The Perfect Match

  She eyed him a little warily, and yet there was the tenacity of a bulldog in the tilt of her chin. “I promised I’d help you with the girls until Vinny gets well. He’s not well yet, is he?”

  “No,” he said a little too vehemently. Then more quietly, “No. But we didn’t exactly part on the best of terms yesterday. In fact, I was mad as hell.”

  “Not much question where MacKenzie gets her temper. After her little meltdown in the grocery store, you’re just not that scary, Deputy.”

  Really? he wanted to say. I managed to scare myself.

  “You had plenty of reason to be angry last night. What with Lisa calling after all this time. She—she hasn’t been trying to talk to the girls, see them, has she, Cash? You haven’t been keeping her away?”

  Cash wondered why the disappointment hovering about Rowena’s lips bothered him so much. Even if he had been keeping the girls from Lisa, he would have been doing it for their own protection, he reasoned, feeling a little surly. But he hadn’t been.

  “The last time Lisa saw them was around Christmas. She buzzed in for the day, stayed about an hour and dumped off a couple of extravagant presents. She gave Mac this whole elaborate stage thing with dolls you could make dance, except you have to be able to stand up to make them work. The only part of it Mac can play with is that ballerina bear she takes to bed.”

  Bitterness curled his lip. “The kid can’t dance anymore. She can’t even walk, and she gives her goddamned ballerina dolls. Mac hitched her way over to the VCR on her bottom the way she does, to play one of her old dance recitals, and Lisa just—just split. Ran out the door like the house was on fire.”

  Cash’s throat convulsed. “That was big fun, that Christmas. Trying to explain why Mommy wasn’t staying for the afternoon like she’d promised. Lisa hasn’t asked to see the girls since.”

  What the devil was Rowena looking at him like that for? As if she were still waiting…for an answer, he realized.

  “No,” he said bluntly. “I haven’t kept Lisa out of Mac and Charlie’s lives. Now…well, I wish to God I could.”

  “But you can’t.”

  “I thought we’d agreed you weren’t going to interfere in my life.”

  “I know, I know. One more of my fatal flaws, at least according to my sisters. Just keep your nose in your own business, Rowena. Your own life isn’t exactly going perfectly, now, is it?”

  Cash pulled out the kitchen chair across from her and sank down, cradling the mug of coffee between his two hands. Warmth seeped into him, but he wasn’t sure why, whether it was the smell of the coffee, the heat from the pottery or the fact that Rowena’s cup nestled mere inches from his own.

  “There’s one of life’s more aggravating mysteries for you.” She grimaced, a little sheepish. “How come it’s so much easier to see how other people should manage their lives than it is to fix your own?” She peeped at him from beneath a fan of gold-tipped lashes, and Cash sensed a very real ache beneath her humor.

  It was a relief to be able to change the subject from his world to hers, at least for a little while. “Your life needs fixing?”

  “Depends on who you ask. I mean, I’ve got my pet shop. I love my work. I think it’s important.”

  There was a time Cash would have had to fight to keep from sneering at her assertion. But now he couldn’t help but think of Charlie at the bus stop, kissing Destroyer goodbye. “So that’s all good news, right?”

  She smiled. “It is.” Then why did she look a little wistful? “I guess I never realized before what doing a good job means for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If I do what I’m supposed to do, I’m always letting go. Maybe I didn’t notice that so much until I watched you with your girls, Cash. You hang on tight.”

  “Too tight sometimes.” Cash shifted the cup around in his hands, staring into the dark brew. “After you left yesterday, I found out I was wrong about the girls not missing their mother. Charlie’s just been trying to hide it from me. She’s the one who’s been fielding Mac’s tough questions about Lisa. When Mac blurted it out, Charlie was afraid I’d be mad at her. Mad at her,” Cash repeated again, shaking his head. “Just because my kid was talking about her own mother.”

  Cash heard a soft tinkle of bracelets as Rowena moved to cup her hands over his, cocooning him in her touch. She ran her fingertip over his knuckle in a caress so tender he had to swallow hard before he could speak.

  “I didn’t know they still missed her. I didn’t want to know,” he corrected with brutal honesty. “If you hadn’t said the things you did to me yesterday, Rowena, I wouldn’t have been listening any more carefully than I have been for the past two years.”

  “You’re a wonderful listener. Those girls are lucky to have you. They adore you and I don’t blame them.”

  Something about her words pulled Cash’s gaze to hers, those eyes drawing him in. And for a heartbeat he wanted her to mean what she’d said in a way far different than she ever could. He wondered what it would be like to be the man Rowena Brown adored, all of her big, generous heart wide open to him.

  He took a sip from his cup, using that as an excuse to break the contact between them. But when her hands fell away he felt the chill of it clear down to his core.

  “I called Lisa last night. She’s taking the girls for a few days in a week and a half.”

  “Oh, Cash!” Rowena’s eyes glowed with pride in him. “It will be so good for them.”

