Troublemaker (30 page)

“I don't know about fishing, I've never tried it, but I love the water.” She kept her tone casual despite the leap her heart rate made at his reference to the future. She wouldn't bet on it—but she liked that he'd offered.

“That's right, you're a swimmer. You don't get much swimming around here, do you?”

“More than you'd think,” she replied, thinking about the secluded lake where she took Tricks in the summer.

“Yeah? Where?”

“I'll show you later.” The lake would be a nice surprise for later in the day, maybe with a picnic lunch. It was a pretty place, and the lake was big enough for some serious swimming, though the water was so cold she could stand it only during the hottest weather. Tricks didn't care, she just loved to swim. The cold water was probably what kept snakes away, because she'd never seen a snake around or in the lake. If she had, likely she'd have enrolled Tricks in the nearest Y—or tried. Given Tricks's track record, she was betting on her girl getting people to bypass rules and regulations.

“Do you own all this land?” he asked at one point. They were at least a mile from the house, probably more, though they'd walked at least twice that because their route hadn't been a straight line.

“No, I own ten acres. I
think
this belongs to someone who lives in Charleston, but I'm not sure. Mayor Buddy owns a chunk of land close to here, and to the east the land belongs to Kenny Michaels's folks. You've met him; he's Daina's boyfriend.”

“I remember. So . . . we're trespassing.”

“Technically. The land isn't fenced or posted. I'll walk it until the owner, whoever it is, tells me not to walk it, and then I'll stop. I'm careful not to leave trash or anything like that.”

He tsked. “And you an officer of the law.”

“I know, it's shameful.” She smiled up at him, which for some reason made him stop, plant his hands on her hips, and pull her in to him for a long, hungry kiss.

With a picnic in mind, Bo made some sandwiches, packed a small
cooler with bottles of water and Naked Pig, added some chips and Oreo cookies, and said, “Come on, let's load up the Jeep. There's a place I want to show you.”

He looked at the cooler. “We're going to be gone long enough that we need supplies?”

“I plan on eating while I'm there. I thought you might too.” While he loaded the cooler and, at her request, two folding camp chairs, she packed up some food and water for Tricks, and got a quilt and several towels. She folded the towels inside the quilt so Morgan wouldn't see them.

Mindful that Tricks would insist on the passenger seat, Bo tossed the keys to Morgan. “You drive, and I'll crawl in back.”

“Tricks wins again,” he said, grinning.

“You bet.”

When they were all settled, with Tricks looking very pleased at being in her seat after mostly riding in the back of the Tahoe since Morgan had started driving again, Bo pointed across her yard. “Go that way.”

A blue glance slanted her way. “Cross country, huh?”

“It's a fairly easy drive, though I wouldn't try it in a car.”

He handled the Jeep off-road as if he'd done it a million times, which he probably had, in various vehicles. There were no truly challenging areas, just places where he had to angle the vehicle to cross a dip, and one section where the only option was to thread the Jeep through a jumble of boulders that they couldn't go around because the trees were too thick.

In ten minutes, they topped the crest of a rolling hill and there was the lake, shiny and blue, about twelve acres in size. To the north, at the
shallow end, was where the cold spring fed into the lake. Large sycamores and black oaks provided plenty of shade on the banks, which was nice during the worst of the summer heat. The weeds were knee high in some places, because the lake wasn't a manicured and maintained area. To the east a large rocky outcropping rose like a wall, blocking access from that direction.

Morgan stopped the Jeep and just stared at the lake for a minute. “Water,” he said finally, with something like reverence in his tone. “You didn't tell me there was a lake.”

“It's a cold-water lake, so I don't let Tricks swim until about this time every year. It's still too cold for me; I'll give it another couple of weeks before I try.”

He still hadn't looked away from the water. “I'm going in.”

“Don't say you weren't warned. If you want to freeze your butt off, that's your decision.” She, however, was going to sit on the quilt on the bank and throw the ball for Tricks to retrieve.

He set the Jeep in motion, bumping down the hill. When he got closer to the bank, he drove back and forth several times to flatten the weeds in a nice-sized area so the way to the water was clear and they had a place to spread the quilt. Tricks recognized where she was and knew she was going to swim, so she started woofing in encouragement. Morgan began playing into it, wheeling the Jeep in wide sweeping turns while Tricks played cheerleader. Bo sat in back wondering if they were ever going to get out of the Jeep.

Finally he stopped by a sycamore tree, and they unloaded the Jeep. Tricks raced back and forth between Bo and the lake bank, barking to show she was ready for her tennis ball to hit the water. “Just cool your jets,” Bo advised her. “I'll get your ball in a minute.”

