Only a few minutes later, she came back down the hall wearing slim jeans, a white T-shirt, and a fitted cardigan in a blue that matched her eyes. She’d taken off her makeup and wore glasses. Chic, blue-rimmed glasses, but glasses to be sure. He couldn’t speak for the rest of the species, but he would totally make a pass at this woman in glasses.
She offered him another quick smile as she wrapped a scarf around her neck, then slipped her feet into the flat black shoes by the kitchen door. “I’m ready.”
Lucas looked down at his jeans and gray T-shirt, both faded to near white. For a second, he contemplated changing, but discarded the idea. Alana always looked like that, and when he was off-duty, he always looked like this. This wasn’t a date. They weren’t a couple. He had no reason to put on nicer jeans or a button-down shirt when they were going to a home-improvement superstore, and he’d probably end up loading building supplies into his truck.
“Let’s go,” he said brusquely.
• • •
ALANA SPENT THE
first half of the drive into Brookings watching the sunset transform the prairie into rolling green gilded with reds and oranges. The wide-open expanse of grassland changed constantly, the wind and sky conspiring in ceaseless shifts, cross-hatching and patchworking.
“How was your day?” she asked Lucas. She had to make conversation, knew how to do it, but she hated to break the warm silence in the truck’s cab.
“Fine.”
She glanced over at him. The last rays of sun filtered weakly through the truck’s windows, picking out hints of red in his hair and the five o’clock shadow on his cheek, and highlighting his firm lips. He drove with one wrist on the top of the steering wheel, the other hand on the gearshift.
Was she supposed to dig deeper? Sometimes when David was in a mood, she knew to keep asking questions, but Lucas seemed too straightforward for that. She tucked her hair behind her ear, and returned her gaze to the window. He shifted in his seat.
“How about you? Cody give you any trouble?”
“No,” she said. “He did everything I asked, perhaps not cheerfully but at least without fussing. He’s sorting books for me. I want to figure out which ones have some resale value. Then he read to the preschoolers during story time.”
Lucas turned to look at her, one eyebrow cocked. “He read to little kids.”
“He told them a story and drew illustrations in real time on the chalkboard,” Alana said. “He used voices for all the characters, too. It was almost performance art. Surprised?”
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” he said. “I went to see my cousin today.”
The non sequitur startled her. It was her turn to make a noise that passed for a comment in the hopes that he’d continue.
“She’s an addict.”
This was news to Alana. The prairie might stretch to the horizon, but Walkers Ford held the craggy terrain and hidden crevices of small-town secrets. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“She lives less than a mile from Gunther Jensen.”
The puzzle pieces clicked together, connecting Cody to the crime to his cousin. “That can’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t.”
What to say now? Ask him whether or not his cousin had anything to do with the break-in? Ask him how he felt? Ask him something else? Sit quietly?
“What did she say?”
He turned and looked at her. “You can’t trust an addict.”
Wrong question. “But . . . you must know her.”
“She’s lied to me before.” Another mile passed before he spoke. “I don’t think she did it, but I don’t know. Ten years ago, no way she’d do something like this, or lie to me. Now? I don’t know.”
She used the reflection on the windshield from the setting sun to study him covertly. Carved from granite would indicate rigidity, immovability, a hardness meant to be admired or appreciated, but the skin and muscles of Lucas’s face were too taut for that. Instead, they looked like they’d been schooled into immobility. That was the difference. He still felt the pain and sorrow he saw on a near daily basis, but he’d taught himself to show no emotion. Maybe the renovation project would give him the break he needed, a chance to work on something tangible, with visible progress, to combat the ugliness in the world with a bit of beauty.
They pulled into the home-improvement superstore’s parking lot. He eased his long legs out of the truck immediately, but she rummaged through her purse to make sure she had her tablet, only to find him at her door. He opened it, then offered his hand to help her out.
She blinked, then set her hand in his. “Thank you,” she said, and slid to the ground. Her hand stayed in his for a very brief moment, rough and warm and shockingly possessive, providing the right amount of support to help her keep her balance as she got out of the big truck. There was nothing tentative about this man. He knew exactly who he was, where he belonged, what he was about.
