from Deputy Jones. He’d gladly drive the young widow and her son home. Royce could retrieve his keys from Sarah and leave Winter Falls. He could pretend he’d never found Sarah Mars.
“Mr. Graham!” Jeremy called out and called him back to his past. He never could walk away from a child in need. Damn.
“Yeah, Jeremy?” Long strides carried him toward the boy and his mother, who stubbornly hadn’t used his keys to get inside his truck.
“I know you’re busy and all, but a lot of the team stops for ice cream after practice…” Hope brightened the already bright eyes.
Royce’s gut tightened. More exposure to danger. But was going straight to their house the best idea? What if the danger had followed him? Wouldn’t it continue to follow him right to their doorstep?
“Jeremy.” Sarah’s voice carried a note of caution. Something Royce had heard friends’ mothers use on their sons. He couldn’t remember his own mother’s voice.
Jeremy turned those eyes on her. “But maybe Mr. Graham’s hungry.”
Royce suppressed a chuckle, barely. The irritated frown creasing her forehead verified she’d caught it despite his attempt to disguise it as a cough. He liked messing her up a bit, ruffling that serenity she wore like a shield. He’d like to see another kind of passion on her face besides that of anger. He’d like to see her flushed with desire.
He swallowed hard. “Yeah, I’m a little hungry.” And a lot crazy. What the Hell was he thinking?
“Really, I think it’d be smarter to just go home,” Sarah protested.
Playing the unfamiliar role of gentleman, Royce opened the passenger door for her while Jeremy vaulted into the backseat. When she moved to climb into the SUV, Royce stepped closer. Her indignant gasp brushed across his cheek. And he dragged in the scent of her again. Orange blossoms.
He dropped his voice and lowered his mouth until his lips brushed the silky strands of hair near her ear. “It might be smarter not to go straight to your house, if you know what I mean.”
Eyes wild, she glanced over his shoulder and around the lot. “You’re saying—”
He shook his head. “I’m not saying anything. But I’m not taking any chances.”
That was a lie. He’d taken a big chance by not running when his instincts had first kicked him.
Sarah’s gray gaze locked with his, searching. He knew she wanted a reason to trust him. She was too smart to take him on Dylan’s endorsement alone. What would she do when he told her he’d come to Winter Falls for her? Dylan had warned him that she didn’t forgive easily.
SARAH SHIFTED on the metal seat of the lawn chair, hoping the sun-heated steel would warm her. A cold wind blew in off the lake as the afternoon wore on. She glanced out over the sparkling surface of the water. Then her gaze returned to Jeremy.
He’d already devoured his ice cream and lingered on the lawn that surrounded the parlor as he talked with his friends. He gestured a couple of times to Royce, and the other boys stared at the man beside her. An ex-FBI agent. Despite not being in hearing distance, she knew her son spoke in awed tones about the stranger to Winter Falls.
She’d been trying to avoid looking at him even though he sat next to her. Still bristling over his and Dylan’s high-handedness, she’d let Jeremy carry the conversational ball during the short ride to the parlor. He’d been full of questions. She was, too, but she couldn’t ask them here. The parents of the other children stood or sat around in close proximity.
Curiosity drew their glances again and again to her and her scruffy escort. A voice dropped into a whisper here and there as they discussed the possible identity of the stranger and his relationship to her. She heard them. And her throat burned with questions of her own.
She wanted to know what the theft of those medical records meant. An ache throbbed behind her eyes. Tension. Stress. As a nurse, she recognized the symptoms. As an ex-FBI agent, he’d know what that theft meant, especially considering what he’d specialized in then and now. Kidnappings.
She turned her attention from Jeremy’s playful antics with his friends to the man who lounged next to her. Despite having glimpsed them earlier in the park, the color of his eyes surprised her again. Pale brown like sun-warmed sand.
Ice cream dripped from his collapsing cone, over his long fingers and onto the lawn between his worn leather shoes. He leaned forward and ran his tongue around the rim of the cone, then over his fingers.
The muscles in Sarah’s stomach contracted, and she shifted against the metal, stiffening her spine against the hard chair back. If she kissed him now, he’d taste like rich vanilla ice cream, and his tongue would be cold against hers.
She jumped, the chair creaking under her. What was she thinking? She’d never kiss a man like him, no matter how long it had been since she’d kissed any man. He was too macho, too controlling. And Sarah had never let anyone control her, not even the parents she’d loved so much.
“You sure you don’t want an ice cream cone?” He’d caught her staring.
A flood of heat surged into her face, and she welcomed the cooling breeze against her fevered skin. “N-n-no. I’m not hungry.”
The corners of his mouth quirked into a teasing grin. “It’d cool you off.”
“What!”
“You’re still mad, right?” He reached around and dumped the dilapidated cone into the trashcan behind her, his arm lingering on the back of her chair.
The nape of her neck tingled where it brushed the skin of his forearm. She leaned forward, breaking away from the disturbing contact. “Mad? Of course I’m mad. I can give directions to where I live. I’m not some ditzy female with no sense of direction.”
He nodded, the teasing grin still playing at the corners of his firm mouth.
“But you weren’t discussing directions, were you?” She sighed over the frustration of having to leave her other questions unasked for now.
“I think you should take us home now. Jeremy probably has homework.” And if he didn’t do it on Friday night, he wouldn’t get around to it again until Monday morning.
Royce didn’t move to stand up, just stretched out those long legs. “He’s having fun with his friends. It’s early yet, and the weekend. Homework’s not due till Monday, right? I don’t mind waiting for him.”
Resentment flared again. “But you’re not—”
Detecting a lull in the flow of conversation around her, she glanced up and found curious gazes focused on her. She bit off her argument and pulled on the mask of calmness she always wore in Winter Falls.
He sighed. “You’re right.”
She dropped her voice. “What are you talking about?”
“You were going to say that I’m not a parent. You’re right. If you think you need to head home so the kid can get started on homework or whatever, we’ll leave now.” He shifted to the edge of his seat.
With his easy agreement, her anxiousness to leave ebbed away. She found comfort in the normal after-practice ritual of stopping for ice cream. But back at the house, she’d have to face the harsh reality of the threat against her son.
“We can give him another few minutes. If you think it’s safe…”
His broad-shouldered shrug wasn’t very reassuring. “As safe as anywhere…”
A muscle jumped in his jaw, and his stare was unfocused. Was he thinking of his past with the Crimes Against Children Division of the FBI? Or was something in the present troubling him?
Despite the questions she wanted to ask him about the stolen medical records, she found herself wondering aloud, “Why are you here? Dylan said that you were