“And your shirt’s inside out again,” Chloe noted.
“It is not.” But Maddie stretched out the collar of her tee to see it and eyed the stitching on the outside. “Crap.”
“You still dressing in the dark, or what?” Chloe asked.
That was what Maddie had tried to tell them last week when she’d shown up at the inn all flushed, mussed, and wearing her shirt inside out.
Maddie whipped her shirt off to turn it right side out. She was wearing a pink bra and a hickey on her collarbone.
Chloe burst out laughing. “Go, Jax.”
“He didn’t— We weren’t—” Maddie sagged. “Oh, forget it.” She clapped her hands to her cheeks. “I jumped him on the way over here.”
“While driving?” Tara asked in horror.
Maddie was beet red now. “We…pulled over.” A ridiculous grin escaped. “I just always want to eat him up. Does it ever stop?”
“I don’t know,” Chloe admitted. “But for your sake, I hope not.” If anyone deserved happiness, it was Maddie. Before coming to Lucky Harbor, a bad experience with an ex had put Maddie off men entirely. Then she’d met Jax. With a little bit of patience, along with his easy, outgoing personality, Jax had woman-whispered Maddie right out of her shell. Now they were getting married.
Given the long-enduring and heated love that Tara and Ford also shared, Chloe had no doubt that they’d soon be following suit down the aisle as well.
It was wonderful for them. And exciting, too. But Chloe wasn’t quite sure what it all meant for her. What her plan would be, or what kind of future she’d have…
“You’ll find it, too,” Maddie said softly, watching Chloe. “Love.”
“Oh,” Chloe said, shaking her head. “No. I don’t need—”
“You will,” Maddie promised and hugged her. “Maybe after you settle down a little.”
Ah, there it was. The problem. The real problem. In order to find that elusive acceptance that she craved, Chloe had to “settle down,” had to stop being who she was. Grow up. No more letting her sister eat hair conditioner…
But dammit, hadn’t she taken on her share of the responsibility for this place? Hadn’t she cut back drastically on the constant traveling to help with the inn? Shifted her schedule so that most of the trips she took were only day trips now, and doing so only when she could, between guests?
Chloe had done everything asked of her. And yet it still wasn’t enough. Feeling a tightening in her chest that might have been anxiety or an oncoming asthma attack, she pulled out her inhaler and took a puff.
“Already?” Maddie asked with some concern. “You’re having trouble breathing today already?”
Chloe shrugged. In times of stress, they all had their ways of coping. Maddie mainlined potato chips. Tara cooked. Chloe used her inhaler. “Maybe I don’t want to settle down.”
“Everyone does eventually,” Maddie said.
“I don’t think it’s for me.” Not looking at either sister, Chloe added more soap to the hot water and dug into the pile of dishes, searching for happy thoughts. Chocolate. Puppies. Rainbows.
Guys.
Yeah, guys always worked as a nice distraction. She thought of Matt Bowers, the sexy forest ranger she’d seen at the gym. Then there was Dr. Josh Scott, the ER doc. She’d met him during a particularly rough asthma attack when she’d landed in the ER on his shift, and they’d since run into each other several times. He’d asked Chloe out but she’d been too busy balancing her travels with the inn. Maybe it was time to sync their schedules and play doctor together.
And then there was Cute Guy. She didn’t know his name. He was a new Lucky Harbor resident and a real mystery. He’d moved into a house on the bluffs, an expensive one. Even the Facebook mavens had been caught by surprise. No one knew what Cute Guy did or who he was, but Chloe had seen him at the grocery store, and he was H-O-T.
And yet as she washed the last pot, it was a different man entirely who popped into her head and made her breath catch—the one who wore both a gun and a bad attitude with such wild sexiness that he’d begun to haunt her dreams.
As had their kiss. Yowza, that kiss. She’d been ignoring him just fine before that. “Damn sheriff,” she muttered, scrubbing hard at the reticent pot.
“Sawyer?” Tara asked.
Chloe closed her eyes. “No, that’s my point. Not Sawyer. I want Matt. Or Josh. Or Cute Guy. Hell, even Anderson at the hardware store. Not the sheriff, thank you very much.”
What followed was such an awkward silence that Chloe could feel it blister her back. With her stomach knotting on itself, she turned to face the room.
Sawyer stood in the back doorway, in uniform, armed, silent, filling up the entire room with his presence.
There was a long beat during which nobody breathed.