She knew none of those things about herself, but maybe some of his purpose would rub off on her in the next few weeks. Literally. Tonight, after dinner.
He stayed close as they crossed the parking lot, whether out of a totally unexpected chivalry or training, she didn’t know. But a delicate, potent trill of desire shivered through her as his big body moved beside her, his hand at the small of her back, his shoulders blocking the last vestiges of the setting sun.
They walked through the sliding doors. He steered her down the main aisle, through the lighting fixtures, and back to the cabinets department. She pulled out her tablet and woke it up, then logged into the store’s free Wi-Fi.
“I went out to Brookhaven and looked at the two kitchens Marissa renovated out there. She did a nice job of keeping the house’s original ambiance while integrating all the modern conveniences. Then I browsed through Pinterest and other sites, getting a feel for what’s possible.”
He bent over her shoulder, studying the pictures as she swiped through them. “No one’s trying to modernize the 1970s,” he noted.
“Not yet, anyway. Do you want a retro feel, one that plays off the house’s original kitchen, or do you want something new and modern? You could remove the cabinets, but I’d keep them because they’ve got those gorgeous beadboard doors and I’d refinish them, or even paint them. Cream would be perfect. That would make the room feel so much bigger and brighter, regardless of what color you painted the walls. Updating the hardware would add visual interest, and save some money. I’d pick something in a bright brass or gold, because that room gets so much gorgeous light. I’d do a jade paint, or even a sage. A soft green would flow beautifully into the living room. Tiling the backsplash from the cabinets to the counters would make it much easier to clean. If we went with a more muted paint, we could choose a complementary tile color and insert bright accent pieces . . .”
Her voice trailed off because he hadn’t said a word. The silence stretching between them allowed for a flush to climb into her cheeks. This wasn’t her house. As much as she loved the house, with its polished walnut floors and clever little shelves, it was Lucas’s house, not hers. “I’m sorry,” she said gently. “I was just thinking out loud.”
“That’s why I invited you along,” he said. “Left to my own devices, I’d paint it white, put in white appliances, and go with basic oak cabinets.”
“That would look all right, too,” she said.
He quirked an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth. “You blush when you lie, too.”
“I told you I blush all the time,” she retorted.
“And now I believe you.”
“I’m no design expert, but white will wash all the warmth out of the room,” she said. “That said, it’s probably the most generic solution, if you want to keep renting the house.”
“No possibility of offending a prospective tenant,” he said.
“But no character,” she finished.
He gestured vaguely at the picture on her phone. “Do what you think best suits the house. I’m going to look at PVC.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the actual plumbing.
She wandered into the paint section and got a few small containers, a pale yellow, a sage green, and a blue the shade of the prairie sky in winter. Then she wandered into the fixtures aisle and chose three different handles for the cabinets. Her tasks completed, she went into the plumbing section to look for Lucas, but he was nowhere in sight, so she fell back on her default time killer. She found the books section and started browsing.
The store had a nice supply of gardening books geared to South Dakota’s extreme climate shifts. Temperatures routinely dropped to below zero for weeks at a stretch in the winter, and topped out around a hundred in the summer. “Humid subcontinental climate,” she muttered to herself.
A book focused specifically on roses caught her eye. Remembering the recalcitrant Country Dancers, she picked it up and started paging through it. Twenty minutes later Lucas rounded the corner, sheets of paper flapping from his hand. “Somehow I knew I’d find you here,” he said when he saw her sitting on the floor, the book open on her lap, her tablet beside her. “That took longer than I thought it would.”
“No worries,” she said absently, then looked up at him. She intended for her gaze to go from the open book to his face, but somehow the trip up took longer than she planned. He had such long legs, the denim of his jeans fitting snugly to his thighs. They rode low on his hips, seemingly held there by his hands. His gray T-shirt made his brown hair glint in the lights, and soft strands curled against his collar. He needed a trim, she thought, but oh, how she’d regret losing any of that thick soft hair. It felt like silk against the sensitive inner flesh of her fingers while she kissed him.