  “I hope so. It will be good for you, too.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Last night when I couldn’t sleep I made a few calculations. Between Lisa taking the kids for four days and Vinny’s convalescence almost over, if I add in some of the vacation time I have coming at work, you can be off the hook come Monday.”

  “What?”

  “I could probably even manage without you the rest of this week. You remember Charlie’s best friend Hope Stone?”

  “Jake and Deirdre’s daughter.”

  He wasn’t surprised that Rowena remembered their names. “When I asked Deirdre to watch the kids at the fair, she said it was no trouble. She offered to keep the kids a few more nights if I needed help. I just never took her up on it.”

  “Oh.”

  Why didn’t Rowena sound more relieved? She tilted her head, and he could see her delicate throat work. “That’s—you really shouldn’t have. I mean, I don’t mind watching the girls. In fact…”

  “They like having you here, too.” His voice dropped low. “Maybe too much.”

  Rowena’s mouth opened, closed. “I understand.”

  “Rowena, I’ll never be able to repay you for what you’ve done for my family during the time you’ve been here. You’ve opened my eyes.”

  And my heart…?

  “Cash, you really didn’t believe I was coming back this morning, did you?” Damn if she didn’t look genuinely stunned. “You thought I’d leave you stranded with two girls to get to school, a babysitter with a broken leg, cupboards that would do Mother Hubbard proud and your job to do?”

  How could he tell her the truth? The thing that scared him most of all? Imagining what it would be like when she was gone, the music of her bracelets silenced, the scent of her hair, summer-fresh on his pillow, fading, all the colors in the crayon box tucked away. Knowing that the longer he postponed the inevitable moment she left the gray house behind, the harder it was going to be for everyone when she disappeared for good.

  He told himself he was trying to shield his daughters from that hurt. And yet deep inside he knew the truth: she was burrowing her way into even his hard heart. With her courage, her fierce protectiveness, her ability to see into the dark places inside him and not run the other way.

  If she stayed much longer, he didn’t know if he could resist her. He just wasn’t that strong. And he’d meant what he’d said to her sister that night after the Harvest Fair. He was no man for a woman as full of light and life as Rowena Brown.

  “Ha
ve you told the girls I’m leaving yet?” Rowena’s query brought him back to his kitchen and the last time he’d see her sitting across from him at the table.

  “No.”

  “Maybe they could still come to the shop sometimes until you get off work. Really, Cash, I love having them there. They’re no trouble—at least, not unless they both want to sit in the seat by Destroyer or we run out of corn for supper.”

  Her humor made him ache. Her eyes pleaded.

  “I’m not sure prolonging this is a good idea.”

  Rowena’s face fell. She nibbled at her bottom lip and he could tell that he’d hurt her.

  “It’s not that you haven’t done a wonderful job with Mac and Charlie. You’ve been…” A scene flashed into his head, Rowena in his bed, his children cuddled around her, their toys in disarray. How many times in the weeks since had he imagined what it would have been like to lie down on top of the covers that blanketed them, stretch his arm across them and gather them close while they dreamed dreams too sweet for him ever to understand.

  What would it be like to belong in that picture? But he knew he never could.

  “It’s okay,” Rowena said. “It’s your decision to make. You don’t have to explain.”

  “Yes, I do. I won’t have you thinking you did something wrong. I’m the problem. I want you too much. And…I can’t have you.”

  Her eyes pierced right through him, to where his chest felt too small. “Why can’t you?”

  “My life is too complicated. I barely have time to shower some days let alone—A relationship takes time and energy and I don’t have either by the end of the day.”

  “Who said it had to be a relationship? Couldn’t it just be…something we both wanted? A…soft place where you could catch your breath? Give yourself something you need for just a little while? You’re a man, Cash. Not just a father. And at the moment, you’re running on empty. You have to fill yourself up or soon you’ll really have nothing left to give.”

  “Rowena, you don’t understand.”

  “Don’t I? What kind of example are you setting for the girls right now? That life’s hard and difficult? That you have to fight through it every moment? That it’s wrong to take care of yourself even a little? There will always be responsibilities, Cash, duties that you’re responsible for. What about joy?”

  “Exactly where would you suggest I find that? Someplace between Mac’s wheelchair and Charlie being tossed out by her mother like last week’s garbage?”

  “You have to find joy yourself or you can never teach it to them. And they need that, Cash, more than they need anything else. Or how can they survive? More important, why would they want to?”

  He stood, stalked to the back door, looking at the tree house, half-finished, abandoned like his children were. His voice turned gravelly in his throat. “Rowena, I’m doing the best I can.”

  “You have to do better.”

  He swung around, wanting anger, wanting to bite down on the bullet and keep his head down, charging into combat mode. The mode he understood. Was good at. Survival. But survival wasn’t living. It wasn’t playing cops and robbers with Charlie or having Mac stand on top of his feet while he taught her to waltz. It wasn’t laughter or light or Rowena’s mouth under his, so eager, so spontaneous, so full of promise.