When the quilt was unfolded and Morgan saw the towels, he grinned. “You knew I'd be going in.”

“I suspected,” she said drily.

“Any snakes?” He was stripping his shirt off over his head as he spoke.

“Not that I've ever seen,” she replied as he dropped his shirt on the quilt and began pulling off his shoes and socks. His bare shoulders gleamed in the dappled sunlight there under the big sycamore. A lot of times his expression was either blank or guarded, but not today; enjoyment shone in his eyes, and his mouth was curved in a smile.

“Underwater snags?”

“Stay away from the south end, it's rough there.” She paused. “I don't know about turtles, so be careful of your dangly parts.”

He laughed as he shucked down his jeans and stepped out of them, leaving him clad only in his boxers. “I'm keeping my dangly parts corralled. I can't set up a secure perimeter to make sure we're completely private, so no skinny dipping.”

Tricks was still impatiently dancing around. Bo got the tennis ball and walked down to the water with man and dog. “I fully expect you'll push yourself,” she said to Morgan, “so give me a signal to look for if you get in trouble.” From her own competitive swimming experience she knew that people who were truly drowning couldn't yell for help because they couldn't breathe.

His eyes narrowed at the idea that a big, bad, whatever-he-was might need help in the water. She imagined a lot of his training was in the water, and normally he could probably swim rings around her, but despite the sleek muscles she could see rippling in his mostly bare body, she hadn't been shot and he had. He might think her offer was funny—or insulting—but she didn't care.

Opting for diplomacy, he said, “Babe, I never want you to risk yourself trying to help me.”

She snorted. “Oh, how sweet. Let me check my give-a-shit meter to see where that registers. Nope, nothing there. Sorry.” She crossed her arms and stared at him, gaze level. The “babe” wasn't going to distract her, though she suspected he'd thrown that in to either piss her off or soften her, and he didn't care which. Too bad: this wasn't about whether or not she was capable, it was about whether or not he could admit that he might still need help. When he'd first arrived, he hadn't had any
choice about accepting help, and she suspected that made him a little touchy about it now.

He could simply ignore her and wade into the water. She couldn't stop him, and they both knew that. But last night . . . last night had either forged a bond between them, or it hadn't. If it had, he would acknowledge that she needed to have a signal to look for. If it hadn't, she needed to know that too.

She could feel herself getting chilled inside, waiting for his answer. Okay, so she wasn't completely zen. This wasn't an ultimatum though; whatever he answered, she would still enjoy him while he was here. The only change was that she would
know
it was temporary, and somehow she would manage.

He stepped closer and cupped her chin in his palm, his thumb rubbing along her jawline. She looked up at him and had one of those moments of acute awareness of how big he was, over a head taller than she was. The blue of his eyes darkened as he studied her face. Leaning down, he brushed his mouth over hers, light as a whisper. “I'll hold up a clenched fist,” he said, then released her and turned away.

When he waded into the water, Tricks bounded in beside him with a surplus of enthusiasm that sent up a huge splash, then she began swimming strongly for where she was certain Bo would throw the ball. Obediently Bo threw the tennis ball so it landed just ahead of her; Tricks grabbed the ball in triumph and started back for the bank, but then her golden head turned sharply as she noticed that Morgan wasn't coming with her. Instead he was stroking smoothly through the water, his dark head sleek as a seal's. His arms pistoned steadily, but there wasn't a lot of splash, just the flash of his skin and a small bit of turbulence in his wake.

Alarmed, knowing what was about to happen, Bo called, “Tricks! Here!”

Ignoring Bo, Tricks turned and went after him, swimming as hard as she could. She even dropped the tennis ball and left it floating in the water.

“Crap,” Bo said sharply to herself. She knew exactly what Tricks was doing, but a dog couldn't swim as fast as a human who was fairly good,
and Morgan was more than fairly good. He wasn't going for speed, but his strokes and kicks were powerful and smooth, eating up distance.

She began jerking off her shoes and jeans, steeling herself to go into that cold lake, because her in the water was the only thing that would pull Tricks away from Morgan in the water. Trying again, she cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “
Tricks!
” as loud as she could.

Morgan was already over a hundred yards away, maybe two hundred, but he must have heard her because abruptly he stopped and turned in the water to face her. She doubted he paid any attention to her, though, because Tricks was coming right at him, swimming so hard she was leaving a wake.

