don't want to know. No, what you want is for me to keep my voice down, my feelings inside and my hands to myself.'
'No, that's not—'
