Once and Always

  The final member of the Coot Lake police force, Dylan Rorsky, was off duty and on what passed for a dance floor at Ed’s, along with Haley Anne, one of the waitresses at the Laughing Loon Café. Dylan was only twenty-three, with a face so fresh and unlined it made Sam feel ancient—especially with what Dylan was doing with Haley Anne on the dance floor. Haley Anne wasn’t even a year out of high school. She had pink streaks in her dark hair and a ring through her bottom lip that bobbled when she smiled. Sam was trying hard not to look too long in their direction, because last time he had he’d been kinda scarred.

  “You’d think after that last fiasco,” Doc said, still harping on the mushers, “Karl would’ve thought ahead to getting a permit.”

  “Not sure Karl does much thinking ahead.” Sam jumped one of Doc’s men and took it off the board.

  “Say that again.” Doc grunted moodily and took a sip of his Schell’s—the only beer Ed kept on tap. He nudged one of his pieces forward. “And he’s not the only one. Didya know Tick confiscated a whole bunch of firecrackers from some teenagers last week and just yesterday was asking if he could set them off in the municipal parking lot?”

  Sam winced. “He’s not so bad.”

  “And Dylan.” Doc shook his head as if the youngest member of the Coot Lake police force had only days to live. “That girl he’s with is a menace. Only a matter of time before Dylan forgets the condom and we wind up with a shotgun wedding.”

  Sam shrugged. “He could do worse than Haley Anne.”

  The outer door opened, blowing in freezing wind and snow and May Burnsey.

  Sam randomly moved a piece.

  Doc grunted and took his only king. He didn’t bother looking over his shoulder at the door when he asked, “That Maisa Burnsey just came in?”

  Nothing he could reply would gain him anything but embarrassment, so Sam took another sip of his beer. She’d made it very clear that she didn’t want to see him tonight. Only a jerk would assume she’d come in just for him.

  May was stomping her boots, looking around the room. She caught sight of him and even across the room he could see her eyes narrow. Sam nodded at her. She started weaving through the tables, and it kind of looked like she might be headed in his direction, but as she passed the group of middle-aged ladies Becky caught her. May leaned down to say something.

  “I heard you stopped Maisa this afternoon,” Doc rumbled.

  “Becky gossips too much.”

  Doc raised a pointed eyebrow.

  “She was speeding.” Sam checked, but he was pretty sure he didn’t sound defensive.

  “Son,” Doc said, using his heavy paternal voice, so Sam must’ve been off on his self-assessment. “That woman isn’t for you.”

  Sam raised his Sam Adams to his lips rather than say something he might regret later.

  May had shed her jacket. She wore a soft sweater that outlined and cupped her breasts. Every man in the room—excepting Doc, who still hadn’t turned—had his eyes on her.

  “She’s city.” Doc looked at him significantly. “And she’s George Johnson’s niece—and you know darn well what George is.”

  Sam winced, thinking of the crude tattoos Old George sported on both hands. Each knuckle—the ones he had left anyway—had a Cyrillic letter and a symbol of some kind. There were ornate crosses, strange Xs, skulls, and half circles that looked like moons—and those were only on the parts of his body they could see. God only knew what he hid beneath his clothes. Tats were pretty popular nowadays, but generally not the kind that George sported.

  The kind that meant he either was or had been Russian mafiya.

  “We have no proof,” Sam said low, because even though the jukebox had started into Styx—Ed’s musical tastes were kind of all over the board—he didn’t want to be overheard. “For all we know Old George was a victim of communist Russia and spent time in the gulag.”

  “Then what’s he doing with a last name like Johnson?” Doc grunted and pushed one of his men into the last row on Sam’s side of the board. “King me. Bet on it—he’s in hiding from something or someone.”