Tricks reached Morgan, and though Bo didn't have binoculars, she didn't need them to know what happened because she knew her dog. She gripped her head with both hands as Tricks latched on to Morgan's arm and began towing him toward the bank. She was “saving” him. She'd done the same thing to Bo the first time Bo had gone swimming with her, and it had taken several trips to the lake before she relaxed her vigil.

“Oh, good Lord,” Bo muttered. She could only imagine what Morgan was thinking.

After living with Tricks for two and a half years Bo was seldom surprised anymore by anything that the dog did, but there was still the occasional mind-boggling moment. In retrospect, she could follow Tricks's reasoning: when Morgan had arrived, he'd been weak and unable to take care of himself. Therefore, he was someone Tricks needed to watch over. Seeing him in the water, without realizing how much he had recovered, had triggered her protective instinct and she had gone after him thinking he was literally in over his head.

Bo waited anxiously for them to reach the bank. That was a long way for Tricks to swim without a rest; she could retrieve her tennis ball thrown in the water for hours, but that was with her feet touching ground at the end of every retrieve. As they got closer, she could see that Morgan was helping her, stroking with his free arm and keeping an eye on her. If Tricks got too tired, he'd make sure she didn't get in trouble and made it safely back.

Finally they reached shallow water and he stood, but he kept Tricks close until she was touching the bottom too. Tricks kept pulling on his arm, insisting that he get out of the water. When they waded out onto the flattened weeds, Tricks finally released his arm so he could straighten. He wiped the water out of his face with his free hand, then Tricks showered him again as she vigorously shook and slung water everywhere.

His chest was rising and falling with deep breaths as he looked at Bo. She shrugged and willed herself not to get teary-eyed, but really, Tricks's valor made her feel misty. “Such a good girl,” she crooned, bending to pet Tricks and praise her.

Morgan petted her too, telling her thank you, then he shook his head as he met Bo's eyes. “I've been saved,” he said wryly. “Reckon she'll let me go back in?”

B
EFORE BO COULD ANSWER, TRICKS REALIZED SHE'D
left her ball in the water and went charging back into the lake. Bo started after her, taking two steps into the water—damn, it was cold!—but Morgan put his hand on her arm. “She looks okay. If she gets tired, I'll go get her.”

Bo stepped back out of the water but kept her gaze on Tricks. Morgan stood beside her, keeping watch too. He said, “Has she done that before?”

She nodded. “The first time I swam with her. She got such a look of horror on her face when she saw me in the water. She was only about four or five months old, but she swam like a champ. Thank goodness I wasn't very far out, because she was still just a puppy. I don't know if her strength would have held out.”

“Don't you know she was thinking, ‘Oh shit, Mom's in the water and if she sinks I'm screwed.'”

Startled, Bo laughed out loud. “She doesn't know swear words.”

“Betcha.”

The idea of puppy Tricks swearing to herself was priceless. Bo was still chuckling as together they watched Tricks retrieve her ball and turn, swimming for the bank. She wasn't going as fast as she normally did, but neither did she seem to be in any distress. Now that she had
Morgan safely on land, she wore her normal jaunty, happy expression. It was amazing how a dog could smile with a ball in its mouth.

“The guys would rag my ass forever if this got out,” Morgan observed.

“Oh, good, I have something I can blackmail you with.” Tricks was touching the bottom now and bounding out, sending water flying everywhere, so Bo backed up out of the spray area. Morgan stayed where he was because he couldn't get any wetter. Tricks gave him a quick look of disdain—evidently for being so foolish as to go swimming—and took the ball to Bo.

Morgan scratched his jaw. “I think I've been dissed.”

“Most definitely.” Bo didn't take the offered ball, instead saying, “You need to rest a few minutes, princess, that was a long swim. Just a few minutes, okay? Nose around and see what you can smell.” After a few seconds Tricks dropped the ball and trotted off to sniff out something interesting.

Morgan had turned back and was looking out over the lake. Bo could feel him wanting to get back in the water, but he waited, not knowing how Tricks would react. For Bo's part, she was content for him to stand there, because just looking at him made her hormones whisper, “Oh man, he's
fine
.” As good as he looked now, with water dripping off his lean, muscled body, she could only imagine what he was like at full strength. For him, “weak” was most people's normal.

The scar on his chest wasn't the only scar he bore; there was a white slash across his right triceps, a dark discoloring along his left thigh that looked like road rash, a jagged scar under his left shoulder blade, even a raised white slash of scar tissue on top of his left foot. She wondered if all the injuries on his left side had occurred at the same time. And all she could see right now were those on his back; she hadn't noticed any on his front last night, but then she'd been preoccupied with other things—plus the light had been off.