“Nothing personal,” Chloe said to Sawyer with as much dignity as she could muster, which wasn’t much. But hell, she had to be the last woman on the planet that he’d pick, too, so no harm no foul, she figured. Except their gazes were locked now, reminding her of how his mouth had felt slanted over hers, hot and hungry, and a sudden, rather powerful longing filled her.
Okay, time to get the hell out of Dodge. She needed to think. Preferably alone, on top of a mountain somewhere. As for what Sawyer needed, it was hard to tell. He was a rock when he wanted to be.
Tara handed him a mug of coffee to go. “Guess you’re wishing you’d stopped at Starbucks this morning, huh?” she quipped, clearly trying to lighten the tension.
“Can’t go into places like that in uniform,” Sawyer told her.
“Why not?”
“Sometimes people spit in the food or drinks when they see a cop.”
“Well, in all my born days,” Tara murmured, her accent thickening with her temper as she spoke into the horrified silence.
Chloe shut off the water and stared at Sawyer, her unhappy awkwardness replaced with something that felt like possessive protectiveness. “Why would you do it then, be a cop, just to be treated like that?”
“You mean besides the glory?” he asked dryly, then shrugged. “I’m good at it.”
She knew he was. He was doggedly determined and aggressive behind that calm veneer, which served his job well. It probably served him well in other areas too.
Like in bed.
Sawyer looked into the bowl of avocado/mayo mix. “What’s that?”
“Not dip,” Maddie said quickly.
“It’s hair conditioner,” Tara told him. “For the frizzies.”
Everyone looked at Sawyer’s wind tousled, fawn-colored hair. It fell thick and silky to his collar. No frizzies, the bastard.
“I think I’m good,” he said. He was leaning back against the counter, clearly right at home, feet casually crossed, long legs at rest, the muscles of his thighs pressing against the material of his uniform.
Yeah, he was good…“Your skin’s dry.” Chloe nodded to the bottle next to the conditioner, which held a special blend of vitamin E and tea tree oil in a petroleum jelly base. “That’d cure your problem.” Though she had nothing to cure the big, bad, broody thing he had going on. “That is, if you’re not still afraid I’m going to poison you…”
He looked at her steadily, then picked up the bottle, which looked small and feminine in his big hand. Very gingerly, as if maybe he was holding a bomb, he lifted the lid and took a sniff. “Smells like flowers.”
“Does that threaten your manhood?” Chloe asked.
Tara opened her mouth to object, but Sawyer laughed, the sound low and slightly rusty, as if he didn’t have a lot of reason to laugh lately.
“Use it twice a day,” Chloe said. “And you’ll be glowing in no time. Just like Maddie here.”
He looked like he wanted to say something about Maddie’s “glow” but he squelched it. Smart man.
“I heard about what’s been going on,” Tara said to him. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Sawyer said. “It’s another angioplasty. He’ll be fine.”
Tara paused. “I meant at work. Who’s having an angioplasty?”
Sawyer sighed. “My father. It’s just routine. He’s too ornery to let a heart problem slow him down.” His face was calm and blank. The cop face again, which meant he didn’t want to talk about it.
“Tell us about the robber,” Maddie said.
“What robber?” Chloe asked.
Maddie looked at Sawyer, who just sipped his coffee.
“He single-handedly caught the convenience store robber,” Tara told Chloe. “You didn’t see it? It was all over the papers. I emailed you the link.”
Hmm. Maybe she should’ve checked her e-mail last night instead of hanging out with Lance. “The convenience store got held up?”
“And Sawyer was outside the store when the thief made a run for it,” Tara said. “Money falling out of his pockets as he went.”
Sawyer shook his head, like he still couldn’t believe the stupidity of the guy.
“Sawyer chased him in his car,” Tara went on. “And then on foot, with innocent people getting barreled over by the suspect. The librarian broke her ankle.”
Chloe gasped. “Ms. Bunyan?”
Tara nodded. “Finally Sawyer pulled his gun and got a few shots off before tackling the guy to the ground. By the time the rest of the cavalry came, Sawyer had the guy subdued and cuffed.”
Chloe stared at Sawyer, who was looking mildly annoyed. “Really?” she asked him.
“No. Ms. Bunyan broke her ankle when she came running out of her house looking at her cell phone instead of where she was going, trying to record a video for YouTube. She was nowhere close to the action.”
“But there was action, right?” Maddie asked. “Gunshots?”
“No gunshots,” he said.