  Sam grimaced—both because he was losing the checkers game and because this wasn’t the first time they’d discussed Old George, his Russian accent, his mafiya tats, and his odd choice of retirement place. Hardly anyone moved to Coot Lake unless they had some kind of tie to the community. It wasn’t like Coot Lake was on the Most Scenic Small Towns list.

  He glanced up and found May watching him. She hastily looked away, smiling at one of the women at the table. Someone had found a chair for her and she was sipping a half-full plastic cup of beer. What was she up to?

  “You gonna move?” Doc growled.

  “Sure.” Sam took another of Doc’s men, making the older man scowl. “Did Becky happen to mention the wreck up on 52?”

  “Guy went into the ditch?” Doc asked without really asking. “Becky said it happened right in front of you.”

  “Yup. Definitely speeding. Nearly took me out when he went by. But,” Sam said hastily as Doc opened his mouth, “that’s not why I brought it up.”

  “Then why?”

  “The driver had a Russian accent.”

  Doc jumped four of Sam’s men, starting with the one that Sam had just moved and effectively ended the game.

  “Well, shit,” Sam said, staring down at the ruins of his defenses.

  Doc shook his head and began gathering pieces. “I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: Can’t get too attached to your pieces. Sometimes you gotta sacrifice a man. You play afraid and you’ll never win any game.”

  Sam flinched at the thought of sacrificing a man. He took a sip of beer to cover.

  Doc eyed him, but didn’t ask. He never did, which Sam appreciated. He glanced at the ladies’ table, but May was determinedly looking away from him.

  Tick zipped up his parka, waved farewell to the room at large, and left, presumably to tend to the wrecks up on 52. The jukebox started playing something slow Sam didn’t recognize. One of the mushers broke from the pack, the others catcalling and slapping him on the back. He started toward May.

  Well, that just wasn’t happening.

  “ ’Scuse me.” Sam drained his beer bottle and stood.

  Doc muttered something behind him, but Sam ignored him.

  He had his sights set on an ornery little brunette.

  Chapter Six

  Maisa bit her lip, watching Sam bear down on her out of the corner of her eye. It’d seemed like a good idea earlier when she’d left Dyadya’s cabin with the excuse that she needed to pick up a few things in town. She’d go to Ed’s—where everyone would be on a Friday night—and find out what Sam knew about the guy who’d crashed his car. She wasn’t about to approach the stranger by herself—for all she knew he was some kind of mob courier—but she had to at least try to discover what was going on. Dyadya had smiled and gently deflected all her questions, acting suspiciously innocent before declaring that she shouldn’t worry, the whole matter would be resolved in the morning.

  Maisa snorted softly to herself. Yeah, and the Russian mob had suddenly become a charitable club.

  “Hey,” a male voice said by her elbow.

  She turned quickly, but she already knew it was the wrong male voice. A huge guy with an untrimmed beard and scuffed Sorels stood there, looking shy.

  She smiled at him and then froze when he smiled back.

  Flakes of chewing tobacco were stuck to his front teeth. “Wanna, y’know, da—”

  “Sorry, bud, she’s already taken.” Sam appeared next to the guy, and although he was over six foot, Tobacco Boy was easily a head taller.

  And also, he’d lost his smile. “Listen, asshole—”

  “Ah. Ah.” Sam shook his head. “Watch the language in front of the ladies.”

  “Damned straight.” Becky belched.

  “May?” Sam held out his hand and although his voice held the polite question, his posture sure didn’t.

  She narrowe
d her eyes a moment. If she didn’t need him for information, she might be tempted to go with the other guy, tobacco-stained teeth or not, just to show Sam.

  But she did need him, so she placed her hand in his, rising. She smiled apologetically at the big man. “Maybe another time.”

  He might’ve replied, but Sam was already dragging her to what passed for a dance floor in Coot Lake.

  “Do you mind?” she hissed as he turned her and drew her much too close.

  One corner of his mouth quirked up and stayed there as he placed his big hands on her waist and began swaying gently.