Her gaze lingered on the way his wet boxers were hanging low on his hips and clinging to his ass. The muscle definition in his legs was mouthwatering. Come to think of it, there wasn't anything about him
that wasn't mouthwatering, but those legs looked as strong as trees. Thick pads of muscle lined the indentation of his spine, laced along his ribs. She remembered that when he'd arrived his arms had looked thin; they certainly didn't now. She didn't know what he'd been doing while she was at the police station, but she suspected he hadn't rested much, not to fight his way back this far.

He had the body of a warrior. She didn't
try
to forget what he was, but in the day-to-day normality of the routine they'd established, one reality would sink out of sight below the other reality. Yet every time she'd almost forgotten, something would happen to remind her. Yesterday it had been that moment when he'd taken Kyle down, the savagery in his gaze, the almost absent way he'd slammed Kyle's head into the pavement to knock him out. Today it was seeing the scars he bore. Since the moment when he'd choked her, he'd been careful to keep himself under control and on low intensity, but by then it was too late. The people in town might have bought it, but she knew the truth.

“You've been really careful since you've been here, haven't you?” she asked as she bent down to retrieve her jeans. “Simmer instead of boil. You walk a tightrope when you're stateside, don't you?”

He didn't have to ask what she meant and he didn't deny it. He shrugged and said, “For the most part I don't have to because I'm with other men who are the same. That's my job. But when I'm in the real world, I can ratchet it down with no problem—except for the minor slip when you shook me awake.”

“Minor.” She made a scoffing noise as she shimmied into her jeans. He'd scared the crap out of her, and he could so easily have crushed her throat. “You could have killed me.”

“
Could
have. But I didn't, and I didn't hurt you, so that makes it minor. Scared you, though. I'm sorry about that.”

His tone was absent. She looked up from zipping her jeans to see that his attention was riveted on what she was doing. His expression was so hungry that her heart skipped a beat and she froze, trying to get a handle on her immediate response to nothing more than that, just an expression. She felt breathless and turned on; a minute ago her wet feet
had been cold from the lake water, but one look from him was all it took for heat to wash over her from her toes to her head.

Her cheeks were hot as she got her shoes. She wasn't shy but she'd never been a flirt, never wanted to flirt. Why not just be up front and save everyone time and trouble? But now she wanted to tease him and get him as revved up as she felt, though if she went by his actions last night he didn't need much revving.

She took a deep breath and composed herself, remembering that he'd wanted a long swim. “If you want to go back in the water, I can hold Tricks to keep her from saving you again. For all I know, if you go back in the water, she might write you off as wasted effort.”

“She would, too,” he muttered. “But, yeah, I'd like a longer swim. I'm way out of shape.”

“How long could you swim before?”

“Fifteen miles or so. Like I said, we trained our asses off.”

Fifteen . . .
miles
? He could swim farther than it was from her house to Hamrickville? She said faintly, “Yeah, I can see how just swimming a couple of miles would be disappointing.”

“The first couple of miles is just fun. After ten miles, it stops being fun and starts being work.”

She called Tricks to her and held her firmly while Morgan waded back into the lake, made a shallow dive, and began crossing the lake with strong, smooth strokes of his arms. Tricks strained against her hold, whining low in her throat with her dark gaze fixed on Morgan's disappearing form, but Bo reassured her that he was all right and after a minute she took her cue from Bo's attitude.

While keeping a weather eye on Morgan for the raised fist that would signal distress—and, oh shit, she hoped she didn't have to go into that cold water, though she would if she had to—she began throwing the ball into the lake for Tricks to retrieve, combining her two favorite things, retrieving and swimming. After a while the sun got too hot on her face and arms and she called Tricks out, let her shake, then toweled her off and spread a dry towel next to the quilt for Tricks to lie down on. Morgan had stopped swimming up and down the lake and was gliding
toward them, his arms moving steadily, so she guessed the aquatics were at an end for the day.

He was breathing fast as he waded out. She met him at the edge of the water with a towel. “Thanks,” he said, rubbing it roughly over his head, then swiping at his chest and arms and legs. Going to where he'd dropped his clothes, he stepped out of his wet boxers and pulled on his jeans commando. His movements were economical, not giving her much time to enjoy the view, but she took what she could get and what she got was an eyeful. Boy parts weren't pretty but good God almighty, Morgan's were impressive. She felt breathless remembering lying pinned beneath him while he stroked in and out of her body. What was she supposed to do with this feeling? They'd had sex; neither of them had made any promises, however vague, to each other.

