Talk Me Down. Victoria Dahl

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      “Did Cameron ask you to call?” she finally snapped.

      “What? No. We’re all concerned about you, Molly—”

      “Who? Cameron and his band of merry men?”

      “Molly, come on. We’re friends. I just—”

      “No, Pete,” she interrupted. “No, we are not friends. If we were friends I would have made you a bracelet and painted your toenails. We would have laughed about how small my first boyfriend’s penis was. We would have flirted with men over appletinis. We are not friends, we were dating, Pete. Until someone else swooped in and stole your little heart away.”

      “Huh?” She could almost hear him crinkling his forehead. “No one stole my heart. We both decided it wasn’t working out.”

      “By ‘both,’ I assume you mean you and Cameron?”

      “Hey, what are you implying?”

      “I’m implying that Cameron seduced you away from me. Just like he’s seduced every man I’ve dated since he and I broke up.”

      “That’s sick!” Pete yelped.

      “Yes, it is sick. Not that you or Michael or Devon seems to mind. You’re all so eager to hang out with Mr. Wonderful Personality! Jesus.”

      “Cameron’s right,” Pete muttered. “You’ve got problems.”

      “Yes! Yes, I have problems!” she screamed into the phone just before it went dead in her hand. Molly stared at it, panting in rage. They’d followed her to Tumble Creek. Cameron and his boy band of Molly’s former potential sex partners.

      She really couldn’t allow that. She’d have to ditch the cell phone. She’d keep her aunt’s local number. Her brother had it. Her editor had it. Plus her parents, and they’d finally gotten over their addiction to Cameron.

      Cameron Kasten—Supervising Sergeant Cameron Kasten—was the star hostage negotiator for the Denver Police Department. His job was to manipulate, coerce, seduce and negotiate. And he was damn good at it. Everybody loved him. His friends, her friends, the whole darn police department. Paramedics, firefighters, district attorneys and any damn male of the species that Molly dared to date.

      No one believed that he was ruining her life. He hadn’t been able to talk Molly into staying with him, so he’d talked every man since out of her life. It was creepy. Not to mention frustrating. Cameron was a giant whirlpool sucking all the sex out of her world.

      Or maybe not all of it.

      She thought again of Ben Lawson, of his familiar brown eyes and big hands and…oh, so much more. He would make a glorious end to this dry spell. She just had to keep Cameron as far away from Tumble Creek as possible.

      “Satan, be gone,” she said to the phone as she purposefully turned it off.

      Molly was back in Tumble Creek, Colorado, and she was ready to pick up just where she’d left off…with Ben Lawson naked and at her mercy.

      Only this time she’d actually know what to do with him.

       CHAPTER TWO

      “CHIEF?”

      Ben snapped awake from a quick doze in front of the computer. “Yeah?”

      Brenda’s bangs brushed her thick eyebrows when she shook her head. “It’s 8:00 a.m. You need to go home and get some rest. You’ve got a whole twenty-four hours off.”

      “Right.” He looked over the schedule for December once more before closing it. It was fairly straightforward. Winter made for slow work in Tumble Creek. No mountain biking, no rafting, and the pass to Aspen was snowed in until May. After the craziness of spring, summer and fall, it was a much-needed break.

      And speaking of Aspen…Ben rubbed his eyes and glanced toward the ancient clock hanging in the hallway. Quinn Jennings had to be in his office by now. The man was obsessive when it came to his work.

      A woman answered on the first ring. “Jennings Architecture.”

      “Is Quinn available?”

      “Good morning, Chief Lawson. Yes, he’s in. Please hold.”

      Ben nodded as the phone clicked to silence. He’d tried friendly conversation with Quinn’s receptionist, but the woman was having none of it.

      “Ben,” Quinn grumbled when he came on the line, absorbed as he always was in some design.

      “Put the pen down and back away slowly.”

      “Huh?”

      Ben rolled his eyes. “I learned the last time I called not to have a conversation with you while you’re drawing. I sat in that damned hoity-toity bar until nine o’clock.”

      “Right. Did I mention I was sorry about that? I honestly had no memory of the conversation.”

      “That’s my point,” Ben grunted in answer. “So you never mentioned that your sister was moving back to town.”

      “Oh, yeah. She seemed to make up her mind real quick about it. I only found out last week.”

      “You sure about that?”

      “Well, she claims to have mentioned it in September, but I’d swear she’s lying.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      “So is she there? Would you check on her for me? Mom’s worried.”

      Ben shifted in his seat and ran a hand through his hair. “You want me to stop by her place?”

      “Yeah, you know. Check out the security. Single woman with an obsessive mother.”

      “She lived by herself in the big, bad city. I think she’ll be fine here.”

      “Tell that to my mom. She’s convinced Molly will fire up the woodstove without opening the flue and die from smoke inhalation. Or was it carbon monoxide?”

      Ben looked at the clock again. Eight-fifteen. Was she up yet? Dressed? Half-naked and heavy-eyed? “Okay, I’ll drop by.”

      “Thanks.”

      “Mmm-hmm.” Just a favor for a friend. “Hey, you guys must have found out what Molly does for a living by now, right?”

      “Nope. All I know is she swears it’s legal.”

      “So why won’t she say?” His mind began to churn through all sorts of unsavory possibilities.

      “Who knows? I think she’s just stuck with the mystery of it now. It’d be damn anticlimactic to own up to being an IRS agent at this point. She’s fine and she’s healthy and I’ve finally convinced Mom to leave it at that.”

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