  She huffed and put her palms on his shoulders. He was wearing a denim shirt so warn and faded that the fabric was like suede. She couldn’t help but surreptitiously circle her fingertips, her eyelids half lowering. Soft, soft fabric over warm, hard muscles. If she let her head sway forward just a little she’d bet she could smell his shaving gel. He used something corny, cheap, and all-American, like Old Spice.

  Perfect.

  “How’d you get into town?” His voice was a quiet rumble beneath the gentle croon of Bonnie Raitt.

  “Dyadya’s pickup.” She caught his brows lowering and added, “He’s got snow tires on, you know he does.”

  He shook his head. “Snow tires don’t mean a damn if it starts to ice or the snow’s too deep.” But his voice was still low. He knew it was too cold for the roads to ice over tonight. She had another hour or so before the pile up of snow got dangerous for driving.

  His hands slipped down a little—nearly, but not quite settling on her rear.

  She was so tempted to lay her head against his worn denim shirt and just forget about mysterious pink heart diamonds for the night.

  The jukebox hiccupped and a new song started: Pink imploring “Please Don’t Leave Me.”

  That song always made her tear up for some reason. She fought the feeling, pulling back a little from his embrace. “Did you have any more wrecks to take care of this afternoon?”

  He tilted his head, studying her, and she was reminded once again that Sam West might be a small-town man, but his intelligence was anything but small. “A few people skidded off the road, but no major wrecks.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yup.” He bent his head and murmured in her ear, “How long you stayin’ this time?”

  She swallowed drily. “Just the weekend. Like usual.”

  “Too bad,” he whispered, his hips brushing against hers. “I’d like to see more of you.”

  “What for? Sex?”

  For some reason her hostile tone made his mouth twitch in amusement. “That, too. Mostly, though, I want to get to know you.”

  “What for?” She found she’d gripped his shirt in her fingers and she carefully smoothed it out, frowning at the wrinkles. “It’s not like we have anything in common.”

  “Oh, I think we do,” he said, confident as always, his voice deep and seductive.

  “Like what?” she demanded.

  He shrugged, his big shoulders moving under her hands. “You care. I do, too.”

  “Care?” She laughed incredulously, feeling vulnerable, almost pained. “What gave you the idea I care?”

  “Because,” he said tenderly, “you stopped to talk to Becky though you didn’t want to, apologized to that musher with the bad breath, and asked about the people on the roads tonight.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe I have an ulterior motive.”

  He looked straight at her with blazing blue eyes, no lies, no sidestepping. “Do you?”

  “I…” She shook her head—partly at his naïveté, partly at herself. What was she doing? She’d come here to get information, not to fall into Sam West’s too-honest blue eyes. He’d never had to swim that muddy gray stream between right and wrong. “No. You’re a fool if you think we have anything in common.”

  “Now how can you say that when you don’t even know me?” he asked, slow and hard.

  She stumbled, maybe because she wasn’t used to that tone from him, maybe because he was right.

  He just kept on talking in that gravelly voice. “You don’t know what I eat for breakfast, what my favorite baseball team is, if I snore at night. You don’t know what I think about in the middle of the night. What I’m afraid of. What I’d die for. Hell, woman, you haven’t even tried, have you? You scratched my surface and stopped right there.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to,” she hissed low and defiant and not a little shaken. Was she really as shallow as that?

  “You want to, all right,” he said, a kind of flaming anger behind those blue eyes.

  Maisa wondered vaguely if she should be frightened. But they were in the middle of Ed’s, for God’s sake. Sam wouldn’t do anything here.

  Would he? Suddenly she realized that she had no idea what he was going to do next. He was right—she didn’t know him.

  He bowed his head to hers, a tender gesture, but his words were anything but tender. “Something’s just holding you back. Spent most of last fall trying to figure it out, you know. Thought it might be the small-town thing or the no-college thing or the blue-collar thing, but that’s not any of those at all, is it? It’s something else, and May, if you think I’m going to rest or give up without finding out everything that makes you tick in that sweet little head of yours, well, you’d better think again.”