  Even before Lisa’s betrayal had left him bitter he’d have been no kind of man for Rowena. He’d already been hard inside, a soldier, without the tiniest bit of whimsy in his soul.

  Cash heard footsteps behind him. Felt Rowena’s hands. She slid them up his back, his muscles tensing beneath her fingers as they traced up the ridge of his spine, then spread across the breadth of his shoulders. He hardened beneath his sweats as she kissed him just beneath his shoulder blade. She slipped her arms around him. Her hands slid beneath the robe, her palms burning prints on his bare skin as she pressed her body tight against his back, holding onto him.

  He could feel every inch of her through the soft cotton, her breasts flattening against him, the slight swell of her belly, her thighs against the back of his legs. Her hair teased his bare neck, the silky wisps trailing across his skin arousing him more fiercely than he’d ever been before.

  And he wondered what it would be like. To be clean. To be whole. To be hers. Her man. Her lover…

  He turned in the circle of her arms, meaning to pull away from her, put distance between himself and sweet temptation. But she wouldn’t let him. She just burrowed closer, hung on tighter, melding the front of her to him, until his erection lay heavy against her stomach and her hands splayed across his bare chest, fingertips skimming his nipples, making him burn for the flick of her tongue on his skin, the sweet suction of her mouth taking sips of his throat, his jaw, his mouth.

  Why didn’t he push her away? Because some part of him had imagined this for far too long, the warm cove between her thighs cradling his hardness, his hands cupping her butt and lifting her up…lowering her down onto him inch by inch.

  To feel the warm in her, taste the sweet in her, her body hot underneath him, wanting him so badly she cried out his name. Making love to him with so much passion he’d get to keep just a little of her with him when she was gone.

  And now she was going. He was sending her away. And part of him was glad. That fierce, primal part he couldn’t deny. Because now, with the girls sound asleep in their rooms and no future encounters to tempt him, he could kiss her, just kiss her. Touch her one time, before it was too late.

  Cash buried his hands in her hair, tipped her face up to his and took what he’d been craving. His tongue swept the seam between her lips, opened it and slipped inside. Arousal speared through him as he caught her soft moan. His name…his name sounding so different on her tongue, like the man he wanted to be.

  She tugged him into the laundry room, bumped the door closed with her hip, then melted back into his arms.

  Cash wanted so much more for her. More than desperate kisses among baskets of clothes he still needed to wash. He wanted a bed big enough to hold everything he felt for her. He wanted nights on end to discover every mystery of her body. He wanted her laughing and free and full of sunshine.

  If anyone deserved all that was good in life it was Rowena. No dark. No grinding, weary hours of physical therapy. No wheelchairs to lug out of cars or nights when the dark inside her lover went so deep even she couldn’t find any light.

  Cash eased his hands down to her waist, meaning to push her gently away, but her mouth was on his throat, warm and moist and full of desire. Her lips trailed downward, pressing kisses to his chest, nuzzling against him, until she touched his nipple with her tongue.

  Cash’s breath hissed between his teeth, his shaft throbbing, his whole body on fire. Her hair teased his skin, her fingers making him hotter than he’d ever been, scaring the hell out of him, opening a well of need in him so great it stunned him.

  His hands found the hem of her shirt, slid beneath it. The velvety skin of her stomach brushed his as he shoved the fabric up to find her breasts. He slid the thin lace of her bra aside and cupped her, ran his thumb over the pointed crest, knew by how tight it was that she wanted him almost as much as he wanted her. He bent her back over his braced arm as his mouth took nips and his tongue sips of her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, and then he drew her into his mouth.

  She gasped as he suckled her, seducing her, memorizing the taste of her on his tongue.

  She moved her hand between their hips and found him through the worn material of his sweats. Then she insinuated her fingers beneath the elastic band, touching him with exquisite delicacy, astonishing wonder. “How—how can you…believe this…is wrong, Cash?” she breathed as she curled her hand around him, ran her thumb over the tip. “What we feel for each other.”

  Wrong. This was wrong. On so many levels he couldn’t even begin to explain. Cash swore under his breath, dragging every ounce of will he had to the surface, breaking the contact of her skin on his one agonizing inch at a time.
r />   He circled her arms with his hands to keep the space between them, rested his forehead against hers as he tried to remember how to breathe.

  “You need to go, Rowena,” he said hoarsely. “Surely you have to see.”

  “I see that I care about you, Cash.”

  Bryony Brown’s exasperated voice echoed in his mind. What a surprise…

  “There are times when I think I could…”

  “Could what?”

  “Fall in love with you. If you’d let me.”

  Cash’s heart beat faster despite the logic he knew he had to hold on to. “I won’t, Rowena. Let you. I’d only…” Cash arched his head back, closed his eyes. “I’d only bring you down. I couldn’t ever forgive myself if I did.”