Along Came Trouble. Sherryl Woods

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ had come crawling back because she realized she’d made a terrible mistake six years ago and wanted to rectify it tonight.

      Nope, one glimpse at her pale complexion, at what looked like dried tears on her cheeks and the dark smudges under her eyes, and he concluded that she was here because there was some kind of trouble and for some reason she was desperate enough to turn to him. The thought of the strong woman he’d once known being vulnerable and needy shook him as much as her unexpected presence.

      He needed to think about this, and he couldn’t do it in the same room with a woman who’d once made his blood roar just by glancing at him with her stunning violet eyes. Mary Elizabeth in a tangle of sheets with only one of his T-shirts barely covering her pretty much rendered him incoherent. She always had, and judging from the way his body was reacting right now that hadn’t changed.

      Tucker retreated to the kitchen and poured himself a stiff drink, thought about it and made it a double. He had a feeling he was going to need it before the night was over.

      Liz stretched, then froze as a barrage of ugly memories crashed over her. For one instant, for one brief moment, she’d forgotten everything that had happened the night before. She’d forgotten the discovery that had brought her running to a man she’d abandoned years ago, the only person on earth she could trust to help her.

      If he would.

      He had to, she told herself staunchly. Tucker was not the kind of man to turn his back on someone in trouble, even someone he hadn’t spoken to in years, someone who’d hurt him. Tucker was the most honorable man she’d ever known. She was counting on that mile-wide streak of Spencer integrity to come through for her, even if she didn’t deserve it.

      She hadn’t expected to sleep at all when she’d gotten here. In fact, she’d expected to spend endless hours answering questions, but with no sign of Tucker on the premises, she’d been left all alone in the dark with her nerves rattled and her thoughts scrambling. She’d waited for a while on the porch, but eventually exhaustion and fear had taken their toll. She had gone inside the unlocked house—a testament to Tucker’s faith in his own law-enforcement skills—in search of a much-needed shower to cleanse away all signs of the night’s events.

      Then she’d found one of his T-shirts tossed over the back of a chair, slipped it on and, like a child seeking the safety of a familiar place, had crawled into Tucker’s bed to wait for him, uncertain what shift he was working or even whether he would be home at all. For all she knew, he could be spending his nights in another woman’s arms.

      Now, judging from the soft gray light spilling in the windows, she’d slept through the night. Alone, which was as it should be.

      Some sixth sense told her that she might be alone in Tucker’s bed, but she was not by herself. She rolled over and looked straight into eyes that were as familiar to her as her husband’s. More familiar, in some ways.

      Tucker regarded her with a cool, penetrating gaze that seemed to see straight into her soul. She wondered if he could see the turmoil, if he could read just how terrified she was…how relieved that he was finally there, even if his expression was far from friendly.

      “Welcome back seems a little inappropriate,” Tucker said with the wry humor that Liz had once decried because it kept her at a distance.

      She studied his face, noted the new lines fanning away from the corners of his crystal-blue eyes, the furrow in his forehead that meant he’d spent most of the night thinking hard about how to cope with her unexpected presence. She wanted to touch him, wanted to smooth away that furrow and tell him not to worry, but that was out of the question. He had every reason to worry. She was about to draw him into a quagmire.

      Not only was she—the woman who had once dumped him—suddenly back in his bed, but she was in more trouble than even Tucker Spencer with his keen intelligence, sterling moral streak and investigative skills was likely to be able to fix. But, God help her, she needed him to try…for both their sakes.

      “Why are you here?” he asked, when she said nothing.

      Liz wished she had the kind of simple answer he seemed to expect. “It’s complicated,” she began finally.

      “Not good enough,” Tucker said flatly.

      His inscrutable gaze never once left her face, not even to stray to the ample amount of bare skin revealed by his twisted, hiked-up T-shirt. She shivered at the sudden chill in the air and drew the sheet tightly around her, embarrassed by her indecent exposure. Once it wouldn’t have mattered, but now it did. Things between them had changed. Much as she might hate it, it was an undeniable fact.

      She had to fight to blink back the tears that threatened. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—cry. If she started, she might never stop. She had made such a mess of things—of her relationship with Tucker, of her marriage, of her life. Right now, though, she had to concentrate on one thing…finding out what had happened last night and who was responsible.

      “Still have that rigid self-control, I see,” she said, covering her nerves with sarcasm, even at the risk of alienating the only friend she was likely to have in Trinity Harbor, where people might have voted for her husband but had been slow to forgive her for the choice she’d made between Tucker and an outsider.

      “It’s gotten me through the rough spots,” he replied evenly.

      “Meaning what I did to you,” she said, regretting that they hadn’t had this particular conversation years ago and gotten it out of the way. But Tucker, stoic and disdainful, had refused to let her explain anything back then. He’d said it was enough that she was turning her back on everything they’d shared. He hadn’t wanted to know the details, hadn’t wanted to understand her reasons for choosing Larry over him. Maybe he’d been right. Maybe none of them were good enough to make what she’d done forgivable. Maybe he hadn’t needed to know how deeply she regretted having hurt him.

      In the years since, even though they lived within miles of each other for part of the year, she’d done her best to stay out of his path. She’d figured she owed him that much. And if she hadn’t come to that conclusion on her own, King Spencer had made it a point to remind her every time they’d crossed paths. She’d made a powerful enemy there, no doubt about it.

      “Is our breakup the rough spot you’re talking about?” she asked.

      “That was one thing,” he agreed.

      It saddened her that there might have been more, that he’d suffered losses, endured crises, she’d known nothing about. “And the others?”

      “Liz, you’re not here to catch up on old times,” Tucker said with a hint of impatience. “Why are you here, instead of over at Swan Ridge? Where the hell are your clothes? What kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into, and last—but hardly least—why aren’t you turning to your husband for help?”

      She shivered again at the cold glint in his eyes and wondered if she’d made a dreadful mistake in coming here. Tucker was, after all, the sheriff. His first obligation would be to the law, not to her. But instinct had brought her to Tucker, and desperation would keep her from leaving. She needed help that he could provide…if he would. It all came down to that.

      “I’m afraid Larry can’t help me with this one,” she told him.

      “Why not?”

      She risked a look into those hard, unyielding eyes, praying that Tucker СКАЧАТЬ