He’d been plenty of trouble.
They pulled into the garage, and fell into their rhythm, Conn leading the way, Cady half a step behind. They’d left lights on in the main living space, the soft spotlights over the stove, a reading lamp by the chair with its back to the big windows, but their careful scan of the rooms for any further signs of a stranger’s presence in the house revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Everything was as it had been when they left.
Cady shrugged out of her coat and tugged his hat from her head, leaving both on the kitchen island. “Take off your coat and gloves,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do about the tree sap after I take a shower.”
He shouldered out of his coat and set them on the pile of outerwear, then walked over to the sink to clean his hands. He’d scraped off most of the tree sap when Cady’s phone pealed out Madonna’s “Vogue.” He dried his hands and fished it from the pocket. Emily’s name lit up the screen.
“Hi, Emily,” he said.
“Oh. Conn. Where’s Cady? I want to talk to her about the pictures.”
“Hold on a second,” he said, and walked through her bedroom to the master bathroom. He tapped on the door with one knuckle, heard her call, “Yeah?”
“Your sister’s on the phone.”
“What?” she said, louder. “Just come in. The water’s running and I can’t hear you.”
He opened the door, mouth already forming the words It’s your sister when a cloud of steam billowed out. His mouth stopped and no sound came out. Cady stood naked beside the open shower door, one foot raised to step into the glass enclosure. She was all slender, womanly curves, hips and breasts and shoulders, her sex hidden by neatly trimmed dark curls. Her breasts lifted as she reached into the shower and adjusted the temperature. His heart did a funny little skip as she looked back at him, her hair curling as moisture gathered on the strands, one eyebrow arched inquisitively.
He couldn’t have her family life, but he could have her.
“She’ll call you back,” Conn said and hung up.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“You’re letting the steam out,” Cady said. With every beat of her heart her extremities regained sensation as steam-warmed blood pumped through her body to her fingers and toes. “Come in and shut the door.”
Conn tossed her phone on the counter and walked into the room, kicking the door shut behind him.
“Who was it?” she said. “You didn’t just hang up on Chris, did you?”
“Your sister,” he said.
“That’s not much better,” she said like she wasn’t stark naked, like he wasn’t looking at her like … like she didn’t know what. No man had ever looked at her like that before. He stood just inside the door, feet spread and braced, hands jammed in his pockets, glorious shoulders gloriously squared up. She had the feeling that if he were wearing his gun belt, his thumbs would have been tucked in the leather. But this was an older reaction to the cop she’d seen at her homecoming concert. He looked a little lost, like the steam was dissolving his foundations so they coiled over their heads and away. He’d been there in body all day, but wary, hanging on the perimeter, and outsider to the end.
Until now.
“What did she want?” Cady asked, Emily’s recent issues still warring with her desire and her growing feelings for Conn for space in her brain.
“No idea,” he said. His eyes darkened as he looked her over. “I opened the door, you were naked, and my brain stopped working.”
She had to smile at that. Steam hissed from the jets lining the tiled rectangular shower stall. She opened a drawer for a hair elastic, then pulled her hair up into a messy knot on her head. It flopped to the side, but the mirror had fogged over so she couldn’t see how ridiculous she looked.
Based on the expression on Conn’s face, she didn’t look ridiculous at all. His gaze flicked over her once, topknot to tiptoe, then lingered on the way back up, pausing at the curve of her belly, her breasts, her face. Long accustomed to being objectified by men, by fans, by music industry executives, it took her a moment to understand how different she felt under Conn’s gaze. She felt seen. Admired. Wanted. Not as Queen Maud of the Maud Squad, but as crazy-haired, uncertain-about-her-future, likes-to-drive-fast-in-the-middle-of-the-night Cady.
She opened the door to the big glass enclosure, but thought before she spoke. They weren’t at the stage where they could take anything for granted. They’d made no promises, never gone past casual and into intimate. She’d heard what he said about cops being bad bets; he wasn’t just affirming her truth about touring musicians. He was telling her a truth of his own. Realistically, there was no chance this would last longer than her stay in Lancaster.