He dropped down on the quilt and lay spread-eagled, his chest rising and falling with his deep breaths. “God, that felt good.”

She supposed some things just needed to
be,
without any great introspection or examination, so she knelt beside the cooler, opened it, and pulled out a couple of Naked Pigs. “Here, you can celebrate with a beer. Ready for a sandwich?”

“Or two,” he said, sitting up to take the beers from her and open them while she got out the sandwiches. He turned up his bottle and drank deep. He'd been out long enough that the sun had brought deeper color to the tops of his shoulders and his arms. He sat with his legs drawn up and his arms draped over his spread knees, looking out over the lake with his gaze narrowed against the sunlight glinting on the water, the neck of the beer bottle hooked between two fingers. His posture couldn't have gotten any more “guy,” and it was startlingly attractive.

She sat tailor-fashion at an angle to him, getting the food out of the cooler and dividing it between them. She poured Tricks's food into a bowl, and the sound brought Tricks jumping up from her towel, tail wagging. For a couple of minutes there was silence except for the sounds of man, woman, and dog paying attention to their food.

Food always tasted better on a picnic, Bo thought, even when the food was just a sandwich and a cold beer. Whether it was the sun, the
fresh air, or the peace and quiet, her taste buds were either more sensitive, or more easily satisfied. And she had Morgan, and Tricks—for now, for today.

Tricks was too tired to try to guilt them out of their food, so she returned to her towel and curled up for a doggy nap, completely satisfied with her day so far. Morgan wolfed down his first sandwich but took his time on the second one. Bo was comfortable with the silence; she finished most of her sandwich, ate a cookie, then stretched out on the quilt with a sigh of contentment. She could take a nap, she thought drowsily, rolling over to pillow her head on her crossed arms.

“Did I take advantage last night?” Morgan asked, his deep voice taking command and snapping her out of her soporific mood. She opened one eye to study him, found him watching her with that piercing, intent look of his.

She considered that, rejected the idea that she hadn't been capable of knowing her own mind. “I could have said no if I'd wanted to. I didn't want to.” She yawned.

“That's kind of how I was looking at it, too, but I wanted to make sure.”

“I won't lie; yesterday was a nightmare. I was upset, I was grieving—”

“Grieving?” He looked surprised at the word.

She waved it away. She didn't want to explain that she'd been grieving the loss of her blinders, that now she saw how she'd deluded herself into thinking she could keep her heart and Tricks safe, that every day they were perched precariously on the cliff of chance, and chance could send them toppling over. Instead she said, “In my mind, she was dead. Even when I knew she wasn't, getting over it wasn't easy. For a minute . . . for a minute I was in hell. But—” Her tone got stronger. “But crying didn't turn me into a weakling. I was crying, that's all.”

He reached out and wrapped his big rough hand around her ankle. “I never thought of you as a weakling. But I've never said I understand how women think, and I had to allow for the possibility that you thought . . . shit, I'm confusing myself. If you're okay with last night, then that's good.”

“I'm okay with it.” Because she could, she laid her hand on his bare shoulder, then rubbed it down his back. “More than okay.” She paused, then said, “So . . . why are you blowing sunshine up my skirt? If I were wearing one, that is.”

He released her ankle and in silence finished his sandwich, then lay back on the quilt beside her and rested his beer bottle on his bare stomach. “What makes you think I'm blowing sunshine?” he asked as he got comfortable, just when she'd thought he wasn't going to answer.

“Please. When was the last time you were uncertain about anything, especially a woman? You think I haven't been paying attention to how you operate since you've been here?”

He patted her thigh. “Can't put anything over on you, can I?” He didn't sound worried about it; in fact, there was a definite note of satisfaction there.

“So what was the point?”

“Just trying to make you think you had a little bit of control,” he said, then burst out laughing when she swiftly pinched him. “Ow!”

“You deserved it.” She gave a contented sigh and closed her eyes again, basking in the peace, the light breeze rustling through the tree limbs overhead and changing the dapple pattern of the sunshine. Tricks was sound asleep, resting after her exertions. Morgan was stretched out just inches away, and his presence let something relax deep inside her, as if she knew he was on guard and she was safe. She moved her hand so she was touching his side and went to sleep.

Morgan didn't want to move and maybe wake up Bo, but he still managed
to lift his head enough to take the occasional sip of beer. No way was he letting the Naked Pig get warm on him. It felt nice to just lie there, pleasantly tired from the three times he'd made love to Bo last night as well as the strenuous swim he'd taken. He'd definitely been pushing himself, but he was still happy with the distance considering how long it had been since he'd done any training.