Heat crackled between them before he blinked and shut it down. “What’s that?”
Not trusting her voice, she held it up so he could see the cover.
“I’m pretty sure Gran had that one,” he said.
“Really? She had books?”
“She had hundreds. I figured with a librarian moving in I needed to clear the shelves. Her books are all in boxes in the basement,” he said. “We can look through them later.”
“I thought it was strange she didn’t have any books in her house, with all those shelves,” Alana said from her seated position. “But you don’t have to put books on shelves.”
“She loved books,” Lucas said bluntly. “Books and her house and roses and her kids and grandkids, and Walkers Ford.”
“I can tell,” Alana said quietly. “It’s in every room in that house.”
“Get what you need?”
“I grabbed a few paint samples. We can test them out on the wall to see how they look in the natural light. I also got these,” she said, and held out the three door pulls she’d chosen. “Do you hate any of them?”
Three seconds to scan the options. “No.”
“We’ll take them home and try them out once you paint the cabinets. You can return the ones that don’t work.”
He looked at her. “This isn’t a one-and-done trip, is it?”
“It can be,” she hedged. “White paint. White appliances.”
“No character.” He gave a resigned little grunt. “I’ll pay at the register. We pick up the plumbing after we pay.”
He held out his hand and effortlessly pulled her to her feet. It was a talent of his, guiding people from one position to another, from one frame of mind to another, and his touch was no less potent when it happened under horrid fluorescent lighting in a home-improvement superstore than it was in her kitchen.
Flustered to the point of blushing, she set the book back on the rack, then walked with him through the checkout and back to the truck. He drove through the parking lot to the sheltered overhang. While they waited for the handcart loaded with plumbing supplies, he stared straight out the windshield.
“It doesn’t matter why, but that blush gets me every time,” he said.
The words were largely emotionless but slightly puzzled, as if his reaction surprised him. She turned to look at him. He looked at her, his face still devoid of expression, but heat simmered in his brown eyes, now the color of melted dark chocolate.
“Oh,” she said.
The clang and bump of the handcart across the threshold splintered the tension into shards. Bill of lading in hand, Lucas opened his door and got out, leaving her to take a deep breath to slow her racing pulse. She’d expected the longing to lessen, that the tension and nerves and eagerness and anticipation leading up to their first sexual encounter would dissipate after the first time. Familiarity bred contempt, or at least comfortable awareness.
It hadn’t, a fact that rewired her understanding of desire. Now she knew. She knew the hard planes of his naked torso, knew how her body quivered around his as he slid inside her, knew that maddening, compelling, sparking arousal that built with each stroke. Visceral heat flashed like a strobe light in her breasts, deep in her sex.
The tailgate clanged shut, then Lucas’s door opened with a “thanks” called to the retreating employee. “Dinner?”
“Yes, please,” she said automatically.
“Preferences?”
She liked that he asked. “The Copper Rock?” she offered. The classic American menu offered burgers, sandwiches, and steaks as well as a nice wine list and a large selection of beers. The brick walls and casual atmosphere fostered a relaxed meal.
He shifted into drive and headed into the Brookings historic district. They found a spot on the street. With the sun down, the air held a distinct chill, and she wrapped her sweater more tightly around her body as they stepped onto the sidewalk.
“Hold on,” he said, opened his door again, and reached into the truck’s backseat. He came back out with a fleece-lined jacket and held it open for her.
“We’re twenty feet from the door,” she said with a smile.
“You might get cold inside,” he said, and gave the jacket a gentle shake.
The soft fabric smelled like him, like male skin and sweat and the greening grass of South Dakota’s spring. She felt mildly ridiculous, but slipped her arms into the sleeves anyway. The warmth engulfed her as they crossed the sidewalk. He opened the door and let her walk through first. The host seated them in a quiet booth away from the bar, leaving them with the menus and a promise that a server would be with them shortly.