  She wanted to wrench herself from his arms, run away and hide, but she still needed that information.

  Or maybe that was just what she was telling herself.

  “Come on,” he said low, his voice like smoke, insidious and unavoidable, almost taunting. “Tell me what you’re doing here tonight in my arms, May.”

  “What if it has nothing to do with you?” she spat. “What if I’m just here for information?”

  “Yeah? Like what?” His mouth twisted again, but this time it was bitter. She hated that she’d put that cynical look on his face. “I’m an open book, right? That’s what you think, isn’t it.”

  And for the first time she faltered. Was Sam West an open book? He must be. He was a small-town cop, never been to college. What more could there possibly be?

  For a moment the room tilted ever so slightly to the left. What if everything she thought she knew was wrong? What if Sam West was a man she wanted—no, needed—to know?

  Then she stomped that uncertainty right down. Dyadya might be in trouble. She needed to focus and find out what Sam knew about the man in the car crash this afternoon.

  Maisa steeled herself and met his gaze with a confident half smile on her lips. “Where did you put him? That guy in the accident?”

  “He’s at the Coot Lake Inn,” he said easily, as if the information was nothing. As if he was telling her that snow was white. She hated herself for using him. But then he tilted his head closer, whispering as if imparting a secret. “Why d’you ask, May?”

  And suddenly she couldn’t catch her breath. She panted, looking up at him, wishing they were in an empty room—hell, a dark corner would do. She wanted to strip off his baby-soft shirt and feel the hard muscles beneath. Wanted to forget this stupid game she was playing.

  “I think,” he said quietly as the jukebox changed again. The beat was all wrong—a pounding pulse—but he ignored it, continuing to hold her close. “I think Old George has some questions, doesn’t he? And he’s using you, sweet May, as his hunting dog to scare the pheasants.”

  “Dyadya wouldn’t use me,” she said breathlessly. “Did you just call me a bitch?”

  “ ’Course not.” His hands had slipped slyly down and now he cupped her ass frankly as he pulled her against him, insinuating a long leg between hers.

  “Stop it!” she hissed.

  “What?” His blue eyes were wide and innocent while his lean thigh pushed against the V of her legs.

  Oh. Oh, just there.

  For a moment she lost the thread of the conversation. Forgot that she needed to keep alert. She pushed against his shoulders, but it was like trying to move granite. Not to mentio
n her hips had begun to undulate against his leg, which wasn’t exactly helping her case.

  She glared at him, trying to ignore the heat pooling low in her belly. “Half the town’s here.”

  His lips twitched. “Yup.”

  “Including your boss.”

  “Uh-huh.” He lifted her a bit so that she was standing on her tiptoes, most of her weight balanced on his leg. She could feel the hard ridge of his erection pressing into her stomach.

  “Sam.” Embarrassingly, his name came out a breathless whine. “You’re a cop!”

  “I’m off duty.” He chuckled then, the vibration traveling through his body and hitting her where they touched: breasts and belly and the juncture of her thighs. “Why’re you using me, May?”

  “I… I don’t—”

  “Bullshit,” he murmured gently. An endearment. “You already said you didn’t come here for me. Either Old George needs the information or you do.”

  How could he think to ask questions when she could feel his big body hard against her? She wanted to get mad. Wanted to pull away and stomp out.

  He shifted his thigh again, and she only just suppressed a moan.

  He bent his head to hers. “Which is it?”

  “I… I…”

  “May.”

  “I…” She swallowed, gathering her wits. “I’m the one—”

  “The one what?” he whispered against the side of her face. He took her earlobe between his teeth and bit.

  For a second everything whited out.

  She ducked her face into his chest, her panting breaths humid against the denim shirt. “I’m the one who needs you.”